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Problem
In my classroom, I noticed that many students weren’t thoroughly engaged with the material we were learning. I heard a lot of “When am I ever going to use this in my life.” So, I decided to take this opportunity to take on the challenge of making relevancy super clear while ensuring students had as many opportunities to make choices in the classroom as they could.
This way, they were AGENTS in determining the direction class moved in, and were learning things “I” thought were relevant to their lives.
Hypothesis
If students are able to make choices, and actually be invested in those choices, then they would be more willing to engage with content/material.
To measure this, I did the following:
Kept track of the amount of benchmarks / PTs turned in
(Mentally) documented amounts of students participating in classroom discussions /worksheets being worked on
Provided an end of unit survey to students
Target group
All sections of Algebra 1. Initially I picked one section, but then I realized due to different needs of different bands, I wound up trying the same things in different classes at different times.
Planning & resources
Staff when they were giving feedback on the Social Media Unit.
Data collection
Data collection
Baseline data
Part 1
Number of students who created / turned in a slideshow / PT from our previous unit as a Performance Task
Part 2
Survey data about whether students feel they have choice in Algebra 1 (vs the school)
Measuring success
Part 1
I compared turn in rates of the previous Performance task to the turn in rates of the most recent performance task.
On the first performance task, there wasn’t much “decision making” that students had to do. On the 2nd, there was a ton (picking their social media platform, selecting what item they wanted to buy from their social media earnings, creating a social media persona, deciding how they would present their work (slideshow, essay, video, etc)).
My goal was to determine whether or not providing choices to students (on the performance task) increased the turn in / completion rates.
Part 2
Change in responses on a new survey at the end of our most recent unit.
This would tell me if students felt more comfortable in the Algebra 1 classroom than they did in the previous unit, and whether or not they felt they had more choice / saw themselves reflected in the material.
Overall findings & impact
I was definitely unsuccessful. We still have students who are not taking ownership of their work. Students are still only doing things because the teacher told them / it will impact their grade (Mr. is this graded!?!? If it’s not graded, why am I doing it!? If it’s not graded, it’s just busy work)
I do think based on the open nature, high choice availability, students are a bit more bought in than they have been before, but it’s still a small amount compared to my expectations.
From anecdotal evidence (students talking), students appreciate having choice in the math classroom, but it hasn’t done much in the regards of “I want to continue learning this thing because I want to.”
Actionable steps
If you want to use this strategy in your classroom, I recommend …
Think about all opportunities (planned and impromptu) when you can incorporate students making decisions in the classroom
“Are there ever moments when you think “we can do A or B, and you make the decision quickly because you are the adult in the room? Ask the students instead what they think! Go with what they think is best (even if it doesn’t go too well)”
Examples:
Choice in Performance Task
Choice in how they choose to break down the creation of a presentation based on solving a problem using multiple representations
Should we do a content focused first 5 or a random / fun first 5
Be okay if things don’t go well
The only way to improve is to lose sometimes, but once you lose, track the different things that happen so next time, it’s a more cohesive process, and expectations are more clear.
Examples:
Presentation Creation to solve a problem
Students being able to select where they sat led to lots of conflicts due to interpersonal relationships (yikes)
When doing something with not so much structure, make sure you have another teacher in the room in case things go off the rails
Many students benefited because they were working with others who understood how to convert from context to equation, and having another student explain that to them really was a huge support.
Ridwan Olatilewa | ridwan.olatilewa@uamaker.nyc
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