Written by During our F2F I wanted to learn more about personalizing my lessons, and felt really conflicted. How do I personalize the educational experience for my students in a completely impersonal program! The IB Diploma program requires students to write a final exam worth 74% of the student’s final grade, hence traditionally in my Bio class, all final assessments are written and based on previous IB style questions. This format helps students learn how to answer these types of questions when they sit down for their final exam set by the IB organization. The rigidity of the program has always been a major stumbling block for me.
How do I make their high school Biology experience more engaging? I know differentiated instruction is not really getting to the root of making education personal to the students. Sure, lessons and assessments can be differentiated by achievement levels, interest, multiple intelligence etc. but these strategies don’t really give students the autonomy of making their learning impactful and personal. To learn more: I found this great guide to understanding more about PERSONALIZED LEARNING.
I recently had a discussion with a friend who teaches 3rd year Biology seminar courses at U of T, she mentioned that students have a difficult time in her class. This conversation along with my discussions during F2F in November inspired me to try something new in this upcoming unit in Gr. 12 Biology. Instead of the traditional test, students will lead a round-table discussion based on a Ecological topic of their choice. We will work on IB specific questions in formative assessments only, so they still get exposure to them. To start, I selected 5 topics in the syllabus and gathered a collection of articles for students to choose from. Students were provided with a rubric and guidelines for our discussion based on the Harkness table approach. Students will still be going through the IB syllabus and learning the info in our classes, then we will sit down all together to have our Harkness table discussions at the end of the unit.
I am excited to go on this journey with my students. So far the feedback as been really positive.
“So we get to talk about a topic we are interested in?”
“I suck at tests but I’m great at talking! YES!”
This week, students are going through the articles and looking for a topic of interest, they are also combing through the syllabus to see how the topic of their choice will relate to the information we learn in class. Although I know i could leave it very open-ended and student orientated during the next month, I will be giving short lessons about specific topics in Ecology so they can incorporate the information in their discussions. I can already see students getting involved in taking down notes that they will need to refer to for their own discussions.
I’m sure many of you have done roundtable discussions as a summative assessment before. I would love to hear any tips/strategies you used to help keep students on-track during discussions, and to ensure students all have a chance to participate. I was thinking of giving students 10 paper clips each, and as they make comments on other people’s topics, they keep track of their participation by moving their paper clips in front of them. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
Rita,
That personalized learning link from BC is fascinating! Wow. Lots to think about there. We will definitely want to share that this weekend.
http://www.personalizedlearningbc.ca/#/1
Good for you for taking on the personalization of the IB! I too was impressed by the BC publication. My first hunch is that schools will have to re-think the structure of schools and curriculum before we can really personalize education. That being said, we all know that we learn best when we are following our own authentic questions. I wonder if their are minor ways in which we can see this happen. For one, I think we need to give students the time to raise their own questions and to follow those questions. I guess the personal project and extended essay enshrine this principle. The question is whether we can convince students that by following their own questions they may be in a better position to face the IB exams. My fear is that too many young people have had the personal curiosity and questioning driven out of them – that’s why we have to work at building it back in.
Good luck! A good person to talk to about Harkness table approaches is Fiona Marshall. She used to teach at The York School, but is now at UCC. Megan Gardner is also well-versed in the art of the Harkness Table, but her attention is more on the change table right now!
Hey Rita,
I just stumbled across the BC document for personalised learning and you’re right it’s a very rich document that we can share this weekend and sort out how to incorporate the strategies discussed in our own classrooms.
I like your paper clip idea. Round table discussions are sometimes difficult to moderate if one person tries to dominate the conversation, so I would try to work in interaction into the process.
Could you give each student a certain number of paper clips, and once their clips are gone they have to sit and listen? Depends on the class but from my experience these discussions are dominated by a few and many sit back.
I look forward to hearing more about what you’re doing in your classes. See you Saturday!
Rita,
This sounds fantastic! I would love to hear about how it went with you. How did the level of engagement compare with other topics? It will also be interesting to see how students perform on this section of their upcoming test. Maybe at some point I could learn from you and incorporate this into one of my upcoming option topics in Chemistry!