Reflection: An Important Learning Tool and a Record of a Historic Moment

 When projects and units come to an end, we ask the students to actively reflect on their learning:

• What were their goals? What progress did they make toward those goals? Let's look back. . .
• What questions did you have when we started? What progress have we made toward answering them?
• What new skills have you acquired?
• How have you grown as a thinker?
• How have you grown as a communicator and collaborator?
• What are you proud of?

At the end of the semester, we do a more substantial reflection that usually involves finding specific evidence from a student's work to support their answers to questions like those above.

Historic Times

I recently sent students digital cards with a short video congratulating them on doing something "unprecedented" by finishing a full semester of distance learning.

Immediately thereafter, I realized that we have had periods of distance learning before, like during the polio epidemic:

Chicago schools, for instance, moved to the radio:

"In Chicago, teachers collaborated with principals to create on-air lessons for each grade, with oversight from experts in each subject. Seven local radio stations donated air time. September 13 marked the first day of school.

Local papers printed class schedules each morning. Social studies and science classes were slated for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were devoted to English and math. The on-air school day began with announcements and gym. Classes were short – just 15 minutes – providing simple, broad questions and assigning homework.

The objective was to be “entertaining yet informative.” Curriculum planners incorporated an engaging commercial broadcasting style into the lessons. Two principals monitored each broadcast, providing feedback to teachers on content, articulation, vocabulary and general performance. When schools reopened, students would submit their work and take tests to show mastery of the material.

Sixteen teachers answered phone calls from parents at the school district’s central office. After the phone bank logged more than 1,000 calls on the first day, they brought five more teachers on board.

News stories reporting on this novel radio school approach were mostly positive, but a few articles hinted at the challenges" (La Monica, Martin).

 

This is the first time so much technology has been available to help us help the students, so what they have done is still, in many ways, unprecedented. 

As such, we asked them to create something more special, more memorable, for their end of semester reflection.

The students had two options: create a museum box representative of their learning this semester or create a Pinterest-style digital board that gathered moments from their learning this year.

Creative Reflection

Reflection in this way allows the students to make a story out of their learning, which is one of the key ways that learning connects to long-term memory. Some of the students shared how much they enjoyed creating their museum boxes, thinking metaphorically about their learning.

The results range in variety and style as broadly as our students do.

We even had a Minecraft reflection. The student who submitted this also submitted a written explanation. The video highlights their creativity.

And some "moments" from the Pinterest boards:

The students will remember and use the skills they have learned during this semester for years to come. They will remember much of the content they have learned, too.  The experience of working together through this time, of learning and growing alongside each other, of trusting us to help them learn, of overcoming challenges, of building learning spaces that worked for them--those are memories they will have for a lifetime.

We are lucky to be on this journey together.

Algebra Hanging Mobile Project

 

As seen in art museums and baby nurseries, hanging mobiles have a place in people’s imaginations: 

how could a disparate grouping of unequally weighted objects be suspended in such a harmonious and 

balanced state, gently turning to the whims of any air currents?  This question can be answered using 

algebra.  All the times students are solving for the unknown in an equation, they are also enacting the 

steps needed to construct a mobile, for in either case one is performing an act of “balancing”.  Whether 

gazing at celestial bodies hanging over an early morning horizon on the ocean (as did the artist 

Alexander Calder when he conceived of his new art form-the mobile) or looking at algebraic equations 

on a piece of paper, what one is conceiving is equilibrium.  To this end, algebra students in December 

created their own Calder-like hanging mobiles, using a “prestrung” hanging mobile kit with alligator clips 

to attach objects significant or pleasing to them.   The students aesthetically arranged their items to 

balance across the wires; below are photos of the results.

 

H. used a collection of shells collected from a family trip to the Hood Canal.

 

R. described activities and people that were personally important on pieces of paper

 

Field Studies during Distance Learning: A Chance to Engage with the Broader Community

At Seabury, it is important that our students interact with experts in the fields we study. During distance learning, we have been committed to bringing in guest speakers and engaging in virtual field studies that are engaging, enhance our curriculum, and bring our students in touch with experts. We also expose the students to diverse voices and experiences by allowing them to interact with experts with different life experiences than our own.

Last spring, we committed to bringing in a community helper each week, someone who was committed to serving the community during crisis. We had a parent who makes masks, a manager at the Central Co-op, the owner of a local distillery that switched to making hand sanitizer during the days of shortages, an author who did free classroom visits and spoke about the power of stories to help people endure and survive, and a scientist who was working with the city to track the virus in sewage. 

This fall, our experts and field studies have been more closely tied to our overarching concept: The Future We Want.

Early on in the year, the students interviewed Professor Ruben Casas about public transportation, the pandemic, and park access. He recently shared that speaking with the Seabury middle school students was one of the most enjoyable moments of his year. 

That is a common theme: our students are interested and engaged. They ask meaningful questions, and they set an example for how to be professional and inclusive in public spaces, especially public digital spaces.

Ada Lovelace Day is an annual celebration of women in science, and this year, Mr. MacKenzie arranged an incredible line up of speakers who engaged the students in lectures, hands on learning opportunities, and personal narratives of overcoming bias in their fields.

University of Washington graduate students planned a community lesson on the Hanford Site and graciously allowed all of our students to participate in their lesson. The students learned about issues at the Hanford Site through a variety of lenses and worked toward solutions that took into account many perspectives. In small break out rooms, our students asked questions and offered solutions alongside adult experts. 

In early December, we worked with the Newseum, a museum that celebrates the freedom of the press, to learn about identifying bias in news articles to practice identifying bias in headlines and applying a three part system to identifying bias in actual news stories. One of the goals for our middle school students is that they become critical consumers of media and news content. Being able to identify bias is an important part of that process.

Finally, in late December, the students had the opportunity to learn from a Western Washington Stewardship Forester from the Department of Natural Resources who shared concerns of private timber owners and how to maintain healthy forests for environmental and economic benefit. The students used information from his talk to inform their own Timber projects.

We already have several field studies in the works for the coming weeks. During distance learning, these opportunities to reach out to the broader and global community have been an important part of feeling connected to the broader world. We are so proud of our students for their questions, their professional demeanor, and their engagement during these opportunities.