Conference Reflections – Student Led Classrooms

I recently attended a conference and one of the sessions I attended was on student led classrooms. My school is working really hard on the big idea of belonging and the ways we can make students feel like this is their school, their classroom, their safe space. Student jobs was one way we explored the big idea. 

 

The impetus of the session came from a teacher continually loosing her voice and going home exhausted each day. It was a way for her to address challenges she faced. Along the way in her learning and recalibrating her classroom, she learned it was so much more about them and facilitating an environment with students having agency, leadership and ownership. Sometimes the small things we try and fix, lead us to bigger learnings. 

 

I had a similar experience during the year of Zoom school. I shudder now, just thinking about that year. I know we were all doing the best we could, but man, what a year. I was teaching an 4th and 5th grade ELD (English Language Development) group each day. ELD is all about listening and speaking, which we all remember was hard to do on Zoom as only one person could do it at a time. So I developed Jamboards and breakout rooms and other ways to increase interaction amongst the students. But inevitably, the tech would trip me up. Finding and dropping the Jamboard link quickly,  forming breakout rooms that were balanced, showing a short video to get us excited and remembering to click the “play computer sound button.” It was a lot. So, I invented the joke master role. This person was in charge of coming to class each day with 2-3 jokes ready to share. Inevitably, when I was slowed down, brain trying to figure out the settings, I called out to the jokemaster to take over, so I could figure out what I needed to do. “How do you talk to a giant?”, the joke master suddenly said after unmuting. A barrage of question marks flooded the chat box, a few unmuting and saying, “I don’t know.”. “”Use big words!” the joke master revealed. Necessity is the mother of invention. The kids loved it. I appreciated it.

For some reason, when I returned to the physical classroom the next year, I did not carry that job forward. Sure, I was still stumped by warming up the projector, or looking the the dice to play our language game. Surely the jokemaster role still had a place in the classroom. Why was I not able to see and carry forward effective practices. 

 

Another challenge I had that year was taking attendance. I know many teacher also share this challenge evidenced by my Instagram feed  filled with sticker shops selling stickers that say “Take the attendance.” Again, out of desperation, I  made a google form with the date, kids’ names and attendance status. Another student became the attendance monitor. I would either drop the link to the form in the chat, or send via email earlier. Suddenly, a forgetful, frustrating task was capably handled by a student. I had all the data in a nice spread sheet to share with admin. The student felt useful and engaged. 

 

Both of these fabricated jobs helped me. But what did they do for students? I wonder what more we could concoct if we merged these two needs (teacher and student), relinquished control and create an environment where everyone belonged and was essential. I know student jobs are just one piece and there is much to consider when moving from a teacher led classroom to a student lead classroom. I still have much to learn, relearn and look forward to sharing with my colleagues. They reference the book The Shift to Student Led which helps unpacks the different ways to move in that direction. 

2 thoughts on “Conference Reflections – Student Led Classrooms

  1. Really interesting perspective and useful examples. I agree that students can often do more than we think. I have a few routines that I hand over to students and it does help but perhaps formalizing some of those roles could be a next step. Thanks for sharing your thinking.

  2. This is so interesting to read. Thank you for sharing your reflections on the conference! I love the idea of a joke master. Now I’m going to be paying attention to where in my day I can put kids in charge. Thank you!

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