One thing I noticed when I was at another school visiting my colleague and friend Benjamin Walker was he would actually record what students were saying by typing it out. It let students keep record, letting them know that what they have to say is important, and it's easier for people to follow along. It also makes it easy for students to refer to each other's contributions.
I've been thinking about it a lot and I think it makes a good difference in the classroom. Luckily for me, I'm a pretty quick typist. Might be challenging to do otherwise.
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This week I brought back something I haven't done in two years... Review menus. I first got the idea as a combination of Larry Geni's ideas (thegeniproject.org) and a differentiated instruction workshop I went to during my first year of teaching. Basic idea: for each learning goal, offer a menu of options. Activities that are considered a proficient level, pre-skills level, and an "above and beyond" level. Students can choose between the sections and create individual packets to complete. Another teacher and I worked on compiling activities and worksheets. After LOTSA copies were made (hey, options aren't cheap), I was ready to explain how it worked to the class. This simple sheet of paper held a lot of assumptions. I'm giving my students freedom to make decisions on what they were going to do, the time in which they wanted to spend on it... and riskiest of all: WHO they were going to do this work with. This kind of undertaking actually requires a lot of culture building pre-skills to be in place first. 1. Students need to understand my philosophy and expectation of working together, having freedom, and motivation to try. 2. Students need to able to work with each other and help each other learn. 3. Students need to be able to direct their focus when they sit with others 4. Students need to have experienced choice making BEFORE this 5. Students must buy in that selecting work for themselves is in their best interest. Without these pre-skills, crashing and burning is definitely going to happen. I know mostly from first hand experience. So, I gave out this task to my students, explained that each day they would be getting materials and learning for the next learning goal, and then... held my breath. In each class, students bustled toward different sections of the room, chose to sit with their friends (mostly), AND... spent an hour working hard on the problems. I don't think this using a review menu is the best way to learn deep understanding. Those are better addressed with good questions and class discussions. I do think it is a worthwhile method of learning... especially as students start experiencing some choice in what, when, and with who they choose to work. **Update 11/20: My students really have been doing well with this. One comment I got from a student, "I feel like we have more freedom in the class." There are some difficulties of keeping a few student focused. I think the best thing might be to move them away from friends for a day and let them try again the next day. Overall many students understand the purpose of the assignment, work in a way they feel comfortable, and is designed so students can work on what they need. ' |
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