The Journey

What gets monitored gets done. It's a phrase I hear in education a lot. But what if it's true?

If it's true, then we had better be careful when selecting what to monitor. When we spend our time monitoring standards, the best we can expect is "standard". A fixed endpoint within a very specific timeline and a list of pass or fail.

Children deserve to have an engaging, individualized, creative and authentic learning experience. When we focus our learning primarily on obtaining standards like a checklist, we can easily miss opportunities for learning outside these boundaries.

When I started reading Making Learning Personal by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of a different end goal for each learner--of not just a differentiated learning journey, but the possibility of an entirely different learning outcome for each student.

My worlds are colliding. On one hand I know the effectiveness of aligning, prioritizing and teaching high impact standards. On the other hand I know the sheer joy that kids exude when they are on fire about a project. They surprise us by showing more depth and creativity than we could have imagined and they don't end up at a fixed endpoint.

Can we have the best of both worlds? What if we put our efforts into learning journeys instead of just learning outcomes?

There would be more opportunities for adventurous learning. Students and teachers alike would be energized by authentic projects, problems and ideas. Students would be doing real work and the teachers wouldn't have all of the answers. We would be celebrating the creative process of learning, honoring individuals and developing habits of mind.

To ensure we are focusing on the right work, my staff and I have:
-Designed lessons that involve creativity, personal exploration, student choice and critical thinking. It is through these lessons that students practice the standards and our goal is not the standards alone
-Maintained a belief that our role is to develop the whole child. Our learning goals include habits of mind and character development.
-Started implementing project based learning. The whole school designed and carried out community service projects-it was powerful.
-Carefully chose priority standards and their prerequisite standards. Our priority standards are higher level, critical thinking standards.
-Empowered students by involving them in knowing their learning targets. We have found this doesn't limit them, but rather helps them focus on the skills they are practicing during their learning journey. They set goals and celebrate the small wins along the way.

A shift in thinking and practice must occur if we are to fully engage our creative learners. This unpredictable adventure seems scary for those of us who have lived by the standards...even if we have pushed their boundaries and have done great teaching within them.

How are you focusing on the learning journey? How do you still remain accountable to the standards? How do you get the best of both worlds-or do you think that's possible?