Graduate Profiles, Profiles of Success, or Learner Profiles are increasingly popular as they can help to expand the collective idea of success and elevate the essential knowledge, skills and mindsets for learners to thrive now and in their future along with foundational knowledge and content. I am all for this but know that it has to move beyond posters and the strategic plan to truly make an impact on learners and their learning. As George Couros reminds us in Innovate Inside the Box, We shouldn’t be data-driven, we should be evidence-informed. He suggests “Rather than approach students with a deficit mentality, we must look for and build on their unique strengths and talents and help them acquire the skills, knowledge, and mindsets they need to see themselves as full of possibility.”

As a result, here is a question that educators are increasingly asking, 

How might we set goals, capture evidence, and share what students are doing in connection with our learner profile? 

I love this question and what educators are doing to address it!  Here are 6 strategies to empower student agency through learner profiles.

1. Make the knowledge, skills, and habits that are valued in your community explicit and accessible to students.

The words matter but defining them and showing examples is a critical step in making them accessible to create a shared understanding of the goal. I like the way that Oak Knoll Elementary School created indicators to help make this more clear. 

I have worked with Logan County Schools to identify skills and strategies to use connected to the learner profile. One thing we found really powerful is to curate examples to empower both educators and students to discuss powerful examples. It is important to note that the way these non-cognitive skills show up is contextual and personal. The measures of habits and skills are best when they are informed by self-reflection, peer assessment, and educator observations over time to shows evidence of patterns and trends that inform ongoing development. The goal is not to check a box, give a grade, or mark as met or not met but to help educators, families, and students focus on these skills and grow them in productive ways.

If your school or district doesn’t have a learner profile, talk to your community, colleagues and students about what you value most and create your own school or classroom profile that defines the knowledge, skills and mindset that you value most. Make it visible and accessible for students. 

2. Self-assess skills connected to the learner profile 

Once you break down the skills, it is important for students to self-assess to gain a deeper understanding of their strengths and challenges, aligned to the larger goals. If you create a self-assessment that is aligned to the profile, it can be a powerful tool to revisit across classes and grade levels and help learners develop agency and motivation to improve.  I love this example from Pam Hubler @Specialtechie.

3. Highlight and celebrate actions connected to the learner profile 

It is fairly common for awards to focus on grades, GPAs, or attendance. It is less common and really powerful to focus on skills that are critical to their success and growth. In Ms Tarah’s class, each month students are celebrated for how they demonstrate characteristics of the learner profile like being a risk taker, being open-minded, or an inquirer. What you celebrate and acknowledge gets focused on and if these skills are important we have to show that we value them. 

As a teacher, I used to just cut up paper and give them to students when I noticed something aligned to our profile of success and they could enter in the raffle for a piece of candy at the end of the week. It was very informal but personal and they rarely cared about winning but loved being recognized! This is a simple example of a certificate to highlight these skills and more here.

Many teachers have students nominate their peers or have shout-out walls (physically or virtually). Consider how you might specifically acknowledge students for demonstrating skills aligned to your learner profile. 

4. Reflect and set goals connected to the profile

Did you know we are more likely to achieve goals when we write them down and they are meaningful to us? Making time in our day for students to reflect and then set goals can help them take ownership and develop agency.  The beauty of a learner profile is not that everyone is the same– it is that everyone is unique and valued for who they are. When this is true, individuals are more driven to accomplish goals that matter to them personally. This example is helpful for the students but also for educators to better understand the students as complex and dynamic people not just what they see. 

5. Monitor progress by capturing evidence of their work towards their goals

Portfolios are a great way to capture evidence of an individual’s growth and document the journey. Looking at and using data to grow the talents and skills of young people requires that we apply an asset based lens to our data collection and analysis. Looking evidence that can show us what the learner can do and provide multiple means of representation.

6. Share evidence of growth in both academics and skills habits and mindset in the learner profile

When you begin with learners and design experiences to support these skills, 

Technology can make this easier and more visible. Jake Miller has shared many tools that can help students document and share their learning process and the ways in which they are developing key knowledge, skills and mindsets.  

These 8th grade resumes from VIDA are a great way for students to highlight who they are and their accomplishments and develop some great skills while they are at it. 

This is a powerful example from Matt Meyer who used a vision board to help students highlight their goals and progress at their student-led conference.

Ignite Curiosity, Develop Passion, and Unleash Genius

It is worth noting that foundational literacy- reading, writing, communicating, and numeracy should be non-negotiables in school but if we only focus on the basics without purpose and relevance to the learners, or skills to navigate their path we will continue to fall short of this goal. A critical aspect of a learner-centered model is that it gives purpose and relevance to the knowledge and skills that students are learning and focuses on the application rather than the sole memorization. As I shared in Learner-Centered Innovation, when we focus on learners and connect to their interests, needs, and goals, we can create experiences that ignite curiosity, develop passion, and unleash genius.