Class #3- Blog Post #2 Work Contracts- Mandy Irick

Work Contracts

The first time that I had heard about work contracts was when Dawn Mitchell presented to us about them during both my PBL class and D6 Day. The concept of it seemed so simplistic and completely viable for both the teacher and the students when completing a PBL or learning in general. The first thing that I had to do was break down the concept and begin to build it in a way that was manageable for me. As always, I have to do the research part. Since Google is an integral part of my daily existence, I went searched for examples, research and why this was best practice. The more I learned about it, the more I felt that this was something that I could not only utilize with my students but sharing it with other teachers as well. The buzz words  in education are differentiation, scaffolding and personalized learning so this definitely would match all of these. I truly wanted my students to understand the big picture of the process of the PBL that they were undertaking. The work contract was a way to map out the course of the learning making the process extremely visual for them. For me, it helped to bring out the structure within the project. Accountability was placed on both myself and the students with this work contract. For my part, it allowed me to make sure that the process I was asking my students to go through with the tasks really helped to engage, promote collaboration, critical thinking and necessary to show mastery. I did not want to put something on their contracts that did not benefit the big picture or was just a way to get a grade. The tasks all connected to the big idea and reinforced their learning which in turn I hoped would promote mastery eventually. The contract enabled me to see how much flexible learning and student choice I provided with the options along with how much of the expectations were content heavy versus 21st learning skills. With the students, the goal was agency for themselves. They are able to guide their learning experience and make choices that they were proud of and reflected their needs and wants. The path of understanding the concept was given to them but they had to navigate it on their own choosing how and when they wanted to work on something. The students now have to be more effective in time management, collaboration and must importantly making decisions. Now with all of this, it does not mean we allow the students to fend for themselves. With anything, I had to provide direct instruction, small group instruction, tons of modeling and time for conversations. The contract was never just something that my students sat silently completing it like a checklist.

I was fortunate to try out my newest contract in a financial literacy classroom of 8th graders. The contract formed already had a driving question on it which was "How can high school students transition into successful freshman at college." From there, the contract was broken up into multiple parts based on the mini-lesson for the day. The first part was understanding their thoughts about what are the essentials for every new college freshman to have. So from the essentials it became about obtaining data, writing- formal emails, interviewing- how to interview and end product of how to answer the question. The data came from student google created surveys sent to actual Dorman High School students, emails and interviews from professors/students and research conducted on line. All of this data collected helped to inform students on the driving question. The next section was focused on writing formal emails. Students would receive mini-lessons and practice how to structure emails to send out to these colleges. After that, was interviewing. Students would learn about how to create interview questions and proper techniques. This would help with professors coming to speak to them and college students. The last section was tying it all together to create something that would answer the question and prepare to share their findings with students at Dorman. Although the contract is detailed, it did not take the place of regular classroom instruction. Students had structured mini-lessons where they learned the skills that would help them be successful with their PBL or task. Collaboration, discussing and sharing were a big part of this as well allowing students to talk out their thoughts and ideas while getting feedback. The contract just enhances the process but I never let it take the central focus of everything in the classroom. I still made sure direct instruction occurred and small groups.