Note: This year I am blogging weekly reflections at my school site (weskids.com) in order to provide more transparency in my teaching for parents, students, and the community (local and global). I will be cross-posting most of the entries here at Bit By Bit as well. You can see the original posts at the “Reflections by Mr. S” blog.

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It looks like a busy Movie/Publishing/Photography/Writing house in the Computer Lab these days for 4th graders. Many classes are entering the phase where they get to choose their medium for their final project for the “Many Ways to Tell a Story” Integrated CORE project. The three choices are as follows:

• Work with a group and create a Movie Trailer that focuses on an aspect of what students did or learned during the project.
• Add to a book where students take photos of the Masks they made for their projects, talk about what emotion they were trying to portray with their mask (and how they set about to do that), and what they did during the dancing to express that emotion with their bodies.
• Take a photo of their Mask (or something else that captures the emotion that they were going for in their performance), digitally manipulate that photo and write a Cinquain Poem to accompany it.

Some students are working in groups and some are working solo (depending on what project they’ve chosen). Everyone is highly invested and amazing ideas are being born. This is the first time I’ve offered 3 choices to students for presenting their final work. I was a bit nervous at first, but the groups are working hard and staying on task. Their work will be published at different times, depending on when groups finish.

This experience has reinforced the idea that if students have choices in how they display their learning, the more invested they will be. They continue to move into more independent learning, relying less on the teacher, and gaining more confidence in their skills.

Some students are getting so excited about the tools and skills they are learning that they are starting to ask where else in the curriculum these tools could be used for learning. For instance, one group is currently working with Ms. Calo in Physical Education to write some “commercials” about her curriculum and the learning that takes place in PE. Another group has already written letters to Mr. Spinney to ask how they can help use these tools to assist him in preparing for our CORE Values Assemblies.

Things you can do at home with your student:

• Ask your student which choice she/he has chosen for his/her final project and why.
• Ask them to describe the new skills they’ve learned with the iPads.
• Ask them what struggles and successes they are having in creating their projects.