As Lucy mentioned, at the end of the project pupils were asked to complete a reflection sheet. Interestingly this year group were ‘guinea pigs’ last year when we trialled the MYP with them in year 7. An ATL skill we had focused on with them in particular was reflection so all students found this stage of FOSIL straightforward. The quality of their reflections was excellent and they already understood both the benefits and aim of self-reflecting. Here are some of their thoughts:
- Some felt they already knew a lot about Paris, particularly if they had been there. At first they had to be convinced of the value of the project.
- Some commented on the fact that they were working in English in a French lesson.
- All learnt something knew and built their cultural understanding.
- Some really developed their literacy skills in both languages.
- Pupils realised in the reflection stage that they should have used the print resources to better effect
- Pupils felt they would have performed better in their presentations if they had been able to practice pronunciation more.
- Some more able pupils realised they would have learnt more if they had chosen to focus on the sources in French rather than English
- Pupils realised the flaw in the process which was that the answers to many of their questions were not easily found in the print sources or websites provided.
- Some pupils felt they would have liked more teacher input in the construct/express phases. They are used to being told whether an answer is right or wrong!
- The suggested websites were not useful, pupils found it more helpful to type questions straight into the search engine.
We have some ideas for changes that will have to be made in order to make this inquiry work better from both teachers’ and pupils’ perspectives, and I’ll post more about those when we have had a chance to collate and discuss them further.
Privacy Policy
