“If we don’t tell the story of what is going on in our district who will.”
How do we work to enhance student voice in our school and what evidence can we look to for.
I am interested in exploring the ways we give our students a voice in our school. More and more this seems to mean connecting our students to social media.
This past week has been pretty amazing at our school. Our juniors were involved in two regional competitions – The Engineering Challenge and Destination Imagination. Our teams placed first and second in both competitions. They won because of their creativity, innovative skills and their ability to work as a team – no mean feat for kids in grades 5 and 6!
They were assisted by their teachers, an incredible group of volunteer engineers and parents. All these adults worked selflessly for weeks to prepare the students for these events. They really allowed the creative voices of their students come forward.
I can’t say enough about how important this is. Our students have shown themselves to be incredibly creative. Their voice really needs to be heard. Because of the work of teachers, parents and volunteers their voice is out there. What an incredible experience for our students!
Social media here plays a bit of a secondary role. Social media basically gets the word out – actually it gives the students the audience that they deserve. Here are some of the pieces put out by our teachers this week celebrating student voice.
Our first place team at Destination Imagination – students and parent volunteers
Our classroom blogging community
The Primary Blogging Community (PBC) was started by a primary teacher, Mrs. Wideen, here in Ontario last year. It is a community of primary teachers that want to share their students’ learning through the students’ personal blogs. For the next 3 weeks (and the past three!), we are blogging with 3 other classrooms from around the world. Our blogging community happens to be right here in North America. They are primary classes from Alberta, Nebraska, and Indiana. You can imagine the enthusiasm when students receive comments to their blog posts from someone new! This blogging experience provides them with a real audience that gives them authentic feedback about what they are writing on their blogs. It gives them a voice and lets them teach their peers about something they know or feel passionately about. And above all, it provides them with reading and writing opportunities (how to write a good blog post/comment) that they actually look forward to. If you have not visited your son’s or daughter’s blog, please do. If you would like to leave a comment, just let me know and I will sign you up!
Each morning upon entry, students have quiet reading time at the carpet. A few weeks ago I noticed Ally enthusiastically telling a story to a friend using the pictures of a book. I encouraged her to take my chair and share it with the whole class. This way the start of more student voice in our classroom as many others have asked for their turn as the storyteller! We all sit up close as the storyteller creates a tale inspired by pictures. It has been an exciting way to start our class and the tradition shall most definitely continue!
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10 Comments
What is your friend’s name? Is your friend a boy or a girl? What do you like about Canada?
Sofiya,
I am glad you are happy in Canada. Is Moscow the capital of Russia? What is your friend’s name that is in Russia ?
From,
Dylan
You have an awesome life
Hi Sofiya, it’s Chiara. Good job. I like it. I want to go to Russia. Am I your friend?
Yes,you are:}
Cool and why did you move to Canada and not the states or do you have any relation with Canada? Or did you accidentally move to Canada like my grandparents.
I’m glad you like Canada.Is there something you don’t like about Canada?
Yes,I don’t like that you guys don’t speak Russian because it’s hard to learn English.
Hi Sofiya, my favorite foods are pizza, pears, mashed potatoes, and blue jolly ranchers. I have one brother and one sister. I am the middle child. I have broken three bones in my body. They were both of my arms and my hip. When I broke my left arm, it was crooked. My favorite sport is basketball. I play football, baseball, and basketball. Those are some facts about me.
Hi Austin,
How did you break your arms?:0