Читать книгу Giving Students a Say - Myron Dueck - Страница 22

Too often, the teacher is the only person who's aware of the learning intentions (be they standards or targets), which results in a top-down approach to learning. This situation is similar to a platoon of soldiers being ordered to take a hill or clear a street, with the only person knowing any of the details or obstacles being the commanding officer. Historically, this has been the approach of many armed forces, but too often it leads to confusion and lack of morale. In their best-selling book Extreme Ownership (2015), former Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin describe the necessity of "decentralized command" and the critical importance of "every tactical-level team member [understanding] not just what to do, but why they are doing it" (p. 183).

If this principle is true for SEAL team members attempting to secure a military target, it likely applies to other environments also—classrooms included. Similar to the SEAL team's situation, the extent to which students understand the process of learning is inextricably linked to how much they care about and feel empowered in the pursuit of it. Tomlinson and Moon (2013) write that "successful learners understand the learning process, accept it as worthy of time and effort, and accept the centrality of their role in contributing to their success" (p. xii). When teachers are the only ones aware of the learning intentions, it's not only disempowering for the students but also inefficient. Moss and Brookhart (2012) warn that when relying on "teacher-centered instructional objectives," teachers spend "a great deal of energy trying to get students to meet the instructional objective. Meanwhile the students spend the bulk of their energy figuring out how to comply" (p. 18).

Implication for assessment: We should design our assessment plan to include creation and sharing of the learning targets with students as partners in the process. We should take on the challenge of cocreating the learning targets when possible. By providing students with a voice in the process, later on they will have a much greater chance of understanding the success criteria and effectively self-assessing and self-reporting on those targets.