Jones- Week 14

Recognizing Student Achievement

            As this year has progressed, there has not been a large display of student achievement outside of the classroom for other students, teachers and administrators to observe. I know that it is hard to grade and choose which work is appropriate to be displayed however, students work must be displayed because it will instill a sense of pride in students. In my classroom students often have homework but they are simply worksheets and often do not require much thought. These worksheets are not an appropriate display of what students can do. There has been work that is displayed outside our classroom however it was on students writing and my MT basically told them what they should change in order for them to have  good paper. In order for them to be a good display of student work, we should have put student writing up at the begining of the year and as the year progressed put up different displays of student writing to show student growth. The important thing here is that students need to be able to see their work displayed. This not only instills a sense of pride in their work, it also helps to build a strong classroom community. If a student sees that another student is good at a particular subject, they may or may not ask this student for help. This will in turn help small group work and help students to feel comfortable asking their classmates for help. I can understand what is happening here. By not displaying student work for students to see, students may not know where they stand as an achiever in my classroom. If students have a constant reminder that they are on the right track, they are more likely to stay on the right track. I feel that students need to be reminded that they are smart and kind. For the month of December, I have decided to have student post random acts of kindness that they see their classmates doing. This will not only show students that they are capable of helping each other, but they can do it all the time. I think that by displaying the kind things that my students do, this will also build a stronger classroom community. This is a case of making sure that students understand where they stand as achievers and doing all that they can to help each other achieve.