Last week I received two unexpected emails, both brought a smile to my face. Two students had emailed me about their gardens. These students had chosen gardening as their spring interest project and their gardens had finally started to bloom and produce fruits and veggies. These emails were filled with exclamation points, pictures and smiley face emojis, everything you would expect of a 3rd or 4th grader who emailed you- and my reply shared the same.
During a time when I am often filled with anxious thoughts about the coming school year, these two emails reminded me of the successes we had during emergency remote teaching. The work around these projects was one of those successes. I watched students teach the class about their interests, come out of their shells, refine their projects, and present in the way that suited them best.
These emails reminded me of one of the feedback sessions we held. During these sessions, we would often eat lunch with a group of about 8-10 students, they would present their projects and their peers would ask questions to provide guidance for an iteration of the project. Students would walk us through their ideas, changes and sometimes just come to lunch to socialize.
One of the students who emailed me about her garden brought her project to the group in May. She felt like she was done with her project, the planting was done, things were beginning to sprout but not bearing fruit. She asked the feedback group about what to do next, someone in the group suggested that since the student was such a great artist she start a making a book about her gardening process. Right there in the middle of eating her Dad’s famous chili, this student jumps up, grabs her paper and fine line markers and starts on her book! She is filled with excitement. She brought her book to the next couple of feedback sessions, showing us her progress and asking the group what she can add or change. Her project started with an interest in gardening but iterated into a book about her process and the plants she was growing.
The garden that the other student emailed me about is his second project, but I am reflecting on the iterations he made to his first project. The first project he submitted quickly. He had taken a lot of screenshots about his topic and inserted them into google slides. During an email exchange I asked him if he could think of another way he could put the work into his own words, how could he share his learning about his chosen topic, tornadoes, in a different way? His next iteration was a video recording, he was now a weatherman, teaching us all about tornadoes! He went on to do one more iteration, adding safety information to his video. When he finished this project he asked if he could start a second, this is where the garden project started. This student connected with a gardener who gave him some feedback about starting seeds and growing pumpkins. His seedling starts have been transplanted and now his garden is blooming. He, like me, reports that weeding is the worst part of gardening.
The interest project, feedback and iteration process these two learners went through was similar for many students on our team. It worked for so many of these students because it was what they were passionate about. It’s part of the reason why I think these two are still excitedly emailing about their gardens, they were empowered to learn about something that they were passionate about and now their learning is producing fruits and veggies.
Have you done interest projects with your students? What were your successes? Share them with me!