Framework for Teaching & Learning
- Principle #1: Active Learning Community
- Principle #2: Challenging Expectations
- Principle #3: Meaningful Knowledge
- Principle #4: Purposeful Engagement
- Principle #5: Individual Responsibility
Principle #1: Active Learning Community
Students learn best when they have a sense of belonging to a positive learning community in which they have regular opportunities to work collaboratively.
Teachers…
- Organize the classroom environment with clearly established routines and behavioral expectations
- Create effective systems to hold students accountable for individual and group responsibilities
- Model thinking and share learning as a member of the classroom community
- Provide direct instruction and guided practice in the skills and dispositions of effective collaborative work
- Encourage questions, nurture multiple points of view and value intellectual risk-taking
- Facilitate student to student discourse, developing effective communications skills
- Structure opportunities for students to share work publicly
- Promote learning through engagement with others as mentors and critics
Students…
- Establish and reflect on classroom and small group norms for respectful behavior and effective communication
- Participate actively in discussions and collaborative tasks
- Speak and write clearly to communicate with others
- Exchange meaningful and constructive feedback
- Clarify ideas by asking questions, listening to others
- Investigate and appreciate multiple points of view
- Share their work publicly and engage in dialogue about process and product
Principle #2: Challenging Expectations
Students learn best when they understand performance expectations and are individually supported in meeting challenging standards.
Teachers…
- Maintain high expectations for all students
- Communicate learning goals clearly
- Anticipate misconceptions and connect new learning to prior knowledge
- Articulate performance expectations using rubrics and exemplars of quality work
- Provide timely and specific feedback to students
- Differentiate instruction using a variety of resources, materials and grouping strategies responsively
- Design opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding in a variety of ways
Students…
- Ask questions to clarify expectations and learning goals
- Use and maintain organizational systems to support academic achievement
- Persist in the face of challenging learning tasks
- Evaluate and revise work using rubrics, models, and feedback
- Overcome obstacles to understanding by seeking teacher or peer support
- Seek new resources and strategies for learning
Principle #3: Meaningful Knowledge
Students learn best when they see content as meaningful and organized around big ideas and questions and can transfer learning to new contexts.
Teachers…
- Provide a clear purpose for learning and focus instruction on essential understandings and essential questions
- Make explicit connections between students’ prior knowledge to new learning
- Link content knowledge to students’ personal experiences, real world events, and other disciplines
- Develop tasks that require students to synthesize, transfer and apply their knowledge and skills to new situations
- Use data to engage students in analytical and critical thinking about conceptual ideas
- Expect students to support thinking with clear and compelling evidence
Students…
- Look for connections between what they are learning and what they already know
- Articulate the purpose of their learning to themselves and others
- Transfer learning skills and knowledge from one context to another
- Recognize bias, values and beliefs and understand their impact on knowledge
- Access, analyze and create data to understand conceptual ideas
- Support thinking with clear, logical and relevant evidence
Principle #4: Purposeful Engagement
Students learn best when they are actively engaged in authentic learning tasks and given opportunities to construct meaning and develop understanding.
Teachers…
- Structure learning tasks that engage students in authentic work of the discipline
- Develop inquiry-oriented lessons in response to essential questions
- Pose complex, intriguing and challenging problems for students to solve
- Stimulate critical and creative thinking and model active listening
- Use multi-media and technology tools to enhance learning outcomes
- Seek and provide real audiences for student work
- Act as coaches, facilitators, and guides to promote engagement and develop leadership in students
Students…
- Actively seek answers to their own questions and explore their interests
- Hypothesize, analyze, question, and evaluate ideas within the work of the discipline
- Accept opportunities to assume partnership and leadership roles in the classroom
- Take initiative to bring interesting ideas and resources into the classroom community
- Think critically and use reasoning skills to develop understanding
- Think creatively and use problem solving skills to develop innovative ideas
Principle #5: Individual Responsibility
Students learn best when they make choices about and take responsibility for their own learning goals and progress.
Teachers…
- Design learning tasks that require students to be self-directed, make choices and manage time effectively to achieve their learning goals
- Structure group tasks to ensure individual and collective accountability
- Plan for regular opportunities for student reflection through discussion and writing
- Foster a growth mindset helping students to see mistakes as learning opportunities
- Celebrate resiliency and resourcefulness in the face of setbacks or obstacles
Students…
- Evaluate the quality of their performances / work products
- Set learning goals and reflect on progress
- Learn from their own mistakes and develop new strategies
- Advocate for themselves by asking for help when needed
- Learn to become self-directed to make choices that match interests and learning needs
- Assume responsibility for good work habits
- Develop leadership skills in areas of interest