Instead of a Genius Hour, I chose to focus on individualized instruction. I have a class period with a wide variety of skill levels. My students were struggling with the concert music for the most part, so I decided to offer an individualized instruction unit. Students were assessed based on their most recent playing test scores. I grade them with a rubric, so it was easy to see their strengths and weaknesses. I used a template to sort out the students that needed assistance and the ones that could use some extra activities for motivation.
Based on my results, I decided to review a few topics in class, but also offered intervention time group lessons on things like rhythm, note reading, bow hold, and tone production. Students were assigned to the group lesson they most needed, but could also choose one of the their liking. Students that are excelling were given extra suggestions for advancement such as position work, vibrato exercises, and tone improvement.
Overall, I like the way this worked in my classroom. I can see where creating a unit like this for everything I do in class could be too labor intensive and disruptive to a common rehearsal, but I could definitely offer sessions like this throughout the year to ensure that everyone is showing growth at their level, not the group average.
Hi Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your individualized instruction project that you implemented to help your students learn their concert music at various levels. I also appreciated the time and thought you took to write up your description of your personalized learning through the curriculum compacting example I shared in our blendspace. I shared with you before how I really like the ways you provide students with individualized assessment and feedback through their playing test scores through their video recordings of their pieces. Incorporating different learning pathways was a natural next step for you. You shared how you used the assessment rubric to determine student strengths and weaknesses and then created a template to sort students who needed assistance from those who needed extension activities. I like how you continued to provide whole group instruction reviewing skills and concepts that connected to everyone but also added a component of intervention group lessons on topics and skills that you saw from your analysis of rubric scores students needed targeted support with. I like how you grouped students based on their biggest need but also provided them with the opportunity to choose a group topic that they liked. This is excellent! I am glad that you were pleased with the results. I agree with you that having every single unit like this would be difficult to maintain and also time intensive but I like your idea of incorporating them into each nine weeks after your assessments to help target instruction and move all students forward. Thanks, Dawn