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When prompted by the teacher, one of the circles moves to the left or right so each student now faces a new partner, with whom they discuss a new question.

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This kinesthetic discussion activity invites students to be active listeners and speakers and to interact with a wide range of classmates.

Advisory

Civics & Citizenship

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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This kinesthetic discussion activity invites students to be active listeners and speakers and to interact with a wide range of classmates. Advisory Civics & Citizenship English & Language Arts History Social Studies The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

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Graffiti Boards are a shared writing space (e.g., a large sheet of paper or whiteboard) where students record their comments and questions about a topic.

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Help students process their thoughts and emotions on a topic by engaging them in a written conversation with their classmates.

Advisory

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

- Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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Help students process their thoughts and emotions on a topic by engaging them in a written conversation with their classmates. Advisory English & Language Arts History Social Studies Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools. - Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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This strategy helps students develop the habit of making these connections as they read.

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Reading comes alive when we recognize how the ideas in a text connect to our experiences and beliefs, events happening in the larger world, our understanding of history, and our knowledge of other texts. The Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World strategy helps students develop the habit of making these connections as they read. When students are given a purpose for their reading, they are able to better comprehend and make meaning of the ideas in the text. You can use this strategy with any type of text, historical or literary, and with other media, such as film. It can be used at the beginning, middle, or end of the reading process to get students engaged with a text, to help students understand the text more deeply, or to evaluate students' understanding of the text.

1. Select a Text
This strategy works best with a text that raises universal themes that might resonate with students' own experiences and with material they have studied previously. Teachers often give students their own copy of the text so that they can mark it up, although this is not required.

2. Guide Students through Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World
Theaccompanying handout to this strategy provides you with sample questions that you can give students to guide them through this activity. The questions in the directions are general, but you can make them specific to the material your class is studying. For example, you might ask students to connect what they read to specific texts or to events you have studied earlier in the school year.

3. Debrief
Students gain a deeper understanding of the text, of their classmates, and of the world around them when they have the opportunity to discuss their responses with peers. Students can share their responses with a partner (see theThink-Pair-Share teaching strategy), in small groups (see the Assigning Roles teaching strategy), or as part of a larger discussion (see the Fishbowl teaching strategy).

One Connection: If you have limited time, you can give students the option of writing about one connection they have found between the text and another text, their lives, or the larger world.

Mapping Connections: Social maps are a visual way of showing relationships between people, but they can also be used to show relationships between ideas and events. An extension of this activity would be to have students draw the connections they find between a text and other ideas, events, or experiences. Students can work on these maps in groups, noting the relationships among their responses.

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A teaching strategy to help students make connections between the ideas in readings, their own experiences and beliefs, and events in history and the world. Facing History offers teaching strategies that nurture students' literacy and critical thinking skills within a respectful classroom climate.

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A de-cluttered classroom where students and the teacher have space to move about freely to locate materials such as books, supplies or tech devices and to collaborate with each other.

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What does your classroom setup communicate? Redesigning your space to the tune of students' needs, rather than convenience or habit, can be daunting. But it doesn't have to be.

The July Education Update article, " Get Rid of Rows! and Other Tips for a Student-Centered Classroom," offers six ways to create a flexible space that supports, rather than hinders, 21st century learning.

1. Edit the Junk
Decluttering is just one way to make the school environment-what some experts call "the third teacher"-more accessible. An organized classroom allows students to move around freely and quickly locate materials and supplies.

2. Dump Your Desk
"I don't like the idea of the teacher's desk, for the same reason I don't like a necktie," says instructional coach Blake Wiggs. "I feel like it represents an authoritarian role." Teachers need workspaces, he assures, but they shouldn't be the focal point of the room.

3. Say Good-Bye to Solider Rows
Seating arrangements have the power to nurture or derail collaboration. Although traditional "soldier rows" are ideal for tests, they compel students to "stare in the front [of the classroom] and not talk." Experiment with seating configuration apps and sit in the chairs to see how the setup feels. Can students see the board? Can they quickly turn to their peers and work as a team?

4. Give Them Guided Choice
Even within routines, you can leave room for choice. Teacher Pamela Kennedy lets her 3rd graders pick a new seat every Friday. At the beginning of the year, "you'll often see best friends sitting next to each other," she admits. But if they talk incessantly and get three strikes, she leads a round of rock-paper-scissors that determines new seating for one of them. Eventually, the students learn to choose wisely.

5. Vary the Furniture
Teachers are often "limited by the kinds of opportunities and pedagogies that the [typical classroom] space"-and furniture-allow, notes school design architect Prakash Nair. Upgrading your furniture doesn't have to be costly: A teacher in Singapore with no budget reconfigured her classroom with chairs, couches, high tables, and other furniture sourced from the community. Another classroom in Finland has "half as many chairs as they have students" to encourage kids to stand and circulate. Even swapping the attached desk/chair units with individual desks and chairs lets students move easily into formations that fit the learning activity.

6. Create Comfortable, Functional Spaces
Make room for "untraditional spaces" that let the creative juices flow. Add innovative reading nooks or areas equipped with comfortable seating where students can congregate. And consider "giving classroom walls to your kids," advises high school teacher Nicholas Provenzano, by hanging up huge, flexible dry erase boards. Or paint the top of students' desks with dry-erase paint.

For more design ideas, read " Get Rid of Rows! and Other Tips for a Student-Centered Classroom."

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Six Design Tips for a Student-Centered Classroom - ASCD Inservice

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What does your classroom setup communicate? Redesigning your space to the tune of students' needs, rather than convenience or habit, can be daunting. But it doesn't have to be. The July Education Update article, " Get Rid of Rows!

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Growth-mindset-based assessment based on the development and transfer of skills over time rather than on one summative assessment.

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Student Portfolio Ideas to Drive Effective Learning

When you imagine creating a student portfolio, what do you see?

Perhaps you envision a careful curation of final products: a collection of excellent work that's been revised, polished, and prepared for presentation. But, is emphasizing only the final product really the best way to drive learning?

What if we leveraged portfolios to capture the process of learning in addition to the products? At GOA, process portfolios are emerging as a tool in the push toward competency-based learning. The key difference between these portfolios and others is that the evidence of growth comes from process artifacts (discussions, project plans, working drafts) rather than a sampling of summative assessments.

As we begin working with students on process portfolios, we're already seeing four compelling ways they're working.

1. Process portfolios are a growth mindset's best friend.

The connection between long-term learning and helping students develop a growth mindset is at the heart of Carol Dweck's Mindset. The ideas that our abilities are plastic (rather than fixed) and that we can always improve suggests we should highlight how students' effective efforts lead to growth.

Student reflection is critical to this work, and thus a foundational element of a process portfolio. GOA Filmmaking teacher Brendan Gill of Catlin Gabel School asks students to use Google Slides as process portfolios. Students synthesize feedback from Brendan and classmates, articulate themes in their own work, and establish an intention for upcoming assignments (see the example below from Amelie of Think Global School).

The focus is squarely on what students have learned about themselves, about their process as filmmakers, and about their next steps. Students post their portfolios weekly and comment on one another's progress, focusing on moving forward as a community of learners.

2. Process portfolios unlock possibilities for student-driven, personalized learning.

If students' process portfolios are based on their movement toward mastery of a series of skills or competencies, it becomes easier to design courses in which students choose their own pathways.

In GOA's Arabic program, Ala Hamdan, Rania Al Natsheh, and Matt Westman of King's Academy in Jordan work with 60 students at various levels of Arabic. Students are invited to add reflections to their process portfolios periodically and to choose the GOA core competencies they want to reflect and be assessed on. The result is that the reflections (and students' grades) are aligned to their personal goals and their individual Arabic competency, which allows our most driven Arabic 1 students to push deep into the Arabic 2 curriculum by the end of the year.
Read more on rethinking time in our Arabic classes
The same is true in Social Psychology, taught by Chris Stapel and Natalie Broderick ( Hong Kong International School). Using parallel units, students choose the topics that interest them and set their own competency goals. At any given moment, students might be in one of four different units.

The portfolio assessment in the classroom follows this process:

The students begin each module by choosing their personal growth goals from among a list of skills or competencies that the course aims to impart.

At the end of the module, they reflect publicly on their progress toward those goals and submit their portfolios to the teacher.

Teachers seek to provide actionable, outcomes-based formative feedback and time to digest and apply it.

Students take their teachers' feedback and use it to set goals and reflect on their progress over time.

Using the process portfolio pivots the focus away from specific content and summative assessments and toward the development and transfer of key skills over time, freeing the students to pursue the content that most interests them.

3. Process portfolios peg grades to skills developed rather than to assignments completed.

If grading amounts to a glorified bean-counting exercise (5 points for turning in this assignment, 10 points off that assignment because it was a day late, half-credit for not showing your work, etc.), students are bound to focus undue attention on the beans as opposed to the learning.

Using process portfolios makes it natural to base grades on the quality of the students' submitted evidence and reflection on their learning rather than their compliance with instructions. Carey Pohanka, GOA's Advocacy teacher from St. Christopher's School, has experimented with a system that leverages Google Forms to have students submit evidence of learning to their portfolios. It is the entire process portfolio rather than the individual daily assignments that are graded.

If the only thing that counts towards a grade is the teacher's (and the student's) assessment of the development of key competencies via that portfolio, one can't help but focus grading on what's important.

4. Process portfolios can lead to more equitable grading practices.

Several GOA teachers have used process portfolios to support a move toward rolling grades. The essential shift in both competency-based and standards-based grading is relatively simple: replace the assignment labels that run across the top of your typical gradebook with the skills or competencies you want students to develop, then give students multiple opportunities to submit evidence of development of those skills.

A learner might earn a 3/5 on a given skill in October, but that particular grade will improve as her skills develop throughout the semester. This approach can dial down the anxiety around early assessments and support a culture of reassessment focused on growth. What's more, moving toward rolling competency-based grading has significant implications for equity. With rolling competency-based grades, your grades will reflect more clearly what students are taking away from your course, rather than dwelling on the shortcomings with which they may have started the course.

In the end, the purpose of competency-based learning is to help students develop the skills necessary to become lifelong learners. Using process portfolios helps guide students towards documenting and reflecting on how and why they learn, not just what they learn.
How do you leverage portfolios in your own work? Does a focus on process over product help engage students in learning? Let us know on Twitter. Learn more about GOA's work on competency-based learning in this series of articles, or contact us for more information.

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4 Advantages of Using Student Process Portfolios

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When you imagine creating a student portfolio, what do you see? Perhaps you envision a careful curation of final products: a collection of excellent work that's been revised, polished, and prepared for presentation. But, is emphasizing only the final product really the best way to drive learning?

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Digitally-driven techniques that adapt to each individual student's skills and needs.

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Is it going to transform public schools, finally bringing education into the age of digitally driven personalization embodied by companies such as Amazon and Netflix? Or is it a billionaire-backed boondoggle, aimed primarily at replacing teachers and extracting data from children? When it comes to "personalized learning," there's no shortage of hyperbole from either proponents or critics.

Here's what you need to know about the realities of one of the biggest, most controversial trends in K-12 education-starting with the most difficult question first.

What exactly is personalized learning?
Inside K-12 schools, the term is used to mean just about anything.
For many educators, it's about using adaptive software that adjusts to each student's skill level. Sometimes, it's about the systematic use of digital data to inform big decisions, like how to group students. Other schools focus on giving students more say over what projects they undertake, or how they present their work. And increasingly, personalized-learning proponents also take a much wider lens, saying schools must nurture each individual child's social, emotional, and physical development.

Some see such scattered and nebulous definitions as reason to worry that personalized learning will go the way of other short-lived reforms. Others are more positive.

"In the same way that Inuits have lots of different words for 'snow,' I think these are all personalized learning," says Larry Berger, the CEO of ed-tech company Amplify and a leading thinker and writer on the topic for over a decade.

What's the hope behind the movement?
Very broadly speaking, the idea is to customize the learning experience for each student according to his or her unique skills, abilities, preferences, background, and experiences.
The hope is that will improve a wide range of student outcomes, from engagement to achievement to wellbeing.

Personalized-learning pioneer Dianne Tavenner told Education Week in 2017 that it's about the type of education good teachers have always envisioned, but haven't always had the tools to make a reality.

"Personalized learning is a way to actually enact the pedagogy we believe in and that kids thrive in," said Tavenner, the founder of Summit Public Schools, a California-based charter network that operates about a dozen of its own personalized-learning schools while licensing its personalized-learning software to hundreds of others.

So is this a new idea or not?
Not really.
The personalized learning movement has two primary wings, each of which is grounded in decades-old (and often warring) philosophies about how children learn. The so-called "engineering model" of personalized learning emphasizes efficient mastery of academic content. The idea is that experts can map out what each child needs to learn, measure what of that each already knows, and then create the optimal path for him or her to learn the rest.

Other approaches to personalized learning are rooted in progressive education traditions. This wing of the movement generally holds that learning happens when schools tap into students' interests and passions, giving them individualized opportunities to ask questions and explore and take risks.

The former approach dates at least back to the 1950s, when psychologist B.F. Skinner was experimenting with "teaching machines" intended to let students answer questions and receive feedback at their own pace. The latter goes back more than a century, to John Dewey. It's often seen today in schools that emphasize more project-based learning.

In both cases, what is new is the way in which technology-from big data to online collaboration tools to social media-is being used to amplify methods educators have been using more or less forever.

Where did the new push for personalized learning come from?
Big-picture, it's a reflection of deeper trends in both society and the K-12 sector.
Technology has already transformed other sectors of society, such as retail. Often, this has taken the form of using digital data to learn more about individuals and their preferences, then target them with information, advertisements, and recommendations. In part, personalized learning is a reflection of the push to apply those tools and ideas to education.

It's also emerged out of rising opposition to standardized tests and the so-called "factory model of education," which critics contend has left both children and teachers feeling like widgets inside the classroom. These broad forces started to come together in tangible form roughly a decade ago.

Beginning around 2009, for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began committing hundreds of millions of dollars to support research and development around personalized learning.

Then, under President Obama, the U.S. Education Department gave half a billion dollars to encourage districts to embrace the trend, primarily via its competitive-grant program known as Race to the Top. More recently, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the venture-philanthropy group started by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, has vowed to give hundreds of millions of dollars per year in support of its vision for "whole-child personalized learning," encompassing students' emotional and physical development as well as their academic learning.

States, companies, other philanthropies, and a network of nonprofits and advocacy groups are also now backing the movement.

Do personalized learning strategies work?
Oh yeah. Big-time.
In 2018, for example, the Education Week Research Center conducted a nationally representative survey of the country's school principals.

More than half characterized personalized learning as either a "transformational way to improve public education" or a "promising idea."

A whopping 97 percent said their schools were using digital technologies to personalize learning in some form or fashion.

Does personalized learning work?
That's precisely the wrong question to ask.
John Pane, a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation and a leading researcher of the personalized learning movement says the reason why goes back to the incredible variation in how personalized learning actually happens inside real classrooms.

"At this stage, we really need to be looking at the actual components of what people are trying to do and assess them each on their own," Pane said.

That's an argument that proponents generally embrace. They point to the strong research base for some of the core building blocks of most personalized-learning models, including providing students with differentiated instruction and real-time feedback.

Some studies of specific personalized-learning products, used in particular situations and under particular circumstances, have also yielded promising signs.

But other such studies have shown small or even negative results.

And what about personalized-learning models that seek to transform entire schools? Experts estimate there are maybe 1,000 or so such schools in the country. How are they doing?

Summit is one of the best-known, best-funded examples, having received more than $40 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. But Tavenner's group has declined to undergo independent third-party evaluation.

The results for other models that have been studied are generally not great.

"The evidence base is very weak at this point," said Pane, who led a Gates-funded study of about 40 personalized-learning schools, finding modest gains and big implementation challenges.

Are there other arguments against personalized learning?
You betcha.
Critics such as independent researcher Audrey Watters warn that personalized learning is a pretext for "massive data collection" and surveillance of students. They point to the rapid adoption of analogous technologies in other sectors (think, for example, Facebook), before the unintended and adverse privacy-related consequences we are now seeing could be ironed out.

That 2018 Education Week Research Center survey also found that a strong majority of the nation's principals worried that the trend was leading to too much screen time for students (85 percent expressed "some," "a lot" or "a great deal" of concern), students working alone too often (77 percent), and the tech industry gaining too much influence over public education (67 percent.)

Where does all that leave schools?

Pane and his team at RAND say K-12 educators, administrators, and policymakers are in the unenviable position of having to make high-stakes educational decisions with "imperfect evidence."

That doesn't mean they should stick their heads in the sand, the RAND team said. Personalized learning holds promise. Careful, cautious attempts at some elements of the trend may make sense. Stick to common sense and the evidence we do have, they advise. Resist pressure to throw out established practices that work just because they're not new and shiny.
But think twice before diving in.
"I would not advise schools to dump massive resources into going fully into personalized learning," Laura S. Hamilton, a senior behavioral scientist and distinguished chair in learning and assessment at the RAND Corporation, told Education Week in 2017. "Experiment with some new approaches that might be a good fit for your particular school or district, but monitor it very closely."

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Is it going to transform public schools, finally bringing education into the age of digitally driven personalization embodied by companies such as Amazon and Netflix? Or is it a billionaire-backed boondoggle, aimed primarily at replacing teachers and extracting data from children? When it comes to "personalized learning," there's no shortage of hyperbole from either proponents or critics.

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A discussion technique in which the class is arranged into two concentric circles. Each student is able to have a discussion with a peer, then on the teacher's signal, the outer circle rotates and each student is then paired with a new peer.

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This cooperative learning strategy actively engages students as they work with multiple partners to ask and answer questions or discuss topics related to the lesson or unit. Inside/Outside Circles works best when used with the whole class or a large group. This is a no-prep activity.

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A student-led/student-facilitated group discussion on a given text. Students highlight the main points and help each other gain a deeper understanding of the text.

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Have students facilitate a discussion in order to work together toward a shared understanding of a text.

Advisory

Civics & Citizenship

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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Have students facilitate a discussion in order to work together toward a shared understanding of a text. Advisory Civics & Citizenship English & Language Arts History Social Studies The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. - Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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A cooperative learning method where students are divided into groups. The lesson is broken up into tasks. Each group member is assigned a task. They are to study and learn their task; their piece of the puzzle. In their jigsaw group, they each present their task, putting all the pieces together.

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OVERVIEW

The jigsaw classroom is a research-based cooperative learning technique invented and developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since 1971, thousands of classrooms have used jigsaw with great success.

The jigsaw classroom has a four-decade track record of successfully reducing racial conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes such as improved test performance, reduced absenteeism, and greater liking for school.

Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece - each student's part - is essential for the completion and full understanding of the final product.

If each student's part is essential, then each student is essential; and that is precisely what makes this strategy so effective.

JIGSAW IN 10 EASY STEPS

The jigsaw classroom is very simple to use. If you're a teacher, just follow these steps:

STEP SEVEN

Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.

STEP EIGHT

Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group.

Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.

STEP NINE

Float from group to group, observing the process.

If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.

STEP TEN

At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material.

Students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.

ABOUT ELLIOT ARONSON

Elliot Aronson is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He has long-standing research interests in social influence and attitude change, cognitive dissonance, research methodology, and interpersonal attraction. Professor Aronson's experiments are aimed both at testing theory and at improving the human condition by influencing people to change dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors.

Professor Aronson received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1954, his M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1959. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of California. In 1999, he won the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, making him the only psychologist to have won APA's highest awards in all three major academic categories: distinguished writing (1973), distinguished teaching (1980), and distinguished research (1999).

MORE ABOUT
ELLIOT ARONSON

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The jigsaw technique is a cooperative learning approach that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience.

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1. Critical Links, (n.d.) Why is it important to use technology in the classroom? Accessed on 19 April 2021. Available: https://www.critical-links.com/2019/09/01/why-is-it-important-to-use-technology-in-the-classroom/#:~:text=Technology%20Encourages%20Individual%20Learning%20%E2%80%93%20Technology,to%20support%20the%20learning%20process.

2. Student Centred Learning (n.d.) Student Centered Collaboration. Accessed on 19 April 2021. Available: https://sites.google.com/view/student-centered-learning/question-2-student-centered-collaboration

3. Edutopia (3 February 2015) Formative Assessment is transformational! Accessed on 19 April 2021. Available: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/formative-assessment-is-transformational-andrew-miller

4. Moffett, J., & Wagner, B. (1991). Student-Centered Reading Activities. The English Journal, 80(6), 70-73. doi:10.2307/818583

5. Edutopia (8 January 2016). 6 Strategies for Differentiation. Accessed on 19 April 2021. Available: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-strategies-pbl-andrew-miller

6.  Edutopia (2 September 2015). Using Assessment to Create Student-Centered Learning. Accessed on 19 April 2021. Available: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/assessment-create-student-centered-learning-andrew-miller

7. The Jigsaw Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.jigsaw.org/

8. Socratic seminar. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/socratic-seminar

9. Ascd Blogger, A. (2016, August 15). Six design tips for A STUDENT-CENTERED Classroom. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://inservice.ascd.org/six-design-tips-for-a-student-centered-classroom/

10. Eric Hudson — Apr 12, 2., Bonnie Lathram — Aug 10, 2., & Eric Hudson — Jul 18, 2. (2018, November 09). 4 advantages of using STUDENT Process Portfolios. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://globalonlineacademy.org/insights/articles/how-process-portfolios-drive-learning

11. Herold, B. (2021, January 15). What is personalized learning? Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-is-personalized-learning/2019/11

12. Inside/outside circles. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2021, from http://teach.nflc.umd.edu/startalk/classroom-activity/insideoutside-circles-19

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What are some student-centered approaches or techniques for reading?

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What are some student-centered approaches or techniques for reading?

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- Students can select readings on topics they are interested in.
- Students choose the medium in which they will demonstrate comprehension and interpretation of text.
- Group discussions
- Choose reading texts that have a personal connection to the students
- Socratic Seminars
- Annotating and Paraphrasing Sources
- Close Reading Protocol
- Create a Headline
- Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World

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What student-centered approaches or techniques include physical movement as a central element?

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What student-centered approaches or techniques include physical movement as a central element?

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- Field Trips

- Dramas (Role Play)
- Oral/ poster presentations
- Kinesthetic type learning with hands on projects
- Activity stations with tactile objects
- Inside/Outside Circles
- Gallery walk
- Concentric Circles
- Graffiti Boards

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What student-centered approaches or techniques can you use to address differentiation?

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What student-centered approaches or techniques can you use to address differentiation?

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- Balance group work with individual work
- Use a variety of assessments
- Allow them to set their own goals
- Project based learning
- Allow students to choose their own project topic
- A different type of products students can choose according to their interests

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How can you implement assessment so that it enhances student-centered learning?

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How can you implement assessment so that it enhances student-centered learning?

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- Use learning profile cards, rubrics, formative assessments (grading transformation)
- Formal testing assessment results can drive teaching lesson plans to focus more on where students need additional assistance
- Personal assessments give teachers insight on how a student learns and can use that information to better engage students
- Student Process Portfolios

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What are some student-centered approaches or techniques that are based on or require collaboration?

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What are some student-centered approaches or techniques that are based on or require collaboration?

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- Jigsaw Method (each student becomes the expert on one topic to share with the rest of the class)
- Fishbowl (inner and outer circles for class discussion)
- Project-based learning (facilities thinking skills)
- Group assignments to problem solve or complete a task
- Assigning Roles for Group Work
- Big Paper: Building a Silent Conversation
- Contracting (openly discussing with your students expectations about how classroom members will treat each other)

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How could you design the physical environment of the classroom, including technology, to be conducive to student-centered learning? Alternately, how would you design the learning tool kit of your students’ online learning environment?

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How could you design the physical environment of the classroom, including technology, to be conducive to student-centered learning? Alternately, how would you design the learning tool kit of your students’ online learning environment?

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- Instead of sitting at desks in rows, students could sit in a circle to facilitate discussion.
- Technology could be used individually (i.e. each student uses their phone or specialized apps to submit assignments)
- Teachers film their lessons so that students can re-watch at their own pace, pause, take notes and absorb it before moving on.
- Start a collaborative class blog where students can post their thoughts and opinions on topics in their own time.
- Move desks to create groups of desks (2-4) to promote collaboration
- Computers can used by students on a rotational basis, to allow for individual work
- Provide a good Learning Management System for online learning (Google Classroom)