Alternatives

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Alternatives
By Julianne

A critical question to ask yourself on any work you give your students is, "Who is doing the learning here?" A mentor teacher helped me to look at my practices and start turning over much of the work to the students. For
instance, it is pretty common practice for primary grade teachers to write up their class rules and post them. Now our class makes an interactive writing session out of class rules. Other examples of places where you can turn work over to the students:
- any art project where you have traditionally given each student a photocopy of the same bunny, pumpkin, tree, dinosaur or _________

to color. have them generate the entire picture on their own. Remember, it's the process, not the product that is important.

- anything that needs to be cut out. I don't cut out nearly as many things as I used to. The kids cut their own stuff out and we use it no matter what it looks like. (Process, process, process)

- practice sheets for handwriting, spelling or math. Students can be taught to copy from the board which gives them another type of practice.

- individual notes home, thank yous, etc. Whenever we need something like this I try to find a way that the students can generate all of the project rather than giving them something photocopied as a pattern.

I still use photocopies for lots (way too much probably) of things we do in class. But, like you, I'm trying to find alternatives that are effective for my students and assure that the students are the ones doing the real work in any project.