Today more than ever, world circumstances have created a time ripe for personalized learning. There are numerous learning platforms that have diversified the way people can learn things. Technology has become invasive. Most people have learned something on their own out of curiosity or necessity by searching up websites, you tube videos, or listening to a podcast. It makes sense that education would also embrace this powerful motivation in learning by making it self driven as much as possible. In my science classes students have a lot of choice when it comes to designing experiments and end products for projects. I give students objectives that their experiment has to meet but they are able to decide with their lab group what question they are going to answer and what method they will follow. It has meant that sometimes I had 9 different experiments happening in one class period (9 different lab groups) and it did border on chaos, but the engagement in the room was so high because kids had determined their own experiment. Of course this also meant things went wrong and teams had to rework their procedure and sometimes even change their question. They also observed and discovered things for themselves and had to ponder the why. This lead to research, another test, more thinking. It was just really satisfying to watch them create their own learning. Each group would also share their results with the class and then everybody could see the connections between the different experiments. In order to expand this type of learning and make it more effective I could increase the technology options in my class. Science content can be delievered in so many engaging ways. I think the Hyperdoc with a playlist that included several different ways to learn about the content and then options for application of the content. Students usually enjoy doing the labs in person, but there are also engaging simulations online that apply science concepts and allow students to easily manipulate the variables in an experiment. Videos are also a powerful learning tool in science. I have created lessons that I call Film Festivals. I select 3 or 4 videos that conatin similar content on a science standard we are learning. I ask them a question. One example was during our ecosystems unit. The questions was, "What does the balance of nature really mean? How would you describe it? " Students have choice about which videos they watch ( I pick different styles that all teach similar ideas) and I include 2 or 3 additional topics that are related but an extension of the science concept being learned. They takes notes while they watch and ususally answer the questions using a Claim, Evidence, Reasoning format. The challenge for me with personalized learning is the planning & feedback time. It does require more student conferencing, checkpoints. I could do this much more effcetively with google forms, screencasts, and probably Padlet or Flipgrid. The feedback does not have to be face to face live. One of the videos I watched about personalized learning created a great visual in my brain. The author said imagine that everything you want your students to know is like a giant map. You just have to figure out where they are on the map and help them move forward. The picture of that is in my mind and I think of it as the learner's journey. I'm a guide but it is their journey.
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AuthorHello! Welcome to my blog! This will be a fun place to share thoughts about teaching and learning. I am a middle school science teacher at Redwood. When I'm not teaching, I'm hanging out at home with my family or enjoying nature somewhere in the valley. Archives
March 2021
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