Seven Strategies for Supporting Student Self-Sufficiency
By Scott B. Freiberger
Research from the American Psychological Association points to an alarming increase in feelings of frustration and letdown levels in both students and the educators who guide them in attempting to develop autonomous, independent learners. Much of this academic dissonance, according to the research, stems from accountability measures designed to ensure students meet rigorous state standards across schools. What, precisely, defines student autonomy, and how does one account for it? In addition, how do we best support students to overcome obstacles and achieve classroom success?
Research from the American Psychological Association points to an alarming increase in feelings of frustration and letdown levels in both students and the educators who guide them in attempting to develop autonomous, independent learners. Much of this academic dissonance, according to the research, stems from accountability measures designed to ensure students meet rigorous state standards across schools. What, precisely, defines student autonomy, and how does one account for it? In addition, how do we best support students to overcome obstacles and achieve classroom success?
As Dimitrios Thanasoulas describes, student autonomy is defined as creating in classrooms a “shift of responsibility from teachers to learners.” Yet increasing student autonomy does not mean that educators should relinquish all classroom control or wantonly toss a white flag to abdicate responsibility for classroom management. Instead, Thanasoulas refers to teachers creating “sufficient conditions for the development of learner autonomy, and [accounting for] many more factors such as learner needs, motivation, learning strategies, and [self-]awareness.”
How can we,
as passionate educators, best support students in their quest to
become more autonomous, independent learners? Here are seven
strategies you may choose to infuse.
Student
Learning Logs
First, consider the use
of student learning logs in your daily
routine. Educators could prepare marked marble notebooks to
challenge students to consider at the outset of a unit, “What do I already know
about this topic?” and, “What would I like to learn?” Students could then record
what they are learning as a unit progresses; this not only provides insight into
students’ thinking for educators, but it also helps students account for their own
learning. Upon unit completion, students
could then put pen to paper to summarize their overall learning experiences.
Thought-provoking, follow-up questions such as, “What was
I readily able to grasp, and why?” and, “What was most challenging,
and why?” provide valuable insights (and data!) for educators to consider
for reflection, progress monitoring, and fine-tuning future
lessons.
Responsive
Rubrics
How fatigued are you from developing
rubrics for your interactive classroom activities? How about
permitting your students to take the rubric reins? Consider
allowing the class to create responsive rubrics. Provide the
class with copies of your rubric, and then offer an opportunity for
students to discuss in pairs or small groups what each level of performance
represents. Rather than force-feed arcane acronyms, let students develop
the language that makes sense for them to fathom how to accomplish tasks and
account for their progress. Then provide blank templates for students to
re-write the original rubric in their own words. Responsive
rubrics should spark motivation as students themselves conceive of and
delineate their own measures of academic magnitude and standards
for success.
Anchor
Papers
Anchor papers provide lucid examples of work generally meeting the
performance at each level of a rubric.
These singular sample selections could be useful for students to
determine how their own work may compare. Rather than informing students
how each anchor paper was graded, have your students discuss in pairs, triads,
or small groups how they believe a paper measures against the established rubric.
This activity could help generate some strong intellectual discourse as
students reflect on their own work and consider what steps they, themselves, may
need to take to ascend.
Stop,
Go, or I Don’t Know (YET)
Next, provide students red, green,
and yellow markers to depict, “Stop, Go, or I Don’t Know (YET).”
In this activity, students highlight their work indicating their levels of
comfort, providing a visual tracking of their current progress and depth of
understanding. Green clearly means go,
so students could indicate that they feel confident about their relevant
topic knowledge and could readily move on to the next section or topic.
Red symbolizes stop, signaling that the teacher needs to approach, re-teach, or
provide some other scaffolding to untie knowledge knots. Yellow
highlighter markings signify that students somewhat fathom this material, but
may not be entirely confident in their understanding. Remember to
emphasize to students the power of YET, that both red and yellow highlighted
sections signify that, although students may not understand this
material entirely yet, they will with time and sustained
effort.
You may want to consider
turning “Stop, Go, or I Don’t
Know (YET)” into an interactive classroom activity. Students could
seek out classmates for clarification; just ensure that the environment is one
of trust and mutual respect so no teasing or bullying of any kind
results. Throughout this activity, delving into honesty helps students
consider their knowledge, comfort levels, and material proficiency.
Scholarly Reflection
Just as the protagonist had needed
space and time to ponder the essence of her existence in the Disney classic,
“Mulan,” children also need precious moments to reflect upon academics.
Thus, you may want to consider providing opportunities for scholarly
reflection. As a classroom teacher, I had provided paper with the
image of a mirror for students to “look inside” and scribe, “I appreciated the
lesson because...” and, “I will apply this to my life by...” You could also
provide pensive moments with sentence starters such as, “I could have better
fathomed this material if...” or, “One action I will take to better fathom this
material is...” to promote higher-level, metacognitive musings.
Student-Centered
Conferences
Student-centered conferences empower children to self-reflect and
forge their own academic paths. As opposed to teacher-led conferences
which tend to be partial, students are instead asked to consider their learning
with open-ended questions such as, “What made you decide to write this?” “What
are you thinking?” “What are you learning from your work?” By guiding
students to self-reflect and discover on their own instead of imparting
judgment on what may be right or wrong, students can self-actualize, form their
own opinions, and ask for support sans apprehension.
Linear
Representations
Finally, linear
representations delineate actual achievement and empower students to account
for and track their own progress. With linear representations, students
could chart their own courses toward success and revise goals to meet or exceed
expected learning outcomes. Educators
may also choose to use linear representations to spark thought-provoking
academic discourse.
While conferencing with students,
pay particular attention to the goals they have set for themselves, and provide
ample praise throughout the learning process. If students succeed, provide
opportunities for reflection; for instance, ask how their achievement was
accomplished. What measurable steps did the student take? We want
students to consider their choices, unlock their inner passions, and strive for
success, even when no one is around to reinforce positive habits.
Ultimately, with guidance, students should be empowered to face potential
failures with aplomb and continue to believe that they can always achieve.
References
Heyck-Williams, J. (2018, Feb 2). Student-led conferences: A key structure of student agency. Retrieved from: https://www.nextgenlearning.org/articles/student-led-conferences-a-key-structure-of-student-agency.
McCombs, B. (2019). Developing responsible
and autonomous learners: A key to motivating students, American Psychological
Association, retrieved from: https://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners.
Thanasoulas, D. (2000). What is
learner autonomy and how can it be fostered? The Internet TESL Journal.
Retrieved from: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html.
BIO
Scott Freiberger, a passionate literacy coach with
school building/district leader certification, is honored to be the 2018 TESOL
International Teacher of the Year.
Twitter: @scottfreiberger
This article originally appeared here. |
