The Super 3: Incorporating “Plan, Do Review” into a Kinder Lesson

During My Creative Self, a PYP unit of inquiry, students complete the following summative assessment: students organize an art exhibit of their artwork to share with each other and guests and to reflect on what they have learned in the unit about expressing themselves creatively using a variety of media.

This unit is a reflective unit to begin with, although there can certainly be a more concentrated and directed focus on the reflective process.  Further, this unit has a lot of room for students to actively "plan" and then "do".

In terms of the summative assessment itself, students can work collaboratively or independently to first plan their exhibit (plan), have the exhibit (do) and then reflect on what worked and what they learned (review).

Teachers may begin the planning process by explaining the purpose and questioning direction of the art exhibit.  What artwork do students want to show?  Where do they want to show it?  How many pieces should each student share?  What day should we have the exhibit?  Who should we invite?  Questions may be student-generated and/or teacher-guided.  The most important question in this planning process is “What art work do you wish to show and why?”  Students can work individually when choosing artwork and cooperatively when they choose the specifics of the art exhibit.  This can be achieved with the use of individual student worksheets and a group-generated plan.

Secondly, students will be required to “do” the art exhibit.  This includes setting up art work, inviting guests, choosing a venue, picking a day, etc.  While this may have a lot of steps, it should be fairly easy to do.  Students refer to their plans as guides.

Lastly, students will review/reflect on the experience.  What worked?  What did not work?  For example, perhaps not many guests could come because of a planned field trip in another grade.  The lessons learned from this group or small group reflection can be the pre-cursor to the individual review: What did you learn during this process of designing the art exhibit?  What did you learn about the creative process of making and choosing the artwork?  Teachers my guide students using questions that they feel most pertinent to their group and age-range.

This lesson was hardly changed in order to incorporate the Super 3.  In fact, it was really quite simple!  A more directed and formal review process was added, as was a formal planning session for the art exhibit.  Each of these new steps could be incorporated using less than a day each.  It should be very easy for teachers to re-iterate the Super 3 into many of their lessons.