My students crave independence, but they are sometimes unable to prioritize, monitor, and regulate their progress. My students are also often unable at the beginning of a school year to articulate how or where to start an assignment. This strategy is designed to give my students a model of how to manage their own workflow. Having a Workflow Guide is a good strategy to teach in Social Studies because it gives my students a step-by-step pathway to competency. This strategy is particularly well suited for middle grades because they need an increased sense of agency that allows them work independently as they prepare to transition to high school, college, and their careers.
Even in a 1:1 environment it is essential to provide students with teacher feedback. Students in my class are submitting work electronically and receive feedback in the same format. The challenge has been (as with written feedback on paper) getting students to incorporate the feedback. Conferencing with students gives me the opportunity to have more facetime with students and deconstruct the feedback they have received. Giving students indivudal guidance makes the personalized classroom a reality because students are having a unique exchange with their instructor.