Preparing Students for Success in Any Environment
As teachers, there are many things we are tasked with doing well. The typical day draws on our skills in classroom management, lesson design, giving feedback, building relationships, communicating with families, and now — more than ever — enforcing safety procedures. While each of these practices are valuable components of the role we play as teachers, does this checklist of duties really encompass what it means to be a great teacher?
When many of us think about our “why” — the driving force that energizes us to go above and beyond for our students — it is that we have a deep calling to empower others to lead a better life. We want our students to have bright futures and be well prepared for the challenges of life that lie ahead. We want to use our gifts to strengthen those of the next generation; a mission with rewards far greater than a high salary.
So when it comes to the core of our work, preparing students for the road ahead, what does it really mean to do that job well?
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds to think” — Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein is quoted with the observation that, “the role of education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds to think.” The key to being a great teacher may not be in adopting the perfect curriculum or checking every box on our teacher evaluations, but in creating a space for students to train their minds to think. To train minds, we must put our executive functioning skills to work. Building skill in metacognition, working memory, planning and prioritizing will build the kind of learner that is prepared for whatever life brings their way. This type of learner is referred to as a self-sufficient or independent learner.
Producing Self-Sufficient Learners
If the role of great teachers is to produce self-sufficient learners, we need to provide opportunities for students to build their intellective capacity and strengthen the executive functioning skills that will scaffold them toward success in any domain.
By shifting the focus away from compliance and assignments that require skills low on Bloom’s taxonomy, and instead providing students with higher level opportunities like project-based and metacognitive learning activities, we can unlock their ability to be self-sufficient learners, prepared for wherever life takes them.
No matter your teaching philosophy, we know our students will not chart the same course in life — and the world is more beautiful for it. While we want to ensure college readiness for our students, this is not the only path to success that we should focus on preparing them for, and no amount of time would permit teachers to teach every skill that our students will need to know. Instead, we can focus more on sharpening the blade they use to carve their own path by supporting them in becoming independent learners.
Addressing the Achievement Gap
In Zaretta Hammond’s book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, she points out that moving students from dependent to independent learners can also be a key factor in addressing the achievement gap.
In the chapter, “Climbing Out of the Gap” Hammond explains, “a disproportionate number of culturally and linguistically diverse students are dependent learners,” and that we disadvantage them further by underestimating their capacity to grow and,
“as a result, we postpone more challenging and interesting work until we believe they have mastered ‘the basics’.”
We owe it to our students to believe fully in their potential to do high-level thinking and take responsibility for their own learning. Some teachers may mistake students struggling with behavior and regulating stress as an inability to engage in exercises that provide students more freedom, but this is not the case. The barriers that low-performing students face are perpetuated by not offering them opportunities to build the cognitive skills necessary for more rigorous academic tasks. We have the opportunity to take them to the next level by intentionally teaching cognitive strategies that build brain power.
Planning Lessons for Independent Learners
Creating lessons that develop independent learners does not mean a hands-off approach of simply giving students independent work and cheering from the sidelines. For students to become self-sufficient learners, they must practice self-sufficient learning. Teachers can provide these opportunities by:
- Offering more student choice. When students are presented with a choice, they are more likely to be inspired, engaged, and taking ownership of their learning. Offering choice boards with a variety of texts, projects, or ways of demonstrating knowledge will also allow students to reflect on what interests them and what skills they have a natural desire to develop further. We also know that prior knowledge significantly influences student achievement. Each student has a background and cultural lens unique to them, and will benefit from the opportunity to put new learning in a context that is meaningful to them.
- Intentionally making time for reflection. Research shows that even children as young as 3 benefit from metacognitive activities that encourage them to reflect on their own learning process. Make time for students to set goals and reflect on their progress. Instill the habit of self-assessment in students and help them make a plan for overcoming challenges.
- Creating a student-led classroom. You may have heard of a student-led classroom, in which students are doing more in small groups while teachers circulate and provide feedback. This practice requires students to activate more executive functioning skills, like task initiation, than passively listening to direct instruction.
Keeping these three practices in mind can make a major difference by empowering students to be the type of self-sufficient learners that can thrive in any environment. As great teachers, we can’t miss this crucial opportunity to create a way for our students to engage in their education that will serve them on whatever path they choose; remembering it is not the skills themselves that are most important, but fostering the ability to learn any skill.
