Student Expression in a Blended Elementary Course

How will students express themselves in an elementary blended course?

During the course design process, your task is to identify the best method for students to achieve the learning objectives. Expressing themselves will play an important role throughout your class. Whether they are expressing themselves to the teacher, their peers, or even the public. Since elementary students begin as a face-to-face course, it will be convienient and clear when you establish expectations for how you want students to express themselves. 

Reflections
Reflection activities are a vital component of service-learning when constructed effectively. Reflections can ask students to describe why they did something a certain way, or they can ask for opinions about a topic. Recommended technology for reflections include: ePortfolio, a blog, or a podcast. Implementing reflections in the elementary setting could be reflecting on a science experiment and why you chose to make certain decisions, take a side in a social studies topic, or a reading discussion question that requires an opinion. Whatever the subject or assignment the student reflects on, there are a number of ways that you can help students before, during, and after the assignment:

1. Write clear instructions, including information about your policies on academic integrity and plagiarism.
2. Provide examples of prior students' work or go through the assignment yourself to create a model of what you consider to be good work.
3. Acknowledge the students' points of view and provide feedback.
4. Let the students know that you are aware of their work and that you value their opinions.

Meeting face-to-face so frequently in elementary can be an advantage to a reflection assignment. You are able to foster best practices with the first reflection assignment and taper off instruction in the classroom and create the entire assignment online.