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Encouraging my students to take responsibility for their learning
There are a lot of things I could discuss here but the one that hits my heart the most is trying to enlighten my students to WANT to learn and WANT to improve.
I teach a math intervention class at the end of the day. One class is 6-7th grade and the other is 7-8 grade. I use the curriculum Math 180. It has an online component, workbook component, and the curriculum also features Growth Mindset and goal setting.
Since these students already have a math class earlier in the day, you can imagine how they feel coming to my class at the end of the day. My older students see it as a drag more than the 6th graders. I try to be positive, encourage them and let them know this class is a family here to help us all fill those foundation gaps and build our confidence in mathematics.
They laugh at me but appreciate me cheering them on when they are frustrated and confused telling them, “It’s GREAT you are confused, do you know what that means?”
The class will answer, we know Ms. Fisher…. it means our brains are growing, we are learning (in a monotone dragged out voice).
I know they are hearing me, but I am always looking for other ways to rope them into learning. If it is a concept they don’t like and can’t do, they want to shut down, even with my pep talks.
I am hoping the workshop with Jon and Kyle will also give me ideas but curious if any of you have tried something new/different that helped?
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1 Reply
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Hi Kelly. Sounds like your are a great math teacher! The school I teach in is performance based, which basically means the kids don’t move onto a new unit until they’ve mastered the current one. This means we need to have a way to keep kids interested and motivated in their learning or else they stop progressing and need to repeat the course. I’m working mostly with freshman, but here’s the three most effective things we do with them that really seems to help keep them motivated.
The first thing is we set a goal as a class. This last semester our class goal was that 77% of the freshman would get finish the semester, this goal was set by the kids themselves, with input from all of them. We then made charts showing the goal versus a specific classes ( i.e. 3rd period or 2nd period) progress towards completing the goal. We put the chart in a prominent place, and talk about it every monday. This gives the kids something to gauge their progress, and every kid knows that they are helping or hurting the group meet its goals.
Another important thing we do is, also every monday, we meet with the kids one-on-one and check in on their progress in the class, have them tell me what their goals for the week are, and we talk about what help they may need to get to their goal, including coming after school, working at lunch, or just simply buckling down and doing what they know they will need to do. During this time, kids I’m not meeting with are doing ixl, or some other activity that doesn’t need me. It’s not the academically richest time for them, but the gains in focus and motivation for the week more than outweigh these issues. We slow down a little at the beginning of the week to go faster later in the week.
The last big thing we have done is their is a chart, also in a prominent place, that has the kids names and all the units in the semester. When a unit is successfully completed, the kid falls in that part of the chart. The eagerness with which they do this blows me away. I’m not sure how this would work in a traditional school setting though.
One thing we do to help the kids be able to track their own learning, which helps put them in the driver’s seat, is we unpack the standard they are working on a create a learning progression chart which is set out where the students can see it. Then at the beginning of the unit, we have the kids make their own version of the chart, with their own language, and assess themselves on what they know and what they need still.
I’m a first year teacher and these are the things that stand out most prominently that our program does. Incidentally, we had a 97% pass rate last fall, compared with 52% the year prior. before the department started doing these things, and our kids grew an average of 4 points on the NWEA over the same time. The kids, for the first time for many of them, are enjoying math, and I can tell you it’s not because our instruction is great. I’m a newbie trying to get the hang of how to facilitate using inquiry. Almost everyone else teaches to the test and does direct instruction all the time. I can only imagine the results we’d get if we also improved our instruction.
Hope some of this was helpful. If you’ve got questions I’d be glad to answer any you may have.
