Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Planning for Teaching and Learning

This is our first week together and we are pleased you have decided to participate in this course focused on planning for teaching and learning. This week we will discuss developing a growth mindset and setting goals as a planning professional. We will also explore the importance of working from a model of learning when planning for teaching. We encourage you to be curious in your approach to planning for teaching and learning.

In this week you will think about your planning from three perspectives: considering, reflecting, and understanding. You will use these three perspectives to better understand how you can use learning principles to incorporate different worldviews into your teaching. We are going to ask you to think about how you could weave together practices from these three perspectives in your own setting.

In this week we introduce four key questions. The questions are diagnostic tools that can tell you how successful you are at giving your students clear expectations and providing them with good feedback. In this week’s lectures, readings and videos you will be provided with examples of how a range of schools are using these questions to focus their learning. We encourage you and your professional planning partner to design you own ways of using these questions in your school or setting.

Week four follows the pattern we have set in the first three weeks. This week we explore how you can inform and deepen your planning for teaching and learning by engaging in a specific inquiry cycle. All of the lectures this week focus on the various phases or stages of the spiral of inquiry. The spiral of inquiry asks us to start with the experiences of our learners and to continually ask ourselves these questions: What’s going on for our learners? How do we know? Why does it matter?

As teachers, we usually think about planning from the perspective of how we can better teach our students. This week we are going to focus on planning for the learning needs of the adults in our schools. One of the most important findings from the research on teacher professional learning is that it must be tied to the learning needs of the students. We are going to provide you with some practical examples of what this might look like. By the end of this week you will know how to apply current research knowledge to your own professional learning and planning. We hope that you will continue to reflect on new forms of ongoing professional learning as part of your teaching life.

This is the final week of this course and we appreciate your perseverance! This week you are going to have the opportunity to think about designing more innovative learning environments for young people. You will see how teachers are planning intellectually and socially engaging practices for learners. You will also extend your thinking about the growth mindset by exploring the notions of perseverance and grit, a quality that is highly correlated with adult success. As well, you are going to think about the important role that both trusting relationships and professional networks play in your development as a teacher. We encourage you to think about the ways in which you are contributing to strengthening relational trust in your settings.