Module 8 Student Centered Classroom
1. Get Oriented
“Maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be.”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
We want each and every one of our students to thrive, to have access to every opportunity, and to grow as people and learners. Even though we are not seeing our students in the same physical space every day, we can create learning experiences and systems of support that foster student wellness and learning for ALL students. Module 9 explores possibilities in social-emotional learning (SEL) and student-centered distance learning classrooms. We will consider...
What are more strategies for ensuring student wellness and incorporating SEL?
How do we support all learners when we are in different spaces and places?
How can we improve how we "design learning for equity and access?"
These are big questions and topics that we do not want to minimize with a brief introduction. What's below is a birds-eye view of very important considerations wherever we are teaching. It's also just a start; OSPI's Equity Statement asks all of us to develop understanding and engagement to ensure educational equity. Consider this module a starting point for supporting action steps that hopefully continue into the next school year:
"Each student, family, and community possess strengths and cultural knowledge that benefits their peers, educators, and schools. Ensuring educational equity: Goes beyond equality; it requires education leaders to examine the ways current policies and practices result in disparate outcomes for our students of color, students living in poverty, students receiving special education and English Learner services, students who identify as LGBTQ+, and highly mobile student populations. Requires education leaders to develop an understanding of historical contexts; engage students, families, and community representatives as partners in decision making; and actively dismantle systemic barriers, replacing them with policies and practices that ensure all students have access to the instruction and support they need to succeed in our schools." -OSPI
Each module in this series encourages you to customize your experience to what you personally need. Pick and choose what best applies to you, your context, your comfort level, and your learners. Along the way, leverage Slack for questions, connections, and further resource sharing.
Ideally, please explore Module 8 prior to your cohort’s Zoom meeting. Your Zoom opportunities in Modules 5 through 8 are office hours where your facilitator will go deeper into module topics, structure opportunities to connect with others on the work you’re doing, and provide time for Q & A. Previewing the modules prior to those Zooms will help you maximize your time.
2. Read & View
“Every person needs a place that is furnished with hope”.
-Maya Angelou
Student centered classrooms are safe spaces where students have agency, feel safe, know their strengths, and can take risks. Just as in our brick and mortar classrooms, we have to consider…
How am I differentiating to meet the needs of all learners?
How am I supporting social-emotional learning needs?
How am I designing for equity?
How am I creating a thriving, safe, inclusive classroom community?
Student agency, warm communities, and rich, engaging learning experiences are the starting points for all of these questions. When we design for choice and provide ALL students with engaging, cognitively challenging experiences, we empower students to drive learning and to grow. In distance learning, this means planning for relationship building, planning for choice, and creating learning experiences that engage and stretch learners and foster independence.
"Instructional equity happens when the teacher is scaffolding learning to the point that the scaffold at some moment falls away, so that the student becomes independent." -Zaretta Hammond
The resources listed here invite choice. Read and view what seems most applicable to your learning and your practice. Just click on the buttons to visit the article sites and view the short videos
READ IT
What is SEL? CASEL
Culturally Responsive Teaching: What You Need to Know. Understood
Social-Emotional Learning Should be Priority during COVID-19 Crisis, Tim Walker
VIEW IT
Using Technology to Enhance Learning for All Learners
Social Emotional Health of Students Must Come First
Use Technology and Video to Differentiate Your Instruction
3. Reflect
Module reflections are self-directed opportunities to synthesize what you've explored and to consider your own practice. These are fast journal entries to invite new thinking and to inspire action steps.
"Emphasize health, safety, and SEL supports for students, families, and educators." -OPSI
"Plan and deliver content in multiple ways, so all students can access learning." -OSPI
This module covers broad topics around the theme of student-centered learning. It addresses the needs our students hold both in learning and wellness. Consider the topics of social-emotional wellness, student support, and equity. In quick bullet points, reflect on strategies and practices that are working for you right now and also on areas of concern.
Student-centered learning requires that students have voice and choice. Celebrate the ways you've added choice and voice to your distance learning plan. How are students exercising agency? What is working? Take a few moments to list your celebrations.
Think about your student rosters. Consider the names of students for whom you hold concerns or want more information. List their names and your current concerns and questions.
Read over your celebrations and your student names. Consider how the "Practice" section below might offer you activities that maximize your strengths and what is already working in your classroom. Also consider how the "Practice" section might help you support a student on your list in a helpful way.
4. Practice
Exploring this module with colleagues? Consider collaborating on one of the practice activities below and share feedback to one another on your experiences.
The following exercises are short action steps that offer you optional resources and activities to support your work in creating student centered classrooms. Consider trying one (or more!) out this week to enhance your practice. To reveal the instruction, click on the “TRY THIS” title(s) that interest you.
+ TRY THIS: Plan for Care
Read the article, "Cultural Responsiveness Starts with Real Caring". Zaretta Hammond writes, "Becoming culturally responsive starts with showing genuine caring that recognizes the unique gifts and talents of every child, particularly when that child doesn’t look like you." Consider your week ahead with your students. Where have designed for building rapport? Or for students to share their strengths and interests?
Consider...
Creating a class Flipgrid to showcase hobbies
Scheduling 10 minutes one-on-one Zooms to check in with students
Building a shared Padlet "bulletin board" for students to share images of interests
How will you connect with your students and design for them connecting with each other this week?
+ TRY THIS: Plan for Independence
Take a moment to read, "Guiding Students to be Independent Learners". It offers a series of exercises to promote motivation and independence in your classroom:
"Guide students to imagine how they will feel when they learn something new. Allow volunteers to describe their feelings after they learned something. When appropriate, ask students to visualize what a finished project will look like."
"Coach students to set goals and develop a plan for learning: Support students in developing their own learning goals that are realistic yet challenging. Often the most motivating goals are those that allow us to use our personal strengths."
"Teach students how to best structure their independent learning time."
"Teach students to self-assess: Ask students to write a letter to a student who will be in the class the next year. Upon completion of a project, unit, or chapter, ask students to summarize what they have learned and tell the future student how they have overcome any learning challenges."
Choose one of these prompts and adapt it to your week ahead. As we near the end of our school years, how might students writing letters to future students, setting learning goals, and sharing their learning process help them grow in their agency while also growing in learning goals?
+ TRY THIS: Plan for Learning Strategies
When our learners have opportunities to know and apply learning strategies, they begin to develop a personalized tool kit for driving their own learning pathways. Zaretta Hammond (Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain) challenges us to considerage to talk about their learning, to build positive mindsets and cultures of trust. Distance Learning requires a new set of learning skills. How do you sustain attention when you're at home? Take notes while on Zoom? Organize and plan your time? Leverage your strengths as a learner? Advocate for what you need?
Do a quick self-assessment.
How are you supporting your students in knowing themselves as learners and in employing strategies for learning in your weekly lessons?
Are students leveraging your channels of communication to ask questions, to share celebrations and concerns, and to advocate for what they need as learners?
Then, put that reflection into your planning. In the upcoming week, what is a strategy for learning that would be helpful to share? Who is a student who hasn't been asking questions to whom you might reach out?
+ TRY THIS: Plan for Challenge
An important concept of culturally responsive classrooms is giving all students cognitively challenging work. "Too often, teachers carry a huge cognitive work burden and are afraid to share too much of that work with their students. Of course, you have to build student capacity to carry the cognitive load over time. Too often we over-scaffold thinking we are sharing the cognitive load. Teachers should be encouraged to share more of this cognitive work, as it is more likely to increase: “Engagement comes when we are doing complex cognitive work that is fun,” Hammond says. “It is all about helping students not only reclaim their sense of confidence but be the leaders of their own learning – getting them to the point where as independent learners they are carrying the majority of the cognitive load – they self-initiate.” ("What We've Learned About Culturally Responsive Teaching")
Consider what "complex cognitive work" means to you. Also reflect on what "leaders of their own learning" might look like in your classroom. Think about...
When are students doing hands-on learning?
When are they solving problems?
How do they get to explain their thinking and processes and take ownership for their choices?
Where do you design for engagement, provocations, and curiosity?
Choose an idea from your reflection and/or from the bullet points above and consider how you might enhance your student experience in the next week for deeper learning experiences.
5. Dive Deeper
If you have time and interest, explore these optional resources for more feedback rich inspiration. Also, check Slack for what your cohort is posting to extend one another’s learning.
Casel Cares: SEL Resources During Covid-19
The Learning Lab Video Series by Brené Brown
8 Tips for Conducting Virtual IEP Meetings
How Teachers are Changing Grading Practices with an Eye for Equity
Building SEL Skills Through Formative Assessment
Resources for Educating Students with Disabilities During the Coronavirus Crisis
The Importance and Impact of Greetings in Virtual Hallways
Making Connections: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain
6. Share
Click to Access Slack
How can you extend your own learning and the learning of others with a post in Slack? Before moving on from this module, turn to the Module 8 channel in Slack. Consider sharing in that space:
A strategy that is helping you cultivate a healthy classroom culture
A wish you have in your current distance learning classroom around student wellness, equity, and learning
A resource that will inspire and extend our module learning
A question you're wondering around student-centered classrooms
Keep returning to Slack for support, resources, and extensions of learning. Make the most of that participant curated space and reflect on how a similar approach might support your students.
7. Review
Self checks for understanding help your students take agency for their progress and next steps. They provide affirmation that they are on the right track or insights to the questions they need to ask.
Take a moment to consider your own affirmations and questions:
Do you have a strategy or approach you're going to try out this week to improve your student-centered classroom culture?
Are you celebrating the ways you're meeting the social-emotional needs of your students?
Did you share an idea or question in Slack or borrow inspiration from the Module 8 Slack channel?
Thank you for all you’re sharing, trying, and doing for your students.
NEXT: After previewing this module, you'll engage in a corresponding Zoom meeting. However, following this 8th Module and Zoom, our series closes with a final Zoom meeting. It does not have a corresponding online module and is celebratory Zoom opportunity to reflect on how we have grown and what we'll continue to take with us as educators. Thank you for all you're sharing, trying, and doing for your students!