Teaching and Learning can be two very distinct elements within education. For some they are easy to demonstrate whereas others struggle to collect evidence of them occurring. For me, it sometimes feels like a nature documentary with Richard Attenborough. The students are in their natural habitat but I am waiting for that perfect shot to demonstrate an ‘ahah moment’ or brilliant student question. Not to mention getting footage of myself teaching so that I can evaluate my own practice.
The point of this post is to say that I have been experimenting with collecting evidence of Teaching and Learning over the past two years. What I have found is that like the importance of student feedback (Visible Learning, John Hattie) keeping records of what I call classroom activity is also vital. Why?
- It allows the teacher to appraise lessons and direction in their curriculum.
- It allows for more personal feedback to students over a range of components.
- It allows for the opportunity to share with (and involve) parents and the community.
This post will be the first in a line of me collecting examples of Teaching and Learning and I wanted to start with the incredible application called BookCreator that can communicate the above points beautifully.
Develop a process of collecting, curating, researching, creating and communicating with your ePortfolios.
Each of the examples given here are student work samples from my own PYP (Primary Years Programme) Classroom 2015-2017. Firstly, the above excerpts show my lesson on teaching the recorders and how Grade 3/4 students documented their learning, progress and repertoire with BookCreator on the iPad. This is purely a collect and curate type of ePortfolio, yet my students loved taking ownership of their learning.
Recorder Unit ePortfolio Example
Additionally, as a Music Educator I take photos, videos and record audio. BookCreator imports all these formats so I give students the role of videographer during a lesson and they instantly turn into creative producers. When we investigated the music of Daniel Rosenfeld, composer of Minecraft, my students were not only curators, but now researchers and creators of original content.
Minecraft Music ePortfolio Example
Mirror Music ePortfolio Example
Finally, with the update earlier this year of sharing books online I can post links to parents and the community of my students’ successes. One such success was our coding club working through the incredible Swift Playgrounds application on IOS for coding with Swift. This final step communicated to parents how the class was taught and how their child was applying this knowledge – once again with rich media content.
Swift Coding in Primary ePortfolio
But why stop there? Start to imagine what can happen when student work and ideas can be shared online, with embedded media, in Book format! Teachers can collect evidence of teaching, students can document their own learning, parents and the community are ‘invited’ to partake in the learning and this is where true conversations on learning can begin. Conversations from the classroom to home and with other educators.
BookCreator is available on iPad and online! If you have any excellent examples of BookCreator in the classroom please share. The next few posts will include my Primary Music Scope & Sequence and Examples of Project Based Learning.
