First Steps

Relationships are key!

Building relationships with your students and understanding what they like and dislike is a huge part of Personalized Learning. Knowing your students allows for you to better meet their needs and help them find success. Taking the time at the beginning of the year to get to know each of your students is crucial to a successful year!

Work with students to create Individualized Learning Plans or as we like to call them in our classroom POP's (Plan on a Page) for tracking personal growth. These plans allow students to track their learning throughout the year.

Offer voice and choice in your classroom

It does not have to be 10 choices, which is often the misconception, but try offering two. Give students a voice and choice regarding what they want to learn, and how they want to show what they know. Rather than requiring all students to submit written assignments, give them the option to submit a video, drawing, song or other evidence of learning.

Encourage students to create rather than just consume by empowering them to develop portions of a lesson, surveys, or even a test!

Use data to make changes in your instruction

As teachers we gather a lot of data, but we don’t often use it to change what we are doing in the classroom. Use pre-assessment data to drive individual learning plans for each student.

Ask yourself, does everyone need this lesson? Probably not, so let the students that have shown that they know the skill, go deeper and try exploring the concept on their own through a task. Then pull the small group that needs the mini-lesson.

Personalize who has access to which assignments based on student needs by using groups and permissions in your learning platform. For example, you may want to assign advanced students a different set of assessment questions or assignments than you would for students who need extra help in grasping basic concepts.

Give Specific, Actionable Feedback

Give specific, positive, actionable feedback to students using their preferred method of communication (video, conferring or text). They will appreciate the individual attention and will be more motivated to act on your suggestions. I give verbal feedback most and document the feedback on the student's personal learning guide. This way they have access to these conferring notes as they are moving forward in the content.

Try flexible seating

Let students pick where they sit and offer flexible seating options. This does not mean that you have to spend lots of money and redesign your classroom all at once.

Try allowing students the option to stand or sit while they learn. You can also use sites like Donors Choose or Go Fund Me Education to redesign your classroom.

Give students many opportunities to goal set and reflect

You will be surprised at what students will admit about themselves when you give them the time and structure to do these things.

Allow students to think about their strengths and weaknesses as a learner. Have them set a goal for themselves and then later have them reflect on it daily!

As a class it is important that we have a daily reflection to talk about challenges we overcame, strategies we used and advice we have for our peers. It is a great way to build community and get students talking about their thinking!

Encourage Peer to Peer Coaching

Peer to peer coaching is essential in this model for many reasons. From the beginning of the year we work on questioning strategies as student coaches. Students add to this list of "great questions to ask when someone is stuck" throughout the year adding to their personal toolbox. Coaching practice gives students the tools to effectively teach each other when they are stuck without giving up the answers! It also allows the coach to practice explaining their thinking and put their knowledge to the test!

Showing mastery

Allow students to pick how they show mastery of a concept. This allows students to use their higher order thinking skills. If students aren’t sure how to show mastery of a concept, have a list of options to guide them. The daily exit slips guide their thinking to mastery!