Everyone Needs a Learning Plan

Last week I wrote a column focused on the The Scouting Report. To review, The Scouting Report introduces a learning assessment process that asks you where you are with your own learning. It can be used by both adults and young adults alike. It is the first step in establishing a true personalized learning plan.

The second step to establishing a personalized learning plan is to take the information gathered through The Scouting Report process and apply it to a planning document titled The Game Plan.

In the traditional school system, curriculum guides, pacing guides, scopes and sequences, lesson plans, and standardized tests all represent a top-down approach to teaching and assessment. Almost none of these documents focus on learning, especially personalized learning.

What would a plan look like if it focused on personalized learning instead of teaching and assessment? That plan would:

1. Begin with the learner in mind
2. Focus on skills before content, specifically reading, writing, problem-solving, and character skills
3. Answer the question “What does the learner want/need to learn?
4. Answer the question “How do we know the learner has learned what they want/need to learn?
5. Answer the question “What do we do when the learner hasn’t learned what they needed to learn?
6. Focus on the definition, planning, execution, and evaluation of the learning plan
7. Outline adjustments based upon progress or lack thereof

The Game Plan Dials

The first section of The Game Plan asks the learner to assess their strengths on 26 learning context indicators. Notice #9-#23 on The Game Plan correspond to the 16 indicators found within The Scouting Report (these can be found in my April 20^th column.) After scoring your 26 (or 16) indicators, ask someone familiar with your learning style to score the indicators with you in mind. Then, select seven context indicators you either scored low yourself or were scored low by your critical friend. Of those seven, pick three you want to build into your Game Plan for the next week. After identifying three context indicators for the week, answer the following questions for each of them:

What steps (learning strategies) do you need to make to improve each of these three dials?

What additional resources will you need to make sure learnings happen?

What role will your school play in improving your dials? (Answer this question only if you are currently enrolled in traditional school)

What role will your critical friend or coach (the one who helped you score your dials) need to play in improving your selected indicators?

What role will you need to play in improving the selected dials?

How long do you think it will take to see improvement in the identified dials?

How will you know when improvements have been made?

After you finish answering the above questions for the three learning context indicators, answer those same questions for a reading goal, a writing goal, and a problem-solving goal in math, science, and social studies.

After you identify the learning goals you want to work on, it’s important to find out whether you have learned what you wanted to learn or not. That’s accomplished by answering the questions below:

What tools will you need to decide if you learned the goal or not?

What evaluation techniques will you use this week to determine if you learned the goal or not?

How will you demonstrate your learning?

What if you don’t learn all you wanted to learn during the next week? Since that is entirely possible, make sure to focus on the answers to these questions:

What interventions will you attempt? (An intervention is a term that describes another way to meet a learning goal)

Who will be recruited to assist with these interventions?

How will you adjust The Game Plan because of these new interventions?

And finally, what if you learn all you wanted to learn during the next week? If that happens, make sure you:

Identify what action steps you can take now that you possess that learning.

Thank those who helped you learn.

Adjust your Game Plan accordingly.

If this lays out just too much for you to think about this week, take it easy and just try one learning goal. That goal can be a learning context goal, a reading goal, a writing goal, or a problem-solving goal within the math, science, or social studies area.

The important thing here is for you to begin building a learning plan for yourself. That learning plan depends first on you completing a needs assessment for yourself (we call that The Scouting Report.)

Tomorrow, we will discuss The Learner Whiteboard, or the weekly breakdown of The Game Plan.

Til tomorrow. SVB