Module 6

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways….

I have to admit, this is a hard area for me. Giving up that "control" and letting kids work independently on a group project is hard. Example: We have been doing a Civil War unit the past couple weeks. The kids are broken down into 6 groups with one laptop. They are given a list of 7 Civil War leaders to research and a list of questions to guide their research. I listed 4-5 kid friendly search engines on the board for them to use. The project has gone well as a whole, but the problem I faced was: a couple groups not getting along together, and some individuals falling behind with the work and not ready to move onto the next leader as a group. I think next year I'll make the checklist to help keep groups on task with this. I'm still working on how to differentiate my groups. I think I took on too much by having them research all 7 people. I guess I should've had groups "sign up" for what indivdual(s) they wanted to research and did a thorough job at it - then put their research into a presentation piece to share witht he class.
Ugh! I'm still learning!