Learning leaders

Learning ladders (Ladders Of Learning) are part of the multi-grade multilevel Methodology (mg ml), which is developed by Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RIVER) since the 1980s as part of an Indian country school reform and resistant expanded a method. The MGML methodology and its learning guides assume the natural heterogeneity of all children and appreciate the uniqueness of their learning processes. As a possibility for fully individualized learning and teaching, the MGML methodology radiates nationally and internationally.

Starting point and history of the RIVER projects

Since the 1980s, the directors of RIVER, Padmanabha Rao and Anumula Rama, have been working with their team to set up schools for the rural Indian population, in which every child can find and follow their own individual and structured learning path based on their cultural origins.

The origin and starting point of her powerful initiative are the Rishi Valley School and the coordinating institution of the Rishi Valley Education Center. The Rishi Valley School is a highly recognized educational reform school in India (founded in 1930). The teachers work there on the basis of the impulses of the philosophy of life and education of Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). Initially, a flexible learning set for individualized work was created under the name “School in the Box”. With this learning material, RIVER initiated the development and construction of 12 rural schools. As a school development, teacher training and teacher training center, the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources, RIVER, has been coordinating all developments for a long time. It promotes school developments with experimental and model schools and through appropriate designer workshops, seminars, courses, practical stays and advanced training. RIVER is currently one of the most innovative international initiators for the development of fully individualized schools. The broadcast of RIVER and the MGML methodology in numerous states of India currently reaches around 100,000 schools and around 10 million children. The innovative effect of their commitment in India and beyond has been recognized several times nationally and internationally by prestigious awards: for example in 2004 by the Global Development Award of the Global Development Network (GDN) and in 2009 by the Schwab Foundation at the Indian Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum as the winner of the “Award for Indian Social Entrepreneur of the Year”. The Global Journal has ranked RIVER among the 100 most important NGOs worldwide since 2012. The most important European cooperation partners of RIVER are currently the Integral Research Team at the Chair for School Pedagogy at the University of Regensburg and the Chair for Pedagogy in Behavioral Disorders at the University of Würzburg with its external academic and academic partners.

The central concerns of the MGML methodology

The aim of the MGML methodology is to create a learning atmosphere in which every child can follow their own learning movement. The MGML methodology therefore focuses on the fear-free and competition-free educational activity of the child. Various forms of learning and design are culturally rooted in it and linked to form a holistic whole. It shows a highly complex method arrangement with appropriately designed learning materials in the midst of a decentralized learning room arrangement. This learning offer can be characterized by four complexes:

Fully individualized learning opportunities through
systematic learning leaders with learning sequences, supported by a
systematized pool of materials.

Learn along with your own temporal dynamics
circulating multi-age groups and
integrated helper system.

Culture-based and region-oriented learning areas as well as a
ecologically oriented school design
Integration of all social classes and generations.

Situation and process-oriented approach
Participation in the development processes of all parties involved, in form
practice-oriented teacher training in model schools and
simultaneous national and international further development.

The MGML methodology and its learning guides

Initial situation of the MultiGradeMultiLevel-Methodology, MGML

Classroom Satellite School

The MGML methodology is based on the natural heterogeneity of all children and appreciates the uniqueness of their learning process. At the same time, the fact of different learning and performance levels (MultiGradeMultiLevel) is not seen as an obstacle or problem, but as a task and opportunity. The MGML methodology does not answer with efforts to allegedly homogenize, but works consistently to support the different individual learning movements.

After their learning movement, each child can adequately design their own learning progression without pressure. The method offers inclusive, performance and age-independent learning. All available performance levels are deliberately included in the MGML methodology.

Material pool with learning material to stimulate learning activity

The starting point of the MGML methodology is the idea of activity-oriented, lively teaching with free work processes. The children themselves guide their learning processes with the help of the MGML methodology. Individual and joint learning in the situation with partners, groups or in the community of all students work together permanently. The learning and educational activities are stimulated in the MGML methodology by individual learning materials. The activities are described on the learning materials. Each material is identified by a symbol and numbering for systematization. Each learning material provides targeted and structured instructions for processing, offers tasks and is part of systematic learning sequences that are arranged in a chronological order in a so-called ladder of learning. All activities and their learning materials form a fully systematized pool of materials based on valid curricula.

The structure of the learning leaders - 'ladders of learning'

Learning leader linear shape

The learning leaders can be seen as structuring instruments for individual learning in subject-specific free work processes. They enable long-term learning process control. The supervising teachers are freed as far as possible from their process-controlling task in conventional frontal teaching.

Divided into learning sequences by so-called milestones, the learning leaders guide you through the fully systematized pool of materials. The learning arrangement by learning leaders enables numerous and varied learning activities in the heterogeneous class with the most varied of activities. Linear learning guides have been developed by RIVER for language and mathematics. Systemic learning progressions can be found in "Environmental Studies" as a learning board with networked subject areas and ecological orientation. They take into account the networked subject structure of scientific, social and humanistic topics.

'Milestones' as systematic learning sequences in the learning ladder

'Milestones' structure the learning leaders as small-step sequences. They have a systematized internal process structure that is designed as a five-stage assurance of learning progress:

Introductory
Reinforcement (practice)
Evaluation (evaluation of the desired goal)
Remedial (funding)
Enrichment activities (expansion)

In this constellation, the milestones lead to the qualitative safeguarding of free forms of learning with integrated evaluation and adequate promotion of learning processes.

Milestone

Due to the structure described, they have an individualizing and differentiating effect at the same time. This approach largely prevents learning gaps. Based on specific operations in mathematics, life-oriented stories in language or life situations, the milestones are designed according to the respective methodological and didactic aspects. Basically, a milestone is only completed after the understanding process has been fully established.

Evaluation of the learning progression and the learning success of the students

The learning success is initially evident for the students themselves as they progress on their learning ladder. The successful development of knowledge and skills is checked in the milestones through evaluation tasks. Larger evaluation processes are incorporated within longer intervals of around two months. They provide information about the sustainability of what has been learned and the applicability of knowledge and understanding. When working with the learning leaders, the teachers document the level of knowledge and the learning development of the children. Learning dynamics, learning jumps or even slowdowns in developments can be individually read from these recordings. The children can see their learning progress reflectively through the self-guided learning documentation. Parents also get a realistic picture of their child's educational development from both perspectives.

Cross-age group formation with an integrated helper system

Different types of group formation enrich the learning variants of the MGML methodology. The MGML methodology works with changing group processes. In the Indian schools there is experience with four to six cooperating groups. The respective variant is taken up according to the respective local situation.

'Teacher based' (group led by the teacher, especially for introductions to topics)
'Partly Teacher based' (partly teacher-led, also tutorial support)
'Peer Group based' (guided by a cross-age helper system in the group, oriented towards common activity characters)
'Partly Peer Group based' (partly led by a helper system in the group, oriented towards common topics and activities)
'Individual' (working completely independently, only the material guides the process)
'Kindergarden' (age 4–6 years, personal care)

All groups are designed for all ages. The group composition changes with the activity characters, which are indicated by the symbols of the materials. The age and competence differences in the groups result in integrated helper systems that additionally strengthen the form of subject-specific free work phases described above.

Time frame in MGML methodology

The basic measure for the MGML methodology is the individual learning time that each child needs to learn. The learning leaders offer the annual framework, which can be traversed very differently depending on the child and the learning speed. The daily and weekly structures are based on rhythmic learning times. During these times, the children learn in different age-independent constellations at different learning locations and at the same time with a variable level of supervision by the teacher.

Indian and international charisma

Indian charisma

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the MGML methodology developed by RIVER has been in increasing demand. The possibilities of this fully individualized school are now reaching numerous Indian states, some of which are implementing the nationwide introduction. The vehement charisma can now be perceived, for example, in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Radjasthan, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. It reached about 100,000 schools and 10,000,000 children in India in 2012. The strongest and systematically promoted distribution is noticeable in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. All children in primary schools can learn there in a fully individualized manner using a variant of the MGML methodology, "Activity Based Learning". The initiatives in Tamil Nadu were also honored by the Indian government in 2009. In all further developments in India, the great cultural and regional diversity within the design of the method is taken into account. In 2012 RIVER was awarded the prestigious inner-Indian Jindal Prize.

International charisma

The international presence is changing schools around the world, e.g. B. in Ethiopia, Peru, Germany, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. An international learning community for school development in the 21st century is currently networked in changing groups through the broadcast of the MGML methodology. Padmanabha and Rama Rao formulate this very warm-heartedly and at the same time powerfully with the comment: “We are all one learning community.” Regensburg, Munich and Würzburg have had contacts with RIVER since 2002, which in the following years become stable, intensive and multi-layered have expanded German-Indian cooperation. Scientists, teachers, teaching staff, students and trainees participate in this cooperation.

Scientific significance of the MGML methodology

The MGML methodology with its highly complex methodical structure is an expression of an integral culture of action. Following the impulses of reform pedagogy , integral pedagogy supports situation-oriented learning and teaching processes. In the MGML methodology, the natural learning group with its wealth of heterogeneity is left consciously as a cross-age construction. Open learning processes are systematically and methodically secured by the learning leaders and allow children and young people to stay in the dynamic of their own learning movement. They enable teachers to provide flexible support and support in individual and joint educational processes. The MGML methodology is part of lifelong learning. She realizes the implementation of a school for everyone. The MGML methodology with its learning guides is an educational practice that is in demand worldwide.

literature

Ralf Girg: The integral human school. Practice and horizons of integral pedagogy. S. Roderer Verlag. Regensburg 2007. 327 pp.
Thomas Müller, Ralf Girg (Ed.): Integralpädagogik. Perceptions in the learning life. S. Roderer Verlag. Regensburg 2007. 269 pp.
Ulrike Lichtinger, Thomas Müller, Ralf Girg (2012): Individual learning with learning guides. In: Manfred Bönsch, Klaus Moegling (Hrsg.): Binnendifferenzierung. Part 2: Lesson examples for internally differentiated teaching. Immenhausen. Prolog Publishing House
Ralf Girg, Ulrike Lichtinger, Thomas Müller: Learning with learning guides. Immenhausen. Prolog-Verlag 2012. ISBN 3934575528
Thomas Müller: Something is going on with me…. To work with the MultiGradeMultiLevel methodology and its learning guides at St. Vincent School. In: Fördermagazin 3/2012. Berlin Oldenbourg publishing house
Thomas Müller: Experience with the concrete use of learning leader work in the primary school level of the St. Vincent School. In: Fördermagazin 3/2012. Berlin Oldenbourg publishing house
Sara Schnur, Thomas Müller (2013): [1] . Possibilities and limits for teaching children with behavioral problems. Würzburg: Edition freisleben
Roland Stein, Alexandra Stein (2014): Teaching behavioral disorders. Bad Heilbrunn. Klinkhardt UTB pp. 170-175
Müller, Thomas, Lichtinger, Ulrike, Girg, Ralf: "The MultiGradeMultiLevel-Methodology and its Global Significance: Ladders of Learning - Scientific Horizons - Teacher Education (Theory and Practice of School Pedagogics Book 34)"