I’ve been finding it a little harder to sit and blog over the past few weeks. Partially, it’s that there are a few long entries to write about that I haven’t had the stamina to sit down and write, but it’s also because every day brings something new for everyone at SLA. We definitely have settled into a routine as far as the schedule, the way classes work, and many of the norms of the community.

But I wanted to take a moment now that Parent-Advisor conferences are over, and now that I’m in the middle of my "official" observations which gives me the excuse to spend full periods in classes, not just in fifteen to twenty minute spots.

Perhaps one of the most powerful things about what’s going is the ways our students are adapting to what is for many of them a really new way of thinking about learning. For many students, doing really rigorous projects that requires taking concepts learned in class or through homework and transferring those skills and concepts to something larger is a very difficult process. What we learned in September is that many of our students really hadn’t been exposed to that kind of work before. We had to take a step back from some of our original plans and spend some more time really scaffolding the meta-cognitive and process oriented skills so that our students could start to take ownership of their learning and their projects in the ways we’d hoped.

We learned, we adapted, and the kids have as well. Watching classes now, looking at the work the kids are doing in their classes, and listening to the ways they talk in and out of class, you can see the evolution of all of our learning.

I watched students in a math class today draw connections between the process of geometric proofs and the ways they were creating hypotheses in science class.

I listened to students talk about the societal structures in Ancient Egypt as they examined their research and prepared for a role-play.

I saw students examine the motivations of the characters of the Odyssey, looking at how these characters interact in a classroom sketch, and then writing a reflective journal about what they learned and how they learned.

I saw students continuing conversations — about the school, about their classes, about their lives — on forums.

I saw students and teachers starting to blog and create digital portfolios.

I had conversation with a student who came up to me and said, "Our teachers talk about reflection and meta-cognition. I think I understand the link, but I want to talk about it more."

I’ve seen students come further in three months than any of us had a right to expect. I’ve seen teachers (and administrators) learning right along with them.

We’re all working than we’ve worked before, students and teachers and me, and sometimes it’s hard to step back and reflect on what’s been done so far. But that’s the best thing about moments like narrative writing and Parent-Advisor conferences. They give us the moments where that’s exactly what we get to do.