As educators, we grow with our students. The time we spend together reflecting, unlearning for new learning habits and thinking about the curriculum relevance and the compassion of the world around us.
I finally took the day to read 53 end of year reflections from my students. The reflections were based on:
- What does success mean to you? After your experience of learning in Grade6
- Should grading matter during the assessment for learning?
- Feedback on: reflections, peer/teacher feedback and developing growth mindset during the learning process.
The students' feedback has confirmed:
- Students needs are more important than coverage of the learning
- Understanding the why and how of learning through criteria
- Learning is full of surprising failures when persevering for the successes of the process
- Learning is based on collaborative, creative and critical thinking skills
- Learning is linking causes and factors to solving many problems
- Feedback is accepting everyone's perspective about the learning process
- Difficult thinking leads to better ideas
- There are no barriers to success
- Unexpected learning is part of the learning process
- Learning is a process and it is never finished
- Grading should only take place at the end of the process
- Being successful is not at getting good grades it is about life learning skills
- Educators need to be as curious as students' during the learning process
- Educators to also have a growth mindset like their students
- Observing and documenting students learning for next steps (reflective process on experiences)
- Interdependence and interpersonal skills for learning and valuing students' thinking for an effective learning community
- Creating passion for learning through real-world problem solving tasks
- Creativity is having fun and being engaged in owning the process of learning
A Storify of tweets that I shared about students' reflections.
There is so much to share and learn from students' voices. Throughout the year I asked for feedback that has made me a better listener, less of a talker, allowing students to be confident at owning their learning and taking risks. It has been a blast for students to drive their own learning and " we use to worry about getting it perfect but that is not the case anymore".
What unlearning will I be persevering next year with Grade 7 students? What resetting of change will I be achieving for students' success? How will I be continuing the guiding of proficient learning through the 6C's competencies through Integrative Thinking and Design Thinking?
Something that I need to keep up to:
