Facilitator: Jennifer D. Klein
Audience: Teachers of all ages and disciplines, instructional coaches, directors of teaching and learning, curriculum developers, and any other pedagogical/instructional leaders

Dates: four 90 minute sessions 
Feb. 9 
Feb. 16 
Feb. 23 
Mar. 2 
Times: 5pm-6:30 US Eastern time / Colombian time 

Student-Directed Everything: Elevating Voice and Choice to Agency and Protagonism
Student voice has become increasingly popular across educational contexts, but in most schools it remains tokenistic, tightly controlled by educators and limited in scope. While educators do need to ensure standards are met, we often make more decisions for our students than necessary, increasing our own work load and removing the opportunity to let every student surprise us with their unique thinking. Students engage much more deeply when they know they are the central protagonists in their own education and are able to make real choices that keep their learning relevant and meaningful. Furthermore, classrooms that offer deep learner protagonism can better ensure equity because learners’ identities, interests and talents become a central part of the learning experience. 

Grounded in Jennifer’s 2022 book, The Landscape Model of Learning, and her upbringing in democratic schools, this course will explore strategies for elevating student voice beyond the teacher-generated choice menu, so that learners are central protagonists in all the workings of their education. This includes the use of classroom space, ideation, decision making, teaming, feedback and revision cycles, documentation and goal setting, presentations of learning, evaluation/assessment and even more significant governance decisions. Participants will be invited to reflect on their current practices, to explore a variety of new strategies, and to develop plans for a new or reimagined learning experience—for the classroom or the broader schoolhouse—that engages student agency at the highest level possible.

register here