Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (Part 2)

What Drives My Motivation?: Exploring Dr. Robyn Jackson’s Will-Drivers Framework

In Angela Watson’s Truth for Teachers Episode 191, Angela and Dr. Robyn Jackson discuss the framework for identifying a student’s will-driver, and how teachers may use that framework to take steps to overcome issues with seemingly unmotivated, disinterested students. 

Dr. Jackson’s framework defines four types of will drivers: Purpose, Belonging, Mastery, and Autonomy, and a belief that each of us has a dominant will driver, a manner that most motivates and engages us.

To better understand the roles within this framework, we can consider what motivates each dominant will-driver to invest energy in a task:

• Mastery-driven kids want to know how to be successful or achieve mastery

• Belonging-driven kids want to know who this connects them to, or how this defines them

• Purpose-driven kids want to know why this is meaningful

• Autonomy kids want to know what they are being asked to do and what decisions they can make for themselves

Look closely at your students and how their responses embody their dominant will-driver

Dr. Jackson describes simple variations in language and delivery that can connect more effectively with a student’s dominant will-driver.

A belonging-driven student, for example, will feel seen and honored by a teacher who helps define who they are. Telling this student she is a hard worker or a good friend to a classmate in response to an action will affirm in them what they are striving to be. 

In the same interaction, a purpose-driven student will be motivated by confirmation that her actions were meaningful. To let this student know, “Your work here has helped you become a better reader” or “That classmate has a big smile on her face now. You've made her feel good,” you affirm them based on what they find most meaningful. You are supporting their understanding of the why.

When we look at our students and allow for some time to analyze their negative and positive reactions to various circumstances, we can start to pinpoint their will-driver. 

In my recent experience struggling to motivate a kindergarten student whose behavior was becoming increasingly defiant and disengaged, I applied Dr. Jackson’s framework. 

I noticed this student would push back at just about any directive, even where to play at recess (classes were assigned different sections of the playground during COVID for contact-tracing purposes). She would refuse to leave the room to go outside when I was certain that she really did want to play outside with her friends. She’d told me as much earlier when it was time to complete classwork!

This, and several other clues, led me to believe this student was Autonomy-driven. She wanted choices. 

I started reframing the way I spoke to her. “Giving her choices” was still defining what she would do on my terms. So instead of saying, “Your choices for where to sit are...” I said, “Where will you decide to sit?”

Instead of reprimanding, cajoling, or pleading with her to follow directions and do what I asked -requests that she flatly refused- I reminded her that everything she did was her decision. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t try, to force her to do anything, and that I was there to help her learn. The decision to do so was hers and hers alone.

We are still working through crafting a classroom in which her will-driver is honored whenever possible. As Dr. Jackson points out, autonomy-driven kids have it really hard in school because opportunities for genuine choice are rare, but these kids don’t want anarchy, they just want to know they have options.  

Armed with that understanding, I was able to reframe a negative discourse that had started to form in my mind about this student. Looking through the lens of a student’s will-driver helped dispel deficit-based assumptions about that student’s motivation, academic ability, or personality. 

And wouldn’t we want the same from others?

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom (Part 1)

Know Yourself, Know Your Students: How to use personality frameworks to humanize your classroom

During the many at-home, entertainment-seeking hours of COVID distancing and digital schooling, my daughter and I became quite versed in the world of Buzzfeed personality quizzes. And while you may say it is not of great value to know which Golden Girl I am or which Disney character I should have as a roommate (and you’d probably be right), these quizzes did lead me to an interesting revelation. 

In answering quiz questions, I was called on to think for a moment about what personal qualities I most value, what I most fear, or what quality people respect most about me.These seemingly mindless interviews asked me to do some light self-exploration. (Even if it did only result in telling me that my inner celebrity is Lil Nas X.)

I started wondering about intrapersonal understandings that might matter a bit more and could have a more meaningful impact on my professional and personal relationships. 

I asked myself what would happen if I developed a better understanding of my own motivation or response to expectations?

How can an increased intrapersonal intelligence help me to interact more positively with others? 

Throughout this month I will share my experience with developing my own intrapersonal intelligence using a few popular frameworks, their application in creating positive interactions with colleagues and administration, and their use in building relationships with students.

The Four Tendencies Framework: How do I respond to expectations?

In our various roles as teacher, coworker, parent, partner, etc., we constantly encounter and respond to expectations in the form of inner expectations. Examples such as setting personal goals to read more, eat healthily, maintain an exercise routine, and stay organized. We also face outer expectations, such as deadlines, student achievement reports, email requests, assigned professional development trainings, and more.

Our students, too, face a daily torrent of expectations. Parents, teachers, even friends, pile on the outer expectations and, even at a young age, kids have expectations for themselves. 

Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Framework helps identify the manner in which you instinctively respond to these inner and outer expectations. In doing so, you can create circumstances that ensure success in achieving your goals.

The four tendencies, as defined by Gretchen Rubin, are Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel.  

She summarizes each of the four tendencies in a nutshell: 

• Upholders want to know what should be done.

• Questioners want justifications.

• Obligers need accountability.

• Rebels want freedom to do something their own way.

“When we can see other people’s perspectives, we understand why, from their point of view, their actions make sense,” she explains on her website.

Reflect on the chemistry between your tendency and that of those around you

Defining your tendency can give you insight into your interactions with colleagues.

Upon reflection, I’ve realized how my Questioner tendency was misinterpreted by my former administration. As rules and regulations, scopes and sequences, and testing programs were becoming more and more prominent and strictly policed at my school, I was becoming increasingly critical of the practices. 

I wanted to understand why.

As a Questioner, I’d spent most of my career defining my professional philosophy in terms of what I saw as valuable. 

The lack of clarity and expectation for compliance was unacceptable to me. From an administrative perspective, I seemed simply disagreeable and obstinate. 

Had we communicated about the expectations with a reciprocal understanding of each other’s values, maybe we could have come to a respectful understanding. Instead we each fell into the destructive cycle of villainizing the other. Because we were dwelling only on the faults interpreted by the other’s actions, I saw a leader who was unyielding and close-minded, and she saw a teacher who was antagonistic and troublesome. 

We didn’t look upon each other’s behavior with compassion. 

Troubling interactions such as these occur in our classrooms, too.

                                         

Reflect on the role your tendency plays in your teaching style and classroom interactions

What do we see in children when they fail to meet our expectations? How do we sometimes sum up their behaviors in simplified, and likely inaccurate, terms like lazy, inconsiderate, or careless?

So often assumptions like this dehumanize the students in our classroom. 

Gretchen Rubin would say that, in reality, we are failing to grasp a different perspective on how someone sees the world.

For example, an Obliger may see daily reading logs or homework checks as accountability support and respond positively to a teacher’s praise or reward for completion, while in the eyes of a Rebel, this practice may be restricting and burdensome. 

A teacher with a Questioner tendency may take care to ensure expectations are meaningful, but has that meaning been clearly expressed to the student Questioners in the class? If not, you may find these students fail to meet your expectations, unless they can derive meaning themselves.

By reflecting on your own tendency, you can more clearly see how you craft expectations in your classroom based on your priorities, and how that may be at odds with some of your students.

By observing your students’ behaviors and understanding their tendencies, you may be able to reframe your thinking of their behavior and create circumstances that allow them to meet your and their own goals.

Disrupting the "Behind" Discourse

Like stepping onto an old, dusty trail, COVID-19 and virtual learning has stirred up some of the discourses in education and children’s learning that had settled into well-worn paths. Conversations about roles and respect (or lack of) for teachers, purpose, and benefit (or harm) of standardized testing, and grade-level achievement are swirling in the air. 

I have lots and lots of thoughts on all of these - but today I’d like to tackle the final item on the list.

Among teachers, parents, administration, and politicians the winds of social media carry shouts of:

“Because of virtual schooling students are behind.”

“My child will not be prepared for the grade level work next year.”

“Virtual schooling is failing our children because they are not meeting grade-level standards.”

Behind.

As Alfie Kohn has put it, our education system thrives on a “compulsion to compare”. Are we performing better, worse, or as good as other countries, states, counties, classrooms? Is my child better or worse than the rest?

And, of course, to do this, to compare universally and stack up our values side by side in a neat bar graph, we need a quick and easy, albeit expensive, tool to provide a number.

We must need standardized testing. 

And if we have standardized tests, we need standardized teaching based on specific grade-level standards, lists of exactly what to teach. One list that defines what every child of a given age window should be able to learn. If she does, she’s “on track”. If she doesn’t, she’s behind. 

This discourse has been widely accepted and decisions in education as a whole, in schools, counties, and classrooms, and for individual children in K-12 have been made based on this discourse as infallible truth.

It is not.

School building closures and virtual schooling in the wake of COVID19 has provided an opportunity to disrupt this discourse. 

Beginning with the question: What do you mean: behind?

behind  /bih-hahynd/ preposition 1: at or toward the rear of  2: not keeping up with, later than, after 3: in the state of making less progress than  noun 4: the buttocks

I can assume we don’t mean “the buttocks” but have to include it because I am an elementary teacher and enjoy the same humor as my students. And of course, one’s test score does not accurately depict progress, only status, so we cannot assume a child is behind due to “making less progress than”. Any teacher could tell you of a student who has made a great deal of progress in any number of valuable ways that is not reflected in a score marked as below grade level.

Instead, let’s apply the definition of “not keeping up with” in terms of grade-level expectations.

In this way, the discourse surrounding much of virtual learning in the wake of COVID19 is based on the concern that students will be behind grade-level standards, thus failing to be successful in upcoming years of school. 

The word behind can only describe our students’ achievement in terms of their acquisition of the standards created for each grade level. But what about that discourse? What about the faults there? 

Every child aged 5 can, should, and will learn the following list of items within the confines of one year of school.

The current discourse says: teach everyone based on the standards, then go back and reteach, review, and modify for those that don’t get it. In other words, give them something you already know is inappropriate and then give them extra work until they get it, if they ever do. And based on this format, they generally don’t. And all the damage that happens on the way is likely to make any progress moot.

Instead of thinking of the standards as a list of what to teach, I’m inviting us to reframe our thinking by appointing the standards instead as a list of goals to reach. 

A subtle difference, but here is how it helps me: 

• Begin by learning each student as an individual, what she knows, what skills she has, and what she is ready to learn

• Start there!

• Work your way onward, one step at a time

As we move into plans for next year in a (hope, hope, hope) post-COVID world, or at least in one where school buildings are safely and consistently open, let’s disrupt the idea of anyone being “behind”. 

We don’t have to move the finish line, lowering expectations or forcing failure. 

We have to move the starting line. 

And we have to give students the time, the support, and the confidence to reach achievable goals. We can’t expect all 1st graders to start the year at the same place. 

Guys, we never should have been! 

We can’t spend time forcing students to fail by delivering instruction directed to the same place and then scramble to undo the damage with the intervention plans, computerized practice, and pull-out or small group instruction for those who are behind and ahead.

And just as they won’t all start at the same place, they won’t all end at the same place either! I certainly don’t expect anyone to call it quits when we reach the “finish line” as defined by the standard. It is simply a mile marker along the way. 

I have a vision of breaking all of the standards out of their grade level boxes and stringing them along a trail like the signs that punctuate a marathon:

“Keep going!”

“You are awesome!”

“You’re doing great!”

“We love you!”

We celebrate each spot along the journey as an achievement. 

And we keep on running. 

Be Readers Together

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read the books in the Harry Potter series. For years I listened to the audiobooks on my morning runs (before I discovered podcasts... eh hem, Harry Potter-themed podcasts). 

I’ve lost count of the number of children I’ve brought into the world of Harry Potter through the audiobooks, too. I’ve seen legions of them pass through my classroom doors, many wearing round glasses and a eyeliner-penciled lightning scar on their forehead on the way out.

Each reader brought a different response to the story, to the characters, to the voices actualized to perfection by Jim Dale. 

But one student’s response will stay with me. 

Always. ⚡

Susan had been working her way through the series via the audiobooks for the better half of a calendar year. She’d started midyear as a third grader in my multi-age homeroom class. By early spring of her fourth grade year, she was reaching the end of book 6. 

Spoiler alert: If you don’t yet know what happens atop the Astronomy Tower at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, stop NOW! Walk away. Read Harry Potter. Then come back. I’ll wait.

When I sat down at my conferencing table on the quiet, sunny Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the hum of readers around the room that would suggest that devastating and shocking things were about to happen within the pages of a beloved book. (See what I did there? Some of you will. If not, perhaps it’s time for a reread?)

Susan was sitting cross-legged on a dilapidated bean bag with the book in her lap about ten feet away. She didn’t have her headphones on that day, and Jim Dale’s voice could be heard just over my shoulder. I’d just finished up a conference with another student when I heard, “Severus… please…”

Many years and multiple readings since I first heard those words, and my stomach still drops on cue. 

I looked over my shoulder. Watching. Observing a moment of pure book love. 

I knew this moment. The shock. Disbelief. Despair. Feeling in that minute as lost, alone, and helpless as Harry himself. Susan wasn’t sitting on the classroom floor. She was atop the astronomy tower.  

This is what our greatest stories do, isn’t it? They bring us joy, excitement, and love alongside our characters. And they are absolutely devastating. 

I wanted to leap across the room, hit pause on the iPad, and knock the book from her hands. Instead, I walked over and sat down next to her. We listened side by side as Harry’s last and greatest protectors fell. Together a few tears escaped. 

We didn’t discuss the book that day. I didn't track her progress or discuss word choice. This wasn’t a “check for understanding” moment or even an instructional moment. 

This was a “being a reader” moment.

Teachers, we know this about stories. That’s why we spend our days sharing books with kids, giving them the tools to unlock the magic. 

We know the depth of emotions we’ve endured at the hands of our favorite stories. That’s why our bookshelves are stocked and our online shopping carts are always full. 

Our favorite teacher educators know this, too. Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller. Colby Sharp and Kylene Beers. To become readers, kids need books. They need books that fit them. Inspire them, make them laugh, make them cry, make them want to turn the page again and again.

We know it because that’s how we became readers. 

What this story reminds me of, though, is how important it is to keep my reading life healthy and abundant. There is another level to the craft of building a reader, of building a relationship with a reader, and that is the moment of shared experience.

When you, too, can say, “I felt that way, too!”

So keep buying the books (local and independent, if you please). And keep reading them. Then hand them to the kids. 

Be readers together.

 

Find the Reader

    In the early fall of 2010, Aiden marched into my 2nd/3rd grade multi-age classroom looking more like a bulldozer than a second-grader. He was stocky and solemn with short, curly hair and light brown skin. His mouth set in a firm line, his hands shoved into his pockets. He surveyed the room warily, standing a few feet away from his mom, as the hustle and bustle of Open House visitors swarmed the room. 

It’s difficult for every student to make a first impression on a crazy night where we teachers are trying to look calm, cool, and collected as we meet new parents, answer logistical questions about buses and supply lists, hug last year’s alumni, and do our best to assuage the fears and anxieties the new students have as they anticipate a new year. 

Aiden did.

I remember how he stood stoically, independently, out of arm’s reach of his mother and sister. Some kids who had already entered the room were exploring the shelves, bouncing on yoga balls, or touching anything within reach. Others stood huddled close to their family member, quiet and wary but with a hint of interest. 

Aiden demonstrated neither the excitement and curiosity that would propel him into the room or the shy insecurity that would keep him close to his grown-up. 

He looked upon the room with determined indifference, except for the slight scowl that drew his eyebrows together and gave away a hint of the suspicion he already harbored for the place. 

I don’t think he spoke a word, to me or his mom, in the time he spent in my room that first evening, nor would he speak much in the upcoming two years we would share a classroom. 

But so much in that silence would change.

As a second-grader Aiden already carried an “Early Intervention Program” label with his name. His student information card from the previous year’s teacher documented poor reading and writing, exceptional handwriting, a tendency to bully, and a love for art. He had already been served through our school’s intervention program with computer-based phonics practice and made little growth. He had acquired very few of his sight words and phonics checkpoints and tested well below grade level on end-of-year screenings. 

I remember thinking, when Aiden sat down next to me to do our beginning of the year reading assessment, how awful this moment must be for him. 

How tough he wanted to look.

How anxious he was that he couldn’t fake me out sitting here next to me. Couldn’t do the reading “dance” from across the room, holding the book, turning the pages, staying quiet until the timer went off. Not drawing attention to himself. 

I listened to him struggle through part of a passage, made the necessary notes, and put the book aside. Afterward, I attempted to start a conversation with him, but it was mostly one-sided and I sent him back to his seat shortly after. 

I was worried about Aiden. 

I didn’t know how to reach him when he would immediately pull down the shutters every time he sat next to me. His pride seemed to be at the top of his list of priorities. He was embarrassed by his struggle to read. He knew what it meant when he had been pulled to work with an EIP teacher in previous years. He wasn’t fooled, and he hated it. And he was ready to beat the snot out of any kid who might point it out to him. 

Aiden was angry at school and I couldn’t blame him. 

Anyone who met Aiden could tell that he was bright. I had a feeling that his vocabulary and comprehension skills were well above his fluency and decoding, so I decided to try a new approach.

After a few weeks together, I called Aiden over to the conference table during silent reading. I handed him my iPhone, a pair of headphones, and the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid had been circulating endlessly among our upper-elementary schoolers. 

The first few editions of Jeff Kinney’s remarkable series were out at this time and the books were well-loved. Kinney’s groundbreaking departure from a traditional prose format with comic-book-style sketches was appealing to leagues of older elementary readers, especially those overwhelmed by a high volume of text on a page. 

And of course, the books are hilarious, too. But the humor, particularly the sarcasm, takes a higher level of comprehension and even maturity to really understand. 

By this point in the year, Aiden’s classmates and I had seen much of Aiden’s artistic talent. While his art was much more realistic, choosing to sketch cars and athletes with incredible detail and accuracy, rather than Jeff Kinney’s comic style, I thought Aiden would appreciate and enjoy breaking up the flow of words with sketches. 

I told him that I’d just gotten the audiobook for Diary of a Wimpy Kid and thought he might want to check it out. 

Aiden took the items from my hands with little enthusiasm, and I showed him the app and got him started. A few minutes later, the sweetest sound broke the quiet of our silent reading time. 

A little chuckle.

Aiden was laughing! 

I’ll tell you now that reflecting on Aiden’s laugh chokes me up a little as I write this. It was a sound that we didn’t hear too often, but it was so genuine that it makes me happy all over again just to think about it.

Throughout the rest of the year, Aiden read every book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series he could get his hands on. As each one came available, I’d purchase and download the audiobook. 

Eventually, Aiden learned to follow the words with the audio. This took time and practice, and sometimes, he would abandon the task of tracking the words and just sit back and listen. 

How much did Aiden’s reading levels improve that year? 

How many more sight words did he know by the end of second grade? 

What was his fluency rate? 

I don’t know. 

I’m not sure I would tell, even if I could. I know that’s what we teachers need to prove ourselves and you, my friend, have probably gotten to a place where you know my perspective on that. 

I know the school, the county, the state, the politicians who are judging the success of my students, my school, and me want a number. 

But that’s not what I remember. And, in my humble opinion, it’s not what matters.

That laugh. 

That’s what matters to me. Because here’s what it tells me:

• Aiden was reading.

• He was comprehending the story itself.

• His sense of humor was sophisticated enough to understand the joke and its humor.

• He was having a positive experience reading.

Aiden, that kid who had put up such a strong wall against school and all it represented to him that you could practically see it when he walked in the door, had a positive experience with reading. 

And that positive experience is what I needed to start breaking down his walls. Only then could we really start building a foundation for reading growth.

I’ll tell you that Aiden’s numbers did improve. I’ll tell you that I went to bat for him over and over again for the next two years. Arguing that he was, in fact, reading, when he listened to his audiobooks. That this should be considered an intervention (it wasn’t). Sticking headphones on him and handing him yet another copy of DOAWK was not all I did for Aiden. We met daily for sight word practice. We read every somewhat high-interest book I could find that was on his instructional level for decoding and phonics skills. 

He didn’t really like it. But he humored me. And he learned. 

And, do you know what else happened? He wrote! 

He started filling the margins of his stories with his drawings. His writing reflected his phonemic struggles, but he would use his word wall and his sight words. He started writing stories and asking to share them with me. 

Aiden moved after his third-grade year. It broke my heart to see him go. I was lucky to spend two years working with Aiden. 

Two years gave me the gift of time. I think that when we teachers are faced with the challenge of results within the window of the school year, we sometimes let fear get the better of us and start asking, “Why aren’t they making progress? What should we do? What interventions need to be used?” We sometimes do this before the student has had a chance to get his/her/their feet under them. 

I learned from Aiden. 

I learned from that moment when Aiden laughed aloud at a joke in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. 

I learned that we can teach the skills and strategies of reading, but all of that needs a place to go. It needs to go to a reader. We must focus first on helping kids become readers, whatever that may take. 

Only then can we ask them to engage in the work; the phonics, the vocabulary, the comprehension that will help them grow.

Rethinking In-Person School

After 5 weeks of digital learning, we are beginning preparations for bringing students back into the building for in-person school.

The feelings I have swirling around this decision can’t seem to settle on any one particular sentiment. Instead, I’m putting my energy towards taking my digital learning professional lessons with me back into the classroom.

Digital learning had its flaws and pitfalls, to be sure. And my district’s decision to return to in-person instruction before the projected 3-consecutive week decline in COVID cases that was initially planned is a reflection of this. The inequity of learning experiences was a gaping hole in the rickety rope bridge that was digital learning. Too many young friends could not leap across. 

Digital learning as a whole did not work for too many in our area. But that doesn’t mean that lessons from digital teaching can’t come with us back to the brick and mortar classrooms.

Here are the big ideas that I will be rethinking:

    • 🧩Free choice breaks

•⏲ Instructional minutes

 •😊 Behavior expectations

🧩Free Choice Breaks

When the schedule for digital learning first came out, my kindergarten team and I issued a collective gasp. The online instructional day will begin at 8:30 and end at 2:00 for all elementary school students. We were aghast. How could they possibly expect this of our 5- and 6-year-olds?

We went to work crafting a schedule with short work sessions, concise lesson segments, and strategically timed free-choice breaks. Based on our digital schedule, our students had a 15-minute free time within every hour. During this time students got out their favorite toys, chatted with their friends and me, went outside, laid down, or had a snack. 

Each student needed something different from the break: socializing, quiet time, space to move, food, etc.

Although we’d always taken breaks in the classroom, they did not have the range and choice that was available in digital learning. Most often what I called a “break” was a different type of structured expectation. We would do a silly dance video, sing a song, or play a group game. 

While I’d seen these activities as breaks from instruction, and certainly they were that for my students, they weren’t actually breaks from being instructed. Everyone did the same activity. Everyone was expected to return to work after 3-4 minutes. 

When we return to the building, I will offer more choice, more time, and less structure in our breaks. 

⏲Instructional Time

To think about making breaks more effective and meaningful to students means to reflect on my use of instructional minutes. In the past, a break was squeezed in between instructional segments, allowing for no more than 5 minutes to transition from work to break and back again.

The speedy pace was a symptom of an overstuffed learning segment. Never enough time in the day to fit it all in. So we squeeze. 

But what about digital learning? 

In our digital learning classrooms, we were so aware of our students’ limits for screen time and attention span that we made decisions. We prioritized. We didn’t cram; we cut, combined, and condensed. 

Our curriculums are always going to offer more than can be done. And we are always going to want to do it all. And as each next-big-thing comes along, we add it to the list, shave a little away from somewhere else.

But how much time is lost in the shuffle of trying to do it all? How can I take the limitations of digital learning and, more specifically, our response to those limitations, and make our classroom-based instructional time more effective?

What lessons are the most valuable for most students? What lessons offer more range and application? What routines will help maximize instructional time so that less time is lost? How can differentiated instruction be offered in a manner that saves ineffective whole group lessons?

Back in the classroom, I will critically reflect on how I use instructional minutes so that my students’ needs are prioritized over “fitting it all in”.

😊Behavior Expectations

What happened to behavior issues during digital learning? Other than a few rouge microphone users at the beginning, behavior problems all but disappeared.

Sort of.

What would have constituted a disruption or redirection in the classroom, often went unnoticed, if not overlooked, in the digital classroom. Students were free to turn off their cameras or walk away from the computer for short segments when they became overwhelmed, bored, or distracted. 

Our understanding and anticipation of these issues led our Kindergarten teachers to forgive and ignore these little hiatuses. 

In a classroom setting, this option didn’t exist. Walking away from the group is viewed as disrespectful, distracting, and detrimental to one’s learning. And so it is not ignored but quickly addressed.

As I transition my thinking from the digital classroom expectations to the physical classroom expectations, I want to rethink the actual consequences of short disengagements and, more importantly, I want to rethink my response to them. 

The students who walked away for a moment during online instruction always came back, and usually, pretty quickly. Often they were more engaged when they returned, asked for clarification about what they missed, and participated in the classwork or lesson.

In the classroom setting, how can I facilitate routines and procedures for students to effectively self-regulate so that it enhances their overall learning experience, is viewed with understanding from the teaching team, and does not detract from other students’ attention?

I will make a strategic plan to support students’ self-regulation. I will rethink and reframe my response to students’ signals.

Ever since last Spring when it became clear that digital learning was going to be a semi-permanent situation, I started thinking about how it may offer the opportunity we in public education so desperately needed to step back and take one of those good, hard looks. 

From this side of digital learning, I don’t think we’ve seen the mindset shift I was hoping for on the grand scale -and maybe there is still time- but I can start with the (wo)man in the mirror. 

I can take these lessons, the wins and the losses, from digital learning and bring my students back into a classroom that has evolved.