Instructional Strategies to Consider

[Digital Age ideas that I’m seeing, reading about, &/or trying…and how I’m processing them]

Learners Choice:  

Having Options Helps Students Get Excited About Learning

I recently experienced some great Digital Age instruction in which students were given lots of input as to how they were going to proceed in achieving various learning goals.  I noticed incredibly high levels of engagement.  It’s no secret that interest & choice are great motivators.  I was thrilled to see those forces at work so effectively in this classroom!

I have the privilege of regularly spending time with this first/second grade multiage group.  They are currently wrapped up in anawesome inquiry project.  From the beginning, the wonderful Ms. Prindle and her teammates, Ms. Czarnopys and Mrs. Heaton, gave each student plenty of room to decide what he/she wanted to study.  They modeled ways in which scientists work, they explored and highlighted key features of informational text, and they drove home the notion of critical thinking and adaptability in exploration.  These kids are six and seven years old.  The dedication that they’re showing to this course of study is unbelievable – but it’s true!  To the right you can see a couple of researchers working on constructing a presentation that will represent their learning.  You can see that one student is diligently making notes on an organizational guide and the other is busy cutting out a graphic to attach to his piece.  They are each equally engaged in their work and barely had the time to give me a brief up-date when I stopped them to ask, “How’s it going?”  I thought that was pretty cool.

These students weren’t in a rush to finish, they simply wanted to be sure that there would be enough time before lunch to compete the tasks they were working on in the ways that they envisioned them.  It was important work!  These students are doing the work of scientists, focused on interest driven topics, learning and practicing critical research and writing skills, with guidance, support, AND autonomy.  Below are some pictures of more engaged first and second graders getting ready to create a scientific museum so that they can share their work, just like real scientists do!