PROJECT BASED LEARNING 2014 – 15

Manisha Sodha- My First Walo

Why WALO?-

For any professionals, there are always the learning opportunities to grow.

Growth is something that makes one better. For a teacher her growth is in her

content delivery and to benefit her students the best. It’s a matter of individual

perception how s/he takes those opportunities- i.e. as a failure to an attempt

or a mistake (wickedness) that has opportunity to learn, to grow.

Identified my WALO:-

My real WALO took place before 3 years when I attended one

workshop related to assessment at Riverside school, Ahmedabad. My take

away from that workshop was students to be involved and made part of their

own assessment system. But how to apply my learning with the age group that

I am dealing with was a big question for me. Thus I took the same as my WALO

If any of my sessions did not achieve 100% success, I used to reflect

on them and refined my next sessions on the basis of that. In the training of

PBL, I learnt that failures should be taken as an opportunity to look back in

your practices and make them better. Thus WALO- i.e. Wicked Awesome

Opportunities allow you to take your learning and practices at a higher

altitudes. Again the training about “Differentiated Instructions” from my leader

Bellamam - helped me to think of the “knowing my students better to help

them be better”- I feel, this was an opportunity for me to grow in this area.

In my prior practices I used to give feedback to my students for their

work habits, behaviour etc. Which was subjective, but it was not recorded and

made it visible to them as a whole group. Now in grade level K1, it’s the right

age for to establish their work habits and personal traits. Thus this time I made

a feedback chart and each time it is referred and updated.

Action plan:

As usual, I studied my students’ behavioural pattern, what affects them and

what works with them. My experiences in the last 5 months, helped me to

conclude some of the following points-

a) Not only feedback works with them but making them accountable for

their growth serves as a positive reinforcement for them

b) They were getting upset when they got critical feedback.

c) Some of them needed personal counselling, even after mass feedback.

These pointers motivated me to find out some strategy to help them overcome

all the aspects mentioned above- especially critical feedback. So I discussed

with them regarding the rubrics in certain areas and with their consensus

decided on the consequence as well. While discussing the rubrics with them I

clearly mentioned to them that these are the rubrics which must be followed

by the children of their age group, if not so, they need to work on the same as

well as bare the consequence. So together with their consent we decided the

consequence as well. And to follow the same, we prepared a chart which

included the rubrics and the names of all the students. They also suggested

that that for meeting the expectations mark a pink star and a black cross for

not meeting the expectations. By the end of the day children get the

visualisation of their achievements and the failures.

One thing that I could achieve from this is that they are now able to take in

the critical feedback given to them. Anyways still they are not remembering to

follow the consequences religiously- as I know the age matters as well.

My learning: General

Behavioural management though is a theoretical concept, but when put in

action, not necessarily fit same in all the situations. You have to first identify

your own needs and try various strategies that best suits to those needs. This

was the case with me too. I had to undergo lots of trial and error and this

making chart to make them accountable for their growth with a clear cut set of

expectations- helped me the best.

My learning: Collaborating with colleagues.

In this process of making feedback chart, my co-teacher and me, both are

consistent on giving the feedback and updating the chart. This makes students

understand clearly that we both talk the same language, our expectations and

actions are same.

Reflection:

Looking at the age factor and the needs as per their age, makes me

lenient towards taking up the consequential steps. But the expectations sat are

more of achieved.

Questions:

Looking into the age of my students I have following doubts-

Will this serve the long term benefits?

Will they imbibe the value of the rubrics that are sat to them- thus will I

be able to really make them better learners?

The Feedback Chart for my kiddos