Literacy for the iGeneration

And so the semester ends. Teaching exhausts me, but as much as I look forward to the end of the semester and the year, I always end the semester with sadness. I’ve come to like my students. Even the more challenging ones. Not that I’ve had any this year.

We ended the semester with a few activities. For the students who didn’t get to do the stations, I had them engage in the Arithmetic poem and in the Spin Doctor writing activity. I think they enjoyed that. I had the other group just do the Spin Doctor. After they wrote, some of the students shared publicly. I enjoyed hearing some of their creative attempts. We also looked at the wikis. I’ve looked at all of them for the smaller class and will be emailing them my assessment. I still have to do so for the larger class. I’m in the process of reading capstone literature reviews, and that always takes time. Finally, I had them do a self-assessment. To lead into the self assessment, I had them play with playdough and create a representation of their learning. They then shared out. It was a silly little, fun activity, but I think it was important to end the year that way. As I’ve said, learning is serious but it doesn’t always have to be somber. And I think they’re so stressed out with their other classes that playing with playdough was rather therapeutic. I think there is a place for that. As teachers we need to address the affective piece of learning as well as the cognitive piece.

Next week is final exams. I want to meet individually with students and give them each a good luck gift, but I’m struggling with what that gift will be (it needs to be something that won’t break my wallet).