Empowering our students to be leaders
In my last blog, I spoke about what it takes to live in the digital era. This week, we are embarking on looking at the factors internationally recognized as skills our students need to succeed in the world.
What does it mean to be an Empowered Leader? According to iste.org, it means a person who leverages technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating learning in their goals. In other words, it means our students must not be passive in their learning and in their lives, but become active and passionate. This doesn't mean that they focus on one thing and ignore all else, it means that they take the tools of their learning, including technology, and use them to build something better, stronger, adaptable than what we have now.
Within this idea of being an Empowered Leader, some strategies that help guide our learners to find their way to the status emerges. First, learning to set personal goals and being able to communicate those goals to others. Developing strategies to use tools, such as technology, to achieve the goals, and the ability to reflect on the outcome and process of reaching the goals to improve outcomes next time. These are huge ideas for students to learn. we want to nurture this by releasing the responsibility of learning to our students. At the beginning of each trimester, semester, year, sit with your learner and have them set some goals. Personally, I set overall goals for the year, and then chunk it into steps over smaller increments of time to accomplish the goals, but I'm also a little uptight and that's how my brain works. I also make sure that I remember that I have to be flexible and fluid in my steps, sometimes things don't go the way I think they should, and that is where the self-reflection steps in. Why is this not going where I thought it should? Do I need to rethink my strategy? What tools might help me as I alter my course.
The next strategy in being an Empowered Leader is students learning to build networks with other students, teachers, experts, community and to customize their learning environments to support their learning. Again, lofty ideas for our students. The best way to start this is by building collaborative lessons where students begin to learn how to work with others. Working with others has always been a key component to learning; however, in this global business and social world we live in, collaboration becomes an essential skill. When you look at the most used technology tools- Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Gaming Model- all rely on the network of people within the system. Even YouTube is a community of learners collaboratively sharing and working together to spread their knowledge. Think about how many times you Google how to... and see blogs and videos to help guide you to learn a new skill. Collaboration has become more than just something you need to be able to do, it has become essential to every aspect of our lives. The second component in this strategy is customizing the learning environment. This one seems more difficult because it is the school or teacher that typically sets the learning environment. However, this is also changing. At this school, for example, we are a BYOD or Bring Your Own Device school. By having students bring their own technology to school we start releasing control of the learning environment back to them. They customize their skills to fit their device. We also introduce and then gradually release new tools and their uses to the students. By the time they leave, they should be able to use different tech tools of their choosing to communicate their learning. This is also an essential tool as we adults discovered that our employers rarely tell us they want a presentation done in Powerpoint delivered to them. Rather the directive is you will be giving the board a presentation. Students now have a toolbox to be able to say, "I need to deliver this information to this many people and this is the tool I want to use to accomplish this." See how the first two strategies start combining to show an Empowered Leader?
The final piece to the Empowered Leader is the most difficult part, in my opinion, to teach. It is the strategy of problem-solver. On a larger scale, it is teaching students the skills to solve conflict, which is an admirable, and often difficult, skill. We are focusing on Problem Solving as our theme for the next several weeks. We are teaching students how to approach conflict, and then giving them scenarios to process what they have learned. I want to focus on a smaller piece of problem-solving. This focus is on learning technology and troubleshooting problems. Many times, I have students who come to me because their devices aren't working or they can't get into a program. While occasionally it is something that requires my assistance, more often than not, it is because the learner hasn't tried to solve the problem on their own. The last strategy is teaching students to reach out to their network, ask for help, and know how to search for answers using their technology. We all hit walls where we get stuck, that is why leveraging our technology, resources, and networks is a key skill to have. It teaches self-reliance and network-reliance instead of depending on others to solve your problems, you become and active participant and take control. This is a strong leadership quality that employers look for in promising employees.
So, as we look at empowering our learners to be leaders, keep in mind these strategies. Think about how to help your learner grow in these areas.
