On today’s podcast, Noelle had the opportunity to chat with Chad Ostowski about The Grid Method. Chad is the CEO of Teach Better and a former 7th grade Science teacher. He developed The Grid Method after the hardest teaching year of his life. Can you relate? If your students lack ownership of their learning, or if you are struggling to reach all of your learners, then The Grid Method might be for you.
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What is the Grid Method?
The Grid Method is a framework that helps teachers break up curriculum into bite-sized chunks. These chunks are tiered and scaffolded, so students can work through a mastery-based learning pathway at their own pace.
It allows students to learn, grow, and progress at their own pace while the teacher monitors progress and provides intervention, formative assessments, and feedback.
What is mastery learning?
In a traditional classroom, a student learns material over 5 days and then is assessed. Because a student gets lost or behind on day 1, they bomb the assessment. Mastery learning requires students to show mastery at around 80% before progressing to the next lesson.
The Grid Method keeps students at the place (Google: zone of proximal development) where they learn at their maximum potential most often. More students reach their maximum learning potential even though they are at different places in the curriculum.
Does IT work with any curriculum?
Yes! What goes into The Grid is up to the instructor. It takes the best practices we often hear in professional development – differentiation, self-paced learning, formative assessments, standards-based grading – and puts them into a structure that allows all of these practices to happen simultaneously.
How does a teacher manage this?
The execution and the classroom management of a self-paced classroom is no small feat. Strong routines and procedures will be necessary. Students will need to know what they are working on, where and how they can access the material, and what to do if they need help. Teachers will need to track student mastery and use data to plan small groups. In The Grid Method Course, Chad has a few modules dedicated to this very question.
How can I learn more about The Grid Method?
If you are interested in learning how to use this method in your classroom, check out The Grid Method Course. It has 11 modules that will teach you everything you need to know to successfully implement this self-paced learning framework. See why teachers are loving this approach to teaching!
And don’t forget to save 25% off of The Grid Method Course, use code: GoodMorningTeacher.
I have used the Grid Method this year for a few units and it has been amazing. Especially, with the constant schedule changes we have dealt with (remote, hybrid, streaming, etc). I love that it allows me time to meet with my students on an individual basis, while other students are working. They are definitely a work in progress, but I plan on completing more of the courses in the Teach Better Academy this summer to hone my grid making skills. I have written my Three-Year Plan based on developing Grids for all my units (8th Math & Algebra 1).