I have a new student-teacher. My students are very excited to include her in our class community. She had two observation days while we were still operating remotely and when she first arrived, the Grade 5s and 6s were eager to "school" her on the ways we work. I asked them not to overwhelm her on her first day and to select just one or two concepts that they felt were most important for her to know immediately. They decided to tell her about VAC.
Yes, they created their own acronym. VAC stands for "voice and choice", a phrase I say quite often.
It was fascinating to see how they explained VAC to the teacher-candidate. It was helpful because I was able to clear up a few misconceptions they had. Here are some of their initial explanations.
that means the students are basically taking over the classroom because of VAC (EL)
When I asked if that meant that they could declare that we wouldn't have a subject at all on any given day, they had to admit that it wasn't quite like that.
we are the tinyer bosses (EF)
I had to ask what they meant by "boss". They elaborated and clarified.
Mrs.Mali baciclly gives us choices and we pick which one we want (LC)
we are bosses of our self (RC)
we have tiny authority (EF)
were independent (KD)
mrs mali says:
you can do:
1) unfinished work
2) comm skills
3) french review - we pick one of these (KD)
or do you want gym for this last period or extra gym next week (TH)
Once they refined their answers (so it didn't appear as if the teacher has absolutely no control), I agreed 100% with their definitions and examples. They are right. They do have agency.
There are so many examples of how my class "does VAC". I thought I'd share a few in today's reflection, as we return to in-person schooling tomorrow. They definitely had agency while learning face to face, but during our six weeks of remote online learning together, they still were able to express voice and choice in what/how/when/where we learned.
Math Interviews
We completed two units of math during our six weeks of remote learning. One was Transformations and Coding. I already discussed on this blog how the students led this coding exploration, from selecting which assignments to complete to explaining how to solve problems that other students had with their coding tasks. The other unit was Number Patterns and Number Relationships. For the Grade 5s, it involved fractions and for the Grade 6s, it involved divisibility rules, prime and composite numbers, and integers. Quizzes and tests tend to stress my students out (more on that later) and I asked if it would be amenable to attempt a math interview as an assessment tool. The students were a bit nervous about this approach, as many had never had prior experience with it, but they said they were willing to try. I used very few questions with pre-established answers. A sample question from my Grade 5 interview was: Give me an example of a fraction. Now give me an example of a decimal. Which of these two numbers is the biggest / has the greatest value? How do you know? The Grade 6s had a similar question, but with an integer thrown in for a three-way comparison. The students shaped their assessment with the choices they made.
Big thanks to: @AllenCrew, @LookStuffUp, @Erin2010s, @M_Brownlow, @Brandi_Edu, @TeacherCashmore, and @MatthewOldridge for giving me advice on Twitter about the phrasing of the final question.
Circus Performances
Our drama and physical education classes online were dedicated to the eventual creation of a Stay At Home Circus. I wrote about it on this blog early during the process. The students finished and we "attended" the circus February 9-10, 2021. The final results were INCREDIBLE! Take my word for it, the students amazed me with their skills. Not only did they "have VAC" in terms of what they chose to perform, they also played a part in designing the assessment checklist. It was difficult to design an evaluation tool that could be used on very different performances. How do you compare a magician to a animal trainer to a clown to a mime? The students provided their recommendations and I was able to use their advice, alongside the Ministry of Education's curriculum expectations, and develop a useful checklist. This will be a fun project to mark! (The photo to the left is of me performing some tightrope walking on the edge of my bathtub - don't try this at home, folks!)
Language Block Tasks and Deadlines
It's important to balance the comfort and familiarity of a regular routine with novelty. We began our language block the same way for most of the time we were learning through our screens - with silent reading and then a read aloud. I used to type the outline for the double block of language in the chat box, but then students asked to take that job over. I allowed it. The students were the ones who decided that we would read all five books in The Spiderwick Chronicles series. I had my reasons, but I was prepared to stop at the first book if the class was not interested in continuing. We are looking forward to reading the sequel to Jerry Craft's New Kid, called Class Act, when we return to in-person schooling. When it came to our grammar exercises, the students were the ones that suggested what pages we would take up together (based on the number of students that had completed the work) and when these assignments were due.
Art Options
For art instruction while away from the bricks and mortar school, Ms. Wadia (the Grade 7-8 teacher) and I sent home supplies (construction paper, various shades of chalk, and other items). The students in my class had to submit three pieces of art that used chalk as a medium. Each art period, I modelled two choices for them. They were allowed to create one of the sample tasks or create their own, as long as it used chalk and demonstrated its artistic properties. After chalk, we went to "laundry art". I took Zoe Branigan-Pipe's earlier tweet into consideration and had students check with their adults in charge to see what clothes were allowed to be used for this art project, where they could place the clothes (bed/floor/table/etc). They could create whatever they wanted out of clothes. One of the students (ES) recommended that we create success criteria for the laundry art project, so we did. (This picture to the right is of the tree I made using my own shirts.)
Science Assessments
The students had a say in how many assessments and the type of assessments we used to gauge our understanding of our recently completed science units. We had to modify our original plans for many hands-on tasks because not all students had the same types of building materials at home. With the help of Ms. Keberer, we dedicated class time to this serious discussion. Students tend not to like quizzes and tests, but they were persuaded, thanks to Ms. Keberer's influence, to include a test as one of the assessment tools. In the end, their unit grade was based on a single build project, a test, a diagram, three sets of questions based on a reading, a Plickers quiz and an in-class experiment we conducted in December. I dropped off materials for the Grade 5 build. In the end, they were satisfied with the variety and difficulty level of the tasks.
Morning Rituals
To keep things as predictable and as close to our previous routine as possible, we still played the anthem, recited the land acknowledgement, and took attendance using the sentence starters that the students generated. (That was the students' choice.) When we found that shared video watching was too laggy, I suggested that maybe we could sing the anthem ourselves. I was so impressed that every day, people volunteered to either sing the anthem, say the acknowledgement themselves, or act as the chat box moderator. the chat box moderator was a highly sought-after job. I had the power to shut off discussion in the back channel, but it would deny students the opportunity to regulate their own behaviour, and shut off a means of communication if they were having technical issues. The students were very good with "cbso" (Chat Box Silence On/Off), which was used strictly during our read alouds, and the students enjoyed having that sort of power and influence over the digital space.
The students in my class feel like they have a lot of say and influence over how the class operates. They are empowered and have many opportunities to practice their decision making skills. Is there a time where there can be too much voice and choice? Well, our class will look different when we return on Tuesday, February 16, 2021. Three of our students have elected to go to Virtual School for Term 2. Three more students have indicated that, if there are any more chances to switch, they will also leave for the virtual environment. Too many chances for switching can lead to a lot of chaos in the schools - up until very recently, I was preparing for another class reorganization and not a very favourable one; numbers suggested that I'd be teaching three grades at once. I hope that I will be able to keep my current students, but I'm not sure how much voice and choice *I* have with this particular decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment