Analyzing Student Learning


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 RAMADAN, Curious George, the first day; pausing to ask/answer questions and reflect upon reasons, activities and special foods we would share at this time (this later was our assessment table of their understanding of this lesson. The accompanying text is a replication of the table created on the Active board with prompting. This is an ongoing chart we are keeping through our study of various studies of celebrations.
 Holiday_____Reason____________Activities_____Food
 Ramadan ___To remember to be caring__pray, see moon, be with family__treats, sambusa, dates
In correlation with the objectives, the completion of the chart with group discussion led me to believe the majority of the class was not only interested (they loved the story of Curious George!), they were also taking in the information and making inferences into their own personal experience. 

Referencing the Minnesota Standards, they could both identify   the main topic and retell key details: 
0.2.2.2 
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. 
2. With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text 
Additionally they demonstrated learning the objectives:
Identify why we celebrate Ramadan, the main topic of the story, and key details: "I can say why people celebrate Ramadan”
Describe what is a good deed and use it in personal reference: “I can share a good deed”

This first day we concluded the lesson by having a free write (Lucy Calkins inspired) about who has done a good deed for them. They then placed their writing in a class Good Deed jar (in preparation for the following day).
 
The next day we read this beautiful story, painted our own moonlight sky, and everyone shared their writing from the Good Deed jar (and received a piece of date to taste). This time we had a verbal assessment about why people celebrate Ramadan, and also celebrated good deeds in our class.
Identify why we celebrate Ramadan: “I can say why people celebrate Ramadan”

Describe what people share: “I can write what I share”

From their writing  I could ascertain a lot about what they had connected to in the lesson, their understanding and their ability to produce work (both verbally and in writing). I was surprised by several ELL students who  were excited to write in the open writing time and were able to use phonetic spelling to write beginning letter sounds! This goes to show the importance of motivation as well as personally relevant material! 


Many students wrote about friends in class and how they help them. It was a gift to see  this kindness!



We even got a chance to watch this video! So fun!


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