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How to Provide Less Structure for Independent Reading

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How to Provide Less Structure for Independent Reading

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Nguyen, H. P. (2021, May 17). How to Provide Less Structure for Independent Reading | Edutopia. How to Provide Less Structure for Independent Reading | Edutopia; www.edutopia.org. https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-provide-less-structure-independent-reading

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Developing independent readers means nurturing the conditions for passion and independent thinking to flourish.

Maria Carluccio / The iSpot

When we limit independent reading to a small range of topics, genres, and reading levels, and routinely assign rote accountability tasks like daily reading logs, we inadvertently send a signal that reading isn't meant to be a joyful, inspiring, self-directed, and even revelatory activity.

"Independent reading is not about a number of minutes or the level of the book. It is not a program," write literacy experts and middle and high school teachers, Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst in Literacy Today. "It is about creating independent thinkers who think with compassion, logic, and curiosity, and without manipulation from others. They think-and from those thoughts, they become more than they were. They become independent."

Paired with regular guided reading instruction, independent reading should provide students with the opportunity to read widely, exploring high-interest and diverse texts across genres, bringing to the reading their own unique "perceptions, values, and thoughts," write Beers and Probst.

Yet nurturing stimulating, immersive independent reading in the classroom-a critical part of developing lifelong readers -requires a willingness to loosen the reins to allow for more organic and unstructured reading time, opting sometimes for low-stakes reflection exercises instead of graded assessments and accountability tasks, and making space for students to exercise some degree of choice and passion.

Here are a few ways to help promote what Beers and Probst describe as the sometimes messy, noisy process of independent reading in the classroom.

Expand Beyond Reading Levels

When students are encouraged to explore texts above and below their reading level, it can liberate them from strict ideas about what they should or should not be reading, freeing them to read more broadly. "In my library, I much prefer the message that all books belong to all readers," writes Julia Torres, a language arts teacher and librarian. "Often, without realizing it, when we lean too heavily on data pertaining to reading levels and achievement and share this information with students, it can lead to the development of prejudicial ideas about which books belong to which grades and readers."

Putting this idea into practice, Torres and her colleague Alexander Maughan created "vertically aligned stacks" in the reading app Sora. Each stack includes books from a variety of grade levels, genres, and topics. Students explore the stacks and curate their own selections that correspond to their writing units and motifs, an approach that gives them access to a much broader range of texts compared to being assigned a set list of books.

Make Accountability Social

Reflection exercises, like establishing accountability partners where pairs of students check in regularly to discuss their reading, can help kids process and demonstrate their understanding of a text in fun, engaging ways that don't feel like a test. Model book chats for students and supply them with a few conversation starters like: "What feelings did this book evoke for you," or "Which character do you most relate to?"

Or find ways "to leverage students' social media connectivity to help them see the relevance of their reading and to cultivate lifelong readers," suggests Lorraine Radice, a director of literacy for Long Beach Public Schools. Encourage students to blog, for example, writing in a relaxed, conversational way about events or ideas that they connect with in their reading. Ask students to record a vlog entry on their phones whenever they encounter something in their reading they'd like to comment on; they can upload recordings onto a Google slide or Flipgrid.

Consider Low-Stakes Assessments

If the goal is to get kids reading-widely and voraciously-then it's worth considering how to make reading feel less like a chore. Some traditional assessment and accountability tools, like mandatory daily reading logs and compulsory graded essays at the end of every book, can significantly decrease students' reading motivation, making reading a duty rather than a pleasure.

Yet some form of accountability is necessary so teachers know kids are reading and processing the material.

In Marilyn Pryle's high school classroom in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, where students get to join book clubs as part of Pryle's effort to build independent readers, she caps off each five-week book club cycle with two low-stakes assessments. For the first part of the assessment, students write a one-page review of the book they've read for Goodreads. For the second part, each group engages in an hour-long discussion of their book. This discussion can happen in one go, be broken into half-hour chunks, or even happen as short chats spread out through the five-week cycle as the students process their books. Students either submit typed minutes from the discussion or upload a recording. In the conversations, Pryle looks for "convincing evidence of a thoughtful, natural 60-minute conversation," and leaves "comments for improvements."

Cultivate Open Inquiry

Fostering reading independence "looks like a democracy-it's messy," write Beers and Probst. "The goal is for all voices to be heard, which means making sure some voices are not louder or easier to hear than others, and that the other voices aren't silenced."

To ensure that each student feels like they have a voice at the table, and that the classroom reflects the rich diversity of people, perspectives, histories, and values that exist across the U.S., it's important that students can browse and read from a rich selection of diverse texts that provides " mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors " for students to see themselves in the materials they read.

From there, cultivating the conditions for genuine reflection and open discussion, the authors suggest, involves intentionally guiding students to think deeply about how their reading is changing their thinking, rather than how many pages or minutes they've accumulated. Conversations, Beers and Probst write, might now turn to questions like: "What's in the book? What's in your head? What's in your heart? And now, what would you like to do?"

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How to Provide Less Structure for Independent Reading

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Developing independent readers means nurturing the conditions for passion and independent thinking to flourish. Maria Carluccio / The iSpot When we limit independent reading to a small range of topics, genres, and reading levels, and routinely assign rote accountability tasks like daily reading logs, we inadvertently send a signal that reading isn't meant to be a joyful, inspiring, self-directed, and even revelatory activity.

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Student Centered Learning: Why, How, & What

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Student Centered Learning: Why, How, & What

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Teachings In Education. (2018, September 19). Student Centered Learning: Why, How, & What [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvzVAQkuSqU

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Student Centered Learning: Why, How, & What

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Introduction to Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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Introduction to Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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Collaborative learning teams are said to attain a higher level of thinking and preserve information for longer than students working individually.

Many consider Vygotsky, the father of 'social learning.' Vygotsky was an education rebel in many ways. He argued for educators to assess students' ability to solve problems rather than merely acquire knowledge. The idea of collaborative learning has much to do with Vygotsky's theory of the "zone of proximal development." It considers what a student can do if aided by peers and adults. By assuming this learning model, we might consider collaboration to increase students' awareness of other concepts.

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Cooperative Learning Model: Strategies & Examples

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Learner Centered Literacy:  Owning Their Own Reading

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Learner Centered Literacy:  Owning Their Own Reading

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This short video tells the story of one school's transition from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach to their reading program and how it resulted in their test scores rising dramatically in a short two-year period.

Some aspects of their approach are the C.A.F.E. framework (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expand vocabulary), students self-selecting their reading material, 10-15 minute rotating reading skills centers (read to self, read to a friend, listening, writing, and word work), independent learning, and problem solving.

I particularly like how they interviewed students for little mini student testimonials for this video. This made the approach even more persuasive.

MaineDOEComm, M. D. O. E. (2013, August 16). Learner centered literacy: Owning their own reading. YouTube. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxx0P_euuSw

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Learner Centered Literacy:  Owning Their Own Reading

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Five Reading Activities to Increase Engagement and Rigor | The Lettered Classroom

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Five Reading Activities to Increase Engagement and Rigor | The Lettered Classroom

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Bridget Spackman shares her experience as a teacher, as well as, tons of practical and useful activities that you could try out in your classroom.

In this specific video she explains 5 engaging, hands-on reading activities designed for small group work in a student-centered classroom.

I particularly appreciate her clear explanation and how she organizes her materials for easy use and re-use.

Spackman, B. (2019, November 3). Five reading activities to increase engagement and Rigor | The Lettered Classroom. YouTube. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJsyoKpGQrc

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Five Reading Activities to Increase Engagement and Rigor | The Lettered Classroom

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Student-Centered Approaches and Techniques for Reading

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Student-Centered Approaches and Techniques for Reading

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This resource seems to have been compiled by a previous TeachNow cohort. I  came across it in my research on this topic. I found it to be quite informative and also contained a rich reference section with more useful sources.

TeachNowCohort3.2018, J. M. (2018). Student-centered approaches and techniques for reading. tnjune17cohort3 [licensed for non-commercial use only] / Student-Centered Approaches and Techniques for Reading. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from http://tnjune17cohort3.pbworks.com/w/page/119008734/Student-Centered%20Approaches%20and%20Techniques%20for%20Reading

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Student-centered teaching is "teaching designed for the student" (teachthought , 2017). Planning should be focused on the student rather than a school policy or curriculum. It is teaching with a focus on the students and their own individual needs, and putting that before anything else. The student is literally at the epicenter of the process in student-centered teaching.

What is the overall objective of student-centered teaching for reading?

Students become stakeholders when they know the instructional objectives and the desired outcome of learning.

To actively engage students and give them some control over the learning process, thus keeping them interested.

To encourage students to reflect on what they are learning and how they are learning it.

To encourage increased collaboration in the classroom by creating a small community of learners.

To integrate computers and new modes of technology into the learning process.

What are some of the benefits of student-centered teaching for reading?

Students are able to significantly enhance their communication and collaboration skills through increased group work and team work.

Students learn how to manage, initiate, and control their own learning by completing tasks independently and at their own pace.

Students become more interested in education through participating in learning activities where they can interact and collaborate with their peers.

What is the statistical trend of new student-centered teaching practices?

What are some of the general approaches to student-centered teaching for reading?

Reading should be taught both individually and in small groups.

Make reflection an important part of the process. This phase allows the student to review the lesson objectives and reflect on things that worked as well as what did not work.

Students should be encouraged to browse the books and make choices on which books to read

Use the "saturation" approach to reading by encouraging students to read for pleasure as well as for information, but also to read a variety of formats such as; paperback books, textbooks, magazines, catalogues, comic books, literary novels, plays, poems, etc. (Acquavita, 2016).

Variety is the key

Keep records of the student's progress

Allow time for independent reading

Plan units that are product-driven in nature and have an essential question which instruction seeks to answer.

Use an effective pre-reading strategy to build schema. One good strategy is "What I know, what I want to know, and what I learned (KWL). This is useful for tapping into students' prior knowledge while helping them make connections in learning (Mansaray, 2013).

Provide instruction in basic reading strategies by using reciprocal teaching practice which includes; predicting, visualizing, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing (Mansaray, 2013).

Overview: There are countless ways to apply the student-centered teaching approach for reading. Since each student has a different learning preference, it is important to incorporate different teaching styles, activities, and games into the curriculum in order to provide students with a variety of unique opportunities to create an individualized learning plan. Below are some examples of activities that can be used in a student-centered classroom:

Example 1: Reader's Theater

The teacher selects text relevant to the topic of the day and assigns students in class to read it out loud. Students are encouraged to add drama, flair, and even humor to their readings. It is a great way to start and build discussions.

This method is used often in elementary schools to encourage new readers to improve their reading confidence, fluency, and comprehension. It encourages participation, especially from quiet shy students who may lack confidence in their knowledge (Lom, 2012).

Example 2: Think-Pair-Share

The teacher poses a question with instructions that students must think independently about their answer (possibly even making some notes), after a brief period of time the students are then instructed to pair up and compare their thoughts/ideas/notes. Afterward, the students share in providing their responses to the rest of the class

This gives the students an opportunity to work in a collaborative manner to come up with responses without putting all of the pressure on each student. This method also works well for students who are shy, quiet, or do not like to respond in class (Lom, 2012).

The teacher instructs the students to collaborate in small groups on a specific question with the goal of generating multiple responses. The goal is for students to work cohesively to generate as many ideas as possible.

Example 4: Scrabble Board Games

This is a fun and interactive way for students to identify and learn new words, or become reacquainted with familiar words. It is also a great way for students to learn spelling on their own terms.

This is a great ability for students to learn how to use the dictionary to determine whether their given word choices are correct or not.

In order to increate post-reading discussion, increased reading comprehension, and thesis composition, students are grouped into teams of 2 or 3, and debate one another on an assigned thesis related to their recent reading. This provides students with the ability to collaborate with their team to develop an argument based on their learning and to additionally provide supplementary evidence to justify their argument.

Aside from reading comprehension, this activity also helps with presentation and oral communication skills, which are vital skills for students.

Table of Instructional Methods for Student-Centered Teaching:

The chart shown above by Mia MacMeekin shows some excellent strategies for student-centered learning in the classroom (MacMeekin, 2017).

Conclusion: How Student-Centered is Your Classroom?

To identify whether your classroom is student-centered, it is important to ask yourself the questions below:

How much time are you spending "instructing" and how much time are you spending "facilitating" your students' learning?

What are some ways in which your students have ownership over the classroom? Do you provide them with the opportunities to make decisions on which resources to use or how to use their time?

What are ways in which your students are comfortable with expressing themselves and their thoughts or opinions? When are they not?

When and how often do you talk to your students about their needs? What are some ways in which you could make this an ongoing conversation? (Alber, 2015)

Acquavita, F. (2016). A Language Arts Program with a Student-centered Approach. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.

Retrieved from http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1978/1/78.01.01.x.html .

Lom, B. (2012). Classroom Activities: Simple Strategies to Incorporate Student-Centered Activities. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education.

Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3592730/ .

MacMeekin, M. (2017). 28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies. Teachthought.

Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/28-student-centered-instructional- strategies/.

Mansaray, H. (2013). Nine Strategies for Reaching all Learners in English Language Arts.

Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/stw-expanded-learning-time- individualized-learning-hassan-mansaray.

Teachthought (2017).28 Student-Centered Instructional Strategies. Teachthought.

Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/28-student-centered-instructional- strategies/.

Weimer, M (2012). Five Characteristics of Learner-Centered Teaching. Facultyfocus.

Weymouth, S (2012). Part II - Reading Techniques for Learner-Centered Teaching. BridgeTEFL.

Bart, M (2014). New Faculty Survey Finds More Learner-Centered Teaching, Less Lecturing. Faculty Focus.

Concordia (2016). Which is Best: Teacher-Centered or Student-Centered Education? Concordia University.

Gupta, P (2016). Characteristics of a Student Centered Classroom. Ed Tech Review.

City U (2016). Become a certified teacher in one year. City University of Seattle.

Cole, L (2013). Reader's Theatre in the Classroom. Broadway Educators.

West, E (2014). Debate Team Places Third. Explorer West.

Alber, R (2015). How Student Centered Is Your Classroom? Edutopia.

Education, A (2015). 7 Ways to Create a Student-Centered Classroom. A Pass Education.

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Student-Centered Approaches and Techniques for Reading

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Student-centered teaching is "teaching designed for the student" (teachthought , 2017). Planning should be focused on the student rather than a school policy or curriculum. It is teaching with a focus on the students and their own individual needs, and putting that before anything else.

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"Student-centered literacy instruction emphasizes student choice and ownership of their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

This focus area provides educators with the strategies and tools to create a student-centered literacy classroom that focuses on choice, collaboration, and ownership in order to increase student engagement and improve literacy outcomes." ~~~ betterlesson.com

2022, betterlesson.com. (2022, June 8). Student-centered literacy. BetterLesson. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://betterlesson.com/professional-development/curriculum-and-academic-content/student-centered-literacy

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Student-centered literacy instruction emphasizes student choice and ownership of their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

This focus area provides educators with the strategies and tools to create a student-centered literacy classroom that focuses on choice, collaboration, and ownership in order to increase student engagement and improve literacy outcomes.

Focus Area

Student-Centered Literacy

Components of Student-Centered Literacy

Student-centered literacy empowers students to practice literacy skills at their own pace as they encounter increasingly complex texts. We support skill development through personalized pathways built from BL Connect , Workshops , 1:1 Coaching , and Learning Walks to achieve clear outcomes.

Student-Centered Literacy in a Flexible Learning Environment

Outcome: I can implement student-centered literacy practices in a flexible learning environment by adjusting instruction and deliberately selecting strategies that work in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

Tech Tools for Literacy

Outcome: I can identify and implement specific tech tools that focus on organization, collaboration and feedback in order to create student-centered literacy lessons.

Student-Driven Writing Systems

Outcome: I can implement student-driven writing systems in my classroom by providing students with opportunities to own the writing process, provide meaningful feedback, and engage in collaboration.

Oral Language Skills in Early Literacy

Outcome: I can leverage early learners' oral language development in order to support reading and writing skills.

"It is worthwhile to take a step back from the day-to-day routine to visit classes with colleagues and share what we are seeing, ensure that we have a common language and vision of teaching, identify trends, and develop schoolwide action plans."

"This was one of the best PD experiences I have been to. The facilitators were very knowledgeable and made me think differently about my practices. I know I have grown as an educator."

Learning Strategies From Our Library

Literature Circles and Book Clubs

Increase student reading and engagement with literature circles.
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Practicing and Self-Evaluating Reading Fluency

Support students in practicing reading fluently, assessing their own fluency, and reflecting on their reading with their teacher.
Learn More

Socratic Seminar Discussion

Teach students to discuss complex texts or topics and build their speaking and listening skills with Socratic Seminars.
Learn More

A Focus on Student-Centered Teaching and Learning

We've identified four elements that are key for academic success and for building student-centered classrooms. BetterLesson guides teachers, instructional coaches, and leaders through focus areas within each element to lead their professional development journey.

Instructional Leadership Focus Areas

Improve instruction and learning for teachers and students by building your skills as an instructional leader.

Leading Through Change: Lead the improvement of teaching, learning, and overall school climate to enhance student achievement and success. Learn More

Flexible Instructional Models Focus Areas

Find unique ways for all students to learn, communicate, and solve meaningful problems.

Instructional Leadership Focus Areas

Improve instruction and learning for teachers and students by building your skills as an instructional leader.

Leading Through Change: Lead the improvement of teaching, learning, and overall school climate to enhance student achievement and success. Learn More

Flexible Instructional Models Focus Areas

Find unique ways for all students to learn, communicate, and solve meaningful problems.

Let's Connect

Turn strategies into outcomes. Our team is here to help.
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Student-centered literacy instruction emphasizes student choice and ownership of their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. This focus area provides educators with the strategies and tools to create a student-centered literacy classroom that focuses on choice, collaboration, and ownership in order to increase student engagement and improve literacy outcomes.

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Student-Centered Reading Strategies and the Motivation of Readers

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Student-Centered Reading Strategies and the Motivation of Readers

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This teacher inquiry paper prepared was prepared by Stephanie Cranage for Penn State College of Education's Professional Development School.

In this research the author explores two claims:  1)  The majority of students exhibited higher motivation levels when presented with fun alternatives using the reading strategies.  and 2)  Learning style and culture play a large role in the motivation of students.

Ms. Cranage elaborates on the conclusions of her research and the implications they will have on her future teaching.

Cranage, S. (2020, April 27). Professional Development School > Penn State College of Education. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://old.ed.psu.edu/pds/teacher-inquiry/2008/cranages.pdf

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Is the Student-Centered Learning Style More Effective Than the Teacher-Student Double-Centered Learning Style in Improving Reading Performance?

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Is the Student-Centered Learning Style More Effective Than the Teacher-Student Double-Centered Learning Style in Improving Reading Performance?

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Dong, Y. (2019, November 7). Is the Student-Centered Learning Style More Effective Than the Teacher-Student Double-Centered Learning Style in Improving Reading Performance? Frontiers. Retrieved June 13, 2022, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02630/full

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Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

Faculty of Business, Law and Art, Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Faculty of Education and Science, Jiaying University, Meizhou, China

Appropriate learning styles enhance the academic performance of students. This research compares and contrasts the popular effect of teacher-student double centered learning style (TSDCLS) and student-centered learning style (SCLS) on one's reading, including reading comprehension, inference, main idea abstraction, and reading anxiety. One hundred and fifty one students in grade 4 from three groups (two experimental groups and one control group) participated in the experiment with 18 weeks' reading comprehension training. The results showed that, first, both learning styles contributed to students' reading comprehension, inference, main idea abstraction, and reading anxiety. Second, the TSDCLS contributed more to reading anxiety, and the SCLS contributed more to reading comprehension. Both learning styles had similar effects on inference and main idea abstraction. From the correlation test, excluding the correlation between SCLS and reading anxiety which was not significant, all other effects were significant. These findings are discussed along with implications and ideas for future research.

Introduction

Reading comprehension is an ability to gain meaning from the given text through the interaction between word decoding process and background knowledge application ( Cain et al., 2004; Ahmed et al., 2016). Reading comprehension has received considerable attention as the ultimate goal for reading is to draw a mental image from the given text. The schema in linguistic learning (referred to herein as linguistic schema) plays a fundamental role in reading comprehension through literacy knowledge search in readers' knowledge bases. To be more specific, in reading comprehension, linguistic schema works on the reading process through cue retrieval (e.g., vocabulary meaning) from the mental knowledge structure to interpret and integrate selected new information into the existing knowledge base (e.g., Nassaji, 2002). In reading comprehension, besides general comprehension ability, the other relevant abilities (e.g., inference and main idea abstract) and reading affect (e.g., reading anxiety) also determine the process of reading comprehension ( Rai et al., 2015; Silva and Cain, 2015; Stanley et al., 2018).

Previous studies have confirmed that appropriate teaching-learning style enhances students' academic performance ( Komarraju et al., 2011; Huang et al., 2012), while there remains a general paucity of research comparing the different effects of each teaching-learning style on reading comprehension and the determining factors. Specifically, the effect of different teaching-learning styles on reading performance is a long way from being known. The correlations between different teaching-learning styles and reading factors (e.g., reading comprehension, reading anxiety, inference, and main idea) await discovery.

Literature Review

Linguistic Schema on Reading Process

Teaching Style

Teaching style refers to a belief which teachers used in pedagogy explanation and knowledge transfer to students ( Grasha and Yangarber-Hicks, 2000; Hsieh et al., 2011; Prescott, 2014). Under the guidance of self-determination theory ( Ryan and Deci, 2000), teachers' teaching performance was impacted by competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Extensive studies showed autonomy-supportive and controlling practices directly impacted teachers' teaching style development (e.g., Balaguer et al., 2018; Codina et al., 2018; Collie et al., 2019). Both autonomy-supportive and controlling practices reflected teachers' awareness of supporting students' empowerment on knowledge acquisition, controlling action on feeling, and thinking. Therefore, the current study selected the autonomy-supportive and controlling practices as the framework for teaching style investigation. Moreover, extensive evidences showed teachers' teaching style usually worked with students' learning style, if teaching style matched learning style, students would achieve the best learning results than those whose teaching-learning style did not match due to decreased students' academic anxiety, learning motivation, and task inattentiveness ( Naimie et al., 2010; Chen et al., 2011; Bartholomew et al., 2018). In general, based on self-determination theory ( Ryan and Deci, 2000), teaching style could be further divided into teacher-centered style and learner-centered style ( Edmunds et al., 2008; Tessier et al., 2010; Haerens et al., 2015). Teacher-centered style refers to a teachers' domain teaching approach in which the knowledge transfer was from the teacher to students directly; teacher played the decision-maker role, which determined learning process and designed the learning environment ( Opdenakker and Van Damme, 2006; Kahl and Venette, 2010; Vasileva-Stojanovska et al., 2015). The learner-centered style reflected students who had high involvement in knowledge acquisition with which the teacher played a facilitative role ( Özyurt and Özyurt, 2015; Rogowsky et al., 2015; Bernard et al., 2017). Past studies showed learner-centered style had advantages in increasing students' deep understanding on knowledge acquisition ( Lin, 2015; Hanewicz et al., 2017; Yamagata, 2018), learning motivation ( McCombs et al., 2008; Polly and Hannafin, 2010), and improved critical thinking abilities ( Ernst and Monroe, 2004; Cornelius-White, 2007; Şendağ and Odabaşı, 2009). In addition, past studies mainly investigated the effect of teaching-learning style in math, science, or engineering, a few studies examined the effect in the reading field. Therefore, the current study investigated the learner-centered style and investigated the effect on reading factors.

Impact of Different Learning Styles on Reading Comprehension

Two main learner-centered styles drew great attention in the existing literature but still attract debate in the context of reading comprehension: SCLS and TSDCLS ( Souvignier and Mokhlesgerami, 2006; Rance-Roney, 2010; Law, 2014). Past studies showed that the differences between two learning styles on academic performance mainly come from two factors: teachers' instruction and students' self-regulated learning. Although these two factors work[ed] cooperatively, they still reflect two distinct bodies in the learning process.

Teachers' Instruction

Students' Self-Regulated Learning

There are two key factors to initiate and maintain readers' self-learning; cognitive control and motivational control ( Boekaerts, 1999). On the one hand, researchers claimed that the provision of external structures to control cognitive and motivational regulation was effective in enhancing reading abilities during text comprehension (e.g., Boekaerts, 1999; Pintrich, 2000). For example, Souvignier and Mokhlesgerami (2006) reported that students under motivation control performed better in reading comprehension strategy application than the control group did. In a similar vein, previous studies identified that cognitive control enhanced readers' performance in main idea abstraction and comprehension strategies' application ( Lau, 2012; Lau and Chen, 2013). On the other hand, many researchers showed that the explicit instruction in self-regulated learning may reduce the beneficial effects on students' learning (e.g., Dignath et al., 2008; Dignath and Büttner, 2008). In two meta-analyses, Dignath et al. (2008) found that risk may be involved when teachers tailor self-regulated instruction; this is because teachers may over-control readers' cognitive process and motivational process ( Waeytens et al., 2002), and such intervention may reduce the effectiveness of self-regulated learning on students' learning behaviors. There is no doubt that learner effect and teacher effect are both important in teaching-learning cycles. However, which learning style is more effective in enhancing reading comprehension and reading factors remains to be identified.

Reading Anxiety

In the case of cognitive affect response, reading anxiety mainly reflects the emotional experience in reading ( Saito et al., 1999). Reading anxiety refers to a distinct complex of self-perceptions, behaviors, and affective feelings related to text reading activity ( Saito et al., 1999; Lu and Liu, 2015). Reading anxiety has a close relationship with reading comprehension. High reading anxiety inhibits reading performance and passage recall ( Sellers, 2000; Rai et al., 2015). Different learning styles bring different learning experiences for the readers. For example, the teacher-centered learning style may leave learners feeling bored or disinterested in class ( Schaefer and Zygmont, 2003; Lee and Hannafin, 2016). However, the effect of the learner-centered style (e.g., TSDCLS and SCLS) on reading anxiety is still unclear. Therefore, research on which learning style is better to reduce students' reading anxiety is timely.

Main Idea Abstraction

Main idea abstraction refers to an ability to abstract the mental message from the given test, which is the ultimate goal of reading comprehension. The main idea has a close relationship with reading performance, which in turn determines the reading process (e.g., reading speed) and how the readers can abstract/select the proper reading strategies from their knowledge bases ( Hebert et al., 2018; Stevens et al., 2019). Previous studies confirmed that main idea abstraction is a key factor of executive function in reading comprehension. Usually, a higher main idea abstraction ability predicts higher reading performance. Learning style is essentially a habit that is adopted during the reading learning process, how readers' learning style impacts the ability to develop the main idea remains unknown.

Inference

The Current Study

There are two main aims of this research. The first is to compare and contrast the effectiveness of both SCLS and TSDCLS in enhancing readers' reading experience, which includes overall reading comprehension performance, specific reading abilities (e.g., main idea abstraction and inference), and reading anxiety. Second, the research examines the relationship between each learning style as well as reading comprehension, inference ability, main idea, and reading anxiety.

Method

Participants

Participants for the research were randomly selected from three Grade 4 classes. Of these classes, all students come from low socio-economic status families and the three selected schools were in suburban districts in China. In previous learning, all students' learning curricula followed standard instructions designed and approved by China's Ministry of Education. All students were randomly divided into different classes after they finished the registration procedure for the school program. Consent was obtained from students and their parents before the formers' participation in the research. No participants have received any form of reading ability training. In total, 151 students with no special education needs and from low socio-economic status families were randomly recruited and randomly allocated to three groups. About 49 (25 boys and 24 girls, mean age = 10.12 years old, SD age = 0.61) participated in the TSDCLS group, and 52 students (26 boys and 26 girls, mean age = 9.98 years old, SD age = 0.79) participated in SCLS group. Finally, 50 students (28 boys and 22 girls, mean age = 9.82 years old, SD age = 0.67) formed the control group.

Measures

To examine the effectiveness of SCLS and TSDCLS in enhancing reading comprehension and reading factors, inference ability and main idea abstraction ability from the normal reading comprehension (NRC); NRC tests were used to measure students' reading performance in primary school. The measurement details are listed in the following paragraph.

Normal Reading Comprehension

We examined students' NRC reading abilities through three selected narrative passages (version 2015, version 2016, and version 2017), which were widely used, well-established, and with both high reliability (Cronbach's α-coefficients yielded 0.90) and validity translation tests, which were applied to measure the Chinese children's NRC reading ability in primary school from 2015 to 2017 ( Xia, 2013; Zhang, 2018). Each reading comprehension test had similar difficulty indicators (e.g., correct answer rate in all samples around China was 60%), and the maximum score for each reading battery was 30 with 12 items. Three items for the main idea had a maximum score of six, and four items (e.g., what is the target word meaning in the passage) for inference had the total maximum score of eight (two scores for each). One item for the detailed search was awarded a score of four, and the remaining four items had a total score of 12. The length of each passage was around 900 words, a total of around 2,700 words for all three reading comprehension tests. Version 2015 reading comprehension test was used for pre-test, version 2016 reading comprehension test was used for post-test, and version 2017 reading comprehension test was used for the delayed test.

Reading Anxiety

Students' reading anxiety was assessed by the Chinese Language Reading Anxiety Scale (CLRAS), which was developed by Zhao (2013); the original scale was developed by Saito et al. (1999). The CLRAS contains 20 items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from " strongly disagree" to " strongly agree." An example item is: "When reading a Chinese passage, I get nervous and confused when I don't understand each word." The scale assessed factors that may contribute to reading anxiety and considered students' perceptions of the difficulties they encounter. A high score would indicate high levels of anxiety. The maximum mean score of the scale was 5 and Cronbach's α for the scale was 0.90.

Procedure

Research Design

We applied a quasi-experimental design to measure students' performance in pretest, post-test, and lasting effect (hereafter, we called delayed post-test in the current study). First, we collected the consent forms from potential students and randomly selected students from three classes as our participants. Second, we randomly assigned a research design to each class. Random allocation resulted in 49 students in the TSDCLS group and 52 students in the SCLS group. The remaining 50 students were assigned to the control group. The control group received regular classroom instruction during the reading comprehension program training. The three classes were taught by one of the training tutors, who is also working as a part-time teacher in that school. All expectation teaching outcomes followed the curriculum outline design, which was approved by the Ministry of Education in China for both primary school and secondary school learning periods. Third, to control for irrelevant learning effects (e.g., NRC familiarity learning effect), we selected classical reading comprehension (CRC) for the study. The content structure of CRC is similar to straightforward poems, short works, and fresh but with lively literacy information ( Wang, 2016). Specifically, all CRC vocabulary has at least two different meanings: phonetic radical meaning and semantic radical meaning ( Shu and Anderson, 1997; Chen et al., 2016). Past studies in Chinese reading comprehension confirmed that CRC was a useful predictor of reading performance ( Shu and Anderson, 1997; Wang, 2017). For CRC learning materials, normally, students begin to learn CRC at grade 5 of primary school, which means that, at the time of this study, participants had not done any CRC tasks in normal school test or school learning. The difference between CRC and NRC is that most CRC texts are narrative passages, the average length of each sentence of NRC is longer than that of CRC, and the meaning of each character is unique in NRC. Both TSDCLS and SCLS students were required to learn 21 CRC passages from the textbooks. The total training duration was from late February to late June (18 weeks).

In terms of reading performance examination, the pre-test was held in late February. Before the experiment started, all participants received reading comprehension tests (2015 version) and questionnaires regarding reading anxiety and inference. Regarding the post-test, the 2016 version of the reading comprehension test was used, with the same reading anxiety survey and inference tests. At the delayed post-test, the 2017 version of the reading comprehension test was used, and with the same reading anxiety survey and inference tests.

Training Materials

Training materials comprise three components. Component 1 is a vocabulary list that listed all vocabulary meanings in CRC with higher frequency and the vocabulary that students were required to know from the textbook teaching guidance. For example, "举(ju3)": meaning 1, "并列 (equal effect)," "举案齐眉 (husband and wife treat each other with respect)"; and meaning 2, "全 (all)," "举国同庆(Nationwide celebration)." Component 2 has 21 passages from the school textbook, which the students were required to learn during the training program. All learning passages are narrative passages, telling a story. For example, "邹忌讽齐王纳谏 (Zou Ji's Advice to the King)." In each passage, a modern language translation in direct translation style is given under each sentence, which means that we provided each character's meaning in the second line of the given sentence. In addition, we highlighted the points of difficulty (e.g., grammatical knowledge and vocabulary knowledge) in the initial instructions guide. Component 3 is the after-school exercise, where all items were selected from the textbook. The exercise included main idea abstraction, inference sentence meaning, and detailed information search.

Training Procedure

The major difference between the TSDCLS group and SCLS group is that those students in TSDCLS had more interaction with teachers, which followed the guidance of the TSDCLS ( Rogowsky et al., 2015). That is, in each lesson, teachers and students learn the given materials together. The teacher tries to get interaction with students on each kind of knowledge transfer. Specifically, the interaction between teacher and students mainly reflects in heuristic problem solving and knowledge recall through exercise, the average frequency of the interaction on each knowledge item was over four times.

For the SCLS group, at the beginning of each class, the teacher reminded students to read the guidance instructions carefully first and then asked students to learn the given passage, which was followed by the SCLS ( Dignath et al., 2008). The teacher would only instruct students if students encountered difficulties and raised their hands. If more than three students had the same question, the teacher explained the knowledge being sought. In each training session, the teacher started class with encouragement on students' self-learning, which mainly used self-questioning, self-regulated learning, and self-problem solving. The average interaction frequency during the learning period was one time only for time instruction and asked students to move their eyes to exercises to continue learning. All learning materials in the TSDCLS and SCLS group were the same and included the direct translation in modern language, the difficult points, the characters' different meanings recall notice, grammatical function, and so on.

For the control group, except the material of guidance instructions, all three components' training materials were provided to control group's students at the same learning period.

Results

Descriptive Analysis and Comparison Reading Performance From Three Groups

For scores calculation, regarding the main idea test, we used items' scores from the NRC. Then, we compared each reading factor performance in pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test contexts.

Repeated ANOVA and four-way ANOVA were used for data analysis. From Table 1, at pre-test, all three groups' students achieved similar performance in NRC ( F = 0.30, p > 0.05), inference ( F = 0.15, p > 0.05), main idea abstraction ( F = 0.11, p > 0.05), and reading anxiety ( F = 0.49, p > 0.05). At post-test, three groups students performed significant differences in NRC ( F = 289.56, p < 0.001), inference ( F = 285.05, p < 0.001), main idea abstraction ( F = 112.63, p < 0.001), and reading anxiety ( F = 49.89, p < 0.001). Specifically, regarding NRC, SCLS students performed significant higher scores than TSDCLS students (Mean difference = 1.00, p < 0.001), TSDCLS students performed significant higher score than control group (Mean difference = 3.80, p < 0.001). Regarding inference, TSDCLS students had similar scores with SCLS students (Mean difference = 0.09, p > 0.05), control group students had significant lower score with TSDCLS (Mean difference = 2.45, p < 0.001) and SCLS students (Mean difference = 2.36, p < 0.001). Regarding main idea abstraction, TSDCLS students performed similar score with SCLS students (Mean difference = 0.02, p > 0.05), control group students performed significant lower score with TSDCLS students (Mean difference = 1.86, p < 0.001) and SCLS students (Mean difference = 1.84, p < 0.001). Regarding reading anxiety, TSDCLS students had significant lower score than SCLS students (Mean difference = −0.79, p < 0.001), SCLS students performed significant lower score than control group students (Mean difference = −0.85, p < 0.001).

Table 1. Comparison means and standard deviations for three rounds of data collection from three different groups.

At delayed post-test, three group students performed significant differences in NRC ( F = 131.71, p < 0.001), inference ( F = 41.38, p < 0.001), main idea abstraction ( F = 65.15, p < 0.001), and reading anxiety ( F = 49.77, p < 0.001). Specifically, SCLS students performed significant higher score than TSDCLS students in NRC (Mean difference = 0.54, p < 0.05), TSDCLS students performed significant higher score than control group students (Mean difference = 3.39, p < 0.001). Regarding inference, TSDCLS students had similar score with SCLS students (Mean difference = 0.04, p > 0.05), control group students had significant lower score than TSDCLS students (Mean difference = 1.31, p < 0.001) and SCLS students (Mean difference = 1.34, p < 0.001). Regarding main idea abstraction, TSDCLS students got similar score with SCLS students (Mean difference = 0.03, p > 0.05). Control group students had significant lower score with TSDCLS students (Mean difference = 1.66, p < 0.001) and SCLS students (Mean difference = 1.64, p < 0.001). Regarding reading anxiety, TSDCLS students had significant lower reading anxiety than SCLS students (Mean difference = −0.95, p < 0.001), SCLS students had significant lower reading anxiety than control group students (Mean difference = −0.85, p < 0.001).

The Effect of Both Teacher-Student Double Centered Learning Style and Student-Centered Learning Style on Reading and Reading Factors

To further explore the effect of both TSDCLS and SCLS on reading and reading factors, we created two sub-variables for learning styles and examined the effect on reading comprehension and reading factors.

Table 2. The effect of learning styles on reading and reading factors.

Discussion

We examined the effect of both TSDCLS and SCLS on reading comprehension and relevant reading factors (reading anxiety, main idea abstraction, and inference). The results showed that, firstly, the two experimental groups performed better than the control group in reading comprehension and three selected reading factors. Between TSDCLS and SCLS, the TSDCLS performed better in reading anxiety than the SCLS. However, the SCLS performed better in NRC than the TSDCLS. As for inference ability and main idea abstraction, two experimental groups had similar performance. Secondly, the TSDCLS had a significant positive correlation with reading comprehension and three selected reading factors, in which the results were consistent with the comparison test. However, the SCLS did not have a significant correlation with reading anxiety. We discussed this phenomenon later.

The Advantage of Teacher-Student Double Centered Learning Style

The Advantage of the Student-Centered Learning Style

Better performance in the NRC test could be explained by two reasons. Firstly, the depth of processing theory shows that deeper encoding facilitates better memory retrieval compared with shallow encoding (e.g., Craik and Lockhart, 1972). In the current study, in the SCLS, with less teachers' guidance, students were forced to make more effort to attain deeper and more levels of elaborating and associating the reading materials with their knowledge retrieval during training, which means they have more comprehensive understanding of reading knowledge (e.g., sentence structure, vocabulary meaning). In this case, they find it easier to retrieve more needed knowledge on a NRC task due to deeper encoding of memory cues. For example, when students need to accomplish a NRC task, they may recall target knowledge (e.g., phrases' meaning) faster than students, who are exposed to the TSDCLS. Secondly, in the SCLS, students have more problem-solving opportunities to think about how to deal with reading tasks effectively, which means they may cultivate more useful reading strategies for reading comprehension practice. Specifically, with guided questions, students might be more likely to engage in retroactive elaborating on and encoding of learning materials where they tend to frequently regulate their learning strategies to use previously learned similar knowledge to tackle the problems at hand.

Similar Effect Between Teacher-Student Double Centered Learning Style and Student-Centered Learning Style

Main Idea

The findings of similar abilities in main idea abstraction in both TSDCLS and SCLS groups were partially consistent with previous studies (e.g., Stoeger et al., 2014), but contrasting with the findings of Mason's (2004) study, which proved the preference of the SCLS over the TSDCLS in teaching main idea abilities. The equal effect of finding main ideas observed in the current study might be related to the involvement of similar probes (i.e. verbal and written prompts) in the TSDCLS and the SCLS, respectively. Morrow (1985) managed to establish that students' abilities in retelling stories were facilitated when they were guided with verbal prompts. The explicit guidance in both TSDCLS and SCLS groups may facilitate students to pick out relevant information in supporting the summarization. This result informed the ability of main idea abstraction could be learned through the appropriate track of guidance, no matter the teacher-directed learning or students' self-learning based on explicit instruction guidance. Under the correct track of guidance, students could increase the ability of main idea abstraction.

Inference

As for the equal effect of inferences in both groups, according to the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model, background knowledge is a significant component for enacting inferences. Prior studies also proved that different kinds of background knowledge about the texts resulted in higher inference scores (e.g., Vidal-Abarca et al., 2000). In the current study, in the beginning, from the test and survey, students in both TSDCLS and SCLS groups had similar background knowledge in NRC. As a result, there might be a possibility that similar storage of background knowledge has equal effects on their inferencing abilities in both TSDCLS and SCLS groups. That is to say, the amount of background knowledge acquisition on reading comprehension was similar between TSDCLS and SCLS through training materials.

Other Effects From the Student-Centered Learning Style on Reading Anxiety

Results showed that the SCLS did not have a significant correlation with reading anxiety. However, the reading anxiety score decreased significantly at post-test and delayed post-test. The reason may be due to the students' feelings of freedom when exposed to SCLS. In particular, during the CRC training, the reader increased other abilities, which decreased threatening feelings when they faced reading comprehension. The reason why the correlation between SCLS and reading anxiety was insignificant might be the compensation or interaction effect with other reading comprehension factors (e.g., word reading and metalinguistic knowledge), resulting in the insignificant correlation.

Limitations and Future Direction

Several limitations of this study should be stated. First, due to the cognitive ability of primary school students, we only measured the effect of learning style on narrative reading comprehension, while other types of reading text such as descriptive reading comprehension and argumentative reading comprehension need further exploration. Second, the current study examined the TSDCLS and SCLS, which are popular nowadays in teaching, while for the teacher-centered learning style, the effect may be different from the learner-centered style (e.g., TSDCLS and SCLS). Third, to the best of our knowledge, there is no standardized and independent scale for inference ability and main idea abstraction measurement. Therefore, for future studies, there is great potential to design a standardized research scale. In addition, this study only investigated students' general reading anxiety. Previous studies showed that anxiety could be categorized into "trait" and "state" anxiety (e.g., Nelson et al., 2015; Waechter and Stolz, 2015). Different types of anxiety have different effects on individuals' executive function (e.g., working memory, inference, and main idea); thus leading to different reading performance efficiencies (e.g., Hadwin et al., 2005). Therefore, it is promising to develop scales eliciting different types of reading anxiety. Next, the correlation between SCLS and reading anxiety was not significant, the potential compensation or interaction effect with other reading factors requires further investigation. The factors that decreased reading anxiety are still unknown. Lastly, the current study only investigated two perspectives' (autonomy-supportive and controlling practices) effects on teaching-learning style; for other perspectives', effects such as competences and relatedness should be further explored in the future.

Implications

The current study contributes to the correlation between TSDCLS and SCLS and reading comprehension from cognitive processing and affect. First, the SCLS with questions-probing learning materials could further strengthen reading ability development in previously-learned knowledge with some amount of learning foundation. The SCLS could trigger students' metacognition based on the depth of cognitive processing. This result informed that SCLS increased students' depth understanding of learning materials, based on the depth of processing model suggestions, more interaction between memory and knowledge acquisition resulted in higher academic performance. Second, it might be that teachers' guidance in the TSDCLS could generate "safety signals," thus easing students' negative cognitive affect, such as decreased threatening feelings of reading anxiety. TSDCLS contributed more to students' academic affective factors (e.g., reading anxiety) through interaction between teachers and students on problem-solving.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both TSDCLS and SCLS contribute to the development of reading comprehension performance and development of three selected reading factors (main idea abstract, inference, and reading anxiety). Specifically, TSDCLS contributes more in reading anxiety through reducing the threatening feeling, the SCLS leads to better performance in the reading comprehension task, and both learning styles have a similar effect on inference and main idea abstraction. The TSDCLS shows a significant correlation with reading comprehension, inference, main idea abstraction, and reading anxiety, the SCLS has a significant correlation with reading comprehension, inference, and main idea abstraction, and the correlation between SCLS and reading anxiety was not significant, which needs further exploration on the compensation or interaction effect between SCLS and other reading factors. Results implicated more interaction between teacher and students on knowledge acquisition and problem-solving could decrease the threatening situation feeling which contributes more to students' affective factors development. SCLS contributed more to students' knowledge of deep understanding.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Jiaying Social Science Research Ethics Committee. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.

Author Contributions

YD and SW drafted the whole paper and did data-analysis. WW and SP provided the comments and helped to revise the draft.

Funding

This paper was supported by the Faculty of Social Science of Meizhou City for 2019 project. Reference Number: mz-ybxm-2019018.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

Beck, A. T. (1985). "Theoretical perspectives on clinical anxiety" in Anxiety and the anxiety disorders. eds. A. H. Tuma and D. Maser (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Press), 183-196.
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Mezirow, J. (2000). "Learning to think like an adult: core concepts of transformation theory" in Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in Progress. ed. J. Mezirow (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass), 3-34.
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Is the Student-Centered Learning Style More Effective Than the Teacher-Student Double-Centered Learning Style in Improving Reading Performance?

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Appropriate learning styles enhance the academic performance of students. This research compares and contrasts the popular effect of teacher-student double centered learning style (TSDCLS) and student-centered learning style (SCLS) on one's reading, including reading comprehension, inference, main idea abstraction, and reading anxiety.

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Student centered classroom with Focused instruction

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Student centered classroom with Focused instruction

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Wills, D. (2021, February 5). Student centered classroom with Focused instruction. Mrs. Wills Kindergarten. Retrieved June 13, 2022, from https://mrswillskindergarten.com/student-centered-classroom/

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Student centered classroom! Are looking for some guidance in improving your teaching skills? Here is a list of 5 ways to focus your instruction!! Reading, Writing, Math, Assessment, and MORE!Are looking for some guidance in improving your teaching skills? Here is a list of 5 ways to focus your instruction!! Reading, Writing, Math, Assessment, and MORE!

Student Centered Classrooms: Focused Foundation!

The art of teaching is combining “the what” and “how” effectively.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about the need for careful planning.  You can read about this HERE.   When we plan lessons, we have to have “the end” in mind.  We need to ask ourselves, “As a result of these lessons, what do I want my students to be able to do?”   If my students are expected to reach a benchmark or behavior at a certain time of the year, I need to make certain my instructional practices help build the student towards this goal. The other day I got this message from a teacher and she gave me permission to share it with you:

“I just wanted to take a minute to let you and Deanna know something awesome! I work at a small charter school in XXXX. I teach a k/1 multiage class. We are a TAP school–you may not be familiar but basically each year we are given a value-added score. It’s based on a scale of 1-5. 1 being when students regress, 3 is when they show a years growth and a 5 is showing significant growth. These are based on MAP scores. For the last two years, I’ve been a solid 3 which I was thrilled with! I’ve been using your Writing Workshop for years and last year I added your Guiding Readers and adjusted your Guiding Firsties math so it could meet the needs of my Kinders as well. I just heard that my last year’s value added was a 5!! Thanks so much for developing an awesome curriculum in all areas! I saw my kids grow SO much last year!”

There are a LOT of ways to bake a cake! Deanna Jump and I have spent most of our teaching careers reading about “best practices” then trying things out in our own classrooms. We have been blessed to have the freedom to teach to the needs of our students. Over the last few years,  we have co-written curriculum that has been adopted by thousands of teachers and hundreds of districts.

Student Centered Classrooms: Writers Workshop

Back in 2011, we created our writers workshop curriculum.  We took everything we had learned about writing and combined it with our own classroom experiences!  The results have been so rewarding!

Read more about how we run our writer’s workshop!  I have blogged many times about it over the years and you can catch up by clicking below:

Writers Workshop Blog Posts

Shop our Writers Workshop Curriculum:

Writers Workshop:  Writing Through the Years for Kindergarten and First Grade

Writers Workshop:  Writing Through the Years for Second Grade

Student Centered Classrooms: Engaging Readers in Text

We want students to fall in love with the texts they read.  We don’t want to teach comprehension skills, we teach them right away in kindergarten!

Read more about our Engaging Readers through interactive read alouds:

Interactive Read Aloud: Engaging Readers

Shop our Engaging Readers curriculum:

Engaging Readers Reading Comprehension for Kindergarten and 1st Grade

Engaging Readers Reading Comprehension for Kindergarten and 2nd  Grade

Student Centered Classrooms:  Hands On Math Learning

Students do not learn math by filling out worksheets or by looking at a whiteboard.   Math needs to be explored with hands-on activities.  That is why our math curriculum is student centered.

Shop our math curriculum:

Kindergarten Math Curriculum

1st Grade Math Curriculum

Student centered classroom!: Spirally review skills

As you know, not every one of your students is ready to learn the skills when the skills are first introduced.
MATH JOURNALS are a great way to spirally review skills each day. Have you taught a skill in October and all the students “have it”… then when you revisit the skill a few months later, they look at you like they have NEVER heard it before?  Bringing skills back again and again, help to make the learning permanent. Your first-grade teachers will thank you!   Our math journals take just a few minutes a day and the payoff is HUGE!

Read more about Daily Math Journals by clicking the link below:

Daily Math Journals (Free File)

Shop Daily Math Journals:

Kindergarten and 1st Grade Math Journals

Each morning we start our day with these Read Write Trace Glue activities.   We can quickly review letter formation, spacing, capital letters, sight word reading, directionality, punctuation, and details in our drawings.  This is part of our morning work and my students love figuring out the sentence.

Student centered classroom!: Make it Predictable!

Make it easy for students to focus on their learning.  Once they know how to play a particular game, you can just switch out the themes!

You can find these centers by clicking:  Math and Literacy Center Bundle

We love these math fluency games.

Have some fun!

Games! Games! Games!  We love using games to over-learn!  We also use them as part of an early finisher option.  ABC, CVC, and sight word games are plentiful!

You can read about how I handle early finishers HERE.

These are part of my Math Work Station units.  I have one for just about every theme under the sun.

Student Centered Classroom:  Target your interventions!

At the beginning of the year, I sort of have a “cast the net” sort of approach.  But at this point of the year, it is time to zero in on what students know and what their next steps in learning should be.  I start with this! (I added the highlighted boxes).

Yellow: exceeding expectations

Blue:  right on target

Pink:  Focused RTI interventions

With this report, I can see who I need to test still (my one sweetie has been out)… not really helpful with meeting goals.

Then I can click on the “Parent Letter” page.  I get this report.

I send it home, but I also use it to select focus words for each student.  As you can see this was from last March.

Here are screenshots:

The first thing I do is type the words in the blue boxes.  These are the word I want Mr. D to focus on next week.

Then I click the theme I want to use.

It jumps to that theme and the words are entered onto EVERY sheet.  You do NOT have to retype the words 600 times!!!!

This is Monday’s,

Tuesday’s,

Wednesday’s,

Thursday’s,

And Friday’s!

Then I simply print the selected pages and it takes me minutes to create custom sight word packets for my entire class.

Here is what each day’s worth of the packet looks like.  It builds in complexity as the days progress.  My junior teacher helpers are asked to listen and support the students as they complete each task.  It is REALLY important that the words are said out loud… otherwise… what is the point?

I have also had older students come into my room to act as Junior Teachers.  Can I just add… this works if
you have another person support your student
.  This should not be used as “seat work” or work done in isolation.  I have seen students accurately complete a worksheet and still have NO idea what they just read.

Here is another editable file that works in a similar way.  Click on the images to find these files.

It is really easy to customize these pages.  I made text boxes.  You just need to type in the 5 letters you want to focus on… the rest of the page automatically fills in for you.  You can create a full page in less than 10 seconds… REALLY!

The same exact thing goes for sight words.  This page took me literally 10 seconds to prepare!

Now is the time to make a plan!

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Student centered classroom! Are looking for some guidance in improving your teaching skills? Here is a list of 5 ways to focus your instruction!! Reading, Writing, Math, Assessment, and MORE!

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Four Student-Centered Tips for Teaching with Technology

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Four Student-Centered Tips for Teaching with Technology

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Reference:
Bronke, C. (2018). Four Student-Centered Tips for Teaching with Technology. Teachingchannel.com. https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/teaching-with-technology

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For many years, educators have used the SAMR model as a way to conceptualize technology integration. Districts and conferences alike have poured great amounts of money into training teachers to think about their planning through this lens.

In an effort to make expensive technology more than just a "$500 notebook," this model has served as a way for educators to have conversations about deeper uses for technology in their classrooms. While I don't see anything wrong with it, I feel that this model fails to think about one really important entity:the students.

When looking at this model, we consistently see the word "tasks," which is a focus on what students will be doing. However, I'd argue that we need to first considerwhythe students are doing something before we can determinewhatit will be.

So, it's with this said that I began to conceptualize my own technology integration through the lens of:

The Four Ps

The Four Psare four reasons why students need to be engaging with technology in the classroom. When we focus on these four whys, teachers think more about the learning goals and objectives and less about the tasks. This shift not only benefits students but can make it easier for teachers to seek help with technology integration. Instead of having conversations about how to augment a current lesson, teachers can work with instructional coaches on a learning goal, keeping the student learning at the forefront, and bring in the appropriate technology to support that goal.

Let's take a look at how each "P" can help teachers keep student learning outcomes at the forefront of their planning and teaching, as well as better align their assessments to these goals.

Acquire Proficiency

There are times when the learning goal, in and of itself, is for students to better understandhowto use a technology tool. This could be as simple as spending a few days at the start of the year helping students navigate Google Drive, to something as complex as a robust understanding of how to use Eclipse before worrying about the actual quality of student coding.
VIDEO: Coding in the Algebra Classroom
Think of this "P" as the building block for your planning. As you plan units and lessons, teachers should be thinking about what technology tools students will need to use and how they will help them become proficient with said tool.
VIDEO: Using Technology to Boost Confidence
This could be with explicit mini-lessons or simply through discovery learning. Regardless of the method, we have a responsibility to make sure our students leave our classes and buildings with a certain level of technological proficiency.

Enhance Productivity

I'll be honest; I've always been a bit bothered by, "Well, the technology better be more than just a $500 notebook." Not because I disagree with the statement, but because that statement underplays the fact that one HUGE benefit to being 1:1 is exactly that: the digital nature of a "$500 notebook" can, does, and should help our students (and teachers) be more productive.

When thinking about the overall plan of our units, we should be asking ourselves (or our instructional coaches), "For all that my students will be doing during this unit, can any of it be done more efficiently or effectively with technology?"
VIDEO: Google Docs in the Classroom
Perhaps it's using Google Keep to help students better organize their research, or allowing students to take out their phones to leave voice notes for themselves because it's faster than typing. Whatever it is, this is a great way to focus on helping students -- who have busy lives -- be more productive, and not just focusing on forcing technology into a unit or lesson.

Progress Learning

This "P" really allows the teacher to think about the ways technology can help to better teach and better assess so that the learning can progress in a more effective manner. When thinking about ways to progress learning at a better and more efficient rate, meaningful feedback instantly comes to mind. And when working with teachers, this is one area where they're always looking to improve.

I often hear the question, "How can I give my students more feedback without killing myself grading papers?" This "P" is a great way to think about that. This could be as simple as using a quiz game like Kahoot, to something more sophisticated -- a platform like Recap-- where your students can "talk" to you, sharing their successes and struggles so that you can better prepare the next day's lesson.

Create a Product

Creating a product is one of the places where technology can -- and should -- have the biggest impact in the classroom. And truth be told, thinking of it this way does, to some extent, align with the "redefinition" phase of the SAMR model. But as we think about "21st-century skills" and terms like "workplace ready," it's important to be thinking about the wide range of products students will be expected to create when they leave our schools.
VIDEO: Writing Commentaries: The Power of Youth Voice
From Tweetsto documentaries, student blogsto commentaries, YouTube shorts to podcasts-- media and information are being produced and digested by a wider range of people than ever before. Our students must acquire the skills needed to be able to "join the conversation" in these formats. How are you helping prepare your students as producers and consumers of 21st-century media?

Teaching with technology is a must if we want to fully prepare our students for life outside of the classroom walls. Although the ways we use technology can vary, choices about if, when, and why to use it should always be made with students at the center.

What is your approach to teaching with technology?

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Four Student-Centered Tips for Teaching with Technology

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For many years, educators have used the SAMR model as a way to conceptualize technology integration. Districts and conferences alike have poured great amounts of money into training teachers to think about their planning through this lens.

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What is Student Centered Learning and How Can Technology Facilitate?

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What is Student Centered Learning and How Can Technology Facilitate?

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A student-centered approach shifts the focus of activity from the teacher to the learners. The teacher moves into a facilitator role and pays close attention to each student’s interests, abilities, and learning styles. Common student-centered learning activities include:

active learning (problem solving, answering questions, discussing, formulating questions, debating)

cooperative learning (collaboration with classmates)

inquiry-based instruction

project-based learning

These approaches personalize the learning process and significantly increase student involvement in two ways: the scope of individualized activities, and the number of students participating at the same time. It encourages flexibility and adaptability, and fosters individual growth and development.

Technology provides teachers essential tools to create a student-centered learning environment. The intentional integration of technology into the classroom provides teachers and students an unlimited amount of educational resources that can transform learning. Simply put, tech can foster creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking.

Successfully integrating technology is not always easy. It requires a thorough analysis of curriculum and a critical examination of pedagogy.

Today’s instructional technologies are extremely dynamic. Teachers need to be flexible to this reality, trying different tools and assessing student learning and engagement as they go. As we have seen in our own classrooms (and in our coursework!) this type of experimentation initially can be uncomfortable for teachers. It is important that schools provide the necessary support to help them be successful in this experimental process.

References:

integrating technology with student-centered learning A RepoRt to the Nellie MAe educAtioN FouNdAtioN prepared by Babette Moeller & tim Reitzes |. (2011). https://www.edc.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Integrating-Technology-with-Student-Centered-Learning.pdf

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KnowingTech. (2015, May 18). Technology In The Classroom: A Student-Centered Approach - Knowing Technologies. Knowing Technologies. https://knowingtechnologies.com/technology-in-the-classroom/

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Motivating Language Learners with Technology-Check out this podcast with Teachers Talk Tech!

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Motivating Language Learners with Technology-Check out this podcast with Teachers Talk Tech!

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Reference:
Cambridge. (2022, May 31). Motivating language learners with technology. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1TYv4jOQjVCKk5kMmLeoi8

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Motivating language learners with technology

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Listen to this episode from Teachers Talk Tech on Spotify. In this first episode, we discuss the potential of technology to support learner motivation and the need for careful planning and integration into classroom practices for long-term motivation to result.

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Shifting to Student-Centered Learning for English Language Learners with Instructional Technology ----FREE Webinar below (start after 5:52 minute mark)

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Shifting to Student-Centered Learning for English Language Learners with Instructional Technology ----FREE Webinar below (start after 5:52 minute mark)

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Reference:
Saddleback Educational Publishing. (2021). Shifting to Student-Centered Learning for ELLs with Instructional Technology [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMiHkd-buKc

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Shifting to Student-Centered Learning for ELLs with Instructional Technology

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There's more to assessment than test scores. By assessing students' passions, learning styles, success skills, and levels of rigor, teachers can create a student-centered classroom.

Assessment is key to creating a more student-centered classroom. When I say assessment, I am not speaking of testing or grading. Unfortunately, this term has been used to mean more testing and knowing students only in terms of their test scores. This is unacceptable and does not meet the needs of all students.

Albeit, data such as test scores can give us a window into better serving our students, but it's not the whole window. If we want to truly know our students, we must view their test data as only a portion of what is needed. Assessment can allow us to know the whole child as we create a more student-centered classroom.

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It is crucial to assess students passions and interests in an attempt to create a more student-centered classroom.   Most of our students come with a plethora of experiences in their lives.  We can use a variety of assessment tools inclusive of: 1) one-on-one conversations 2) journals and 3) graphic organizers to learn about our students and what motivate them to learn. Tools like learning profile cards can allow us to appropriately differentiate and leverage our students' strengths; pushing them to learn in different ways. Assessing for passions and interests can also push us to know our students more deeply and create a classroom designed for them.

Some students collaborate better than others, just as some students have more empathy than others. If we assess for 21st-century skills, we can provide experiences and instructions that foster those skills; allowing students to grow in areas that outweigh simply content knowledge or skills. Teachers can use rubrics and other assessment tools to evaluate students for success. Contrary, teachers should use these assessment tools for self assessment.

Test data reveals how students have progressed toward learning content and skills from the standards. But do they test the level of rigor that we expect from our students. Also, these assessments do not provide us with immediate; but lends itself to trends. Teachers instead should use Formative assessments to assess students' content knowledge and skills will be more helpful to teachers, because it allows learn which concepts and skills are mastered or need reteaching. In many cases, these assessments should not graded. Instead, they should be used to create a learning environment that is more student-centered.

Inevitably, assessments are powerful tools in knowing our students and creating a classroom that can meet their needs. Yes, we can assess for content and skills; but we also need to assess students for passions and interests.

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Introduction to Student-Centered Approaches or Techniques That Include Physical Movement as a Central Element

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Introduction to Student-Centered Approaches or Techniques That Include Physical Movement as a Central Element

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Kinesthetic learning is an aspect of multiple intelligences theory that stress physical movement as being integral to learning processes. This video explores both what kinesthetic learning is and how it can benefit all learners in a modern-day classroom.

Youtube video from Regional Assessment and Resource Centre extracted from YouTube on June 15th, 2022 at: https://youtu.be/Om6pklgh3Ws

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Kindergarten and Elementary School: Teaching Yoga to Kids 

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Kindergarten and Elementary School: Teaching Yoga to Kids 

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Yoga is fantastic! I have been fortunate to teach kindergarten and elementary school students for a combined total of four years (and counting) during my teaching career. Starting with breathing as a simple classroom management tool through to doing postures (based on student-centered story narratives) and reflecting on these, students are able to learn while immersing their minds, bodies, and imaginations in healthy, progressive, and mindful ways.

Youtube video from Cosmic Kids Channel extracted from Youtube on June 15th, 2022 at: https://youtu.be/CYQJdn8gapw

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Rainbow of Confidence | Brain Breaks for Kids | Cosmic Kids

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Elementary School: 5 Movement Strategies That Get Kids Thinking

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Elementary School: 5 Movement Strategies That Get Kids Thinking

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I personally know the benefits that physical activity offers on the learning front. Both inside and outside the classroom, I make it part of my daily routine to include movement as it literally ‘shakes off’ the heavy-weighted ‘sedentariness’ that so much of modern-life is predicated on. Thinking about it, it’s no small wonder that so many happy children turn into disgruntled, unhappy adults: when most of young children’s lives consist of sitting down obediently at school and taking in lecture-based material that they can’t fathom the benefits of, it’s easy to become wary and almost distrustful of your own physicality. This then leads to a chronic mind-body imbalance exacerbated by bad, hunched-over posture issues, the sum of which influences oxygen intake and hence impairs optimal mind/body function.

Website content extracted from TeachThought University on June 15th, 2022 at: https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/much-sitting-five-movement-strategies-get-students-thinking/

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contributed by Kenny McKee

Each day more research confirms the link between movement and learning.

Brain researcher David Sousa claims that physical activity increases the amount of oxygen in our blood, and this oxygen is related to enhanced learning and memory. A Washington Post article suggests that many student behaviors we associate with ADHD may stem from an overall lack of physical movement - both in and out of school. In addition, a phenomenally popular blog post by Alexis Wiggins touched upon how much sitting students actually do every day, and how all that sitting affects energy levels and learning.

However, many secondary teachers struggle to integrate movement into the classroom. I know that as a former English teacher, movement found its way into many of my "special" lessons, but it was often a missing ingredient of daily instruction. For example, when students created commercials, searched for books in the library, or carried out debates, movement was inevitable. However, when the main focus of a lesson was reading and writing (as many are in the English classroom), movement was minimal.

I've included some strategies that teachers of any content area can use to integrate movement into lessons. When you have a lesson that looks "sedentary," integrating one of these strategies will surely increase students' learning and engagement.
1. Gallery Walks/Chalk Talks
In some lessons, students may need to analyze multiple texts. Why not post those texts on the walls, and have students rotate through them in small groups? I have used this strategy with students analyzing primary and secondary documents for DBQ's (document-based questions) in history classes. One colleague has students analyze magazine ads for rhetorical techniques in her English class.

Gallery walks can also feature student-created texts, even digital ones. A colleague who teaches earth science once had student groups create informational Animoto videos on different geographic formations. She then had students participate in a digital gallery walk where they watched the student-created videos on laptops, and took notes on each geographic formation.

Chalk Talks are gallery walks where students are asked to respond to texts. For example, quotes could be posted, and student could post their reactions to them. In a math class, students could solve a problem on chart paper, and explain their process. Other students could then use Post-Its to write comments or critiques of their solution and process.
2. White Board Meetings
White Board Meetings are a strategy I have seen two science teachers use often. Essentially, students will investigate a situation (often using a data set). Students will then make sense of the problem in a group. They will display their findings on a mini-whiteboard. Usually, students are required to show information in graphs, pictures, mathematics, and writing. Once students post their information on whiteboards, they present their findings. Students can then receive feedback and answer questions about their information.
3. North Pole-South Pole/Continuum
This strategy is great for formative assessment or assessing background knowledge. Essentially, one side of the room represents one idea, and the other side of the room represents an opposing idea.

For example, I used the strategy while teaching in a statistics class recently. My "North Pole" was "I feel extremely confident in how well I can comprehend and remember information in the statistics textbook." My "South Pole" was "I feel NO confidence in how well I can comprehend and remember information in the statistics textbook." Students were asked to align themselves with how they felt. If they had a more moderate response, they positioned themselves more closely to the center of the room, showing a continuum of student confidence. Their responses affected how I presented an array of note-taking strategies and which students I worked with more closely during the lesson.
4. Musical Mingle
This strategy works along the same lines as Musical Chairs, but you simply ask students to stand. I often develop a series of questions that I want to ask students before the lesson begins (to assess background knowledge) or after the lesson (to assess learning). I ask all of the students to stand. When I play the music, they will meander around. When the music stops, I announce a question and they will discuss responses with a person close to them. Once students have had the opportunity to talk, we then repeat the process.

One caveat to this strategy is limiting your questions. Generally, any more than three or four questions results in diminished focus. Once the activity is completed, students to share some of their discussion points with the whole class. Most students feel confident sharing in the whole class because they have had an opportunity to clarify their thinking with a partner earlier.
5. Stations
Most educators view stations as a staple of the elementary school classroom, but they are also extremely effective in middle and high schools. Stations can be utilized for differentiation. For example, based upon students' current writing trends, a teacher could place students at stations based upon areas they need to practice. Activities can be on paper, or they can be embedded digitally using QR Codes. Other stations may be rotational, such as short writing prompts, differing math problems, selected poems to analyze, or different activities for new vocabulary or concepts.
Kenneth McKee is a high school literacy coach for Buncombe County Schools in Asheville, NC. His interests include teacher leadership, disciplinary literacies, and partnership approaches to instructional coaching. He is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader. Connect with him on his blog (kennycmckee.com) or on Twitter (@kennycmckee); image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad; Too Much Sitting? 5 Movement Strategies That Get Students Thinking

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5 Movement Strategies That Get Students Thinking

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contributed by Kenny McKee Each day more research confirms the link between movement and learning. Brain researcher David Sousa claims that physical activity increases the amount of oxygen in our blood, and this oxygen is related to enhanced learning and memory.

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Elementary and High School: Kinesthetic Teaching Strategies for Student Centered Learning

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Elementary and High School: Kinesthetic Teaching Strategies for Student Centered Learning

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A great resource for in-class teaching strategies, this website lists ten types of core teaching strategies (think Classroom Discussion, Creative Expression and Kinesthetic amongst others). Regarding particular kinesthetic strategies, Café Conversations, Four Corners, Give One/Get One, and Human Timeline all offer effective ways for a teacher to get his/her students up and moving about while self-directing their learning.

Website content from FACING HISTORY & OURSELVES extracted on June 15th, 2022 at: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.

We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students. We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.

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High School and College: Kinesthetic Learning: Utilizing our 5 senses in Higher Education

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High School and College: Kinesthetic Learning: Utilizing our 5 senses in Higher Education

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Ben Deuling’s TED Talk explores the value of how, through mindful activation and training, kinesthetic student-centered learning can take place in secondary and tertiary education.

Ben Dueling's Ted Talk (Kinesthetic learning: Utilizing our 5 senses in Higher Education) extracted from Youtube on June 15th, 2022 at: https://youtu.be/x_8WklHNSAw

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Kinesthetic learning: Utilizing our 5 senses in Higher Education | Ben Deuling | TEDxLSSU

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Critical Theory relating to Physical Movement and Student-Centered Learning

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Critical Theory relating to Physical Movement and Student-Centered Learning

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Barbara Warner applies a broad set of qualitative and quantitative research to the topic of Physical Movement and student-centered learning, ultimately drawing the conclusion that, in order to serve future learners better, we should be doing all we can to modify our classrooms and curricula to better include Physical Movement.

References:
Warner, B. (2015). An exploration of engagement, motivation and student-centered learning in physical education. Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, 18(9), 34-40.

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Differentiated instruction is student centered by default. It’s about giving students the opportunity to learn in a way that suits them and their strengths and weaknesses. Learning is the end goal, not how our students get there. Student-centered differentiation is not giving every single student their own IEP. It's about presenting students multiple ways to gain information and completing their work. The key to successful differentiation is to know your students.

Differentiated instruction can be boiled down into four main areas:

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Differentiating Instruction: It’s Not as Hard as You Think

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Examples of differentiating the content:

Providing reading materials at different readability levels.

Making it possible to listen to the texts provided.

Presenting new ideas through visual means like video or graphic pictures.

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Examples of differentiating the process:

Tiered activities where all students work with the same learning objectives but the support and complexity is different.

Let the student work with topics that interest them but in a way that is still tied to the learning objectives.

Have a class task list. This way students can work at their own pace and faster students get the chance to go deeper into the studied topic.

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Examples of differentiating products:

Giving students multiple options in how to present what they’ve learned. A book report can be written but also presented through a mindmap, an illustration or a video.

Give out rubrics that match and extend your students’ different levels

Let your students create their own assignments. Just make sure all the required elements are included.

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Examples of differentiation the learning environment:

Make sure there are places in the classroom where students can get peace and quiet without being distracted but also places where students have the room to discuss and collaborate.

Sometimes teachers are busy and can’t talk to every individual student at once. Have a routine that allows students to get help even when this is the case.

Provide materials that reflect your students’ different cultures, home settings, and other diversities.

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Weselby, C. (2021, April 30). Differentiated Instruction: Examples & Classroom Strategies | Resilient Educator. ResilientEducator.Com. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/examples-of-differentiated-instruction/

United States. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, United States. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, & Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). DIFFERENTIATION OF INSTRUCTION IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES. ERIC DIGEST. . . ED443572. . . U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.

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This infographic shares 16 different strategies for differentiated instructions. Below we will talk more about a couple of them.

Guido, M. (2021, September 20). 20 Differentiated Instruction Strategies and Examples [+ Downloadable List]. Prodigy Education. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/differentiated-instruction-strategies-examples-download/

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Learning stations are a great way to let all students practice and discover the content in different ways but in smaller groups. This video demonstrates how learning stations can be used to learn the content and other skills like collaboration at the same time. It also makes it easier for the teacher to give differentiated instruction within the station to fit every student's level.

Edpuzzle. (2021, July 14). What is the Station Rotation Model? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgr3lnCl5QY

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Learning stations are a way to differentiate instruction in itself but you can also differentiate at the different stations. In this video Mary Peterson shows some of her favorite activities and ways to differentiate to fit students at different levels

Mary Peterson. (2011, September 16). 3 Ways to Differentiate Learning Stations [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3LljMkI2OQ

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Tips & Strategies for Effective Differentiation & Instruction

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Classroom Management Strategies To Take Control Of Noisy Students

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3 Ways to  Differentiate  Learning Stations

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Uploaded by Mary Peterson on 2011-09-16.

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More ways to further differentiate learning stations

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More ways to further differentiate learning stations

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In this video from Edutopia we get to see how Ms. Gallagher uses learning stations combined with tiered activities to differentiate in her 1st grade-classroom.

Edutopia. (2017, October 3). Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg38A1ggYiE

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Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students

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Think-Pair-Share is a student centered strategy that works for students of all levels. In this strategy the students get the chance to process the lesson content in three different ways.

First the individual student get time to think about the question.

Then, the students pair up to discuss with each other.

At the end, the pairs get to share their discussion and findings with the rest of the class. This also gives the students the option to have further discussions as a whole class.

EL Education. (2018, February 17). Classroom Protocols in Action: Think-Pair-Share [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4xUbicJTA4

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Classroom Protocols in Action: Think-Pair-Share

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As already stated, differentiation happens automatically in a successfully student-centered classroom. One popular differentiation is tiered activities, and with that, ability grouping. In one of the videos above, we see how Ms. Gallaghan divides her students into different colored groups and how she differentiates the activities based on the groups’ abilities. She explains how this makes it possible for the students to study the same content but at different levels.

The danger with ability grouping is that a student can get “labeled” as one level without the possibility to go up or down. Although Hattie’s list of influences on student achievement shows us that ability grouping for gifted students has a positive impact on learning, it is also true that lower level students gain knowledge by working with students of a higher academic level. In an interview in Education Week, Professor Tomlinson, the "mother of differentiation", talks about the importance of grouping students in many different ways, not just by ability.

Another popular differentiation strategy is to “teach up”. You might think that it’s the opposite of tiered activities but I would argue that it is not. You can have tiered activities but still challenge every student no matter their level. If you, like Ms.Gallaghan, have learning stations with your students grouped based on their ability, I think ending the lesson with a strategy like think-pair-share to review the content is a good idea. This way you can pair up students from the different groups and have them discuss what they’ve learned. Although they had different ways to study the content they can equally participate all together in this activity.

Rebora, A. (2021, February 4). Making a Difference. Education Week. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/making-a-difference/2008/09

Hattie's 250+ Influences on Student Achievement (2017), https://visible-learning.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/VLPLUS-252-Influences-Hattie-ranking-DEC-2017.pdf

Edutopia. (2017, October 3). Station Rotation: Differentiating Instruction to Reach All Students [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg38A1ggYiE

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Differentiated instruction-the theory that teachers should work to accomodate and build on students' diverse learning needs-is not new. But it's unlikely that anyone has done more to systematize it and explicate its classroom applications than University of Virginia education professor Carol Ann Tomlinson. A former elementary school teacher of 21 years (and Virginia Teacher of the Year in 1974), Carol Ann Tomlinson has written more than 200 articles, chapters, and books, including The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners and Differentiated instruction is a term that is interpreted in a lot of different ways. How do you define it, and why is it important for teachers today? Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching. Characterized by a rigorous professionalism and a strong underlying belief in both teachers' and students' potential, her work has given many educators both practical and philosophical frameworks for modifying instruction to meet the individual needs of all students.
Anthony Rebora, editorial director of the Sourcebook, recently talked to Tomlinson about the theory of differentiated instruction and its use in schools today.

I define it as a teacher really trying to address students' particular readiness needs, their particular interests, and their preferred ways of learning. Of course, these efforts must be rooted in sound classroom practice-it's not just a matter of trying anything. There are key principles of differentiated instruction that we know to be best practices and that support everything we do in the classroom. But at its core, differentiated instruction means addressing ways in which students vary as learners.
What are the hallmarks of a well-run differentiated classroom? What are the things you look for when you visit a classroom?
The reason I think differentiated instruction is important is that students do vary in so many ways, and our student populations are becoming more academically diverse. They always have been, but they're becoming more so. And the chances are pretty good that this will continue throughout our lifetimes.

As I see it, there are three ways to deal with students' differences. One is to ignore them. We've tried that for years, and we just don't have any evidence that pretending that all kids are alike and teaching them the same things in the same way over the same time period is effective.

The second way is to separate kids out-trying to figure out who's smart and who's not. When we do that, we end up getting the idea that most teachers are supposed to work with "normal" kids, and the kids who are somehow "broken"-if you don't speak English too well, if you have a learning disability, if you're too smart-are put someplace else. But we're finding that this separation process isn't helping in terms of achievement, particularly for the "broken" kids. And there's the problem that the broken kids are often poor and minority, while the kids we see as being in good shape tend to be white and more affluent. So, the division between the haves and the have-nots is being reinforced by schools rather than ameliorated. Finally, sorting kids in this way creates a negative mindset, to use author Carol Dweck's term. We're basically telling kids from the outset they're too different and that they can't do the work-which is pretty detrimental to their outlook.
So what are the key things a teacher needs to think about when developing a differentiated lesson plan?
So that leaves us with the third, unfortunately less common choice-keeping kids together in the context of high-quality curriculum but attending to their readiness needs, their interests, and their preferred ways of learning. And we have a fairly good body of research to suggest that when you do that the results are pretty impressive. Differentiated instruction assumes a more positive mindset: Let's assume they can all do good work, and let's attend to the ways that they need us to teach them in order to get there.

One of the first things I look for are teacher-student connections. Does this seem to be a teacher who is really paying attention to the kids, who's going out of his or her way to study them and understand what makes them tick? To be effective with differentiation, a teacher really needs to talk with the kids, ask them their opinions on things, sit down with them for a minute or two to see how things are going, and listen to them and find out what they are interested in. All that feeds back into instruction. And teacher-student connections not only help teachers plan what to do with kids, it also provides motivation for differentiation: If I can see kids as real individual human beings, I'm going to be much more invested in helping them learn and grow individually.

Another thing I look for is a sense of community in the classroom. Has the teacher pulled this class together as a team? It's helpful to think of a baseball team: Different players play different positions and fill different roles, but they also work together and support each other in working toward a common goal. In the same way, it's really important for kids to come together and understand and appreciate their differences, and to be willing to help one another succeed-as opposed to the cut-throat competition that sometimes goes on in schools.
You alluded to the fact that teachers are under a great deal of pressure to teach mandated standards and to improve standardized test scores. How does differentiated instruction fit into this context?
The third thing I look for is the quality of the curriculum being used. You have to differentiate something. And if what you differentiate is boring enough to choke a horse, you've just got different versions of boredom. If you differentiate something that's murky and not clear regarding why anyone's doing it, then you just generate multiple versions of fog. Or if all you're doing-as unfortunately many teachers feel pressured to do today-is teaching a telephone book of facts in preparation for a test, you're not really providing memorable or useful learning. So teachers who are trying to reach out to kids really need to keep asking themselves about the quality of what they are teaching. This is also a mindset issue: If I really think all my kids are capable of learning, then I want to give them the most robust materials, not the watered-down stuff.

This gets us further into the core principles of differentiated instruction. One of these is what we call "respectful tasks." This means that everybody's work needs to be equally engaging, equally appealing, and equally important. It's very easy to fall into the pattern of giving some kids no-brainer tasks and giving other kids the teacher's pet tasks. What you really want is every student to be focused on the essential knowledge, understanding, and skill. And for every student to have to think to do their work.

Another important principle is that of flexible grouping. This means you don't arbitrarily divide students or automatically group them with kids of the same skill level. You need to systematically move kids among similar readiness groups, varied readiness groups, mixed learning-profile groups, interest groups, mixed interest groups, and student-choice groups. In a sense, the teacher is continually auditioning kids in different settings-and the students get to see how they can contribute in a variety of contexts.
I found it interesting that in The Differentiated Classroom you say that an effective teacher "must like himself." What do you mean by that?
Another key to a good differentiated lesson is "teaching up." We do much better if we start with what we consider to be high-end curriculum and expectations-and then differentiate to provide scaffolding, to lift the kids up. The usual tendency is to start with what we perceive to be grade-level material and then dumb it down for some and raise it up for others. But we don't usually raise it up very much from that starting point, and dumbing down just sets lower expectations for some kids.

I think it fits in pretty well actually. As I see it, you've got two choices. One is to say, "Look, all I think I can do is cover this list of skills." But even if that's all you think you can do, it's still better to start where the kid is and help him move from that point instead of trying to skip over gaps.

But what we really know from people who work with good quality curriculum is that the stuff we're being asked to teach kids for the tests is part of a bigger picture of something that helps them make sense of the world. To teach that bigger picture is the second choice. Typically, what we're being asked to teach kids are facts and skills, but you can wrap them in understanding. You give kids a sense of how this makes sense in the world, how it all fits together, how it ties in with their lives, and what they can do with it as people. You don't jettison the facts and skills; you just package them in a way that makes them more interesting to learn, more memorable, more transferable, more useful, and retainable.

No one would ask teachers not to teach what they feel they're responsible for. But you can teach those things in ways that are more meaningful and richer. So what I'm talking about is quality curriculum and my sense of it-and I think this is where most curriculum experts are, too-is that quality curriculum is centered on understandings.

When you see purpose in what you do, when you really like what you do, when you get up in the morning ready to make a difference, when you see human beings that are going to be impacted by your work-I think these things enable you to be a fulfilled person. And I think that teachers who really find fulfillment in the classroom feel better about themselves and are more likely to have the courage to reach out to kids and try new things than those who doubt themselves and feel discouraged. And I would guess this is also true of teachers who are more self-efficacious in the first place. You need a certain sense of self-assurance to teach at high levels.
The growing numbers of English- language learners in schools pose particular challenges for many teachers. In your books, you talk about the ability of differentiated instructors to build "language bridges" to help these students. Can you explain how that's done?
To use differentiated instruction as you discuss it in your books, teachers really have to get to know and understand their students-in terms of their learning styles, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. It seemed to me that this would be very difficult to do if you have five or six classes a day. How do teachers digest all this?

Let me just clarify that I taught for 21 years, so this isn't just something I thought of at a university and never tried in a classroom. I've done it with 150 kids a year. But it is difficult. Teaching is difficult. So are many other professions.

But getting to know students in this way isn't really as hard as you think. The key thing is to actively get kids to show you who they are and what their needs are. There are a lot of pretty simple techniques to do this. For example, we have a fairly substantial body of evidence that some of us learn better in creative ways, some in practical ways, and some in analytic ways. To start to gauge where your students fall within this schema, you could create three different journal prompts that all ask the same question-but with one coming at it from an out-of-the-box perspective, one bringing in a life-application aspect, and one in a more methodical or analytic way. Then just ask the kids to respond to the prompt that's best for them personally. More generally, you could give students periodic surveys of the class, asking them what they particularly liked and what they found particularly difficult. It's also good practice for a teacher to keep a kind of journal where they jot down things they learn about kids-about they're likes and dislikes, and what they get really excited about-and be able to refer back to it.

Actually, we're hitting on another key principle of differentiation, which is ongoing assessment, meaning that I'm continually checking in on who's where with the knowledge and understanding I'm trying to teach and continuing to track the progress of kids, much the way a hospital would track the blood work or respiration of a patient. There are really a lot of ways to do this, outside of formal quizzes and tests, that aren't tremendously laborious. You start by systematically watching kids, taking good notes, checking work regularly and closely, and asking good questions. It's really as much a predisposition on a teacher's part as anything else.

You learn a language through speaking, so making sure these kids participate in discussion groups where they can make a contribution is really very important.

One great way to do this, when possible, is to put a student who is just learning English in the same group as someone who can serve as a kind of bridge-someone who speaks the same native language but is further along in English. This gives the English-language learner a way to contribute and follow the work.

Another helpful strategy is what we call "front-loading vocabulary." This is when the teacher identifies the half-dozen or so words in a unit that really are central and really give it its meaning. Then you teach this academic vocabulary before the unit begins, so that when the lessons and readings start the kids have something to build on. This is helpful not only with second-language learners but also with students with learning disabilities or below-level vocabulary skills. It helps tremendously with focus and understanding.

A related technique is the use of word walls-which we tend to associate with younger grade-levels but can work well with older students, too. These are simply places on the classroom walls where you list words and definitions and categorize them in word families and in other ways. This gives kids something to refer to and helps them learn words and derivatives. I know a high school teacher in North Carolina who has her students-many of whom are learning English-"adopt" particular words by creating poster-board presentations on them, complete with definitions, pronunciations, and illustrations. Strategies like these really amount to vocabulary-support systems and can help kids create associations and understandings.

Another tried and true technique is to make audio recordings of reading assignments that kids can listen to while they read. Oftentimes, hearing vocabulary in a new language develops more quickly than their reading vocabulary.
Considering the high teacher turnover in many schools and the increasing use of scripted lessons, are you optimistic about the growth of differentiated instruction in schools?
Graphic organizers can also help English-language learners organize and make sense of ideas in the content.

Teachers often say they don't get enough-or any-training or professional development in differentiated instruction. Why do you think that is?

I think the main reason is that differentiated instruction requires a complex change process for most teachers. It's not something you can show me how to do today and then I can go back and do in my classroom tomorrow. And unfortunately, the professional development models used in most schools aren't conducive to complex, meaningful change or growth. For most schools, a good professional development program is, "Well, shoot, we used two whole staff-development days." But something like differentiated instruction takes a lot more than that. You have to have people in the classrooms with teachers and you have to give teachers opportunities to trouble shoot and work together. And you need a leader who's both approachable and insistent, who commits to the program.

In the book I recently co-authored, called The Differentiated School, we actually look at two very different schools-one elementary and one high school-that have moved their entire faculties to differentiated instruction. The one thing that was immediately evident in both schools was that they had leaders who really understood what differentiation meant. And they went about staff development with the understanding that asking teachers to change their practices in this way is a complex thing. Both schools came up with staff-development plans that were sustained and persistent and embedded in the school's culture, with people in charge who never went away. On some level, when you look at those schools, it's almost a no-brainer. Everything they did was entirely sensible-it's just that we almost never do those things systematically and persistently in schools.

I think I'm sort of a realistic optimistic. I understand how hard change is, and I understand the complexities of schools and school systems. But there's no doubt that our classrooms are becoming more diverse, and that's going to continue. And whether you call it differentiation or something else, we're going to have to reach out to those kids. Educators get this. New ideas in teaching often disappear from the scene fairly quickly because real change is so hard. But I've been working with differentiated instruction for at least 15 years now, and people are sticking with it. It's even starting to take hold, quite effectively, in some good teacher-prep programs, giving young teachers a strong basis for development.

Now, I don't think this is because people just like the way it sounds. I think it's because we all have these kids, in all their wonderful diversity, right there in front of us every morning-and we have to figure how to help them reach their potential. So, I think my optimism comes from what seems to be a sustained interest on the part of educators in reaching out to diverse student populations and a willingness to pursue change even if it doesn't come in a simple formula.

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Differentiated instruction-the theory that teachers should work to accomodate and build on students' diverse learning needs-is not new. But it's unlikely that anyone has done more to systematize it and explicate its classroom applications than University of Virginia education professor Carol Ann Tomlinson.

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My suggestions about how to create an online student-centered learning environment

1.       Offer rich resources for reference as possible enable students to self-study, ex: Digital library

2.       Choose appropriate online platform with multiple functions and toolkits，and it also need to have features as show below in order to create a student-center learning environment

（1）Offer clear guideline on how to use different functions, it’s much friendly for younger students or students don’t familiar with technology

（2）Have functions of group works and promote collaboration. Ex: breakout rooms

（3）Offer functions that enable everyone to offer feedbacks, share resources and works

3.       Discuss with your students which online platform or app or online toolkit they prefer to use, or even doing a survey. Respect your students’ choice make decision together.

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this video introduce what student-centered learning approach in distance learning

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this video introduce what student-centered learning approach in distance learning

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Distance Learning Requires a Student-Centered Approach

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Breakout rooms:

Modern-day software allows educators to split the class into smaller groups while still maintaining all the functionalities of the “main room”.

In breakout rooms, students can discuss and debate just like in class, while also showing each other presentations and other materials by sharing their screens. And once conversation topics in groups have been exhausted, the pupils can exhibit their findings to the rest of the class, again, as if they were in a physical classroom.

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Written by Ada Rigacci

Teacher Trainer in Berlin

What does student-centered learning mean?

The main principle of student-centered learning is to give students control over both the content of the lesson and the learning method, which results in a shift of focus from teachers to learners.

But although this model has lately been gaining momentum, it isn't dominating just yet. On the contrary, the traditional instructional method, teacher-centered learning, is still adopted by the striking majority of today's educators.

As the name suggests, this old methodology puts the teacher at the center of the learning process. This means that they become the most active and intellectually involved person in the classroom, while students act as passive recipients of information and rarely take ownership of their learning, which hinders both their motivation and personal development.

Student-centered instruction, on the other hand, promotes autonomy and active learning, therefore drastically altering the role of students in such a way that they become the leaders of their learning process.

Hence, it comes as no surprise that in recent years, more and more teachers have started implementing student-centered activities in their lessons.

The benefits of a student-centered approach

Improved attitude and engagement

First, as obvious as it sounds, students are also human beings, therefore, they perpetuate certain common behaviors, some of which are exploited by the student-centered learning method.

For instance, we tend to become more engaged when we feel in control; and in the same way, when a learner is put at the center of the lesson, their attitude towards learning improves substantially, as their learning process is shaped almost entirely by themselves.

Moreover, learner-centered classes are highly customizable, which means that the decision on the topic of the lesson is ultimately in the hands of students. This feeling of power can be the ignition of a strong enthusiasm for learning that assures long-lasting retention of knowledge and improves academic performance.

Essential life skills

Not only does student-centered instruction have a positive influence on grades, but it also plays an important part in the personal development of learners. In fact, thanks to this teaching method, students can develop pivotal life skills that they will later be able to use both in their personal and professional life.

To start, they gain essential cooperation skills, as student-centered learning prioritizes group work over standard lecture-style lessons. This skill can be critical in the eyes of an employer: good teamwork is nowadays seen as one of the pillars of a successful firm.

Not to mention, collaboration allows for the development of excellent communication skills. This is due to the fact that working in a team, students are compelled to communicate in order to complete a task, as the decision on the pace and evolution of the project is completely in their hands.

Moreover, learner-centered education is not only about knowing how to work in a group. In fact, students also learn to accurately identify when a task calls for autonomous work, which helps them develop a natural ability to think and work independently.

On top of this, some pupils manage to advance their leadership skills, as they are given the opportunity to direct group research and projects, thus also gaining confidence and self-esteem.

And as for personal life, learners improve their networking skills and learn to build strong and long-lasting relationships, just like they do with their classmates and teachers.

How to create a student-centered environment

Having defined and explored the benefits of student-centered learning, it is time to examine some useful strategies for the implementation of the method in the classroom.

First of all, students should be encouraged to develop an understanding of the value of the subject matter at the beginning or prior to the lesson in order for them to start shaping their learning process.

Thereupon, it is pivotal for instructors to start observing and inquiring into the learning needs of their students. To this end, it is advised to conduct a brief needs analysis in the form of a questionnaire, ideally anonymous, in which pupils have the chance to express their goals and expectations.

This step is also useful in rapport-building, as it allows instructors to start getting to know their students' character.

The outcome of the needs analysis should become the backbone of the course: students are more likely to feel included in the lesson if they are somehow in control of its content and objectives.

However, in order to achieve these results, it is vital not to focus on the singular topics that the students name. Instead, a good strategy is to come up with broad topics, as they can be narrowed down later on by the pupils themselves.

Student-centered education is also all about making the learners acquire new knowledge however they want. To this purpose, it is necessary for teachers to instruct the course participants about different learning methods and styles, hence navigating them towards choosing the strategy that suits them best.

Nevertheless, this step can be tricky, as the lesson could potentially transform into chaos. It is advised to give the students 2-3 strategy options, or negotiate the learning method after they have made a preliminary decision.

Throughout the lesson, or succession of lessons, instructors ought to closely monitor the development of the group work in order to prevent its derailment.

Last but not least, it is important to consider the use of physical space.

Are the students going to be sitting in a big circle in the middle of the classroom? Is it, perhaps, better to gather them around smaller tables?

There is no wrong answer here. The set up of the classroom should be chosen based on the students' learning styles, as well as on the type of activity that they are going to be carrying out.

The key to succeeding in the creation of a student-centered lesson is creativity: do everything that you can to make your students the leaders of their learning, but stay mindful of their limitations, and occasionally give them a little push in the right direction with as little interference as possible.

Examples of student-centered learning strategies

1) Flipped classroom

The flipped classroom method is a very efficient way to create a student-centered environment, as its objective is to make pupils elaborate on themes explored before the class.

In brief, teachers can introduce a topic prior to the lesson, for instance with the aid of reading or audiovisual materials. Then, in class, they can proceed to brainstorm the main takeaways of the material and split students into groups.

Afterward, it is all in the hands of students.

Do they want to keep discussing the main points of the reading or visual? Do they want to do research on one of the key points of the lesson? Or maybe they feel confident enough to create an original piece on the topic, such as a video?

The opportunities are virtually endless.

If you wish to be inspired by other good practice examples and lesson plans employing this innovative method, check out our next Flipped Classroom courses to bring your expertise to a new level.

2) Project-Based Learning (PBL)

PBL can be considered a growing trend among educators. Besides being extremely collaborative, this method allows students to participate in hands-on activities that they can shape themselves, therefore becoming the protagonists of the lesson.

All that there is to do is give the pupils a broad, open-ended question, which they can narrow down and create unique projects.

It is important to involve the students both intellectually and physically: they can work on a poster, a fashion show, a model, you name it; and the dirtier their hands get, the better!

3) Jigsaw

Jigsaw consists of breaking a topic up into several parts and dividing students into so-called "home groups" of 4 to 5. Each student is then tasked with researching a different part of the topic, starting by reading the assigned material alone. Next, the students who were working on the same material join in "expert groups" to compare what they learned, and to select the information that they want to share with their homegroup. In the end, the original groups reconvene to discuss the elaborated topics.

This is an extremely efficient way to boost student-student interaction, both face-to-face and online, mainly because the students are pushed to work within two teams during one activity, but also due to the fact that working and discussing together, teammates can build rapport.

The students are also offered the opportunity to gain confidence by being given remarkable control over the activity they're carrying out.

In fact, having the chance to actively decide what they are going to share with their teammates, the students often feel a sense of responsibility, empowerment, and motivation to do their best.

4) Use ICT tools

When exploring a theme on their own, students need the activity to have character. This can be achieved by making it multi-layered with the use of technology.

ICT tools are extremely appealing to young learners; thus, they boost motivation and engagement, and make the whole learning process a lot smoother. Among others, Padlet and Trello are noteworthy applications, as they are easy and straightforward; they can, therefore, be used by students of all ages.

Do you want to become a top-notch educator in the 21st century? Take a quick look at our ICT courses, such as ICT​ ​as​ ​a​ ​Tool​ ​for​ ​a Student-Centered​ ​Classroom.

Student-centered learning online

After the sharp turn that the world took back in 2020, part of what once was traditional, face-to-face education will from now on always belong online. Nevertheless, as long as we make good use of virtual space, there's nothing to be disappointed about.

But wait, isn't student-centered education all about teamwork and cooperation? How can that happen online?

Breakout rooms!

Modern-day software allows educators to split the class into smaller groups while still maintaining all the functionalities of the "main room".

In breakout rooms, students can discuss and debate just like in class, while also showing each other presentations and other materials by sharing their screens. And once conversation topics in groups have been exhausted, the pupils can exhibit their findings to the rest of the class, again, as if they were in a physical classroom.

Throughout the activity, the teacher can migrate between rooms to assure full engagement and to give additional tasks.

Monitoring online can be tricky, but with a little bit of focus, everything is possible.

Conclusion

The revolution that is student-centered instruction can be scary. After all, just like students, teachers also like to feel in control of the lesson, making sure that everything is buttoned up to the last button.

But this method really allows pupils to spread their wings, as they are given the opportunity to fully engage in the learning process thanks to having close to no limitations.

With the learning needs of the students at heart, teachers should adapt by allowing their learners to flourish in this society that urges us to engage future citizens in real-life situations and contexts, rather than presenting them with a universal perspective.

So, have fun, get creative, and enjoy watching your students thrive!

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Student-centered learning promotes autonomy and active learning like no other method. Let's unpack it together

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Taking School Online With a Student-Centered Approach

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Taking School Online With a Student-Centered Approach

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If you want students to. . . | Try this. . .
Connect Choose tools that allow both video and audio. The combination has a humanizing effect and helps participants feel connected. | Synchronous: Virtual Community Meeting with a connection prompt on Zoom or Google Hangouts.Asynchronous: Students write and share six-word memoirs on Flipgrid.Offline: 1:1 phone or text check-ins (teacher:student).
Reflect
Allow multiple entry points for student reflection, including words and images. Reflections can be private or shared. | Synchronous: Students share reflections on a Graffiti board in Google Docs or Padlet.Asynchronous: Students create Color, Symbol, Image documents, then photograph and share to a class social media stream.Offline: Journaling, daily or weekly, with prompts provided by teacher.
Inquire
Students can engage with a common text, then annotate and interpret collectively. Offline, they can have agency to define their learning goals. | Synchronous: Close Viewing Protocol: Watch a short streaming video together, pausing for discussion either on audio or in the chat.Asynchronous: Read a shared text and process with a Connect, Extend, Challenge strategy, sharing responses on Padlet.Offline: Encourage students to create their own learning agenda.
Discuss
Learning is social. Use audio, video, and text tools that help students exchange ideas and extend their thinking. | Synchronous: Use Think, Pair, Share with small groups of students in Zoom breakout rooms.Asynchronous: Over a defined period (1–2 days), students engage in Big Paper/Silent Conversation using the “comment” feature on Google Docs, responding to a stimulus text and to each other’s ideas. Flipgrid or Voicethread allows students to record audio/video comments and build a discussion over time.Offline: 1:1 phone call with a classmate.

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Due to the recent school closures, many schools have shifted to online and distance learning.

In these schools, educators are navigating new technologies and ways of teaching during an immensely challenging and uncertain time in our communities, when students' (and teachers' own) social-emotional needs are just as critical as academic goals.

These resources are also available for download as a printer-friendly PDF:

Table of Contents

Facing History and Ourselves is here to support you. Be sure to sign up on our Current Events page to receive our weekly newsletter with resources, strategies, and helpful insights as we navigate through this uncharted territory.
This checklist includes various considerations as you move your teaching online. A Letter to Educators Teaching Online for the First Time also captures the values of connection and community that Facing History shares. We recommend reading this thoughtful piece by two educators as you begin your planning. The questions and suggested resources below can help you create guidelines and routines with your students as you get started teaching remotely and are also helpful to refer back to as your students' needs evolve and change.
Planning

What guidelines, infrastructure, and support are available from your school or district? Will technology be used to support distance learning? What accommodations are available for students who don't have access to a computer, smartphone, or internet at home?

What platform will you use to communicate with students and what is your communication plan? How comfortable are you with this platform? Do you know how to get tech support?

Will your teaching be synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination of both? With small groups of students or a whole class? How will you balance on-screen and off-screen learning time?

How often do you plan to post work-daily, weekly, or at another cadence? Is there a suggested daily schedule for students?

When will you schedule time to prepare materials and assess student work?

What is your contingency plan if you are unable to facilitate online or need to be absent from "school"?

Communication

Will you consider using email, text messages, chat, office hours, or another medium so you can communicate with students 1:1? Do you have up-to-date contact information for your students?

Will you also communicate with parents and caregivers about how they can support students' learning?

Continuity

What elements of your classroom and curriculum do you want to stay the same? Understanding that distance learning is more complex and time-consuming for both teachers and students, what curriculum, content, and skills will you prioritize and what will you let go of?

Suggested Resource:
Powerful Learning is a useful framework for thinking through these questions (Digital Promise)

Connection

What routines, strategies, and tools can help your students feel connected to you and to each other?

What role can video, images, or social media play in helping your class feel connected to each other, to other classes in your school or community, or to schools around the world?

How can you stay connected to colleagues and maintain a professional support system?

Care

How can you practice self-care as you navigate your professional responsibilities?

What boundaries might you set around working hours and communication windows?

What form of stress relief can you schedule into each day: e.g., exercise, outdoor time, journaling, mindfulness, or any activity that helps you feel good?

Rationale

At Facing History and Ourselves, we recommend developing classroom contracts to create inclusive, respectful learning communities, whether they are in-person or online. With schools closing and many classrooms moving to digital spaces, contracting for online learning can mark a transition to a different kind of learning community and can help teachers and students establish new norms to meet the challenges of the moment.

Procedure

This strategy can work in a synchronous setting, when teachers and students are together in real time on a video conferencing platform like Zoom or Google Hangouts. It can also be used asynchronously by sharing some of the prompts below on a class discussion board and inviting students to respond via a tool like Padlet, VoiceThread, or Flipgrid.

1. Define contracting
A contract implies that all parties have a responsibility to uphold the agreement. Students can think about what it means for a classroom to have a contract, and why a new contract might be needed as your class shifts to online learning. If you previously made a class contract, review it with the group before inviting them to think about how you might revise it for your new online learning environment.

2. Students reflect
To prepare students to develop a class contract, ask them to reflect on their expectations of this new learning environment and think about other experiences they may have had with online learning. You might use one or more of these prompts and invite students to reflect in written journals, in an online chat space, or in virtual breakouts:

a. Complete the sentence: When I think about my school closing and shifting to online learning, I feel ________________ because _______________. You might consider asking students to capture their feeling in one word and share it anonymously to a Word Cloud. Viewing the class Word Cloud together gives a powerful sense of the group's mood.

b. Think about other online learning experiences you have had. What were some qualities of positive online learning experiences? How did you feel during those positive experiences? If you had negative online learning experiences, what do you think made them unsuccessful?

c. Share Untitled Poem with Beth Strano with students. Ask them to highlight or share a word or phrase that captures something they would value in a learning community or add their own line.

3. Discuss classroom norms
Facing History teachers have found that useful class contracts typically include several clearly defined rules or expectations, as well as consequences for those who do not fulfill their obligations as members of the classroom community. There are many ways to proceed with developing a classroom contract. View the Word Cloud or simply invite students to share some of the feelings from their initial reflection and then ask, "Given this range of feelings, what do you think we collectively need from our learning community, and what does it need from each of us?"

You can divide students into smaller groups and ask them to draft norms and expectations on a Google Doc or Padlet that can be shared and discussed with the group. Alternatively, you can share a list of suggested norms with students and invite discussion either orally, in a chat space, or by annotating a Google Doc using the "comment" or "suggest" functions. While the process is inclusive of students' input, ultimately it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that the ideas that make it into the final contract are those that will best nurture a safe learning environment.
Alternatively...

4. Reflect on scenarios
Another way to help students develop a classroom contract is to have them envision what they would like to have happen during certain scenarios. Scenarios could be drawn from students' previous experiences of online learning. They might include situations such as:

When we get frustrated or need help with our tech tools, we can. . .

When we want to feel connected with classmates, we can. . .

When we notice ourselves or a classmate getting distracted during small-group work online, we can. . .

When something is happening at home that makes it hard for us to engage in online learning, we can. . .

When someone says something that might be confusing or offensive in our online discussion, we can. . .

When we need time to talk about topics outside of our normal curriculum, we can. . .

To show appreciation or respect for the ideas of others, we can. . .

5. Initiate the contract
After the class has completed its contract, reaching consensus about rules, norms, and expectations, it is important for each student to signal agreement. Students can do so by adding their names to a Google Doc or Padlet. If possible, add a copy of the contract to the resources available in your online learning space for students to review and revisit.

It can be challenging to create a student-centered learning experience when we're not physically present in the classroom. Yet students facing the challenges of living and learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic can benefit from a relational, supportive approach that offers them connection, community, and agency in their own learning.

This grid offers ideas, strategies, and resources to help you and your students connect, reflect, inquire, and discuss in both synchronous and asynchronous digital spaces. We also suggest offering students opportunities to work offline, away from screens. While there are a plethora of different tools, apps, and platforms to try, we recommend sticking to just a few familiar and easy-to-use tools, reserving more of your time for responding to student work or scheduling 1:1 check-ins.

Connect Choose tools that allow both video and audio. The combination has a humanizing effect and helps participants feel connected.

Synchronous: Virtual Community Meeting with a connection prompt on Zoom or Google Hangouts.

Asynchronous: Students write and share six-word memoirs on Flipgrid.

Offline: 1:1 phone or text check-ins (teacher:student).

Reflect
Allow multiple entry points for student reflection, including words and images. Reflections can be private or shared.

Synchronous: Students share reflections on a Graffiti board in Google Docs or Padlet.

Asynchronous: Students create Color, Symbol, Image documents, then photograph and share to a class social media stream.

Offline: Journaling, daily or weekly, with prompts provided by teacher.

Inquire
Students can engage with a common text, then annotate and interpret collectively. Offline, they can have agency to define their learning goals.

Synchronous: Close Viewing Protocol: Watch a short streaming video together, pausing for discussion either on audio or in the chat.

Asynchronous: Read a shared text and process with a Connect, Extend, Challenge strategy, sharing responses on Padlet.

Offline: Encourage students to create their own learning agenda.

Discuss
Learning is social. Use audio, video, and text tools that help students exchange ideas and extend their thinking.

Synchronous: Use Think, Pair, Share with small groups of students in Zoom breakout rooms.

Asynchronous: Over a defined period (1-2 days), students engage in Big Paper/Silent Conversation using the "comment" feature on Google Docs, responding to a stimulus text and to each other's ideas. Flipgrid or Voicethread allows students to record audio/video comments and build a discussion over time.

Offline: 1:1 phone call with a classmate.

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Taking School Online With a Student-Centered Approach

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Due to the recent school closures, many schools have shifted to online and distance learning. In these schools, educators are navigating new technologies and ways of teaching during an immensely challenging and uncertain time in our communities, when students' (and teachers' own) social-emotional needs are just as critical as academic goals.

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Movement & Learning goes hand and hand, A fact most are unaware of! 

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Movement & Learning goes hand and hand, A fact most are unaware of! 

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With a close inspection of the correlation between the two movement & learning I automatically visualize sports. Of course I am prone to gravitate due to my love for sports. I feel sports allows you to learn a particular skill that has specific movements geared towards mastering that sport. Movement allows one to gain motor skills, balance, sharpen you eye hand coordination and grow into your next phase physically, mentally, academically, socially.
So with my experience and background both in sports and the class these are actions I think and feel would be beneficial to integrate and implement these movements.
1. Set times to line up
2. Dance segments of follow along a video
3. Organized movements by command
4. Sporadic motions to maintain both awareness and alertness

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Yoga in the Classroom: K–4 Chair Sequence

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Definition of Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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Definition of Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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1. Collaboration in student learning is characterized by students working together to solve problems and complete tasks or projects. It is also a process of peer-to-peer teaching or group work to achieve the mastery of learning standards.

2. Collaboration is an integral part of student-centered learning. It is just that the lessons taught by the teacher lack an essential aspect of the principles of learning; people are social, and the brain grows in a social environment. Collaborative learning is based on the idea that education works best in small groups.

3. Student-centered learning is based on collaboration.

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https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/five-ways-to-work-gross-motor-movement-into-your-daily-class-schedule/

Walk and talk: During teaching segments we teachers have students work in pairs. This can be replicated to allow those students walk and talk at the same time. Walking allows for exercise, motor skills to be utilized and talking takes their mind off the entire task at hand as a distraction technique. Teachers and class assistance can encourage movement through walking in the classroom, during gym at PE and of course taking a walk around the school building as space permits. Implement a step tracker. Place a device on the shoe of the student, or use the watch, phone and or some sort of step tracking to keep count of all the students steps. Make it into a game and or competition: this ensures you have the students willing participation.

Now if anyone remembers our last president Mr. Barrack Obama wife first lady Michelle launched a children's movement initiative in the race to fight child hood obesity. A healthier kid. It was called "lets move"
https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

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Get active! Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign highlights the benefits of physical activity every day. Many schools are extending that lesson to highlight the importance of exercise to overall physical and mental health of students. Psychology Today author Michael Otto argues that physical activity is so important, the fourth R might well be recess.

Historically, schools have provided time for gross motor movement - large body movements such as walking or running, jumping, reaching, and balancing - during recess on the playground. In addition to being good for kids' physical health, this type of movement provides stimulation that helps them feel calm and able to focus during the rest of the school day.

Increasingly, though, schools have shortened recess due to time constraints, removed it for disciplinary purposes, or cut it out altogether to devote more time to curriculum content. Because shortened or eliminated recesses mean more fidgety and less focused children, it's important to work some exercise into the regular daily routine.

5 ways for teachers to add gross motor movement to the classroom schedule

Here are five excellent ways to work gross motor movement into the classroom.

1. Transition dance party

Music is a great way to lift everyone's spirits and a short musical movement as students transition from one section of the day to another can help them get their wiggles out.

Turn on a fun song - not too fast, not too slow - and encourage students to reach high, stretch their wings, and touch the floor.

If students are extra wiggly, include jumping or a "walk like me" line dance through the classroom.

It is important to let the students know that wiggle-time is while the music is playing; once the music stops, they will need to calm their bodies and sit quietly for the next section of the school day.

Highlighting gross motor movement during transitions can help especially fidgety students calm down and focus for the next section of the school day.

2. Roll the dice

This activity cube is great for choosing exercises like jumping, spinning, hopping on one foot, or having the aforementioned dance party. Consider using an individual-focused-cube as a reward or change of pace when a single student is disruptive or having a hard time focusing on the lesson, and a cube created for the whole class as well. A short break in the middle of a lesson might be just what the entire group needs to recharge and refocus.

3. Stretch

Sometimes students just need a simple stretch and a deep breath. In her article " Yoga in the Classroom," Marilisa Sachteleben suggests that practicing yoga in the classroom has serious benefits.

Not only do students learn to relax, they also oxygenate their systems and increase their own comfort. Different from meditative or religious yoga, these mindful stretches simply link breath and body movement. For young students, these stretches can be related to animals (cat, cow, elephant).

4. Desk workout

It might not be another recess, but a short desk workout like this one from the blog OT Mom Learning Activities can be scheduled into each day. Even five minutes of class time devoted to gross motor activity is a solid investment to help students be more focused.

Consider having students make "Lazy 8s" or do chair push-ups. Switch up the exercises every day and then take requests on Fridays. These can be great during writing time to exchange the small motor movements of writing with larger-muscle movements.

5. Integrate movement with learning

Whenever possible, consider integrating gross motor movement with the learning itself. Math lends itself to this idea with hopscotch, moving around the classroom, or grouping students to count. Younger students can learn sight words from reading them off ping pong balls they toss back and forth (or you toss to them) or do a phoneme-based toss game with letter or sound-marked beanbags that match the word on the can.

However you do it - worked into the lesson plan, as a surprise, or during transitional times - integrating gross motor movement into the classroom will pay off. Consider adding it to the lesson plan or to your emergency bag of tricks for particularly tough days so that your students' minds can also get moving.
Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

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Students Need Gross Motor Movement: 5 Ways to Work it Into Your Classroom | Resilient Educator

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Get active! Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign highlights the benefits of physical activity every day. Many schools are extending that lesson to highlight the importance of exercise to overall physical and mental health of students. Psychology Today author Michael Otto argues that physical activity is so important, the fourth R might well be recess.

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A fight against child hood obesity

https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

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At the launch of Let's Move! in 2010, President Obama established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity clearly stating his goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation and announcing the First Lady's role in leading a national public awareness effort to improve the health of our children.

He stated: "To meet our goal, we must accelerate implementation of successful strategies that will prevent and combat obesity. Such strategies include updating child nutrition policies in a way that addresses the best available scientific information, ensuring access to healthy, affordable food in schools and communities, as well as increasing physical activity and empowering parents and caregivers with the information and tools they need to make good choices for themselves and their families. They will help our children develop lifelong healthy habits, ensuring they reach their greatest potential toward building a healthier and more prosperous America."

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At the launch of Let's Move! in 2010, President Obama established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity clearly stating his goal to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation and announcing the First Lady's role in leading a national public awareness effort to improve the health of our children.

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Innovative Learning Spaces for the Next Generation: Centerview Elementary School

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Innovative Learning Spaces for the Next Generation: Centerview Elementary School

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This video showcases an entire school designed around student-centered learning with each designed as a student-centered learning environment. The school uses "learning spaces" that allow individual, small group, large group, and multiple-class sizes.  Everything, including furniture and operable walls, is multi-functional in the learning studios and make them flexible from top to bottom

Reference:
Wold of Architects and Engineers (May 2019) Innovative Learning Spaces for the Next Generation: Centerview Elementary School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUisTKQFDho

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Innovative Learning Spaces for the Next Generation: Centerview Elementary School

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A Child-First Approach to Classroom Design

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A Child-First Approach to Classroom Design

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This Montessori school showcases an excellent application of student-centered classroom design.

Reference:
Edutopia (April, 2019) A Child-First Approach to Classroom Design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv_6FwMBzD8

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A Child-First Approach to Classroom Design

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks

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Kayla Delzer, Edsurge (October 1, 2015)

Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-01-why-the-21st-century-classroom-may-remind-you-of-starbucks

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It's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom.

Think about when you go to Starbucks to complete some work. Why do you choose to work there? Where do you choose to sit? I usually gravitate towards the comfy seating choices like the couches and big chairs, and yet, I see people choose the tables and chairs over and over again. Regardless, when you walk into Starbucks, you have choice. You get to choose where you sit. No one checks you in and directs you to a spot, telling you that you must sit there for the remainder of the day to do your work. If you need to get up, walk around, or choose a different seat, you are free to do so.

As I sat in our local Starbucks this past summer, I looked around and thought-why can't my classroom look like this?

After several weeks of planning and a little bit of faith, what resulted was this:

But how did I get to this point? Let me take you through some common questions I get asked about classroom redesign-so that hopefully, you can do the same.

What did your process look like?

Before I even purchased a single thing, I thought about why I was doing a classroom redesign. If we truly want to prepare our students for the real world, we need to put them in responsive, dynamic environments that reflect life outside of a traditional classroom. And what's that life outside like? Full of choices, where adults are responsible for their own learning. As a college student visiting my classroom once said, "It's like you're treating them like little adults." And as my teaching has changed, my classroom design needed to change right along with it.

After consulting Erin Klein, a classroom design guru who has been "ditching her desks" to avoid "the cemetery effect" for a few years now and sharing her experiments on her blog, I thought about my classroom and the traditional chairs and tables I was given-and I came up with a plan.

Looking around my classroom, I quickly realized that I had far too much furniture, so I got rid of four tables, my huge teacher desk, 20 traditional chairs and a file cabinet. Next, I started looking for resources to redesign and repurpose what I already had. I looked around my house and in my storage closet to pull some pieces that I wasn't using, and scavenged Hobby Lobby for some new purchases.

What came out of that was flexible seating and open floor space: I thought about my students who would prefer to stretch out on the floor, and I purchased yoga mats and bath rugs for them to lay out on and work. Simultaneously, my fellow educators contributed extra clipboards they weren't using so students would be able to write just as easily.

Now, I have a large, open area for whole group instruction and five remaining tables, each designed with a specific purpose:

a small group instruction whiteboard table with stools

a stand-and-work table with no chairs

a crate seats table

a sit-on-the-floor area with core disks or pillows and work table (see to the right)

a stability ball chairs table

Do you have a seating plan or arrangement?

No, I don't have a seating plan for kids. I allow students to responsibly choose where they work every day. When they arrive in the morning, they make a choice for the day but are free to switch places as they see fit throughout the day. I have enough seating options in our classroom that there are never issues about running out of one type of seating.

How do you ensure students are selecting smart choices to work?

At the beginning of the year, students spent an entire day trying out each of the seating choices. After that, I began to let them self-select their seating daily.

I think this is an important step in the process. For example, one student who stands and works originally swore up and down that he would work best on the stability balls-but that changed. It only took him falling off the chair once and almost bouncing out the door for us to both realize that it probably wasn't a smart fit for him.

One big note: Students know I always reserve the right to move them, and they know I always have their best learning in mind.

What about your students with behavior issues?

The behaviors of my students who have exhibited aggressive or distracting behaviors in the past have significantly decreased. There is power for them in the choice to select where they will work. They know the work isn't optional, but choosing where they work is.

Did you do it all at once, or introduce these changes slowly over time?

I had the option of "work rugs" (glorified bath rugs, as shown to the right) for students last year, but only a few students utilized them. So, things have changed over time.

If you want to just try a few things without breaking the bank, I would start with a few work rugs or yoga mats. Or, just take the legs off of a table, lay it on the ground and get some cheap pillows for students to sit on. It's also easy to raise a table for students who prefer to stand and work. Don't feed the fears-just try it and see what works for you.

Where do students keep materials?

We have work bins in the corner of our room where students keep folders, math journals, and other personal items. We use community supplies at each of the five tables, and I have individual baskets of supplies for students that choose to work on yoga mats or work rugs. If you don't have work bins for students, get three drawer stackers and place them throughout the room, or put materials in baskets. You may have to get creative and repurpose something you already have-or something that another teacher has, but isn't using.

What do parents think of all this?

This was an amazing question I saw on my Instagram page, and it pushed me to reach out to a parent for an opinion for this article. Here was her response:

If we take a look at classrooms over the past 70 years, we are seeing the same type of learning environments, year after year. The world is changing, yet our classrooms are remaining much the same. Revitalizing space is a straightforward way to let students exercise choice in the learning environment and find academic success on their own terms.

Now several weeks into our school year, I can't imagine going back to traditional seating. Distracting behaviors have been almost completely eliminated while engagement and student participation are at an all time high. And as I look around our classroom, I feel proud of what we have accomplished-a Starbucks for kids.

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks - EdSurge News

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It's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom. Think about when you go to ...

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Advantages of Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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Advantages of Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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1. Peer learning

In group work, students will learn from their fellow students. Sometimes peers can explain concepts or ideas to their fellow students better than a lecturer or teacher.

2. Improves critical thinking

During the group work process, students will be expressing their opinions or ideas with the other students in the group, providing feedback. This feedback to each student will include critique and the interpretation of the opinions or ideas expressed. The final piece of group work will be based on the unqualified opinions and ideas discussed.

3. Enhances problem-solving

Each piece of group work provided for collaborative learning will require some problem-solving. Every member in the group will need to help solve the problem to complete the task.

4. Improves communication skills

Working in groups to learn will encourage people to improve their communication skills. They will need to learn how to communicate their opinions or ideas, listen to other people’s opinions or statements, and provide feedback.

5. Improves cultural awareness

People from different backgrounds and cultures may have different ways of learning and opinions or ideas than other people in the group. By working in groups, these differences will be highlighted and will improve people’s awareness.

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Strategies for Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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Strategies for Collaboration in Student-Centered Learning

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1. Establish clear group goals

2. Keep groups midsized

3. Establish flexible group norms

4. Build trust and promote open communication

5. For larger tasks, create group roles

6. Create a pre-test and post-test

7. Consider the learning process itself as part of the assessment

8. Consider using different strategies, like the Jigsaw technique

9. Allow groups to reduce anxiety

10. Establish group interactions

11. Use real-world problems

12. Focus on enhancing problem-solving and critical thinking skills

13. Keep in mind the diversity of groups

14. Consider demographics

15. Use scaffolding or diminished responsibility as students begin to understand concepts

16. Include different types of learning scenarios

17. Technology makes collaborative learning easier

18. Avoid ‘bad group work’

19. Be wary of ‘group think’

20. Value diversity

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https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Visual-representations-of-Collaborative-Learning-Flow-Patterns_fig1_267234541

https://www.cpsmanufacturingco.com/news/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-collaborative-learning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QMDnGIljC4

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This gives an overview of how you can arrange desks within the classroom, from the most traditional arrangements where students are facing the teacher to non-traditional ones where students are working in groups.

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Student achievement boards are both a way that kids can take ownership of the classroom around them and it also provides an understanding of excellent work.

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This was a school in which the desks are on wheels and can be moved around the room during study time. So those students(they're in highschool) that want to work alone are able to do that while those who want to collaborate can do that as well.

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References:

Flexible Classrooms: Making Space for Personalized Learning - Edutopia, Feb 15, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQkL5efkViw

Classroom Arrangement Styles: Pros, Cons, & Analysis - Teachers in Education, Nov 24, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjsPP-T7zQ

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Flexible Classrooms: Making Space for Personalized Learning