My students are increasingly surprising me with the complexity and creativity of their work. Collaboration between these kids is amazing as they find resources and share them with each other constantly! However, they "play" with Flash a lot and sometimes forget about adding the newly learned stuff to their game! Thus, they need constant reminders to stay on task in addition to having "boss-ladies": Phyllis, Karri, and Chelsey!
Recently, we have organized a parent night at school, with one of the topics for sharing being Globaloria. Josh and Tyler decided to represent the group and talk about their learning in this class. Parents were impressed, which means that we might get a number of willing participants next year. Interestingly, many parents wanted to see this program continue in high school because it was evidently something the students would enjoy tremendously! This night was a good rehearsal for the boys as they have a presentation with the board coming up in April, with the final presentation of the games taking place in May. Knowing about these presentations and working in groups keeps these students accountable towards each other and towards this class, which eliminates my need for grading as a sole means to evaluate the learning process and actually see it take place.
I am excited about the things that the students are learning. They definitely know more than me even though I have progressed a lot further since last June myself!!!
