M.S. 419 will integrate the Habits of Mind and the Four Elements of Personalized Learning in their curriculum: voice, co-creation, social construction, and self-discovery (adopted from the text, Students at the Center Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind by Bena Kallick & Alision Zmuda). This framework partners educators and students as co-creators in the educational process. As a response to the covid-19 pandemic, this approach will allow the community to reimagine the schooling experience by converting the classroom into a self-directed, inclusive learner-centered environment. In turn, students engage in work that is more diverse and teachers take on the role of coaching with a growth mindset, resulting in success-minded individuals.
Voice
In a personalized learning culture, each member is seen as a respected and valued participant. Empowerment comes from an environment in which students recognize the power of their own ideas and recognize the shift that can happen by being exposed to others’ ideas. The atmosphere is one of discourse in which multiple perspectives are encouraged.
Co-Creation
Co-creation is an invitational act — one that signifies respect and trust in others at the design table. Regular participation and engagement in co-creating performances and actions constitutes an opportunity for students to flex their innovative and creative muscles..
Social Construction
Learners build ideas through relationships with others as they theorize, investigate, and develop in pursuit of a common goal. Social construction occurs as learners seek out information, ideas, and perspectives to guide task development by consulting experts or peers who have intimate knowledge of the topic and using others as a sounding board to work through ideas or roadblocks.
Self-Discovery
Our ultimate aim is for learners to become self-directed and capable of managing themselves in a variety of situations. This comes about as learners uncover how they navigate through the challenges they’ve set for themselves: how they start making sense of a problem or how they generate an idea, how they handle the frustration of not getting it quite right for the umpteenth time, and how they work through revisions or dead ends by analyzing what happened.
