Teachers are Learning Designers

I believe that great teachers are "learning designers" who seek to create a space where all students are empowered to learn. I was further inspired to rearticulate this idea when I saw this video from Sir Ken Robinson:


What really struck me is that great teachers create the conditions for success, just as gardeners do. You can't make a flower grow, but you can design and improve the condition for that flow of naturally occurring events. It's the same for the students. Teachers have the power and the duty to create the best conditions for students to flourish.

Empower Yourself

For so long, teachers have been disempowered to design. With prescribed curriculum, overly strict pacing guides and the like, teachers have been given little to no opportunity to innovate and design for learning. Personally, this was and is my favourite part about teaching -- the opportunity to design and be creative, to design learning that meets the needs of the students to try new things -- and perhaps the opportunity to fail. Great learning models and structures have the space for teachers to design for their students while still remaining within the framework. Whether it's a driving question for a project, a mini-task or an assessment, teachers still have -- and must have -- the space that empowers them to design. If we want our students to be empowered, then we must model this empowerment to be a learning designer. If you haven't designed or been given the space to, this will be difficult. Look for spaces that can challenge your design thinking about what a learning space can be.

Stop Blaming Kids

There is one pitfall in Sir Ken Robinson's metaphor of teachers as gardeners and students as fruit. If you misunderstand this metaphor, you might think that it puts a heavier onus on students. It does not. If your students, like plants, are struggling to grow, perhaps it isn't them. Most likely it's the conditions that are being created for students. Now of course, there are many conditions creating opportunity for growth that may be beyond our control. However, there is always something that teachers can do or design to create the seeds for growth. Look for opportunities to design rather than fearing roadblocks.

Revise and Reflect

As mentioned earlier, if students are struggling, it's a great opportunity to revise and reflect on the learning design. Review the teaching model by evaluating the following areas:

• Are more voice and choice or self-directed learning needed?
• Should there be some differentiation?
• Perhaps there could have been more formative assessments?

These are just some of the questions I ponder when students are not successful, but there are a whole lot more.  Related to this, don't be afraid to fail. Consider it "failing forward," and continue designing amazing learning experiences for students. Also consider using protocols to help you reflect on your work in a safe space with other teachers.

Hence, teachers should be empowered to become learning designers for all students. We need to look for these opportunities to design, but we also need to reflect on the current learning designs in our classrooms. Just as our world and our students are always changing, so must our designs for learning!

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