Principal Christi Martelli of Clover Flat Elementary School in the Mountain Empire Unified School District had a vision of ensuring all of her students became active participants in their learning. Her desire and passion was to create something that made the learning process a visual experience, where intentions and outcomes for each lesson could be easily viewed by the students. Through hours of research and collaboration with her teachers, Principal Martelli developed the curriculum that is now the Visible Learning Plan at Clover Flat.

Implemented for the first time last school year, the Visible Learning Plan is on its second year for ELA and Math. Each lesson is outlined clearly with bullet points and questions under the lesson heading, similar to curriculum schedules or outlines found in high school or even college courses. This is called the success criteria. Principal Martelli says, “The success criteria is their path to reach the learning intention. If they master each step in the success criteria, then they should be able to master the learning intention. This is helpful to students, however if they don’t have the right mindset or grit then they won’t even want to try.”

Although students may find the transition challenging at first, the point of the Visible Learning Plan is to enable every student to be active and engaged in their own learning, so it does require more effort because it changes the way the students think about learning. Once students are on board with the process, their minds begin to engage with their learning differently and Principal Martelli notes that the school has “noticed a huge difference in the mindsets of our students after implementing it last year. It was incredible! Our students loved learning about themselves as learners which was shown in the engagement they had in the lessons. They couldn’t wait to share their learning with everyone.”

The essential goal of the Visible Learning Plan is to create self-regulated learners. Because Principal Martelli could not find a current curriculum on how to do this, she created her own plan based on research such as “Visible Learning for Teachers” by John Hattie, Stonefields School in New Zealand, “The Learning Challenge” by James Nottingham, “Lifting Student Learning” training by SDCOE, and the Visible Learning Conference 2017 in San Francisco.

The Plan also incorporates tools to get students out of a “Learning Pit,” where students become frustrated, confused, or worried because they are stuck on a topic that isn’t clicking with them. The Visible Learning Plan teaches students to use tools such as communication, resourcefulness, integrity, tenacity, self-awareness, and the grit of a can-do attitude to overcome their educational challenges. Clover Flat Elementary School’s passion and positive growth because of this program is evident, and they plan to continue to grow the program and roll it out each year.

Media Contact
Company Name: Mountain Empire Unified School District
Contact Person: Kathy Granger
Email: Send Email
Phone: 619-473-9022
Address:3291 BUCKMAN SPRINGS RD
City: Pine Valley
State: CA
Country: United States
Website: http://www.meusd.k12.ca.us/