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Individualization

Trying New Ideas:

Approaching new teaching/learning roles

When we come to believe that students all matter and that teacher student and content are important, we also realize that the huge span of ability in the classroom is our greatest gift and our biggest threat to good education. It is also the most critical factor in balancing the voices in education and in the community.

Wide ranges in ability and numerous kinds of intellectual gifts mean that we perceive delivery of content as though students are capable of being co-teachers, not just recipients, and we develop prototypes and materials for students to self monitor, self instruct, self correct, and in addition, help one another, or work in cooperative peer groupings, either as pairs or as learning groups.

In order to satisfy this diverse range of subjects, methods and skill levels, the teacher has to learn to "let go." No longer can a teacher be in charge of every moment. Now students must be trusted to:

want to work,
have good personal internal incentives to behave,
evaluate and act upon factors preventing learning,
work in community [students learn to network, share strengths in one area and use the strengths or insights of others in another area. We recognize that a student can learn from peers - so if it's fair game to learn and use the teacher's answers, we expect them to write them down and memorize them, it's also fine if they use another student's answers],
we find many different ways to grade so students aren't in competition, and thus unwilling to work as a community,
we allow time for student planning, teach youth to make their own objectives, instruct them in numerous ways to prove they know things [that's how we got to portfolios and the impetus for rubrics] and trust self evaluations and self monitoring.

We also need to rethink the teaching role as less a "professor" or disseminator of knowledge and more as a facilitator.

Making the change is deceptively simple.

This is one teacher's answer to individualizing language arts.

I look at the expectations of the State and District.
1. I put the spectrum of goals and objectives out in linear fashion so that I can be sure students and I are clear about what our end result should be
2. I find or devise a pretest that will let me know how students are doing and how far along they are on the continuum of experiences and expertise
3. Once students take the global test, the students and I look at the results
4. I help students learn to make objectives and to see how they can take on a skill they don't yet have -- example -- student doesn't ever use quotations in their stories.
5. I teach them to look through books, filmstrips, the library, etc., to find ways to learn that skill. In this case, students soon realize that many plays and stories are written using quotations.
6. A group of students decides that they will write a play and put it on in order to learn the skills in a fun way, and show that they have the skills.
7. Finally, we agree to the idea of a play and then also agree that there will be peer reviewers who will look to see if the grammar part of the play is correct and we get agreement from all, that they will only begin rehearsing the play once the grammar passes evaluation.

Now I have a group of students who are learning to set objectives, to use their own energy, interests and enthusiasm to learn something important. In the same way, I set up other groups or individuals to make their own projects. I also allow students who are linear or don't want to work as a group, to go through the book, reading and answering questions.

I go to the old book depository and pick up workbooks that teach the continuum of skills, so students have models of ways to learn, and can choose the tests in the book or activities already written out to prove their skills.

I may support a group's limits by helping them, facilitating learning, because I'm not up at the front talking all the time. I now have time to move from group to group, nudging, supporting, creating better ways to get a point across.

I set up time on Friday for each student to plan the coming week's objectives and also set up monitoring moments that mean most of the class can wind up providing evidence of the week's work in under ten minute's time. "Checking progress" means having students come to my desk, provide proofs of the past week's activities and show assignments that are peer checked or self checked, to make certain the student is getting good advice or really understands the concepts and content.

Yes, a few students will take advantage of the situation, but a lot fewer than most people think. In fact, I used these techniques to teach reading and math, and found the students made between two and three years of progress in one year, just by being trusted and getting to go at a personal pace that matched what they could learn. It was amazing how much it made them want to learn!

I found a lot of good literature and ideas for implementation by reading about "writing workshop", in multi-age multi-graded material, individualization. Of course the thing that really worked was believing in myself and trusting that day by day, as I made mistakes and took risks, I would be getting better and better at it.... and I did!

Write and post a brief paragraph on Online Reading 4: Balancing the Voices in Education.

You will want to address issues like teaching role, the value of content, balancing the needs of the student with the needs of the teacher, the importance of preparing the student for success in life, yet understanding the importance of letting the student become who he or she is, and honing the personal gift of self.

You should now go to the virtual conference center.

Once you have completed this topic you should:

Go on to Assignment 3
or
Go back to Online Reading 4

E-mail J'Anne Ellsworth at Janne.Ellsworth@nau.edu

Course Created by J'Anne Ellsworth & Center for Technology Enhanced Learning