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Simple hand gestures such as a ‘thumbs up’, a circle using the forefinger and thumb, a flat hand, a fist ... can be used to indicate when different competencies are being applied by other learners. The exchange is symbolic and is completed without any words. The learner may look up from their desk or be walking around the room when they catch the eye of another learner to whom they wish to communicate a positive or a negative observation. Keeping the ratio of 5:1 positive to negative is important.
The learner accompanies the appropriate hand signal, with a positive affirmation by raising their eyebrows or looking towards the floor when it is a negative observation. The initiator of the acknowledgement makes eye contact very briefly, and then looks elsewhere so there is no chance of a return gesture or comment. The gesture is simple and straightforward and generally reflects the competency that the learners are working on at that time. As much as possible, the educator wants to stay out of the process of moderating classroom behaviour and allow learners to increasingly manage each other’s actions predominantly via positive affirmation.
We can learn almost anything we set our mind to, in any learning setting, if we have acquired and can implement the competencies and apply the Learning Process successfully. If we are expecting learners to have far greater agency over their learning, then we need to equip them with the necessary skills, knowledge, ideas and concepts that underpin the competencies. The competencies require us to have a realistic sense of our personal identity, to think and question, to collaborate, to be able to communicate effectively about our learning and to manage ourselves, as well as connect and reflect on our learning using our language of learning.
The only way the necessary time is going to be created to enable learners to be explicitly involved in the learning and exercising of the competencies, is if we reconceive our present thematic or topic approach to units of work in schools. This process will require our traditional units of work to be replaced with clear, conceptual learning concept frameworks, and over time, they will have clear conceptual outcomes attached to them. This process allows educators to assist learners in completing these units of work in far less time, making increasing use of prompts and the micro- lesson approach. These efficiency gains will provide schools with the time they need to have learners develop their competencies and have them continually emphasised throughout the school and their community.
The other five competencies, including the background information on implementing each of these competencies will be available as a separate resource in June 2017 from The Paradigm Shift website
www.MarkTreadwell.com