Common Questions when Implementing a Modern Classroom
Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. Each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self-paced, and mastery-based learning to better serve their students. In this episode, Zach Diamond and Toni Rose Deanon tackle listener questions and provide answers and suggestions geared at new Modern Classrooms Project implementers.
When you’re just getting started with the Modern Classrooms Project, there can be a lot of uncertainty. Especially if you’re the only educator you know implementing the model, or this is your first foray into self-pacing, it’s natural to wonder if this is the way it’s supposed to work. Today, we’re taking a look at a couple questions asked by podcast listeners related to the following topics:
Digital vs. Physical Trackers
Many educators choose to use one style of tracker or another, while some use both. Zach uses digital trackers because his class is highly digitized. He uses the digital version to help him keep caregivers updated on student progress, and so much of it updates automatically. “I don't feel like I could do the extra work to also update a physical tracker,” he says. If you use both, Zach wants to hear how it works for you! Send an email to podcast@modernclassrooms.org to share.
Structuring Your Class Time
It’s really important to break up student work time in all classrooms, but most especially the self-paced classroom. Too much time spent doing one thing can become monotonous for students and teachers alike!
Toni Rose used timers in her classroom and in her workday to remind her to take breaks and to encourage her students to do the same. “Depending on the energy of the class, I'll just say, ‘hey, you know what? Let's take a quick pause. Let's stand up and do some stretches,’ and we do that together.” These whole-class brain breaks help students to re-center and re-engage when attention is waning.
However, because students are self-pacing, you can also build these moments into the lesson itself. “I would insert or have notes in the questions or in the video, and I would say, ‘okay, if you're at this part, stand up and stretch,’” she says. Other options are to have students tell you a code word or give you a high five when they reach a certain point in the lesson, or to write their response to a question on a post-it and have them place it somewhere in the room. This breaks up the lesson, can help you gauge student engagement, and gets them up and moving around.
Another method of providing structure and variance to your class time is by setting up your class schedule. You can have a daily routine that includes timing for videos, collaboration, review and reflection. Or you might implement the Pomodoro technique on an individual basis - students can set individual timers to work for 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. Some teachers even use cell phones as an incentive tool for those breaks, or when students are ahead of pace.
Actively Engaging Students
You don’t have to choose between self-pacing and student engagement - they aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, student collaboration can make the Modern Classrooms approach more powerful and impactful for students, rather than just distracting. Learning can be all fun and games! But when you’re new to the model, it can be difficult to know where to build these moments into your lessons.
Start with routines. Look at your opening and closing routines - can you build in conversational beginnings or endings to your class? Are there activities you can do that the whole class would benefit from, regardless of their progress within the unit? Or perhaps you can look at reserving particular days of the week for games and review. This gives students something to look forward to, and can even represent a soft deadline.
Use tech tools to gamify lessons. There are many resources at your disposal to incorporate self-paced gamification into your lessons. With Kahoot, Quizziz, and Quizlet, you can gamify your classroom without having to do them together. These can be truly self-paced and provide a way for students to break up work they may see as monotonous.
Go offline. Just because you’re self-pacing, it doesn’t mean that you can’t bring the class together! Prepare students in advance by communicating hard and soft deadlines, so they know what needs to be completed beforehand, but then take learning offline and have everyone interact around parts of the content they are all prepared for.
Pull small groups. No student is an island in a Modern Classroom. Partner students up to tackle a question or bring small groups of students together. These smaller settings are often more comfortable for students, and easier for educators to catch small misunderstandings and correct them than a whole-group setting would be.
Allow conversations of all kinds. It can be uncomfortable to let go of what many see as the “ideal classroom” - quiet, controlled, operating within a narrow definition of “on-task.” But the reality is that adults and children alike enjoy chatting with their friends, and that chit-chat doesn’t have to be related to the task for students to be on-task. “Going into Zach's room … it was an organized chaos. Like there were so many different conversations happening. But it was also very beautiful,” Toni Rose says.
Teaching in a Self-Driving Classroom
One teacher wrote: “Starting my first unit today, what do you do when the majority of students are working on the notes? Like today - it feels like I'm doing nothing!”
Don’t be surprised if your Modern Classroom can drive itself at certain points in the unit! That’s the beauty of self-pacing - sometimes, students are managing their learning independently, and don’t need your involvement to move forward or to learn. Sometimes, this is what it means to be the “guide on the side.” Of course, this is unfamiliar territory for educators, especially when you’re just starting out.
But that doesn’t mean there is nothing for you to do! Remember that these are the kinds of moments where you can do your best teaching and connecting. Connect with students one-on-one and get to know them personally. Have personal conversations and have fun in your classroom! Chatting with individual students for two or three minutes isn’t a distraction, it’s an important part of building the relationship you need to ultimately help students learn best.
This is also a great opportunity to let students come to you, if needed. Students who are having a bad day, or who run into content they don’t understand are able to do so when you’re fully freed up like this.
Motivating Students
Many teachers are afraid of self-pacing because they believe their students would take advantage of the freedom, or wouldn’t accomplish anything while self-pacing. Never fear - there are techniques you can use to keep students motivated, engaged and moving forward with their learning targets.
First, tighten up your hard and soft deadlines and regularly communicate with students what those deadlines are. Soft deadlines can be group games or collaboration days. For example, all students who have completed lesson 5 by this date will be able to join the math olympics activity you have planned. Zach builds in deadlines every two weeks because that’s when he communicates to students’ caregivers the progress they have made. For many students, this acts as a soft deadline, because they want to show their caregiver that they have made progress in the class.
Another important piece of motivating students is to bring them into the process and help them understand why they are learning specific content. “If you're teaching about theme, ask students, why do you think we're learning about this skill?” Toni Rose says. “How can you use the skill outside of this classroom? Because everything that we're learning in school hopefully should be able to help them become better learners as they get older.”
Additionally, if students feel like assignments are busy work, it might be helpful to incorporate more student voice and choice in the assignments they are offered. This might look like a choice board of activities, conferencing with students who are struggling to make progress and providing alternate assignments, or hosting a class survey about their preferences for the upcoming unit.
We hope that these insights from seasoned Modern Classrooms educators help you to gain some confidence in your own implementation of self-pacing. Keep in mind that all our classrooms are works in progress and that no one expects perfection. And whenever you’re feeling unsure, it’s important to reach out and get support.
Our Facebook group is filled with thousands of teachers who freely give advice and best practices when you ask questions. We highly encourage you to join and post there if you’re running into a problem you can’t seem to figure out.
Our Hosts
Toni Rose (she/her) strives to be the teacher that she never had growing up. She knew that she always wanted to be a teacher when she was little, and because of her love for reading and writing and struggles of learning English as a Filipinx immigrant, she became an English teacher. Toni Rose focuses on anti-racist, anti-bias work and wants to create a safe space for everyone around her. She especially loves being a thought partner for teachers. Toni Rose has taught in Atlanta, Baltimore City, DC, and currently resides in Washington state.
Zach Diamond studied Music History and Theory at Oberlin College and received a Masters of Music in Music Education from Boston University. He taught music for five years in Lima, Peru, and is currently a Middle School music teacher at DC International School, a language-immersion school where he teaches in Spanish. He began implementing the Modern Classrooms Model in the 19-20 School Year and enthusiastically continues his work with the organization as a mentor and podcast producer.
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