A little over three weeks in and I am loving my year! My class has taken the whole idea of taking personal responsibility so well. Well is not strong enough a word, they are doing wonderful! I really thought it would take a whole lot longer to get to the point that they are at now.
My students will get up and move away from their friends if they need a quiet place to learn, or if they just need to sit with others who are more on task. Now, not every time and not everyone, but most of the time they do.
My Math students have "choice time" when I am meeting with small groups. They have at least two individual choices each day and at least one group/partner choice. I have a couple of students who still pick the "fun" choices only, but most make the choices that involve "work". Today we talked about how they got anxious when they took their test. They were able to tell me that they do get stressed when doing something for a grade rather than just doing it for practice. It took a bit to get to that point, but it was good for them to vocalize it.
My Reading students are learning how to make choices during independent reading time. Last week we spent time doing an assessment that would help them know which comprehension areas they need to work on. I told them next week during "I may time", yeah I don't know why we call it "choice time" in math and "I may time" in reading, they would start having options to help them with those skills. One student said, "I choose? No one's ever let me choose before. They've just put me in groups." She is very excited to have the choice. I still have a few finishing up the assessments due to absences, but it'll be nice to get it going next week.
Do I still have off task behaviors? Yes. Do some students choose the wrong seat? Yup. Do some students rush through their work instead of taking their time? Oh yeah.But the behaviors have diminished more with each passing week. Today one student, who literally cried when I made him choose a seat closer to the front, actually chose one of the closest seats to the front of the room. (I had too, he is very little and was complaining of not being able to see.) Yesterday, I had a student take over an hour to take a 10 question test because she was taking the time to check over each and every question. They are really showing great progress!
I am so happy with the progress my personal responsible class is making!
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