By Cary Harrod
Hard work. That’s what this is. Because once you buy into the idea that today’s learners must have agency over their learning, well, that’s just the first step. If you’re like me, the head starts spinning as you realize just how much our educational system is driven by the teacher. How do you move towards a student-directed environment?
Sometime around 2014, I discovered the work of the Howard-Suamico School District, outlining the five elements of Voice, Choice, Pace, Place and Path. When I returned to the classroom back in 2016, I spent time trying to figure out what Voice and Choice might look like in the modern ELA classroom. In the ensuing years, I’ve moved on to Pace and Place but it’s really Path that I’m particularly interested in…because, well this tweet says it all:
Or how about Bea McGarvey’s vision for re-imagining learning in her article, “Creating a New Vision: Three ‘Rethinking Breakthroughs.”
Every hour of every day, every learner (simultaneously):
- is met at his/her level of learning;
- is using one of his/her best styles of learning;
- is learning concepts and skills with content of high interest to him/her;
- understands the relevancy of what he/she is learning; and
- is challenged, successful, and looks forward to returning to his/her
learning community tomorrow.
Um…yeah…I like it.
So how do we create a curious environment? How do we design the ILX?
Learning Pathways.
Wrapping my brain around the idea of learning pathways has taken some time. Here’s the definition I’ve been using to guide my work:
The Learning Path is how the learner navigates their education. Designed intentionally to allow for choice, it offers as much or as little independence as the learner needs. The Learning Path creates a continuum of learning and can link to standards and outcomes, making learning more purposeful. The Learning Path allows teachers to engage, inspire and motivate learners to own their learning while also creating evidence of learning.
Okay, this is all great but where do you begin? In thinking about pathways, we need to be on the lookout for experiences that will immerse students in the authentic work of reading and writing. The image below provides a snapshot of our learning pathways. You’ll see the familiar: booktalks, community notebooks, writing clubs.
But look a little closer and something different begins to emerge; magical things like podcasting, Edublog Blogging Challenge, the Slice of Life Story Challenge and NanoWrimo. Way back in 2011, Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli, in their book, “Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education,” suggest, with some urgency, the need to transform our classrooms using five methods:
- Connect students and teachers inside the classroom
- Publish student and teacher work locally and globally
- Connect students and teachers outside the classroom
- Connect with experts around the world
- Collaborate with others to create and share knowledge
Like 21st Century artists, Will and Rob paint a picture of learning that’s both exciting and a tad bit daunting. It’s all about tearing down walls, connecting and learning from others…cultivating a world of networked learners. (If you haven’t already, read the book. One of my all-time favorites.)
We’ve managed to dip our toes into many of these methods through our learning pathways and they never, ever fail to provide big impact for those who courageously take the plunge. You can see our growing list of possibilities on the doc found HERE; it’s still in pretty rough form but the possibilities are intriguing! (Feel free to share other ideas!) You’ll also notice the list is currently heavy on reading and writing but what about the scientist in the room? The budding entrepreneur? The wanna-be musician? And on a more practical level, how do you introduce the pathways? Is participation completely optional? How do you manage the work? And perhaps, most important of all, what do the kids have to say about the pathways?
In his poem, The Road Less Traveled, Robert Frost talks about two roads but what if…what if there were more than two roads for our learners? What then?
Stay tuned.