Why is challenge so challenging - Part 2

Why is challenge so challenging?

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Embedding challenge - true challenge - student-led challenge where students see the value of challenging learning and will seek it out - is hard! If it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it and all classrooms would be full of self-motivated and driven students. Which they’re not. Yet! (but imagine if they were!) ;)

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To understand why this might be happening and begin to explore how to embed challenge in our classrooms, both James Nottingham and I have been writing blog posts to explore the depths of challenge. 

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Here’s part one of these two posts, where I explore the value of challenging learning and the negative impact on learning when challenge isn’t clearly defined or approached cohesively.

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Here are James’ posts on challenge - Why growth needs a push and Engaging students in challenge.

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This blog post will explore more deeply strategies on how to align and embed challenge, based on these actions to embed student-led challenge, I shared in blog post 1:

• Develop language, questioning and tools that enable students to reflect on how challenging their learning is and enable them to adjust that challenge
• Plan in times during the day to reflect on how challenge learning is, has been, will be. Plan forward for challenge with the students
• Create open-ended challenges (“could be” challenges/going beyond …) and encourage students to come up with their own challenges
• Co–plan home learning with students - What might a challenging learning opportunity be for you at home this week?
• Involve parents in challenging learning for themselves and with their children - therefore enabling parents to model the model.

Aligning ourselves and our teams

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One of the key goals of learning in Learning Pioneers is to make the unconscious conscious - to move through the cycle of “unconscious competence” or “unconscious incompetence”, into “conscious competence”. We ask ourselves:

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• What are we intentionally putting in place to create this outcome?
• What are students learning as a result of our learning moves? How do we know/what makes us think that?

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This is important because it’s only through conscious competence that we can do more of what works AND share our practice with colleagues and learn from and with one another. Without “conscious competence” we will only ever impact on our own learners and class (or not if we “unconsciously incompetent” - best unearth that practice too! We don’t want to be damaging children as a result of our unconscious actions thinking we are delivering great teaching when we’re not).

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Having “conscious competence” in our practice aligns us inwardly - we know what we are doing and why and these actions are aligned with our values and desired impact. This feels energising and calming as a teacher.

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Not only that, we want our school teams to be aligned, as this visual from Art Costa depicts:

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I love this version because it implies that once we have aligned our teams, we can take it even further! And in Learning Pioneers we do like to go beyond!

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This was the focus of blog post one - if we don’t define what we mean by “challenge” with our teams and work towards an aligned vision of what challenge looks like, we will all be pulling against one another. This will be confusing for ourselves and our teams. This is draining, frustrating and de-energising for all.

So, how can we align on “challenge”?

Well, step one would be defining what we mean by “challenging learning” and exploring the “why” behind embedding challenge. James and I go into more depth on these two points in these two blog posts - here and here.

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Once this vision, the “why” behind the vision are defined, the next step is to reflect on how our actions - big and small - align with our vision. 

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When embedding any Design Principle in the LPA (of which, “challenge” is one) or any “Element of Learning Power” (of which “perseverance” is one - the learning habit that enables students to grapple with challenge), to fully align our vision, we need to look at how we are creating challenge through a variety of lenses. This visual brings to life some of those lenses:

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That’s a lot to think about and align isn’t it?!

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But think about it - if we don’t align our practice in all of these areas, our classroom ethos will end up like the left image in the Art Costa visual above - mal-aligned!

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Here are some examples:

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If we encourage students to learn from their mistakes; but we never examine our own deep-seeded mindset toward making mistakes, never live and breath learning through mistakes and never share with the students the process of learning from mistakes in our own lives, students will “smell” that! They think, perhaps subconsciously, “Huh, we’re encouraged to learn from our mistakes but our teacher never makes ANY mistakes. I’m not sure I should be making them.”

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If we say we value challenging learning but always front-load lessons with modelling and direct-instruction; we are sending the message that the most important “thing” is following what the teacher has shown us and that independent struggle and challenge comes second.

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If we only focus on challenge in the classroom and never open up to parents, empathise and connect with their experiences with challenge and never give them the chance or tools to grapple with their children; we will always be pulling against the current - Students might experience challenge in school and miss the opportunity to transfer that habit of mind to everything outside of school (which is a lot!).

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See what I mean?! 

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So, our answer is to align ALL of the points above to know in our heart or hearts that EVERYTHING in our classroom values, encourages, points towards challenge.

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No mean feat. 

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And entirely possible. It just takes focus, intentionality and effort. 

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• How do you embed challenge across the board in your school and classroom?
• Which of the areas above are your crux point? How could you improve your practice or approach in that area to build a deeper ethos of challenge?
• What are some of the highest ROI actions you are taking to value and embed challenging learning?

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All key questions I will be exploring and sharing practice and ideas on in the three webinars I will be running as part of our James Nottingham Masterclass series. 

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If you’re curious about strategies about how to go about embedding challenge into the heart of your classroom so that students:

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• Genuinely relish challenge
• Understand how to get unstuck
• Transfer challenge to home learning
• Are articulate when reflecting on and talking about challenge
• Develop a broad, deep, strong experience of perseverence
• Are confident learners in and out of school

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And you:

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• Feel aligned with your values and practice
• Are bursting with ideas about how to embed challenge
• Have a deep understanding of your pedagogy - know what you are doing and why
• Know you can rely on your students to drive their own challenges
• Love teaching and learning

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Consider joining myself and James Nottingham in this 5-part Masterclass series with 3 *BONUS* webinars from me on how to embed challenge into your classrooms:

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