Reflection

Maria´s Experience - Logan

It was impressing and very rewarding to see how children became enthusiastic to write and receive the letters, especially since they wrote about their lives and a little about their culture. When they were asked to write something they liked to do, some children wrote everything they liked to do. It was hard for them to write a lot, but yet they did not give up. The children were continously looking in their dictionaries or asking for help with some words they didn’t know how to spell. Another very rewarding moment was when they “met” their pen-pals by seeing their photos. I was there to help them. The names were one of the most unusual things to them and very difficult to pronounce. After they saw the pictures of their pen pals, they became even more interested in the project.

Ana Laura´s Experience - Fortaleza

A lot of interesting aspects came about through this project. One, as Virginia and I experienced in Fortaleza, was realizing how little the students knew about certain subjects. At the begining it seemed as if we expected our students to follow through with everything we explained to them. We were surprised, however, to find out most of them had never seen a globe, were not aware of the concept of a city or state, and did not even know what "endereço" meant.

We did take advantage of this to look at our project in a new way. Since they did not know many concepts, we made sure to include more discussion about them through our writing of the letters. For example, we did the globe activity (mentioned under Project Details). Another example is that we explained to them the process of mailing a letter and how the letter had to go in a plane to get to a different country.

To emphasize these concepts (letter, airplane, pen-pal) we made sure to include small clip arts of them in our second letters and go over them before they colored them in.

Another interesting part was finding out how little the students knew about their own culture. I think this is another great aspect that we took advantage of. During my classroom time, I made sure to talk about what it meant like to be Cearence, and how it related to Brasil.

I would say I would have done some things differently. First of all, I do think it might have been easier to do this project with older ages. Working with young ages is great, but it was very hard for them to grasp the whole concept of what we were doing at times. Like we have mentioned before, I think it would have helped a lot if this project could have gone on for a longer time. I think if this project went on for a year, for example, we could work with concepts at a slower pace, and also time would put it all together in a way that makes more sense to 6 and 7 year olds.

· Most interesting aspects:

o Working with young children and seeing their excitement in learning. Also, watching their excitement in learning about a different place.

o Watching the children improve their handwriting and also thinking skills.

o Introducing technology to the children, or at least exposing them more to it. We thought it was interesting to see how willing the students were to learn about computers, how much they enjoyed time in their computer lab, and how capable they were to learn to manage their time in a computer lab, despite their young age.

o For Maria Angela, Amy, Ana Laura, and Virginia, working in a different country and school that may have a different environment, SES level that we’re used to was a very interesting experience.

· Done differently/ suggestions:

o Started earlier on the project. This was the first time that the project was being done, therefore, it was a bit unclear what was expected of the students who participated in the project. It would have helped to find the school and teacher that we would be working with at least two months earlier. This would have given a perfect time period for the students to write to one another and receive responses to at least 4-5 letters and would have also given room for unexpected emergencies, such as, holidays and lost or delayed mail.

o Used more technology with the students. We didn’t realize the students were capable of using technology at such a young age and were that interested in it.

o It would have been neat to have done a video conference between the two classrooms. The children possibly would not have been able to communicate that well between one another and carry on long discussions, but they would have been exposed to technology and also realize that even though the world is so big there are ways to communicate with one another.

o Amy would have taken less time in class to write each letter. Some of the students don’t have an attention span that lasts that long. If she did it again I would limit the letter writing time to 30-40 minutes. Ana Laura and Virginia partly agree. Their attention spam is limited, but they could have also used this time to come up with other activities.

o Written more letters, which goes with the time fact. If had more time it would have been great to see the students interact more with one another, allowing the students to get a bit more personal.

o Talked more about each country and possible shown films or shown more pictures of the country. With more time it would have been neat to have shown films and pictures of the place throughout the whole process. Once a certain subject was discussed in class it would have been helpful to show this through videos or pictures.