Engaged Students Create Great Schools

By Tracey Arial

"If you looked in a magic spyglass, what would you see in your schools?" asked Connie Kamm, the keynote speaker at IDC's 7th annual learning symposium.

After 20 years in education reform, 30 years of teaching, and experience as a motivational speaker for the Centre for Performance Assessment, Kamm has her own vision. Still, she patiently waited while her audience discussed ideas with one another.

After several minutes, Kamm asked whether participants see: "a school where every child is challenged to learn, given the opportunity to explore and create, and is supported with the resources to be successful in the 21st century." Several people raised their hands.

Did we see:

• A campus full of young people who care about their education, their futures and one another?
• An energetic, highly-qualified faculty and staff united with a common vision, a common goal and common successes?
• Did we see an engaged and supportive community that supports the school?"
• Hands went up and down as she asked each question in turn.

"If we share this vision, how do we make it so?"

Adapt to the real world
The first challenge educators face is to meet the demands of a world in which more changes have occurred in the last hundred years than ever before, said Kamm. The computer and the convergence of info-tech, biotech and nanotech mean even more change in the future, while we're still struggling with the past. "You and I know that we have students who struggle with their reading and writing," said Kamm. "They struggle with their computing skills. We have kids who are not ready to get out in the real world and look for jobs."Future populations could work until the age of 107

Yet the coming generation will work more years and live longer than any previous group. In the last century, people began working at 14 years old and died on the job around the age of 47, said Kamm. Now, they face an average retirement age of 62 and a lifespan of 77. If things continue in the same vein, future populations could work until the age of 107.

Students in our schools today are facing different challenges and have different needs than students had in the past. As educators, we must build our practices to meet those needs.

Check your assumptions
Educators may make inherent challenges worse by over-reacting to false assumptions, said Kamm. She asked participants to consider three popular myths:

• there's no time to write in class;
• group work detracts from student learning;
• and poverty and poor language skills inhibit student achievement.

Recent studies have proved all three assumptions false.

Non-fiction writing in all areas of study improves learning because writing in class allows educators to see first-hand what students are learning while forcing students to think more deeply.

Group work encourages learning, even among lower level learners.

"Students who come from poverty may not initially do as well on standardized tests," said Kamm. "But there is no correlation between those students' backgrounds and their improvement in school. They learn just as well as others."

Create a laboratory of learning
Kamm believes that educators must continually check their assumptions, both by keeping current with the latest published research and by conducting first-hand studies in schools.

Begin by defining your school.

• Are you lucky because your students succeed, but you don't understand why?
• Are you losing in that your students obtain low results but you don't understand why?
• Are you a learning school with low results but a good understanding of why?
• Or, are you a leading school with successful students and a good understanding of why?

Kamm recommends asking students four questions after every school activity or project.

• What are you learning?
• Why is it important to know this information?
• Is your work good?
• How do you know your work is good?

These questions help educators continually ensure that every action within a school system leads to constructive student learning.

Share successes
Constructive student learning also relies on communicating successes with each other and the surrounding communities.

Communication tools vary. Data walls, on which students publish their work and teachers publish statistics and other success stories, are popular. Trophy cases and walls of fame work well too. One principal inspires staff by publishing an annual collection of successful case studies.