So last week we finally finished with the creating portion of National History Day projects. Some of the students produced really exciting projects and others just seemed to want to get it over with. We had a reflection discussion on Friday and I was shocked by a lot of what the students had to say. A major concern for them was that they didn’t have enough time to work on the projects and they felt like they didn’t get enough instruction. I was willing to hear everything they had to say and found some of their feedback helpful to creating future lesson plans, but couldn’t disagree more with those two pieces of feedback. The students have been working EVERY DAY on NHD since the end of October.

 There has been an insane amount of time put in to creating these projects and in no way shape or form should anyone have felt rushed. I also thought that my teacher and I provided a bunch of scaffolding methods for the students in what they needed to provide in these projects. We gave them plenty of outline/rubric sheets explaining exactly what was needed for a good project. We even gave them the judges scoring sheet that would be used to grade their projects. I wonder what to do when what I have to say 100% disagrees with what the students have to say. I don’t think I’ve been overestimating their ability to do work because some of the projects were outstanding. Luckily I probably won’t have to teach an NHD class again next year, but if I did I wonder what feedback should I be taking away from this discussion and what I should completely dismiss.

Last time I spoke about creating a goal worksheet and daily reflection log for my students. I was shocked last week when I received 46 out of 47 of the worksheets back. I was able to immediately correct each of the worksheets and find common remarks that I made for most of the students. I was right with the assumption that most students would create relatively simple and vague goals such as “work on NHD” so one of the pieces of feedback I offered the entire class through a power point presentation was to create more specific goals.
This past Monday I gave out new goal sheets for this week and explained to the students what I expected from them. On Friday I collected their worksheets and this week EVERY one of my students handed in their sheets and almost all of them improved upon last week’s grade. I never thought something as simple as writing a goal down would have such dramatic impact in the work they did. I even heard from my Penn mentor that she thought the students were more engaged in the work they were doing and that they looked like they were more on task. She messaged me that, “[She] saw many students hard at work today...some who haven't been so involved in the past. (Penn Mentor)”
Due to extremely dragged out and painstakingly boring approach my school has toward National History Day it’s been tough for me to motivate my students to work hard and complete their work. I’m still shocked that for 2 weeks in a row I was able to get every student to do exactly what they were suppose to. I’m wondering how long this will continue.

getting ready for NHD

In World History we’re still in the creation process of our National History Day projects so I haven’t been able to really teach anything new since we’ve gotten back from break. One thing I was able to create was a worksheet with a list of goals for each day. On the first day the students received the sheet they wrote down the last thing they completed in class for their projects. Each day as the students came into class their preview was to set a daily goal and write one thing they can do to achieve that goal. With about 5 minutes left in class each day I had the students reflect on the progress of their goals as well as create a plan of action for their next day’s work. Due to the shortened periods I hoped that setting goals and creating a plan of action (the day before) would eliminate some wasted time in class. I noticed that we didn’t use as much time on the preview and students were able to come into class, immediately write down their goals, and begin working. Overall I think this was a successful teaching strategy for shortened days. One thing I think some students may need to improve on is setting more difficult goals. Some student set relatively simple goals that could easily be completed in a few minutes. I collected all of the worksheets from last week and plan on giving them feedback suggesting a more careful thought process while creating their goals for this upcoming week.