Parents: Giving them an eye into the classroom
Loretta Van Brabant's frustration with a common school practice led her to develop an innovative, multi-faceted scrapbook that allows her, her students and their parents to keep track of the work the students do in a school year.
"We were forever asking students to review their work, but there was no place to put it. A scrapbook allows them to see how they were doing at the beginning, middle and end of the year."
Keeping work in an organized fashion allows students to review their learning, which, in turn, allows them to go back over concepts and see how they have progressed during the year. It is an effective learning technique for the children; it helps teachers see whether their lessons have stuck with their students; and it gives parents a good idea of what their children have been learning at school.
At the end of each unit, Van Brabant asks the children to pick out their favourite piece of work and reflect on it, noting what it shows they learned. She then has them write about or draw a picture (or both) to illustrate their reflection. The whole page gets stapled to the work and then glued into the scrapbook.
"Parents really like how the children are reflecting upon their learning," Van Brabant says. In their reflections she has them explain, in their own words, what they learned and why is it important. Former students and their parents have said that these scrapbooks have become more meaningful as the children grow older.
One unusual aspect of the scrapbook is a baggy in which students put art objects they have made. For a unit on rocks and minerals, for example, Van Brabant has the students build little people out of small rocks and other materials.