Responsibilities During Choose, Act, & Reflect

In my last blog post I wrote about all of the iterations it has taken me to get my class where they are. Today another grade 3 teacher came in to observe, and we briefly discussed how jumping straight to the timetable we are currently on probably wouldn't work. I think that as the teachers go through this growing process, so do the students. Scaffolding this slow release of control can be messy, but the payoff is amazing.

Currently our day is divided into 3 chunks.

Roughly 15 minutes of Choose

Act

15 minutes of Reflect (unfortunately this isn't at the end of the day, but at the end of session 5 (out of 6) each day.

I started today wanting to get more out of our reflection time. Not only more time for students reflecting but also thinking forward, and preparing our room for the next day so our environment will be ready for us. I also knew that they were ready to take on more responsibility for owning their room. Setting up for the future, and tidying up the past.

​I began to make a checklist of things we could do during Reflect Time each day. As I thought more about this, I began to realise that each chunk of our day has certain things we need to remember and be thinking about. I brought the idea to my students and we created a sort of set of reminders for each chunk of our day. Again, iterations will happen. Already after day 1 we have thought of things to add!

Next steps for us: more collaboration. At the moment I feel like the students are choosing a lot of independent activities. To be honest, at first was ideal for me as we were wrapping our heads around all of the activities. However, was it ideal for the students? Maybe. In the way of settling in to this new routine. Now that these structures are in place I can focus on ways to encourage more collaboration. 

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