6.3: Empowering Students
Choice should be a developmental, instructional and integrated part of the curriculum. When students are involved in the decision-making process, their levels of attention, interest, engagement and retention are bound to increase, and that is facilitating true learning.
When students have ownership in their academic pursuits, learning becomes more tangible. Prior to instruction, there is thought put into design and direction of the lessons. Students do not have to ask, “What are we doing today?” Since the curriculum belongs to them, they are already prepared by having elicited some prior knowledge through the planning of the lessons. When students help design the curriculum, they are better equipped to monitor their progress as well, therefore students should also be encouraged to construct rubrics for the assignments they choose. This opportunity to set and describe the levels of performance that are expected not only allows them to determine their own challenges, but motivates them to meet them. Learning takes on a whole new meaning (internalized and personal) when a student strives to meet the expectations set by himself or his peers.
Rubrics should be designed clearly enough that their designer can step away from the assessment, and another evaluator should be able to follow the guidelines contained therein and come up with the same evaluation. Students have an opportunity to really see how excellent work, average work and poor work manifest themselves against a clear set of their own guidelines. Just as important, I think students benefit from evaluating the process of assessment. They have the capacity to discern whether an assignment or its guidelines were too easy or difficult based upon the grade distribution, or they may consider the lessons or learning process a larger contributor to that distribution, whether good or bad.
This empowerment to direct learning does not qualify students to change or replace standards, but it begins to teach them how to democratically, responsibly and sometimes creatively determine the means to that end. It is a social process that introduces students to the impact of making and monitoring big decisions. The duty of the teacher is to model and facilitate that process. If the teacher visibly resists this sort of practice in other areas of the school or unfairly handles issues in the classroom, the process becomes transparent and ineffective.
How do empowered students learn to deal with the consequences of their academic decisions? First, I think it is important to note that teachers must be willing to recognize that some students are not ready for such empowerment and simply require more direction. Once they have it, they inherently are empowered to give it back!
The students who are ready and that embrace the ownership they have in their learning desperately want to correct any flaws both for the benefit of their learning and for the benefit of the continuation of the process. Designing lessons or assessments that are ineffective learning tools is a failure of the process. If students are truly ready for empowerment, they will recognize the areas that need improvement or directional change and work toward better instruction and assessment.
For example, A Community of Teachers requires us to take this sort of responsibility for our education and enrichment of field our experiences. Without student-developed and directed curricula and monitored, focused discussions, we would seriously lack reflective material sufficient to demonstrate our proficiency in the thirty expectation areas. We rely upon one another to present ideas and materials that will foster appropriate discussions that truly justify replacing traditional education classes and required coursework with self-directed field experience, thoughtful reflection, research and topical seminar work. We also benefit from the longevity of our faculty and rely upon their professional and academic expertise to interject concrete truths and deconstruct misconceptions. A Community of Teachers is no short cut! It is an effective example of the elements of student leadership and faculty responsibility coming together to create a better learning environment that is driven by the empowerment of its students.
Management experience has taught me a great deal about this sort of democratic approach. I am usually the manager that will allow staff to divvy up their responsibilities in a manner that they feel is fair and within the standards. I will step in to mediate either if they cannot reach an agreement or are exceeding the bounds of the standards. Most times they find equitable solutions, because they know they will rarely benefit from the finality of my “by-the-book” resolve. The work gets done mainly under peer group accountability. The leaders on the staff know exactly what is expected, because they outlined the expectations. Most people are motivated to do the work, because the list represents standards that they value. They know they reserve the right to make changes, but those changes always emerge to serve the greater good by raising the bar or more evenly distributing the work.
Teachers should become aware through practice or professional development of strategies that exist to introduce student choices into the classroom. Formal collaborations such as co-teaching (A Guide to Co-Teaching, Villa, Thousand, Nevin, 2004) or peer assessments, using Student Management Teams (Meaningful Assessment: A Manageable and Cooperative Process, Johnson & Johnson, 2002), and questionnaires that elicit student input or feedback into the curriculum, are just a few examples (click here for more ideas) of ways to introduce the students’ voices into the academic plan. It may feel uncomfortable at first, sort of like giving up the reigns or letting the cart steer the horse, but I believe students’ potential often gets pushed down under a teacher-mandated routine or theoretical and administrative “best practices.” That potential is unleashed when students are allowed to sound off about their education to an audience that listens.
The progressive teacher acknowledges each student's right to make important decisions about what is learned, how it is learned, when, and with whom. As a British head (principal) once put it, "The basis for learning should be that the child wants to know, not that somebody else knows or that somebody says he ought to know." Relevance, in other words, is to be determined by the learner herself. The pseudo- progressive teacher, while he may offer "choice time," presents only options chosen by himself and only at limited times. At worst, this teacher uses choice as a reward and withholds it as punishment.
