Food for Thought: Measuring how our students are growing as learners.

Dear all,

This Food for Thought arises from discussions at the Asia Heads Conference and the Educational Advisory Board meeting, regarding the question, how do we know that students are learning? When you stop and think about it this is a justifiable question to be asking about school, that has as its primary goal, student learning. This question is notoriously hard to answer and provides the provocation for Tuesday afternoon's staff meeting. ( see below)

"Incredibly, you can walk into almost any school in America, go down the hall to the first couple of classrooms you find, look at the teachers inside, and realize this: nobody, not the principal, not the parents, not the students, not even the teachers themselves, actually knows how effective those teachers are in helping their students learn. They probably have an opinion, maybe even some anecdotal evidence. But in terms of accurate, verifiable information about how effective individual teachers are at helping each of their students learn and make progress from the beginning of the school year to the end? In the vast majority of schools, nobody knows."  -- Kevin Carey, EdTrust

What is emerging as we focus more and more on personalized learning and tracking of students is a move towards value added assessment. Of course this is not easy and firstly needs to be understood. Hattie attributes the largest effect on learning to the teacher or should it be teachers? This then begs the question how do we differentiate between teachers and should we? There is lots to discuss on this topic. This brings us back to Tuesday's meeting. This will be your opportunity to do some research and self inquiry and share your findings with other staff. These meetings are not scheduled to be part of CIS or IB accreditation but rather your chance to have time for pure educational discussion and debate with your peers. 

Hence the provocation for Tuesday 3rd October is; If we truly believe that character, skills and concept driven learning are essential for the future, how can we reliably demonstrate that our students are learning and that we as individual teachers are adding value to this learning?

As a background for your discussions I want to share a couple of things to get you started. Firstly, this long academic document about VAA.  Secondly, two relevant reads from Mindshift, What Character traits should we focus on and why, and Beyond  Academics, What a holistic approach to learning could look like. Of course you can find your own articles and do your own research. Please bring this with you on Tuesday to share with your group. At the end of Tuesday's session there will be the opportunity for tables to share their discussions and learn from each other.

Have a good Sunday,

Yours
Adrian