For our first blog post we have been asked to discuss a number of topics. Among these topics are: do we need to reimagine education? What are the potential benefits of developing a robust PLN? and Pros & cons of Lesson Plans vs Learning Plans. In this post I will go over my opinions on each of these three topics.
Do we need to reimagine education?
As it currently exists, the education system in BC caters broadly to the university system that exists after students graduate. Schools like those featured in the video “Most Likely to Succeed” or the Pacific School for Innovation and Inquiry offer a re imagined school, where student inquiry is the focus. For grades 10-12 the provincial public school system is the university system-lite, and so change in education would not be practical on the provincial level. It is unrealistic to imagine that universities across the world will change, and so changing the high school system too dramatically would be setting students up for failure at university. However, if there was large scale change in universities, systems like that from the Pacific School for Innovation and Inquiry may be more effective.
A discussion I had with two of my close friends who went to PSII reveals to me that inquiry led schools are not for everyone. For them, they put in significant amounts of work, often more so than other students did at public or more traditional private schools and so, for these students the school was a fantastic opportunity allowing them to go above and beyond the curriculum and to discover their passions. However, for others, it was simply a place they had to be for 8 hours a day, and a place to socialize. These students, who were not as driven, simply floundered academically, and got no real benefit from the alternative schooling system. So overall, I do not believe that these schools should replace the public system, but a reimagined school system may include elements, or streams, that incorporate many of the ideas from PSII and other inquiry based schools.
What are the potential benefits of developing a robust PLN?
A PLN, or Professional Learning Network, is a network of people that share information and teaching tools and resources with each other. Developing a robust PLN can mean that when you respond to a call out as a TTOC, you are equipped with tools that you would not have otherwise had for subjects that you may not be proficient in. Additionally, having a good PLN means that teachers have much more variety in the teaching tools that are available to them, meaning that they are able to meet the needs of a much more diverse audience of students.
Pros & Cons of Lesson Plans vs Learning Plans
In the perfect world, each child would be able to have a learning plan where they individually have goals and tasks laid out for them that are tailored to their needs. However, this is not exactly easy to do with 30 individuals in a class. A lesson plan provides a much less individual experience for each student, meaning that the type of instruction may not work for every student, and instruction has to slow down to match the speed of the slowest students. Lesson plans are efficient for the teacher, saving time and energy, and have a very focused layout that is suited to the beginning of units where information is dense. However, Learning plans offer a much more flexible scenario for the students. They are focused on the student and allow for co-creation of success metrics, which leads to much more buy in from the students and a greater degree of investment. Learning plans are more effective for individual students, but a realistic classroom means that often, teachers would have to use lesson plans to augment learning plans. With sites like TeachersPayTeachers or Twinkl learning plans are becoming much more accessible, and including AI in a teachers toolkit means that learning plans will take up less time for the teacher. Below is a picture of a premade learning plan sheet on Twinkl, free for use.
