-Caitlin Cook
Personalized learning elements can promote student agency for students of varying ability levels.
I do not consider myself an uptight, completely type-a individual. However, in my first few years of teaching, it was difficult to wrap my brain around putting responsibility of learning into the hands of my learners when I “needed to get so many things done.” I perceived ensuring everything went according to my “plan” as having great classroom management and learners getting the instruction/learning that they needed to in order to make progress. As a special education teacher of learners with significant intellectual disabilities and autism, I have always had high expectations for my learners and strive to promote independence. When I signed up to be a part of my master’s program focusing on personalized learning, I was able to build from that foundation of desire to instill independent skills. Through my learning, I began to push the boundaries of my own thinking and tried to incorporate aspects of another way of doing business--- because it truly works for all learners. Why couldn’t my learners be in charge of choosing their learning, sharing about their learning, and be able to engage in reflection, delving into deeper levels of understanding? What could the positive outcomes be from truly letting go of full control and guiding learners to more actively take charge of their learning? By engaging in my own self-reflection, I decided to hone in on community based learning as the framework for applying personalized learning aspects more thoughtfully and meaningfully.
Below are two major shifts I made to my teaching through my journey in personalized learning.
Reflection
How can I tap into present or previous learning to help learners reflect about their learning? Before this school year, I struggled to thoughtfully plan in times for reflection for learners. It seemed so difficult to fathom when there are a multitude of other curricular areas and objectives that need to be addressed. I began to be more cognizant of making the time to have learners reflect about their learning after a community trip and making connections between the functions and purposes of places they have been.
In a student-led discussion, learners offered ideas of the reasons we go to places, what sorts of activities we can do there, and how places are interconnected based on their functions or purposes. This has shown me that learners were successfully thinking and verbalizing much more deeply than I thought possible, with less adult assistance than I believed was needed.
Immediately following each community trip, our two groups join together for large community circle, sharing about something they learned, verbally or nonverbally. This time of the day was built up through modeling and guiding prompts so that learners run the entire conversation nearly independently: asking follow up questions to the speaker, calling on another person to share, and repeating to cycle. In order to build on this large-group success, learners began to individually use a visual reflection sheet on which they wrote full sentences, a single sentence, words or phrases, or circled a picture of what they learned on the trip. Based on student strengths and needs, appropriate supports are included such as picture choices, sentence stems/starters, visuals, etc. Then, they chose and inserted evidence tied directly to their new learning, such as a picture or video. Finally, they reflected on how they knew they learned or what their emotion was and why.
Learner responses became more and more thoughtful and insightful and drew from our learning about Zones of Regulation as well as upon past learning experiences. One learner wrote “I feel happy because I got to teach my friends.” Through their reflection, learners were able to practice articulating their understanding to others and this flowed into verbal conversations with staff, peers, and families. This was extremely powerful for me to see as a teacher because it confirmed that learners are building metacognitive skills surrounding their thinking and feelings in addition to feeling proud of their achievements.
Student voice and choice
In the past, I spent a lot of time personally conveying the importance of community trips to practice life skills learning, build independence, and build learner self-confidence. While parents understood what our department’s goals for community were, they did not hear as much about community trips directly from their learners, especially if their child struggles with language. Due to the highly engaging nature of community trips, learners naturally wanted to share more about them; they just needed a springboard for this. I began using our department website as a blog to showcase individual learning and learner created projects demonstrating their learning. Through this small addition, parents, staff, and regular education peers have seen immense growth in communication with our learners as they are even more eager to engage with others, using blog posts to show visuals and use language to communicate. The addition of a blog to our department website has allowed learners to take ownership of sharing their learning as they began writing and creating blog posts with lessening scaffolds and supports, to the point of total independence. Another critical aspect of our department blog has been the supportive response from parents, staff, and others in the community. Parents became increasingly more and more engaged in supporting learners and our programming by commenting on our blog posts with encouraging notes and words for students and offering positive praise for the learning happening in our department as a whole.
In addition, this year, learners began to plan their own community trip in small groups using system bus maps, specific route maps, and visual supports including pictures of stores or restaurant, organized by shopping center. Learners had to choose a shopping center to go to, store for an activity, activity or skill to practice or teach others, restaurant for lunch, and decipher the timing for the use of public transportation within the time parameters given. Using previous knowledge and experiences, our older learners were able to serve as role models with asking guiding questions to facilitate their group’s discussion, allowing them to take on a leadership role in the small group. Letting go of the task of planning each weekly trip alleviated some of my time and responsibility and put it directly into the hands of the learners. This simple switch has led to learners developing a true sense of power over their decisions, ownership, and pride. In addition, engagement while completing activities at various locations has risen as learners feel invested in their learning and have a high sense of agency since they were a vital part in choosing the trip. When learners are highly motivated by a trip’s contents and are engaged with their learning, behavior issues fall to the wayside and allow authentic learning to take place.
Final Thoughts
Over the span of the three years I see learners in our department, learners grow immensely through community trips with language, conversation skills, and developing a sense of pride and ownership. For this reason, when thinking about an area in which I could push on my own thinking, I decided to hone in on community trips. The two major shifts I made in my teaching yielded positive outcomes for all learners regardless of ability level. I began with two elements I identified as in my “stretch zone,” things that were just outside of my comfort zone as a learning facilitator and as these things become a part of what my students typically do, I am able to add more elements of personalized learning, that are now closer to my stretch zone, into my teaching routine. As teachers, it is our job to ensure that learners develop a mindset of lifelong learning, prepare them with the habits they will need in the world beyond high school, and instill accountability for their learning. By incorporating personalized learning elements into community based learning experiences and putting responsibility into the hands of my learners, I let go of full control and my learners to began to soar independently.