Newsletter 044: Connecting the Learning System for Students to State Education Standards

A good day to you!

Picture a ninth grader named Avery across one week of high school.

In PE, Avery keeps a fitness portfolio. She records her mile time, sets a goal for November, then logs each workout against a time tracker.

During Health, she writes a wellness plan and checks the plan every other week.

While drawing in Visual Arts, she sketches a first picture – then steps back to observe her own work, hears feedback from a classmate, and revises the picture.

For Computer Science, her program breaks; she reads the error, changes one line, and runs the code again.

In these four classes, Avery runs a version of the same loop: Set a goal, practice, check the result, and adjust.

On Thursday night, Avery studies for a social studies test in her usual way, rereading her notes until the words look familiar. She walks into class confidently, walking out distraught because the test did not go well.

Avery’s week happens in schools everywhere. The way students understand how to learn comes from the (hidden) structures in their classes, which depends on how the education has created the class. Instead of relying on students to pick up patterns between classes, what if students explicitly learned how to learn?

The Learning System for Students is the foundational course for a personal learning system. Across nine 15-minute lessons, students gain ideas about the knowledge and skills for learning, then apply the ideas to every activity or class.

To show how the course connects to the work students already do, I mapped the course to state standards in two states: Ohio and South Carolina.

Both pair specific standards and goals for graduation students from the state with the lessons from the Learning System for Students course – showing how students connect a personal learning system to their activities and classes.

Which state should I map next?

Reply to this email with your state; I’ll create a document for your state.

All the best!

Nathan

P.S. If you want to see how the full course runs, take a look at the Program Guide.

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