Sci Implement: Stage 5

Personalized Science Prototype

Objectives:

Accommodate student choice in group work, collaboration and roles.
Have students plan their path and pace through menus and labs.
Allow students to determine when they are ready to take the post-test.

Suggested Timeline: 1 week

In this final stage, you will increase personalization by releasing control and empowering students to build their capacity as successful, self-directed learners. You will give students the opportunity to select groups, plan their pace and path, track their own progress and self determine their readiness for assessment.

Stage 5:

Empower students to be self-directed learners

Objective 1: Accommodate student choice in group work, collaboration and roles.

Step 1: Ask students to reflect on their role(s) and group work from the past three weeks and then select their roles and groups:
- Which role(s) did I most enjoy? Which role was I the most successful in contributing to my group? Who in class, will I work well with and be able to accomplish the activity in a timely manner?

Step 2: Have students plan their Group Lab Report.
- Explain to students that along with selecting their roles, they will determine how to best document and share their learning.
- Give groups full control to remake or recreate their Group Lab Report and determine each group member’s contribution.

Objective 2: Have students plan their path and pace through menus and labs.

Step 1: Create a handout or post on the board all of the learning objectives for the week, including learning menus, group labs and assessment.
- Clearly convey your expectations for performance and behavior.

Step 2: Allow students to decide when their group will complete the group lab and when they will work on their learning menu. (Of course, this will depend on device availability, so it may be best to have groups schedule and sign out devices.)

Step 3: To ensure that students broaden their learning experiences, have them reflect on the types of activities they have selected in the previous menus:
- Which resource activities did I try and why? What are my strengths as a learner? Which activities did I struggle with? Did I use my class time to the best of my ability? If not, what will I do differently? What resource could I try that will be a unique experience for me?

Step 4: Have students write their learner reflections in their Science Notebooks or packets.

Step 5: Have students choose an action word that they’ve not yet tried from the current learning menu. (See action words on the Learning Menu Template).
- Note of explanation: Students will tend to be most comfortable with a certain genre of learning. A student who always tends to WATCH videos for example, will expand their experiences by selecting a resource they’ve not yet tried, EXAMINE a diagram, for example.

Step 6: While students work on their playlist, continue pulling small groups as you did in Stage 2.

Step 7: Have students track their own progress.
- Mid-week, have students select a group member and role (Theorist, for example) to check in with the group and see that they are on track to complete their learning menus by the deadline.
- Have students update the class tracking sheet themselves as they complete activities.

Congratulations! You've completed the final stage and your students are self-directed learners.

Objective 3: Allow students to determine when they are ready to take the post-test.

Step 1: Rather than having all students take the post test at the same time, allow students to determine when they are ready. Note that this should be driven by the student and some students will be ready to take the assessments sooner than others.
- Even if students have not yet completed the set number of Learning Menu activities, allow them to take the post test if they determine they are ready.

Step 2: For students that don’t meet your expected score, have them note the questions they missed and return to the learning menu with a partner to fill in their learning gaps.