Day 56: Authentic Learning

Building Excitement for Reading with Book Clubs

One of the biggest motivators for students when it comes to learning is when we create authentic learning experiences.  These learning experiences go beyond the "ditto sheet" learning of the past and instead provides students with real-life experience in which to learn.

Earlier this week, Mrs. Meister, a fourth grade teacher at Hilliard Horizon, emailed me about an authentic learning experience she was creating for her students.  Here's part of her message:

I just thought I'd let you know that my class will be browsing several books in class and choosing one for their book clubs tomorrow. They are pretty excited about this. Just thinking maybe we could chat with a few of them about how they decide what book they choose for book club and what they are looking forward to the most. We spent today talking about the purpose of a book club and tomorrow we will brainstorm discussion topics before they have time to make their top two selections.
Just a thought...not super interesting, but they seem pretty excited about it and that's all that matters. :)

Students created a list of discussion topics to use during book club

As Mrs. Meister mentioned, one of the authentic learning experiences many teachers, including Mrs. Meister, provide for students at Hilliard Horizon is through providing time and support for students to be involved in their own book clubs.  Just like book clubs many adults are apart of, student book clubs share the experience of reading a book together as a group and discussing what they have read.  This is a highly motivating reason for reading for students.   

In the video clip, Mrs. Meister is asking Alex about his process for choosing which book to read for book club.