How to create a student-driven classroom
With one middle school son and one soon-to-be middle schooler this school year, and my husband and I both working, getting ready for work in the morning and getting the boys ready for school can be a little chaotic. Do they have their lunches, projects, chromebooks, water bottles, and everything else for the day? Do they have what they need for afterschool sports and other activities? Did they remember to brush their teeth and take their vitamins? During the school year I rush around, chasing my sons down, asking a million questions about what they need for the day and whether they had gotten everything together or not. Towards the end of this past year, I was met with a lot of, “Yeah, mom. You already asked me to go get that. I got it,” in a tone (and with some eye rolling) that only a middle schooler could deliver. 😂
I’m told that when I’m not at home for these moments, and it’s just my husband with the boys, that the process is much smoother. Hmm…it got me thinking. As much as I want my children to need me in every way possible, I have a habit of just doing too much for them. They’re right. They do have it. While I’m still a work in progress when it comes to letting go a bit, I do know that my sons are totally capable of doing so much themselves.
This also holds true for our students. Many of us are simply doing too much for them. We’re doing all the hard work, when in reality, if we were to spend some time to teach our students how to take on some of this work themselves, our students, and even ourselves, could be better for it.
What I’m talking about here is student agency and ownership.
So often we tell our students what they will do, how they will do it, and exactly one way to show us their learning. I get it. I was taught to teach this way and I also experienced this myself as a K-12 student. This type of instruction and assessment is what I was familiar with. And, like many of you, I love to teach in my comfort zone.
Simple changes—like putting some of the ownership of teaching and learning on our students—can make a huge difference when it comes to student engagement and motivation, meeting students’ learning and social needs, teaching for depth, student individuality and student ownership (all of which foster equity in your classroom!).
Here are some practical ideas on how you might make some of these shifts a reality in your classroom this year:
Set firm goals, but make space for flexible means
Articulate verbally, and in writing, the standards or goals of each class meeting. Also share about two to three ways that students can choose to show you that they have achieved these goals. Better yet, ask students what they think they can do to show you that they’ve “got it”. Put them in the driver's seat, and let them choose. You want to maintain high standards and there’s a lot of ways that students can find success. Even if these are new ways that you might not have tried before.
The same can be said for how students are learning new information and working on skills. How many different ways can they engage with the content? Have a couple of ideas and then ask them for other suggestions. This gives them a voice and encourages them to think critically about their learning process. For example, if the goal is to explain their understanding of a key musical concept, they may write their understanding, create a short video, or make a multimedia presentation. They can perform something, draw something, work in teams, work alone, and use a variety of instruments and manipulatives. They can interview each other and create a podcast. There are so many tools that can help them explain something. Keep high expectations high but be flexible with how students get there. A note of caution: Beware of choice overload. This is a real thing, and can actually hamper student creativity. I would stick to three to four choices on different ways to be assessed or ways to experience new content.
Try Jigsaw Teaching
When you use jigsaw teaching, teaching and learning become student-led when students become experts on a particular topic and then teach it to their peers while you observe, check in with small groups, and provide action-oriented feedback. For example, imagine you want students to compose a short piece of music based on a story or silent movie plot. You want this piece of music to have a specific music form and use elements of tempo and dynamics to enhance the story. Instead of teaching (or reviewing with) students about musical form, major/minor, tempo and dynamics as a whole class, you can create groups of students who draft questions, create roles within the group, learn about one of these musical elements so they can develop an engaging lesson to share with their classmates. Next, you can regroup students so each group has someone who is an expert in each musical concept. This way, they can teach each other while you observe and provide formative feedback and targeted instruction when necessary. On a practical note: The teaching portion of it (that you would need to do with different groups of students before they can teach each other) has worked well for me when I make it one of my “stations” when doing stations. It would just be part of the rotation.
Make space for “openers and closers”
In a time when most of us are rushing around and trying to squeeze a lot of teaching into a small amount of time, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could know exactly what our students are thinking and struggling with and what might help them more? Spoiler alert: We can! Consider taking a few minutes at the beginning or ending of class (or both!) to get student feedback about how they are doing and what they need. You can do this as exit tickets, journaling, think-pair-share, or just old-fashioned whole group share. Either way, give students choice on how they want to give you this feedback, because choice does matter when it comes to having students feel comfortable with sharing responses. Here are some questions that can go a long way in helping you decide what you (and they!) can do next in the classroom:
Class openers (to be given to students before class starts - tweak language as necessary for your own students):
One skill I would like more feedback on is X because Y
Based on where we are at in this project, composition, or piece of music, today I expect to learn about X because of Y
Given today’s learning goals, I think I might be frustrated by X because of Y
If I could ask my teacher one question right now, before today’s class starts, it would be X because of Y
I am currently feeling X about this class because of Y
Class closers (to be given to students at the end of class - tweak language as necessary for your own students):
TILT: Today I learned to..
3-2-1 Method: 3 things you learned, 2 connections you made, and 1 question you have
In order to be successful in tomorrow’s continuation of this lesson, I need X because Y
X is working for me because Y
X has me confused because Y
Based on today’s class, if I am going to really be successful, I need to do X by Y
By next week, I want to be able to say I did X
