In the article about not labeling bins with reading levels…it stressed the importance of preparing students for the ‘real world’ and working towards independence. It also highlighted the importance of providing access, choice, and listening to students. There is a time and place for leveled readers – which is intended to be an instructional tool for teachers, not a label for students or families.
This is a great reminder to share with faculty and staff on how we can intentionally design learning environments that encourage all students to be involved in their learning process and expand opportunities for learning by being open and staying curious. VT is moving in this direction with Act 173 – which basically states any student (on any plan) will receive the appropriate layers of support as-needed throughout their school experience (blurring the lines between the former labels of ‘general edu’ and special edu’, and helping us reframe our thinking in how all of us support all students). Act 173 will also help educators understand the idea that all students are the shared responsibility of all of us.
As humans, we naturally seek some degree of autonomy and independence – which is an important piece to remember when trying to increase genuine engagement and authentic learning (for both adults and children). We feel more confident and comfortable when we have some sense of control (or voice) in what we are doing, or what we are being asked to do. And, as humans, we are naturally social beings, who also learn best with others. This goes back to a topic I discussed in a previous post about “doing with” instead of “doing to” or “doing for” – when designing learning opportunities we strive to strike the appropriate balance of support and control as the facilitator of learning.
Here are a few suggestions I’ve modeled and shared with my faculty and staff to increase connection, curiosity, and engagement.
WeConnect Cards – spark great Q’s to get people thinking at a deeper level
Consider teacher moves vs student moves – who’s doing the work? Who’s doing the talking…doing…thinking?
When asking students ‘what are you learning’ and not getting a description of the activity, but the actual skill they are working on.
PearDeck interactive slide deck presentations – with intentional checks for understanding and active learning by all audience members.
What is the difference between “learner-driven” and “data-driven,” and why does it matter?
This week’s reading of Chapter 2 from Innovate Inside the Box, summed up my personal beliefs about how we determine and measure the “success” of our students’ learning and the effectiveness of teachers’ teaching. When we describe human being’s abilities, we do so in qualitative, holistic narratives – this is what our progress reports should reveal to students and families. I do believe there is certainly a time and place for progress monitoring with both quantitative and qualitative data – this helps keep the conversations focused on evidence that is not subjective and can help us understand where an individual student or cohort of students falls in relation to others and provides some context that can help us have some concrete, tangible action steps. This is especially important in the younger grades where we are explicitly teaching foundational skills that are prerequisites for future learning.
I am currently taking a course about Data Analysis with Demonstrated Success, and I am looking forward to connecting this work with my new learning from this course. One of the most important aspects of data analysis is to start with collecting relevant and actionable data or evidence of student learning. Our district’s common assessment plan only contains benchmark summative assessments or program-based formative assessments. We need to work on developing more opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning (application of skills) in more project-based ways – where we develop success criteria rubrics instead of solely relying on test results. One of the most important aspects of elementary school is helping students explore how they learn best – it’s our job to provide multiple opportunities for all students to try out different ways of accessing information, internalizing information, and expressing or demonstrating their learning.
Our district is in the process of reviewing our elementary progress reports because we have used a standards-based reporting system, that does not align with our current curriculum that the district has developed. The current platform that we are sunsetting this January, is not user-friendly, it is inefficient – requires a lot of redundant data-entry, and does not clearly relay what an individual student can do, and what skills a student is currently working towards learning. Our middle schools and high school in our district use proficiency-based reporting and utilize a completely different platform, and reporting timeline. My hope is that we utilize both our Seesaw working portfolios and a combination of formative and summative assessment results to show a holistic snapshot of individual students’ application of learning. I’d like to see our district work towards developing individual student learner profiles, where students could share their personal learning goals (hopes & dreams) and how they learn best. Then, teachers could create class learner profiles, and incorporate student voice into their instructional design.
I’ve been working with teams of teachers at my school on this idea of moving students from ‘compliance’ to ‘engagement’ to ’empowerment’. When teachers provide opportunities for students to leverage their natural curiosity by generating the questions they want to answer and are genuinely involved in designing learning experiences, students will naturally become lifelong learners. I truly believe that all humans are born with a natural curiosity, confidence, wonderment, and awe of the world around them. Some of my teachers expressed concern with this idea of encouraging student empowerment because they are concerned that ’empowerment’ will lead to ‘entitlement’. When this statement was made by a teacher at a recent staff meeting, it made me realize exactly where some of my teachers need extra support in understanding UDL. I need to help our teachers understand that they are still very much the facilitators of student learning – they are the ones who create the opportunities for students to explore various ways to experience learning. It’s not about giving all of the ‘control’ to the students, it’s providing students choices based off of the parameters the teacher establishes. It’s about knowing exactly what we need all students to learn/focus on (ie the curriculum) and providing multiple pathways/options of learning and demonstrating skills (ie instruction and evidence). There is a fear of losing control and that this new way of introducing concepts is going to require more work for teachers. Doing what is right, often (initially) takes a lot of time, energy, and effort – it is hard work. When we work as collaborative teams and truly work together, this shift might not feel like such a heavy lift – and will be so worth it in the end.
I’m looking forward to digging deeper into this with my teachers to share that “Learner-driven practice is ensuring that students have a voice in setting expectations and opening doors for students” (Innovate Inside the Box, Couros and Novak, 2019).
