Creating student leadership in elementary math centers can be a great way to promote engagement, collaboration, and academic success among students. Here are some steps you can take to foster student leadership in your math centers:

• Establish clear expectations: Set clear expectations for behavior and academic performance in your math centers. Let students know what is expected of them and what they can expect from you. This will help create a sense of structure and accountability that can be essential for successful student leadership.

• Provide opportunities for leadership: Provide opportunities for students to take on leadership roles in your math centers. For example, you might designate a group leader for each math center activity or rotate leadership roles on a weekly or monthly basis.

• Model leadership behaviors: Model leadership behaviors for your students by demonstrating things like active listening, collaboration, and problem-solving. This will help students understand what it means to be a leader and how they can use these skills to be successful in math centers.

• Provide feedback: Provide regular feedback to your students about their performance in math centers. This can help them understand where they excel and where they may need to improve, and can also provide motivation to continue working hard.

• Encourage reflection: Encourage students to reflect on their leadership experiences in math centers. Ask them to think about what they learned, what challenges they faced, and how they overcame them. This can help them build confidence and become more effective leaders in the future.

Overall, creating student leadership in elementary math centers requires a deliberate effort to provide opportunities, support, and feedback to your students. By doing so, you can help your students develop valuable leadership skills that will serve them well in school and beyond.

Throughout the writing process, students are often asked to assess in order to enhance their current writing piece. Revising and editing does not just happen once the piece is completed, but it should be an integral part of the daily writing process. Self assessment on their writing is a representation of their understanding of the concepts and skills. This provides students and teachers alike with valuable data on how students are progressing towards the standards.

A student centered classroom community promotes reflection and empowers students to provide honest reflection on their learning. Reflection helps students identify what they have learned, what they still need to work on, and how they can improve. With the mindset cultivated through self assessment, students are inspired to act on the feedback they receive. The students can take ownership in their learning and understand learning is a lifelong process.

Here are ideas on how to utilize self assessment in writing:

• Set clear learning goals: At the start of each lesson or writing unit, make sure that students understand the goals and expectations. Provide multiple examples and clearly defined rubrics to help students evaluate their own work.

• Model self assessment: Teachers can present their own writing to the students. Model how you reflect on your own writing by thinking aloud the process. Show students how you use a variety of resources to support your work.

• Make reflection a regular part of the writing block: Set aside time for reflection at the end of writing. This will help students understand that reflection is an important part of the learning process and that their feedback is valued.

• Celebrate progress: Celebrate students' progress and achievements. Ask students to share an area they improve and celebrate their growth. This will help them stay motivated and engaged in the learning process.

Incorporating closure at the end of a lesson is an important part of teaching in the arts. Closure helps artists organize and retain their learning; connect the current learning objective to their overall understanding of the content; prepare for the next lesson; and it provides a sense of completion. Closure should be a part of every lesson. Here are some practical tips for incorporating closure into your lessons:

• Review the main points: At the end of the lesson, review the main points that were covered. This helps students to organize the information and to identify the most important takeaways from the lesson.

• Reflect on the learning: Using targeted prompts, encourage students to reflect on what they have learned and think about how it connects to their prior knowledge and understanding. This helps them to make connections and see the relevance of the content.

• Connect to future learning: Tease the next lesson and provide students with an idea of what they will be learning. This helps them to see the connection between the current lesson and the next one, and to better understand the overall content.

• Apply the learning: Give students an opportunity to apply what they have learned. For example, in a visual art class, have students create a piece of art that incorporates the concepts or techniques they have learned. In a music class, have students perform a piece of music that demonstrates their understanding of the concepts or techniques.

• Summarize the learning: Provide a summary of the key concepts and skills that were covered in the lesson. This helps students to recall the information and to retain it for future reference.

• Use assessment: Closure assessment is an effective way of determining a student's understanding and retention of the information covered in class, it could be a quick quiz, a discussion, or an open-ended question to respond to verbally or in writing.

To close (), intentionally incorporating closure at the end of every lesson helps students organize and retain information, connect their understanding to the overall content, and prepare for the next lesson. It’s also a nice way to end your time with your students.