Every part of a learning sequence should respond to every student’s needs. It shouldn’t be necessary to point out this most obvious consideration, but it is the heart of the transition from traditional classroom techniques to a classroom that is grounded in self-directed learning. This approach requires that the teacher be responsive. Responsiveness is rooted in feedback, which should be given and received throughout the learning sequence.
Planning backwards vs. following the child. The phrase “planning backwards” means beginning the design process with the ultimate goals — what a student should know and be able to do — and then create a plan of how to get there. Starting from this point of view, the driving force is the mastery of the curricular standards.
In Montessori education, on the other hand, the phrase “follow the child” means paying attention to the interests and needs of the individual student in order to cultivate responsible, self-directed learning. This approach requires more flexibility and differentiation to accommodate the needs of every student.
Planning backwards is grounded in the preeminence of mastering academic goals and tends to focus on shaping the teaching process to accomplish that task. Following the child is grounded in the preeminence of the growth of the individual student. This is not an either/or choice, but clearly the two approaches are in tension. The issue of finding a balance between them begins with the question of what is valued most.
In practical terms, planning backwards tends to require a more driven, rigorous approach — the sheer volume of required curriculum in most classes compels the pace to be brisk, which runs risk of leaving some students behind. Following the child, on the other hand, considers character attributes like grit, self-awareness, and self-directedness to be of equal or more importance than the curricular mastery often demanded by accepted standards.
Controlling the pace of the learning process. The timing of each building block in a learning sequence depends on the students' capabilities and the difficulty of the material. Teachers should allow enough time for each activity for the slower students to be successful. That means, of course, that there have to be more sophisticated and challenging activities available for the students who master material more quickly.
If only a few students are proficient, slow down and give them something special to do or let them become “resident experts”, if they are willing. If only a few students are falling behind, provide additional time and support outside of the class in the form of resource centers, peer tutoring, optional homework and the chance to work with you.
Another consideration in the pace of the class is a sense of forward momentum. This, of course, is in tension with the idea of letting slower students work at their own pace. Forward motion is important, but so is flexibility, responsiveness, and spontaneity. Going off topic to follow the interests of the class (or your own interests) makes the classroom more interesting and less mechanical.
A common and quite understandable barrier to finding the appropriate pace occurs when you commit too firmly to a schedule while planning a unit. The issue of “coverage” will often drown out the needs of the students, particularly those who are struggling. If our goal is genuine learning, those needs must be listened to.
Routines help make learning comfortable. Having consistent structures and routines in your learning sequences help ground the student’s experience in a sense of familiarity. A sense of "this is how we do this" binds the class together. Routines about how the period is started or ended, how students go over homework or work together in pairs offers the comfort of familiarity. With practice, students become more effective in activities that are consistent.
Too much consistency can dull the experience of learning. Variety is the spice of life. Don’t implement the use of routines described in the last paragraph too rigorously. Here are some ways in which you can play with the rhythm of the class:
Vary working group size between whole class, individuals, pairs, and study groups.
Vary agency between teacher-directed and student-directed activities.
Vary the daily routine by surprising students with something exciting and novel at the start of the period.
Vary synchronized activities, where everyone is doing the same thing at the same time, with open work time, where the class diverges into a number of activities at the same time.
Spontaneity wakes students (and you) up. Flexibility shows them that their experience of learning is more important to you than marching through the planned curriculum.
Meaningful learning requires context. One of the central tasks in introducing new material is to explore why it is worth knowing. How does the new concept connect to what the student already knows? How does it relate to the rest of the course? How is it connected to the real world? Without focusing on those links, concepts run the risk of becoming meaningless factoids, and the act of trying to learn them becomes tedious. Without context, students are more likely to revert to the bad habits of doing school.
Learning skills requires careful scaffolding. As described in “Unit Contracts”, establishing a sequence of subskills that build towards complexity is essential in designing a learning sequence. How big those steps should be, and how quickly they should be introduced, are two design factors which must be responsive to the needs of the students.
Exploring first. Exploration can also occur before an introduction to new material. Exploratory experiences with minimal guidance can pique a student’s interest before it is even defined as the next topic. In science, for instance, open-ended exploratory lab activities given without explanation can get them to begin the process of making sense of the subject.
Furthermore, student work that “activates prior knowledge” can be an important tool in generating interest and can remind students that they already know some of the material even before it is formally introduced. Having students create a “KWL” chart is one such approach. In this kind of activity, students identify what they already know about a new subject (K), and what they want to know (W), before they are even introduced to that subject. In the final column (L), students list what they have learned when the unit is completed.
Metacognitive work is an essential component of every learning sequence. As often as is practical, students should be aware of the state of their understanding. It guides their actions, and, as they become more self-directed and self-disciplined, it will cause them to ask questions and seek help when they need it. Metacognition is one of the central aspects of successful learning. Metacognitive work should generally precede conversational learning.
Conversational learning should be included in the learning sequence whenever possible. Both because socializing is more fun than sitting and listening, and because conversation engages students directly in the learning process, it should be a mainstay. The length of the conversation can range from a few minutes to a whole period. In general, some conversation should occur every day unless there is a compelling reason not to (like taking a test).
A check-up or self-assessment should always precede open work time. Check-ups or other non-graded assessments are the means by which you know it’s time to differentiate. They are also the principal tool by which students sort themselves into working on the appropriate level of difficulty.
Pay close attention to the spread. Whenever the range of mastery gets so wide that some students are starting to get bored and others are feeling lost, it is time to take action. As you are planning, such junctures will call for “sharing the wealth” in some form and/or differentiated learning.