This week held many cool experiences for me and Nacho, including talking to an entire elementary school one grade at a time, moving up grade-by-grade and seeing the graduated development of the children in such a vivid, obvious way that it brought tears to my eyes. Thank you, Wyandotte Elementary, for my first ever child development immersion lesson, as well as a fantastic day of sharing!
A very different experience came through providing four sessions of professional development to Wayne Township staff in Indianapolis. One topic I presented was reflection, a favorite of mine since creative writing always dips deeply into that practice. As I heard teachers reflect upon their best and worst moments in the classroom, as well as how to get students to be reflective, I challenged the teachers to make reflection an innate part of teaching, not an optional exercise only if they have time for it. I compared it to brushing teeth or getting dressed, that wholeness as an educator is not possible without the essential piece called reflection.
As a simple blog offering this week, I hand you the questions that Wayne Township and I looked at as potential prompts for teachers to use in their reflection and other questions for them to offer their students to reflect. May they bring you a little closer to finding a path to look upon what you do in a way that makes growth easier and richer.
For teachers:
* Who provided a moment that defined the lesson for you?
* What worked or didn't work with this lesson?
* When during the lesson did you feel most awesome or most frustrated?
* Where could you go to seek more information/strategies to make the lesson go even better next time?
* Why does this lesson belong in your "keep" or "discard" pile?
* How will you use what you learned here to improve next time?
For students:
* Who among your peers really sparkled in class today?
* What was the one most important thing you learned today?
* When during the day did you feel most satisfied or most frustrated?
* Where could you seek more information about something you are wondering about from today?
* Why do you feel the way you do about today's learning?
* How could you change what you do next time?