My Learning Story

Digital documentation of the process and progress of learning and growth

My Learning Story" is a dynamic tool for learners to document evidence of their growth and curiosity. From pre-assessments to reflections, it guides learners through a structured yet flexible journey. Learners organize prior knowledge, explore questions, and showcase milestones—all culminating in a compelling video story of personal growth.

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HundrED 2025

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED Global Collection 2025

Web presence

2018

Established

1K

Children

4

Countries

Target group

Students basic

Updated

April 2024

By introducing 'My Learning Story', I want to innovate education by empowering learners to take ownership of their learning journey in a user-friendly approach. I want to shift the focus from passive consumption of knowledge to active participation and reflection, fostering resilience, curiosity, and a lifelong love for learning.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

"My Learning Story" was born out of a deep conviction that education should be a deeply personal and transformative journey for every learner. Witnessing the limitations of traditional methods, I saw the need for a tool that empowers learners to take ownership of their learning experiences. By capturing the nuances of their learning journey, I hope to foster a lifelong love for learning.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

In the classroom, "My Learning Story" is a collaborative tool where educators and learners daily brainstorm new pages. With templates and a timeline displayed, learners progress at their pace, documenting insights and achievements. It fosters active participation, reflection, and a sense of ownership in the learning journey.

How has it been spreading?

When I worked as a foreign language educator at the International School of Amsterdam for 11 years, I started developing a tool to document the process and progress of language acquisition. Learners recorded what they were able to say, write, read and understand in the new language they were learning at the beginning of the Unit of Inquiry (IB PYP/MYP) and showcase what their goals about -for example- being able to have a conversations with new friends at the playground. Other educators started to create 'My Learning Stories' too with their groups of learners.
They have been using 'My Learning Story' multiple times as valuable evidence for IB/NEASC/WASC accreditations.
At the Toddle TIES 2023 conference, I hosted a workshop about My Learning Story for educators all around the world.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

You can look at my example of 'My Learning Story' to see what the structure is and how it builds up from a pre-assessment all the way to reflecting on learning and growth. You can think what kind of project/Unit of Inquiry/learning experience you are going to dive into the next coming weeks and document this as 'My Learning Story'. The steps to create one will be shared below.

Impact & scalability

HundrED Academy Reviews

My Learning Story earns high impact due to its personalized approach, empowering learners to document their education journey, enhancing engagement, understanding, and academic growth.

Fantastic example of universal design principles in practice. Clear framework to allow student agency over their learning and to celebrate the process not simply the product. Practical, clear and easy to implement. Excellent.

- Academy member

Academy review results

Impact

Scalability

Exceptional

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Moderate

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Exceptional

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Implementation steps

Tuning in (igniting curiosity & prior knowledge about documenting learning & growth)

Spark curiosity by asking learners what they know about documentation and measuring growth. Possible questions to ask: What does the word "documentation" mean to you?
Have you ever kept track of your progress in learning something new? How did you do it?
How do you think we can measure growth in learning? What do you think is the purpose of documenting your learning journey? Can you think of any examples where documenting progress could be useful?

Educator Explanation

Provide a comprehensive overview of "My Learning Story" and illustrate its concept with an example. It helps to create a common understanding of how "My Learning Story" can look like.

Share the Theme/Project/Unit of Inquiry Title

Share the title of the theme/project/unit of inquiry in an engaging manner, using a chosen method such as a Thinking Routine (Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero website shows an amazing toolbox to choose from) or provocation to pique learners' interest.

Title Page Creation (on PicCollage/Canva/Piktochart/Figma/on a piece of paper)

Guide learners in creating a captivating title page that serves as the cover of their learning journey. You can display important basic information, which includes the words "My Learning Story", the title of the theme/project/unit of Inquiry and the name and grade of the learner. The learners are free to be as creative as they like while designing the title page. You can think and talk about the purpose and importance of a title page/cover with your learners.

Template Display

Explain and demonstrate the template display area, providing learners with an understanding of where to access resources and templates for their "My Learning Story" pages.
You can choose to display wonderfully decorated templates with a lot of information, or to keep the templates as empty as possible with only the most basic information (page number and title of the page). It depends on your learners' needs and wishes.

Discuss the structure of My Learning Story (part 1)

Explain to the learners that the structure of My Learning Story will always be the same, but the content will be decided by the learners. The structure:
Page 1 - Title Page
Page 2 -Table of Contents
Page 3 - Framework Explanation
Page 4 - This is what I think I know
Page 5 - This is what I wonder
Page 6 - Categorizing my questions
Page 7 - My favorite question (the one I choose to do research about)
Page 8 - What I need to find answers to my questions
Page 9 - Research Journal

Discuss the Structure of My Learning Story (part 2)

Page 10 - Showing, Oberserving, Analyising, Evaluating Research Results
Page 11, 12, 13 - Documentation of a variety of learning experiences
Page 14 - News Report about an important event/field trip/learning experience/action
Page 15 - First I thought, now I know/I used to think, now I think (summative assessment)
Page 16 - 3,2,1 Reflection
Page 17 - Praising my own process and progress of learning
Page 18 - Praises from my educator, family and friends
Page 19 - Goodbye Page

Create page 2: Table of Contents

Discuss the fluid nature of the Table of Contents page and its importance in organizing their learning journey, emphasizing its role in tracking progress and navigation.
It can help the learners to have a better understanding of what is coming up and what is expected when you show them the structure of My Learning Story by displaying the table of contents. Page 1-10 and 14-19 are set, but page 11,12 and 13 will be up to what the learner will explore and experience.

Create Page 3: Explanation of the Framework

Engage learners in exploring the chosen dispositions, skills, and concepts, encouraging discussion and reflection on their relevance and potential growth areas. Let them know it is completely okay to not understand (most of) these words yet, because we are going to explore and learn to understand these: "Let's see how you think about these words at the end of this project/theme/Unit of Inquiry!"

Create Page 4: This is what I think I know about........

Give the learners time to explore what they think they know about the theme/project/Unit of Inquiry you are focusing on. Activating prior-knowledge could be a challenge for learners who are not used to active and deep thinking yet. You might need to model it and organize it as a whole class learning experience. More skilled thinkers are able to create this page independently and share it with each other afterwards. You need to check in with what you can do to support your learners best.

Create Page 5: This is what I wonder about....

Again, if your learners have practiced deep thinking, you can let them create this page independently. For learners who are not used to think actively, it can be quite challenging to come up with things they wonder about. Using Project Zero Thinking Routines can help to train the thinking skills of the learners. Modelling asking questions can also help the learners activate their curiosity. You can create a big Wonder Wall with all the questions about the topic to make thinking visible.

Create Page 6: I can categorize my questions

Have a group discussion about different types of questions: "Easy To Answer" questions, "Probably Google-able, but still fun to think about" questions, and "Non-Google-able" questions. You could also call them small and big questions, or whatever works best for your group of learners. Ask your learners what they think these categories mean and which type of questions can help you learn and grow the most.

Create Page 7: My Favorite Non-Google-able Question

Each learner chooses their personal favorite Non-Google-able Question and documents this as page 7 for My Learning Story. Ask the learners why they chose this question. Ask them why they think it is not possible to find an answer to this question on Google. You can let them write all the questions of the learners on your Wonder Wall, to make their thinking visible and create a culture of thinking in your learning community.

Create Page 8: This is what I need to do to find my answer my Non-Google-able question

Collaborate with learners to develop a comprehensive learning plan, identifying resources, strategies, and goals to guide their inquiry and answer their non-Google-able question. Who do they think they need? What do they need from them? The learners document all this on page 8 of My Learning Story.

Create Page 9: My Research Journal

Guide learners in documenting their research process and challenges, fostering resilience and problem-solving skills: How did your research go? What did you ask? How did it feel to ask those questions? What was challenging? When/where did you ask the questions? How did the documentation go? How did you organize the answers/data you gathered?
The learners can also add photos of them doing research to this page.

Create Page 10: Show, Observe, Analyze & Evaluate Research Results

The learners show, observe, analyze and evaluate the research results. You can host a workshop for learners who want to get more inspiration about how they could do such a thing. You can also ask learners who feel skilled and knowledeable to host the workshop about what you can do with gathered data. How this looks like depends on the prior knowledge and skills of your learners: Have they ever seen a bar graph or pie chart before? Do they know what data is? Great math learning experience!

Create Page 11, 12 and 13

What happens after gathering and learning from the research results, is up to the learner. What is the learner curious about? What kind of action does the learner want to take? What does the learner want to dive deeper in? Look at and listen to the ideas of the learner and help them continue the exploration of what they are interested in. The learner can create their own learning experience and you as the educator can see what you can do to support the learner on this journey.

Create Page 14: News Report

The learners share a News Report about a field trip or other special event that happened during this project/theme/unit of inquiry. Learners practice to write in a different style: journalistic writing. The learners are the journalists and describe what happened from a different perspective. They can practice creating headlines for a short piece of text and think what type of things are fun to share with an audience.

Create Page 15: I used to think, now I think/First I thought, now I know

The learners compare the knowledge and understandings they used to have about the theme/project/Unit of Inquiry to what they know now. They look at page 4 (this is what I think I know) and realize how much more they know now and maybe even changed their opinion or got new insights. It is a great way to measure growth. You can read and learn more about this thinking routine on Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Look for the Thinking Routines Toolbox.

Create Page 16: 3, 2, 1 Reflect

The learners use another thinking routine: 3,2,1 Reflect. They think about and write down:
- 3 things I loved learning about
- 2 things that were new to me
- 1 thing I want to keep learning about
It is great to have a conversation with your learners about what it means to reflect and how it can help us learn and grow. Reflection is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about yourself and others. It invites learners to make more sense of experiences in relation to themselves and their peers.

Page 17: Praising my own Process and Progress

The learners praise their own process and progress by describing examples of when they showed self-discipline, determination, intellectual humility, curiosity, skepticism, and imagination (they can choose 3 or 2 of these dispositions), subject specific skills (about 2) and a concept they learned to understand. They can choose the dispositions, skills and concepts from page 3. It is so valuable for learners to (once again) realise how much they have grown and how they made this happen themselves.

Page 18: Educators, Family & Friends Praise the Process and Progress

The learners ask their educato(s), family and friends if they have seen the learner learn and grow the past weeks during this theme/project/Unit of Inquiry. The learners write down how other people (their educator, family and friends) have praised their process and progress. They ask about it and document it on page 18. It gives the full learning community a great understanding of the learning journey and builds valuable connections with these important people in their lives.

Page 19: Goodbye Page

The learners create a nice 'goodbye page' to thank the audience for watching 'My Learning Story'.

Time to Share!

The learners can upload 'My Learning Story' on the platform your school uses to communicate with family members. Once it's there, the educator also has access to 'My Learning Story' and can observe what they see, read and hear. It is wonderful to leave a kind comment for the learner and family to read, so they all know you -as the educator- have spent time and effort into observing the final product and praising the process and progress of learning.

Learner Led Conferences

'My Learning Story' serves as a useful tool during Learner Led Conferences. The learner can proudly show evidence of the process and progress of learning and growth.