Do You Know Where You Are with Your Own Learning?

For a learning plan to be effective, you must start with a personal needs assessment determining where you currently when it comes to the learning skills you want to improve on.

A few years ago, I was fortunate to partner with Matt Barnes, a dedicated parent coach and learning creator, in Texas to launch The Education Game. The Education Game tried to empower parents during the early years of the pandemic to help their children continue to learn at deep levels, whether the kids were in school or not. Long term, The Education Game (TEG) tried to convince parents to stop thinking traditional school was the only answer when it came to their children’s learning. TEG encouraged those parents to stop sending their kids to bad, many times toxic, schools. Instead, TEG promised to help parents form learning cohorts of around 15-20 young learners, with each of those young learners possessing a learning plan, hopefully with the support of a learning coach. Although The Education Game struggled over the next year to build a parent group committed to taking such steps, there were certain products developed through TEG partnership that could be useful this column’s readers.

Amongst these products is something we called The Scouting Report. I encourage everyone to open The Scouting Report: The Short Version link so you can see what a simple learning assessment could look like for you or someone close to you. Matt and I created a longer version of The Scouting Report, but let’s focus on the shorter one first.

The Scouting Report focuses on four areas of learning: context, current practice, assessment, and intervention. Learning context relies on “habits of the mind” research started back in the 1980’s by educators Bena Kallick and Art Costa. “Habits of the Mind” emphasize qualities like perseverance, curiosity, problem-solving, even humor. According to the “habits” theory, one can’t learn well if they don’t have the proper context to support stronger and smarter learning. Current practice asks the learner where they are with developing their reading, writing, problem-solving, and character skills. In traditional schools, young learners often don’t know how to answer the current practice question since the school district usually answers it for them through the issuance of scopes, sequences, and pacing guides. Assessment wants to know how the learner knows they are learning, and when they are not. Again, students in traditional schools often don’t develop skill in assessing their own learning since tests have been created, usually by states, to answer that question for them. Intervention assists the learner with activities when they are struggling with learning or learning is not happening. Strong learners know how to find the right intervention plan when they are struggling with learning. Sadly, again, this is not a practice taught in many traditional spaces, since school leadership usually sees this as an adult responsibility.

Why don’t you fill out The Scouting Report for yourself? To do that, you would answer the questionnaire to the best of your ability, and then ask someone else to play the role of your learning coach and answer the same questions with you in mind. Or, if you are a parent to a young learner, you can ask them to answer the questions and then you do the same, playing the role of their learning coach. The process should be fun and informative.

Once you or your young learner completes The Scouting Report, it will be time to begin building a game plan for what you want your learning (or theirs) to look like moving forward. Look for The Game Plan, the companion document to The Scouting Report, in tomorrow’s column.

Til tomorrow. SVB