ILE, BYOD, use of GAFE, using ALL or Accelerated Literacy Learning for at risk and priority learners, SOLO taxonomy to create divergent thinking, Inquiry models woven into planning, teaching and assessment and last but not the least, school wide professional development in Assessment for Learning to name the most prominent ones.
On deeper reflection ( I seem to be using this phrase in almost all of my posts so far!), I saw the common thread running through all of these efforts/projects. The end goal was to uplift success rates for our learners, it was to enable them to be 'confident, connected, lifelong learners' ( NZC) no doubt. But they ONLY way to get there was to get our learners to OWN THEIR LEARNING.
It was through building and actively enabling 'student agency' to shift the locus of control as recommended in the ERO Report of 2012. So, all the trends adopted by my school ultimately culminates in the one goal, to create lifelong learners who own their learning.
Developing student agency is at the very heart of uplifting student achievement and my school has adopted the philosophy which is reflected in our charter.
We have embarked on a 2 year long PLD in Assessment for Learning which lies at the heart of all our planning, teaching and assessment.
So, the relevance of student centred and owned learning is undoubtedly very relevant to my school
and to me.
A Review of what looks like so far
All our teaching staff have practised how to bring about 'clarity' in the learning process under the guidance of the facilitator. We have been observed, given feedback and guided by our facilitator.
Our learners have learnt some stock phrases and jargon about Learning Intentions, Relevance and Success Criteria. We all have posters and toolkits displayed for our learners to track their learning pathways and to reflect on what is working for them and why.
And I am by no means negating the positive impact of these steps.
However, there is a distinction in my mind about 'following the steps that will potentially lead to student agency' and actually handing over the locus of control.
How successful are we as a school community in doing that? are our teachers fully prepared to hand over the reigns and step back? How involved or informed are our whanau in this process?
do our whanau actually buy into the relevance of 'student led conferences' in building their children's confidence in owning and directing their own learning?
Do they see the connection between that and the future citizen their child will be in a socio economic landscape that is changing so rapidly?
What about me?
Where do I fit in? I am very much a product of 'industrial age education'...am I walking the talk?
I would certainly hope for my students' sake that I am making a solid effort to do so. For me, this Assessment for Learning implementation needed another channel, something that my learners naturally adapted to. For me that was BYOD and Blended Learning. Now, I had a formula for handing over control, bit by bit over the months. Now, my learners had channels and technology through which they could demonstrate they were taking control and loving it. They were turning to me and to their peers for feedback, in real time. My more confident early adopters were even creating content for the consumption of their peers!
Are many other teachers in my school adopting my formula? Not really! Would I want to show them what I am doing that my learners are responding well to? Yes, but I need opportunities to be created by management for that to happen. Floating an opt in PD over and above the regular plethora of meetings will not have a sizeable turn out from an already time poor staff.
I will end by posting a diagram I have borrowed from a a private blogger I follow
Getting started with student choice
References:
1.Global Trends
2. Assessment for Learning ideas retrieved from Clarity in the Classroom by Michael Absolum
3.Future State KPMG
4. Evaluation at a Glance ERO Report
5. John Spencer's Blog ( link supplied above )
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