Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

Giving ownership of learning back to the students

 

 

In education there tend to be ‘buzz words’ that influence the popular trends in teaching and education. These words are easily recognised, as they are often mentioned in meetings, strategic plans and various education publications. One word that is at great risk of becoming a ‘buzz word’ is ‘thinking’. There is the potential for the ‘thinking curriculum’ to become yet another idea that was popular for a while, and then abandoned. This is especially due to the inclusion of ‘thinking’ in many of the state of Victoria’s new curriculum documents. While we are busily trying to meet these new outcomes, there is a chance that the thinking curriculum will be presented in a way that is too directed or shallow, ultimately because we don’t understand its value outside of the curriculum standards.

The Prime Minister of Singapore recently commented:

‘The days of the person at the top doing all the thinking while the workers do as they are told, is in the past.  We need a spirit of innovation of learning by doing, of everyone each at his own level all the time asking how he can do his job better.’

The students we are teaching today are going into a workforce where there is an expectation that they think for themselves, and there is a pressing need for them to show initiative. They will be competing on a global scale. Therefore, their answer to the question: ‘Why are you doing this?’ can no longer be ‘Because I was told to’. With this in mind, it is vital that we take the concept of the thinking curriculum and use it to create a classroom culture, facilitating deep and meaningful learning and thinking.  

Allow children to direct their learning

Inquiry learning is an effective and successful method of allowing children to direct their learning. The true nature of inquiry learning is simply that, within the context of the topic being studied, the children identify the gaps in their knowledge and conduct research to fill these.  Keeping to this strategy, inquiry will inspire and encourage children to extend their learning beyond the obvious. The challenge here is with shifting our mindsets from being the constructor of our student’s learning to become the motivator. When introducing the topic that will be studied, give students a key term, such as ‘healthy eating’ and, in small discussion groups, have them brainstorm reasons for learning about it. This will give them the basis for developing a learning statement. This will contain what is going to be learnt and the purpose for learning about it. Work together with the students to create the learning statement, so they understand and own it. An example of a learning statement could be:
‘We are learning to understand how the food we eat affects our body, so we can evaluate the importance of healthy eating.’
Once the learning statement has been established, the students can determine the knowledge they already have, in order to decide what they are going to research. Often it is helpful to put these into questions they will answer. However, this depends on the preference and age of your students. By working together to develop a learning statement, we are asking them: ‘What to you need to learn to achieve this understanding?’ rather than telling them, ‘This is what you will learn’.

‘What is required is what some have called the Haiku Curriculum – simple and deep.’

Constructing the learning environment by using a learning statement within the inquiry learning model will ensure that the content is kept simple, while allowing students to analyse and evaluate the information. While exploring this philosophy of learning, it is easy to still overload the curriculum with specifics we want students to learn. It is hard to let go and see the value in giving control of learning over to the students, as we worry they won’t learn everything we think they need to know about a topic. While our motivation for this way of planning is with our students’ learning in mind, the resulting overcrowded plan gives little room for authentic inquiry learning.  

Extend knowledge to develop higher order thinking

As educators, we owe it to our students to extend their learning beyond just knowledge and information to analysing and drawing conclusions.  Bloom’s Taxonomy is an effective tool to use for planning. This ensures that students are taken to that place in their learning where they exercise higher order thinking. By planning within the Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers have something to check against, a structure within which activities can be created to give children a broad scope of learning. The six levels of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy are:

• remembering
• understanding
• applying
• analysing
• evaluating
• creating. 

The remembering and understanding levels of the taxonomy could be explored through the inquiry model. Once the children have completed their research and gathered the information, then the natural progression would be to work within ‘applying’ and ‘analysing’ to explore the issues surrounding the learning statement.

‘Evaluating’ and ‘creating’ are where students can draw conclusions surrounding the thinking statement and develop these further. Within the six levels of the Bloom’s Taxonomy, a number of different thinking tools, such as graphic organisers and thinker keys, can be used to extend thinking. Eric Frangenheim has a number of publications that explore further activities, which can be used with the Bloom’s Taxonomy philosophy. 

Reflection is invaluable

During the learning process, reflection can be used, both within the duration of the unit of work and at the end.  Reflection during the unit of work can be used to redirect students, giving them the time to stop and think about the successes so far and areas for improvement. This enables them to consider what they are doing in the moment, making it manageable and giving them encouragement to continue moving forward.

Reflection benefits the students in that, if there is an area they could be doing better, they are able to recognise it early, rather than at the end, when it is too late. 

Reflection at the end of the unit of work gives students the chance to celebrate their successes and achievements, and to create goals for future learning. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats gives students a holistic view as they need to consider feelings (red hat), strengths (yellow hat), weaknesses (black hat), new ideas (green hat), information (white hat) and thinking (blue hat). Other effective models for reflection are the PMI chart (Plus, Minus, Interesting) and KWL chart (Know, Want to learn, have Learnt), with the ‘KW’ to be completed at the beginning of the unit of work and the ‘L’ as a reflection.  When students feel comfortable reflecting honestly about themselves and their learning, they begin to feel empowered to take more risks, enhancing their interest in learning.

If we are going to engage children in learning and reduce the boredom factor, then we need to be willing to stand back and watch. Students who are motivated and feel a sense of ownership over their learning will achieve incredible depths in thinking and learning. All we need to do is let go, and be prepare to be amazed, because it will happen.

References

‘Focusing on teaching and learning strategies: the agenda for the 21st century’. In Leading and learning for the 21st century. Vol. 1:5, June 2002.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Julie Armstrong-Smith is a year 6 teacher at Mill Park Heights Primary School, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

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