Along with continuing their research and seeking out mentors, students began blogging this week. Though I wanted to use Blogger, I'm starting to see the benefits of using KidBlog.Org. The options to do things like moderate comments or help edit a post have been really helpful, especially since this is their first attempt blogging. They even mentioned us in a Facebook post after we tagged them in a tweet!
I've already got some ideas on how to approach blogging better the next time around. Some of the titles of their posts are engaging or at least help the reader have an understanding of what their project will be, but others aren't as much and so they're not getting as many comments. Next time, students will pick one title and each post after that will be a "part 1, part 2, etc" to have better continuity. Another thing I needed to better impress on them was to leave some questions at the end of their post to invite the reader into a conversation rather than just an update. Specific questions are more likely to gain comments.
At this point I think every student has gotten at least one comment on a post, thanks to some awesome friends and people who have been keeping up with us through things like Twitter. It's been an important aspect to help them really get that what they're sharing is going out to the world, not just me. If you've got a few minutes and would be willing to comment on some posts and leave your location as part of the comment, it would mean so much to them!
Something else I introduced this week was that they'll be self-assessing their grade. Some students were overly excited ("Sweet. I get an A."), but most seemed excited and understanding for the right reasons. I'm planning on having them do a Google form that will serve as not only their self assessment, but a survey on the Genius Hour process. Any grade will have to be justified with evidence of what they've done and learned over the course of the final few weeks of school.
While there were some concerns about the size of my classes (45 and 55 students) most students seem to be not only on task, but really engaged with what they're doing. Watching them get excited about what they're discovering, or getting an email from a mentor or comment on their blog has been some of the most fun I've ever had as a teacher! We have one full week of school to go so from here, the focus will start to shift to how students are choosing to share their learning.
Thoughts on the process or projects so far? This is absolutely something I'll be doing again, so I really want to continue to improve it. I'm particularly interested in suggestions about self assessing their work.
If you're interested in where this started from, here are my first two posts:
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