👨🏼‍🏫 My classroom: How things have changed

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💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🤔 Reflect on the end of the year

The end of the school year is the perfect time to reflect on student learning. What have we learned? How has it affected us? What do we still need to know? How far have our skills come? In a live streamed video back in 2020, Holly Clark and I shared key ideas for reflection as well as practical ways to use them.

While this video may be a few years old the ideas are still applicable today. Below are some reflection ideas that you can use in class during these last few weeks of school.

5 reflection ideas for the classroom from HollyClark.org

1. Students Keep a Digital Diary or Video Journal

Where they list three ways they learned that week. The teacher helps them to develop a vocabulary around how they learn, and helps students uncover their learning preferences. For example: students might write or record:

• I learned through prediction …and give details

• I learned through context clues…and give details

• I learned through talking with my neighbor…give details

TIP: This might be done with an app like OneNote, Google Slides, Microsoft Flip or Book Creator.

2. Students Write a Short Letter to Themselves

In the letter, they explain their learning process and the steps they took. They tell themselves how they could apply this learning in the real world.

TIP: Students could do this activity in OneNote, Google Docs, Seesaw or Book Creator.

3. Students Leave Advice for Themselves

Students could leave advice for themselves for their next unit. For example they might offer recommendations on what they could do differently, discuss learning patterns, expound on strengths and talk about how might they approach the next unit of study differently.

Tip: This could be done using Microsoft Flip, Book Creator and OneNote

4. Sentence Starters or Thinking Routine Prompts

For younger students – sentence stems might be a good place to start. For example, students might write or use the record feature in a SeeSaw journal to explain.

Try these starters:

• I was good at…

• I liked…

• I had problems with…

• Next time I might…

Or Thinking Routines -

• I Used to Think, Now I Think

5. Press Record: Student Explain Their Thinking and Understanding

Students could record themselves explaining their learning and uncovering their thinking process using video reflections.

Tip: This could be done using ScreenPal, Seesaw or Microsoft Flip.

More reflection resources:

• 🎥 Watch the whole video

• 💻 Get the slides from the presentation

• 💭 Reflection Ideas for The Classroom by Holly Clark

💻 Tech Tip

📝 See students’ writing process with the Inspect Writing tool

Imagine this: a tool that’s like a GoPro for your students’ writing process. It replays how your students composed their work in Google Docs like a fast-motion time lapse video.

You watch the writing flow onto the page. But then you see large copy-paste texts and you wonder … where are they copying from? Did they write that text? It gives you extra evidence to investigate parts of student work that might not be authentic.

It’s not just about catching AI in the act; it’s about capturing the whole story of how a piece of writing comes to life.

We’re talking about the Inspect Writing tool from Brisk Teaching.

Features of Brisk Teaching’s Inspect Writing Tool:

Video Replay: It provides a video replay of a student’s writing journey from the first draft to the final edits, allowing teachers to visualize the student’s writing process.

Writing Milestones: Teachers can identify key writing milestones and watch every stage of the writing process, including initial drafting and final adjustments.

Academic Integrity: The tool fosters integrity in learning by initiating discussions on academic honesty and nurturing a culture of integrity in the classroom.

Why It’s a Game-Changer Compared to Basic AI Detectors:

Efficiency: Brisk’s tool enables efficient navigation through documents, tracking the development of ideas and monitoring improvements in real-time.

Comprehensive View: Teachers get a comprehensive understanding of each student’s writing journey, which includes sources of copied information and sentence construction.

Engagement: It engages teachers in conversations about academic honesty, simplifying the promotion of honest academic behavior.

The Brisk Inspect Writing tool is a better option than a standard AI detector because it offers a detailed insight into students’ writing development making it a valuable asset for educators in providing effective feedback and fostering genuine learning.

Learn more:

• 📺 How to Use the Brisk Chrome Extension to Inspect Student Writing and Revision Histories

• Simplify Writing Assessment: AI Tools for Inspecting, Grading, and Evaluating Student Work

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!