Online Learn how to unlock the potential of group learning in your classroom by making learning visible.
Overview
Learning is social. Every day, children and adults learn from and with others, encountering new perspectives, strategies, and ways of thinking. Together, groups can achieve greater perspective and understanding than any individual can alone, but we need tools for sharing thinking and making learning visible to others.
This course will examine group learning through the Making Learning Visible framework, which began as a collaborative research project between Harvard’s Project Zero and educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and has since been adopted by hundreds of teachers to promote group learning. Participants will explore how to use documentation to “make visible” both what and how students learn. Through observation, evidence collection, interpretation, and information sharing, participants will learn how to produce a record that students and teachers can use to build self-awareness and guide instruction.
Course Details
This online course, originally developed by Project Zero’s Mara Krechevsky, has been revised to launch in September 2021 by HGSE Faculty member Steve Seidel, who has led the research for more than 30 years along with Daniel Wilson and researcher Terri Turner. The Graduate Credit course will be instructed by Steve Seidel and Terri Turner and the Professional Development Credit course will be instructed by Terri Turner. The course begins with a one-week orientation, during which you will explore the online platform and get to know fellow members of the learning community. Six two-week content sessions follow, each with an average time commitment of approximately 2.5 hours per week, including a synchronous team meeting once during the two week session. For the Graduate Credit Course, participants can expect to spend 4-5 hours each week to cover additional readings and work toward their final project. In each session, educators will:
- Learn new ideas
- Review and reflect on key ideas from the previous session
- Plan for trying and/or fully implementing course ideas in the classroom
- Work on a project or curriculum unit
- Reflect and share feedback with a coach and peers
Course participation is team-based, which promotes a deeper and richer learning experience and will help you sustain your use of core Project Zero ideas after the course concludes. Team members will collaborate on most of the assignments, including the development of a project. Teams meet face-to-face or virtually once every two weeks, so all team members will need to commit to a regular common meeting time throughout the term.
Although the sessions are structured and coach-facilitated, all the online interactions in the course are asynchronous. You and your team members can decide when to work on the course materials as long as you submit the assignment(s) on or before the due dates.
Online Course Schedule
Please review the course schedule to ensure that you and your team will be able to participate fully in the course, taking into account your local holidays and vacations. The average time commitment is about three to four hours per week.
September 2021 Term Schedule
Session 1: Monday, September 20
Session 2: Monday, September 27
Session 3: Monday, October 11
Session 4: Monday, October 25
Session 5: Monday, November 8
Session 6: Monday, November 22
Session 7: Monday, December 6
Course closes: Sunday, December 19
February 2022 Term Schedule
Session 1: Monday, February 14
Session 2: Monday, February 21
Session 3: Monday, March 7
Session 4: Monday, March 21
Session 5: Monday, April 4
Session 6: Monday, April 18
Session 7: Monday, May 2
Course closes: Sunday, May 15
Objectives
- Explore how teachers and students can create and sustain learning groups inside and outside the classroom
- Understand how documentation shapes, extends, and makes visible children’s and adults’ learning
- Learn how to foster a classroom culture where groups create and transmit culture, values, and democratic practices
- Learn a set of activities, protocols, and tools to support learning by making it visible
Who Should Participate
- Teachers, Teacher Leaders, and School Leaders
- Museum Educators and educators working in informal learning environments
- Pre-K to Adult Learning
PZO courses require teams to meet regularly throughout the course and to complete assignments collaboratively. Team members must be able to try out course ideas with students/learners in classrooms, either virtually or face-to-face, or other direct learning environments with students. While the learning design encourages teams to meet locally, in person, once every two weeks to engage in group-based activities, these team meetings can occur virtually.
- Teams can be comprised of district or school staff, including classroom teachers, instructional leaders, teacher leaders, and administrators
- We recommend team members have similar roles and work in the same school or district, if possible
- We also recommend that teams have at least one group of students with whom they can try out tools throughout the course
Due to the above recommendations, enrollment in the PZ online courses has historically been open only to teams whose members come from the same school or organization. While preference will continue to be given to teams of colleagues from the same school building or organization, we also now accept applications from:
- teams comprising individuals from the same district or organization but not the same building or working group;
- educators who form teams across districts or organizations; and,
- individuals who have not formed a team.
People applying individually, if accepted into the course, will be placed on a “virtual team” that includes two to three other educators who have also applied individually and who come from the same or proximal time zones.
