Sarah Hughey's Reading Reflection #10

1. Discussion on the importance of setting aside time for reflection.

Reflection can help students feel good about what they accomplished and develop confidence, but it can also reinforce what they have learned.  Reflection helps students "create their own meaning" and further interpret what they have learned along with how they grew and what they want to continue studying.  Reflection time can also be used to help students find learning fun and positive.

2. Discussion on the reason students need to reflect and elaborate.

The reasons students need to reflect are mentioned above - these help cement in what they learned, feel good about their experience, develop confidence, see how they grew and what they want to learn next, and find learning fun.  Elaborating on what they want to learn next and how they want to go about it helps the teacher see how to facilitate the next project and utilize their learning wants in the lesson plans, and it also helps students get excited and prepared for the work that is coming.

3. Discussion on how schools build tradition and identity.

One part of building tradition and identity is to create awareness about what the tradition/identity is in the students, families, and communities.  Once they know what the school is about, the foundation for a tradition and identity is set.  Word of mouth, especially between siblings, helps this identity and tradition and creates support and excitement.  For example, younger siblings will be so excited to do the projects they hear their older siblings talking about.  As this support and excitement grows, the community will then want to get involved by both celebrating and viewing the student work but also helping with the lessons themselves.  All of this develops pride and a sense of privilege among the students for being in that school.

4. Discussion on the importance celebrating a project.

Celebrating student work and projects is important, as it also celebrates learning and helps build the tradition and identity discussed above.  Displaying student work and a end of the year event where all of the projects created are shown and remembered can be a great way to celebrate all that was accomplished and create memories.  Doing this every year in all grades is motivating and rewarding for the children for their work.

5. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

These relate to our project because we need to create time and room to celebrate student work, and all throughout this class we have studied how we need the community and school support for PBL-based learning and teaching.  Developing traditions, identities, and celebrations rooted in PBL will make it easier to use this type of teaching method and use our project in a real life classroom.  We also need to make sure students have time to reflect after they do projects such as the one we are making.