Students at Fuller Street Elementary School have taken ownership of their education thanks to the process of Personal Mastery introduced to the school by the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition (RISC). Working alongside Personal Mastery Coach, Heather Bross, teachers at the elementary school have created an educational model suited to Fuller students that allows them to work at their own pace and level to master each common core standard.
Each classroom has developed its own “big goal” to reach, which was established through a shared vision created by the students.
In addition to learning the basics, the personal mastery model includes a Code of Cooperation or ROAR, which stands for Responsibility, Orderly, Assistive and Respectful. Students establish a proficiency scale that helps them monitor their own behavior.
“Unpacking each trait with students allows for the dialogue of each to go deep asking questions like; ‘what does being responsible look like, sound like, and feel like?,’” said Bross, who is a former educator at Maple Valley Schools.. “The Code of Cooperation leads directly back to the Shared Vision…following the code allows us to reach our goals.”
Teachers at Fuller Street attended six days of hands-on training before incorporating personal mastery into the curriculum.
“I am very proud of the progress that is being made,” Bross said. “Fuller is focused on meeting each students needs through individualizing learning in the classroom.”
Teachers work at their own levels, Bross said, and are committing to pre-assessing students and using that data to partner with their students to design a learning plan. Once a standard is mastered, she said, the student moves on to the next goal.
“Students have a sense of ownership in their learning,” Bross said. “Success is met at their level, before they move on. This model provides all students whether they are high risk, at grade-level, or excel; the ability to move forward and reach their goals at a pace that works for them…taking the ‘gaps’ out of education.”
