I’ve been thinking about documenting students’ learning in their own words recently - inspired by this post about documenting persistence. In my classroom, one of the things I sometimes struggled with was finding time to answer all of my students’ questions - and I tried to set up situations where students felt empowered to answer each others’ questions, which worked well for in the moment small things. But there were always bigger questions that I wished we could have had the time and energy to think about together.
I would love to set up a kind of ‘message board’ space for this - where students could write those ‘bigger’ questions for themselves, and others could try to answer them. This could be like an “Ask Col. Jo” space - where students can write to Jo, and others can reply. Not only would this give students agency over their learning, but it could lead to some great pathways for my own planning! It would be especially neat in a multi-age classroom, like a STEM class, where different groups of students could interact with one another. And by the end of a semester or grading period, you could share and archive some answered questions with all of your students, to make space for more.
What are some ways that you keep a handle on your students questions?
