Saturday, January 23, 2016

PL Night for Parents

Lincoln recently hosted a Personalized Learning night for parents, and it turned out awesome!  Parents were invited to school for an ice cream sundae bar, as well as a chance experience school through their child's eyes.  
In team RISE, we wanted the learners to take the driving seat and show their parents how they learn, but since they are still so young, we came up with a neat way to guide them by giving the parents a "must do/may do" very similar to the one our learners complete each day.  As soon as a family walked in, we told the learners that their parents needed to complete the "must do/may do" and the kids' jumped right into teaching their parents all about their iPads, their PLP goals, how they use the resources in the room, etc.  It was awesome!  
One of the "must do's" we included was a form to fill out which included questions about their feelings thus far regarding PL, how they feel their child is learning, what they like, what they need more information on...and the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive!  Here's a few comments to share:
In regards to the question: "What do you like about PL?"
~"I like that Pl teaches him to set goals to obtain success.  It also teaches him independence.  I also like the use of his successes to help other students, this creates pride in the student."
~"(He) has the chance to learn at his pace."
~"My child has the opportunity to make choices and show her learning in a way that is at her pace and based on her own interests and creativity."
~"They set their own goals!"
~"More 1 on 1 time."
~"I like that he is so excited about passing goals."
~"(He) doesn't have to sit still to learn."
~"Learning is catered to each child."
In regards to the question: "What do you like most about the multi-age classroom?"
~"She is helping other kids."
~"Opportunity to teach others."
~"Diversity"
~"How the kids learn from each other."
~"The way the kids all work together as a team."
~"I like that not a single child will be singled out due to excelled or slowed progression in the classroom."
~"My child has the ability to work with and learn from students of varying abilities regardless of their age and grade level."
~"Having 2 teachers."

We also made a video starring our very own learners to give a little insight into how the students are learning.  When we started the video process, we wanted to interview some learners who have had experience in a traditional classroom so they could compare the 2 differing experiences, but we only have 2 kiddos in our entire class of 46 who have experienced a traditional classroom!  What a unique and fun "problem" to have!  When I asked one of the kiddos to tell me about his old school, he said, "You mean WAY back in Kindergarten?"  Haha!  Yeah, WAY back then :)  So, here's what we were able to capture...welcome to a day in the eyes of Team RISE :)



Sunday, January 17, 2016

What is Personalized Learning Anyway?

If you're looking for more info on PL for yourself, your colleagues, or for parents, please check out our school's January Lincoln Link which gives a terrific synapsis of PL, what it is, why we do it, how we are implementing it, and what's to come!  There's some great stuff in there :)