Student Led Learning Philosophy

[mom23]

I just read a very insightful article on student-led learning-perhaps it struck such a chord in me because we're so heavy in the younger guides here, and our instruction is very much Mom-led right now. I know that HOD moves toward more and more student independence as the guides progress-I believe more in Preparing (our next guide!). Does HOD ever get to the point of exclusive student independence (within reason-I realize parents still need to periodically check in with what they're doing, looking over and discussing notebooking assignments, narrations, etc...); or, will there always be subjects that we're doing together every day in the upper guides, too?

Another thing I'm wondering about is goal-setting. The author of this article stressed the importance of each student having their own planner to record their to-do lists and check things off, and then later just to write down what they did each day. I also love the feeling of marking things off my to-do lists, and could see this being a motivating factor for my kiddos, as well as a great record of exactly what you've accomplished each year should the state ever come knocking... Do any of you use anything like this; and what would they write down, without having to just copy our wonderful HOD guide, since Carrie already has our planning done for us? And then, how do you go about setting goals with your students? The article was saying to just set goals of being at a certain point in each book by a certain date, but, again, our planning is laid out so beautifully that we don't have to go through every book and decide where we should be by week 9. So, is setting of clear goals an important thing for our kids to learn to do in order to gain the feeling of accomplishment when achieved? If so, how do you all go about this-what types of goals do your children have academically?

[mom23]

Anyone have any input? How independent are the older guides? Do your students use a planner at all? Do you have them set goals for themselves?

[LynnH]

We are on RTR and I can say that yes each guide from Preparing on up gets more and more student led and less mom led. If you look at the first week for Preparing, CTC , RTR and Rev to Rev, then you can see that the number of I (Independent) boxes increases in each guide. At this point in RTR he does his own Science and History reading, Bible Quiet Time, Independent History box all on his own. You have a choice of doing the storytime as a read aloud or you can have the dc read it. We still do it as a read aloud and I don't see that changing any time soon, because he enjoys that time still. He does the majority of his history project on his own with help from me only on some of the cooking activities. He also does DITHOR pretty much on his own, just coming to show me the work as directed. The subjects I am a part of are the Art study, the Bible study which includes lots of character training discussions, grammar and dictation and the IEW writing. I think HOD does a fantastic job of gradually increasing the student independence each year and the directions in the guide are written to them for all the Independent boxes. I have homeschool tracker, but honestly my daily to do list for him just consists of one line that says RTR week 15 day 3, and then it lists the math lesson since we use a different math. He uses the guide as his planner. He numbers each box in the morning in the order he wants to do them and then he checks them off as we go. If you don't want them writing in the guide then you could put a clear plastic divider over the page and let them write on that. Hope that helps.

[LynnH]

Another thought I had is that if you want to see real life examples you could check out the weekly check in threads and look for My3sons (Julie) posts of her ds Wyatt doing Rev to Rev..

[TheATeam]

We are new to HOD this year and are using Bigger for my 7 and soon to be 10 year olds (2nd & 4th "grades") with Extension Package. I also have a 2 and 1 year old. In an effort to not waste precious school time when I'm tending to the Littles, I created an Independent Work checklist individualized to each child.

For instance, my 7 year old has the following:
Math Drill
Math Worksheet
Independent Reading (last 5 books from Emerging Readers, but he reads to himself now)
Copywork
Math Corrections
Clean up your work space

10 year old:
Personal Bible Devotion & Journal (in cursive, this is her cursive practice b/c we don't have a cursive program)
Math Drill
Math Page
Grammar Lesson
Independent Reading (Extension Package & DITHOR)
Math Corrections
Clean up your work space

We start school at 8:30 and sometimes I'm not ready. But, I want them starting their day, so they begin with their Independent Work. And, when I'm spending bits of time caring for the Littles, they are learning to pick these checklists up and do work on their own (learning initiative) without me having to think of what they can do on their own and explaining it as I'm hurrying off with the Littles.

Before, they would scatter throughout the house while I was busy with the Littles. By the time I finished changing a diaper and gathered the Bigs back up for school an entire half hour would sometimes have gone by. These checklists have helped A LOT. And, my 10 year old loves her checklist and being able to check things off. I let them color in the box or put a sticker or checkmark...however they want to mark that they finished.

If they've finished everything on their checklists and I am off tending to the Littles, then they get to choose an activity (painting, drawing, Legos, etc...) to do until I return.

I like what you brought up about goal setting. I set academic goals for each child, each year. And, I have told them those in the past, but never thought of making it THEIR goal to work towards or include them in the setting of a specific goal. An example would be...last year my son was struggling with reading and I set a goal for him to start reading chapter books (easy reader ones) by the end of the school year. I didn't want to pressure him, but I wanted him to know that I thought he was capable. (He met the goal, BTW!)

I can see us setting clear goals with my oldest now. Thanks for bringing that subject up.

Happy to Be Schooling The A-Team,
Elizabeth

Abigail nearly 10
Adam 7
Ada 2
Annalise 1

[tnahid]

Thank you for this post! I have been thinking of getting my sons a planner and having them write down their assignments each day in it themselves. What I have been doing this year is writing all of their list of assignments on a small white board that is on the wall. Then as they do the assignments, they mark them off the board. It is actually working very well for them to do it this way. (I don't write page numbers, etc, I just say "Math, Math Sheet, LA, etc" But I would also like a planner for each of them to have so they could transfer their "list" to the planner and have an actual record of what they are doing daily.

As far as setting goals, I have mixed feelings about it. I know that it can be good to set these kinds of goals, yet it seems like the more pressure I put on myself and my children, the harder I am on myself and my children! Do you know what I mean? And then, if and when those goals don't happen, I feel like a failure. So, while I do believe that I need to add some general goals to my sons' and daughter's lives, I don't want to get to caught up in goal setting myself. It isn't that it's bad, but for a perfectionist or Type A personality, it can be blessing OR a curse! Even trying to set "realistic goals" in my mind, may not truly be realistic for my children. Hmmmm...

As far as the independent-led student issue, I have begun having my sons do their history and science readings and assignments on their own, and I think they are thriving with it (in Bigger). But, I really MISS the readings actually! I am going to miss out on the learning myself. That's the only drawback I have seen so far. I plan to continue doing their Bible lesson and the storytime with them though, along with the hymn and poem reading. I make copies of the TManual pages each week and put in a binder with the boxes highlighted that I want them to do for that day. I keep it in one spot so they can look at it when they need it and I am not always losing my TM! Plus I don't want to highlight my TM that way, since I plan to use it again some day with my daughter. Blessings!

[mom23]

Thanks, everyone! I appreciate your feedback