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Why, How, What

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Learn how Durango 9-R empowers so that every student is successful in college, career, and community.

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If you’re like many, you may have found yourself asking, “Why is Durango 9-R shifting to PCBL?”  You’re probably not alone if you’ve wondered, “What does personalized competency based learning even mean?”  To answer those fair and important questions, we must start with the most important question of all…”Why?”

WHY
Why do we exist as an organization?  Most of us, when asked individually, quickly jump to “I’m here for the kids.” When we build on that to define our collective purpose, we see we exist to empower so that every student is successful in college, career, and community.  When we distill all of our work into one driving purpose it is to enrich the lives of our students so that they are empowered to learn, think, and grow to be successful now and upon their next horizons.

As all bold pioneers, we are on a quest.  We are on a journey where few have gone before…a mission to ensure EVERY student is successfully prepared for college, career, and community.  So, the next question we seek to answer is the same one the pioneers of Westward Expansion, of the Mission to the Moon, or to the depths of the ocean have asked; “How are we going to accomplish this?”  As we build our map for the success of every student, what ideas will guide our first step, what tools will drive our next steps.  How will we know we are on the right path, when we are the first to blaze this new trail?

HOW
Our first guide to how we will accomplish our mission to empower every student comes from within, it is to understand who we are and what we stand for because when the journey is hard, these are the guides we know to be true. If one were to peek into classrooms on a typical day, listen in on a planning or reflecting conversation between educators, or talk with an educator from our community, they would learn that we strive for students’ owning their learning, acting on their learning, and impacting their community.  We hustle and refine what we do to make these concepts guide how we interact with students.

When we consider student ownership, we push ourselves to meet the needs of each student rather than asking him or her to fit the mold of the organization.  We shift who and how we are so that each student can have voice and choice as they set learning goals, reflect on their progress towards their learning outcomes, and develop metacognitive strategies that help them know what they know and how they learn best.  When we consider another driving belief of our community, it is that students should act on their learning.  They should have learning experiences that develop critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration as they wrestle with complex and authentic tasks.  Instead of treating content knowledge as the ultimate goal, we strive to create learning environments where students build upon and apply skills to their knowledge. The third guide we will use to accomplish our journey is that students can and should be impacting their community now and in the future.  We expect that our students can and should be teachers of others, leaders of change, innovators, and have the self-advocacy and regulation that supports their ability to not only learn and grow but to make positive impacts on the lives of their peers and our broader community.  Knowing and building on our collective character and beliefs is the only way we will have the passion, purpose, and relentless doggedness to pursue our mission for every student, especially as we work on the fringes of what is not yet known.

Thankfully, there are other pioneers who are on similar journeys to empower every student to own their learning, act on their learning, and impact their community.  They, too, believe in and refine for authentic learning that empowers every student for college, career, and community in a way that an industrial model of teaching and learning has never accomplished.  These pioneers who have gone out just a bit before us have discovered that personalizing learning while also ensuring that competencies, the skills that all students must demonstrate, are the key drivers that yield life-changing education for every student.

Upon a first review of the two ideas of personalization and competency, many would say they are polarized.  How can one individualize for each and every student while also ensuring that each and every student demonstrates guaranteed competencies?  Durango 9-R’s Guiding Principles, when fully realized and utilized as a guide for how we facilitate learning, will be our map for how to accomplish both personalized and competency based learning.  Just like the scientists and engineers who actualized the mission to the moon, we have already begun developing systems and tools, and learning about practices and skills needed to accomplish our mission of success for every student in college, career, and community.

A final guide for how we will accomplish our mission is called the Elements of Effective Instruction.  When educators pack their toolbox for this journey to personalized and competency based teaching and learning with these tools, success for teachers and students follows.  These elements are the tangibles that make the journey possible, just as those on the Oregon trail needed an oxen, an extra wheel for their wagon, and some sort of remedy for all of the snake bites and dysentery that the members of their party encountered.  When facilitators of learning become masters at using these tools, student ownership, action, and impact comes alive.

WHAT
The final question we, 9-R pioneers, ask is “What...What must we accomplish?  What is our next milestone on the trip?” For that we have a couple items that create our map.  The Competency Based Self Assessment for principals and assistant principals outlines next steps on their school’s journey to personalized competency based learning that yields success for every student at their campus.   In this way, not only is the student learning personalized and competency based, but we also find ourselves as adult learners, developing and implementing our own skills as personalized learners. 9-R educators will reach our common destination of college, career, and community success for every student, on parallel but unique paths, just as we as fellow travelers are unified and unique at the same time.

Our 9-R leaders collaborate on a teaching and learning plan that outlines the implementation benchmarks for the upcoming year and forecasts the next few years of our journey in the same way that the first to break trail may put a cairn up at the important junctions of a new path forward.  When we push through to reach these important milestones, we have much to celebrate, just as we begin to set our eyes on the next horizon on our path forward.

As we continue on our quest for the success of every student in college, career, and community, one thing is certain.  From every board member to every parent, from every learning facilitator to every student, from every instructional leader to every operations staff member- the Durango 9-R community is the right group of fellow travelers to commit to our journey. With purpose and passion, we know that we together,  are powerful and successful in accomplishing our vision and mission.

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Why, How, What

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