Playlists for self-paced learning
Written by Cory Behroozi | cory.behroozi@uamaker.nyc
Embedded Files
Problem of Practice
Students naturally learn at different paces. When there is a broad range of performance in the classroom, it can be difficult to strike a balance between providing an adequately rigorous and challenging academic experience to some students while also ensuring that students who need support receive it. Essentially, I often found this year that my pacing was too fast for some students and too slow for others, contributing to disengagement in each group.
Hypothesis
If we provide students with "playlists" for self-paced learning over the course of a unit, students will take greater ownership over their learning and move at paces appropriate to their learning style, allowing teachers to target support more appropriately.
Student quotes:
“it allowed me to move at better pace since i was doing it independently and easier to manage how much work i wanted to complete and how to approach it”
“It allows me to work without any worry I’m behind “
“it was cool to work at my own pace but i could'nt keep my self on task sometimes “
“This was an effective way to learn because I had to be responsible and I knew how to manage my work for all my classes easier. Although there would be times where I would get a little lazy and take longer than needed.”
“Ineffective because it allowed me to fall off track really easily.”
“it gave me my own time to learn and process the info and I don't have to catch up with other people's pace”
Target group
The target groups are students at both ends of the spectrum with regard to pace of learning, so the highest-performing students as well as the lowest-performing ones. However, the spirit of this project is to test out a model that is accessible and effective for all students, so I will examine data compiled from all students.
Planning & resources
Materials were inspired by work done last year by Chemistry teacher Rose Kann
Additional inspiration/ideas: https://catlintucker.com/2023/01/self-pacing-playlists/
Student Work
Student Work
Copy of Soil Degradation PlaylistSoil degradation playlist
Coming soon:
Julie - Environmental issues analysis
Coming soon:
Adam - Policy brief
Reflection
Measuring success:
We used a progress tracker to monitor how students moved through the unit. This informed our targeted support, but also helped us visualize how well students were meeting expectations. At the end of the unit, we distributed a student survey, which received 28 responses from across the 4 sections. The results were largely quite positive, with respect to students’ enjoyment of the unit and their self-reported learning experience. See results below.
We also observed a dramatic improvement in assignment submission rate, from 44.5% across the first two Benchmarks of Unit 3 to 61.6% across the first two benchmarks of Unit 4 (averages for all four sections), which represents an increase of nearly 50%. It should be noted that additional factors may have contributed to this increase, including proximity to the end of the school year.
In future iterations, I will teach individual lessons to introduce each topic to the whole class (allowing students to make an informed decision, and to have better-informed discussions and provide peer feedback down the line). I will also make tasks more granular, with each playlist leading to a single benchmark (meaning that there are multiple consecutive playlists in each topic per unit.
I also plan to make the progress tracker visible to all students so that they can actively monitor their own progress and see where they stand in relation to other students, allowing them to hold themselves accountable for meeting goals and deadlines.
Student quotes:
“it allowed me to move at better pace since i was doing it independently and easier to manage how much work i wanted to complete and how to approach it”
“It allows me to work without any worry I’m behind “
“it was cool to work at my own pace but i could'nt keep my self on task sometimes “
“This was an effective way to learn because I had to be responsible and I knew how to manage my work for all my classes easier. Although there would be times where I would get a little lazy and take longer than needed.”
“Ineffective because it allowed me to fall off track really easily.”
“it gave me my own time to learn and process the info and I don't have to catch up with other people's pace”
Actionable steps
If you want to use this strategy in your classroom, I recommend …
Create multiple self-paced playlists on different topics to allow for student choice (having multiple topics also creates extension opportunities for students who finish quickly).
Determine desired learning outcomes.
Establish assessment criteria.
Identify learning tasks or “Understandings” required to achieve desired outcomes.
Find resources for each understanding.
Create materials (including comprehension checks: note-catchers, quizzes, etc.)
Use a variety of multimodal resources - videos, articles, simulations, etc.
Comprehension checks can be stand-alone quizzes or questions at the end of note-catchers, but stand-alone quizzes seem to have been more effective, as students more readily recognize them as comprehension checks and seem to therefore be more motivated.
What I will do in future iterations:
Teach individual lessons to introduce each topic to the whole class (allowing students to make an informed decision, and to have better-informed discussions and provide peer feedback down the line).
Make tasks more granular.
Divide playlists so that each playlist culminates in a benchmark.
In this iteration, we created lab activities that served as a single Understanding within each playlist. In future iterations, lab activities will be their own playlist.
Reach out to Lindsey Benjamin if you have any questions, or want support adapting this practice to your classroom!
Email: lindsey.benjamin@uamaker.nyc
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