Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms by Timothy D. Walker

Author:Timothy D. Walker [Walker, Timothy D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781324001256
Google: t72nDgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1324001259
Published: 2017-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Offer choices

While the experiment of Independent Learning Week was successful (in the sense that all of my students completed their work), it had one major flaw: my Helsinki fifth graders lacked choices. I could argue that my students had lots of freedom during Independent Learning Week because they could choose when to complete any given assignment during those fifteen classroom hours. But I don’t think that argument would have satisfied many of my fifth graders.

Sitting in a circle on the floor, after completing Independent Learning Week, I heard their feedback loud and clear. Many of my students felt that too much work was assigned, especially in math. Not only that, but some of them also complained that the week’s tasks felt irrelevant and boring.

Their feedback was valuable, but I admit that it wasn’t nice to hear. I wanted to focus on the positive side (everyone eventually finished the mountain of work!). But what seemed most important to dwell on—to many of my Helsinki fifth graders, at least—was the major flaw they perceived in the Independent Learning Week: a lack of good choices.

I found myself agreeing with their critique. By assigning everyone the same boatload of tasks, Independent Learning Week had failed to account for their individual learning strengths and interests. For that reason, my students weren’t offered good choices. They were simply following my orders, aligned with the curriculum.

After that experience, I felt reluctant to try Independent Learning Week again. I knew it wasn’t a catastrophe—my students had worked autonomously and found success—but I sensed that doing it again (and doing it better) would require a significant shift. If I was going to offer them good choices, I’d need to do a better job of connecting their interests to the curriculum (something I discuss later). In hindsight, most assignments of the Independent Learning Week were rigid and intentionally manageable for both teachers and students, like the task of completing math problems from a workbook. There was little room for students to exercise choice while working.

During my meeting with a small group of Finnish kindergarten educators at Niirala Preschool in Kuopio, Finland, they suggested that their primary job, as teachers, is to make the connection between student interests and the curriculum. They explained that, in order to facilitate this convergence, they need to identify the interests of their students first, so observing children and discussing their interests is always a priority in their classrooms. One of these Finnish educators remarked that if a child showed interest in Angry Birds, a teacher could leverage this fascination in the classroom. Initially, it seemed like a stretch of the imagination, but I decided to bite my tongue. At the end of the meeting I asked her about this idea of connecting a child’s interest in Angry Birds to the curriculum. I wanted concrete examples. Gleefully, these three kindergarten educators suggested different possibilities: categorizing, counting, naming, story building, role-playing . . . they could have continued to rattle off different curriculum-related exercises, but I playfully

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