If you are like me, we grew up in a time where if you wanted to listen to music you turned on the radio. To have to wait for the weekend and Casey Kasem’s Top 40 to feel that favorite song flow through your veins was absolute torture!
I’ll always be grateful to my daughter for introducing me to the world of Spotify. My car and I are center stage for Celine’s It’s All Coming Back to Me Now whenever the urge strikes.
Student-Centered Learning
Stick with me here, Student-Centered learning is to Spotify, as Teacher-Centered learning is to radio. In other words, creating a Student-Centered classroom is not only a new way to teach, it really is a better way. Student-Centered classrooms puts students in the driver’s seat. Ultimately, learners make decisions about what to study, and how and why the topic is interesting to them.
If you have ever taught in a classroom of at least 20 students, written lesson plans based on standards, or been held accountable for test scores, you might be asking some questions like:
“How would I manage 20+ students who have all decided to study different things?”
“What about units, standards, pacing guides, data, and curriculum maps?”
“How do students know what is important to learn, how to learn it, and why?”
These questions will most likely not be answered in this blog post. What I intend to do here is give you two stories: One failed attempt at student-centered instruction and one successful attempt at student-centered. Both took place with the same group of fourth grade students, the same teacher, similar content, and a growth mindset.
A Failed Attempt
When my district first introduced us to a student-centered model for instruction, I was excited. Until I actually tried it. My somewhat orderly classroom visited a town a little south of Chaos (Friends anyone?).
Students were given a goal setting sheet, and a preplanned math menu. Our math block consisted of students setting goals, getting onto their computers and following the unit plan I had set up for them. They watched videos to learn concepts, practiced the concept with a partner or individually, and signed up for a conference with me when needed.
Here is where it all fell apart. I’ll let you imagine the rest.
The Misunderstanding
You already know what I am going to say about theory and practice. Let’s just say they almost always don’t have anything in common. They might seem like the perfect couple, but when you get real, practice always wins.
In that short description of my first attempt at creating self-directed, self-paced learners, you can clearly see my misunderstanding of what student-centered actually means. Just because I gave students a goal setting sheet and a menu in no way means that this process was at all student-centered.
Basically, students were still required to move through curriculum, with very little flexibility, and with absolutely no student input on the planning. I planned units based on the curriculum, found relevant teaching videos, gave them a couple of choices about how to practice those concepts, and expected them to wait for my attention and sign up for a conference. Yikes.
Let’s just say our math block became a thing to be dreaded. Like, maybe lets just skip math today.
When I look back on this attempt, I can see the good intentions underneath. What I wanted was to give students an opportunity to move at their own pace, to honor their ability to problem solve, and more time for me to meet with them individually.
All good things, all good things.
Needless to say, this idea fell by the wayside pretty quickly. Leave it to a classroom of twenty five fourth graders to deliver a useless practice to the chopping block, pronto.
Once you take a risk like this to change your practice and fail, you can go back to the way you did things, or…
Try something else!
A Successful Try
Focusing on those good things I knew I wanted more of in our classroom, and wanting to move toward a more student-centered learning experience, I decided to try again.
One of the good things that is part of a student-centered classroom is honoring the student’s ability to problem solve. Part of problem solving includes a bit of struggle. (Read more about how and why struggle is actually fun in this blog post.)
How could I give students an opportunity to problem solve, and move toward a more student-centered practice?
Give them a problem to solve and see what happens! That might seem like a no-brainer, but here is how it went.
Silent Think Time
To begin our math workshop, students learned a new routine. They were to have their math notebooks ready, turned to a new page, and honor a silent think time. Student’s were given a “juicy” problem to read through individually.
The silent think time gave them each an opportunity to at least read through the problem one time. Students were also given a strategy, which we had already created an anchor chart for, which included problem solving annotations.
During think time, I would circulate to take notes about what students were doing. Are they trying something? Are they annotating? Did they choose a strategy? This is similar to a conference, although I am not actually conferring, just noticing. I might nudge a student or two to volunteer to share their thinking after think time.
Students Teaching Students
At the end of the silent think time, students were invited to share with their classmates any thinking they had done about the problem on the doc camera.
Students may or may not have a solution at this point, and hopefully, the problem is juicy enough that it will take a bit more effort than what is required by one student in such a short time.
Student’s are taking a risk in this moment. Not having an answer is actually encouraged. What we are honoring is the process. What did you try? How did you know where to start? What can I learn from you?
At this point, students are fully engaged, looking for ways to either replicate a strategy, or build upon someone’s ideas.
Now we can move toward the cooperative part.
Cooperative Learning: A Student-Centered Practice
Hopefully, the problem is juicy enough that its going to take some manipulatives to work toward a solution. Hopefully, the problem is hearty enough that its going to take students working together, discussing, debating, and iterating to come to a solution.
However students decide to work together, in pairs or small groups, naturally they understand the value of working with someone else to solve the problem. Student’s start to gather materials. Are they going to draw this problem out or build it? Are they going to act it out? Will they need a graphic organizer?
Once again, my opportunity to confer is everywhere. How are they planning together? What cooperative structures could support their learning together? What Math Practices will they need to employ? Are there additional tools I can suggest? How will they show their understanding? Is the struggle just right?
The Debrief
Before you know it, time is running out. The school day is ending, or we have to move on to a special, a lunch, or ug, even recess. A student-centered learning experience like this is exciting. Most of the time, student’s don’t want it to end, especially if we don’t have a solution yet.
Our first attempt at this took us an entire week! Perhaps you are thinking “Must be nice.” Yes, it was nice.
Remember the goal here is to build a student-centered classroom. We honor the student’s ability to solve problems, participate in struggle, make choices, and all those good things. But how will we know if we’ve accomplished anything? You’ve got to debrief.
Every chance you get. Make it happen.
During the debrief we notice, name, and celebrate our experience. When we name our experiences, our triumphs, and our challenges, we place value on them. We record these thoughts and feelings on an anchor chart and we honor how we have grown. Growth is the goal. How can we measure growth if we aren’t noticing it, naming it, and recording it?
Debrief allows for authentic discourse as well. All voices are valued, we listen and make decisions about how we will move forward. We may even find new ways of thinking or talk about how our thinking has changed as a result of our experience. Students might get the chance have to convince one another that their strategy is correct, explaining their thinking with writing and visuals.
And what do you know? We now have a student-centered learning experience. All because we dove into a juicy problem.
The Take Aways
All this to say, try something different.
My view on student-centered learning was forever changed for the better because I decided to try something new, in just one class, for just one subject. This small change centered on my ability to set up a new routine, and honor the student’s ability to solve problems.
Here is a pdf of the plan and procedure for this lesson you can easily use as a model for your own version of this story. I hope you will try it and see what happens. If you already do something like this, please share in the comments!
Don’t forget to have fun!