This year was the first time in my teaching career that I didn't have to spend a week "reviewing" or have half days so that i could "correct exams". That's right...we didn't have final exams and it was just as amazing as it sounds. Thanks to an extremely supportive principal and department head, our department voted not to give any kind of final exam and instead opted to end the year with a non-graded reflection.
So as we started June, instead of panicking about finishing my curriculum I was able to teach until almost the very last day (which took a lot of creativity to captivate their attention but it was worth it). For our end of year experience, we asked kids to reflect upon the year, think about their growth and set goals for next year. First, I gave them a set of questions in English that asked them to think about their growth from September to June. Students submitted these questions via Google Classroom and I was able to see their goals for next year and I'd like to communicate those to their next year teachers. Then, I asked students to look through their portfolios that they had been keeping all year. In these there were all of our assessments for the entire year with rubrics and comments. I asked them to look at some of their assessments from units 1 and 2 and compare them to what they did near the end of the year. Their reactions were priceless. As kids wrote about their growth I overheard so many of them show their work to their friends and laugh saying "oh my god look at this sentence, what was I even saying?" or "these sentences are so basic thank god I'm so sorry Señor" all of which tells me they can see the difference in their performance. On the second to last day of class I wanted to get a bit more feedback from them about the class so I planned a class long reflection. Activity #1: I asked students three questions in English and had them brainstorm the answers with the people around them •What does it mean to meet expectations in terms of comprehension in this class? •What does it mean to meet expectations in terms of sentences in this class? •What were my 3 overall goals for this class? It was fun to hear them discuss and share out what were essentially their takeaways from the class and most groups had some version of my overall goals in their answers which made me happy. Activity #2: I gave students this handout where I gave the beginning of a sentence and asked them to finish it however they saw fit. I purposely wrote them with a positive tone to avoid any negativity but allowed them to provide constructive feedback on the things we did in class. The information I gained from this activity was invaluable. •I learned that students want less partner conversations and more group conversations •I learned that students were extremely engaged in the cultural content of the year •I learned that students enjoyed not having a vocabulary list •I learned that students want to speak a lot of Spanish Activity #3: To end the class, I put up a fake email from an 8th grader who was nervous about taking Spanish 2 next year and students wrote an email response to them. Through this activity I was hoping to learn more about what helped them stay in 90% Spanish and what advice they would give future students. Again, the advice was invaluable and told me that 90% Spanish is hard at first but eventually becomes a routine for them and that they enjoy that aspect of my class. After these reflection days I learned more about my students' abilities than any final exam could ever show me. Even if I had asked them to write or speak for their final I would have been left with more questions about what got them to that point instead of answers like I got through reflections. Language by nature is cumulative so why do we need to have a final exam to show what they learned this year. My answer is that we don't and that we should ask them to tell us about the year.
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