The Road to Independence

After enlisting the students as partners on the journey, we made a plan.  If this is OUR classroom, then we had to work together to achieve success.

Our first goal was to help everyone meet their highest level of independence for managing their time and meeting learning expectations.  We likened our recent 'rough patch' to a bumpy road and wanted to travel more smoothly and reach our destination (independence). 

Students thought it was a good idea to actually construct a road to hang on the wall with a picture of each one of them on it that they could move along the road as they achieved greater success.  

For the next several days, students worked to complete this project.  What was neat is that the project didn't belong to a set group of students.  A number of different students were actually involved.  Based on their interest and availability each day, they moved seamlessly in and out of the project, allowing others to step in and continue.  The students were genuinely invested and really assumed ownership.  It was powerful to see.

While the road was being built, students were being supported by the teacher in small groups or individually where needed.  We were very explicit about the purpose of this support- it was to help them learn to manage their time, materials, resources and responsibilities.  

What we realized and were very clear about with the students, was that many of them had never been had to do this before.  They genuinely didn't know how to work so independently.  We made it very clear to them that they shouldn't feel badly for needing support and that our intention was to move them to managing themselves again as soon as possible. We treated this support as a positive thing and we happy to celebrate with them as they celebrated success.  

It was interesting to see how the tracking visual prompted a sense of team.  Students encouraged and congratulated one another and outwardly shared and celebrated when they were able to move themselves one step closer to the end.  It was important for this to become their self-assessment tool.  They needed to be involved in moving themselves on the road- whether forward or backward- for it to be most meaningful.  

The road continues to be a very important representation of the collective work we have done.  Most students now sit in one place on the road but they continue to look to it to celebrate and reflect their successes in learning skills.   And, yes, there are also still days when students visit the road with the teacher to re-evaluate how they are doing.  It matters to them how they are represented here and when they have a set-back, they work hard to improve it.  What's most terrific though is that they know how it feels to succeed and they know exactly what they need to do in order to improve, because they've already been there. They feel pretty empowered to know that they have the tools (skills) it takes to move themselves ahead again.

The Road to Independence- self-assessment tracking tool for how students were doing with managing their time and learning.

Updated road. The students added their teacher in a car behind them- encouraging them to keep going.  Notice the google flag markers along the way!

Here, a student talks about our road to success.