Personalized Learning in 13 Blogs--Step2: PLAN

Step 2: PLAN to keep treading water since we’re diving in the deep end. To find success, a plan was necessary to keep me on track. I needed to decide on a plan that was manageable for me, my co-teacher, and the students. I didn’t want to jump in over my head and be forced to back track. I wanted a plan that would allow me to build on it and sustain it throughout the year. I gave a lot of thought to the choices of personal pathways, learning environment, and student ownership & agency. For me, it all boiled down to student ownership & agency. I couldn’t see giving students personal pathways to their learning if I wasn’t comfortable with them setting goals, making plans, and reflecting on progress. I knew before I could give them learning environment choices, we would have to build trust in each other. I needed to know they could make appropriate choices based on our classroom rules and a respect for each other. My plan was to help them discover who they were as learners and to become productive, responsible learners. Now you should know that even when I was in 1st grade, I gave my students growth mindset surveys, introduced them to self-evaluation, lead them through goal-setting steps, and let them make some choices on what to do and where to sit. Now it is more the stock in the soup than the seasoning.