I previously taught gaming at another high school and have some lesson plans and projects already but this coming school year will be different! The school I will be at is working towards personalized learning. I am currently enrolled in the 5 W's of Personalized Learning to learn more about the process. I am also gathering a wealth of information from articles and blogs written by teachers. Teachers that have already been through the process and now do personalized learning in their classrooms. What an exciting prospect! I don't know about it being "personalized" but more making learning "personal" excites me.
I love the idea of personal learning because truth be told I was no honor roll student. Actually...I got mostly C's and a few D's and was so proud when I got B's or A's. I always knew my grades weren't a lack of intelligence or laziness but that I was bored. SO BORED! I was disengaged and never learned about anything I was actually interested in until one English class. The teacher let us do a final project on anything we wanted. It wasn't fully personalized learning because he gave us a specific timeline and rubric with requirements of 10+ pages, a presentation, interactive piece, and visual display but we did have the choice to do it on absolutely ANY topic. I did mine on Bob Dylan. My interactive piece was going to a Bob Dylan concert, my presentation involved playing his music and talking about what I learned in class, and my paper was all his life and music career. It was the first thing I ever did in school that made me smile when I worked on it and made me proud of the finished product. It was exciting, interesting, and I actually learned a lot. Not just about Bob Dylan but the influence on music he had, the influence music has had on society, how people can overcome amazing things in their life, how to write a well written paper in MLA style, and so much more.
What if I had full "voice and choice" as a student in all my courses? Would I have been an "A" student who actually remembered the things I learned? Personal learning is all about teacher and learner roles changing. This does not mean the teacher does nothing and the student works extra hard. Personal learning to me means teacher facilitates learning, helps students locate resources, introduces them to new information, gives the student voice and choice in what they learn, and gives students the power to become learners instead of just students following orders. It makes the teacher and student partners in learning.
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I started designing what personal learning would look like in a classroom where department of education standards are required to be covered. How much choice can students have, right? I am lucky enough to teach a course that students have to choose to be in (not required by the law or high school) so that certainly helps. I started to think of ways I can give students voice and choice.
I decided that each week students can choose a project (based on current topics but extremely flexible); the weekly timeframe is a starting point and if the student needs more time and is doing an advanced project they come to me, talk it out, and I will extend it. I want to make the topic personal to the students. Students will also answer three questions (these were adapted from some of the blogs/articles I've been reading):
What am I going to learn? How am I going to learn it? How am I going to show the teacher I’ve learned?
Students already have a lot more voice by answering these 3 questions than they ever had in the past. The question of how they'll show me what they've learned is the most exciting because there are not limitations and the students decide on their own form of "assessment". I plan on giving suggestions to get them started like social media campaign, publishing works (website, app, etc.), blog, tri-fold, PowerPoint presentation, video production project, informational booklet, collages, play/skit, research paper, creating a playable game, and so much more. The great thing is I am not going to give them 3 choices and they pick one. I am going to encourage them to get creative and show me something I haven't seen before or if one of my suggestions interests them that is fine too. If a student is artistic they could create a comic strip or storyboard with just as much information as a PowerPoint the business minded student might create or the video game the technological student may do. All of these show the student learned so why limit them?
My idea for Friday's is what is most exciting to me though. Fridays I want to be for sharing sessions. If a student has a presentation they can do it that day. If a student wants to bounce ideas off other students Friday is the day. In general Fridays will be open for students sharing information about what they are currently working on, what they have learned so far, what is not working for them, and how they are planning to adjust in the future. Sharing all the different things students are doing with one another allows students to also learn from each other in an interesting way. I also will incorporate group projects and larger individual projects but once again...on the students terms with me as a guide rather than a one size fits all lesson planner.
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