Teacher: Sam Gray (@samaugustgray​)
School: Chadwick International - Songdo, South Korea
Grade: 4
Coaching Cycle: October 2021 - December 2021

Sam was eager to shake up his timetable and get students working on things they prioritized themselves. He decided to start with math lessons, as we felt this would be the easiest transition point for the students. Prior to coaching, math lessons were dictated by the teacher and the process was linear for all students.

As we met and reflected, Sam’s lessons began to open up. Sam offered choice in the order of when to complete math tasks. Students had 3-4 activities for the week and thought about which ones they wanted to complete first, and why. Through student interviews, we found that students were happy to have choice, but were struggling with the amount of time given. We reflected and made changes based on student input. Students then started to use a Padlet to reflect on their goals and evidence their learning of different math strategies. This was an easy way for Sam to quickly check in with each student’s progress, even if he did not have the chance to sit with them individually.
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Near the end of the math unit I came in to teach the class how to use Clips to create video tutorials of their choice of math strategies. This bit of extra creativity gave the students an energetic boost to engage with their math.

Sam is keen to continue with another coaching cycle. He wants the students to take more responsibility of their learning, while giving him the time to confer with students and find out where individual needs can be met. The momentum his class has gained is growing with excitement. 

Teacher: Alyssa Smith (@alyssasmith727​)
School: Chadwick International - Songdo, South Korea
Grade: 3
Coaching Cycle: October 2021 - December 2021

Alyssa is an innovative educator who seeks the best for her students. Due to Covid restrictions and distance learning, Alyssa’s teaching practices were constrained. She did not feel like she was teaching her truth. 
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Students were participating in more whole group lessons than ever and lacking the ownership and agency over their learning that used to ignite her classroom. They would look to her instead of to themselves every step of the way.

Alyssa and I spoke about the learning happening in her class. The students were already using Padlet in class to record their goals, but Alyssa wanted the responsibility for updating to be on the students, not her. In addition to goals, we decided students would record separate steps they might take towards their goals, and finally, evidence of their learning. 
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Students needed support to identify steps to take to reach their goals, so a strategy Alyssa chose was to offer multimodal learning opportunities. Students could choose how they would like to learn or practice a skill. Eventually, they would use blocks of time 2-3 times weekly to update their goals, steps, and evidence by color coding so they could easily see whether goals were not yet started, in progress, or met. Once a system was in place, Alyssa and her co-teacher Rose could confer easily with the agentic and confident learners. 
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The IB’s Action Cycle was also a large part of goal setting for Alyssa’s class. Students choose, then acted, then reflected on their learning. Having this clear cycle made it easier for students to think critically about their learning. Students also had the opportunity to pivot or persevere on their goals when the time was right.

Teacher: Maisie Bradley (@maisie_bradley)
School: Chadwick International - Songdo, South Korea
Grade: 5
Coaching Cycle: October 2021 - December 2021

Students were not confident in different ways of publishing/creating. Most students were using Docs to publish their writing. Some students commented about using drawing apps at home, but most were not using these talents for school projects.

I came in while students were preparing to publish their narrative writing pieces. I showed them three new tools to explore (Keynote, Scratch, and Canva). Maisie practiced offering different tools like Book Creator and Google Slides for #booksnaps and other activities. Students were excited to try a variety of tools, and started to give good reasons for choosing a tool to publish in. After a few short weeks students were using at least six different tools when I came in for an open-ended publishing day.

Because of working on these goals, Maisie and I came to the realization that the grade 5 How We Express Ourselves unit (currently taught by specialist teachers) could be an opportunity to cover some of these gaps. Students could be thinking about how they can creatively express themselves when publishing or showing new understandings, including purpose, audience, and the tool they choose. In the future, when selecting mentor texts for literacy units, grade 5 teachers can also consider widening the range of texts to includes ones that are not published in a book - this could include videos, interactive stories, websites, podcasts/audio books, etc.

Teacher: Diana Suk (@dianasuk)
School: Chadwick International - Songdo, South Korea
Grade: 2
Coaching Cycle: October 2021 - December 2021

Diana’s class caught fire with agency. The students understood the structures straight away and loved having ownership of their choices in math class. The planning that went into choosing stations for the week was mirrored near the end of the unit as the students prepared for their assessment project. Students used their newfound planning skills to schedule the steps they would need to complete the task. Students reflected on their progress and evidenced their learning in Seesaw along the way.

Diana and her class are keen to continue learning utilizing methods, like Studio 2: Math, that promotes student agency. Students are not only accountable for their learning, but they have ownership of it as well. Diana is able to confer with students more often and has a better grasp of student needs and growth.

Teacher: Charisse Patacsil (@cha_patacsil)
School: Chadwick International - Songdo, South Korea
Grade: 3
Coaching Cycle: October 2021 - December 2021

Students in Charisse's class learned the same lessons at the same time, with some differentiation and small groups. Everyone was working towards the same goals (which were teacher made, known, and led). 

Charisse took lots of risks with her students. She wanted to focus on different modes of learning (play, write, draw, act, etc) as well as who students learn best with (individual, partners, small groups, teacher-led). She created structures to help this happen in her classroom using Google Slides as a tool for visual thinking routines. Students often reflected on Approaches to Learning and set goals for themselves about these skills. Reflecting on learning and practicing math with different learning modalities helped students to improve their self-knowledge. This helped the students have voice, choice, and ownership of their math learning.

Charisse and her New Teacher Intern are looking forward to having their students set more of goals across multiple subject areas. They will be talking to other grade three teachers about evidencing the learning happening from their goals, and are thinking about using the MoSCoW method (Must, Should, Could, Won’t) to help structure students’ plans to reach their goals.