We spent the first week going back and reflecting on what successful learners and learning looks like. Early on in the week I gave the children a group activity to complete. Their job was to decide who had ownership of different things in our classroom e.g. who decides when we do reading? Who decides what you do for Adventure Learning? Who decides what practise activities you do for maths? They could choose to put each one into one of three boxes - Miss Gentil, Miss Gentil and us or we do. At the bottom there was a large space for the children to write down anything they wish they had more choice with in the classroom.
Although no two groups thought exactly the same, there were some general trends that came through. Children wanted more choice with when they did activities throughout the day, to be able to be more involved with the planning of school trips, the opportunity to have a snack when they were hungry or to take a quick brain break when needed. Back in the campfire space we reflected on how we could make these changes a reality. We spent time negotiating e.g. that if they were hungry they could have a fruit break, not just open bags of chips in the classroom. I'm aware that not all children bring fruit to school so have considered how we can ensure that this is available to all children. This will probably result in me purchasing whatever fruit is on special e.g. apples, pears or bananas and bringing them into school. In one workshop at It's a Learners' World we were challenged to consider why you would make a child wait until morning tea to eat if they're hungry halfway through a block and can no longer concentrate on their learning? The only reason I could come up with was because that's the way we've always done it. Something that came up a lot during the conference. During our class discussions we have also integrated our four school values - community, excellence, inquiry and respect in a lot. I feel that it's important the children realise that it's not a free for all, more that they're beginning to be given more ownership of their learning.
At the end of the first week I shared with Room 2 what I thought the individual learning plans may look like. I shared what my weekly timetable may look like, a blank copy of the student timetable and the check list of weekly activities that would need to be completed. We've since renamed the check list a smorgasbord and the timetable a menu. The smorgasbord contains the list of whole class activities for the week, group workshops and independent activities. On the right hand side there is also a list of choices for if they complete all their independent activities, as well as a list of splash sessions. These are optional activities that the children can choose to opt in or out of. I purposely left introducing these until the end of week 3 as felt that if I had done it at the start of the term it would have been information overload for my year 4 class. The initial reactions to individual learning plans were very mixed. Some children couldn't wait to start planning, while I received the looks of a stunned mullet from others. The children also had lots of questions. I shared with them that this was all new learning to me as well and that we would be learning together as we went along. After a lot of discussion we decided that we would spend the following Monday morning planning for the week together.
Monday morning of week 2 soon rolled around. After fitness we met in our campfire space. Each child was given a copy of the student menu. This was blank, apart from the whole class activities that were already blocked in e.g. P.E, the introduction of our new inquiry unit, assembly etc. Everyone also picked up a copy of the smorgasbord. Copies of my timetable could be found scattered around the room. We recapped on our Friday discussion and then everyone dispersed to begin planning out their week. I had also broken the planning process down into step by step instructions and this was displayed on the interactive whiteboard e.g. find out when your group workshops are and block these in first, then block in your independent activities.
Our school day is split into three, hour and a half blocks. This made it very easy to split the timetable up into half hour blocks. The times for each block were written in too (photos to come). The problem with having blocks like this is that a lot of the children in my class still aren't confident with telling time. I'll come to this later though. This first day of planning did take up a decent part of the day, but I'm hoping that as the children become more efficient with their planning that it won't take quite so long.
So what are the positives that have come out of this so far? What challenges have we faced and where to next?
Positive outcomes so far
- Seeing children begin to take more ownership for their learning.
- A huge improvement in students' organisation skills, time management and the ability to manage their own learning.
- Class reflections on what is going well and how we can continue to make improvements.
- Children supporting each other with their weekly planning. The past two weeks we have done this first thing on a Friday morning. The children have shared that they'd like to be able to choose when they plan so as of week four one of their independent activities is to plan for the following week.
- Surprisingly more of a work/life balance over the weekend as a result of having to be organised for the following week earlier to enable the children to be successful with their planning.
- I've found that so far my role has stayed the same, but the children are shifting to a more personalised learning experience.
- A genuine lift in engagement with certain students.
- The timetables are displayed on the back classroom wall so their learning is visible and easily accessible.
Challenges I've come across and questions
- I'm still running guided reading sessions and maths groups every day as I normally would. Is this typically what happens when running this type of programme or should I be running workshops tailored to individual/group needs as the week progresses? I'm just aware that there still needs to be coverage of literacy and numeracy. What's the most effective way to go about this?
- Finding time to conference one on one with 29 students without dropping guided reading or group maths sessions.
- Working out what the best way to track individual children is. There are activities such as writing, maths practise etc where the children have a way to demonstrate that they've completed their learning. With other activities e.g. listening to reading, basic facts practise on the iPads etc I wouldn't honestly know if they had completed these activities or just ticked the box on the smorgasbord. Is there a way around this or is this where a level of trust with your students comes in?
- After three weeks it's still taking most children an hour or just over to plan for the following week. My bright sparks have got it down to close to half an hour. Is this roughly what you would expect or are there ways I can make the planning process more efficient?
- A lot of children found the time slots challenging. They didn't know how many activities to put into each slot or when they were meant to change from one activity to the next. We now have a timer on the board and when it has finished one of the children will shake the shaker and start the timer again. This has helped things to run a lot more smoothly. The children now simply put one activity into one box. If there are two shorter activities e.g. listening to reading and basic facts practise then I group these together on the smorgasbord so that the children know to place them in one box. The time slots and blocks are a rough guide. They don't have to swap activities as soon as the shaker goes, it's simply a reminder that a half hour slot is up. The more they reflect on their own learning, the better they're understanding this.
Where to next
- I still have a long way to go before the learning is truly personalised, but hopefully we are working towards the children becoming more independent learners.
- To find time to conference with individual children in greater depth, rather than a quick check of their work for the week.
- To spend some more time running group or class workshops around reflection.
- To get the rest of the individual blogs up and running so that the children can post video or written reflections to them.
If anyone has any suggestions, feedback or bright ideas I would love to hear them. This really is a beginning of a new journey for me, but has been a great way to learn alongside my students. Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences with us at It's a Learners' World. I came away feeling completely inspired.
