Triangulating Student Learning

Learning is a life-long process that is highlighted by experiences, successes, goal achievement and inquiry. Students learn how to learn best when they are able to collect evidence of their learning process through performance standards and triangulated data: products, conversations and observations. Only when all evidence of learning is collected over time and ‘triangulated’ can a valid and reliable evaluation be made. Most vital is that this strategy for collecting assessment evidence involves students in the process.

When we give a learner the gift of self-assessment, the ability to identify for his or herself how s/he is doing and where s/he needs to focus attention to improve, we empower learning. Students do not learn by being told they are an ‘A’ or ‘B’ student, nor by being told that their behavior is ‘poor’. Students learn from having the ability to self-monitor progress by engaging with basic questions: ‘Where am I presently?’, ‘Where am I heading?’, ‘What do I need to get there? ‘

In this approach to tracking one’s own learning, education evolves into something that you figure out for yourself rather than something that is handed down to you. As we teach children how to think en lieu of what to think, they develop confidence to make their own decisions and garner strong values that buoy them as they cope with performance demands, personal expectations, and even peer pressure in school.

Learners who understand how to target learning goals and track their progress grow more self-assured and better able to question and to make inquiry. Simple tasks of reflecting and expressing how they are progressing and questions that they have as they move through their work can become powerful tools for improving understanding. When we know we have done something well, we feel good about ourselves. We accept new challenges more readily, and learning becomes easier.

Educational Aims

Learners educated progressively continue to grow as people who have developed the talent, skill and commitment to make a difference in the world. They have the ability to represent themselves: they are resourceful and resilient: they are invested in the world.  This is the result of some very intentional aims and desired outcomes.  The best way to posit those aims and outcomes is in juxtaposition with traditional educational aims.

Traditional Aims

Pre-k thru 3^rd grade

• Emphasis on following directions

• Teacher gives information

• Learning is corrected by teacher

• Learning materials paper and pencil

• Student stays at pace with class

• Moving from group play to group instruction

3^rd thru 8^th grade and beyond

• Emphasis on compliance

• Emphasis on seat work and individual achievement

• Teacher gives daily bits of instruction followed up with homework and grades

• Teachers keep track of progress

• Learning material in workbooks, worksheets and individual work

• Emphasis on completion of classwork and homework assigned by teacher

• Teacher assists with preparation for testing

• Emphasis on grades

• Students grouped by ability

Progressive Aims

Prek-3rd

• Emphasis on free choice and initiative

• Teacher assists and guides

• Learning materials are self-correcting

• Learning materials are hands-on

• Student can go as far as capable

3^rd -8^th grade and beyond

• Moving from independent work to group work

• Emphasis on independence

• Emphasis on free choice and initiative as a working group

• Teacher gives comprehensive lesson and assigns long projects without grades

• Students keep individual work journals

• Learning materials hands-on and developed for groups

• Emphasis on self-responsibility to manage multiple work projects to completion

• Teacher assists with critiquing and student assessment of work

• Emphasis on continuous improvement

• Student can move beyond grade level individually

Time To Renew Our Joy In Learning

As progressive educators preparing for the start of another year, I think we need to renew our joy in learning and our confidence in possibilities.  This is when we reconnect with our school community as a dynamic, creative, and caring place.

Ours are spirited, happy, and hard-working learning communities where imaginative play and disciplined inquiry are an integral part of every student's experience.  We are committed to a strong academic program that engages students cognitively, physically, and creatively in meaningful learning experiences, while also engaging their emotions as they learn about themselves, their individual learning styles, and how to relate to others. Our students are empowered to make choices, to work hard to overcome challenges, and to engage deeply and meaningfully in curriculum in multi-aged classrooms.

Our student-centered mission is founded on the idea that mutual respect should inform our relationships, and that students are empowered by making decisions and exercising developmentally appropriate degrees of responsibility for their own learning and self-direction. This leads to students who are confident and compassionate, with an ability to advocate and lead. Such skills emerge from being able to think critically, to solve problems and to work both independently and collaboratively in multi-age groups. We not only prepare students with skills and knowledge, but also intentionally encourage stewards of our world, who can live happy, fulfilling lives. Our students learn about the complexity of a world where our interdependencies demand sensitivity to culture.

As school picnics and class pot lucks unfold, we also renew our commitment to our school-home partnership as a vital component in helping children to build a strong understanding of themselves as learners. This partnership also helps instill in students a sense of responsibility to themselves and to their community. Our aim is that children emerge from their educational experience seeing and valuing both the common threads which connect us to others and the breadth of differences in our larger world, through service with projects on campus, as well as local and global organizations. Our students will acquire the advocacy skills that contribute to a more peaceful world, respecting diversity and the environment.

So I renew my passion for our mission and philosophy and most important, collaborating with fellow educators and colleagues - the promise of being connected and sharing in  education and life paths.

The King is Dead – Long Live the King

An NAIS school advisor, trainer and governance expert shared these pearls of wisdom with me recently as we reflected together on the work of leadership transition in schools.  We agreed that the board plays a pivotal role in ensuring a clear and respectful process and that many boards in small schools struggle with governance as leadership, leaving a trail of confusion and upheaval in the wake of change.  Mostly this happens, we concurred, because many trustees come from the business world and apply the same ideas that surround change in business to schools.  The catch is, of course, that schools function more like a family unit than a corporate unit.  So invariably the characteristics requisite to a transition that makes sense to all those living into it – clear, timely, well-communicated, well-socialized, transparent and incrementally implemented – become a challenge.

Shared vision and shared decision-making are central to governance as leadership.  When leaders on boards and in schools break formation on this fundamental and vital thread, the work is weakened and efforts have to be re-doubled.  Then the energy of change goes into dealing and coping with personalities, people’s fear and personal politics rather than into the fundamental aspects of supporting the vision through forwarding performance, responding to non-performance. and leading change from a position that supports what is best for the school.

The head of school in a well-led endeavor is at the helm of the institution but does not define it – the vision defines it.  The board holds the vision and selects the head of school based on his/her ability to further the vision. So, if members of the school do not understand and resonate with the vision, leadership will be hard and turnover should be expected.  Ironically, when a board permits a head of school to define the vision and when the process is not a shared endeavor, the turnover travels both ways into faculty/staff and upwards into the board itself, a cycle difficult to break and the start of potentially long-term and systematic and infrastructural problems.

Learning Best - Progressively

Progressive education has never been an automated approach to learning. As education shifts toward an emphasis on 21st century skills, it is clear that all along progressive education has been preparing students for the future – and has done so, well - progressively. Creative thinking, collaborative problem solving, individual passions and ethical living are fundamental to good progressive schools.  Progressive educators have long embraced the notion that we are preparing children to enter a world with challenges and opportunities we cannot foresee.  Education rooted in the concepts of progressive education, honors the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of children, allowing growth to unfold at each child’s own pace. Through work, exploration, and play, the whole child, not just the intellect is educated. We know from experience and cognitive science that students learn best not only by doing, but also by thinking about what they are doing. Progressive learning stimulates learners' questions and sets the stage for learning with materials, situations, and ideas from which the students can construct their own understanding.

A progressive school’s design for learning flows out of mission, vision and values.  A rich progressive tradition always reflects critically on what it does and how it can be done better.  The result is an active and engaging learning community. Learning by doing is integral to a progressive education.  When active learning and experience connect confidence and academic performance ensues. When students can actually engage with projects that are grounded in lived experience, they internalize learning in a more meaningful way.  Learners integrate their experiences and knowledge in practical ways, identifying the broader context, making connections and, asking essential questions that lead them deeper into understanding. Such a learning approach challenges learners to know themselves as unique learners and to develop their abilities by moving beyond their comfort zones – exploring choices and imagining possibilities.  This is a true path to discovering and pursuing one’s own true passions.

Best of all, this learning unfolds in a community context where personal integrity, accountability, empathy, compassion and respect are intrinsic values guiding how we engage with each other and the world.  Progressive learners are encouraged to develop a strong sense of social responsibility, a personal sense of and commitment to the common good and an enthusiasm for making a difference. Progressive schools uniquely build both an inclusive and culturally competent community that honors multiple perspectives and a community that seeks the common ground that unites us.  In the end it's a way of life filled with friendship, service, energy and optimism.  This inclusive atmosphere and learning environment makes it easy for students to belong and to take a lead role in the school community, providing them with the framework for learning about the world.  Progressive learners are invited to be full of knowledge and curiosity, to think critically, to have a propensity to act - a willingness and disposition to act on behalf of the community-  to want to make a difference.