The Power of Saying What We Learn

One of the patterns that continues to emerge in my classroom visits is the distinction between students’ ability to explain what they are doing and their ability to explain what they are learning. This is not a deficit in the learners themselves, but rather a reminder that clarity is not simply about tasks; it is about making the purpose of learning visible. Fisher and Frey (2021) remind us that clarity of goals, instruction, and success criteria is one of the strongest accelerators of learning. When students articulate not only what they are doing, but why it matters, we see the shift from compliance to ownership.

This challenge of articulation, of moving beyond task to learning, has been mirrored in the professional learning experiences across our school this week.

Clarity in the Maths Work

Over two days with our maths consultant, we engaged deeply with how we design lessons that bring conceptual clarity to the surface. The conversations touched on the same themes I have noticed in classrooms: how to connect prior knowledge to new ideas, how to ensure tasks lead to learning, and how feedback functions as a tool for growth rather than simply a judgment of performance.

Clarity in Our Professional Learning

In our "From Grading to Growth" workshop with Heads of Department, we explored how to bring our written curriculum to life through effective, clear feedback. We examined how assessment and feedback differ from reporting, as complementary processes that serve distinct purposes. Reporting may capture a moment in time, but feedback is what drives growth. To make this concrete, I modelled visible thinking routines and created and introduced a shared Gemini Gems resource to support their teams. This feature only went live on Friday, but I was able to play with it and adjust the workshop to make it happen - and I’m so glad I did, as it can do a lot of the heavy lifting of our rubric writing, freeing teachers to focus on feedback practices.

Clarity in Our Collective Learning

We also launched our Collective Shelf project, featuring six professional books, one of which each of our MS staff has chosen to read in groups throughout the year. By June, we will have collectively read and shared learning from six different texts and discussed the impact they have had on our practice. This is not simply about professional reading; it is about building shared language, creating common reference points, and modelling the same lifelong learning we want for our students.

Conversations and Reflection

These patterns of clarity are not only visible in classrooms or workshops, they are also evident in my own practice. Each week, I sit on my balcony, reflecting on what I have seen and heard across the school. Today, as I write in the middle of a thunderstorm in Singapore, I am struck again by how lucky I am to be able to pause and capture the richness of those conversations. Without writing them down, so much of that insight would be lost.

This week, for example, I spoke with a Grade 8 student who was explaining some work and translating his ideas for me (they were in Spanish). At the end of our conversation, he asked why I was always in classrooms; “It’s like everywhere we go, you’re there,” he said. I explained that part of my role as Vice Principal of Academics is to be a better leader of learning, which means being present with students and teachers. He thought for a moment and said, “That must be a hard job.” I told him it is the best job, because the most significant part of my work is getting to have conversations with students every day, like the one we just had, as we can always learn something from one another.

Conversations are powerful, but they are also transient. Words can land, but they can also disappear. Writing, whether in weekly reflections, in student notebooks, or in the notes we use to provide feedback, is what helps solidify thinking. This is true for students as much as it is for us, as teachers and leaders. If “learning is a consequence of thinking” (Perkins, 1992, cited in Ritchhart & Church, 2020), then creating structures for students to articulate that thinking - through talk, writing, and feedback - ensures those insights are not fleeting but durable. As Hochman and Wexler (2024) put it, “the writing process is a learning process.”

Whether in classrooms, department meetings, or whole-school professional learning, the pattern is the same: the ability to articulate what we are learning changes everything. When we create opportunities for students, we are not just asking them to demonstrate what they know; we are helping them understand it better.

Moving Forward

As leaders of learning, our role is not to chase isolated moments, but to notice patterns across classrooms and throughout our collective work. Improvement occurs when we identify persistent patterns, rather than one-off observations. My own reflections this term point me towards one such pattern: the power of articulation.

The task ahead is to build coherence between what we write in our curriculum, what we teach in our classrooms, and what students themselves can say about their learning. And just as importantly, to model that same process ourselves, because the power of saying what we learn belongs to all of us.

References

• Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2021). How leadership works: A playbook for instructional leaders. Corwin.

• Hochman, J. C., & Wexler, N. (2024). The writing revolution: A guide to advancing thinking through writing in all subjects and grades (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

• Ritchhart, R., & Church, M. (2020). The power of making thinking visible: Practices to engage and empower all learners. Jossey-Bass.