Partnering With Students
Building Ownership of Learning
- Mary Jane O'Connell - Corwin Author and Consultant
- Kara Vandas - Corwin Author and Consultant
Foreword by Larry Ainsworth
Empower students to own their learning
The world today needs students prepared to set goals, to fail, to get up and try a new strategy, to fail again, and to persist until their goals are realized. Therefore, we must ask, “Are all students in our classrooms equipped with the skills and confidence to take ownership of their learning? If not, what can we do to change that?”
Building on the work of John Hattie, Larry Ainsworth, and other leaders in the field, Partnering With Students: Building Ownership of Learning offers a powerful framework to accelerate student motivation and learning. This resource is designed to empower teachers and leaders with strategies to develop learners who have the confidence and tools to engage in any challenge. By flipping the focus to student ownership of learning, the authors provide clear and simple ways to:
- Develop collaborative relationships
- Jointly establish clear expectations for learning and criteria for success
- Intentionally build learner strategies that last a lifetime
- Use formative assessment results to monitor progress
- Harness the power of reciprocal feedback to improve teaching and learning
- Empower and motivate students set meaningful goals and prove learning
When students are invited to partner and share in the responsibility of learning, they become our greatest allies, and we will learn as much from them as they will learn from us.
"O’Connell and Vandas provide a wealth of information to educators, proving that it is not only important to be student-focused, but essential if students are to reach their fullest potential. In an era where we seemingly complicate things because we can, it is refreshing to see a book like this that is clearly written, driven by commonsense, evidenced by good practice, and supported with tools and clear examples.”
— Russell J. Quaglia, President/Founder
Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations
“An extremely rich resource for educators who genuinely want to empower students to be successful in college AND careers. The research-supported strategies put forth press educators to engage in deep reflection and analysis of their personal beliefs and practices, while equipping them with practical techniques to engage students in rigorous, relevant ways in the classroom."
— Kim S. Benton, Chief Academic Officer, Deputy State Superintendent
Mississippi Department of Education
Free resources
Webinar: Clarifying Criteria for Success
Explore with Larry Ainsworth, Kara Vandas, and Mary Jane O'Connell how co-constructing success criteria with students increases student clarity and learning.
“Anyone working on developing a growth mindset or even understanding it would benefit from this book. The strategies offered can be implemented immediately. As an administrator, I can use this material to help guide teachers who need support in guiding students to own their learning. This would be a great book study or a springboard for Professional Learning Group work.”
“The book provides a much-needed guide in developing student-focused classrooms.”
"This book gives step-by-step suggestions on how to become a partner with students – to help them be better, and not just in your content area. Expose students to the methods in this book, and they will use them for the rest of their lives. And they will thank you for it."
"Mary Jane O’Connell and Kara Vandas have taken a courageous step in connecting the dots on several pieces of strategic research about student learning. They have provided classroom teachers with practical templates with which to apply the teacher’s planning for instruction in partnering with students to build ownership for learning."
"Practical, perfect for professional learning communities and independent study. An extremely rich resource for educators who genuinely want to empower students to be successful in college AND careers. The research supported strategies put forth press educators to engage in deep reflection and analysis of their personal beliefs and practices while equipping them with practical techniques to engage students in rigorous, relevant ways in the classroom which translates to VISIBLE LEARNING!"
"The book walks the reader through all of the steps involved in moving every classroom to a collaborative learning experience. The authors ensure that the reader (teacher or principal) sees how these concepts are scaffolded together to create a learner-centered environment . . . This is a book that gets better and better each time you read it. It drives you to take action. I look forward to making changes in my classroom using these strategies. The authors clearly have a vision of the classroom feel and the learning experiences that move students to own their own learning."
"The TRUST Model presented by O'Connell and Vandas captures the essence of what our most effective teachers do to ensure students are co-owners of the classroom and their learning. The authors have articulated exactly what is needed to create the engaging classroom environments we need in our schools."
"O’Connell and Vandas provide a wealth of information to educators proving that it is not only important to be student-focused and driven, but essential if students are to reach their fullest potential. In an era where we seemingly complicate things because we can, it is refreshing to see a book like this that is clearly written, driven by commonsense, evidenced by good practice, and supported with tools and clear examples to support both the teacher and learner."
“Vandas and O’Connell do a masterful job of making the research on student achievement completely accessible, relatable, and immediately usable in the classroom. This book is profound in its ability to do this while putting the tools for implementation into the hands of teachers and their students.”
"Most of us are quick to agree that teachers shouldn’t do all the work when it comes to student learning, but we’re not always sure how to do that. In Partnering with Students to Build Ownership of Learning, O’Connell and Vandas tell us how to do that in an extremely practical and theoretical book. If you want to know how to get students to do more of the work, then you should read this book."
