Self Paced, Mastery-Based Classrooms: Building Self Confidence and Agency alongside Competencies

What do we as K-12 educators often prioritize as a grade level or department team? Making a time table for our units to move students through our curricular goals. Scheduling always comes first, understandably so right? We want all of our learners to have equal access to their grade level and subject area content. But what about those learners who never get a chance to master anything because the class is always moving on? Or those students who already know it? For centuries we have let time be the constant and learning be the variable. Co-founder of the Modern Classroom Project, Robert Barnett, compares this educational phenomenon, one size fitting all, to a group of people going on a bike tour together in this ten minute TedTalk. Check it out A Bike Map for Education's Future | Robert Barnett | TEDxLeysinAmericanSchool

Flipping this and making learning the constant, benefits students in so many ways. What is school for anyway? Life skills, like student agency (internal motivation and drive) and self confidence, blossom as students see themselves as learners who are capable of mastering things that they are learning in school rather than just moving through them.

Earlier this year, Janelle Meisenheimer reached out to the coaching team with a desire to increase explicit formative feedback for all learners in her physical education classroom. As we began a coaching cycle, it became very clear that she believes that frequent, timely, and instantaneous feedback are key components to personalized learning. I too have an everlasting and similar need for students in my math classroom. I want students to be empowered to drive their own learning, track their progress through unit competencies, and adjust their pace to meet their individual needs. They can't do this without feedback.

The Pedagogy of Self-Paced Learning

The Modern Classroom Project (MCP) gave Janelle and I a framework to meet our big ‘teacher goals.’ We both dove in head first on a quest to solve our biggest problem as teachers, meeting each student where they are. We completed MCP’s free course (which we highly recommend), devoured many of their exemplars,

and began to create and facilitate our first units using the approach. Instead of standing up in the front of the class, doing some teaching and then sending kids off to work, we now build out a unit from end to beginning and guide and facilitate learning at each child’s pace. Instructional videos (with guided notes, edpuzzles, and examples), practice opportunities, collaboration with others at a similar pace or ahead of pace, and mastery checks on each competency are the road map. If students fall behind pace they are directed to work on the most important competencies, and those who get ahead of pace have built in extensions and opportunities to teach others. No matter what skills each student is learning at the time, all of our students are metacognitive of where they are in their learning and where they are going. They are also going to walk away at the end of the unit having mastered multiple skills. In a very short time of ‘trying out this approach', we have collected some proof that the model is benefiting our students with both competencies and life skills!

Student Agency in PE

When students know where they are in relation to grade level standards and where they are going (goal setting), learning accelerates. As I mentioned earlier, Janelle is currently playing around with the model and now working with students in her third unit. If you walked into the bubble or gym you would see a poster like the one below on the large screen. It tells her students what the day’s objective is (catching at various heights for lesson 2) and gives each student their learning task(s) for the day. Small groups of students would be in different locations watching short instructional videos, practicing in different ways, and documenting their learning. Janelle would be coaching, checking for mastery, and giving feedback for improvement individually. Once students have mastered all that is in the lesson, they can find the next skill on a poster by the tv and move on independently.

Janelle: My 4-6th grade students are in teams in my current unit. On top of the learning objectives, they have team roles. This leadership opportunity motivates my students and gives them a true purpose for learning the lessons skill. An extra layer of metacognition and drive to be on task is seen as they collaborate with their team and hold each other accountable. Within each role there are different support systems and levels of challenge: must do, should do, and aspire to do.

While students are working through the lessons, I sit by a team to give feedback and check for mastery. As pacing and materials are available and accessible to all, I am able to give more feedback and support to individual students than I would have able to in the past. Before switching to this model, it felt like “here’s the goal of the day and how we will accomplish it. I’ll tell you everything you need to know and will be doing today. Some of you may not accomplish it because you need more time but we have to move on to the next lesson tomorrow.” This never sat well with me. I could see students who needed more time and support and I didn’t have time to give it to them. Where’s the guided learning and differentiation in that? MCP has allowed me to get to know my students better and adapt and differentiate for them on a more personal level. I am able to watch my students grow in their cooperation and leadership skills as well. They are more in control of their learning and there are no surprises with the outcomes.

Self Confidence in Math

When learners have the opportunity to prove mastery of learning one skill at a time their self confidence is boosted time and time again. Mastery checks allow every single student to say, ‘I don’t have this yet or I got it after revising my work!’ This growth mindset is supported by encouraging risk taking, making mistakes, and revising. This is where the real learning happens. Students are given opportunities to revise their work by learning and practicing more before again attempting to prove mastery. This teaching may come from me, the instructional video, or other practice opportunities. Instructional videos can be accessed at any time and paused and reviewed again and again. Those learners who already know or can perform the skill move onto the next skill, take the skill deeper, or have an opportunity to transfer their understanding and knowledge into a new context. I am freed to teach and coach individuals and small groups of students with exactly what they need when they need it. My students are freed to celebrate each win of mastery before moving on to the next competency.

Through surveys and conversations with students and their families at learning conferences we have received a glimpse into the truth behind the power of agency and self confidence on learning. One of my 6th grade math students' father summed up how truly transformational this instructional approach has been on his daughter's mindset during a Zoom learning conference in March.

Transcript of student’s father speaking: "I always think that she had in her head that she was not good at math. She's sort-of pretty smart so she sort of covered it up and sort of ran around and tried to sort of pretend. She thought ‘If I don’t know something I’m going to dive deep and work hard and get it right.’ Now she’s on the other side, she's actually feeling the fulfilment of learning something properly. And now I don’t think she thinks of herself as a bad math student anymore. ‘No, no, I know how to do this. I just need to learn how to learn and then I get past it.’ I think she’s just proven that to herself so I hope that as new things come up she will just carry on doing that. So thank you for getting her over that hump. I think that she thought that she wasn’t good at math. And I think you’ve helped her prove to herself that she can be if she applies herself.”

Wow! This parent even sees the proof at home. It is very powerful for me to receive and reflect upon this feedback as a teacher. It has driven me to keep learning and to continue my growth in building a student-centered classroom. My ‘teacher agency’ and self confidence has increased too.

Janelle and my journey into this instructional model started as a coaching cycle and has turned into a true collaboration across the subject areas and grade levels. It doesn’t matter if it’s PE, Math, English or Science. Janelle, you, and I have the same goals for our students. Learning! With a sound instructional approach in place we can give our students the structures they need to drive their own learning in both academics and habits of mind. Agency and self confidence will forever be assets for all of our students throughout their future lives.

If this work interests you, take the Modern Classroom Project free course this summer and get in touch! We know that we can go great places through collaboration, trial and error, and reflection. Personalizing learning in this way is manageable (especially if we work together) and empowers our students wherever they are in their learning journey. Join us by commenting below, joining our Google Hangout conversation, or getting in touch via email.

Sybil Hall (halls@isb.be)
Janelle Meisenheimer (meisenheimerj@isb.be)