ePortfolios: Weekly Reading Letters

Students used Google sites to create ePortfolios this year.  It's taken about six weeks to get the teacher/student pattern of response and posting to take shape.  I imagine that we'll continue to revise and enrich the process throughout the year.

One aspect of student ePortfolios is the weekly reading letter.  Each week students write a letter to me on their ePortfolio about their weekly reading.  I offer students templates to follow.  I've researched reading letter formats a bit, and will continue to do so with colleagues in my school system and those in my PLN.

These are many of the advantages to this practice:

• Students engage in a written conversation about their reading each week (see example below) which prompts reflection, attention to detail and teacher response.
• As the teacher, I get to understand a child's reading interests and patterns well.  I can use that information to help a child develop his/her skill and comprehension.
• By understanding students' reading interests and needs, I'm able to better create partnerships and small groups.
• The letters are available for peers, teachers, friends and family members far and near to read.
• Students can easily add images of the story to the letters.
• As the teacher, once a pattern is set up, weekly response is accessible and easy to do by commenting under a child's letter.  Parents are also able to access the comments and student letters at their convenience.
• Student development and growth is easy to monitor and share with colleagues since all the letters are stored in one easy-to-access place: the ePortfolio.
• The ePortfolio venue lends itself to optimal editing and reading since it's typed.

Do your students write a weekly reading letter?  If so, what do you include?  What is your primary focus of this assignment, and how do you use student letters to develop their reading plans and lessons?  I would like to continue to develop this venue to better teach reading comprehension, response writing and fluency skills.  I look forward to your responses and ideas.

Letter Example:

Google Docs/Sites: The New Anchor Chart

This is the front page of our Interactive Read Aloud "Anchor Chart" Google Site.

Anchor charts are popular in elementary school education. Together students and teachers create anchor charts of important information related to a topic or unit.  Then the anchor charts are posted, revisited, revised and enriched as the teaching and learning continues.

Now Google Docs/Sites anchor charts are replacing my paper charts.  I can easily create a chart on Google docs and type our collective notes, observations and procedures with the students. Then I'm able to publish the document, post it on the students' social network and/or website, and revisit it time and again for future teaching.

Unlike paper anchor charts, it's much easier to revise and add information to these online charts.  Furthermore it's easy to add related images, maps, charts, videos and other information that extends the learning.  Finally, students and teachers are able to revisit the charts as often as they'd like and wherever they have access to a computer.  If students don't have a computer at home, the notes can be easily printed and copied for student review or further work.  It's good modeling too because students are learning a process for learning, presentation and teaching that can be replicated when they work on small group or whole class projects.

Hence, anchor charts from now on will mainly be Google docs, presentations or sites in our class--an amazing venue for collective learning and response.

Edscape Reflections

Yesterday I drove to New Milford, New Jersey to attend Edscape, a tech professional development day organized by New Milford High School Principal and tech-ed thought leader, Eric Sheninger.  I decided to attend the conference because I knew it was time that I started meeting all the wonderful educators that I follow on blogs, Twitter, Google+ and other Internet education idea threads. Mr. Sheninger has shared many, many wonderful ideas about innovation related to schools, schedules, pedagogy and philosophy with educators and others throughout the world, and I wanted to show my respect and gratitude as well as learn more at Edscape.

It was a bit daunting to attend an event with people that you tweet with, but have never met.  I found myself scanning the crowd for "familiar" faces.  Interesting enough, it wasn't the faces that drew me to people in my PLN, instead it was the conversation.  When I heard people remark in certain ways, I recognized their voice and commitment from the blog posts and tweets I have read over the past year.  That's when I'd ask, "Do you Tweet?" and "What's your Twitter name?" I met many more educators that I later added to my PLN for future connections and learning.

I was fortunate to meet and hear Tom Whitby, co-founder of  #edchat and creator of the  Educators PLN, both venues that allow teachers all over the world to exchange innovative ideas, practices and questions to best serve students' educational interests and needs.  As Tom described current professional development practices, I found myself in awe of what he's done to eliminate educators' sense of isolation as well as to speed up idea-exchange and innovation.

Other workshops introduced me further to Google aps, iPad learning and the role of tacit knowledge in education.  The keynote speaker, Diana Laufenberg, an educator at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, discussed inquiry driven education. She noted five categories related to inquiry based education: inquiry, research, presentation, reflection, and collaboration. Laufenberg demonstrated that inquiry based education naturally encompasses the 4 c’s of 21st century education: creativity, collaboration, critical thinking skills and communication. Further, she noted that "More standardization does not lead to more innovation," and "Inquiry driven education is student-driven." She explained that teachers at the Science Leadership Academy have advisory groups, and each faculty member mentors a capstone (senior) project.  Advisors do not police or control, instead they guide and help.  Their capstone project is similar to the Google 20% during senior year, but it’s guided. Finally Ms. Laufenberg noted that inquiry driven education is community based, collaborative and relevant, and it's done best in student-centered, caring academic communities.

Edscape offered me an opportunity to learn in a new environment. Similar to most education conferences I attend, I was struck by the level of investment educators demonstrated with student success as the focus on a beautiful, fall Saturday. I encourage all educators to extend the PLN experience by attending an edcamp, conference, unconference or workshop sometime this year--it will give you the chance to meet educators you follow and learn from on the Internet which in turn will continue to deepen your professional repertoire, efforts and result.

Student Response

What is optimal student response?  What response actions and methods best motivate, support and promote student learning, voice and inquiry?

I've been thinking about this topic lately.  I'm sure there's lots of research out there related to this, and I have yet to start digging for facts and details.

I'm starting this inquiry by thinking about the ways I currently respond to students.  I'm wondering if your response types are similar or different. These are the main ways I respond to students at this time.

Email/Social Network
Students are able to email me via my school email or our closed classroom social network.  I encourage students to email me for clarity about assignments and ideas related to school topics, discussions and projects. I find that students use this system well, and I also find that it eliminates time for these questions during the school day.  Further, I find that students are more relaxed since they have easy access to my response if they're confused, anxious or excited about a learning topic or effort.

ePortfolio Response
It's easy to read students' writing and respond on their ePortolios.  I try to read their reading letters once a week and leave a response that includes direct answers and comments related to the content of the letter as well as a few writing tips for future letters. I keep a response check-list to note points related to future teaching and reading work.

Project Response
Last year, I responded to projects with a letter to the child written on a Google doc.  In the letter I highlighted exemplary aspects of the project, questions and targets to think about related to future project work.  I plan to do the same this year.  I generally do not accept projects that don't meet all the criteria and work with students until the completion point.

Assessment Response
Generally I respond to assessments with a fraction of how many questions were answered correctly vs. the total number of points available.  I note points for future teaching and avenues to relearn or review material that was challenging. I'll also note efforts related to a child's success or challenge on the test in an effort to tie learning behavior to performance.  If everyone does poorly, I'm quick to point out that I have to revisit the teaching related to that topic because if everyone is challenged, it's really the instructor that's failed.

Conferences
Generally my class is run in a workshop style.  We start with a topic introduction and exemplars, then move to a menu of activities for interactive learning.  During the workshop students have check-in points for a teacher conference (short or long). During conferences I converse with the student about what they're doing that really works for the problem or project, and what efforts they still need to work on.  I'll do some reteaching or new teaching at these conferences too.

Blogs
I use our social network blog to check in on students' learning related to specific, targeted content and learning actions. I respond to students on the blog by pointing out examples and stories that match our learning well as well as providing links and questions to prompt greater inquiry and learning.

Overall, I think of learning as an ongoing conversation between students and teachers--a back-and-forth related to learning specific actions, concepts, content and skills.  How do you respond to your students? What types of responses do you think are most effective with regard to promoting academic growth and development?  What's your frequency of response like? What kinds of responses did you profit most from as a child? Thanks for letting me know as I continue to think about and research this topic.

Finesse

Classroom Systems have been established and now it's time for finesse--looking closely at the finer details of each approach and making sure they're working for students.

What does that mean in a fourth grade classroom?

Finesse means:

Reading Workshop
Making sure that everyone has just right text to read each day at home and at school.  Just right text can be ebooks, books on tape, hand-held books, articles, picture books, magazines and other reading materials.  What's important is that it's "just right" text students enjoy and comprehend; they're motivated to read; they're writing about their reading, and they're reading regularly at home and in school.

Writing Workshop
Similar to reading workshop, frequency matters.  Systems have been set up for regular blogging, letter writing, ePortfolio work and other writing tasks, now it's up to me to make sure that the tasks are motivating and everyone's following through.  It's also integral that I make lots of time for one-to-one and group edits to help students further their writing development.

Math Practice and Computation
Learning those facts and reviewing basic math skills requires regular practice for fourth graders. We have a system in place--it's time to ensure that students understand how to use the system well to gain speed and accuracy with respect to this thread of math learning.

Classroom Management
The learning action table and students' responsibility lists are really helping in this regard. These fluid lists give us a point of discussion each week as we review the learning objectives and student responsibilities.  As much as possible, I'm giving students responsibility for running the classroom--it's amazing how good they are at lining students up, managing the line, completing attendance and lunch count, leading our buddy efforts and more.  It's also great to have many minds when it comes to tackling our learning objectives, goals and procedures--it's a team effort.

Now that individual systems have been created for independent learning and regular progress; it's time to shore up my systems of response and review--making sure that I give everyone a fair share of teacher time and conferencing.

After that, we'll begin working more thoughtfully towards greater collaboration and teamwork related to learning tasks and project work.

What does finesse mean to you when it comes to the classroom program?  What systems do you have in place to optimize student learning?  Where are you headed in this regard. Thanks for taking a moment to think about this with me.