The key to our work as a PLC is the ongoing cycle of collaboration between our teachers around the Four Critical Questions. As they teach a unit, an essential learning, the teachers in each team work through this cycle to address the individual learning needs of their students.
The Four Critical Questions
- What do our students need to learn?
- How will we know when they have learned it?
- How will we respond if they haven’t learned it?
- How will we respond if they have already learned it?
- What do our students need to learn?
What are the specific skills and knowledge that must be learned to achieve this outcome; to be proficient in this essential learning? How can each teacher within the stage be crystal clear about what this learning looks like? These become the learning targets and are written for the students as “I can” statements.
Eg I can use the Split Strategy to solve addition problems.
It may look overly simple but without drilling down in this detailed collaboration: elements of the learning might look different in each class of the same year level; students who already understand a learning may not be moved onto new learning; and students who don’t quickly understand can miss out because of our pressure to move on to a new topic.
At OLHOC we are committed to a focus on what students need to learn and what they have learned, rather than a focus on what teachers cover.
After ensuring they are crystal clear about what specifically needs to be learned within a unit, the teachers in each team then address the second question; how they will know if each student has learned it.
- How will we know when the students have learned it?
What will proficiency in this learning look like? How do students demonstrate their knowledge and skills? The teachers collaborate to develop simple common assessment tasks that they use throughout their teaching of the unit to check that each student has learned the expected knowledge and skills.
At OLHOC we are committed to a focus on checking that students have learned what is being taught. If we are too focussed on ‘getting through’ content the detailed learning of some students can easily be overlooked.
The third critical question ensures that the teaching won’t stop if the learning hasn’t happened for all students, just because the planned teaching time for that unit of learning has come to an end.
- How will we respond if students haven’t learnt it?
If, at the end (or at any given point) of the planned teaching cycle, some students are not proficient or are not demonstrating the expected learning, the teachers will use additional time,outside of the regular learning time for this subject, to implement short bursts of planned intervention targeting these specific skills and knowledge. Some learners just need more time.
This is a very different approach from the conventional teaching model. At OLHOC we are naming specific skills and knowledge that are essential for students’ further learning and guaranteeing that the learning will be exactly the same no matter what class the student is in. Furthermore, for these essential learnings, we agree to not move onto a new area of learning until we have done everything possible to enable all students to be proficient.
- How will we respond if they have already learned it?
If any students demonstrate that they are already proficient in this current essential learning, what learning will they move onto? At the outset of the unit our teachers plan further learning in this area for these students followed by enrichment and then extension, if required.
Parents should not be concerned that our growing focus on the attainment of essential knowledge and skills is in any way reducing the curriculum to a basics-only approach. This fourth critical questions ensures that we are equally focussed on continually challenging students who have the essentials on board. Learning must be rigorous for all learners and our teaching needs to enable each child to meet his or her own immediate learning goal.
The teachers at Our Lady Help of Christians collaborate in a professional manner in order that each child may learn at a progressively higher level, beginning with what is most essential learning for life.
