Interest Customization

There are many ways to customize learning. This year's program includes many of them. Here are a few:

• Leveled readings help students access the middle school content, standards that are based more on what authors and readers do with selections than learning how to read those passages. (Of course, reading pieces at an appropriate level also supports reading development as well.) 

• Target due dates, as opposed to all or nothing deadlines, allow students to learn in their own ebb and flow pattern (we all have our own). These "deadlines without the death" keep students from giving up and are more in tune with the realities of day to day life, especially for young adolescents.

• Student selected projects allow learners to show what they know and can do using the method that works best for them.

• Flexible work sessions allow students to tackle the content that will work best for them at that time. 

These are definitely improvements to the traditional classroom model. Yet, I plan to add another piece over time, and it relates to student interest. The two year Personal Research Process has been a good start in engaging students by linking content with their individual interests. Next up will be to add to students reading options. Currently, students benefit from leveled readings, an important customization of the reading classroom. However, I have made little attempt to address students' interests to reading topics.

That's going to change. Instead of a single reading available at a student's level, the student will now have a pool of leveled reading from which to choose. This will add another layer of student choice and most importantly will go a long way to ramping up students desire to read pieces. A student who is interested in cars will be more likely to have a related reading available to him/her. The same will be true for students who are interested in music, science and nature, history, and more.

This will have to start slowly. I'm only one man, and it takes a while to gather resources and make them available to students. However, this should be a positive step forward on the path to greater classroom customization.