Chapter 2
The Aims of Contemporary Schooling

-Teacher quoted in Pederson and Liu (70)

As a society, we want our children to use their knowledge to investigate, analyze, and create in a thoughtful manner. We want them to attend to details: laboring over language, numbers, evidence, and techniques to ensure the veracity of their statements. We want them to not give up, to have faith in themselves, and to access the abundant resources around them. The first three elements of the Personalized Learning Evolution-disciplinary outcomes, cross-disciplinary outcomes, and mindsets-are aims of contemporary schooling. Disciplinary outcomes delineate the broader goals of a subject area (for example, mathematics, history, art). Cross-disciplinary outcomes indicate skills that are essential to be successful, but are not bound by one subject area (for example, critical thinking, problem solving, communication). Mindsets describe academic and behavioral dispositions (relevance, growth mindset, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging) that impact how students feel about the possibility of success given the environment and the assignment. Personalized learning is a means to achieve those ends: a way to grow our children so that they are better equipped to handle the uncertainty, complexity, and excitement of the world.

Before we explore each element individually, it is important to establish how the cross-disciplinary and mindset aims of schooling differ from the disciplinary aims.

• They are not acquired in the same ways. Acquiring content knowledge is something we are very familiar with. However, we can't treat the acquisition of cross-disciplinary outcomes and mindsets in the same way. For example, on entrance to school, students already have a "starter set" of skills and aptitudes related to cross-disciplinary outcomes (such as creative thinking) and mindsets (such as a growth mindset). We do not "transmit" these to students in the same way that we transmit new knowledge-nor will they acquire these by simply being exposed to them. The impact of this is that we need to consciously attend to these goals in ways that differ from how we attend to the acquisition of disciplinary outcomes.
• They are not developed in the same ways. Cross-disciplinary outcomes and mindsets are developed through experience, awareness, reflection, and conscious attention to the roles they play in our success. Although some of the related subskills can be practiced (for example, one can practice strategies for more effective collaboration), this process is much more experiential than practicing solving mathematics problems. The impact of this is that learning experiences must also be designed with an opportunity for students to make use of these cross-disciplinary elements and mindsets and reflect on their own related performance.
• They are not demonstrated in the same ways. Cross-disciplinary outcomes and mindsets are demonstrated in the "doing" of something. A student, or anyone for that matter, brings them to the fore in a variety of situations as needed and as the student decides is appropriate to succeed at a task or in a situation. They are not demonstrated on demand, but in situ. The impact of this is that we need to design experiences that explicitly require students to access these skills and aptitudes as part of the process and in overt ways.
• They cannot be assessed in the same ways. We cannot assess cross-disciplinary goals and mindsets in the same way as we can assess more cognitively discrete disciplinary outcomes. For example, we cannot assess a student's critical thinking abilities by asking her to list six different types of critical thinking and reasoning approaches (for example, comparison and contrast, inductive, deductive). This is not an authentic way to assess the level to which a student can bring her critical thinking skills into the process of successful learning or achievement of a goal. The impact of this is that we need to design assessments and interpret performance based on a very different set of criteria (such as performance indicators) than we would apply to assessing the attainment of disciplinary outcomes.

Personalized learning allows us to intentionally attend to these different types of learning together. But it is important that we consciously design the learning environment, learning experiences, and performance tasks to deal with each in an appropriate and authentic way.

Element 1: Disciplinary Outcomes

The first element is perhaps the most familiar one: articulation of disciplinary outcomes specified in national, state, and provincial content standards (see table 2.1). Many new and revised standards articulate disciplinary goals that are compatible with personalized learning. However, we can get a bit lost in how we use standards to design and evaluate student learning experiences. If we see the value of broader goals, how do we stay true to the purpose of schooling in our daily work?

Table 2.1 Personalized Learning Evolution: Disciplinary Outcomes

Standards are not curriculum. Standards delineate what students are expected to know, be able to do, and understand; curriculum is a path to the achievement of those standards. Essentially, curriculum is a design issue that can and should evolve. In his blog, Granted, and., Grant Wiggins made the case: "Suppose knowledge is not the goal of education. Rather, suppose today's content knowledge is an offshoot of successful ongoing learning in a changing world-in which 'learning' means 'learning to perform in the world.' Only blind habit keeps us from exploring this obvious logic. The point is to do new things with content, not simply know what others know-in any field." To that end, key stakeholders in any education system can ignite conversations and pursue actions to describe the "what" (goals of schooling and disciplinary outcomes) and the "how" (organization and delivery of curriculum).

Let's pause for a moment and engage in a thought exercise. Imagine a roomful of elementary school classroom teachers trying to make sense of reading content standards and how they impact daily instruction. The teachers are immersed in specific learning objectives, comprehension strategies, and consideration of multiple texts. In the midst of this analysis, someone raises the question "What are we after, anyway? What does a good reader do?" This question sends people into a tailspin for a moment: some become disgruntled because they see this as a tangent, outside of what they were asked to do, rather than the heart of the matter. But after a robust conversation, they settle in on the larger goal: we want students to independently comprehend and engage with any text to analyze how what is being said impacts thinking. This is an example of a long-term transfer goal that gets to the heart of the demonstration of learning desired, regardless of grade level or teacher personality. There is a coherent focus now from a student's point of view:

• I can read and understand any text by using appropriate strategies.
• I can figure out the author's purpose.
• I can make meaning and draw conclusions from any text by using evidence.

In any given subject area, disciplinary outcomes provide the reason we care deeply about certain skills, concepts, or topics-how a particular area of focus connects to student capacity. Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (9) assert, "In the real world, no teacher is there to direct and remind you about which lesson to plug in here or there: transfer is about intelligently and effectively drawing from your repertoire, independently, to handle particular contexts on your own." Long-term disciplinary outcomes have the following characteristics:

• They emphasize independent application when the student faces new challenges both in and outside of school.
• They establish purpose and relevance for students (that is, they answer common student questions: "Why should I learn this?" or "How/where/when will I use this?").
• They create coherence across grade levels within the subject-area program.

Disciplinary outcomes are generated from the wisdom and expertise of the teaching staff in grades PreK-12. The starting question is as simple as What are the handful of priorities that I want students to learn? After the list is delineated, pose a follow-up question: How is...