The entire essence of Personalized Learning derives from creating an educational situation where the students control most aspects of their learning and their environment. Student agency, when done effectively, should last throughout the rest of the student's life. Check out the students perspective from this article: 'Student Agency' is Not Something You Give or Take by: Andrew Rikard. We all dream of a classroom that can essentially run itself, fostering student agency will truly make that happen. Now the question is HOW to we empower students and trust that they make decisions that will yield the best educational outcome?
1. Environment and Culture & Climate posts have already focused on how students have input to who they want their classroom to look, feel, and sound. We display our current Shared Vision, Code of Cooperation, & Behavior Matrix and refer to it when needed.
Up Close View of Behavior Matrix
We additionally make new SOPs when problems arise in the classroom.
2. Learning--- So, how does this transfer to learning?! When we first started, we did not see the immediate connection between the culture and climate & learning. But when students have options in their environment, it is easier for them to make good choices when you give them choices during learning experiences. We first start off by doing a learning inventory to see who the students learn best. There are multiple ones out there, just find one that works for you. Then you can create activities for students do choose from based on their preferred learning style.
3. Self-Paced--- Self-Pacing is one of my student's favorites. They are allowed to create their own schedule during the day and set meeting times for group and collaborative projects. This is something I did not attempt to tackle for almost two years but it is one of the student's favorite. Even better, it makes sub-plans REALLY easy!
Next Blog Post-- Student Learning Progressions
Nice student centred classroom give space to self learning.
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