Thursday, September 18, 2014

Self Directed Learning: Getting Started

Very excited about incorporating self-directed learning into my curriculum. I work with two awesome fifth grade teachers who embraced the idea when I shared it with them. Great to not be doing this alone! 

We had two sessions where we got all the fifth graders together to brainstorm ideas and do an activity to see what a project might look like.

Now we are working with the students in our homeroom only. The students filled out a survey about their strengths, interests, life experiences, etc. They also listed whether they had an idea for a topic and project.

I have met with 8 students the past two days. Each initial student conference lasts about 10 minutes. It is time consuming in the beginning, but once they get going, the conferences will simply be me checking in on progress and facilitating learning/process. 

Meeting with these eight students the past two days has been amazing! They are so thoughtful and so thrilled to be able to direct their own learning! They all will write reflections in their blogs, on Kidsblog, every week or so. The only homework my students do is reading and working on their self-directed learning project/blog. 

I feel the need to share the students' projects so far:

- learning how to sculpt/ researching  
   techniques/ maybe display at town    
   library or sell and donate money to a 
   charity

- learn the parts of a computer/take apart 
   a computer/ IMovie to document 
   process

- research recycling and energy 
   conservation/ create an informational 
   stop motion animation movie about it 
   with Lego Animator

- learn how to sew on sewing machine, learn how to use patterns, document learning in pictures

- Learn about history of codes and different kinds of codes and create an informational book about it.

- Research history of S.W.A.T. and specifics of the job/ maybe create a PowerPoint 

- Research the history of women in Lacrosse/famous women players/ not sure of final product yet

- Train to run 5k and track times/ research how to get faster/ not sure of final product yet 

** All the projects will include research and an authentic math component

What an incredible start! More information to come!

No comments:

Post a Comment