Sunday, July 26, 2015

How Much Choice Should Students Have?

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources.

Giving students control over what they learn and how they learn means that students are more motivated, more interested and more likely to make connections to what they are learning. In fact this upcoming school year, I am going to be giving my kids an entire day each week to explore any topic that interests them in a 20% Time/Passion Project. My eleven year old wants to research marketing strategies to help him with his jewelry making business a success. My soon to be eight year old wants to learn how to make a campfire. I think these are great things to learn and in the process I know we will work on a variety of ELA topics, including internet research, reading critically, and written expression, as well as some science and social studies and possibly even some math.

Obviously I am a proponent of student choice. However, I feel that when we give students 100% control, such as in the unschooling movement, that we miss out on an opportunity to broaden their horizons. Exposing students to topics and ideas that are new and unique to them pushes kids out of their comfort zone, but it also gives them new ideas and new background knowledge. This in turn allows kids to find new ideas and to have bigger passions to explore in future passion projects. In my dream world (which I try to replicate in my homeschool environment) we would all use a 1/3 1/3 1/3 approach.

One third of what we do in the classroom should be about exposing students to new information without student choice. Just because students aren’t choosing it doesn’t mean it should be boring. This is the time to spark student interest in topics they don’t think they are interested in. I often do this with things like Internet Scavenger Hunts, Virtual Time Machines and Novel Studies.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - American Constitution Internet Scavenger Hunt

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - 1940 Time Machine Power Point Presentation 

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - Mister and Me Novel Study Packet

One third of what we do in the classroom should give students at least some choice. Students might choose their own topic, their own book or how they want to present the information they are studying.

For example, when my students researched American History, I let each student choose a person who interested them, but they were required to learn things about them that would relate back to our study of American History.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - American History technology research project

When we studied rocks, students got to choose a rock or gemstone that interested them, but needed to find out set information.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - Rock research project

When we studied deserts, the kids were assigned a desert, but were allowed to choose from a wide range of possibilities to create their “virtual field trips” to their desert.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - deserts of the world science unit

If students were interested in a particular book, I allow them to study them using my Generic Novel Study Packet or my Generic NonFiction Book Study packet so that they are getting in all of their reading comprehension strategies, but are working with a book that is important to them.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - self selected novel study

One third of what we do in the classroom should be completely student led. Students should get to read the books they enjoy, explore the topics that interest them, write about what is important to them and make connections between what they are learning and their own background knowledge.

This could be done with a 20% time project, obviously. However, I also argue allowing kids time to free read any type of material and to journal or blog could be included in this topic. This could also be done by teaching others about something they know about or enjoy. My kids do this when they create Tutorial Videos or Vocabulary Games on any topic they choose.

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - create your own tutorial video project

How much student choice do students have in your classroom? This blog post will explain how to give students choices while still exposing them to new topics. Opinions by Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources. - create your own vocabulary game project

What is essential here is giving students a large amount of time to practice being in charge of their own learning, while still allowing teachers and the classroom to be an element that exposes them to new ideas and concepts, thereby expanding their horizons.

Thoughts on this topic? Feel free to leave a comment. Let’s start a discussion on student choice!

Heidi Raki of Raki's Rad Resources

 

 

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Use Portfolios to Wrap Up Your School Year

portfolios work - how I used portfolios to help my homeschooled sons reflect on the year's learning. Raki's Rad Resources

This school year my “class” consisted of only three students – my own sons aged 4, 7 and 11. This year I stopped teaching in a classroom in exchange for an “alternative lifestyle”. My family bought an RV and we are traveling around the United States and homeschooling our boys in the process. You can learn more about what we’re up to at our family blog – RVing with the Rakis.

Even though I haven’t had a full class, I have had my hands full! However, seeing what my kids learned this year has been worth every minute. We have been working on a “year round schedule”, taking five weeks off at Christmas, three weeks off at Easter and so we have just this week finished for the year. Now we will be taking seven weeks off to relax and enjoy our summer.

During the last few weeks, the older two boys worked on building online portfolios of their growth and learning for this school year. Here are the results of their weeks of work:

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

 

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

 

 

No matter the size of your class or the age of your students, giving your students the chance to reflect on their own learning and growth each year is beneficial to them as students and to you as a teacher.

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