A Learning Power profile can provide the basis for developing high quality coaching relationships between individual learners and their coaches or mentors. Learning profiles provide the basis for focused learning conversations. For students these may be about their learning at school and at home.
Learning Power conversations
Termly or twice yearly conversations about the learning profiles can be a cornerstone of developing and assessing Learning Power. After taking the ELLI questionnaire, students enter into a coaching conversation with a teacher/coach. During this conversation they are encouraged to think about how they might make their use of a dimension stronger, broader and deeper.
Where the student is showing hardly any use of a learning dimension the teacher’s coaching prompts encourage a discussion on:
- exploring the meaning of the learning dimension
- thinking about why the dimension is/will be useful to them
- gauging what would help them to use it more often
Where students are showing some use of a dimension the coaching prompts focus the discussion on:
- deepening understanding of that learning dimension
- trying to remember to use it in different domains
- exploring the benefits they might gain from using it
- seeking out what could trigger them to use it more broadly
This is a critical stage. Exploring what triggers the use of a learning dimension begins to nudge casual or reflex use into deliberately strengthening and broadening the habit of using it.
Where students are already showing strong use of the dimension, the coaching-prompts might encourage:
- seeking examples that validate the ELLI profile’s judgement of strong use
- talking in more depth about the dimension in action
- exploring how they can become even more skilled in using it
- probing what triggers its use
- discovering where else it might be useful.
Such conversations tend to deepen teacher-student relationships, help develop the common language for learning, and invigorate students’ interest in their Learning Power.