Learning Focused Schools Start Student Conversations

It’s the million-dollar question; how do you engage students, motivate them and hopefully see them thrive?

A good place to begin is by asking the students what they are experiencing in their school life, what they like and what they don’t. Sounds simple really, but often its easier said than done.

Annelies Hoogland has twenty years of teaching all over the world - Netherlands, Egypt and Thailand - behind her and has orchestrated opportunities for growth and change through a learning vision, talking with students about their learning, and actively seeking out opportunities to connect and collaborate with colleagues around student thinking data.

“The core purpose of schools is learning. In a true learning focused school, students will be immersed in outstanding learning experiences, teachers will receive opportunities to continually improve their pedagogical practices and leaders will actively lead and monitor the quality of learning (Southwell, 2013). To realise this learning vision, I left the office to engage with students in classrooms where the learning was happening,” she says.

“During my everyday leadership, I popped into one or two classrooms to talk with a few students about their in the moment learning, scribing their responses. Questions that elicited this learning data and thinking from students included:
Could you tell me what are you learning right?
What is helping you learn?
What gets in the way of your learning?
Are you enjoying this learning? What makes you say that?”

Classroom visits to gather student learning data and engaging teachers in learning conversations eventually change the culture of a school. Over time, students enhance their ability to articulate who they are as learners and become more meta-cognitive as thinkers.

“Most students wanted to share their lived experiences of learning and their voice proved to be the most powerful way to grow and improve teacher practice. Teachers were always eager to have the learning conversations as they were very curious about the student data. This data was mostly very affirming for the teacher and at other times, surprising. The qualitative and timely data helped teachers see individual student learning differently and this opened up opportunities to respond to individual learning needs.”

Talking with students only takes place when students are working and there is no direct class teaching going on, ensuring learning is not being hindered.

And gathering learning data is futile unless it is shared with the student's teacher.  The ‘learning conversation’ with the teacher is a feedback session and needs to take place in a timely manner so that it leads to immediate teacher actions to improve student learning.

“The student data provides vital informative feedback to teachers about how their students are learning or not learning. This is what makes student voice so powerful.”

The process of initiating the learning conversation starts with thanking the teacher for the classroom visit and sharing the student responses verbatim. The only question asked of the teacher is, “How do you make sense of this data?” The focus of the learning conversation is not to pass any judgement. The teacher is in control of the learning conversation and decides how to make use of the data by intentionally developing ‘next learning steps’ for their students.

What stops schools from being truly learning focused? First, teachers are time poor and there is all the stuff that needs doing.

“Stuffed schools seemingly get swept up in the moment of being all things to all people and all needs. They become reactive and operate in that sphere.

“It takes great courage to say that the ‘stuff’ does not have a huge positive impact on improving learning. When I left the office to be in classrooms, I was less available to solve the problems of others. What happened? People started solving their own issues and gained the confidence in themselves to do so,” Hoogland says.

If they are to be effective, school improvement processes should be based on research and practices that show evidence of how to improve learning.

“Educational research supports the belief that a school’s core business is the identification and improvement of all students’ learning. However, the reality is that school leaders often find it challenging to keep learning as the focus of their school. One practical strategy that our leadership team implemented was the use of powerful learning-focused filter questions:

“What’s this got to do with learning?
How will this action/decision/program impact positively on student learning? And to what extent? How will we know?
If I/we do this, how will it increase student learning?
If my team does this, how will it make a positive difference to student learning? How will we know?

“Recognising that the prime responsibility of leadership is to influence both directly and indirectly the learning in school, these empowering filter questions led the way.  While there are many processes and strategies that will help improve learning, we decided to focus our time, energy and resources on those practices that would provide the greatest learning impact.

“Filter questions provide leadership with a powerful tool that protects the learning by filtering out the distractions,” she says.

Teachers are sometimes puzzled by particular students’ learning and want to gain a deeper understanding of what is helping or hindering that learning. Teachers began asking Hoogland to focus on these students and generate data that might shed light on their strengths and shortcomings.

“A group of kindergarten teachers started using the protocol to get into each other’s classrooms and engage in student learning data. They used this data at their weekly team meetings to drive the improvement of learning through student voice. Teaming and collaboration took on new meaning and as a school we built a much deeper understanding of what learning-focused practice looked like. Further, teachers expressed feeling less isolated in their profession.

“I recall one particular classroom visit when I asked individual students, ‘Is there anything that hinders your learning in this class?’ All three students made mention of the room itself - it was an internal room that was too long and narrow as a learning space and had no natural light. I shared the student data with the teacher, and together we knew that this had to change immediately. Within a few days, this space became a storage room and an alternative classroom was created.

“A teacher shared with me that she had run out of ideas to stretch the learning of one of her high performing Grade 2 students. She asked me to engage with the student during a particular class. When asked, ‘What might help you learn more?’  the student was very articulate around the need for more small group conversations and opportunities to explore her personal wonderings related to the topic.

“During the learning conversation, the teacher realised her own need for control in the classroom and started to explore some steps she could take to allow students to drive the learning. Somehow, student feedback seemed to depersonalise the improvement process. The focus was on the students and their learning as opposed to the teacher and her teaching. It can take time to make this shift.”

Hoogland speaks at the 20th International Conference on Thinking in Melbourne in July