How do you align your educational vision with your learners' needs?

In an ever-changing educational landscape, aligning the educational vision with student needs is critical to supporting effective learning experiences. To achieve this synergy, teachers must adopt a student-centered approach. Firstly, understand the needs of students. Engage in open communication with them to assess their interests, strengths & and challenges. Secondly, adapt the teaching methods and curriculum to different learning styles and speeds. Third, encourage active participation and feedback. Empower students to impact their educational journey, increasing their sense of responsibility and motivation. Overall, an educational vision tailored to student needs creates an enriching, responsive, and empowering learning environment.

The effective educator, be it at the classroom level all the way to the district level, always has a student-centered approach to the work at hand. One's vision, mission, and actions must center around the needs of the children we serve. Everything that is planned for and carried out is done with student outcomes as the primary focus.

Educators are given an enormous amount of accountability when they walk into the classroom. Unlike other professionals, teachers are required and expected to work efficiently and proficiently with all of their "clients and their baggage" at the same time. District mission statements promote goals and expectations, as do curriculum adoptions and instructional coaches. What remains a constant, however, and what is often overlooked, is that teachers are working not with percentiles but with actual human beings. "Working with human beings" is the "baggage" and where the thinking occurs. When the educator is given the ownership to teach their students to think with a choice of tools, accountability will become a collaborative school effort.

We garner input from stakeholders to build a shared vision for our district. Having a structured strategic plan and sticking to it is critical. Along with adhering to the shared plan, we should always be assessing to identify areas of strength and areas for potential growth.

This is somehow similar to one important paradoxes in strategic planning, i.e., inside-out or outside-in approaches. When I was younger, my approach was similar to the latter, that is, i had some objectives and asked my students to adapt or assimilate themselves. This approach was great for top 1 percent of my class, i.e., the most talented ones. I then tried to articulate a more synthetic approach. At each point, i tried to develop a step by step approach based on my student's capabilities to reach to the strategy objective.

Our district has a Superintendent Student Advisory Council. This council allows me opportunities to hear the voices of our students and to make decisions based on what’s best for them.

I usually organize several assessment to better evaluate and understand my student's knowledge, skills, and capabilities. These assessments containing different types of problems that fine-tuned for that objective.

The opportunity to teach in many different environments, from the Alaskan tundra to inner city Dallas to the rural northeast to The Shelton School, has afforded me invaluable insight into what students need to succeed to their best ability. Simply put, that child in front of you is seeking trust...your trust in them so that they can trust in you. That relationship or bond, where the educator allows intrinsic values to bloom first before expecting academic achievements, is the core value that promotes thinking and learning in our communities. A trust-based classroom can offer the opportunity for our future leaders to learn what their strengths and weaknesses are, allowing intellect to morph into actionable plans for an actionable future.

While a strong understanding of learners is important, it's also important to know what opportunities you have to meet their needs, and what landscape of support is there to inspire and scaffold their development and learning. Having some visionaries in leadership is essential as is having people who will accept innovative solutions and pilot things that are proposed. The children need pioneers to be passionate and to fight hard and believe strongly in what is being offered that supports their contexts.

Regurgitation is a familiar theme in classrooms across the nation, due to testing and performance anxiety of districts, and is a sure-fire way to ensure that your students will reach their "limited" potential. Informed educators understand that state grade level standards are the mandates to follow, leaving room for the diverse learning styles of the students. For example, most grade levels encounter economic strands, which opens the door for classroom created businesses like Box City. Student created, developed, and operated, the educator is a guide in allowing real world interactions to unfold in a simulated community. This type of learning environment engages and encourages students to be independent and flexible critical thinkers.

The superintendent student advisory council gives us an opportunity to identify strengths and weaknesses in our curricular offerings.

I have been doing this. But it heavily depends on my student's collaboration. I used to provide some goals and objectives such as being a member of IMO team, going to a great university, etc. In line with several best practices we have had. This has almost been helpful to create a joint plan.

In the learner-centered approach, the learners are at the center of everything. Involving them in the creation process is very crucial because they are going to feel valued and the learning process becomes smooth. Everything can be summarised by Benjamin Franklin: Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.

Learners will only co-create when they feel safe and valued so your relationships with them and their sense of self is critical to make them feel empowered. And the youngest learners, and those with neurodiverse conditions won't always be explicit about what works well for them in co-creation. You may have to understand what their responses to their environment suggest, or seek support from home to help translate what works well at home. But research shows that when children and young people are central to the design of curriculum content they become highly engaged and learn exceptionally well such as through some of the REAL learning expedition programmes as promoted by Ron Berger in EL schools in US.

Students have the same social and global concerns that educators do, just at a different cognitive level and emotional perspective. Expressing ideas and being heard are pivotal stepstones in a students' future learning path, creating neuropaths for how they will analyze and problem solve community issues in the future. Creating small groups in classrooms, where every role within the group has necessary leadership qualities and responsibilities, allows students the opportunities to learn how to lead, how to respect differing perspectives, and how to make equitable decisions with and for others. Students walk in with definite points of view and perspectives that must be defined before collaboration and communication can be truly achieved.

I carefully listen to prospective delegates objectives and match/tailor a course specific to their needs. It is an extremely satisfying process and the feedback is fantastic.

Box City is an example of project-based learning that I have been able to implement in all socio-economic school environments. All students understand wants and needs on an experience-based level, meaning that their perspectives can vary greatly. Incorporating a classroom into a business community, where each student analyzes business dynamics and creates an operational store that they then market to and conduct business transactions with fellow students, is a real-world learning experience that will follow them for life. Learning to make decisions that impact others in daily interactions is a powerful tool that builds community through basic human needs. This type of learning cannot be achieved in a curriculum based school environment.

I usually do this. But, here we should also consider the level of complexity of our projects. For example, in the filed of mathematical Olympiad, we need highest level of attendance, skills, and change capability, some of my students find it a bit difficult and breathtaking, so we have some drop-out, however we have had the same vision and objectives. It showed me that I should implement some methods from change management literature.

Reflection and evaluation are key elements that professional and effective educators utilize with fidelity, throughout the school day. The rabbit hole is a tempting and undeniable opportunity when learning is student driven, and classroom teachers are accountable for keeping learning on track. Using a curriculum map to monitor data is limiting, however, because it cannot fully measure critical thinking skills or explain how a student solves problems. It is imperative that educators pause frequently to evaluate and address micro-interactions, physical interactions, and emotional interactions so that necessary interventions are timely and appropriate. This act also models for students the importance of stopping to review and refine ideas.

The thing is, it’s not that easy to assess how well you’re achieving your vision and goal in a bigger classroom. Let’s say you have 30-50 students per classroom, then each students will more likely have different problems. Not all kids have the same mindset or way of thinking. In my opinion, collecting and analyzing the data is great way to start, but then you need to separate the students based on the issues they have. I will focus more on the majority of the students. For the smaller number, I will address them personally. Talk to them and analyze the problem further. Learn from all the experiences then improve the lesson plans or innovate a new way to deliver your lesson.

Don't forget that this is an evolutionary process. So, in order to continue the growth and progress, we should be careful about the changes in the environment and try to adapt ourselves.