The self-paced classroom: What is it & how do you do it?

Webster defines self-paced learning as “designed to permit learning at the student’s own pace”.

In a self-paced learning environment, the teacher creates multiple weeks of materials (notes, activities, assessments) in advance for students to complete when they are ready. Students do not move forward until they have mastered the previous skill to certain pre-determined level of mastery. 

It is really the first and most logical step in my mind to differentiating your classroom. Allowing students that move slower to move slower and those that move faster to move faster.

Becca had started the process in her class and I was eager to try it in mine. She implemented it for a quarter in her class and I gave it a trial at the end of last semester. Here are some things we discovered about logistics and complications related to starting up a self-paced environment. If you are interested in bringing this to your classroom here are some tips from our trials in the new class format.

Logistics & Potential Complications:

• Front Loaded: It requires the teacher to have all the curriculum work, activities, and assessments done up front or at least pretty far in advance, because you never know how fast students will work.

 

• Know Essential Content: You need to know what the essential content you want students to get out of your course. Some students may work so slow that they will not complete everything another student would. That means you've got to know what is absolutely necessary for them to learn in your class.

 

• Room Arrangement: You have to think about the best flow for seats in your room. You need an area for testing and working. You need a flow for you to get around the room and work with groups and individuals.

 

• Tracking: This method requires the teacher to be very organized and have a good method to track students progress and/or a way for students to track their own progress. (We'll discuss strategies for doing this well in another entry!)

 

• Organized Chaos: Students will be at different points in the curriculum and this can take some getting used to for the teacher and the students. They are used to being at the same point and can be nosy about what other students are doing. Also for the teacher it can be an adjustment to have students working on different things.

 

• Potential for Cheating: There is a potential for cheating in this scenario. When students are working at different things, students that work slower could ask to copy work that was done by others ahead of them if you are grading homework assignments. Becca grades purely off of assessments preventing this issue. 

This is a system that both Becca and I are very excited about using in our classes. We will continue to post about our success, challenges, and adventures in the self-paced environment.