Self-Directed Learning 10W

As my Year 10 students have began preparing for their end of year examination I spent a while thinking about what the best strategy would be to approach the six in class study periods I had allocated them.

In this class I have quite a wide range of abilities and learning styles. There are students who are sitting at Level 6 of the NZC and then I have students who are sitting at Level 3. I have students who are very self-motivated and I also have students who require more guidance.

I decided to implement a self-directed learning structure in the classroom, after observing this at Koputuroa School last year. At the beginning of the revision period I printed out an exam skills checklist. This had specifically outlined each individual skill the students would need to know to pass the exam. On this check list they need to self-assess whether they needed a lot, a little, or no revision of each skill. The purpose of the checklist was to act as a visual aid for students so they could make a judgement of their overall learning position. It also allows students to quickly identify which skills they need to practice and is a working document - they can keep coming back to it and changing it.

Once the students had completed their self-assessment I explained that the six revision periods were going to be entirely self-directed. They would need to use the resources around them (Chromebooks, textbooks, worksheets, their peers, and myself) to gain the information they needed to revise. To aid in this slightly I prepared a clear file with a range of worksheets and also wrote a textbook guide (a number of exercises that linked with each skill).

In terms of the students utilising my knowledge for revision I implemented a workshop system. With 30 students in the class I knew it would have turned into chaos with students requesting my help. So I created a timetable for class time, lunchtime, and after school. During each time frame I outlined a different workshop topic and the students needed to "opt in" for whichever workshops they wished to attend. Each workshop is about 15-20 minutes long and involves me going through instruction and examples of the skill and then some practice questions. I will work through the practice questions as required and provide further practice questions for the students to complete individually.

During class time, I have time to run two workshops with time in between. During this time, I float around the room helping students as required and use my usual tool of the "help board" where students create a waiting line for my help on the board. This strategy works really well as it helps me to keep track of who is next for help and has also created an expectation that the students know help is coming and in the mean time they need to work on something they can achieve.

So far, I have found that the self-directed learning is working really well. Students really seem to like the exam checklist as it has is given them some direction (which I think they do still like) but are also enjoying that they can pick and choose what they want to work on. Each day the students seem to form small groups where they work together on the same skills and help one another which has been great to see. It is also working really well for the advanced students as they are able to move ahead at a pace that is suiting them and complete the higher level thinking activities that would enable them to do well in the exam. The workshops have also worked well. I had quite a few students come along for the first workshop and once it had started realised they did actually know how to complete the skill. It was good for them to have that positive affirmation that they are on the right track - and I sent them off to continue working individually so that I could work at the slower pace with the students that did need it.

#PTC4 #PTC6 #PTC7 #PTC8 #PTC9 #PTC11 #PTC12 #Inquiry #LessonPlanning #Reflection #ProfessionalDevelopment