Asking the Crowd: Lights Academy

We have now had a week and a half of Lights Academy work at Lutheran High School. The learning is coming at a furious pace, both for the students and for me as a leader. In essence, Lights Academy is a learning laboratory, where together we sort through best practices for personalized learning and identifying the best methods for helping students take responsibility for their own learning.

To that end, here are some things we have learned so far:

• Choice is motivating
• The world is often messy with perspectives not being clear among a wide group of people (think of the situation in Ferguson, MO)
• Excellence takes work and constant vigilance.
• Regular and persistent feedback is also motivating
• It isn't enough to ask students to take responsibility for their own learning. Training and a structure is needed to make that happen, especially when students have learned throughout their years of education that school is something that is provided for them, not necessarily something they do.

Because students need guidance and structure in taking responsibility for their learning, what sort of structure would you suggest for our 360 degree questioning even that is coming up next week. You may recall that we are seeking to emphasize 360 degree questioning among our students, but also to challenge students to pursue answers to questions of interest. I am interested from hearing from as many of you as possible as to what might be good ways to provide guidance and structure for students but to still allow them to control the scope, pace, and output (as shared by Dr. Bernard Bull) in this project?

I am asking the crowd for their ideas as I hone my own plan. Be a part of the learning laboratory of Lights Academy! Share your ideas as a comment to this post.