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, Toni Rose is joined by MCP Mentors Calla Miller and Sarah Krasowski to talk about how they implement and manage self-pacing in their Elementary (1st and 5th grade) classrooms.

Getting Started with a Modern Classroom

Calla got started with Modern Classrooms during the first wave of COVID in March 2020. She worked on her district’s leadership team figuring out how they could move forward, what they could take from distance learning, how they could build that into their future, and how that could kind of change what teaching looks like. She read an article about Modern Classrooms and then completed the Virtual Mentorship Program.

Sarah, a fifth grade teacher, started poking around the Modern Classrooms model in December 2020. At the time, she was on Zoom with students for five hours straight each day giving direct instruction. In January of 2021, she and a coworker came the realization that their current approach was not working, and they decided to go all-in with the Modern Classrooms approach. In September 2021, she participated in the Virtual Summer Institute.

Making Modern Classrooms Work

Calla found that collaboration with the seven educators on her grade level team was instrumental to finding success with this model, even though she was the first person in her building to fully implement. Her district has one-to-one technology, but having wireless mice for each of her students has been a game-changer.

Once COVID hit, Sarah’s school transitioned to one-to-one technology, as well. With that, her students received headphones and a mouse. Part of their transition has been helping students find more comfort in using technology. Her school created a fourth prep with technology to ease the transition.

Implementing a Self-Paced Structure in Elementary

Calla implements a self-paced structure with her students in math and writing, so she spaces out those subjects throughout the day to provide instructional variety. At the beginning of their lessons, they gather together and look at their progress tracker. To keep students focused, she only shows lessons that students are actively working on. She then helps them identify their goals for the day. Once that’s done, students log into their computers and access their work from their LMS (Calla uses Canvas). 

She keeps her lessons simple. Sometimes a lesson is simply giving directions, or illustrating how to take a picture or submit something in Canvas. She also limits her students to only one or two new lessons each day, allowing her to maintain some control over the self-paced process. For those students who are ahead of pace, Calla offers a choice board of aspire to do activities, focusing on fun ways to apply the lessons they are learning.

Students who are working through earlier lesson content know they can go to these students who are ahead of pace if they have a question. As a result, Calla can spend most of her time in one-on-one conferences to quickly review or in small groups that are struggling with particular concepts. Part of self-pacing means teaching students how to collaborate and how to find the support they need to continue moving forward.

For her older students, Sarah found that setting the stage was incredibly important to successful self-pacing in elementary school. She started things off with a Unit 0, which included a lot of active movement, social-emotional learning, and a focus on growth and mindset. She helped them to get comfortable moving around the classroom, finding partners to collaborate, and understanding the classroom procedures around technology use and access.

Sarah uses three separate trackers to help her students understand where they are within the unit and to keep them on pace: a student-facing tracker, a class-facing tracker, and a personal tracker for her own use. She designs the student tracker to align to the unit’s theme that looks like a game board. The lessons are all linked to the game board and students can move their piece around it as they complete lessons. The classroom tracker has three sections - catching up, right on track, and ahead of schedule. Her teacher tracker is where she keeps grades for activities, if she chooses to grade them, in addition to her mastery check grades. 

To keep her units manageable, she keeps them between four and eight lessons. Each lesson is designed to take a single class period and is made up of a video, activity, and a mastery check. She also employs a three-before-me rule, where students need to ask three classmates for support before coming to Sarah with questions. During class time, Sarah is working with students one-on-one or floating around the room checking in with students.

Challenges with Self-Pacing

As she has implemented a Modern Classroom, she has experienced some struggles. In particular, she has struggled with planning and feeling like she is ahead of the game. One thing that has been helpful is giving herself grace - she doesn’t need to have an entire month’s worth of lessons available before beginning a lesson. Instead, she focuses on staying a week ahead of where her students are.

Sarah has struggled with students not finishing their units by the time the test date comes up and has felt some teacher guilt about that. One way she combats this is by providing students with a second chance form. For any test grade below a 70, she attaches this form, which asks students to answer some questions about the unit and two ways they can work to enhance their score. Then she allows them to take the test again. This has allowed her students to find a lot of pride in their own personal growth.

Success with Self-Pacing

Calla credits this model with helping her reach all students through a period of extreme and frequent student absence. Students who are simply quarantining can still access core instruction in math and writing through this approach. She has been able to easily transition to remote learning, as well.

In addition to helping students stay on track with their learning, Sarah is really pleased with the amount of information the model provides her, as it allows her to know exactly what her students have mastered and what they haven’t.

Tips for Implementing a Modern Classroom

Calla suggests that teachers who are new to self-paced learning start with just one subject. That way you can reflect on how things are going and find successes compared to your traditional approach. She assures new educators that you will find yourself reteaching less, especially if you focus on a subject area where you want to have the biggest impact or one that is most manageable for you.

Sarah suggests finding another teacher to implement alongside you, whether or not they are teaching your same grade level. This allows you to have someone to bounce ideas off of, to share information as you’re both learning these new skills. She also suggests giving yourself and your students more time than you think you need to adjust and go through your first unit.

For even more information on what a Modern Classroom can look like in the elementary space, check out our webinar: Building a Modern Classroom for Elementary Students

Our Guests

Calla Miller is a 1st grade teacher and teacher leader at Doherty Elementary in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She began working with the Modern Classrooms Project in 2020 and became a Distinguished Education and Mentor in 2021. She is passionate about redefining what school, specifically elementary school, can look like to better serve our students. Twitter: @teachcmiller

Sarah Krasowski has known ever since she was very young that she wanted to be a teacher. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Framingham State University, that dream was realized. Sarah is also certified as a reading specialist and holds a master's degree in Reading Education. Sarah is constantly trying to find new and innovative ways to teach content and connect with her students. In her spare time, she loves to hike with her dog, Cali, spend time with her family, read, and watch all the new TV shows she can.

Our Host

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. 

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