What is partnering?
Marc Prensky (2010) suggests a model very similar to student-centered learning, with an emphasis on respectful relationships between teachers and learners. Given this emphasis, he calls the model partnering. Partnering, Prensky says, is all about ‘letting students and teachers do what they do best’:
Instead of the teacher telling, partnering works when teachers ask good questions, and students learn by discovering answers. They learn the content themselves in the form of answers, but more importantly they learn skills through the process of finding, sharing and discussing the answers.
Partnership reverses the traditional textbook approach of presenting content then asking questions. Instead, the teacher asks questions that guide students to the content.
Partnership reverses the traditional textbook approach of presenting content then asking questions. Instead, the teacher asks questions that guide students to the content.
Roles in partnering
Partnership assigns specific roles to teachers and students; many of these contrast with traditional roles within the classroom. One significant obstacle to successful implementation of innovations, as covered in Curriculum Design and Implementation, is changing the roles of stakeholders. However, with sufficient motivation, both negative, viewing current levels of disengagement, and positive, seeing partnering work in other classrooms, teachers can overcome this obstacle, and help students overcome it too.
Student roles:
Student roles:
- Researchers: students find out, rather than being told
- Technology Experts: students choose which technology to use, and how to use it
- Thinkers and Sense Makers: students engage in critical thinking
- World Changers: students need to see they can have an impact on their world, and look for connections between their study and the world they live in
- Self-Teachers: students engage in metacognition
Teacher roles:
- Guide/Coach: this is the fundamental change from traditional models of teaching
- Goal Setter and Questioner: Prensky stresses the importance of asking good questions as key to making partnering work
- Learning Designer: provide multiple pathways for students
- Abandoning Total Control for Controlled Activity: partnering classes are often noisy, with lots of movement and less total control of students
- Provide Context: through Socratic questioning, guide students to understanding of content they have found in the context of the subject
- Rigor Provider and Quality Assurer: don’t accept anything below standard; give clear feedback on why it needs to improve, and how to keep improving it
Technology and partnering
Technology allows for customization/differentiation of learning. Students can learn at their own pace, in their own way, to suit their own learning style. Prensky, in keeping with his ‘digital natives/digital immigrants’ theme, suggest students can teach each other and their teachers how to use technology.
Nothing new?
Prensky acknowledges that this is not a new model, and lists the following models or theories as partnering under another name:
- Student-centered learning
- Problem-based learning
- Project-based learning
- Case-based learning
- Inquiry-based learning
- Active learning
- Constructivism, or co-constructing
- Learning by doing
What Prensky has done here is to take the student-centered model and popularize it, presenting it in a user-friendly format and a non-technical style, with lots of practical ideas for application. The only significant difference between student-centered learning and partnering is Prensky’s emphasis on the partnering relationship based on mutual respect between teachers and students. This is not to belittle his contribution, however. Student-directed learning models have been around for a long time (Dewey's thinking, from the best part of a century ago, contains elements of student-centered learning). By expressing these ideas in a popular style, Prensky may have helped education take a giant leap forward.
An example of a partnering approach
The following artifact, completed as part of Technology and the Curriculum, explores how one unit of a music course - how to read music - might look using a partnering approach.
I found the experience of designing this imaginary course quite inspiring. I found myself thinking through the fundamental principles of the material: what exactly is written music? Is it a code? a set of instructions? a language? a form of art? As I developed questions and activities, I realized that I was far more excited about teaching this course than I have ever been using a traditional approach. The creativity involved in developing this course is in itself enough to motivate me to adopt this approach, and, I believe, would communicate itself to students in the way I led the course. One thing is clear: the skill of formulating good questions is central to any form of student-directed learning.