Now+We're+Getting+It!

=Moving Into More Student-Centered vs. Teacher-Centered Classes=


 * Lauren** - After having my students create their own rubrics, I did what any reflective teacher would do; I stepped back and reassessed my students' readiness for the next step: the learning contract. I found only one small group of students ready for the task, so I decided I'd start small with them. In introducing the learning contracts, I used the SMART Notebook presentation below. I created a sample learning contract based on the objectives I wanted the students to learn and made a cooperative learning activity from it. I made a very large, blank learning contract, cut the sample contract that I had made into the individual pieces, and had the students "reassemble" the pieces on the large, blank contract. Once each group had finished, we went through them and talked about what made sense, and what probably needed to change. I felt that they did a great job with this, and there were not a lot of questions, so I gave them all a blank learning contract, a sample menu of products and, as a group, we went through each objective and discussed how theirs should be worded and everything. The feedback I received from the students on this process what all positive. I have attached both the sample and blank contracts below. In addition, I attached the rubric used in grading these products. Note how the students had more that they were required to fill in this time.