Are You Leading and Allowing or Are You Personalizing?

Will Brydon - @WillBrydon
Academy for Global Studies
Oshkosh Area School District

From Dipping to Diving

As class continues towards the first holiday break of the school year, I like to find time to reflect back on my students’ progress and evaluate where they are at in their learning journeys. So far, two units have been completed, each with the students having more scaffolded control of what is going on in the classroom. However, I can sense that below the surface of the classroom is a strong desire to jump further into personalized learning. It is time to move from talking about it and dipping our feet into a headfirst dive!

From Leader to Guide

However, when envisioning a different structure to a unit and a classroom, one must also re-envision his or her role in the classroom. For me, that encompassed looking at the two previous units of the year and how I functioned in the classroom. That reflection led me to the conclusion that, for the most part, I had been leading the class and allowing them options for voice, choice, and pacing. The key word there is “allowing,” since I want their desire to learn in this manner to come from inside themselves, not because I am channeling them towards this style of learning. In short, I needed to become less of a class leader and more of a class guide. The difference can be simply stated in my classroom. I need to have my students select their own unit, interact with their choice of curated materials, and create their own end product, and I will be there for them to guide their learning directions rather than dictate it. A guide is someone who keeps the students from straying too far off the beaten path into dangerous areas; whereas a leader is someone who tells the students where they are going, which way they are going to get there, and how long it will take. I think this distinction will make all the difference.

A Personalized Shakespeare

So, I now understood what needed to happen to see the changes I wanted to see in the classroom, but I still needed to design a structure that would permit me to guide the students. Our next unit focused on Shakespeare and his work The Tempest, which would be a completely new topic to a majority of my students. However, I did not see this lack of knowledge as a negative, as some might with no prior knowledge to activate. Instead, I saw this unit as the perfect one to try out my new system. At the onset of the unit, which is where I am right now, I outlined 9 different units that students to self-select to join that would frame their work with The Tempest. I also made sure to stress that students could also come up with their own unit ideas and work with me to design their own experience. The students will be making this unit choice based on their viewing of The Tempest film and their reading of Act I, which I plan to do as a full group. The students have been dipping their toes into this unit, but the time to fully dive in will really occur once we finish Act I as a class.

The Next Step

The framework for this new style of unit has been set, and the students are split between excitement and nervous apprehension. They aren’t sure exactly what to expect, and I am the first one to tell them that I share these emotions with them. I don’t know how it will look guiding students through potentially 9 (or more!) different units while simultaneously facilitating student growth in content knowledge and ELA skills, but I have come to embrace that fact. I need to grow with the students in order to give this process the best chance of working. Over the next week as we move through the first Act, students will gather has much information about Shakespeare and The Tempest to make an informed unit selection to work towards their original, completely self-designed project, and I will be gathering as much information as possible on my students to make myself into an informed guide. I need to understand where each student is going, how they want to get there, and how long they plan on taking in on this trip in order to be the best guide possible. Personalized learning is a path that goes between the teacher and the students, and I think this unit has made that path more clear. I am excited to see where we all end up!