PROJECT BASED LEARNING 2014 15

Manisha Sodha- My First Walo

Why WALO?For any professionals, there are always the learning opportunities to grow.
Growth is something that makes one better. For a teacher her growth is in her
content delivery and to benefit her students the best. Its a matter of individual
perception how s/he takes those opportunities- i.e. as a failure to an attempt
or a mistake (wickedness) that has opportunity to learn, to grow.

Identified my WALO:My real WALO took place before 3 years when I attended one
workshop related to assessment at Riverside school, Ahmedabad. My take
away from that workshop was students to be involved and made part of their
own assessment system. But how to apply my learning with the age group that
I am dealing with was a big question for me. Thus I took the same as my WALO
If any of my sessions did not achieve 100% success, I used to reflect
on them and refined my next sessions on the basis of that. In the training of
PBL, I learnt that failures should be taken as an opportunity to look back in
your practices and make them better. Thus WALO- i.e. Wicked Awesome
Opportunities allow you to take your learning and practices at a higher
altitudes. Again the training about Differentiated Instructions from my leader
Bellamam - helped me to think of the knowing my students better to help
them be better- I feel, this was an opportunity for me to grow in this area.
In my prior practices I used to give feedback to my students for their
work habits, behaviour etc. Which was subjective, but it was not recorded and
made it visible to them as a whole group. Now in grade level K1, its the right
age for to establish their work habits and personal traits. Thus this time I made
a feedback chart and each time it is referred and updated.

Action plan:

As usual, I studied my students behavioural pattern, what affects them and

what works with them. My experiences in the last 5 months, helped me to
conclude some of the following pointsa) Not only feedback works with them but making them accountable for
their growth serves as a positive reinforcement for them
b) They were getting upset when they got critical feedback.
c) Some of them needed personal counselling, even after mass feedback.
These pointers motivated me to find out some strategy to help them overcome
all the aspects mentioned above- especially critical feedback. So I discussed
with them regarding the rubrics in certain areas and with their consensus
decided on the consequence as well. While discussing the rubrics with them I
clearly mentioned to them that these are the rubrics which must be followed
by the children of their age group, if not so, they need to work on the same as
well as bare the consequence. So together with their consent we decided the
consequence as well. And to follow the same, we prepared a chart which
included the rubrics and the names of all the students. They also suggested
that that for meeting the expectations mark a pink star and a black cross for
not meeting the expectations. By the end of the day children get the
visualisation of their achievements and the failures.
One thing that I could achieve from this is that they are now able to take in
the critical feedback given to them. Anyways still they are not remembering to
follow the consequences religiously- as I know the age matters as well.

My learning: General
Behavioural management though is a theoretical concept, but when put in
action, not necessarily fit same in all the situations. You have to first identify
your own needs and try various strategies that best suits to those needs. This
was the case with me too. I had to undergo lots of trial and error and this
making chart to make them accountable for their growth with a clear cut set of
expectations- helped me the best.

My learning: Collaborating with colleagues.

In this process of making feedback chart, my co-teacher and me, both are
consistent on giving the feedback and updating the chart. This makes students
understand clearly that we both talk the same language, our expectations and
actions are same.

Reflection:
Looking at the age factor and the needs as per their age, makes me
lenient towards taking up the consequential steps. But the expectations sat are
more of achieved.

Questions:
Looking into the age of my students I have following doubts Will this serve the long term benefits?
Will they imbibe the value of the rubrics that are sat to them- thus will I
be able to really make them better learners?

The Feedback Chart for my kiddos