Time to focus on students

It's time we changed our focus to learners. Over the last few years we have spent lots of time working on peer observations and focussed on setting aims and objectives, developing lesson plans and schemes of work, questionning skills and many other activities. This work has been vitally important, however it is now time we focussed our attention on working with students to increase their capacity and capability to learn. Now of course, we have been doing much of this work already. However, it is clear from colleagues that whilst we need to ensure we do all that we can to help our students achieve, we need to do even more in ensuring that students accept full responsibility for their learning. If we are to do that, we need to ensure we give them the tools to become the most effective learners they, possibly can be. As such, I intend future staff meetings to focus on building learning power (not my phrase but Guy Claxton's), and look at techniques which helps students become better learners. There is some really exciting things to be done here. So watch this space for more information.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This sounds very interesting, but it also sounds as if it has a lot in common with Critical Skills. Instead of examining yet another model for learning, would it not be more productive to build on the foundation that we have just laid for Critical skills, allowing some time to put into practice all the things we have learnt? We have not had time to do more than scratch the surface of Critical Skills so far, and it takes time to be comfortable with each new model and develop new methods.

Digby said...

I agree with Jane! Critical Skills is still in its developmental stage, with some staff having only just been trained and for most they are still experimenting trying to unleash the potential of this model. The emphasis should be on supporting and strengthening the work that is being done. To embed CSP we need time and space to collaborate, with support from a staff development perspective.

CSP is proven to be effective in improving students learning, so an investment of time would benefit all staff and students.

The work on creating collaborative communities in college and with our recently twinned colleges needs support, so that the students can benefit from the shared resources and improved skills.

Gary said...

Fair comments from you both - and have given me an excellent idea on how to organise and focus the next staff meeting

Anonymous said...

I agree that the full attention should be on the student itself. For us to know and monitor if certain students are really learning or not.