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IMPACTful Thoughts -Moving the Plan Forward: Developing Student Ownership

By Karen Gaines posted 06-01-2021 00:42:08

  

Happy Anniversary!  One year ago IMPACT Live! Spotlight of the Month was launched on myAMATYC.  Over the past year we have started many thought-provoking conversations on the subjects of ownership, engagement, equity, statistics, international mathematics, pathways, corequisites, standards, professional development, research, and leadership.


On this one year anniversary, I would like to move forward on the call I made to start a revolution in the original IMPACTful Thoughts post “You Say You Want an (Education) Revolution: Student Ownership of Learning is the Key”.  In that blog, the focus was on understanding what student ownership of learning really means and to encourage research in an area of education rarely examined.  


In that entry I stated that there was no silver bullet that would MAKE students take ownership of their learning.  It will require different methods for different students and it was not going to be formulaic. This sounds very daunting and if you try to find resources on the subject, they are scarce.  However, we need to move the needle forward, so I have some suggestions that I found in the book Developing Student Ownership by Robert Crowe and Jane Kennedy.  Their ‘big picture’ idea is to move students from doing to understanding  to owning their learning.  They have Strategic Learning Practices (SLP) that include questions that students should be able to answer


At the end of the book they summarize Questions for Students and Questions for Teachers that help inform instructors about how to approach designing the courses (p 160-161):


Students who possess an ownership mindset will be able to answer the following questions at any time during the course, unit, or lesson:

Curriculum 

  • What am I learning?
  • Why am I learning this?
  • How will I demonstrate I have learned? 

Instruction

  • How will I learn this?
  • How will this strategy help me learn this?
  • How can I use this strategy in the future and in different situations?

Assessment

  • How will I know I have learned it?
  • How will I know I am progressing in my learning?
  • What can I do if I am struggling?

Climate 

  • What is my role in the class?
  • How will I support others in their learning?
  • How will I take academic risks in my learning? 

Teachers who understand that their role is to build an ownership mindset with their students are able to explain how they decided the following information.

Curriculum 

  • What will my students learn?
  • Why are my students learning this?
  • How will my students demonstrate they have learned it?
  • How will I share these decisions with my students? 

Instruction

  • How will my students learn this?
  • How will this strategy help my students learn this?
  • How will my students use this strategy in the future and in different situations?
  • How will I share these decisions with my students? 

Assessment

  • How will my students know they have learned it?
  • How will my students know they are progressing in their learning?
  • What can my students do if  they are struggling?
  • How will I share these decisions with my students?

Climate 

  • What is the student’s role in the class?
  • How will my students support others in their learning?
  • How will my students take academic risks in my learning? 
  • How will I share these decisions with my students? 

If you are like me you are thinking “Holy Cow!” (or some variation of that).  “I can barely get through the math content, how am I supposed to make all of this happen AND verify that it IS happening?”   


That is exactly what we would like to begin to explore this month.  Please join in the discussions on IMPACT in Action and read more about research on IMPACT Plus.  Also take this opportunity to share some activities or assessments that you do already in your classroom by posting them as entries in the All Access Public Library.


Let’s keep this revolution going by sharing ideas and by implementing changes in our classes!



Reference:

Crowe, R. (2018). Developing student ownership: supporting students to own their learning through the use of strategic learning practices. Learning Sciences International. 

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06-03-2021 20:15:19

The question I always struggle with is "How will my students know they are progressing in their learning?" because I find it the most difficult to assess. I think this is best accomplished by first building a relationship with the student and as the course progresses you can begin to probe their understanding of the material through dialogue and group conversations. From this interaction you can leverage their self-awareness/self-assessment of how well they know the material, are they truly understanding the concepts or simply memorizing the formulas. But I have found it difficult to achieve this in a normal classroom setting let along in a virtual class. Mainly because I fell like a guide on the side but ultimately it has to come from them. I am curious if others feel this way, please let me know.

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