- Standards Based Education: Like other Maine school districts, mine has been working to make the required shift to a standards based diploma. While the requirement seems to be more of a high school matter, it has trickled down to K-8, particularly the middle level where most of the adjustments seem to be taking place.
- Customized Learning: Likely due to the upcoming standards based requirement deadlines, my district joined the Maine Cohort for Customized Learning (MCCL). As a cohort member, the district gained access to the cohort's progression-based, standards driven curriculum. The district also gained a seat at the table in the effort to promote and support a more personalized (i.e.- customized) approach to teaching and learning that has been the norm.
- Comprehensive Literacy Framework: While linked to literacy in its implementation this is really an instructional model/structure (hence, framework) intended to improve classroom instruction, particularly literacy instruction.
My efforts have focused almost exclusively on the first two initiatives while many of my colleagues have been exploring the third with the support of a literacy specialist who is versed in both the framework and literacy instruction.
However, of late, I have wondered why the three initiatives can't be intertwined to a greater degree. For example, if the framework consists of research supported approaches that represent good teaching, and customized learning represents a logical means to engage students in learning, why can't the two work together?
If only it were that easy!
From what I have seen, the framework is a valid approach to teaching and learning in general. However, there is a key component missing in this largely whole class and small group approach to teaching and learning - the two part reality of learning rates (the appropriate pace of learning for individual students) and learning waves (the ebbs and flows individual students go through as they learn) Students simply don't all learn at the same pace; I know of no teachers who dispute that fact. Also, ask teachers and they will tell you that sometimes individual students learn slower (the ebbs), and sometimes those same students learn faster (the flows). Individual and small group pace variation is a key component of standards based education. The framework, with an emphasis on what the whole class is learning within a common lesson, fails to address these issues adequately. Making this issue even more significant is the overwhelming level of customization young learners expect in their 21st century lives.
No problem! Just implement customized learning and toss the framework on the 20th century scrap heap, right?
Not so fast!
Yes, customized learning with its focus on the individual is an excellent way to address both the waves and pace of student learning. It is also possible to give students far more power over their personal education experience than is allowed by the framework which is more teacher driven. However, the instructional practices of the framework can't be simply ignored. For example, establishing and clearly explaining a goal for a particular learning session is very good educational practice. It's also in the framework, by the way. So is small group learning that I, in my zeal to individualize my students' experience, have given the short end of the stick. It makes sense to incorporate the effective teaching strategies of the framework within a customized approach. Customized learning should be an "all hands on deck" approach to teaching and learning, and to ignore the benefits of an instructional framework would be provincial and foolish.
I'm increasingly convinced that there is a middle ground and that this middle ground embeds a variety of instructional approaches within a customized structure. Sound vague? It is, but I'm working to make it more clear in my own mind and will share the result. Like this entire effort, it's a bold adventure and a work in progress.
