Self-Paced Learning requires intense preparation. I have to plan what they will do? How they will do it? How much time will it take the fastest person? And the slowest? How will I hold them accountable for their learning? How will I assess their learning? How will I know what they are doing and when they are doing it? How will I handle not having control?????
Self- Paced Learning is POWERFUL!!!!!
Let me say that again. If you are brave enough to turn most of the learning pace over to your students, I think you will be AMAZED at what they can accomplish. You will not believe how much they can learn and how fast they will learn it. You will be in awe of how their confidence, passion and maturity will build as they become more adept at self-paced learning. And you will find yourself more relaxed and the preparation will become much easier and more natural as you continue to move on.
First- let me clarify. Not everything can be self-paced. When material is brand new, I think a teacher needs to present it. There are also some activities that just don't lend themselves to self-paced learning. Those should be continued to be taught by the teacher. If you aren't demanding their attention all the time, you might be surprised how well they pay attention to you when you ask them to! However, the more lessons you make self-paced, the more times you will find that you can make a lesson self-paced.
Here are some ways that I like to make work self paced in my classroom that have been successful.
1) Nearpod- This is a great tool I highly recommend. There are many free lessons that are awesome and many paid lessons as well. You can also make lessons yourself. Some Nearpod lessons work best as a whole group, but there is a student paced option that is often ideal for self-paced learning. It makes it easy for you to keep students accountable for their learning. They watch a short video or read a short article, then complete a drawing activity, short answer or multiple choice quiz, or any of the other variety of activities that you can monitor their progress on.
2) I have them read an article that I want them to learn about and have them do a Reader Response. It could be as simple as a summary or even better is using a Bloom's questioning stem that will require them to apply what they learned.
3) Quizizz- you can make a quiz to test them over anything you wanted them to learn. It could be over a video they watch, an article to read, or something that you taught earlier and want to assess them over. Once they have taken the quiz you can print reports for the whole class and/or individually as a formative assessment, or you can use the data as a an assessment tool.
4) Games- teach students a game in small group, then post it as a station for them to play over and over again to review a concept
5) Worksheet- any worksheet can be part of a self-paced student learning time. Students can turn it in for a grade, for you to review, or take a picture and post it on Seesaw (my favorite app!) If you are interested in conserving paper, consider taking a picture of the worksheet and turning it into an activity on Seesaw. Talk about engaging!
6) And again- Seesaw- just have students take a picture of anything they do, or video a description of what they are doing and post it on Seesaw. This will keep them accountable. Not only will you be seeing their work, but their parents will as well, so they want it to be good quality!
Ok- so there are so many other options for self-paced learning- I hope I've got you thinking! I'd love for you to give me some of your great ideas too. I'm always looking for new ways to learn and grow.
When you begin self-paced learning;
1) Expect that you will have to "call some kids out" for not doing quality work. They will test your accountability setups.
2) Expect that you will incorrectly estimate the time that activities will take sometimes. It's ok. Be flexible, adjust, take note, you will get better over time.
3) Expect that you will fail- something will not work at all the way you want it. If you aren't failing sometimes, you aren't risking enough. Without risk, you will never know how great you can be. Your students will learn so much from watching you fail, and how you handle it.
Be brave! Let me know how self-paced learning works in your classroom!
