Your Route Map to Phase 2, The Professional Learning Power Game

We used to think that the ability to learn was fixed at birth; some people found learning easy, others found it difficult. But we now know that learning is learnable, that the mind is improvable, that intelligence is the sum total of one’s habits of mind, and of course those habits can be changed and improved.

Research pointed out the key psychological behaviours that were judged to be of the highest value in helping people to learn and thrive in a complex world. The good thing is that these behaviours are inherent in all of us, aren’t fixed at birth, or when we leave school, and can be developed by everyone regardless of ‘ability’, social background, or age. In other words if we enabled students to become aware of and then develop and build their various learning behaviours they would naturally improve and thrive as learners.

 Turning this bundle of  learning behaviours into, potentially, real live learning habits is known as developing learning power, and there are no limits to extending our learning power.

A person’s Learning Power, this bundle of behaviours turned into habits, determines, even dictates, their propensity for change, influencing and underpinning their performance throughout life

How you learn changes over time and responds to the qualities of the learning environment, be that in the classroom culture, in the comfort of a home or in the workplace. As environmental circumstances change, they can have either a constructive or a destructive influence on developing, or ignoring, the potential of learning power. 

As understanding of the nature of learning grew building learning power formed as an approach to helping young people to help themselves become better learners. It went beyond the ideas of metacognition and self regulation by trying to build a child’s learning character…how they… approach, take part in, maintain interest in, make meaning from and reflect on…learning

It’s about creating a culture in classrooms that systematically cultivates that range of learning behaviours into learning habits; enabling students to face difficulty and uncertainty calmly, confidently, collaboratively and creatively.

This Learning Power approach refocuses schools on preparing young people better for an uncertain future; to educate not just for exam results but for lifelong learning; to thrive in the increasingly turbulent twenty-first century. Students need to have learnt how to be tenacious and resourceful, imaginative and logical, self disciplined and self-aware, collaborative and inquisitive.

To prosper in the learning age, we need to learn to embrace uncertainty with robust self-confidence, and approach the future with curiosity and optimism. The Building Learning Power  approach offers a clear direction for this journey by;

• Recognising that effective learning depends on qualities of attention and emotional reactivity; of thought and imagination; of reflection and self-awareness; and of sociability and relationships.
• Viewing teachers as learning-power coaches who explore and extend students’ learning-to-learn behaviours.
• Infusing the development of learning habits and skills into curriculum content.
• Developing a language for learning throughout the school.
• Attending to the kind of language used to frame activities and comment on learning.
• Encouraging learning challenges that students can get their teeth into — real, interesting and hard.
• Seeing education as a preparation for a learning life, knowing that this can be pursued quietly, without a revolution, and that involves;
  • getting the culture right
  • making students aware of the tools they command as learners
  • looking for where learning behaviours are or could be in action across the curriculum
  • enabling learners to monitor and evaluate their own learning.

4a. The chart for looking at what you’ve done.

• the cells in yellow capture what leaders, teachers and learners will have been doing:
  • tracking the growth of learning behaviours;
  • adapting classroom cultures to strengthen 4 key learning behaviours;
  • adapting how the curriculum is delivered in order to build 4 key learning behaviours;
  • experimenting with and expanding the number of learning behaviours consciously being used by students;
• the blue boxes capture the outcomes such changes teachers could make to classrooms; cultures and curriculum delivery.
• the green boxes capture the anticipated outcomes for people; leaders, teachers and learners.

Firstly take a look at the yellow boxes in the middle and ask yourself…did all this happen? Did we do what was recommended? Anything missed out? Anything a bit rushed or short changed?

Next take a look at the blue cells to the far right. These give an indication of the anticipated outcomes for each aspect of the first phase of the journey from;

• discovering students learning behaviours
• to shifts in classroom cultures
• to early shifts in lesson design accommodating learning behaviours
• to the beginning of you consciously using a much broader range of learning behaviours across the curriculum.

Have these things happened? Did you do what was recommended? Anything a bit rushed? Anything missed out altogether? How would you rate its success? Which were the hard bits? What would you change if you were doing it again?

Finally take a look at the green cells at the bottom. Do you think your students are improving as learners? To what extent are they using the 4 foundational learning behaviours? Are you managing to keep a track of any of these changes? What are you most pleased about? What do you think you might need/want to do next? Is there anything you think you may need help with?

Teacher growth is coupled to student growth

Our teacher growth chart (green) is progressive – each step builds on the preceding one, each step needs to be attended to before further ones are attempted. But in making this progression teachers really need to carefully consider where their students are as learners – they really do need to;

• • start from where students are,
  • rather than
  • from where they themselves want to be.

This is because your practice as a teacher will be constrained by your students’ dispositions, skills and understanding of their learning. So you will also find some broad learner growth charts (shown here in blue) linked to teacher growth charts (green). We advise you to shape your practice one step ahead of your learners’ practice, then wait for your learners to ‘catch up’. Students need time to discern, understand and act on the changes you are  causing them to make.

A classroom where a teacher is performing at or near the top of their growth trajectory while their learners are languishing near the bottom of their growth trajectories would be totally inappropriate and ineffective – there’s little point in changing teaching practice if it doesn’t impact on learners’ dispositions. Where learners sit on this ‘blue’ trajectory is a useful indicator of the presence and impact of the ‘green’ teacher interventions. Something is amiss if there is not a fairly close match.

All following sections of this Route Map are built around these GREEN teacher growth charts

Phase 2 has 13 units that can be used in any order and for a range of purposes.

Some schools will want to plan how best to use this material across the next year or so. Other schools may leave how the material is used in the hands of each individual teacher. PLEASE CHECK which of these possibilities pertains for you and your school.

4 units which deepen the four behaviours already introduced in Phase 1.

1. Putting perseverance into learning
2. Putting questioning into learning
3. Putting collaboration into learning
4. Putting revising into learning

A further 8 units which broaden the range of learning behaviours, already briefly introduced in Phase 1. Unit 4.

1. Putting noticing into learning
2. Putting making links into learning
3. Putting imagining into learning
4. Putting reasoning into learning
5. Putting capitalising into learning
6. Putting listening into learning
7. Putting planning into learning
8. Putting meta-learning into learning

And one unit that offers some tools to review and evaluate progress in terms of classroom culture and student learning behaviours. This unit can be used as often as required.

1. Reviewing our Progress

Each unit is designed to guide teachers through a process of building the habit in students. Sections 1–4 consider:

1. Imagining and how it develops. Includes an Imagining Progression Chart. Unpick the meaning of Imagining, how it develops over time and use the Imagining chart to consider where your students are now.
2. Taking Imagining into classroom culture. Includes effective classroom activities. This section offers numerous suggestions to develop a learning-friendly culture and build students’ learning skills. It includes ideas for lesson starters and quick wins; classroom activities; learning reflection tools; ideas for the appropriate learning language for each phase of progression in Imagining.
3. Blending learning habits with content. Example dual focused lesson. This section suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to design imagining into lessons. Here we look closely at how to blend improving students’ Imagination with the content you have to teach. The section covers: The six principles behind any learning powered lesson; Big questions to ask about lesson design; Lesson planning in action: an exemplar Imagining-focused task.
4. Team reflection and planning. Sharing the impact of classroom experiments with colleagues and plan what needs to be done next. It gives a skeleton plan for the Professional Learning Team session  and includes downloadable enquiry questions and planning formats. In team sessions staff are invited to share the impact of their experiments with colleagues, discuss the online materials, and plan how they might use these to change their practice.

If you take a hard look at perseverance you’ll notice it’s about keeping going in the face of difficulties; channelling the energy of frustration productively; knowing what a slow and uncertain process learning often is. A mature learner understands that real learning requires effort and persistence, relishes opportunities to struggle with challenge, and believes that with effort they can become a more effective learner. This captures what we want all learners to become so there’s more to it than you might have thought.

The charts in Phase 2 endeavour to pick up this deeper level of detail; take perseverance for example….

Take a look at the chart…

Perseverance is about the way we stick at things even when they are difficult. It’s one of the most useful but neglected learning behaviours. What makes us able to persevere more and more usefully? We think several things come into play here. How you are willing and able to deal with being stuck, how you are able to manage distractions and manage the learning environment, how you relate to a challenge and whether you are influenced by goals be they your own or imposed by others. All these things contribute to being able to persevere. And of course there’s your own little voice of self-awareness: what you say to yourself and how this influences your beliefs and values.

Being perseverant grows and builds when it’s nurtured and supported. Furthermore, being perseverant involves gaining control of a range of linked skills and emotions.

The other 11 learning behaviours in phase 2 have their own, richer progression charts. These guide teachers to better understand and coach the richer states and stages of development.

The unit offers a rich variety of tools help to review progress in developing a learning culture in classrooms. This review  provides information to guide the approach in the next phase of building students’ learning powers. Sections 1–4 help teachers to consider:

1. Reflecting on their changing practice. Looking at what they have done and how their classroom has changed. This section answers the question “How far have we come?”
2. Giving pupils a voice. Finding out how their students have benefited. This section answers the question “How well have our students taken to this way of learning?”
3. Learning with and from colleagues. Learning from learning walks and observations. This section answers the question “What are the variations on the theme and what can we learn from these variations?”
4. Team session: Learning together. Putting their heads together and thinking “What next?” These team session answers the questions “How are we doing, how are our students doing and where do we need to go next?”

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