Student Development
My greatest goal for my Student Teaching was to see student development in learning, in thinking, in being able to make and apply connections. One way that I was able to trace and encourage student development was through the daybook. Every two weeks, I asked students to reflect on a post-it note about a moment of learning in their daybooks that was significant to them. Students would flag and reflect on entries from class discussions, on brainstorming strategies, on pre-reading activities, etc. Using these informal assessments allowed me to see evidence of student learning and development of students as thinkers. Also, by having students reflect after major lessons, projects, and units, I was able to gain a glimpse into the kind of growth happening for students in their learning.
Daybooks were used so much throughout the class as a way to reflect and and write about learning happening in the classroom. For example, in the prototypical day, I would ask students to individually reflect in their daybooks about a new concept, about the reading, etc. I asked students to write about what they knew and what they didn't know, to make connections with previous learning and with their lives. I then asked students to pair-share, finding a partner with whom they could discuss what they had written, which provided students a way to connect their personal learning with another's. After that, I directed students back to the whole class, where learning happened in a more communal and large-group fashion; we were able to pool resources and collaborate to a greater extent. This type of reflection and engagement on multiple levels provided students with multiple opportunities and various ways to develop as thinkers, writers, scholars and even socially as peers.
*Sidenote: students were able to put a big "X" in the top corner of each page if the page was private. I gave my word to each student that I would not read these pages and would respect their privacy.
