Learning Contracts

Learning contracts provide a means of managing instruction by engaging learners and acknowledging differences in learning readiness, rates, and styles. The advantages of learning contracts include providing motivation through choice, long-term differentiation, alignment with the standard curriculum, incorporation of multiple intelligences and learning styles, clarification of expectations, creation of diverse products, and effective use of existing resources.

Learning contracts serve multiple purposes and, therefore, can take multiple forms. A teacher may develop a learning contract to align with a unit of study in order to offer choices of products. These choices might reflect multiple intelligences or learning styles, or even focus on different aspects of a unit. Students are allowed to choose the activities to complete based on individual interests.

A second purpose for a learning contract may be to address different levels of mastery or understanding. For this purpose, the learning contract might be tiered to offer [Page 465]activities for three levels of mastery: students still struggling to master the concepts, students who have mastered the concepts at grade level, and those students ready to go beyond grade-level mastery. The activities would all be focused on the same concepts but at different levels.

A third purpose for a learning contract may be to provide continued engagement for learners who have demonstrated early mastery of objectives through a pre-assessment. For this purpose, the individual student interests would be incorporated into the choices in order to keep the student actively learning while other students are obtaining grade-level mastery of the objectives. The student(s) would access the learning contract as a component of curriculum compacting.

A fourth purpose for a learning contract addresses the economy of limited resources. If there are not enough books, computers, or other materials for all students to access simultaneously, the learning contract can allow students to manage their own instruction by engaging in other activities until those resources are available on a rotating basis.

The structures of learning contracts vary widely. Some teachers prefer to list a description of activities to be completed. This list might include some activities that are mandatory and others that allow for choice. For example, the first few activities might require students to read the chapter in the text or complete a pre- assessment before selecting from additional activities. Some learning contracts are arranged into blocks resembling a tic-tac-toe board, offering nine activities or products. Still others are weighted by complexity or difficulty and assigned a certain number of points for each activity. For those learning contracts offered to students with early mastery, the learning contract might specify criteria for access, such as the successful completion of specific activities or a minimum score on a pre-assessment.

In designing a learning contract, the following questions need to be answered:

• 1.
  Who will be completing the learning contract (all or some, level of student, etc.)?
• 2.
  Will the contract be aligned with the standard curriculum and, if so, what objectives need to be addressed?
• 3.
  What space and time will be allotted for completing the activities?
• 4.
  When in the flow of a unit or study will the contract be used (i.e., to engage students at the beginning of the unit or as a culminating product)?
• 5.
  What resources are available to be incorporated and are they available for all students completing the contract?
• 6.
  How will the students manage their time?
• 7.
  How will the outcomes be assessed?

Two of the complexities surrounding the use of learning contracts entail fairness and assessment. In designing the contract, a teacher needs to consider how the requirements can be equitably specified and accurately measured. If all students are given a choice of activities and some activities require a greater challenge or amount of time, the tendency of students might be to choose the least challenging or time-intensive activities. In addition, because the needs of students differ, what is challenging for one student may not be challenging for another.

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