Hanging Out for Authentic Feedback

Written By Monica Champagne

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you already know that Sr. Mares is a pro at creating authentic learning experiences. A few weeks ago Kelly Skillingberg highlighted his use of  Book Creator app in this post. In that lesson, learners sought authentic feedback by posting their projects on Twitter. While they did receive some feedback, they wanted an even more authentic experience. And so, the Earth Day Book Creator project was born.  

With a target audience of Spanish speaking fourth graders in mind, learner's were challenged to create Earth Day children's books. Instead of just posting the books on Twitter, Sr. Mares connected with a fourth grade dual language educator in another city. Her learners read the books, and then met with his learners through Google Hangouts. The high schoolers were able to practice authentic conversations in Spanish and received feedback on their books from the fourth graders. 

As I always do after designing a lesson with an educator, we sat down together and spent some time reflecting. We learned a lot from this project, such as headphones are a must 😂. But more importantly, Sr. Mares saw those learners that can often times be difficult to motivate highly engaged. Their next steps are to edit their books based on the feedback, post them to this Flipgrid created by one of our middle school educators, Jodie Deinhammer, and look for opportunities to connect with learners in Spanish speaking countries. 

If you are looking for opportunities for your learners to connect or collaborate with others outside of your classroom, just leave a comment below! We will be happy to support you in getting connected.