{"id":3050,"date":"2014-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/learners-rule\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:52:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:52:32","slug":"learners-rule","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/learners-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Learners Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>I took a few hours out from gardening yesterday to dive into Learners Rule<\/i><\/a> by Bill Zima, principal at Mt. Ararat Middle School in Topsham, Maine. Described as a work of tactical fiction, it\u2019s a book about the power of personalized, proficiency-based systems (Bill is from Maine, so we\u2019ll use the term proficiency-based in this blog). \u00a0What\u2019s fascinating is that the term proficiency-based learning is not mentioned once in this book. It\u2019s about learning and nurturing learners.<\/p>\n For educators who want to know what proficiency-based learning looks like and how to do it, I don\u2019t think there is any better resource available than Learners Rule<\/i>.\u00a0 It is also probably the best resource we have right now available to help teachers identify the shift in thinking and practice that happens when we move from batch to personalized learning. There are even pictures of the different tools at the end.<\/p>\n I finished the book hungry for more, as it doesn\u2019t touch on the school-wide changes that have to happen, nor on the way teachers begin to collaborate around students and their learning. We\u2019ll just have to be patient \u2013 hopefully, Bill will write a sequel.<\/p>\n Below are three connections and insights that popped out for me (and there were many more) while reading Learners Rule<\/i>.<\/p>\n Asking The Why Question<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u2019t think I have ever understood the connection between proficiency-based learning and the practices of continuous improvement as described in this book. In one conversation, the new teacher explains that he puts everything through a Why?<\/i> lens to make sure he is clear about his intentions. Asking Why?<\/i> is a mantra of continuous improvement to allow assumptions to be aired, identify Band-Aid practices, and open up new ways of working.<\/p>\n Yet, the connection between proficiency-based approaches and learning is also rooted in asking the question Why?<\/i>. It is in asking Why?<\/i> that educators make the pedagogical decisions that are rooted in child and adolescent development, motivation theory, and cognitive development. \u00a0Why<\/i> school? Because we want students to be able to think and love learning. The academic standards are a secondary concern once students are engaged, respected, responsible and wanting to learn.<\/p>\n Student Agency at the Root of All Learning?<\/b><\/p>\n Bill\u2019s book made me realize how limited my thinking has been about student agency. I always knew that student agency is an important element of proficiency-based education. The transparency of the system and the ability to have multiple ways to learn and demonstrate learning of a common set of standards\u00a0enables student agency. All true, but I realize that viewing it through a systems lens was blinding me to a fuller understanding.<\/p>\n Student agency is also one of the goals of the K12 system. When we talk about college and career readiness, we are talking about developing students to become self-driven, independent learners who can navigate situations and new institutions successfully. Yet, that even suggests that somehow we give them agency.<\/p>\n Reading this book, student agency took on an entirely new meaning for me. Student agency is a natural phenomenon. It exists, and the question becomes whether we nurture it, draw on it, engage with it, or tamp it, even suffocate it, by the layering of rules, compliance and isolated studies. Student agency always exists; the question is, are we engaging with students in productive ways, or in ways that keep all of us from reaching our goals?<\/p>\n It\u2019s About Culture<\/b><\/p>\n In the introduction, Bill recounts a conversation with a teacher that opened his eyes to the problems of the traditional systems. He asks the math teachers why a third of the seventh graders were failing math. The teachers describe all the reason kids might be failing and how to address them, including students coming ill-prepared so provide remediation software, or they are losing points from not turning in homework even though they are passing tests, therefore have them do homework after school. Then one teacher says matter-of-factly, \u201cWe do not know why kids are failing.\u201d<\/p>\n And with that Bill sees the light. \u201cWe are teaching textbooks, chapters, and courses. We are not teaching kids. We wait for the struggle, encourage them to try hard, but continue moving through the book. We never stop to patch the hole. We never give it another thought …. The problem with the current plan of addressing curriculum was we had no idea how deep the hole in their learning went. Was it a superficial wound that would scab over and eventually be undetectable? Or was it deep and festering?\u201d<\/p>\n