Academics

Colegio Maya is committed to growing and sustaining a personal learning culture which is made up of a community of learners based on the shared belief that thinking is central to complex problem solving rooted in inquiry, collaboration, and emergence of new ideas in the spirit of innovation. Learners take risks as creative thinkers in tackling challenging tasks that beg deep learning which can be messy, joyful and energizing. Instruction is designed to attend to individuals’ needs and skills with opportunities to explore and develop students’ own passions and interests in growing a sense of personal purpose. Students are able to build disciplinary knowledge with cross-disciplinary skills that result in rich demonstrations of learning. Interdisciplinary learning opportunities are paths that allow students to flourish with the support of Habits of the Mind through a more learner-driven practice.

To achieve a culture of personal learning, we at Colegio Maya provide learning experiences based on our Learning Principles, the Attributes of Personal Learning, the Elements of Personal Learning in partnership with the Habits of Mind.

Personal Learning definition: Personal learning is a progressively student driven model in which students deeply engage in meaningful, authentic, and rigorous challenges to demonstrate desired outcomes. (Zmuda, Curtis, & Ulman. 2015)

Students working on their laptops and talking to each other

Learning Principals

WE CAN ALL LEARN HOW TO LEARN.

The most important advantage we can give learners is to support them in becoming proficient, self-directed and confident learners.It is necessary to teach the conceptual understanding, competencies and the dispositions of character that build our capacity for lifelong learning.

COMMON LEARNING CULTURES NEED A COMMON LANGUAGE TO CREATE CONSISTENT MEANING.

To make learning happen effectively, we need to use a common language that describes what learning is and how we do it at Maya.This language allows us to reflect, discuss and receive feedback about our learning culture.

LEARNING IS BOTH A PERSONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY.

We all have different starting points and different interests which can result in different learning pathways.Purposeful collaboration and substantive conversations, in social contexts, can help us articulate our ideas clearly and allow our ideas to be challenged.This leads to deeper understanding of ourselves and others. Learning is both cognitive and emotional. Learning is about making and strengthening neural connections. This process is strongly influenced by our emotions. Brain research shows us that our emotions can affect our brain chemistry, and our reactions to our learning experiences must be understood to enhance our future successes.

TRANSFER OF LEARNING HAPPENS BEST IN RICH, RELEVANT CONTEXTS.

All genuine learning involves transfer from previous learning.To provide opportunities for successful genuine learning, we need to provide rich contexts that are relevant to all learners so that they will have access to opportunities to make connections to prior understanding, to reason and to make generalizations.

The Attributes of Personal Learning

They describe how the Colegio Maya learning community values and takes action in growing thinking and learning in a culture dedicated to engaging students in meaningful, authentic and rigorous learning.

The Four Attributes of Personal Learning are:

VOICE: Increasingly more open for every individual to share their thinking.
CO-CREATION: Thinking interdependently to construct and take actions on ideas.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: Building networks and connections to seek out and share expertise.
SELF DISCOVERY: Reflecting on learning and gaining insights through self-knowledge

(Kallick & Zmuda, 2017)

First page of the PDF file: CMAttributesofLearning

The Elements of Personal Learning

Element #1: Goals (Disciplinary, Multi-disciplinary, Dispositional)
Element #2: Inquiry/Idea Generation (What topic sparks thinking? Worth pursuing?)
Element #3: Task & Audience (Expanded opportunities to share information, ideas & performances)
Element #4: Evaluation (What and how is performance evaluated?)
Element #5: Cumulative Demonstrations of Learning (Evidence of learning over time; Growth)
Element #6: Instructional Plan (Student empowerment)
Element #7: Feedback (Open to continuous learning)

Each of the 7 Key Elements of Personal Learning represent an opportunity for a conscious choice to move closer to learning that empowers the student to be a significant part of the instructional design process. The learner is at the center of the curriculum.

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