Student Ownership

This week has been a whooper with ISASP testing going on, but the kids have been champs! I, on the other hand, have been lost in a deluge of new technology and trying not to find a way to make fun things slightly school related so the kids aren't burnt out.

Anyway, this brings me to my journey of student ownership this week and how it hasn't been great. The immediate thing I think of is how I let the kids have choices fairly often. How long do they want to spend on this activity, which one do they want to do first, which option do you want for this project, partners or individual, etc. However, I think that is really different from student ownership. Student ownership is where the kids take the learning and are self motivated for the sake of the learning/project. It isn't just about the grade, it's about them being spurred on about learning about their topic or doing the "cool stuff" they want to. Maybe I'm not being reflective enough or don't know the signs of student ownership, but I don't think I see that in my classroom often.

Is classroom ownership the kids being invested in a book that we are reading? Is it the kid who is forced by their mother and teacher to redo a project at home and then it is actually and wonderfully way better than their original? That bit of time at home and repetition of expectations and they are able to be really creative with it? What does this really look like in our/my classroom? Choices are easy. But I don't think that's the fully issue. Am I there yet? Nope. Do I have any good ideas about that right now? Nope.

So here I am, stuck in the middle of ISASP testing with not much to show for student ownership. The journey continues, and I need some ideas. Could this BE any sadder?