Читать книгу The Perfect Blend - Michele Eaton - Страница 39

Blending your classroom can create opportunities for student agency and voice over four aspects of your students’ learning:

• Pace

• Path

• Time

• Place

One of the scariest things about personalizing learning, whether it is in a blended classroom or not, is the fear of losing control, but your classroom does not need to turn into the “wild, wild west” to give students a voice. At any given time, students do not need to have agency over pace, path, time, and place. For example, in a math class, it may be more difficult to give students much control over the path of their learning. You can give them choices in how they learn the content, but each topic and lesson might have to be completely controlled by the teacher. In a math class, often each lesson builds on itself, creating a foundation for the next lesson. In this environment, you may put more focus on student agency in the pace of learning to help ensure each student is reaching mastery before moving on to the next concept. A student-centered learning environment does not mean a lack of structure.

What you give students control over in your classroom is a personal decision. It depends so much on what you are teaching, the time of the year (especially for our youngest learners), your teaching style, and the individual students in your classroom. It can change from semester to semester, day to day, and even lesson to lesson. Although students do not have to drive every decision in the classroom, you should be designing experiences that allow them to be in the driver’s seat for some aspects of each lesson. As the year progresses, also consider how that student agency is growing or changing and adapt your lessons to accommodate your students’ increased mastery.

Technology is more than a tool to entertain or engage students. It can be the vehicle for truly personalized learning that empowers students to take ownership of their learning. As you will see in the following sections, technology can play a vital role in improving student agency in pace, path, time, and place.