Reflect on the Past to Inform the Present

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Civics Instructional Specialist

Schools across the Land of Lincoln are starting to reopen for the 2020-21 school year. Whether you are meeting with students on an online platform or in a blended format, creating a safe civic space for online learning takes intentionality and reimagining of typical back to school routines.

This past spring, we had the advantage of already knowing our students when school buildings closed and classes shifted to distance learning. This semester, all stakeholders will have to create room to put “Maslow before Bloom” and build a foundation for relationships in virtual and/or blended spaces.


All teachers are civics teachers. We send messages to students about power, equity, justice, and representation by our classroom routines, relationships, and curricular choices. While the following resources have explicit connections to the civic learning practices in both the middle and high school civics course requirements, they are also best practice for ALL teachers.

Your students will come to you with lived experiences on remote learning from the spring that can inform and enhance your classroom practice in the fall. Take time to have them reflect on their experiences from the spring, have a voice in recalibrating classroom practices to create routines for success, and engage in a collective renewal of goals for the 2020-21 school year.

The following activities can be used to help students reflect on their experiences with remote learning. Choose one to start with and use the others to check in throughout the year to recalibrate classroom practices.
  • Have students individually complete the following sentence, “When I think about online learning, I feel_____________ because________________.”
  • Use some of the Visible Thinking Routines from Project Zero
    • Compass Point Reflection (see above) has students identify something that is worrisome, exciting, a need to know, and a suggestion for moving forward.
    • Color, Symbol, Image students share and discuss color, a symbol, and an image they think represents online learning.
    • 3-2-1 Bridge can be used to have students identify 3 ideas they have about online learning, 2 questions they have, and 1 idea they have for improvement.
    • Claim, Support, Question can be used to have students make a claim about online learning, support it with evidence from their past experiences, and ask questions they have about online learning.
Collect the responses and display them in a chart or word cloud. Discuss the responses. Engage in a proactive conversation about what can be done to address past issues and create new routines.
 
You can access a one hour webinar that provides an overview of the resources and a demonstration of some of the strategies. Our Remote Learning Toolkit has resources around community building, establishing norms, and ready to go lesson plans for classroom use.

What are you doing to engage student voice to reflect on the past to inform the present? Please comment below. Together, we can prepare ALL students for college, career, and civic life?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let's Talk About the "Required" Constitution Test

Image
by Mary Ellen Daneels, Lead Teacher Mentor As I have traveled around the state of Illinois to support implementation of the high school civics requirement and pending middle school civics legislation , one of the biggest concerns I have heard is, “How will we have time to prepare students for the required Constitution test? I will never have time to cover all 200 questions on the test if I have to make time for student-centered inquiry, discussions, simulations, and service learning!” The Illinois State Board of Education states: American patriotism and the principles of representative government, as enunciated in the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and the proper use and display of the American flag, shall be taught in all public schools and other educational institutions supported or maintained in whole or in part by public funds. No student shall receive a certificate
Read more

Resources to Respond to Tragedy and Violence

Image
by Mary Ellen Daneels, Civics Instructional Specialist All educators are civics teachers. Teachers send messages to students about power, justice, and representation by the content we select, the way we engage student voice, the norms we employ, and the stories included in our classroom. We have a responsibility to prioritize our students’ lived experiences, putting Maslow before Bloom , to inform the essential questions we address in our curriculum. When violence or tragedy occurs, classrooms provide a safe venue for students to process, ask questions and be given context to understand current events as they happen. While current events unfold, it is not the time to debate policy. Educators will not have all of the answers to the questions students pose. Teachers can create a classroom space where we can be present, listen, and create a safe environment for our students to do the same. Start with Reflection Your students may be wrestling with a range of emotions. We cannot assum
Read more

Strengthening School Climate through Inclusion

by Sue Khalaieff, Democracy Schools Network Manager Loyola University Chicago’s School of Education has been partnering with several Democracy Schools across the Chicago metropolitan area for the past two years to develop and implement strategies to strengthen school climate through inclusion. This cohort of schools worked closely with Loyola University to identify an intervention that each school wanted to explore and develop and implement an action plan and support each other to move forward. In our final session of the Civics Across the Curriculum series on April 22nd, 2021, participating schools shared their perspectives and learnings from the experience. View a recording of the session. To begin the session, Jon Schmidt , Clinical Assistant Faculty, Loyola University, provided some contextual framing for the cohort’s work by sharing components of multicultural education from James Banks : Inclusive curriculum Equity pedagogy Empowering school culture Knowledge constru
Read more