Okay, so here is something really interesting. I’m sitting in the back of the room and the wall on my left is a 15 wide by 5 high grid of classic clipboards, each hanging from a nail. The bottom three rows have papers under their clamp, some sort of tracking for each individual student. Above the grid of clipboards are letters on individual pieces of paper that spell out O U R  P R O G R E S S. I can’t get up at the moment, but I really want to know more about how these clipboards are used, because if we are going for student agency, one thing for sure we have to teach is how to set your own goals, keep track of your own progress, learn what to redo, figure out what to do next, and set your own pace. Schools aren’t always so good at that. We tend to do a lot of handholding without teaching and practicing independence. Considering why that is the case might be important to understanding how entrenched in the status quo we can get …

The students are doing a warm-up exercise, the problem is projected at the front of the room. The students have been asked to create the function that represents the data in each of two tables. They work independently first, and when the allotted time runs out, Taya, the teacher, asks the student at each table with the most letters on their clothing to share their answers with their peers at the table. They get right to it, she gives them time to share. Then using the app Wheel of Names – each student name is represented on a colorful spinner – she assigns roles to individual students for the group discussion: Discussion Leader, Scribe, Equity Commentator, Tallier. 

I sit back to summarize for myself what I’ve just seen. (1) The students work individually, then (2) they check their thinking in a small group, before (3) reviewing with the entire class, led by the student Discussion Leader and recorded by the student Scribe. Taya has led them through these stages so seamlessly that it is clear they have done the same or similar many times. While the Discussion Leader and Scribe run the class, Taya takes a seat in one of their chairs, among the other students, removing herself from the stage and the power hierarchy. 

And then she watches and listens as students lead the class and others offer, through a raise of hands, what they noticed about the information in the tables, those clues that led them to be able to represent the data with a function. It’s a crowdsourced think-aloud, a way for every student to participate and for every student to get a glimpse into the process of each other’s problem solving.

Slick! I knew that those clipboards for independent progress were a harbinger of a class full of student agency.

They finish the work on the math problem, but there is a little surprise left for me because I forgot about the two additional student roles – the Equity Commentator and the Tallier. The Equity Commentator shares her experience of the discussion, what was shared and, importantly, how things were shared. The tallier reports who participated in the discussion, and how often. This exercise reminds me a lot of working with agile, specifically Scrum. Scrum is a process to guide group work, completing chunks of work in short iterations. Before and after each iteration the group summarizes what they are going to do and what they got done – the content of their work. They also take time to discuss how they worked. Folks familiar with Scrum call it a retrospective. I believe I just watched a student-run retrospective here. They are learning about math and they are learning how to work effectively as a group. Both are important. Functions may come in handy for some, the computational thinking is probably good for all of them. And really good is the practice using concrete tools to participate in high functioning groups. 

Taya takes back the floor as the student leaders take a seat and reviews the work. She draws the functions on the graph. Ties up any loose ends. And then gives the students time to update their notes in their Warm-up Journals. This was Warm-Up #8, according to the board. I haven’t had a chance to peek in their journals, but I’m betting 1 to 7 are there, too, and because it’s early in the semester, there are probably several more to come.

Before I leave I get a moment to ask about those clipboards. As I suspected, each of her students has one clipboard. They get to write their goals there, with notes for when they accomplished them. Personal progress trackers, affording the students an ongoing manner in which to practice taking on the responsibility of their own learning. 

Amazing.