Learning Power in Practice

A Guide for Teachers

Ruth Deakin Crick

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781446231227
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

?This book provides a variety of ideas for use in the classroom, based on practical applications of the conceptual understanding of learning power...

...[It] tells the reader about the "Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory" research programme (ELLI) and uses practical examples of how it can work in actual classes to explain its effectiveness. Its value for practitioners working with children with SEN appears to be in the way it challenges them to look at themselves as learners - also how they can support the children they work with to become more effective learners? - Special Needs Coordinator?s File

?This is not a gimmicky approach... The approach here fosters deeper understanding for both the teacher and learner of exactly what the process involves... It contains much to interest schoolteachers, senior managers and those involved with learners of any age? - ESCalate

Contains Learning Power flash cards!

What kind of learner are you? How can you become a better learner?

This book puts the findings of the well known Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) research programme into the practical context of the classroom, helping you to find answers to these questions.

The book offers many suggestions for practical ways to improve the learning power of all the children in your class. It looks at:

"learning power - what it is and how it can be achieved

"creating the right classroom environment for powerful learning

"how learning power works in the primary and secondary school classroom

"how animal metaphors can be used with children to explain concepts.

This is an exciting read for anyone interested in how children learn, and how we can help them to learn more effectively. It fits in very well with the debate around such concepts as accelerated learning, thinking skills and learning styles.

Chapter 1

Learning power: what is it?

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This chapter introduces the idea of learning power. It is worth reading this chapter carefully, because it underpins all the ideas about learning power in the rest of the book.

It explains:

• what we know about learning power
• how we can recognise learning power in action
• how learning power is part of a complex ecology of learning
• the seven dimensions of learning power that emerged from research.

INTRODUCTION

The term learning power¹ has become a popular one in schools in the last few years. Understanding what learning power is and how it relates to learning to learn, learning styles, assessment for learning and attainment is essential for anyone wanting to develop learning power in themselves or in their students. This chapter will explain what learning power is and what it is not, based on what we know about it so far from research evidence.

Learning power is something that people recognise intuitively, but it is difficult to explain and understand. This is partly because we have lost the language to describe learning well and partly because it is not something that can be touched, felt, seen or heard!

Learning power is invisible, rather like a form of energy, and this makes it more difficult to understand than something concrete or material. In fact we can be specific about particular dimensions of learning power, but these are presumed to be evidence of the presence of learning power in a person, rather than learning power itself. When we see light in a light bulb, we know electricity is present – we don’t see the electricity itself. Learning power is similar.

In this chapter we will first explore why learning power matters and where it fits in the ‘ecology of learning’.² Secondly we will explore what it actually is and finally we will look at the dimensions of learning power that have emerged from the research.

LEARNING AS AN ECOLOGY

Learning is not a simple thing. There are many factors that influence learning that are both inside and outside the learner as a person. For example the quality of relationships in the classroom has a profound impact on learning – trust and acceptance foster learning, whereas fear and boredom inhibit learning. How a learner feels about herself, her aspirations and hopes as well as physical comfort and levels of worry all have an effect on the quality of learning.

Climate for learning

Creating a climate for learning in the classroom means making sure that every activity, relationship and process supports the development of students’ learning power

Equally, the climate of the classroom affects how learners can learn – assessment strategies in particular have an impact. For example, we know that formal testing used for grading students actually has a negative impact on learning. It influences what students think and feel about themselves as learners, how they perceive their capacity to learn and their energy for learning.³ Yet some assessment strategies are prescribed by government, and therefore, indirectly, government policy too, is part of this complex ecology. As in a garden, the ecology needs to be optimal for growing particular types of plants. The right sort of temperature, moisture and nutrients really matter. In developing learning power we need to be able to provide the optimal ecology. Some of the key ingredients which will be touched upon throughout this book include relationships, reflection, self-awareness, motivation, dialogue, trust and challenge, time and space.

LEARNING POWER AT THE HEART OF THE ECOLOGY OF THE CLASSROOM

In a garden the whole purpose of creating an optimal ecology is to release the energy for plants to grow and thrive. In the learning classroom and school, the whole purpose of attending to the ecology of learning is to release the energy for learners to learn and change over time. That is in essence what learning power is: the life energy which is present in all human beings that leads to human growth, development and fulfilment over time. It is this life energy that is behind all human cultural, scientific and humanitarian achievements.

Back in the classroom, however, this core energy for learning is still critically important for those cultural, scientific and humanitarian achievements that make up the fabric of everyday life in school. How we can engage and harness that energy in young learners is the focus of this book.

It is sometimes the case that we get the balance wrong. It is as if what matters most is what teachers do, or the content of the curriculum, rather than learners and learning. Classrooms are still too often dominated by a focus on assessment and testing to see if standards are improving. This has actually detracted from student learning, although ‘assessment for learning’ strategies are beginning to redress that balance.

Perhaps a more systemic, and therefore more pernicious, lack of balance has been a focus on attainment and raising standards at the expense of personal development. That is not to say that the attainment of knowledge, skills and understanding is not important – it is a central purpose of schooling to which we all aspire. However, its twin purpose is personal development and preparation for adult life, including active citizenship and enterprise. This aspect of schooling, although enshrined in the preamble to legislation and in the inspection frameworks, has had far less sustained attention in research, policy and practice. As we will see throughout this book, the development of learning power is a highly personal process which sits at the heart of both attainment and preparation for adult life. It could also be a key to greater achievement by all students.

WHAT WE DO IS WHAT WE TEACH

When we teach, two important things happen, whether we like it or not. We teach the content of what is to be learned and we teach young people to love or to hate that learning. In other words we teach the knowledge, skills and understanding that are usually the prescribed focus of the curriculum and, at the same time, we teach students to form particular values and attitudes towards learning in school. The way we teach, what we do, how we are as people in the classroom and our own attitudes to learning all help to form in our students particular values, attitudes and dispositions towards themselves and learning, of which we are often unaware. Of course, these are sometimes negative towards school learning.

The forming of values, attitudes and dispositions is a central part of personal development. Personal development is an important part of the purpose of education and it includes the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of students, the development of the dispositions and attitudes and values for citizenship, for enterprise and for the realisation of a person’s full potential as a human being in the community.

The development of knowledge, skills, understanding and personal development always happen together. It is a profound mistake to treat them as though they are separate processes. No teacher is only a teacher of a subject – all teachers model and impart values, attitudes and beliefs through their relationships and through all they do. The person of the teacher as well as their professional ‘know how’ in the classroom both have an impact. A teacher’s authenticity, integrity and orientation to learning and learners all influence the learning ecology, as well as the sorts of learning and teaching strategies he employs. The personal development of the teacher is as important, therefore, as the personal development of the learner.

Values: what really matters around here.

Attitudes: clusters of thoughts, feelings and beliefs about people, ideas and things.

Disposition: a tendency to behave in a certain way.

BECOMING LEARNER CENTRED

Being ‘knowledge centred’ leads to a learning climate where transmission of knowledge, skills and understanding becomes the most important value, and learners and teachers are judged by how well they impart or acquire that knowledge. Being ‘child centred’ leads to a learning climate where the child’s experience is most important and learners and teachers are judged by how relevant the learning processes and outcomes are for the child. While both of these are necessary, focusing on one at the expense of the other is unhelpful. Being learner centred means that we recognise the importance of both the child and the knowledge, but the focus is on the child as a learner and the process of learning. When we integrate personal development and attainment we begin to harness learning power and we become ‘learner centred’ in our approach rather than ‘knowledge centred’ or ‘child centred’.

When we focus attention on the learner and learning and we combine this with what we know about teaching, school and classroom organisation that best promote the highest levels of motivation and achievement for all students, then we are being learner centred, according to research from McCombs in the USA (McCombs and Whisler, 1997).

Ecology for learning

An ecology for learning is a micro-climate where learners and learning are at the heart of all that happens. Teachers seek to create the best possible conditions for learning and growth.

Creating the optimum ecology for learning is a question of values. A value can be understood as ‘what really matters around here’ because that is what will actually shape practice. If it is not clear what really matters, or if what really matters to policy-makers is different to what really matters to teachers or learners, then the ecology suffers.

Learner centredness also relates to the beliefs, characteristics, dispositions, and practices of teachers – practices primarily created by the teacher. According to McCombs, when teachers derive their practices from a learner-centred perspective, they:

• include learners in decisions about how and what they learn and how that learning is assessed
• value each learner’s unique perspective
• respect and accommodate individual differences in learners’ backgrounds, interests, abilities, and experiences
• treat learners as co-creators and partners in the teaching and learning process.

The personal qualities and skills of teachers really matter. It is as much about who we are and how we teach as what we teach.

THE DOUBLE HELIX OF LEARNING

A metaphor for learning power that some people find helpful is the double helix, at the heart of DNA, and therefore of life. A double helix has two strands which run parallel to each other and never meet, but are always held together.

Teaching for learning has two strands which always run together (represented in Figure 1.1). One of the strands is personal development and the other strand is the knowledge, skills and understanding that we are attending to. The question is, what is it that holds these two strands together? We suggest that learning power is the energy that runs through the middle of the double...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• The ELLI story
• About the authors
• How to use this book
• 1 Learning power: what is it?
• 2 The stories of three learners
• 3 Typical learning profiles
• 4 Creating a learner-centred classroom
• 5 It’s all about values: learning power and well-being
• 6 Developing learning power in the primary classroom: animal metaphors as a vehicle for learning
• 7 Powerful learning in the primary school
• 8 Learning power in the secondary school
• 9 Learning power, leadership and school self-evaluation
• 10 Learning power and education for citizenship and enterprise
• Appendix 1: ‘The Rhythm of Learning’ Song
• Appendix 2: The Learning Power Flashcards (photocopiable version)
• Bibliography
• Index