Last week, our team had the opportunity to co-host a Teacher Networking Day among three schools to spotlight digital portfolios and how they tie in perfectly to the new reporting mandate. Our tool of choice in this case was Seesaw, with its many features that lends itself well to student reflection. Here are some highlights from the day.
🛞 Portfolios are Student Driven. Much of the conversation centered on student voice and celebrating achievement. Teachers concerned with the extra workload of documenting progress had their worries eased when others in the group shifted the focus to empowering their students.
- In Intermediate Grades, Seesaw journals are owned by the students. Work can still be created, edited, and formatively assessed in platforms like Google Classroom, but students own their self-assessment and celebrate the learning that they’ve connected to in Seesaw. As one teacher explained, “Google Classroom is the workshop where we manage projects and give personalized feedback and Seesaw is where we showcase that work and celebrate progress.” Tim Carvey explains more here.
- In conversations with Primary Teachers, sighs of relief echoed through the hallways as we demonstrated digital skill scaffolding to empower the younger students to show what they know in Seesaw.
- For specialists in physical education, music, we challenged the notion that there wasn’t enough time in those classes to document everything students were doing. As an alternative, we discussed ways students can incorporate goal setting and tracking in their portfolios, which can happen throughout the year.
🧑💻 Dropping the Digital. Something we’ve noticed over the years is the subtle hesitation among teachers when the term digital portfolios comes up. We proposed something bold: What if we didn’t focus on the term digital? For example, we don’t say digital document or digital slideshow – it’s implied by the nature of the tool. We encouraged teachers to think of portfolios the same way, and instead of getting hung up on the word digital, focus instead on the important role portfolios play in providing evidence of student progress and learning.
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🎨 Multimodal Learning. Not everyone expresses themselves in the exact same way. Giving students the ability to express what they’re thinking through modes that support the way they learn (whether that may be recording a video of themselves or drawing out what happened), might give you more insight into their thoughts than you’d expect. We head from teachers that students that have positive experiences expressing themselves have increase confidence and are more willing to engage in modes that may be more challenging to them.
☝️ Finger Massagers! We love sprinkling little surprises in our events. During this one, we handed out finger massagers to everyone so they could relax and enjoy the day. In exchange, they had to make animal noises to form dialogue groups (😂 you had to be there 🐷🐮🐸).
👨🎤 More than Just Academic Work. Teachers reminded each other that portfolios should be about the whole child. That includes personal passions alongside academic accomplishments to showcase development in all areas of their life.
🕴️Tailor the Process to Your Class. Explore ways in which reflection can be fun for you and your students. Your excitement is contagious, making the process more enjoyable!
👪 Meet Families Where They’re At. Language translation exists natively in Seesaw. Families members who don’t speak English as their primary language don’t have to jump through hoops to translate messages from your class.
🪩 Build a Reflective Practice Yourself. We challenged teachers to reflect on their own learning; as they attempted to learn new skills they used Seesaw to document their progress and explore different ways to showcase their journey. You ask students to reflect on their progress, and you should ask the same of yourself.
Resources
Check out these resources, which include Seesaw templates for various grades and a stellar video about student portfolios.
We’d love to work with you. 🙌
Our team of facilitators are ready to custom design a Pro-D day for your school. We’ve been helping schools for over a decade with topics such as Digital Citizenship, Google Classroom, and Student Portfolios for Communicating Learning. Learn more about our Pro-D offerings here and let’s connect!