Try this activity with a class you know. Ask them all to point an index finger at the ceiling. Tell them that you are going to ask them a question, and when they have come up with their answer to the question they should then point their finger at the answer. The question is “Who is responsible for your learning?”.
In many cases all fingers will point at the teacher. Sometimes pupils start to notice this and their fingers begin to waver. On one occasion I heard a class of 11 year-olds start to voice additional answers: “parents” “the governors” “ the government”! Whatever the immediate result, the ensuing conversation can lead to a few more learners quizzically pointing their fingers at themselves. And who can blame them for being slow? After all, it’s the school’s performance which matter for league tables and it’s the teacher’s performance that all this management is about, so where is the role for a learner to be the important agent in the picture?
The picture in our classrooms is illuminated by recent evidence from interventions such as Assessment for Learning and its later variants. When handled by the people who know its research base and understand the rationale, a focus on learner autonomy is a central theme. Yet this same team of researchers finds that only one fifth of lessons in their project is characterised by such a spirit of AfL. It would be wrong to suggest that the reasons for low pupil autonomy are that teachers do not value it. Further evidence shows that promoting learner autonomy is the area for which the biggest gap exists between current classroom practice and teachers’ values . So we can gain optimism from knowing that teachers would wish the situation to be better, but doubtless feel significant tensions in the current climate.
So what do we want for learners in our classes (as well as for ourselves as learners)? Here’s where the metaphor of “driving” our learning can offer some valuable description. When driving we have an idea for a destination - perhaps a bit of a map of the territory - we have hands on the wheel, steering - making decisions as the journey unfolds - and all of these are crucially related to the core process of noticing how it’s going and how that relates to where we want to be. When it comes to learning, those core processes are the key to being an effective learner. They involve planning, monitoring, and reflecting.
Plenty of research demonstrates that when learners drive the learning it leads to:
- greater engagement and intrinsic motivation
- students setting higher challenge
- students evaluating their work
- better problem-solving