My focus for my self study will be to commit myself to a year long portfolio with my students. Sometimes they will choose work based on where they are in the process of their work. Sometimes it will be work that I have assigned them. There will be times where I challenge the students to think about specific ideas. (What was something challenging? Something I have improved in. Something I still need to work on.)
Students will include their written reflection and a visual representation of their work (often a picture that a teacher will take and print for them) in sheet protectors in their three ring binder portfolio. Eventually, I’d like to figure out ways to incorporate this into SeeSaw so the students have a digital representation of their work as well.
I’ve always wanted to have the students really reflect on what they are learning. It’s always been difficult to stay committed to it because of the need to move forward in the curriculum. I think that as a learner and as a teacher, I’m always trying to balance the need for reflecting on my practice versus the need to keep looking ahead.
This project with the students will help me reflect more on my practice as well. I hope to keep my own portfolio as I go but even that is proving to be problematic time wise. I’d like to work on it at the same time as them but I’m always troubleshooting and helping them on their process instead of focusing on mine.
I hope to learn more about myself as a learner and as a teacher. I hope to learn how to better navigate my tight schedule and the need to teach skills/curriculum with my interest in adding time for the students (and for me) to reflect.
Key questions:
- What is my learning process?
- How does knowing how I learn help me when things are challenging?
- How do I grow as a learner?
I think there are a lot of rich possibilities here. The most interesting from the self-study perspective and one that I think has broader implications for all teachers is the keeping of a personal portfolio to document your work/thinking over the course of the year.
Certainly having parallel processes going on (i.e., kids working on portfolios and you working on a portfolio) is likely to bear powerful results especially if kids know that you are working on one too. You are right to be mindful of the demands in managing both of these. While I get the appeal for starting with the kids in an analog way (i.e., paper, sheet protectors and binders), I wonder if there is actually an inefficiency here. If you focus on SeeSaw and call Celeste in to help with this work, I think that you will create a wider range of opportunities for kids to reflect (i.e., print, image, video and audio) that they will appreciate. By calling Celeste in, you’ll have a resource to help manage some of the potential complexities. Celeste will also appreciate this as she is going to begin a more concerted effort to get all classes on SeeSaw. So by working closely with you, there would be a divisional benefit. So I’d really encourage you to go down this route and not pursue an intermediate strategy.
With regard to your own portfolio, I think the key is to work at a scale that is not too large and that allows for you to develop a regular process for reflection so that the process becomes a habit. I don’t know what you commute to or from work is, but would it be possible to find 15 minutes each day during the commute to jot down some thinking/idea/reflection? With regard to platform, you could create a private instagram account (this would allow for incorporation of images and video). You could also use a blog that I could set up that could receive posts via email (like I did for the lreilearns idea you inspired). You could write the email on the subway and send when you get off the train. This could also accommodate images.
Platform aside, the key is to find those 15-20 minutes each day that can’t be encroached upon by other stuff and then to commit to writing something each day no matter how seemingly trivial.