One week in - wins and wonderings

I love the new feel of my classroom with students doing self-paced work. Everyone is more relaxed and happy. To provide something of a snapshot, today I:

• Spent several minutes at the beginning of one class writing a recommended reading list for yet another kid who requested books about "quantum physics and black holes and stuff like that," and then making a plan with him that if the librarian can't help him find any of them at school, I'll bring in my Brief History of Time for him Monday. 

  

  Little Shop of Feedback

• Spent chunks throughout the day in various mini meetings with five-ish students going over basic questions they had about the content, or thinking through what they were doing in the lab.
• Helped several students who have been struggling to get the hang of setting their own course decide on a goal with a deliverable for the day.
• Multiple times, did a walk through the room and asked what everyone was working on and if they wanted any assistance, was told it was all good (and everyone was on task), so I returned to my own zone to focus on giving feedback on written work submitted by students for my review, or on early assessments that have begun trickling in--every single class today had four to six students each taking between one and two of their first assessments today. When they needed me, they found me.
• On the commute in, I wasn't thinking about how to tweak or deliver the day's lesson. Instead I was thinking about what scaffolds I would provide and who I needed to check in with and what next resources I can begin setting up. Also just enjoying my coffee and music with the sunrise.

At this point, the students have a real spread in where they are, with some taking assessments, others working on labs, and others doing various individual or collaborative work. Only about one to three kids in each of my five classes has yet to start the lab, but all of those ones have been choosing to focus more intently on the content first and confirmed with me that they will be doing the lab Monday, which I advised needed to happen for them to not fall behind. So I'm not worried.

One student working ahead of her group in the investigations zone

I am pleasantly surprised with how rolling out a lab in my self-directed class has gone--especially considering it was one of my biggest concerns up front. Here are a few observations about it:

• Smaller groups of students, which are also more prepared, are beginning the lab in waves. This means I am able to check in with everyone individually as they get started (in a few classes, in mini groups of maybe eight students at once talking through their questions and procedures with me before taking off). This has saved significant time from what typically has been my more usual scenario, in which I might give my spiel to the whole class at the beginning and set them off, but inevitably realize that several large chunks of the class still have questions or have missed a key piece of information. This leads to the first 15-20 minutes of a lab often being more haphazard for me, where I'm running around trying to check in with everyone and constantly repeating the same instructions to small groups anyway. And that time then becomes wasted for some students as they wait around for me to help them--especially if their peers can't help either. This could very well be just due to my poor management skills to begin with, but at least for me, the new setup really seems useful!

• The pace is leading to more thoughtful and thorough lab work. For instance, some groups are realizing they made a big error for one whole day, but also that they can go back and fix it tomorrow. Or that, upon analysis or trying to determine if they are ready for the assessment, they should actually take more data. I'm sad to report that in previous labs, I almost always had  some subset of kids who because of illness, or a day of errors or confusion would end up with very little data of substance to then use for any purpose. 

  

  Some groups even went outside

• Speaking of pace, it is totally not a big deal that one of my classes, which typically moves slower, is now, not surprisingly, majority a day or two behind my other classes. Rather than feeling the pressure to push them to "catch up" -- so I can be more sane in my planning, or not have to worry about keeping a lab set up for just one class, or whatever other reason -- it is simply OK. I don't have to give them all the same test on Friday and worry that it will be "leaked" if I wait for just one class. 

I tend to get overexcited about the wins. That's not to say there haven't been any challenges either. I was a little disappointed in reviewing some of the initial assessments that came in that they weren't all wow-ing me. The sample size is still too small to say anything definitive, but it does feel like the quality of work on those assessments isn't much different than it was prior to going self-paced. Especially a bummer given how on task and productive the class time has felt this week compared to my usual. So a huge wondering I am now having is how I can leverage this system to push for better quality output. Or maybe the question is really what I am looking for. Because I'm already so encouraged by their thinking, as I've written about, and their extra excitement for the subject matter (requesting books and such), I feel like something must be "better" about the quality of their learning. But if it isn't reflected in their work, is it all superficial? Or are my assessments just terrible? Or some of both?