Choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) or Interactive storytelling has grown in popularity in the last few years, most recently due to the “Bandersnatch” episode of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” show. In an English makerspace, this is an excuse to revisit the first Choose Your Own Adventure books, which were published in the late 70s and early 80s, starting with The Cave of Time, by Edward Packer.
By “revisit,” of course, we mean “use as a metaphor to start a post on student choices.” Metaphors help us organize our thoughts, after all, even when there’s a bit of an edge to the work.
In this post, we’re talking about the choices available to students in the makerspace, how those choices are presented, and the extent to which structure and flexibility are intertwined and reiterated in different ways. As always:
Turn to Page 180
This post will use evidence from a single day — May 31, 2019 — to highlight how much planning and preparation goes into this system of teaching. The “failsafes and redundancies” mentioned on one of the room’s whiteboard are the specific focus.
That whiteboard hangs in a corner by our cellphone storage. Students see it every day. (See the physical tour for context.) It’s a semi-permanent collection of class philosophies and protocols, and it includes a goal-setting checklist required at the start of each period.
Makerspaces thrive on specific, actionable student goals. You can’t build skills randomly. You can’t create meaning without a plan. Curiosity and discovery need more structure, not less, to flourish.
From the teacher’s perspective, that means engineering failsafes and redundancies for all the background reading, resource requirements, assignment instructions, etc., that students need to make choices and set goals. Students need to stumble across another iteration of this information every time they turn around.
The Rundown: May 31, 2019
Here is my set of notes for Friday, May 31, which were read aloud to each class and edited throughout the day:
These are updates, reminders, individual notes to myself, and so on. Since I have to consider students who are absent, I also pin a version of this sheet to Google Classroom. (One AP English class that Friday had ten students out — a third of the class — for Guidance group sessions, sickness, college visits, etc., for instance.)
This space uses a triptych approach to assessment, with three “panels” per quarter. Formal assignments are organized chronologically on Google Classroom to facilitate student work. So the next failsafe/redundancy is what students see under the current “panel” of assignments:
That’s a list of what AP English students must do at the end of the school year. When a student clicks to see more information, this is what they see:
Each panel opens up to show formal directions and materials for every unit, lesson, and assignment. That screenshot is of materials for the college essay, for instance. Any formal assignments will also include those materials, plus deadlines, further instructions, and a running tally of missing/submitted/returned work:
Another failsafe/redundancy is the course calendar, which is available through Google Classroom, the course website, and this direct link:
The calendar is constantly updated, with links to relevant instructional posts and handouts included next to brief outlines of each lesson. Recent updates have also brought the most recent panel of lessons to the top of the spreadsheet:
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The calendar is another way for students (in this case, AP students) to organize themselves and choose their daily goals. It isn’t available offline, because of how often it is updated, and that raises an important point: All the online failsafes are designed to augment and support the in-class ones, and vice-versa.
In addition to the expected use of direct and small-group instruction, face-to-face redirection, and so on, there are whiteboards around the room that are updated with information as often as necessary. Click below to scroll through four of those whiteboards:
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- English 10: Final exam prep assignments and information.
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- All Classes: Ongoing projects and GAP scoring dates
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- AP English: Assignments and updates
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- English 10/11: Assignments and updates
Students are surrounded by reminders about assignments and deadlines. Updates are even noted in different colors to help differentiate the new information.
It’s equally important that these whiteboards are surrounded by the innovations of the space — grade abatement profiles, interstitial learning protocols, posters on cognitive biases, etc. — because the specific assignments don’t happen in a vacuum.
To reiterate the point from earlier: All the physical redundancies augment the digital ones. The most widely used digital failsafes are on Google Classroom, where students submit formal assignments. The most powerful digital resource, however, is this course website.
Depending on the device you are using right now, you may not see the home page of this site in exactly the same way. Here is that home page on a Chromebook or desktop PC:
The menus and links are responsive, so they just look different on mobile browsers. Regardless, the site starts with a full set of links to daily essentials, calendar updates, and instructional posts. The home page centralizes whatever assignment or event is currently happening, too. In this case, it’s the Pareto Project presentations for the end of the year.
As another reminder/failsafe, the home page also has this:
CALENDAR & LESSON UPDATES [5/31 EDIT]
AP English Language & Composition: 40 Days to Go Update | 13 Days to Go Update
English 11: 40 Days to Go Update | 13 Days to Go Update
English 10: 40 Days to Go Update | 13 Days to Go Update
This is different from the regularly updated calendar of daily lessons. These are instructional posts specifically designed to help organize students. Twice in the last quarter, I have laid out in painstaking detail everything required, expected, etc. for the rest of the year: at the 40-days-to-go mark, and again at the 13-days-to-go mark. These posts came after spring break and our four-day Memorial Day weekend, respectively.
What these posts do is more than just create important redundancy in expectations. They also offer students a place to ask questions and engage in discussion with their teachers. That interstitial functionality isn’t often utilized well, but it has a lot of potential.
The Theory
It’s improbable that a student could spend a day in the space and miss all of those resources:
- the spoken reminders and updates
- the direct feedback in person
- the whiteboards around the room
- the printed copies of checklists
- the Google Classroom updates
- the Google Classroom unit materials and assignments
- the updated calendars with links to other resources
- this course website’s vast and detailed resources
And that is just one day. These failsafes and redundancies are always there. It’s an interstitial system. It’s more than fair, therefore, to assume that every student should know what to do and how to do it. The information is out there. It’s as clear and accessible as it possibly could be.
So how is it that, despite the vast resources and constant reiteration of expectations, some students left that 36th chamber having made bad choices? Some work was late; some, missing entirely. Time was wasted in and out of class. Questions were asked that have been answered a hundred times already, and then the 101st answer was also ignored.
Well, we have to acknowledge human nature, especially human nature in adolescents. Even with every failsafe and redundancy in place, a few students will be lost. They’ll make bad decisions. That’s okay, in that it’s just another opportunity to solve a problem. The space, as always, cares about how students learn.
We have to approach those struggling students with empathy. Any negative choice made in this space reveals a deeper problem, and that activates the makerspace’s true purpose: to solve authentic personal and academic problems together. When the failsafes fail, yes, it’s the student’s choices that led us there — but there’s an “us” in that sentence because it’s also the responsibility of the system to adjust.
For instance, right now: What else could a space like this do to make the expectations, directions, resources, etc., more pervasive or more accessible? If you’re reading this as a student, you can leave your ideas below.
