Building student agency in your classroom is extremely important to build independent learners and give back some of the responsibility to the class. Using classroom jobs is one way to allow for you to work independently with a small groups while the class still functions and completes their work.
I created these job necklaces to give the responsibility back to the students. As a class, we sat down and made a list of things we need to be more independent at when I (the teacher) is in small group instruction. They agreed that we needed someone to help with any technology issues like re-setting the wifi, restarting the computers, navigating through a website and much more. We also agreed that we needed a “Siri” student to answer those questions I got everyday that could have been answered by a classmate.
“Where do I turn this in?” “When is this due?” “What are we doing?” “When is lunch?” … The list goes on. The class thought that we would be able to stay on task if we had a time keeper for group rotation times. Lastly, we do a lot of self assessing and tracking of our own data. However, sometimes filling in our graphs can be difficult. This is where my Data Master comes into play.
You can download the classroom job necklace signs here.
☞ Hey Siri
º This student is in charge of answering questions that have to do with just about everything; classroom directions, where to put something, where materials are located, etc.
º This student is the technology guru of the classroom; the one that can help with Internet issues, and websites or computers that aren’t working.
☞ Time Keeper
º This student will help keep us on track. They set the timer, change the board in between rotations and watch the time for if we run over.
☞ Data Master
º This student is in charge of helping students maintain their data (score) records when they complete an assignment. I use this to help the student graph their Blended Learning rotations (TenMarks & MobyMax) scores.