Description
– Last year, our reporting system to parents changed to respond more with a
personalised learning focus. The PEP (Personalised Education Plan) template encourages
teachers to focus on the likes, strengths and visions or dreams of the child,
including a focus on what the parents want the learning journey to look like.
The parents, teachers and the child meet to discuss celebrations of learning
and where to next. When students have ownership of this process and parents
collaborate with them Hattie (2012) assures us the effect size on their
learning will be greatly increased.
Feelings
In the beginning, I thought that this was going to
increase my workload again and was ready to be on the ‘fight or flight’ mode.
Due to the collaborative discussions and understanding the why as well as being
one who likes to gets things done, I choose to get on board. I was pleased that
we as a school were acknowledging the personal pathways that were needed in
order for all learners to succeed. My questions initially were: - How will this
change the learning for the learners? What changes would I need to make to my
planning? Will I need to find more resources on everything? How well do I
really know my learners?
Evaluation
After being an early minority, I can now see how this
reporting is beneficial to all stakeholders, as it is creating a purpose for
the learner, parents and teachers to personalise the learning. I’m sure that when our school leaders sort to
change our reporting method, they were aware of the need to be mindful of the chaos
that would exist and overcome any barriers to cope (Fullan &Miles, 1992). Just
this term we have reported again to parents with some modifications to the
initial template showing progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Most of
the focus has been on the strengths of the child in the key competencies, and
how as a collective we can shape the learner for each individual. This time,
the response has been overwhelmingly positive for all stakeholders.
Analysis
With these personalised learning plans, my planning is
now more responsive to the needs of all learners and they know what their
individual goals are, these are skills based as opposed to knowledge based. As
quoted by Cavanagh (2014) “Each student should have a "learner
profile," or a record documenting his or her academic strengths and
weaknesses, motivations, and goals; students should have personal learning
paths that encourage them to set and manage their individual academic goals;
students should follow a "competency-based progression" through
topics; and their learning environments in most cases, schools should be
flexible and structured in a way to support their goals.”, we are well
on the way towards this.
Conclusion
As I get better at aligning the needs of my children
and taking on a more facilitator role I can see the purpose for getting the
learner pathways right for each individual and sharing the learning journey
with family and whanau. This is an area that I need to continue to work on to
establish more ways of transferring the ownership of learning from teachers to
students.
Action Plan
My mission is to maximise the conversations with
students to direct them to use and celebrate their success with their learning
goals. Use the digital platform of Seesaw to ‘steer’ the children with feed
forward and feedback to work towards their goals in the individual learner
pathways especially those 21st Century skills sets. For myself, be willing to
let go of the old ways…
Here’s to the next part of this learning journey!
Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A.,
Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning
and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of
Education.
Cavanagh, S. (2014). What is ‘personalized learning’?
Educators seek clarity. Education Week, 34(9), S2-S4.
Fullan, M. G., & Miles, M. B. (1992). Getting
reform right: What works and what doesn't. Phi Delta Kappan, 73, 745-752.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning For Teachers:
Maximising Impact On Learning. Oxford: Routledge.
Looks like some really good work happening in your school. Preparing better equipped learners is our focus as teachers and the personalised education plan is the way to go. Our school has started something similar this year, namely personalised learning pathway plan.
ReplyDeleteWell hello Sammie. How are you!
ReplyDeleteGood to see you are predictably still on the front foot with your learning, taking on challenges!
I wish I had seen your layout before my own post. (Time to review if I can fit it in!)
Having clear headings allowed you to meet the concise agenda with no wasted space. I look forward to delve deeper into your mind lab posts. I like the idea of steering the children and need to catch up with seesaw down here in New Brighton.
Thanks for the ideas (as usual)
Nick
Hey Sam,
ReplyDeleteI found your reflection thought provoking. It really does highlight for me the importance pf reflecting as educators. You clearly identify that you yourself were cautious at first and this risked 'fight or flight'. It is clear that it was not the schools initiative that lead to you being more responsive to your students, but your ability to reflect on the system and structure that lead to you adopting the approach and impacted on how you implemented it in a way that way you could become more responsive to your students. A big ups to reflecting and your open mindedness to your own learning and willingness to try something for the benefit of your students!
Hi Sam
ReplyDeleteI like your honesty with your reflection on how you felt when you first found out about the PEP's, I too had this feeling and it is reassuring to see that other teachers with more experience had a similar reaction. I also can now 100 percent see the benefits of PEPs and love how they cater to each individual learner and now focus on the key competencies instead of national standards for reading, writing and maths.
I would love to come into your class sometime soon to see how you are structuring your personalised education plans as this is something that I am struggling with this year with my younger students.
Thanks for providing me with further opportunities to reflect on my own practice by reading your relevant reflections.