A Conscious Connection

As teachers we see how a child lights up with acknowledgement. When we allow time to provide thoughtful and caring feedback, children are able to receive ideas for future actions, prompts for their own understanding and appreciation of their work and progress. Just as a flower needs time and nourishment to blossom, so too do children. As educators we need to be patient and consistent with giving praise.  When I say praise, I mean more than the act of expressing approval. While that is important, especially for our little learners, praise can also come in the form of effective feedback. The following acronym is a device I created to remind myself to consistently provide thoughtful comments that both challenge my learners in a growth mindset AND acknowledge their progress! P ositive.  Keep words of feedback in a positive tone to indicate an affirmed belief that they can achieve a goal. When providing feedback, it is distinct from times of discipline. I would never wan...

In our International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, we have been studying Who We Are in Place and Time--and within that context have been featuring various holidays and celebrations to spark our students curiosity about why we celebrate people and events. One of these holidays we featured (due to student interest *IB curriculum is meant to be student-led inquiry), was Ramadan. What a joy it has been to connect our literature and new learning to a holiday in which many of our students have personal knowledge of, and for others who wish to know more about this special month of celebration. In creating lessons, I wanted to center study on the IB learner profile of being caring thinkers. As we are also connecting this to our social emotional learning (SEL-Second Step), I wanted to create opportunities to build empathy. My lessons created to celebrate Ramadan spanned two days and were during the Reader's Workshop time--which included shared reading and writing. We read IT'S ...