Provocative Practice’s final Fundamental, its Instructional Priorities, is reflected in two key questions:
1. How do we create and sustain 21st century learning environments of high intellectual performance for diverse learners? This question requires that we understand and operationalize three embedded concepts:
• What do we mean by “learning environments”?
• What do we mean by “21st century” learning?
• What do we mean by “high intellectual performance”?
2. In diverse learner contexts, how do we make learning (and the teaching that leads to powerful learning) public and visible to our entire California community? We know that currently teaching and learning are basically private enterprises that happen inside students’ heads and behind the closed doors of the classroom. When we have schools where the closed doors of our classrooms are thrown open and the silenced voices of our diverse learners are joyful testimonies of their continuous learning, then we will have started our journey to making learning visible. The end of that journey is a space where students, teachers, administrators, staff, and parents:
• Know what powerful teaching and learning looks like and see it exhibited regularly in and out of school.
• Know what to do to produce consistently high quality learning results.
• Hold each other responsible for high quality teaching and learning.
• Expect that work is not done until it meets publicly agreed-upon standards of quality.
• Work together to create environments of high intellectual performance throughout the school and community.