{"id":15915,"date":"2018-06-11T03:46:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T07:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/?p=15915"},"modified":"2022-04-29T14:51:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T18:51:24","slug":"the-power-of-documentation-in-meaningful-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/the-power-of-documentation-in-meaningful-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of documentation in meaningful learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exercises for an LMS<\/h1>\n

\"year-end<\/a>This past spring, a small group of Stowe Middle School students gathered to help their teachers and peers solve a problem. As students worked on independent interest projects, they periodically reflected on their learning. All were interested in finding ways to make this reflection meaningful, for both students and teachers.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what does meaningful reflection look like? And how can we scaffold exercises that create<\/em> meaningful reflection?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Meaningful reflection is visible reflection<\/h2>\n

Making thinking visible allows for just-in-time supports from teachers, peers, and mentors. It helps move the work forward by establishing next step goals. For example, Stowe students use this Reflection Brainstorm: what, so what, now what?<\/a>\u00a0to help direct them toward meaningful thinking. In addition, they reflect midway through the project by creating screencast videos answering these reflection questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Please explain your project, what are you doing?<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. What have you done so far to complete the project?<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. What are you most excited about for this project?<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. what are the biggest challenges you still face for completing the project?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Our challenge<\/h3>\n

    Students and teachers were willing to commit to reflection as a key component of self-directed learning, yet were struggling with the tool adopted by the school, Blogger, as a means for students to share their thinking. A possible solution: using the digital portfolio tool Protean to capture, share, and celebrate process.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    \nA group of ten 6th & 8th grade students gathered weekly to\u00a0    help test drive Protean<\/a> with the goal of providing feedback about how well it met the goals we established. The outcome would be a recommendation to the district technology director, the principal, and ultimately the faculty about adopting the tool school-wide.<\/p>\n

    Our journey<\/h3>\n

    I set out, after being inspired by this post on the why, what, and how of Reflecting for Learning <\/a>\u00a0to dive into reflecting upon reflection.\u00a0The crew and I started our work by looking at this image and asking ourselves:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n