Self-Guided Learning

For my first blog post in a few months, I thought I would give a brief overview of a style of learning that I tried this year that was quite new to me. I spoke with Christi Lovrics at a Cohort 21 meeting a few months ago. Her work with personalized learning and her use of google websites to host content for students really got me thinking. I “borrowed” some of her ideas and ran with them, and now I will talk a little about the experience. It is something like a combination of a Flipped Classroom and a Mastery Learning Program.

 

The unit of study was Linear Relationships and there was 23 learning goals. I built a website which had a webpage for each learning goal. Each of those webpages had a video, a problem set, and answers to those problems. To master a learning goal student needed to take notes on the video, complete the problem set (self-assessing their work as they went), and answer some discussion questions on that goal with a peer or teacher. Students were also given a tracking sheet to keep track of what they had completed. Every class is an open work period where students spent time asking questions and the only homework during this unit is to keep up with your goals so that you can finish all of them before the test. Students work through these goals at their own pace.

Every 4-5 learning goals, once the students felt confident with those topics, it was the students responsibility to ask for a quiz on that topic. They write the quiz in class, I mark it in front of them, and discuss mistakes with them as we go. Once the student has shown mastery of those 4-5 learning goals, they can move onto the next set. The only deadline the students had was “The test is in 6 weeks”.

In many ways, it was fantastic. Students were able to work at their own pace and style. Some worked in groups and some individually. Some watched the videos in class and some preferred to watch at home. In general, they all appreciated that they were in control. The most exciting part was the change in what I, as the teacher, was doing each class. I had already pre-made all of the videos so I spent no time directly delivering content. All of my time was spent discussion specific questions with students, pushing their thinking based on the questions they asked, and giving specific and immediate feedback. At the end of the class, the whiteboard was always covered with all different types of problems that I had worked to together with different students. It was the perfect visualization of all of the different paths students were on and the places they were at in their understanding.

There were also some challenges. The level of independence and responsibility that I required from the students was high, and this was difficult for some. Also, the level of “excitement” about the content was not as high as it might be through project work. Overall, 6 weeks in February was the perfect time to do this before going back to projects and problem based learning. By the end, while they did like the unit, they were happy it was done. Their skills and understanding as a class were in a great place. I hope to do it again next year and make improvements where I can (better videos, more creative problems to push students’ thinking, etc.).

Thanks again to Christi!