In this post, I will discuss in further detail the Daily Learning Journal assignment and provide students' perspectives on this strategy. In general, I created this assignment to serve three purposes that are vital for effective implementation of mastery learning.
1. Progress Monitoring
After completing the daily warm-up, students must monitor their progress by recording how many objectives they have mastered thus far in the unit. Their ability to see that number rise (ex. monday was 2/12 objectives, friday was 5/12 objectives) provides feedback that they are learning these skills and helps motivate those who like to visually see progress over time. It also helps me recognize which students are progressing at a faster rate, and which will need more help on a daily basis.
2. Goal Setting
Students are expected to choose which objective they will work towards mastering each day. This helps them focus on the task at hand while also providing me with insight regarding how I can best help them during class time.
3. Reflecting
At the end of each period (with roughly 5 minutes remaining), students will determine how much effort they put into the day's class (0-10 scale) as well as briefly describe what they have achieved. I stress "achieved" since that should be the goal each day, not just slowly plugging away at the same assignment to take up class time.
STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
Here is a video that I put together last year of students explaining the Daily Learning Journals in their own words. (Click here to view on YouTube)
In the next post about managing mastery, I will discuss the new strategy of "Swiping In" to class using the interactive white board. (The student's love this...)
COMPLETE Flipped-Mastery Article Series
Great advice on goal setting! You may want to check out GoalsOnTrack, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals, habits, and todo lists, and supports time tracking too. It's clear, focused, easy to navigate, and most of all, really works!
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I have one question: how do the students know if they've mastered an objective? Is it self-assessment, or are they assessed by you in some way (orally, quiz, written work, etc.)?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. I typically have 2-3 assessments designed for each objective. On some, I will give students a choice (ex. choose 3 out of these 5) On others, I will have them design their own assessments as long as they run it by me ahead of time. If I do not think that their assessment correlates with the objective, I will give them some advice regarding how to revise it before proceeding. Hope this helps!
DeleteInteresting post. I have one question: how do the students know if they've mastered an objective? Is it self-assessment, or are they assessed by you in some way (orally, quiz, written work, etc.)?
ReplyDelete