I’m still trying to process this last class. To be honest, I feel like I’ve been doing that a lot over the past few weeks, because rather than being in the moment during an activity, my brain is constantly rolling and trying to figure out how I would use said activity in the classroom. Note to self: slow down, focus, then reflect.
I tend to keep KWL charts in the forefront of my mind as a very effective way to pre-assess and activate prior knowledge. By being on the student end of both the questioning activity and a KWL chart, I now see that there are more effective ways than the KWL. I appreciate how the questioning activity allowed all students to participate in a low stake setting. While I do my best to ensure all students have a chance to participate, it became evident to me that the whole class KWLs I had been doing in previous lesson plans, that students were being left out.
It was also interesting being in the same group as Lisa (love her to death) who had a ton of knowledge about massive resistance, how I noticed myself stepping back and not contributing due to someone else having super obvious previous knowledge. On the other hand, when I worked with a different group on the questioning activity, I was the one with the previous knowledge yet the dynamics all seemed equal (does that even make sense?). Being told all questions mattered may have helped. So was this a better activity or would the KWL chart be just as good if we stressed that all thoughts and questions mattered?
Sorry this is a bit all over the place. I use this as an opportunity to just get the thoughts out in a low stakes way. As I said, I’m still processing…