Summer school strategies
“I teach 3rd grade at MacFarlane Park IB Elementary. My goal is to provide a stimulating, rigorous classroom environment that is both teacher-guided (to meet state standards) and student-led (to meet the differentiated needs of my students as individuals). The IB philosophy is to allow student choice in creating authentic products that represent their individual learning.

Recently, while studying rocks in science, students started bringing in unidentified rocks from home. Soon they were wondering what the rocks were and started researching to answer their questions. Before I knew it, we had a bona-fide Rock Museum. We opened the Museum up to the school and district dignitaries to tour with students taking turns as docents.

Students expressed concern that certain loved ones were unable to come in to visit our Rock Museum. It was a natural extension to have students each choose a favorite rock and write a script describing its characteristics. We took digital photos and recorded individual students describing their rocks and used WebBlender to create a Virtual Rock Museum for our class web page. The resulting project has received enthusiastic reviews from students, schoolmates, administrators, and relatives as a wonderful opportunity to visit our Rock Museum at any time and a testament to the authentic learning occurring in my classroom.”