Like most public school teachers, I teach by the standards and follow our curriculum with fidelity. I'm fortunate to work for a district who allows autonomy in teaching as long as we follow the sequence of standards in our curriculum design. For years, I've dutifully posted the daily objective in whatever format the district asks - everything from SWBAT to today's I CAN.
Today was different.
Over the summer, I participated in a Voxer-based book study of Sir Ken Robinson's Creative Schools with my virtual PLN. During a Twitter chat, I learned about Don Wettrick's book, Pure Genius, and read it in one sitting. Over the weekend, I ran across an old (2011) blog post titled, For the Love of Learning: Stop Writing Objectives on the Board.
Whoa. The video referenced in the blog post got me thinking - what if I didn't tell my students everything about what and how we'll learn that day and let them discover the "I Can" on their own?
In comes my 2nd hour Honors ELA class. They sit down, and with polite compliance open their planners to jot down the day's I Can statement, only to notice that it has ?? instead of words. The essential question was posted, as well as an agenda, but I challenged them to do a little educational experiment with me. I shared the main ideas of what I'd been reading, showed them a little bit of the video referenced in the blog post, and immediately, they asked, "Can we learn like that?"
Here were some of their other comments (paraphrased):
- I only write the assessment/objective in my planner because teachers expect it.
- I never look at the objective, but do pay attention to what I write for homework or other to-do items.
- When you give us the I Can at the beginning of class, it's like you're the one telling us what we will learn instead of us doing the learning. We already know the end before the beginning.
- How do you know we can't learn/do more than you expect?
- You're giving away the end before we learn what it is we can do.
- We may not be able to "I Can" at the end of that class - it might take us longer.
- I want to learn like those first and second graders (in the video). I bet they'll never forget why a standard of measurement is important.
I expressed my hesitation because I have my requirements and standards to follow, but we decided it was an experiment in learning for all of us - one worth the risk - you can't innovate instruction if you don't innovate - so here's how class unfolded today.
We're getting ready to start a This I Believe writing project based on the NPR series and website by the same name. We've been reading some mentor text and last Friday, students selected their own mentor text to read closely. I had them spend some time reading and marking and annotating what they notice, what they wonder, and how the author showed the various elements of narrative scene in their writing (all taught last week and in previous years). I had them take their individual texts and form groups of 3-4. I gave them a few guiding questions and a piece of chart paper and told them to have a discussion about their texts and come up with the characteristics of a This I Believe essay. Beyond that, I told them to go forth and learn.
It all started out simple enough, until they realized they were all looking at various texts with different subjects. There is no answer key. They asked me so many questions! Not the "what are we supposed to do" questions - but real questions about their texts and trying to make sense of multiple perspectives. It was messy. And it was so hard for me to let go and not try to rescue them.
They worked for about 15 minutes today before the bell schedule said that we need to move on, so I'll be eager to see how this first learning experience turns out tomorrow. Or will it be tomorrow? Will they reach a consensus? Will they come up with some characteristics that will help them write their own This I Believe essay?
The struggle is real.
PS - fast forward to the next day: Here's a picture of what students learned ... way more than what I planned!
