The Use of Seesaw: Reflections

Read on to hear how implementing Seesaw went in my classroom:

Week 1 Implementation Reflection

Week 1 Experiences:

Students have been using Seesaw to access learning activities during math rotations. Students watch teacher created videos to walk them through a 3 act task and math problem. Students use the iPads to take photos of their work and post to their journals. Students are having an easier time accessing the website, activities, and videos the more I model and the more they practice.

I had planned to practice accessing Seesaw classwide this week, but there was a snow day, early out, and I was gone one day, so it did not happen. I think this would be useful, as some of my lower students have not yet grasped how to access or post. Along with the classwide practice, I had planned to introduce the expectation of posting one time per week. I have a class list printed off so students can put a tally next to their name after they post something. This will help them remember the expectation, and also help me track who still needs more assistance in accessing the program. I had a student teacher start Wednesday, so I am looking forward to having an extra set of hands during math rotations.

With only 5 families connected at the beginning of this week, I planned to encourage more to connect. I reached out via our class facebook page and was able to connect one more family. This is not what I was looking for! I will continue to reach out to get all families connected.

Changes for week 2:

Since I was unable to practice classwide and introduce the expectation of weekly posting, this will be moved to my week 2 plan. The rest of my week 2 plan will be implemented as planned. One slight change is I will use our classroom facebook page to reach families and provide an incentive for any family signed up: a free kids buffet at pizza ranch.

Week 2 Implementation Reflection

Week 2 Experiences:

Students are becoming much more familiar with how to access the class seesaw and post their work. During the beginning stages of implementation, students had a lot of questions despite my repeated modeling. The more they access the application, the easier it is and the more independent they have become. I introduced the expectation of weekly posting, but only about half of the students posted at least once this week. Many of those students who posted, did so more than just one time. They have become the ‘class experts’.

I have now introduced how to use seesaw within math and reading/writing time. With the reading/writing being new this week, I only had one student post their writing work. I will continue to model and encourage this more in the weeks to come to hopefully increase their use in a variety of subject areas.

Seesaw has been a great tool to push out activities to the students. It allows me to facilitate activities for individual students while still meeting with small groups. It’s also been great to show families the work students are doing at school. Family involvement increased this week with the incentive of a pizza coupon, but unfortunately I still have many families not connected. I have 9 families connected, and 11 not signed up yet.

Changes for week 3:

Since half of the students did not post and the other half were ‘experts’, I plan to partner students up for a little ‘how-to’ session. The ‘expert’ students will show the other students how to post work onto their seesaw journal. Hopefully this will help us meet our weekly goal of each student posting at least once to their journal. Seeing as I still do not have some families connected, I will continue to reach out individually to those families and remind them how to post.

Week 3 Implementation Reflection

Week 3 Experiences:

I am loving seesaw so far! Celebrations would include student excitement/engagement with the program, half of students using regularly, ‘expert’ students showing others how to access and post, and students posting throughout more parts of the day. Students are now using the app to post their reading, writing, math, and literacy labs work. Challenges would include not all families connecting despite my reminders, not all students having the desire/ confidence/ knowledge to use the app, lack of variety in posts, and running short on time. I have individually reached out to families and still some are not connected. I will keep trying, but it is frustrating. Luckily we have a family engagement day next week, so I hope I can touch base and even help those who attend. Many students who are posting using the app are merely taking a photo of their work. This is a great first step, but I want to push them to record over their photo, take videos, etc. I had a student teacher start, so finding time to introduce seesaw has been challenging as she continues to take over more parts of the day. I am looking forward to her full time teaching next week, as I will have more time to bop around to individual students and help them access the app.

Changes for week 4:

Overall, I have done everything in the plan for this week, but not all have been successful (all students posting and all families being connected). Going into the last week of implementation, I will continue to encourage the use of the buddies I created this week to help those who are not posting. I plan to follow the plan exactly how I wrote it, pushing them even farther next week with incorporating more ideas to post their learning and assigning it as a weekly job so students have turn being learning leaders. The learning leaders will be one set of the seesaw buddies I created for this week. This implementation planning and reflecting will go beyond the requirements of this class, as I look forward to continuing to use it, tweak things as needed, and constantly reflecting about how it’s going.

Week 4 Implementation Reflection

Week 4 Experiences:

Students are becoming much more independent with the use of Seesaw. In weeks prior, there were only a few students posting, and those that were posting needed a lot of support from me. I am noticing students thinking of ideas on their own to share work with their families. I still have a few students who have yet to consistently post. I did present the Seesaw partners to students this week, which I think will help with this issue. This addition to my plan has been a difference maker. It gives those students who aren’t posting independently more support. This week was short due to spring break and 2 special events in the afternoon, so our time was limited. I look forward to continuing to push students to use this program to share with their families the learning taking place at school.

This week I introduced the job of Learning Leaders. Learning Leaders is a weekly job for 2 students. Those students do things like point as we read out morning message, check student work for star writing, and take photos/videos to post to Seesaw. My hope is that this job will give all students practice with posting to Seesaw, and also thinking about how to tell their families about our day. As I stated before, this week was short due to spring break, so the first 2 Learning Leaders will keep their job after spring break. I don’t feel they’ve gotten the opportunity to fully implement their duties during this short week.

Going forward:

Although this project reflection may end, my implementation will not. I plan to use this for the rest of the school year and in the future. I will continue to sit down each week and ask myself, “Who’s posting? How can I help those who aren’t? What types of posts am I seeing?” (push to more than just pictures) I am thankful for the opportunity to implement something I’ve been wanting to for the last 3 years. Overall, I am pleased with the program.