Student- Centered Research Conference

Student-Centered Learning

One of the workshops I attended at the conference was the Student-Centered Learning Self Reflection Tool for practitioners. The Student-Centered Learning Self-Reflection Tool was created by Mary Bellavance, Instructional Coach at Biddeford Middle School and Students at the Center Distinguished Fellow alum, during the 2017-18 academic year to support teachers, coaches, and school leaders as they implement student-centered learning practices in their learning environments.

This tool is organized around the four research-based tenets of SCL as defined by the Students at the framework: competency-based learning, personalized learning, student-owned learning, and anytime-anywhere learning.

Competency-based learning or Proficiency-based learning

-Students move ahead based not on the number of hours they spend in the classroom but on their ability to demonstrate that they have actually learned the given material, reaching key milestones along the path to mastery of core competencies and bodies of knowledge.

Personalized Learning

-Working together, educators, parents, and students customize instruction as much as possible to students’ individual developmental needs, skills, interests, and cultures. Students develop connections to each other, their teachers, and other adults who support their learning.

Student-Owned Learning

-Students understand how to get “smarter” by applying effort strategically. They have frequent opportunities to direct their own learning and to reflect and improve their achievement as they progress toward college, career, and civic readiness. Formative assessments are used to help students understand their own strengths and learning challenges and plan next steps. Students take responsibility for their own learning, using strategies for self-regulation when necessary and asking for help when challenges emerge.

Anytime, Anywhere Learning

-Students have multiple opportunities to learn outside of the typical school day and year, and outside of the classroom or school, often by using digital technologies that allow them to study and complete assignments at any location and at any time. In short, the school’s walls and schedules are viewed as permeable.

Each of the learning strategies has scale definitions to see where the student is at.

Scale definitions:

Emerging—I am just at the start of this.

Foundational—I am attempting this, but still need support, coaching, and feedback. 

Proficient—I am successfully implementing this.

Advanced—I am a leader in this area. I can provide support for my colleagues.

Each of the learning strategies has prompts that can help the students think about what they need to keep moving, who they plan to talk with it about and when they plan to do it by.

What I think I need to keep moving is . . .

Who I plan to talk with about this is . . .

When I plan to do this by is . . .

-This relates to Rodriguez's article because it says that speaking different languages keeps us and individual and we need to adapt our teaching for the individual student and that's exactly what this tool does.

Link to site:

https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/

Link to the tool:

https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/resource/student-centered-learning-self-reflection-tool/?type=tool