Education

LBR Resources

Since content is ubiquitous, what is important is not just what students know, but also and especially what they can do with what they know. Curriculum should aim to develop competences including thinking and learning skills, life skills, as well as the new literacies.
Curriculum development refers not only to the curriculum planning and design, but to an ongoing and iterative development cycle that includes curriculum implementation and evaluation.
Curriculum development ideally follows a backward design” to achieve alignment among learning outcomes, assessment, and pedagogy, focusing on outcomes (“impacts” or assessable student outcomes) rather than inputs (what will be taught) (McTighe & Curtis, 2019, Leading modern learning: A blueprint for vision-driven schools, p. 57).

SUGGESTED REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What is curriculum and how should we regard it?

Learners need to be stretched and challenged if they are to learn and grow. High expectations lead to high performance.
Assessment is primarily educative: Its purpose is assessment not so much of learning, but for learning. Moreover, the process of assessment itself can be an opportunity for learning.
To assess the attainment of learning outcomes, assessments should be designed to collect adequate and valid evidences of student learning (where “adequate” means that the most valid assessments of student learning are derived from an album of student performances rather than a snapshot of it; and “valid” means that assessments clarify the desired learning outcomes by operationalizing them and spelling out what can be considered acceptable evidences of learning.
Effective assessments enable students to understand the criteria used in assessing their learning.

For constructive alignment, learning experiences ought to be designed with their intended assessments–or at least the target evidences of learning–already in mind.
The most valuable learning experiences provide learners opportunities not only to acquire competences, but also to engage in reflection and undergo character formation.
We learn best by doing and by interacting with fellow learners. Content is best not “dumped” on students, but offered in a way that encourages them to interact with it and to learn it with other learners.

SUGGESTED REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What kind of learning should we design?

Context: For learning to be relevant, we need to meet students where they are–academically (by activating their prior knowledge), but also psycho-emotionally (by considering their current moods).
Reflection: Learning becomes engagement and meaningful through Reflection, when students are given the opportunity not just to receive instruction, but also to make connections and construct meaning. Formulating insights enables the teacher not only to promote student reflection, but also to select and prioritize content and design effective learning experiences.
Action: For learning to be applicable, the long-term and real-world application of learning ought to be assessed now, to the best extent possible.
Experience: For learners to be empowered, the learning experiences we create for them ought to be well-rounded, designed to promote active and interactive learning.
Evaluation: Ignatian educators are reflective practitioners, regularly gathering data to evaluate and improve the learning and teaching in their classrooms.
SUGGESTED REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What’s so special about the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm? How do the five elements promote student learning effectively?

Learning environments–by which we refer to both physical and virtual spaces–are a crucial element in designing learning because they define both the opportunities and constraints for learning.
The most basic requirement of a learning environment is that it is a safe sanctuary for thinking and learning: a safe space for learning and a community that supports and challenges us to learn to think independently and critically, where we welcome other perspectives, rehearse our ideas out loud, experiment with our practice, and receive reasonable and respectable feedback from mentors and fellow learners.
A learning environment should be flexible, capable of different learning spaces that make possible diverse forms of learning for every type of learner, promoting their academic success and well-being.

Technology can redefine and expand the learning environment and the repertoire of learning experiences teachers can design for their students.
Technology is neither a threat to teaching nor a proxy for learning. Rather, it is to be regarded as a learning tool, environment, or even ally. It is to be used not for its own sake, but primarily in service of student engagement and learning. We ought to leverage their affordances to build learning environments and experiences that promote equity, the well-being of learners, and better academic performance.
The way we use generative AI (or ChatGPT) will determine who will do the learning: ourselves or the machine?