Apples to Apples

I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. -- Elon Musk

Overview

During fall 2015, Room 234 students utilized a variety of reflection techniques. They began the year by reflecting on their past school experiences, discussing them with their classmates, and writing about them in order to contextualize their learning at the beginning of the year. Students then applied the same process to their daily experiences. they also began each new task by analyzing exemplars and prompts in order to create success criteria to which they could refer in order to produce their best work. In addition to reflection, students produced multiple drafts of every piece of writing and artwork, beginning with a series of apple drawings. They revised and edited each draft as many as four times based on teacher and peer critique. Finally, students created Google Sites in order to share selections of their work through digital portfolios that they will use throughout their time at High Tech High. The sites not only include writing samples, but also drawings, videos, and audio recordings in order to capture more of their strengths.