At the beginning of the third marking period, my students began working on 20 time projects. Inspired by discussions online (thank you Twitter edu chats), I wanted to further engage my students in the classroom. Teaching in the resource room is difficult. The students often express feeling "below" (their words, not mine) their peers and by middle school, their self-esteem drops dramatically. While I try to keep my classes as close to the curriculum as possible, even reading the higher level novels, the students still feel like they are disconnected from the content and their learning. Each student has individual interests. At some point or another, they've expressed desire to work on other projects than the ones produced in ELA. I found it hard to tell my student that we would not have time to actually write poetry in class this year. Seeing the look of dissatisfaction on their face crushed me. Here I am in language arts telling a student that we can't write. There had to be a better way. On day one of the third marking period, I introduced my students to the concept of a 20 Time project, where 20% of their remaining time in class would be dedicated to working on a project of their choosing. Because choice is such a big part of my classroom, my students weren't immediately intrigued. They're accustomed to choice boards for assessments. But when I went through my presentation with them, they were more enthusiastic. Some of my students didn't need the slides with ideas; they automatically had a plan in motion. Others needed some ideas for inspiration before coming up with their own. Here's what they came up with: Novels. Comic books/graphic novels. Thematic artwork. Informational pieces. Scripts. They were all things that I couldn't cover in my classes but really interested my students. So we got down to work. Each week the students received 20% of their class time to work on their project. Most of the time, that consisted of 10 minutes at the end of the period when their other work was finished. There were certain occasions where I dedicated a whole class period to the project. At first, the students seemed confused because they were actually having fun working on an assignment. Then, the projects started to get more challenging. For some, writer's block was beginning to sink in or inspiration just wasn't striking. Either way, challenges were faced. But my students didn't give up. They continued to push through their projects because they wanted to see the final product at the end of the year. Students who would have put their head down in the desk in frustration at a difficult assignment were motivating themselves to keep going. Seeing the positive attitudes in my classroom and the peer-to-peer encouragement on these projects was awesome. Biggest Successes of my 20 Time Trial
What I Need to do Better
Comments/Advice from my StudentsI asked my students to list advice/comments at the end of their presentation to help my students next year (or in the future)
This blog was my 20 time project for my kids.I ended the day of project celebrations by showing my students my project, which I promised them I would do. I told them I didn't post as much as I would have liked (and they jokingly criticized me for not working hard enough). I told them I made mistakes, readjusted my thinking, pushed outside my comfort zone but felt successful, just like them. Like I said in my introductory post, this is blog is something I always wanted to do. I just needed a push. For some of my students, these assignments were things they wanted to do but needed a little extra encouragement.
This project was a learning curve for me. I learned about it and decided to go for it. And, in the end, it was a great experience for my students (and me). Can't wait to try it out with my 6th graders next year!
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December 2017
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