Overview
When students see an explicit connection between the work they're doing and their future goals and aspirations, they see that the knowledge and skills learned in the course will be personally useful to them.
Through this activity you will be able to:
- Model reflective practices for students to connect past learning to future learning.
- Gather insights into students' knowledge, skills, and interests outside of school that will inform your future instruction.
- Incorporate how skills learned in class are relevant based on different interests and identities.
Conducting the Practice
Tell students that you are going to introduce a practice that helps them to reflect on their learning journeys. Model a reflection of your own learning journey and identify 1-3 pieces of knowledge, ideas, or skills that you developed at your students' age that have been useful to you in your life. Make connections to interests or identities that you hold (e.g. how something you learned in school helps you when you're playing basketball, or a skill that you use a lot in your role as a teacher). Write a few sentences about this skill.
In preparation for asking your students to reflect on the past unit, also brainstorm some ways that the past unit connects to short and long term future needs that your students may encounter. Don't share these right away, but have them prepared in case your students need further examples or are having trouble making connections.
Ask students to think back on their learnings from the past unit and identify 1-3 pieces of knowledge, ideas, or skills they developed that will be useful to them in the short or long term future. Encourage them to make connections to future careers or activities that they like to do outside of school. Give students the opportunity to share out loud to the class, in a journal, or in one-on-one conferences with the teacher.
Observe which areas students connect the material to in their reflections and incorporate these reflections into future unit and lesson plans. If students struggled, consider how you can be more explicit about connections throughout the unit so that students have concrete examples that they can refer to.
This practice was adapted from the Meaningful Work Guide developed by the Learning and Development Group at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research in partnership with PERTS.