Looking within

Did you need anything more than you were given?

No, we had everything we needed.

Great, I had succeeded.  Three classes of boys had conducted (and in all but one case very competently) a mock archaeological dig when I had provided them with nothing more than a brief list of possible resources.  No, we had everything we needed was the most common response, so I felt liberated.  This was the whole point of what I had been trying to achieve.  Boys working independently of me, self-directing rather than following instructions.  Hopefully learning by themselves and in collaboration with others, but clearly not with me as teacher being the font all knowledge, the sage on the stage.  I had barely even been the meddler in the middle.   

Satisfaction was very quickly replaced by a nagging question.

What had I been doing then for all those years when the Dig process was designed so tightly as to ensure success?

A  Being a control freak? 

B  Keeping my teaching ego inflated? 

C  Wasting student time and my own? 

D.  Not allowing kids to think for themselves. 

E   Perhaps all of the above!

For several years now I have heard Ron Ritchhart  (Cultures of Thinking Program, Melbourne Grammar School 2010-2013) talk about the danger of overstructuring tasks - step after step so carefully laid out that students who diligently follow the path cannot help but be successful.   Sounds appropriate – isn’t that our responsibility as teachers?  To ensure that the students we teach are successful?   But it also raises serious questions. Successful in what?  Achieving high grades?  Is that all there is?

I hope not and I don’t think so. 

So these days in classrooms I’m trying to engage in a series of interactions and (hopefully) carefully designed experiences which might help students to develop their thinking in ways that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives. 

Ancient Greece is fascinating but so is Ancient Rome.  And Egypt, and Persia.  Kids will forget the details of those civilisations and anyway, in 2013 forgotten details are an internet click away.   What matters is what they do, how they think and react when confronted with something for which a mouse click cannot provide an adequate response.  So like many teachers, I want them to be self-reliant and self-directed, capable of working independently when the time arises.

The archaeological dig seemed a productive beginning.  Boys were given a list of six informational resources to develop their knowledge about how to conduct a dig.  Groups of five or six students worked both individually and together to develop their plan for the dig, which was housed in a small tub.  

Of fifteen groups, fourteen could be called effective as an archaeological dig.  One failed as a result of a very unproductive combination of students. So apart from my question above about what I had been doing for so long under the former method, students showed that with minimal direction they were able to work their way through the task.  What did it show?

It demonstrated that within a collaboration, boys were able to complete what I believed to be a self-directed task which was as concerned with organisational matters (I had come to realise) as much as anything else.   Who was bringing the tooth brush?  And the sieve?  What about the string for the grid?  Whose role was it to record the finds?   Were photos going to be taken – and of what?  In Year 7 we expect that most students will have some organisational skills – so it wasn’t clear that this task had been much more than organisational with some comprehension, collaboration and cooperation required.  So is that self-directed in a learning sense?

As teacher, I had acted as facilitator.  Here is the task, here are some resources for information, here are the groups, here is the date of the dig, now go do it!  And they did.  But when the process was completed, I did not have the feeling that this had been a self-directed  task.  Rather, all that I had done was to withdraw from constantly checking that students were going to succeed.  That had caused me some discomfort, but it wasn’t about me. 

So the nag remained…was this self-directed learning?  Were students starting on the path to being independent?  Just what did those concepts mean in the classroom context?

Looking ahead

I am part of a professional learning group at Melbourne Grammar called Cultures of Thinking (COT).  It is led by Dr Ron Ritchhart and Dr Julie Landvogt and is based on a program developed at Project Zero at Harvard University.  The focus in 2013 was to explore selected problems of practice, formed from the needs of those within the group.  One of those problems was shaped around the idea of how “to foster self-directed thinking and learning within students” (the planets were aligning!). 

As part of the COT program and considering this focus, Ron Ritchhart suggested the use of a protocol called The Futures Protocol (http://schoolreforminitiative.org/doc/future.pdf).  This protocol can be used to try to gain some clarity about the actions/behaviours/results one might see in the future if a proposition/plan etc was to come to fruition, and then to consider how to get there. As in any protocol there are various steps, but for me the critical part at this stage was to try to establish what self-directed learning might look like. Some suggestions from the COT group included:

# to foster self-directed thinking and learning within students

If we have achieved this, what are we seeing?

Students actively engaged

Making decisions

Students would choose thinking routines

And how they work – individually or groups

Independent from the teacher

Better collegiality among staff

Stronger relationship between staff, students and parents

Teachers making fewer decisions for students

Different kinds of questions. Fewer procedural questions, more about ideas.

More like a flipped lesson – lesson as tutorial

More flexibility in the way we do tasks – negotiation re method (technologies and beyond) How they get to the end is more flexible.

So do teachers design more flexible tasks? More open ended? Understandings aren’t more openended – the tasks are more open ended.

More regular input – more individual negotiated planning sessions with students.

More student directed conversation than teacher directed conversation.

More students discovering answers than proving answers.

More diversity in the classroom in the way ideas are investigated rather than doing the same thing.

Teachers providing a variety of resources of which students make use.

Student interdependence – when to work individually and when as groups.

More evidence of student thinking.

More surprising output from students – things we might not have expected.

Application to real world, love of learning, asking more questions, desire to delve deeper, testing theories

Less of teacher leading whole class, more individual discusssions.

Fewer instructions

More emphasis on goals, less on procedures

More negotiated assignments that are still compatible with the goals

More flexible use of space.

So whilst there was still no definition of what self-directed learning might be, there was a long list of possible behaviours/actions and practices which might reveal that it was happening.

Looking at

With the above in mind, participants in the COT group were invited to observe other teachers’ classes to gather evidence of how that problem played out in actual classrooms.  Just what it might look like in practice.  Below are my observations and thinking from one observation.

STUART J’S YEAR 11 CHEMISTRY CLASS OBSERVATION

May 2013

Observation:   Students doing a prac about bonding.  Early instructions given (minimalist in nature) and then students begin.

My thinking:   Self-directed/Independent    Issues of safety need to be considered.  Can’t let them discover by being injured!!

Observation:   Students going about their business in pairs – very few question early.  One pair constantly needs confirmation that they are “right.”  Other than a discussion, Stuart gives them nothing by way of answer – rather encouragement to keep observing/working.  Other students want to know “how to measure malleability and hardness”.  Again, Stuart refers them to previous work.  So, throughout this 45 minutes, he gives them no clear answers to their legitimate questions. 

My thinking:    Stuart acknowledges that the noise that kids are making when using a hammer (testing for hardness) doesn’t sit comfortably with him, but he steels himself to accept that in this circumstance he just has to live with it.  This suggests the role of the teacher in a self-directed/independent classroom culture is important.  Stuart also says that he is comfortable with just sitting back and letting kids go (at one stage he was standing at the front of the room surveying the students in action).  Again, teacher culture and mindset is important in allowing student cultures to develop.  Probably quite obvious, but nevertheless, here it is in action.

Stuart and I had a discussion about students being reluctant to use their BYODs (Bring Your Own Device) to resolve issues or questions – rather to ask him.  He spoke of trying to begin to encourage this with his Year 9 groups so that by the time they are in the more senior levels they just use their own resources as a matter of course.  So perhaps the notion of showing initiative might be a marker of kids showing they are self-directed.  The way that Stuart expressed this also demonstrates that perhaps self-directedness is measured on a continuum rather than expecting it to immediately happen.  That might mean that it is a more of a whole school issue rather than hoping that it can be achieved by a few teachers acting alone.

Take away:  Broadly speaking, whilst I was beginning to think that teacher culture (leading to classroom culture) was critical in enabling self-directed students, what was continuing to be a significant issue was the term self-directed.  Just what did that mean?  How can it be judged?  Does it mean the same to everyone or would each teacher carry his or her own interpretation.

Looking out

As further exploration of the above problem of practice, we studied a research article to deepen our thinking.

Balapumi, R & Aitken, A (2012) Concepts and Factors Influencing Independent Learning in IS Higher Education    23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems

This article, whilst focussed more on students at tertiary level, proposes some solutions for the search for definition.  The paper endeavoured to provide a definition for Self-Directed Learning (SDL) but only as it related to two other floating concepts; Independent Learning (IL) and Self-Regulated Learning (SRL).  It rapidly became apparent that whilst we had been struggling to define self-directed learning and hoping that doing so would provide a way to develop it in classrooms, in fact it was not clear that self-directed learning was the actual aim or that it was even possible with students in the early secondary years.

The argument was advanced that all three concepts above were not interchangeable.  Research had led to the following definitions:

Independent learning (IL) is learning in which the learning goals, method or direction to achieve the learning goals, and regulation of learning process is decided, guided and managed by the learner. In IL there is no external intervention on what, when and how to learn. Though the lecturer may offer some advice or direction on how to go about the learning, the final decision about the learning process is decided by the learner. On the other hand, Self-Directed Learning (SDL) is a learning in which the learning goals are explicitly or implicitly decided or establish by external entities such as lecturers. The self-directed learner has decides the types of learning activities and the methods or direction to undertake to achieve the learning goals. Finally, Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is a learning in which regulation of learning process is managed by the learner. Typical of any classroom-based learning environment the learning goals and the learning outcomes are well established and, directions for achieving the learning goals and resources are pre-determined. Learner need to regulate their learning activities to achieve the goals by completing the designated learning tasks. (p.4)

In the sense above, it would seem that SRL is what might be found in most secondary classrooms to some degree.  It may be that it is to be expected at both primary and secondary levels.  Students need to learn the skills to self-regulate and so to manage successfully the tasks they are given.  This is further expanded later in the paper (p.4) where the authors offer a continuum of how learning might develop.  From dependent learning at the earliest stages of primary schooling, students might move through a development of their self-regulatory learning until (by their definition) self-directed learning would be potentially achieved at later tertiary levels.

At this high school level, the students may gradually acquire SRL strategies and skills such planning, goal setting, self-monitoring and self-reflection At this stage also, constants parental control and monitoring may decrease and the students will learn to control and monitor their own learning.  (p.4)

If we are to accept this argument (based on various research studies but still unproven as a continuum of learning development), we now have a clear term for what might be possible in the secondary setting…self-regulated learning rather than the postulated self-directed learning.   And again, that is indicated by

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is a learning in which regulation of learning process is managed by the learner. Typical of any classroom-based learning environment the learning goals and the learning outcomes are well established and, directions for achieving the learning goals and resources are pre-determined. Learner need to regulate their learning activities to achieve the goals by completing the designated learning tasks. (p.4)

Looking back

So let’s consider again the mock archaeological dig.  How did that measure against this definition of self-regulatory learning?

•regulation of learning process is managed by the learner ... the learning goals and the learning outcomes are well established…  Definitely. I had provided the basic resources and the learning goal.  It was up to the students to manage the action in between.

•directions for achieving the learning goals and resources are pre-determined.  The resources I had certainly provided.  Perhaps though the directions for achieving the learning goals had been left to the students.  At the same time, perhaps provision of resources was shaping thinking anyway.

•Learner need to regulate their learning activities to achieve the goals by completing the designated learning tasks.  Certainly students were expected to manage their activities to achieve the goal of successfully conducting the dig.  There were no designated learning tasks.  Perhaps this was what I had withdrawn – the tasks which made success inevitable.  At the same time, providing a list of resources would seem to be designating the learning tasks.

A self-regulating task – probably.  Self-directed?  By the argument advanced above – no.  Independent?  Definitely not. 

Looking beyond

Developing students’ capacity to be self-regulatory sounds infinitely less admirable than aiming for self-directedness.  However, it makes logical sense that self-directedness will be, for most students, a skill to be taught and developed over time rather than a capacity simply thrust upon them in a short period of time.  Consider the COT group problem of practice “to foster self-directed thinking and learning within students” discussed earlier.  Achieving self-directed students may not be possible at secondary levels of schooling.  However, the key word “foster” becomes important.  If we are to look beyond Year 12 for the students we teach and acknowledge that we won’t see all that students become when out of our teaching scope, then self-regulatory capacity-building in our students may be giving them significant advantage in future years.  And how might we manage that?

Balapumi and Aitken (2012) give us a clue.  They propose that in order for “the lecturer to teach SRL strategies and skills which are required by the students to actively engage in the learning process”, they should

view teaching as facilitation of students’ learning process (learner focused), perceives the student at the focal point of instruction. Students’ reasoning difficulties become opportunities for productive interactions between teachers and students. Problems that require students’ independent thinking are important because they form opportunities for active thinking that may bring about meaningful learning. Thus, the cognitive demands of tasks, which require higher order thinking skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, will always be kept high  (p.6).

Self-regulatory is not an expression that I am likely to use (or perhaps even think) on a regular basis.  Self-directed is different…appealing.  Possibly it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is what I believe that expression indicates for students as they continue along the path to becoming independent learners. 

So to summarise:

•regulation of learning process is managed by the learner

•the learning goals and the learning outcomes are well established

•directions for achieving the learning goals and resources are pre-determined

•learner need to regulate their learning activities to achieve the goals by completing the designated learning tasks.

This to potentially be achieved through:

•students’ reasoning difficulties become opportunities for productive interactions between teachers and students

•cognitive demands of tasks, which require higher order thinking skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.

Looking analytically   

Given the above factors, I have decided that the way forward is to undertake another unit and test it, both against the above criteria and to see if there are any changes to be made which would improve it as an exercise, partially designed to try to develop the self-regulated learner.  Unfortunately, as seems to be the way of teaching, time has been no ally and the unit is not complete (or even close for that matter) at the time of submission of this story of learning.  As a result, I can make only limited observations about progress.

I chose a new unit, one which we were expected to teach under the new Australian Curriculum in History at Year Eight.  I settled on this because it was new and could be designed and built to try to incorporate the new thinking about SRL rather than trying to unpack another pre-taught unit.

Students were to be given a choice of three different topics under the broad designation Expanding Conflicts.  The task was designed using the GRASPS format from Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2004).  The task descriptions can be found in the Appendix (A).  The process looked like this:

•One focus question, What was the impact of (your topic) locally and on the world in both the short term and the long term?

•One introductory lesson on each of the three topics for choice

•Given that the task involved students being invited to contribute a chapter of a textbook about their chosen topic, one lesson was spent exploring textbook chapters - how they were structured, aspects of a chapter etc.

•Students were given classroom lessons to complete the task

•Occasional reflections, both written and in small topic-based groups.

One early issue was that because this was a new topic, I had no real idea how long it was going to take.  So, I left open the due date for submission to the editor.  In response to some questions from students, I realised quite quickly that I had made a mistake.  If students were to be self-regulating, they needed a final date to be able to organise themselves and plan for completion and submission on time.

Other issues arose in casual conversations with students.  Several students asked if it was possible to see a completed example of a chapter.  Students in my classes were used to me providing models for key Performances of Understanding so it was a reasonable question.  Notwithstanding that I had no completed models to show because it was a new unit, I responded in the negative and explained that I wanted boys to “trust themselves.”  I did also explain that as Editor, I would be providing a feedback service in my search for the ideal chapter.  So there was a fall-back position for students, although they didn’t seem convinced!

Reflections

At the time of submitting this story of learning, I have had the opportunity to undertake one round of student reflections.  This took place about five lessons into the unit.  The reflection included the following questions:

1.Up to this point describe all that you have done.

2.What are your next steps…where are you going with the learning next?

3.Thinking about you rather than just availability of resources. What have you found difficult?  Why do you think that is?

4.How have you overcome these issues?

5.Where are you on this continuum SO FAR in this project with regard to self- managing?

Really struggling __________________________________________________ no problems

The responses were unsatisfying. 

The first two questions were designed to focus student thinking on their progress in terms of the assignment itself.  The remaining questions were the beginning steps in trying to enable students to reflect on their own learning process.  Most students ignored the direct request in question three to not discuss source availability but to consider learning issues. 

Most responded by discussing the former:

Typically

I’ve found it difficult finding books about the blackdeath [sic].  It was hard to find the   right books.

Some students did realise the focus of the question:

Knowing which information is true and which isn’t as sometimes different sources have different information.

and

I have found getting structure difficult.  Finding the balance between research and actual work.

Also

Trying to write detailed info based on a site but not trying to just copy everything.

So some students at least were recognising genuine learning problems as they worked through the task, surely an important step in developing the capacity to be more independent.  I have yet to talk to these students about how they are dealing with their issues but that is my next step (and an opportunity for productive interactions between teachers and students).

Interestingly, for Question 5, almost every student rated themselves close to the no problems end of the line of self-management.  Initially I thought this disappointing given that some who indicated so were clearly not managing at all well.  On reflection, however, I can see that such responses might be the beginning point of a conversation later in the unit about honesty in self-reflection as a critical part of the process of learning.

Just a beginning

As indicated above, this unit is far from completed and submission for this paper is imminent.  The full story about what happened in the unit will have to wait for another day.  As a beginning, however, it has given me much to consider already as I seek to empower students I teach to become more resilient, reflective and self-regulatory in their learning.  Above all, it seems to be about opportunity.  That is, endeavouring to engineer opportunities to allow students to develop these skills and habits.  Can these be taught?  I’m not sure.  Can they be fostered?  I hope so and I intend to continue to try.

References

Ritchhart, R   Cultures of Thinking program conducted at Melbourne Grammar School

( 2010-2013)

Balapumi, R & Aitken, A (2012) Concepts and Factors Influencing Independent Learning in IS Higher Education    23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems

Wiggins, G & McTighe, J (2004)  Understanding by Design Workbook (ASCD, Virginia, USA)

APPENDIX A

Expanding Contacts

Congratulations!

As a well-known writer of History textbooks, you have been invited to write a chapter about one of the following topics:

•The Mongol Expansion (c.1206 – c.1368)

•The Black Death (14th century)

•The Spanish Conquest of the Americas (c.1492 – c.1572)

The chapter will be part of a very prestigious Year 8 History textbook and it will form the main resource for students doing a Year 8 History course called “Expanding Contacts –what changed the world in the Medieval period?”

The editor of the textbook has been quite specific about how your chapter is to be written.  As well as providing appropriate information, he has insisted that you should include maps to assist in students developing their understanding, images, together with what any historian worships - evidence .  He would welcome links to internet sites as well (perhaps Youtube clips for instance) as he intends that this should become an eBook.

Finally, the editor has insisted that the final section of your chapter address in significant detail the focus question (as part of the course):

What was the impact of your topic locally and on the world in both the short term and the long term?

Editor’s note:

Dear Contributor,

Thank you for your willingness to be part of a possible contributing team for our new textbook.  Whilst much of what you produce in your chapter is up to you, we do have certain areas which we insist are covered in your chapter information and design.  They are listed as follows:

Mongol Expansion (c.1206 – c.1368)

The nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols and the rise of Temujin (Genghis Khan)

The organisation of the Mongol army under Genghis Khan and the treatment of conquered peoples, such as the codification of laws and exemption of teachers, lawyers and artists from taxes

The extent of the Mongol expansion as one of the largest land empires in history, including life in China before, during and after the Mongol

The consequences of the Mongol expansion, including contributions to European knowledge and trade routes

The Black Death in Asia, Europe and Africa (14th century plague)

Living conditions and religious beliefs in the 14th century, including life expectancy, medical knowledge and beliefs about the power of God

The role of expanding trade between Europe and Asia in the Black Death, including the origin and spread of the disease

The causes and symptoms of the Black Death and the responses of different groups in society to the spread of the disease, such as the flagellants and

The effects of the Black Death on Asian, European and African populations, and conflicting theories about the impact of the plague

Other immediate and long-term effects of the Black Death, including labour shortages, peasant uprisings, the weakening of feudal structures, and increased social mobility

The Spanish Conquest of the Americas (c.1492 – c.1572)

Pre-Columbian life in the Americas, including social organisation, city life and beliefs

When, how and why the Spanish arrived in the Americas, and where they went, including the various societies and geographical features they encountered

The nature of the interaction between the Spanish and the indigenous populations, with a particular focus on either the Aztecs OR Incas

The impact of the conquest on the Aztecs OR Incas as well as on the wider world, such as the introduction of new diseases, horses and gunpowder in the Americas, and new foods and increased wealth in Europe

The longer-term effects of colonisation, including slavery, population changes and lack of control over resources.

EDITORIAL DECISION – MAKING PROCESS

Dear Contributor,

All manuscripts for the chapter will need to be submitted by        .  As we are working to a deadline, this date cannot be extended.  It is expected that all contributions are made electronically so that it can be determined if the chapter would be appropriate for an eBook.

Editorial decision will be final.  Feedback will be provided to all contributions and will be made according to the following criteria, critical for success as a chapter in one of our   textbooks:

•Detail and accuracy of information provided (please refer to the minimum guideline requirements in the editor’s note)     30%

•The final section of the chapter which focuses on the question “What was the impact of your topic locally and on the world in both the short term and the long term?”     30%

•Use of evidence within the chapter as a basic History skill to be mastered     20%

•Presentation (including Bibliography at the end of the chapter)         10%

•Appropriate use of images, technology (links)       10%

Regards,

The Editor