Wednesday, January 29, 2014

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.

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