Autonomy, Accountability & Self-Regulation in my Classroom – Joel Speranza
I move around the classroom, answering questions, having conversations, setting up small impromptu groups to run through a question on the board together. This might sound like chaos but it very much is not. I know what every student is doing, where they are up to and how much they are understanding. This is something I never managed to achieve when I taught in a more traditional manner.
And my students. They are in control of their own destiny. They know why I run my classroom the way I do and they appreciate being given this level of autonomy.
Joel, I am really intrigued by your model and how it sits with other teachers you work with? Is it something that is practised across all year levels? Also, is it used in other subject areas, such as English?
This post is an account of a day in Joel Speranza’s classroom. Each student works at their own pace through videos and lessons shared in OneNote, while the teacher walks around, looks at their work, and sometimes organizes groups to work together on the board. I think this would be very hard for most teachers (including me) who are most at home when explaining something to a group. I’m not sure how I would feel about it as a student – anything would be better than listening to the teacher explaining something to everyone at once, but I wouldn’t like him peering over my shoulder and looking at what I’m doing. Also, I personally would rather be working on projects rather than just working through content. Via Aaron Davis, who asks whether it can be used in other subject areas, such as English.