Hello All! Welcome back! Lord, July is almost over already!
You know what that means? Back to School! Arrgggghh! We official go back to
work on August 9th (Very early, I know). But, I work at a charter
school so it kind of comes with the territory. Anywho, by this time of the
year, I’m pretty much ready to go back to work anyway. The kids are out of
camp, and I am over washing dishes every hour on the hour!
I received some pretty AMAZING news this week. My classroom
has been chosen to transform into a model personalized learning classroom. What
does that mean? NEW FURNITURE! Yayyy! I was blessed with $5000 worth of awesome
furniture from a model showroom as well as $2500 worth of furniture from a top
flexible learning designer. How cool is that? I cannot wait to show you guys
this great transformation we are about to undertake. The only drawback is that
the furniture will not be available until after the first few weeks of school.
At first I was a little bummed, but then I realized that would give me the
chance to introduce flexible seating and class routines without the
overwhelming excitement of brand new class furniture.
As I began to think about my new class design, I decided
that I want to dive deep into the personalized learning realm. By this, I mean
true personalized learning (not just groups of highs, mids and lows). I give
student interest inventories at the beginning of each year and by October they
are gone by the wayside. However, the information I can gather is significant
in getting to know what each child likes, their strengths and areas of
improvement. Although, I love these, I realize I teach 2nd grade and
the inventories are more times than none completed by the parent, read by me
once and never seen again! Last year, my school started to redesign our framework
to better support PL. We implemented student learner profiles! This is a
digital record of the student’s academic data, goals, strengths, areas of
growth and parental notes. I conducted 1:1 interviews with each student and
gathered as much information as I could. During parent-teacher conferences, I
shared the learner profiles with parents and added any extra information they
provided.
My favorite part about our learner profiles is that each
student has access to their learner profile and may enter any goal setting or
goal tracking data they want to share. Yes, we did this in 2nd
grade! My students were so excited to show how much they have improved in their
area of growth and develop plans on how they want to work. It was truly
amazing. Here are a few resources I have
used to help develop my student Learner Profiles:
Now I am at a crossroad; I have the flexible learning environment
and I also have the learner profiles. My question is what is the next step?
What do I do what all the information I have gathered? How can I implement student
interest when I have a set curriculum that I must follow? This year, I want to
think outside of the box and allow the students to drive their own learning
with me as a true facilitator. But, where does that begin?
If you have any experience, insights, thoughts, comments or
questions about personalized learning, please share in the comment box below. I
would love to hear about your classroom and where you are in the PL journey!
Until Next time!
~Kay
No comments:
Post a Comment