The Agile Professor - Creating an Agile Learning Environment for Classrooms and Schools

The last entry outlined a relationship between the backlog and learning in the context of course work. Further to that consultation our team ranked the ten projects in terms of which ones provided the most learning for them as individuals.

We had ten projects so the number ten was given to the project with the most learning and the number one for the one with the least learning. The three that ended up at the bottom of the rankings were then discussed. The discussion centered on how these projects could be improved to become more useful as learning experiences.

The discussion proved to be valuable as students brought features of their norms of engagement to light. In effect they were engaged in “pulling” and shaping the course work for the next group of students.

As planning is a developmental and strategic part of the learning circle these contributions from students give insights into how the backlog can be used in contributing to each part of the learning circle. Action, reflection, learning and planning as an integrated process provides more focus as the team participates in consultations that concern both the backlog and the sprint backlog.