Getting Smart’s columnist Kyle Wagner wrote an article titled “12 Shifts to Move from Teacher-Led to Student-Centered Environments.” Yesterday we examined six of those 12 shifts today and assigned a grade to how well the traditional school system is executing these changes. Today, let’s take a look at the remaining six shifts.
“Shift #7: From End of Learning Reflection to Ongoing Reflection on Process and Product – Student-Centered Facilitator Alfie Chung of the Social Innovation Wing of Polytechnic University addresses his year 12 students: Who are you designing for? Are you designing for yourself or [others]? What did you learn from interviews and observations? What have we accomplished so far, and what’s left to do?”
“In student-centered environments, reflection is not an end of learning exercise, but an ongoing process, and the role of the facilitator is to ask the right questions. In the example above, Alfie asks reflective questions around what students are learning from their investigation of user behaviors at the park across the street. This is stage one of a five-stage design process. Students will undergo four more reflective cycles before sharing their final designs for the new play area to the department tasked to build it. Through a reflective journal, students capture their thinking, drafts/iterations, peer and user feedback and research. Beyond journals, Alfie uses portable whiteboards to track progress: ‘I never erase the whiteboards. These whiteboards become like artifacts to keep track of our journey. Every week before we start lessons, we look at them to reflect on what we have already done.’”
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Traditional K-12 schools, especially secondary schools, are terrible at what we call in the learning business formative feedback, or in other words, giving feedback during the process of learning and not just at the end. Instead, traditional middle and high schools depend on summative feedback, or assigning a test grade after the two-week unit of study. The grade here is “B+” for elementary schools, but a “D” for school serving older students.
“Shift #8: From Independent Work to Collaborative Tasks – ‘We were reading a book about a bunch of rich, white people in the 1920’s and we work in Southeast San Diego with mostly students of color, lower income.’”
“Above is an honest reflection from two Year 10 Literature Teachers at Gompers Preparatory Academy, a student-centered charter school in one of the most impoverished regions in San Diego. The Great Gatsby was part of the curriculum but had no relevance to student’s lives. So Dave and Michelle decided to give it a student-centered twist. Students would still read the novel, but instead of writing independent book reports, they would decide collectively how they would apply lessons to their lives. After learning that one bubbly girl already had her own successful podcast and YouTube channel, the class decided on a class podcast. Each episode would share how the ‘American Dream’ had changed from the 1920s, using stories from their own community to illuminate the theme and compare it to the one found in the novel. Students worked in small teams to produce each episode; dividing roles, tasks, and written and audio content. Dave and Michelle’s role? Support all teams with a project timeline, group folder to track progress, a school website where they could publish their work, and checklists and graphic organizers to organize their thoughts.”
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Traditional schools, especially secondary schools, do not handle collective project-based learning in good fashion. K-12 campuses tend to lean toward independent work since that is what most parents and the community expect and assessing that type of work is easier. So, again, elementary schools earn a higher grade here than secondary campuses. “B+” for elementary schools. A solid “D” for middle and high schools.
“Shift #9: From Teacher-Led Discussion to Student-Led Discussion – How can the most innovative square mile on the planet be plagued by racial injustice only 2 blocks away? This is the big question guiding work by young ‘Innovators For Purpose’ (IFP) across schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Student are building installations, publishing books, creating augmented reality simulations, and developing educational games. And they are using a simple, but profound student-led discussion tool to guide them. Developed and facilitated by pioneering educator Ela Bur, the ‘innovator’s compass’ uses five questions to guide young people in getting to the heart of issues: Who’s involved? What’s happening/And Why? What matters most? What ways are there? What’s a step to try?
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I challenge every reader to visit your neighborhood public school. Ask if you can visit a classroom. Once inside the room, track how many minutes of learning time are dominated by teacher talk compared to student talk. It’s amazing how we as adults don’t give young learners the opportunity to talk about their own learning. The grade here is a “D”.
“Shift #10: From Progress Assessed by Teacher to Self, Peer, Expert Feedback and Critique – Student-Centered Practitioner Gary Heidt, English Teacher and founder of Nova Lab, was tired of students ‘checking achievement boxes, climbing each ladder to get to the next.’ As he states, ‘it was not about learning.’ He did something radical in response. He eliminated grades entirely; replacing tick boxes with a system of ongoing feedback, narrative comments, and peer review. Students would only receive a pass/fail mark. The result? Learners articulated their learning and took greater ownership of the process…”
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Even though there are lots of schools pretending to pay attention to learner, peer, and sometimes expert feedback, in the end it is the teacher’s feedback that matters most. It’s sort of the difference between a “nice to do” task and a “have to do” responsibility. Because of this costly hesitation, traditional schools receive a “D-“ when it comes to sharing the feedback responsibility with young learners.
“Shift #11: From Teacher Audience to Authentic, Public Audience – What happens to student engagement and empowerment when they are given an authentic audience to present their work?”
“This was the big question behind the founding of VIS Better Lab School in Taipei. Students are sharing plans to make bus stops more inclusive with the transportation department. Proposals to improve water quality at the nearby river with the local water authority. But perhaps the most agentic of all these extended learning experiences is the 100% student-run VIS radio station…”
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There’s school world, and then there is the real world. A mentor of mine told me this once, trying to point out how separate schools are from what is happening in the real world. My mentor told me this 25 years ago, and I’m afraid not much has changed in terms of school becoming more connected with the real world. Therefore, a “D” is assigned here (and it probably should be an “F”!).
“Shift #12: From Classroom Based to Community-Centered Impact – Imagine if for two lessons a week, students left the silos of their subject-based classrooms, and instead worked on applying cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills to address Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). That’s exactly what will happen in the 2024-2025 school year for all Year 7 students at Bangkok Patana School. Two subject teachers will combine around each goal to design experiences that provide students agency in investigating and devising solutions relevant to their community.”
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Most schools have some type of community outreach planned for their students, but a majority of that time is extracurricular, meaning that the learning is happening outside of school – without any type of in-school credit assigned to the learner. Because of this fact, a “D” grade is assigned to our K-12 system for making an impact on their communities based upon the learning occurring inside the school walls.
So let’s take a look at the 12 grades assigned to our present K-12 educational system to correspond to the 12 shifts identified as necessary to move from a school-centered to learner-centered enterprise:
D-
D
D
F
D
D-
B+/D
B+/D
D
D-
D
D
Just eyeballing the 12 grades assigned, it would seem our traditional schools system is close to failing when it comes to making the 12 necessary shifts from school-centered to learner-centered education.
Then why would we continue to invest our time and money in a system that is near failing when it comes to serving the most important person in that system – the young learner?
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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