Foster the Student Ownership

Throughout the past week, I have talked with students about how they can add to their online discussion post learning. I wanted to gauge them and see if there was anything they could do to take ownership. I wanted to see if they would initiate the learning on their own. It was tough. The kids who are in Topics in Psychology cover all four grades. I chose them on purpose because they are all over the place and not like my second semester seniors in Economics. They would probably not be as interested in owning their learning at this point, who are we kidding. The Topics kids had some trouble talking about how they could take ownership. Part of the problem might stem from them not knowing how to take ownership of even what taking ownership means. They have not had to do it very much in their young lives so part of it falls on me to guide them and give them hints on how they can make it happen. I talked to them about initiating conversation and topics. I lead a lot of the classes because they need guidance. We talked about how they can create ideas and ask questions to move things along instead of waiting for me to move the conversation. They are just unsure of their learning and not really into taking the initiative. They will have to learn soon because life will run them over if they choose not to take charge of their learning. I mentioned to them the prospect of creating a rubric to grade their discussion posts. If they were able to pick what they think is important for them to be graded on, then that will shine light on what they think is important for them to know. I will continue to work with them on what that rubric might look like.