Developing ‘Pupil Responsibility for Learning’ is about teaching children the skills to be good learners. We want them to learn how to learn so that, instead of relying on teachers to tell them the answers, they develop their own strategies to solve problems and evaluate their own learning. This might include developing a sense of ownership and purpose in their learning as well as enabling them to reflect on what they are doing well and what they need to do better. Teachers have been exploring a wide range of creative approaches to developing responsibility for learning, which fall into three main groups: marking; purpose for learning; problem solving and independence.
Teachers have been using diagnostic marking, in which they ask questions for children to reflect on and answer in order to improve a piece of work or think more deeply about a topic. Children are also asked to write comments on their own work to encourage them to think reflectively and take ownership of their work. Children are taught how to self or peer mark work and are given ‘scaffolds’ to help them understand how to do this (such as in RS where they ask themselves whether they have ‘PEEd’ - made a Point, and given an Example or Evidence).
Perhaps the most fundamental skills in taking responsibility for learning are independence and problem-solving. Classrooms where teachers have created a problem-solving approach buzzed with children discussing, questioning, working together, advising each other, accessing resources that they had chosen for a task independently and thinking at a deeper level. This was seen in a variety of contexts, from investigations in Science to discussion-based work in which children were questioning and discussing ideas themselves instead of learning ‘the answers’. For example, in discussing who killed the princes in the tower in a Form 6 History lesson, children were given structures to analyse textual evidence and then had the chance to discuss and debate the evidence with each other; in DT lessons from Pre-Prep right through the school, after teaching certain skills children are encouraged to problem-solve the answers to questions. Teachers are also ‘uncapping learning’ by giving children the independence to choose the level of challenge in an activity for themselves. In order to make a correct choice, children need to develop a good self-awareness and we have found that by giving them the choice children have more confidence to try harder challenges independently.
Classrooms where teachers have created a problem-solving approach buzzed with children discussing, questioning, working together, advising each other, accessing resources that they had chosen for a task independently and thinking at a deeper level.
Teachers are also ‘uncapping learning’ by giving children the independence to choose the level of challenge in an activity for themselves.
