Reflection and Project Narrative Pages

Students should regularly have the opportunity to reflect and report on what they are learning.

Therefore, you should plan from the beginning to include a project reflection and narrative page which will provide valuable insights into the quality of your project and become a valuable tool to assess the overall results of the project.

A "project narrative" Web page also provides valuable "behind the scenes" details and reflections about your project that will help visitors understand and appreciate what your students accomplished.

Furthermore, critical parents, suspicious administrators, and skeptical board members will be impressed with the value of your Web project when you take the time to describe what you did, the tools you used, how you accomplished your tasks, and the impact your activities had on students' learning.

This background and reflections section, furthermore, will be an invaluable curriculum resource and guide to your professional colleagues who follow in your footsteps as they learn themselves how to effectively use this new medium. It will mark you as a professional who is helping to promote and define this new medium.

For examples, look at the CyberFair project narrative pages listed below (and view the CyberFair narrative template). Many CyberFair teachers reported that these project narratives, required by contest rules, were a valuable part of the project. The process of reflecting on what they learned, and then creating this page, had a positive effect on their students' attitudes and understanding. They also reported getting positive feedback from community members who were impressed with these "behind the scenes" details.

Your project narrative page can include:

• project goals and objectives
• lesson plans
• schedules
• project diary
• narratives of what you did
• the tools you used
• student comments and anecdotes during the process of the project
• noteworthy feedback from the community
• students' personal evaluation of the project
• parental evaluation and comments about the project
• representative email conversations between authors (your students) and their audience (community)

Much of the content of this section can be created and managed by a team of students serving as project historians. If you systematically collect this kind of information as you proceed you'll wind up with a ready-made project portfolio to show off to your principal, parents, and the community.

Next Section: Evaluate your Project