From Restaurant Table to Classroom Initiative: Personalized for Student and Teacher

Part Three: Personalized for Student and Teacher
By Michael Krill

As we continue development of menus throughout the year we are ultimately attempting to offer choice and opportunity to really establish what it is that we hope to accomplish as advanced learning outcomes, for all students. We want to focus on outcome goals and allow students to make solid decisions so that they can be more self-aware and really work on self-efficacy. With this said, the idea of using menus became very apparent as we continued to explore how to share ownership with our students. We as educators decided it was time to really observe what students are doing at all times. We were stuck with the dilemma of wanting students to work independently, in small groups, making decisions, and yet we still wanted to feel confident in the time used at any given moment. Our Goal was to have clear indication of what the students were doing during the time they spent working on many of the unique pieces offered during our Language Arts block.  

Using a menu with checklists, documented goals, agenda points, and a debriefing section all students are give real life decision making opportunities everyday.  Menu usage provided us the freedom to make sure that we understood what students were working on at all times. It also structured our week to move from what we establish on day 1 to what we showcase on day 5.  The framework we created as a means to address the procedures and learning each week falls directly in line with the use of menus as documented evidence demonstrating the steps taken by an individual.  The menus also help support the goals and processes used throughout the week to establish documented understanding and achievement goals.

The main purpose for creating MENUS was to allow kids an opportunity to make proactive choices, create a healthy plan, and showcase what they are doing at a quick glance.  We decided we wanted a way in which the students could  hold themselves accountable in a way that we could monitor. The MENUS offer a very specific snapshot of what students are working on and they also allow anyone else to look and know exactly what the student is doing any given moment.  This is a wonderful tool for conversations, tips, and collaborative opportunities. Our prototype provided space for a list of three things the student wanted to accomplish each day as they were creating a checklist to show and demonstrate what they were working on and the reasons for the decision.  We soon realized that the next step was actually to create a menu for the day which allows them to know where we are meeting, when we are meeting, why we are meeting, and for how long.  As we move forward we will attempt a matrix of menus to encapsulate a week, a month, maybe even the whole year.  With every venture, we dream, discuss, research, trial, document, tweak, and implement. We are just beginning to see the quality MENUS offer a learning environment.

Using MENUS has become very beneficial not only for the students but for the teachers as well. MENUS hold everyone accountable. MENUS inform us as to when we are meeting, where we are meeting, and everyone already knows what the expectations are even before the day even begins.   As students enter and leave the classroom due to circumstances beyond our control, the structures of the MENU allow for quick engagement due to the management system built into the procedures.  Instead of trying to get help from the teacher or interrupting another student to find out what is happening or what they missed, a student is able to quickly view the menu and continue following the scheduled agenda.  This is also very beneficial as we have other teachers that join us throughout the day to help, facilitate, teach or observe. Even teachers who stop in to aid with special needs of students both high and low can use a MENU to allow them quick glance understanding  and knowledge of exactly what we are doing, where we are doing it, and why we are doing it.  We use menus to really allow ourselves to be free within the classroom and know what we need to cover and how much we can cover in the lessons and materials in the given time and day.  Menus allow us to personalize learning for both staff and students.  

More to come from Goranson & Krill.


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From Restaurant Table to Classroom Initiative: Quality Meal Plans

The Invention of the MENU as a structure in a Self-Sustained Environment

PART 2: QUALITY MEAL PLANS

by: Michael Krill

The idea of menu was born after a visit to a restaurant with my family. I noticed that the child's menu gave many choices for main course, sides, extras, drinks, appetizers, drinks and desserts.  Each child could chose what they want and would each receive a customized meal.  Each meal was healthy, filling, fun, and different. Yet each child left the dinner "full!"  I had ordered from menus my whole life, but watching the kids order their own meal tapped into my teacher mindset and I could not stop thinking about how this could work in the classroom. I did research and found very little in regard to this concept. Therefore I just started to build and began working on sharing my ideas. Watching my wife learn code using www.code.org I realized this is exactly what menus do for students.  They give them the pathways needed to make sense of the “mazes” found in all subject areas. Thus instead of laying out the subjects in a one dimensional teacher led journey, we offer students the tools and direction they need to start at a point and enter a multi-dimensional labyrinth of choices, decisions, topics, and subject matter.   

I shared the idea with Emily Goranson and we began to work on this new way of approaching everything we do. We discussed the process, problems, dreams, and pacing menus can offer. Now one year later this idea has become a reality. We gave the students an opportunity to prototype some ideas concerning menus and the power of choice.  Students teamed up and began to build intentional models which could impact the current structures set in our schedule. After some collaborative discussions we streamlined the focus of the menus and created a usable model for our Language Arts block.  

The Menus we have been developing allow us to tap into the precious time that we have each day and we are able to harness every single second of that time in the classroom. However menus take it further because they allow choice and give students a personalized approach to everything they do. Menus offer many choices and they hold the teachers and students accountable since students are able to select what they are doing and when.  Teachers and students know where we are and what we are doing at any given moment. We are all able to be efficient and effective with time everyday. Because of the time constraints on a menu it limits the amount of time we can spend in certain areas and yet it allows us to really make impactful decisions and take a rigorous approach with the time that we have. No longer do we worry about time or management because it is all spelled out for us. Having a strict time management systems surprisingly allows us to maximize the amount of thing we accomplish each day.  We speak more effectively, students work more rigorously, and we transistion fluidly. Our job is to use the time and management offered in the menus and make the best of that time and follow through with the procedures that are already laid out in the pathways which have been established before we even begin.

This is an optimal approach to managing time and procedure when you think about it because of the efficiency and management the menus offer. Teachers are able to see what students are working on.  Students are able to hold teachers accountable and therefore we all work together in a very trustworthy way. No longer are we racing the clock, in fact time is now on our side and it also allows us to pay close attention to what is important and what is not. This leads to a self-sustaining classroom where everyone is able to work alongside one another in a very cohesive and collaborative way. Just like in a restaurant, we all grab a menu and select a healthy meal plan, so to do we have the same choices everyday in our classroom.

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