Digital Portfolios A Success in Kinder and 1st Grades

Seesaw has been an incredible and innovative way for students in first and second grade to display their learning! Seesaw is a platform that not only the students enjoy working on, but it has been a great teaching tool for teachers, as well as an interactive way for parents to see their child’s amazing learning. According to Ms. Hoang in first grade, “What has impacted my classroom with most about using Seesaw is the agency that it allows my students to have when choosing how they would like to show their thinking and ideas, whether that be through typing, drawing, or verbally sharing. Seesaw has also increased community between my students, parents, and me. Parents really enjoy seeing their child’s work in a digital portfolio and being able to comment and praise each post and my students truly enjoy seeing their parents’ positive feedback as well.” A few samples from student portfolios include a Learning Wall Reflection, Ways to Show A Number, and How are Sentences Organized.

Being at an IB school, Seesaw’s upgraded features like skills and folders have been helpful when organizing student work. With six different transdisciplinary themes in our Programme of Inquiry, creating different folders for each of our units has been a great feature. Additionally, the PYP Approaches to Learning connect pretty seamlessly with the skills that are provided by Seesaw.

 
Overall, Seesaw has been a staple application for all classes Kinder and 1st grade here at Spicewood. One of our goals as an IB campus was to transition from having physical student portfolios (a big binder) to having a digital portfolio, so Seesaw has been the answer for us in Kinder and 1st grade. Five of our kindergarten and first grade teachers received the distinction of becoming a Seesaw Ambassador, an accomplishment that has strengthened our digital portfolio implementation on campus. Their expertise and guidance has been integral on  how we integrate the tool into our teaching and learning at Spicewood.