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What do we want our learners to become?

On Saturday, Feb 9, 2013, I attended an excellent regional workshop sponsored by the Learning Spaces Collaboratory (formerly known as Project Kaleidoscope, or PKAL). Participants responded to four questions key to the focused and successful process of planning and assessing learning spaces:

  • What do we want our learners to become? 
  • What experiences make that ‘becoming’ happen? 
  • What spaces enable those experiences?
  • How do we know? 

Note that the first two questions need to be tackled before space planning begins.

The first question generated some spirited discussion, with inspiring results. Here are some sample posters:

 

image: what do we want our learners to become?
We want our learners to be…. ethical, intentional, respectful, self-aware, self-assessing, global citizens, and resilient global citizens, critical thinkers, collaborators, and creators of new knowledge.
image: what do we want our learners to become?
We want our learners to be….. critical consumers of content, contributors to a community, able practitioners, self aware and reflective, flexible and adaptable, fearless communicators and listeners, and ethical.

image: What do we want our learners to become?
We want our learners to be… focused, imaginative, able to ask questions about what they imagine, problem identifiers, able to know when they don’t know, ask for help, read non-verbal communications, successfully communicate( including nonverbal), agree to disagree, think about and practice sustainability, confident scientists, comfortable in ambiguity, unafraid of failure, aware of their surroundings (with global perspective), community builders, science literate citizens, socially responsible, successful collaborators.

image" What do we want our learners to become?

We want our learners to be…. creative, original, flexible, interdisciplinary, confident, risk takers, communicators, ethical, civic-minded, reasoners, aesthetic, thoughtful, curious, engaged, team players, leaders, participants, collaborative, affiliated.
image: What do we want our learners to be?
We want our learners to be…
risk taker + agility = creative
resourceful + confident = effective problem solver
inspired + empowered = contributor
communicator + diverse perspectives = integrator
all with a purpose — to serve the community.