Community of Practice || Celebrations of Learning
What is Celebration of Learning at Detroit Prep?
Celebration of Learning is a moment where the students can shine; students can display their ability to show skills, knowledge, and display their Habits of Character with actions. It is also a celebration that takes place at the end of a term/close of the student’s Expedition. Students will display their outcomes from the leadership of different teachers as well as other experts to maximize their ability to produce high quality work. This learning opportunity gives students insight by having students dissect guiding questions to focus their learning and inform their work. Research is completed by reading books both hard copy and online. Students' often include scientific drawings and content specific vocabulary. Celebration of Learning also gives students the opportunity to learn to collaborate in Expert Groups by taking on leadership roles such as notetaker and timekeeper. Students learn to share feedback. The feedback is shared in “stars'' and “steps” that gives students specific advice as they revise drafts. Students support each other throughout this process These revisions help students to speak comfortably with confidence in front of adults and peers. During this educational journey students leverage their own learning. This learning allows students to make the shift from learner and researcher to the expert!
Why did we choose this group?
This year at Detroit Prep, a committee of teachers reflected on the effectiveness of our Celebrations of Learning and its impact on the greater community. This group used district, local, and national-level expeditionary learning initiatives as a barometer of comparison for our work here at Detroit Prep.
What are the common trends we noticed in practice?
As a community of practice, we identified common areas of interest in opportunities for improving Celebration of Learning at our community. We began by reviewing our Celebration of Learning rubric and thought through things as a community we are doing well, opportunities we can grow, and ideas for modifications and shifts. After this reflection, we worked to analyze trends in ideas of ways we want to grow and those were: adjusting the agenda, identifying connections to final products, and leveraging field study and experts. From there, we worked in chosen expert groups to identify areas of improvement in each of these categories.
How did our learning shift?
After reviewing and reflecting on the celebrations of learning during the 2022-23 school year, we asked ourselves the following questions:
What is missing from Celebration of Learning?
Is Celebration of Learning aligned with our mission and vision?
How can we scaffold celebrations of learning per term to highlight community based calls to action? How can we ensure that each celebration of learning builds in expertise as the school year progresses?
How can we include all community stakeholders in Celebration of Learning?
How can we increase student voice in Celebration of Learning?
How can the culminating Celebration of Learning at the end of the year reflect a school-wide call to action?
Based on our responses to the above questions, we decided to reevaluate how Crew Leaders plan and facilitate Celebration of Learning so that they are uniform and all stakeholders' experiences are reflected. In practice, this looks like Crew Leaders inviting experts to Celebrations of Learning as well as students sharing their learning with the community.
How can all stakeholders experience Celebration of Learning?
Throughout our community of practice, we researched and planned with our students and community stakeholders in mind. In an effort to ensure all community stakeholders have an opportunity to experience celebrations of learning, we found it extremely important to ensure communication is top notch. That includes, but is not limited to the following:
Ensuring COL days are on the family calendar at the beginning of the school year
Sending out communication/family updates with enough advanced notice via email and Remind;
Sending multiple reminders, 3 weeks out, 1 week out, week of and/or day before COL
Having a clear map that outlines the flow of COL
Inviting Expedition topic experts that students had the opportunity to learn from to engage in COL
What connections did we make between Celebration of Learning and student’s final products?
At Detroit Prep, we believe that everyone's perspectives and experiences are important in the global community. To achieve this, our expeditionary topics are designed to inspire our students to become active changemakers by using research and applying their knowledge to bring about positive change. Our students begin by deepening their understanding of a problem impacting our community, identifying the contributing factors perpetuating it, and then crafting a solution. After many weeks of research and thought provoking conversations with diverse learners, students become “experts” on their expeditionary topic. Their Celebration of Learning showcases their breadth of learning and celebrates their intentionality toward becoming active changemakers in their communities.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
This year's 4th grade students engaged in a Museum Takeover at Henry Ford Museum in the “With Liberty and Justice for All” Exhibit. Students were able to curate a presentation about their learning of key events in the American Revolution and teach museum goers about whose perspectives were missing from the history of the American Revolution.
How can we leverage field study and experts during celebration of learning?
Experts and field studies play an integral role in the student learning process and in celebration of learning. Throughout our community of practice we explored more ways to incorporate field studies and experts to enhance student learning and community involvement. We truly believe that incredible learning stems from learning hands on and outside of the classroom. Our hope is that every grade can participate in a field study and expert learning for each expedition throughout the year. Therefore, we focused on starting and building a field study/ expert database that could be utilized by crew leaders at the beginning of the year. This would allow crew leaders to have easy access to field studies and experts that have been used in years past and a quick way to contact them. This also serves as a working document where resources, community contacts and possible field studies can be updated and expanded on each year or concurrently during the school year. By doing so this eliminates the groundwork and puts our crew leaders and individual crews a step closer to build relationships and foster learning in an appropriate time frame. We also focused on tangible evidence of student learning during field studies and expert visits and how that could be utilized during celebration of learning to showcase student learning. Evidence of learning could be shown in student-taken photographs, physical artifacts, and inviting experts to come back and attend the Celebration of learning. Finally, we brainstormed ways in which we could make this learning experience authentic not only for our scholars, field experts and crew but the broader community as well. This led to conversations of inviting field experts to facilitate and encourage scholar discourse. We discussed how this can be done in person or remotely. This is just one example of how leveraging field experts can help increase engagement, allow scholars to explore theories discussed and learned in class can be applied not only to their learning but the community as well. Our hope and goal is that our students become the experts through their learning and pass that knowledge on to their community through the practice of celebration of learning.