My Thoughts on Education

We are nearing the homestretch, what can we do? How can we end this crazy year of Virtual, Hybrid, Simulcasting, and In-Person Learning? Perhaps we need to think about closing meaningfully, in a way that honors the myriad of growth opportunities and challenges from this year. Here are 7 ideas to help you close this year with grace.  1. Reflective Portfolio Presentations I close each school year in my English classes with a reflective portfolio. Students present their slide to guests and reflect on how they have grown these skills this year. One alteration we made to support this challenging year was having students record their reflections over Flipgrid and receive feedback from peers and teachers. Then, on the last day of class, we tell them their score can only go up. 2. Get to Know Your School - Interview Time   Spanish Teacher, Pablo Cueto invites members of the staff to come speak about their experiences growing up outside of the United States. He invited Señora...

 Please read this article written for and published on Edutopia. Researching their dream job and prepping for an interview prompts students to reflect deeply on what they learned in a year. By  Stephanie Rothstein July 29, 2019 IS098U2OQ / Alamy Stock Photo Teachers think often about how best to provide students with feedback that helps them continue to learn. This past year, as I considered how to foster the skills my students would need for the following year, I created a new final project and built up new ways to provide feedback. THE DREAM JOB At Los Gatos High School, we have a four-year interdisciplinary pathway called LEAD@LG (Lead, Explore, Act, and Design at Los Gatos). I teach the ninth-grade English classes, and the students’ final project was to explore their dream job. I wanted students to have a personal job goal because supporting them in that future pursuit created authentic buy-in and allowed them to dream big. The students cared about researching t...