Documenting Learning For Silvia

In the Fall of 2018, our school launched class blogs. Each grade shared class happenings and updates on the class blog. Our school also launched a consultancy with Silvia Tolisano at the same time. Her book Documenting the Learning, co-written with Janet Hale, is an extensive guide on how to make learning visible, meaningful, and shareable through blogfolios. A cohort of teachers spent time with Silvia learning how to capture and document student learning through their blogs. 

This cohort quickly became blogging experts and shared their learning with the rest of the teachers on staff. In January, I was fortunate to welcome Silvia and the cohort of teachers into my classroom. I had the opportunity to watch how they documented the learning happening in my Grade 3 class.

 The amount of information and insight gained into my students’ learning in just one lesson was amazing.

  Take a look at the Blog Posts Below

Bethany

Ann-Lynn

Josh

Chelsea

Keren

Melissa

Shira

In July 2019,  Silvia Tolisano was a presenter at the conference, and my colleague Lianna Krantzberg and I attended her workshop on Digital portfolios and Documenting learning. She suggested that if teachers want their students to use blogs to document their learning. The teachers should document their learning through a blog. This statement got me thinking. My colleague, Lianna started a professional blog at the airport on the way home from the conference. A week later, my colleague Josh Ray convinced me to start my blog. It has been instrumental in reflecting on my learning and growth as a teacher. Silvia was our positive mentor, cheering us on from the sidelines. She answered all our questions and got us to share our learning through our blogs. 

 I have launched student blogfolios with my classes over the last three years. The students enjoyed documenting their learning. Silvia was right! I have seen firsthand how students step up their game and write more, care more, and take more pride in their work using blogfolios. They love the idea that more people will read their work rather than just their teacher. I get it, as I feel the same way about my professional blog. I choose my words carefully and put more care into my work.

I know the students take ownership of their work. Blogfolios are the places students can ponder questions, record reflections, and talk about what they learned during the process. Of course, it will also be the spot to showcase final projects, writing, and activities.

This platform lets teachers personalize learning and enrich students. The beauty of writing posts, making videos, and taking pictures, is that students will be in charge of how far to take their learning. It will help us hit some of our school’s north stars.

Students learn more when they think and reflect on their work. I read so much these days about digital portfolios for students in high school and how crucial it is for learning. The fact that our school launches blogfolios at the elementary level is terrific. We teach our students how to take ownership of their learning at a young age which will serve them well in their academic careers. I have seen firsthand how motivated and engaged students are in posting work for the world to see. The extra effort goes into every assignment. The Grade 4-8 students have blogfolios, and this year Grades 2 &3 will launch blogfolios too. I am excited about the positive effect this will have on our students.

Silvia passed away in March 2021. I am sad to have lost such a positive teacher and mentor. Fortunately, I have her book and blog posts as my guide. We will be documenting our learning at OJCS the way Silvia taught us.

Documenting Learning

Each year at my school, the OJCS teachers choose a professional growth project. This project should be in an area where teachers would like to grow and improve their craft. I decided to focus on teaching my students how to document their learning as my growth project. I have launched student blogfolios during the last couple of years. I  helped my students populate their blogfolios with projects, speeches, and Innovation Day projects. 

 

This year I wanted to teach my students to take greater ownership of their learning, and what better way to do it than by documenting the process as it was happening. The head of the school, Dr. Jon Mitzmacher, suggested I focus my project on a specific teaching unit in the Spring. I met with our teaching and learning coordinator, Melissa Thompson, to brainstorm possible ideas for such a unit. We settled on a Social Studies unit, and I started to get excited about planning the cross-curricular lessons. Teaching at a trilingual school has time challenges. I have roughly eleven and a half hours a week with each class to teach: English, Science, Math, and Social Studies. The trick is to get the students excited and engaged with a cross-curricular approach. As I walked back to my class, I had the whole unit planned in my head. 

I planned a unit on Early Settlers in Upper Canada in the 1780-1850 time period. I decided to teach my classes how to document their learning as we went through another unit. Remote and Hyflex learning put a hold on this in early 2022. The classes started the unit at the beginning of May. The students filled out the KWHL chart before we began. They knew a little about the period and had many questions. We watched films from the NFB(National Film Board of Canada) and read stories about Early settlers. Ms. Brigitte, our school librarian, brought a bin of books to help us begin the research process. 

Each class became a village, and the students chose an occupation for their villagers. The children became more interested; the research began. Students searched 1800-era marriage records for the Ottawa area to find villagers’ names. As a class, we discussed different options for presenting our research. We settled on writing a blog post about our villager, writing a letter to a relative describing life in Canada, and writing two Instagram posts. We also thought it would be fun to map the village complete with coordinates. The area and perimeter of the buildings in the village had the students calculating and having fun.

 

The classes designed 3D models and started constructing the buildings found in the village. Some of my students were less than enthusiastic about this part of the project. They had constructed buildings for an Ideal city project we did earlier in the year. I decided to talk with the classes and see if students would like the choice of how to construct the buildings. I brought up the idea of using Minecraft to make the buildings. Student voice and choice in a project will bring another level of engagement to a project. As a teacher, this type of engagement in work is fun to observe. Students worked on their Minecraft buildings over the weekend, and it wasn’t even part of a homework assignment.

 

Projects like this have the students self-directed and busy as they work on the different assignments. The next step in this cross-curricular unit is to take it to the top level of Bloom’s Taxonomy; create. Students have the choice to create a newspaper, a podcast, or a news report about life in the early settler village. There is excitement in the air, and the ideas are flowing as the classes brainstorm the best way to complete the project. Stay tuned for the final reveal.

How did the documenting as learning go? The students took lots of pictures and videos. Now I  have to get everything onto the blogfolios. At the grade three-level, the teacher is the one to populate the blogfolios. It is more difficult to upload documents, pictures, and videos on iPads. The two classes share 15 iPads for English and Hebrew, and it remains a challenge to have the time to update the blogs.

Students reflected on the learning that took place in class discussions. The students will annotate the pictures and reflect once the work is uploaded. I feel strongly about documenting and reflecting on learning. It helps the students be more mindful of the learning process. I liken this to the Teacher professional growth process. The teacher can learn and grow if they want to do the work. It is the same with the children. Teaching students to document their learning would flow right into student-led conferences. It would be a game-changer for learning at this school. Students need to start the documentation process in their younger years. Our North Stars are within reach. 

                           #We own our own learning                                        #There is a floor, but no ceiling 

 

Teaching Grade 3 in 2020-2021

As term 3 begins I am taking a moment to reflect on the year in Grade Three so far. Time sure does fly when you are having fun. I cannot believe that I have already spent six and a half months with my classes and this is the first blog post I have written about being their teacher. The truth is I love teaching both my classes and I am doing all that I can to make sure they have a great year.

I have learned the importance of authentic tasks for students and teachers alike. Returning to school in September with covid restrictions in place was a challenge. I wondered how to get my students excited about learning as they sat in rows and worked independently. Oh yes, and not be worried about Covid either!

Science was the answer! I switched my teaching units around and started the year off studying soil. I could get the children outside, get them moving, and give them a chance to get fresh air. Little did I know that it would be the start of such a terrific year. The whole class got right into learning about soil, and well, we found a worm.

 

The learning then took a turn, and we started reading and researching about worms. We couldn’t believe how much they helped soil. We collected worms and started a worm compost. I was brave enough to hold some worms and not pass out, and the children loved it. We then dove into growing plants from kidney beans, and the children were excited. My students who found it challenging to sit still during class were fully engaged and loving learning.

Students who hadn’t loved school in the early grades suddenly wanted to learn and didn’t want to miss a class. Authentic tasks are the answer! I presented global math task challenges for students to complete. I connected with a fellow educator in Tennessee, and we got our classes together for a Mystery Number game. The students loved it, and they were completely engaged. The students also worked on Global Math Task challenges that Heidi Samuelson posts each week.

We had zoom calls with students in Tel Aviv, and we talked and learned from each other. We took part in a global Livestream event at the DigCit Summit: the students took turns talking about digital citizenship. My students also took a research project they worked on and shared the information with a class in Taiwan to learn about Ontario cities. All these tasks and projects have been authentic and have enriched the teaching and learning in my class.

I had learned that relationship is the key to getting students excited about learning. It was an important lesson that I took away from distance learning in the spring. I had started the year off trying to build those relationships as quickly as I could. The truth of the matter is I thought we would be in school for a few weeks, and I had to get to know my students fast. I am grateful that I spent 15 weeks in the class with my students before we had a month of distance learning.

I have been working hard to teach my students about digital citizenship over this year. Launching student blogfolios have been the next logical step in learning about being a good digital citizen online. It is crucial to teach children how to use the internet safely and learn about digital footprints at an early age, especially in this world of YouTubers and Tik Tok videos.

My students need to learn the same lessons about posting on the internet. I have watched how engaged and motivated the students are when they work on a blog post or connect with another class. I am excited to see how they will put greater effort into their work and pay special attention to detail. I believe the quality of the written work will improve and the students will work harder to edit before they publish a post. The students are reading classmates’ posts and making comments. It is so much fun to see the children connecting in this way. Perhaps some grandparents will even read a post or two and comment.

 

I also believe that the blogs will give my quieter students a chance to share their voices and shine. Blogs will also be a perfect place for students to own and enrich their learning. Students will reflect on their learning, document it, and make their thinking visible.

STEM challenges are inspiring students to be innovators and problem-solvers. We are working on a global Public Service Announcement with the Digital Citizenship Institute to teach people how to make good comments on blogs. We are writing a song about peace for the global World Peace Song Project. The Global Act Aloud will have us showing off our acting skills. We also working on a kindness initiative.

In this year like no other, my main goals have been to get the children excited about learning, connecting globally. It is safe to say that we are having fun and learning so much in Grade 3. I am excited to see what the rest of the school year has in store for us.

Student Blogging and Blogfolios

Student blogfolios was the main goal for my class this past year. I felt that the quality of writing and learning in each subject would improve through the use of blogfolios. Just a couple of weeks before the school year ended, students finally launched individual blogfolios. The students got a chance a customize their blogfolios and learn how to post their work. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to be part of the excitement myself. I also found it to be the perfect way to end my year with these students and to learn alongside them.

It was around this time last year that I attended the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston with four of my colleagues. I came home inspired by all that I had learned at the conference, and I started a blog. As Silvia Tolisano explained to us in her workshop, if I wanted my students to reflect and think metacognitively about their learning, I needed to do the same. I started the blog and pretended it was my secret online journal. I wrote about how I would start my year. I also wrote about my hopes and wishes for teaching this group of children. It was also the place where I could document my learning and professional growth.

Two years ago, my PGP( professional growth plan) was to improve the academic skills and engagement in learning by having the students become guest bloggers on the class blog. My colleague Faye and I had similar PGPs, and we both started our work by teaching our students in grades three and four, respectively, all about blogging during the 2018-2019 school year.

Each class started by making a paper or google docs blog post and sharing it with their classmates. The students gained skills such as researching, putting thoughts into their own words, the importance of copyright, and using copyright free pictures. They also learned to read and make appropriate comments on their classmates’ blog posts, all while becoming good digital citizens.

The students also became guest bloggers of the week on our classroom blogs. I thought they would take ownership of their learning through this venue, but to be honest, they didn’t. My grade four classes did take part in the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge. They loved getting comments from other students and teachers in other parts of the world. It made a difference when they realized other people were reading their work. They also loved visiting other blogs, making comments, and interacting with other students. I had hoped they would become motivated and engaged in writing their weekly guest posts. The students didn’t get as excited as I would have liked.

My original goal was to start blogfolios at the beginning of the year. We then hoped to launch in March before our school year changed course. Luckily we did launch before the end of the year, and what I observed and learned in such a short time has inspired me to make blogfolios an integral part of my teaching regardless of the grade I happen to teach.

The students’ writing did improve through the use of blogfolios. They paid attention to spelling, punctuation, and the quality of their writing. At the beginning of distance learning, we wrote persuasive essays. For many children, the assignment proved to be challenging. It took a lot of effort and encouragement to get them to write an essay. A few children wondered why they should write an essay when no one would read them. Writing speeches for public speaking proved to be difficult as well.

I then let the students write a blog post of their choice, and I told them it would go in their blogfolios. The students had the freedom to choose their topics. Something amazing happened; the students started writing and writing any chance they got. The writing flowed, the blog posts were interesting. Competitive skiing, Minecraft, and Electricity were a few of the topics. The amount of writing doubled and tripled, the quality improved as well. I got to know my students in a whole new way and to see what they what made them passionate. The thought of other people besides their teacher reading their work excited them too. The students presented their blogposts to the class and answered questions. Everyone was engaged and interested in what their classmates had written. These students needed to end of the year and remain excited about their learning.

We had a whole group discussion reflecting on our writing from persuasive essays, speeches, to blog posts. I told the students that I had noticed how excited and motivated they were when they asked to work on their blog posts, we talked about how much more they were writing as well. The students reflected how they found it so much easier to write about subjects that interested them. You don’t have to do as much research you can write about what you know. They talked about how they wanted to share what they were interested in with others. Writing for their blogfolios seemed effortless and came so naturally to them.

The students received their first comments, and they were thrilled that someone read their work. They were happy to reply. They also started to write in French and Hebrew too. I am pleased that they will get a chance to continue putting their work into their blogfolios and documenting their learning throughout the years. My hope is the students take even greater ownership of learning in a few years. I am excited to see where this platform can take them.

As for myself, I will be back teaching Grade 3 classes again. I will positively be setting up blogfolios for my students, having them do blogposts, learn all the skills, and take part in the student blogging challenge. I look forward to helping my students document their learning, think metacognitively, and share their voices with an authentic audience. I believe that the students will learn so much and be able to push the boundaries of the traditional grade three curriculum. Stay tuned! The 2020-2021 school year should be an exciting one.

Launching Student Blogfolios

Tomorrow I will be sending home a letter to parents about launching student blogs in Grade 4. I am excited for my students to take greater ownership of their learning and have a platform for their work. I think the students will be more motivated to do their best work and post it to the blog to share with a greater audience.

I have been working hard to teach my students about digital citizenship over the last year and a half. We have gone to workshops in the library and gotten the first-hand experience with guest blogging and our student blogging challenge. I feel that student blogs are the next logical step in learning about being a good digital citizen online. It is crucial to teach children how to use the internet safely and learn about digital footprints at an early age, especially in this world of YouTubers and Tik Tok videos.

I always told my children that whatever they put out on the internet would have to be appropriate for their grandmother to see. They would laugh at first and then be amazed that their grandmother who wasn’t on Facebook or Instagram would always see the latest pictures and happenings of all their cousins. My children were careful of what they posted as they learned about their digital footprints.

My students need to learn the same lessons about posting on the internet. I have watched how engaged and motivated the students are when they work on a blog post or connect with another class. I know they will put greater effort into their work and pay special attention to detail. I believe the quality of the written work will improve and the students will work harder to edit before they publish a post. Perhaps some grandparents will even read a post or two and comment.

I also believe that the blogs will give my quieter students a chance to share their voice and shine. Blogs will also be a perfect place for students to own and enrich their learning. Students will reflect on their learning and document it over the years. The students will get to make their thinking visible.

I started this professional blog in the summer with my students in mind. I was at a workshop with Silvia Tolisano and she said that if we want students to have their blogs, we should go through the process of having our own blog first, so that is exactly what I did. Anyone who knows me knows that I only do things with my students’ best interests in mind. I have enjoyed writing different posts to capture thoughts and reflections about my teaching. However, I have only shared this blog with a select few people as I am shy and quiet by nature.

I am ready to share this blog with a greater audience, with the hopes of sharing my journey of teaching and launching student blogfolios in Grade Four. I know it will be a terrific learning experience for my students and myself.