Releasing Responsibility for Learning

[Anna J. Small Roseboro]

The second semester is a good time to begin releasing responsibility and sharing more of the power of teaching with your maturing students.  Most teachers spend the first semester teaching through modeling.  The third quarter is just the right time to design lessons that allow students to spend more time in small groups in activities that increase skills in reading, writing, and planning media presentations to demonstrate what they're learning.  This small group work can prepare your young adolescents for more independent learning during the fourth and final quarter when they will need to show they are ready to move on to the next grade.

Many of you already are familiar with Literature Circles for Reading.  There are numerous online resources to help to construct just the right lessons for your students to learn to respond personally, make connections, and then to talk more confidently and intelligently about their reading.

You can adapt many of these discussion strategies to help students learn how write in different modes, and then to practice talking about what makes good written communication.  See TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Language Arts Resources pages for some ideas for RAGS, Read Around Groups that have students conducting peer reviews of their classmates’ writing and giving written and oral feedback.

If you have access to computers and internet connections, you may find it useful to allot class time for in-class feedback on drafts using the MS Word COMMENT feature.  Here's a link to a post with ideas for structuring that kind of lesson which releases students to learn from one another, under your supervision.

During these student small group meetings or classes with students responding online, you can focus your attention on conducting formative assessments, circulating among the groups, listening, observing and recording what you’re noticing about individual students. 

By this time in the school year, you already have a better idea of what students know, are interested in, and are able to do.  Adding to this knowledge these formative assessments based on observation, you’ll be able to tailor lessons to meet the specific needs of specific students in your specific classes. 

With your excellent modeling, students will be ready, willing, and able to read and respond with useful comments to one another thus gaining confidence in what they’re learning as they help their peers use the skills you're teaching and thus become skillful readers and efficient, effective oral and written communicators.