Filling in a worksheet that informs the teacher about a student’s interests continues to be a go-to method for many teachers to personalize learning. I’ve been on several Twitter chats where teachers have asserted that those worksheets are effective methods to get to know students. I’m not condemning those worksheets, especially if teachers really do study them and use the information to know their learners. I do believe, though, that there are better and more genuine ways to get to know students in order to teach them.
Building Outside the Blocks projects help personalize learning because they require consideration and justification of each student’s choices either directly or indirectly. When a child explains why they chose this product or that catalyst, they assert their voices. If the projects are a What’s News, What’s Up or History Beats, they need to explain why they chose that issue, article or song. That justification is a window into the student’s interests or personal paradigms. If the project is from either the Master Storyteller or the PS tri-BOBs, student choice of story or song or photograph becomes part of the narrative of who they are and why they have made these selections. BOBs invite students to be and share who they are with the class in direct and indirect ways.
BOBs are an authentic way to learn more about a student. While the Portrait of yourSelf is the most obvious personalized project, the rest of the PS series (Personal Soundtrack, Photo Synthesis) are not the only ways to learn about the students' lives and interests. When my Grade 7 and 8 Science students presented their Did You Knows, their fingerprints were all over them. The Did You Knows were part of each unit of inquiry, so if the students were studying Pure Substances and Mixtures, for example, they could research any pure substance or mixture and present on it. The students who loved to bake looked at recipes, the students who were interested in perfumes or makeup looked into their fav brands. The kids who had always wondered about what was in hand-sanitizer and how it really affects us could do that, too. The choice itself is a way to personalize learning.
When students explore the power of 21 days to success through the Extro (short for Extraordinary), they look at something they want to improve. Some of the projects have been a focus on: eating healthy, enhancing their relationship with their sibling, and not biting their nails. Those are just a few examples of the infinite possibilities of the Extro to impact students’ lives beyond the classroom and use their real lives for learning. This is such a personal project because the students have to deeply consider something they want to change, track it through a journal or blog and then create something that reflects their learning from the experience. Each product is as individual as the student. In my classroom, some of the products included a basket constructed from the words the student told herself as she ate more fruit, a decorated frame housing a picture of siblings reflecting a better relationship after fighting less over three weeks, a plaster hand constructed in tribute to the nails that she no longer bit after the duration of the assignment. The mediums of creative products reflecting their learning showed so much about the learner, too.
Building Outside the Blocks is a method that I developed to engage students. It has worked well for me in Grades 3-8 because it helps me see who is in the room, adjust my teaching and curate learning experiences for the needs of the learners. This goes beyond individualizing teaching because I really know my students. BOBs let me personalize my teaching and help students feel like true variables in their education equation. Building Outside the Blocks personalizes learning because students own all the aspects of the experience: it’s their time, their way, their vision, their goals.
I can’t tell you how powerful that information can be on both large and small scales. On a large scale, the entire class becomes a community who shares a deeper understanding of each other and a respect for the individuals in the room. On a smaller scale, the teacher is equipped with an arsenal of information on the child. Teachable moments can become even more connected to the learner because they can be delivered in a manner or through an analogy that connects precisely to the student’s life and interests. When students feel visible and valuable, they produce better work, feel better about themselves as learners, and get more out of their learning experiences.
