Exploring Learning

From Brain-Based Learning to Heutagogy: Designing Agency With Care How do we design learning that develops agency without assuming learners are already fully independent? In my research this week, I found myself returning to the same question: how do we design learning that supports agency without assuming that learners are already fully self-directed or self-determined? The readings move from brain-based learning, to the space between pedagogy and andragogy, to the history of andragogy, and finally to heutagogy. Taken together, they challenge the idea that teaching and learning models can be neatly organised by age or stage. Instead, I see that they suggest effective learning design depends on context, readiness, purpose, motivation, and the kind of support learners need to grow. Jang et al. (2022) provide a useful starting point, reminding me that learning design needs to be grounded in how learning actually occurs. Their review of brain-based learning research highlights the import...

Learning Issue: Basic Sentence Conventions As a teacher of Grade 6 Language and Literature, I have found that many learners enter middle school without basic foundational knowledge of sentence conventions, particularly capitalisation and ending punctuation. The IBO May 2018 MYP Subject Report for the Language and Literature examination supports these observations, stating that “candidates seemed to have lost track of basic conventions like capitalization and the use of ending punctuation despite exhibiting good control in other areas of language use” (2018). In addition, data from externally marked online examinations in Language and Literature, at the exit point of the MYP in Grade 10, also indicate that our learners are not quite yet reaching the global average grade. Data has also been gathered from a diagnostic writing test administered to the sample group at the beginning of the academic year. Anecdotal evidence of the learning issue also comes from teaching Grade 6, leading the E...