Reflection of the Day: Tuesday, March 19th

I blogged yesterday about a new model of instruction that I am going to put into place in my upcoming Athletics Unit in grades 3 and 4. I also included a JPEG of a Student Learning Outcome Checklist that I am going to use to kick start the unit. Although this is a rough draft at the moment, I threw it out to the grade 3 teachers for their feedback and am pleased to have received back some excellent questions that have further initiated my thinking about the task that I described in yesterday's blog post. 

One of the grade 3 teachers, Marina Gijzen, asked whether or not it was necessary to have the Student Learning Outcomes listed in order in a linear fashion. Having an order would simply indicate where the students need to begin. She was not saying it was correct, but just wanted me to think about how I will introduce the SLOs. It made me think that introducing the Student Learning Outcomes in a linear fashion does not allow for student-initiated differentiation. 

I like the idea of having the Student Learning Outcomes presented in a way that the students do not know where to begin when designing their own learning engagements. Doing so will challenge the students to truly think about which entry point is best in terms of where to begin their learning journey. I believe it will serve to help them self-differentiate as they must evaluate the SLOs and decide which ones they feel comfortable with and which ones must be learned and developed from square one. Please have a look at the Student Learning Outcomes that I am including on the student's checklist of skill acquisition for the Athletics Unit. 


I am happy with the feedback that I received from the grade 3 teaching team today as it has already helped me to better design the start of the Athletics Unit. If you are interested in seeing how this unit evolves, I will be blogging in detail on a regular basis over the next several weeks.