Learner Agency: Post-Covid Classroom Changes

Our year 5 and 6 syndicate has been trialling flipped learning or blended learning as a way to increase the engagement of our learners. We all found many successes in teaching remotely during lock down that we, like so many other educators around the globe, have decided to bring the best of that approach to the fore of our teaching strategies today. I learned a lot during lockdown and so did my students. Now we are working together to try and co-create a model that facilitates a way of allowing students to Basically this process is just me working with my 29 Year 5 and 6 students to see what works and what we need to change each week to make our learning better. Our team is working together but before we make this a more collaborative effort we have been given the opportunity to try some ideas that we feel work best for us and our learners. Initially we started with something similar to what I had created for our learning@home. These slides were filled with a variety of images, text and video. I designed them to be interesting and to capture the imaginations and creativity of my class. Their downfall was they didn’t lend themselves to a continued or integrated learning experience. They were meant for short term engagement for students to complete without heaps of involvement from parents trying to work from home. Don’t get me wrong...they were great for the purpose. I just felt they needed more. So my first week back in class at Level 2 looked a bit like this The students liked the easy way to link to learning. It was great for my most capable learners but for some it was hard to navigate and wasn’t easy to see where they spent too much time. So then came iteration two. It contained a timed schedule section and a reflection spot. These notes the students made helped me to figure out where they put their work. What they found challenging and how they navigated those challenges. The class is very excited to include their project work into this format starting next week. They really feel that is where they want to spend their time at the moment. Considering this going to be a 12 week term. I think they are bang on the money about spending the last two weeks having the same choice to complete tasks that they did at home. There will be further iterations as we move forward and the students take greater control over the choices they make in their learning.