Written by How might we provide a personalized experience so students are aware and in control of their growth and development in Math
What makes a student great at learning?
Each student is on their own journey and there are ups and downs, highs and lows. Some students find their way easily in one subject and not so easily in another. Why is that? What is it?
Engagement. Which is the one word that could summarize 2 years of my action plan work with Cohort 21. Engagement. How do we get them more engaged?
My first year, I studied what I could do to make the classroom more engaging. But as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water…
How do we get them to buy in?
Part of my work this year, is to help the boys create their own digital porfolio as a representaion of their growth. The execution of this is “under construction” because I haven’t found a way to better organize their progress. But incidentally, I have found a way to get them to be more reflective and share their experiences in math. I now regularly have my students post in Seesaw to record their work, reflect on a test or document the journey they are taking on a particular question.
Here are a few examples of posts from this year.
Example 1: Students were asked to reflect on the test, correct any questions that required correcting and complete 3 more examples to practice that skill.
Example 2: Students were asked to create a “lesson” on one type of factoring along with some example problems.
Example 3: Here students were asked to reflect on their understanding of each factoring type and create a plan to tackle the part they found challenging.
Next steps will to have the students regularly and systematically reflect on their own learning so they can witness their own development when looking back through their “journal”
I also look forward to guiding the students on how to better document their growth. What to record, what to write, how to frame the entry so it is meaningful when they look back at their work.
I am thrilled with this as phase 1. I look forward to having this experience guide me to help the boys learn how to reflect, document and observe their growth and development in math.
Here is a link to my action plan slide deck.
As always, I am grateful to the cohort community as we continue to push one another to improve our practice and find joy in the process.