When last we left the students of these two plucky Vermont middle schools, they had managed to connect students and educators via Google Hangout. They’d gotten together to make pizzas and plot the future of personalized learning plans (PLPs). And they’d paired up students as PLP peer collaborators and spent some time reviewing PLPs in pairs.
So we wanted to ask: what’s next? How’s this peer PLP collaboration thing going?
The background:
In some schools, students are providing leadership on developing and revamping PLP processes. Students at these two schools were brought together to share ideas about how PLPs could be improved.
When in doubt, ask the experts
The precursor stages are detailed in this post, and at Dynamic Landscapes students from the two schools presented on the next stage of the peer PLP collaboration. Students got together to form relationships across the two schools via pizza-making and to generate ideas about PLPs in the future.
PLP (re)Design Day 2017
Following this, students from both schools joined three other VT middle schools at UVM on June 5th to learn from each others experiences with PLPs, have their voices heard, and create ‘pitches’ to local decision makers to improve the process.
Each school team shared out their current practices answering the following questions:
- Structures: How does our schedule allow us to personalize our learning?
- Time Commitment: How much time do we devote to personalizing learning and/or to PLPs?
- Audience: How do we share our learning with others?
- Reflection: When and how do we reflect on our learning?
- Overall: When and how are we able to personalize our learning during the regular school day?
After the presentations, students gathered in cross-school table talks to ask questions and share takeaways. Finally, Stowe and PAML students came together to build their pitch.
But what do the students think?
We wanted to hear from some of the students working in these revolutionary peer PLP collaboration pairs. And they were kind enough to share some of their thoughts on the progress they’re making on tailoring PLPs for themselves as learners.
How could peer PLP collaboration work at your school?