After looking around the various students and classroom blogs I was struck with a couple of big impressions.
First, I was so impressed with the student blogs and how the students collaborate with their peers and teacher to set goals. It is visible to parents if their children think they are off target, near target, or on target. Parents can see examples of student work and personalized comments from the teacher. This really blew me away! Students also use their blogs to track their own data and progress as they work towards specific goals.
Second, I was impressed with how the teacher posts objectives and suggestions for each area of study. There are websites to further support student learning and problems that would guide students through the learning objectives.
I think that the Russell Street School blogs have a great set up. I would love to see how something like this would work in my school. My biggest takeaway from this was the way that students had control of their learning and were tracking their learning and growth. I also would like to have a platform to communicate more with students and give feedback.
I agree that seeing the student/teacher interaction is powerful for parents. Parents can also check out other student work to see how their student compares with others in the class. I wonder if this would be allowed in CA, due to all of the privacy issues.
ReplyDeleteI had that question as well. I wonder what privacy issues you would encounter trying to do something like this.
ReplyDeleteErika - I also really liked the way the blogging helped encourage peer interaction and working together effectively. Time and time again we hear how important teamwork is - Russell Street seems to have found a way to help encourage teamwork and peer connection.
ReplyDelete