I'll wake students up from their vacation mindset with a two-day reflective activity that asks them to review their past projects/performance and reflect upon it with questions that ask students to think about what they learned, what they did well, and what more they could do. The questions also ask students to think about how they can help themselves and how family members and teachers can help them meet learning needs, interests, and expectations.
Why does reflection matter?
First, reflection puts the main decision making into the students' hands. It's their thoughts that matter, and we know that what they think has a dramatic impact on what they care about and what they do?
Next, students' reflections will inform me well about what more or different I can do to support their learning well.
And, the reflection effort creates conversation amongst the learning community beginning today as students consult classmates and teachers while they complete their reflections and later when students share their reflections with family members and other teachers at student-led family-teacher conferences.
To do this well, I need to prepare the reflection templates, pass out hard copies of student project work including fraction projects, fraction project reflection sheets, volume project images, volume project reflections, and a summary reflection packet.
We'll start this work today, complete it tomorrow, and students will place the work in their showcase portfolios.
