
Implementation
Based upon new priorities and practices, implementation of the Successful Learner Trait Framework includes: Setting Up the Learning Environment, Building Conceptual Understanding of the Traits, and Rethinking Our Assessment and Reporting Practices.
Overview
Teachers who use the Successful Learner Trait Framework teach with clarity and intention! By prioritizing and making time in their instructional practices to explicitly teach their students How to apply themselves, they powerfully leverage a different kind of learning. We specifically use the Traits as an appreciative lens with our students which provides them with very positive messages about their learning potential.
Concurrent with the How of learning, we also teach the What of learning or curriculum content. The identification of both the ‘what’ and ‘how’ is very important because it allows us to intentionally make space for each type of learning in our instructional practices. When time is devoted to teaching students how to apply themselves, they naturally become more efficacious in their approach to learning. For example, when the time is taken to unpack the Traits of ‘Thinking’, being ‘Strategic’, or being ‘Industrious’ as these might apply to students solving a math challenge, the level and quality of thinking, strategy, and hard work goes way up in the classroom.
While this may appear commonsensical, rarely is time committed to helping children understand how to Think, how to be Strategic, or how to be Industrious. Indeed, many teachers are surprised by what a difference it makes to their students level of independence and positive engagement after they explicitly teach their students how to apply themselves through the use of the traits!
Into the Classroom
From setting up the learning environment to building conceptual understanding of the Traits, here we introduce practices that uphold coherency and engage students in deep learning.
Learn MoreAssessment and Reporting
If our goal is to cultivate knowledgeable ownership of learning, then involving our students and their voices in our assessment and reporting practices is essential!
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