Foundation For Flexibility

Home foundations are rigid. They're supposed to be. But ironically, solid foundations allow for incredible flexibility. Indeed two homes with similar foundations could look, feel, and function quite differently atop their inflexible support structures.

This, in some ways, mirrors the foundation of our customized approach. (I say "our" as the students really have the final say in what works and what doesn't.) The approach begins with a rather rigid foundation. For now, I use Moodle as a delivery and organizational system for this foundation. Within Moodle, students are presented with a series of Measurement Topics that themselves house a series of specific Learning Targets.

Now, if the approach stopped there, it would remain far too rigid, likely at the expense of student engagement and creativity. Yet, here's where the foundation really does something magical. Once enough of the foundation is in place, students are presented with not just one, but multiple road maps through the Learning Targets. Best of all, they get to choose which adventure to pursue.

Here's an example. Susie is a (fictional) middle school student in our class. She knows that she needs to learn about many things including the following (and more):

• Government: Civics and the Legal System
• Government: Rights and Responsibility
• Geography: Maps and Tools
• Economics: Personal Economics
• Economics: Functional Economics

This content can be presented within Moodle as described in earlier posts. At first glance, our class Moodle course appears to lay out just a single path for students. However, once a critical mass of this content is frontloaded, it suddenly becomes more than just a single path. Instead of an inflexible train track for students to follow, the approach becomes more like a train station with tracks leading out in any number of directions. Even better, once these separate tracks are frontloaded, alternative spurs can then be built by teachers and students.

The result? Even greater engagement, more creativity, and students becoming more and more independent in their learning. What an amazing product from a seemingly inflexible foundation!

Meaningful Meetings - Bringing Students Together With Purpose

One concern some people have about the customized classroom is that students may be too isolated and forced to fly solo all the time. This is a legitimate concern, but it is one that I've found best addressed by bringing students together for meaningful reasons. Here are some examples:

• Table Groups: My classroom features five rectangular tables (usually scattered throughout the classroom space). When students enter the room, they know to look at the board where they will find their initial instructions including the Table Groups for the class. While students are assigned to specific tables, they get to choose their seat at that table. Of course, if students doesn't like their assigned tables, they need not fret because we have several variations of Table Groups (Number Groups, Letter Groups, Tree Groups, Continent Groups, Sport Groups, etc.). The Table Groups for a particular class are based on my goals. Some groups sort the students to prevent distractions, some to join students by reading level, some to provide a mix of students, and even some student generated groups, allowing friends to sit together.

• Project Partnerships: As students work through their Learning Targets, they are periodically required to create a Learning Target Project. I recently reminded students that this is the perfect opportunity to work with a friend as students may temporarily recruit peer assistance on these projects. ("Temporarily" is the key word!) Even better, if both students are on our weekly Wall of Fame (for keeping up with the negotiated/assigned pace), they have the freedom of working in the hallway (a popular place, I'm told).

• Helping Hands: My students are blessed with iPad technology, and they use it very well. However, nobody knows how to do everything. When students are in need, they tend to be very welcoming to 'how to' tips from their peers, often from students whom they would not often choose as a partner for a project. The result is usually that the student in need gets the necessary help, but perhaps equally important is that the helper gets an opportunity to be useful and valued. In short, these are opportunities to bring kids together.

• Low Stress Jigsaws: Periodically, mixed groups of students are brought together in the classroom to share what they've been learning about a common topic. For example, while some of my students have recently been learning about point of view in literature, others have been learning about plot development or character development, or theme, etc. Yet, all of these students have been learning about literature. Putting these kids together at a table to just write down what they've been learning related to literature provides an opportunity for each and every student to have a "right" answer to jot on the paper. Every kid gets a marker, so it's all happening simultaneously. Then, students can move from table to table freely to see what other people wrote. The intended result is for students to gain a better understanding of how what they've been learning fits into a larger chunk of learning...and to create work alongside their peers in a low stress way.