Sown to Grow (Cult of Pedagogy)

     Jennifer Gonzalez, the creator of the blog Cult of Pedagogy, wrote an interesting post about the tool Sown to Grow. This tech tool is a way for students to set goals and track their progress towards meeting them. It caught my attention because we all want to foster a Growth Mindset within our students and we want them to take ownership of their learning. What I've always struggled with was coming up with a way to do that. I've been looking for a way for students to track their own progress in mastering content. Sown to Grow seems like a great way to do that.

     There are certain features that Sown to Grow offers that make it a prime way to have students set and monitor goals.

• Creating a Learning Cycle- This is your first step. You set a time limit for when learning objectives should be met. Also, you assign activities that either get a numerical score or a completion score. 
• Students can check-in- When students log in they see the learning objectives and are asked how they feel about the upcoming learning cycle.
• Goal Setting- Students set their own goals. They decide if they want to get close to the mastery goal, meet it, or exceed it.

• Tracking Progress- Once students set their goals, then they work on the tasks. As they complete a task they record their scores and reflect on how they did. 
• Final Reflection- Students reflect on how they did and what their goals might be next time. It shows them what they mastered and how many goals they met. Then they click the appropriate smiley face to indicate how they feel about their progress. 

• The teacher can, also, track the entire classes progress by looking at the Student Performance Data and Student Performance Summary.

     I really like how it encourages them to reflect on their progress and use that to set goals for the next learning cycle. I don't think this is something that you could just put your kids on and let them figure out by themselves though. Younger students, especially, will need to be shown how to complete each step and have guidance when logging on the first few times. I may give this a try next year. If you want to watch an information video, click below: