365 Days to Deeper Learning

For the past few years, we've focused our professional learning opportunities on what are collectively referred to as 21^st Century skills and attributes. It was part of our strategic plan in 2005, and has continued to be a part of every staff development plan since. We've explored many different models, looking for the best fit:

• 21^st Century Fluencies (Ian Jukes, 21^st Century Fluency Project)
• 4 C’s: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity (EdLeader21)
• PBL: Project-Based Learning (Buck Institute for Education)
• Authentic Intellectual Work (Center for Authentic Intellectual Work)
• Curriculum 21 (Heidi Hayes Jacobs)

While our efforts have resulted in pockets of the types of learning experiences that we know most impact student learning and best prepare them for their futures, the changes have not been systemic. Some teachers embrace the concepts and ideas and weave them into everything they do, while others view them as something to do in a single showcase unit.  But not all teachers have opted-in to the professional learning opportunities. And some have attended with the best of intentions to make changes, and then have later fallen back into instructional and assessment strategies that have worked for them historically. So, in a district that excels on standardized assessments that are publicized and lauded, how do we systemically support teachers to incorporate these strategies into their work with kids? The answer, we believe, is by embedding these dimensions into the curriculum review process in a meaningful way.

When we were at EdLeader21 in October, we were inspired by Karen Cheser’s, Chief Academic Officer of Boone County Schools (KY), IGNITE presentation, “The Power of One Year: 365<1 Lifetime.” We decided that day that we would leverage all of our assets – human and otherwise – to make this the year that we the dimensions of deeper learning are integrated into our students’ experiences.  Here’s our progress so far.

Day 1: All in! We decide to push-in to curriculum review process in a much more significant way.

Day 35: Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Eric Schneider discovers Washoe County School District Guide to Planning Instruction for 21^st Century Learners. This model inspires the team to consider how we may create a rubric that teachers could use to evaluate their curriculum, instruction, and assessments.

Day 41: Teaching and Learning team attends Curriculum Leaders of Minnesota “Leading 21^st Century Systems” conference featuring Valerie Greenhill from EdLeader21. The Input-Output-Impact exercise frames motivates us to move into action. We commit to creating the Minnetonka Deeper Learning rubric on November 26 (Day 55). 

We've already set some additional deadlines to keep us on our 365 day target. 

Day 78: Provide professional development around curriculum and assessment writing to our teacher instructional coaches (TICs) and technology teachers-on-special-assignment (tech TOSAs). Digitize rubric, embedded with links on how to move from one level to the next.

Days 98 & 104: Present first draft to district department chairs and site staff development chairs.

The 365 days are going to fly by if we don't continually make this a priority. By involving all of the Teaching and Learning team, we're sure to make the most of the 8760 hours!

Sitting is the New Smoking

Sitting is the new smoking. Dr. Dieter Breithecker, Head of the Federa Institute of Posture and Exercise and Posture, shared this provocative metaphor at the Design for Learning Showcase at Vantage Program facility on October 27. He cited these potential side-effects of sitting for more than 6 hours a day:

• ·         Obesity

• ·         Metabolic Syndrom

• ·         Mental Disorders

• ·         Auto-immune diseases

• ·         Cardiovascular Pathologies

• ·         Chronic Back Pain

• ·         Cancer

It turns out that traditional classrooms are the worst environments for our students’ bodies. A restrictive environment – one that discourages movement – has a negative impact on the brain and the body. Planned exercise – running, organized sports, dance – does not counteract the negative effects of prolonged sitting. Planned movements and organized sports simply don’t have the same effects as regular movement – the kind of movement human beings were designed to be constantly engaged in.

And if we don’t give students the movement options their bodies crave, they’re going to take them anyway! Dr. Breithecker shared a video of a classroom of young students. The students were presented with a problem. At first the students were motionless. Then, as the task required additional engagement to process the challenge, the bodies started to fidget. They rocked in their chairs, leaning back and risking toppling over, behavior that is the bane of most teachers’ existence. It turns out that mental processing and physical processing are entwined. 

Dr. Breithecker acknowledges that this behavior can be both dangerous and frustrating. The solution can be as simple as switching the traditional hard, stable chair for one that is requires students to stabilize themselves. Stools such as the Hokki stool “let students keep moving, while sitting still” (Kaplan Early Learning Company). And reframing this behavior as students’ need to process physically as well as mentally could result in teachers encouraging this “fidgety” behavior rather than restricting it.

And there are implications for adults as well. Those individuals whose work revolves around sitting at computers need to consider alternative seating and desk arrangements.

Refitting schools with movement stools and standing desks will take time and resources. In the meantime, teachers and students need to find ways to incorporate movement into their daily lives. The good news is that breaking free from sitting doesn’t require a patch or behavior modification therapy. It just requires that we embrace movement in ourselves and others. 

Hunting for Ideas

This week we launched our fourth annual Innovation Hunt for Ideas. Using cutting-edge crowdsourcing software, all employees of the Minnetonka Public School system are invited to share their ideas on how to improve our educational system. Each year, the “Hunt” has evolved and the process for collecting, developing, and vetting ideas continues to improve. Last year, we added Innovation Coaches at each site to personalize the innovation process and support our Idea Champions. This year, we allowed Idea Champions to self-select the size of the idea as well as to identify the primary audience. In this way, apples will be compared to apples and oranges to oranges when we enter the second phase, Pairwise.

While I always am amazed by the transformational ideas presented by our staff, I am equally inspired by the incremental ideas. Just yesterday one of our elementary teachers shared an issue that she has noticed with our kindergarteners. Frequently, our youngest students are anxious about school, and forget where to go and who is who. While we host kindergarten round-up and provide support for these new students, this teacher suggested creating building-specific videos that show students the ropes at their new schools.

The beauty of this idea is that it actually solves several other challenges the author hadn’t even considered. At each of our elementary schools we have Immersion programs. When our kindergarteners arrive on their first day of school they are challenged not only with learning how to “do school” they’re learning it in a second language. Viewing these videos at home will maximize their learning time right off the bat. And we always have students who move into a school during the year; these videos will welcome them and help them become more familiar with their school before their first day.

This is just one of over 35 small ideas intended to improve efficiency, improve communication, and make school a more relevant place for our students. Another 60 ideas requiring more resources have also been shared.  Over 350 staff members have participated in this first stage of our idea hunt. I am humbled by our teachers, paraprofessionals, office managers, technology support staff, and administrators courageously posting their ideas and helping colleagues develop their ideas through their comments and suggestions.   

Windows and Mirrors

Students’ educational experiences need to be both windows into the experiences of others as well as mirrors of their own experiences, according to Dr. Veronica McDermott of the National Urban Alliance. The curriculum windows provide students an opportunity to stretch whereas the curriculum mirrors help students develop efficacy; it validates who they are as people and learners. Students’ efficacy, their belief in their ability to reach their goals, is the most influential factor in their achievement, in both school and life. And, more often than not, our students who struggle do not see themselves represented in curriculum and pedagogy.

Jen Kohan, MN-ASCD Executive Director, Dr. Veronica McDermott, me

I had the amazing opportunity to spend two days last week with Dr. McDermott at MN-ASCD’s Teacher Leader Institute, tackling the issue of closing the achievement gap for underperforming students. She shared – and modeled – several instructional strategies designed to engage students in high intellectual performances. “What I read; What’s in my head; What my neighbor said” and “Read, draw, talk, write” incorporate best practice in reading instruction into all content areas. But more compelling were the videos she shared to provoke our thinking.

The first was “A Girl like Me.” Kiri Davis, at the time a high school senior, directed a documentary on perceptions of beauty by girls of color. She also re-constructed the “doll test” originally produced by Dr. Kenneth Clark for the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case. Nearly 60 years later, children overwhelmingly continue to prefer the white doll over the black doll, and to perceive the white doll as the good doll. Teachers, adults, society in general, need to use mirrors and windows to celebrate success of people of color so that these self-perceptions can change.

The second video Dr. McDermott showed us was the “Original Dance Factory Preschool Tap.” As you watch the video, frame the behavior of the star first in an assets perspective. Then reframe the exact same behaviors from a deficit model. The message here, of course, is that we need to look for the strengths of underperforming students and to build on that. Most behavior in itself is neutral: is the child creative or disruptive? Is the child energetic or distractible?  

Throughout the conference, I kept connecting this work – windows and mirrors as a means of celebrating who students are and who they may become – with last week’s discussion of student voice. Students not only want to be heard; they want to see themselves in the curriculum and pedagogy. 

The Voice - Student Edition

Relationships matter. Teachers who care about their students matter. Being heard matters. Multiple ways to show learning matters.

At last week’s EdLeader21, Dr. Russ Quaglia facilitated a student voice panel. When he was concluding the session, four young Georgia students shared those statements in response to what mattered most. It wasn’t the first time they said that. Throughout the 45 minute panel, their message about what was most important in education was simple and clear: YOU. Again and again, students wanted their teachers to hear these three things: 1. I matter. 2. We matter. 3. You matter.

The research backs this up. If you know your students hopes and dreams, they are 18X more likely to be academically motivated. A simple survey at the beginning of a course can help teachers know about their students. One student shared a creative way that his teacher got to know them, a brilliant question: “How would what you are striving to be help us in a zombie apocalypse?” 

Students know when a teacher KNOWS them. They like hearing their names and having genuine conversations with their teachers.  Students believe they have something to teach us.  Students want to know WHY teachers teach. They believe if teaching is a passion, then it is no longer a job.

And while all of this was affirming, enlightening, and just an all-around great reminder, it was just one part of the bigger message. We need to hear our students. Students need to be invited to share their insights. One participant reminded us, “The past 200 years, ADULTS created the very best schools we know how. Would it be totally crazy to ask students what they think?”

Students should be participating colleagues in our work. Our friends in Farmington, MN include students in their Instructional Rounds. They ask students what they see and what works for them. The students’ points of view offer meaningful feedback. And it’s powerful for students to see their teachers being vulnerable and open to feedback to improve.

How we invite students to share can and should be decided locally – at the classroom level, at the building level, and ultimately systemically. Students are not just the consumers or customers of education; they are our reason for being. They should be our partners.

The final thought from the student panel was this:  just know me and let me know you. This will help me grow.

Networking

Legislators – at all levels – are notorious for mandates that are unfunded and ill-defined. While at a first blush, this can be frustrating, it is also liberating. We, at our district and site levels, have the opportunity to shape implementation of these mandates to meet the needs of our communities. And it is a lot of work. Just as we want our students to collaborate with their peers to meet real world challenges, so should we.

This week was all about networking: Q-Comp Leadership Network, Teacher Development and Evaluation (TDE) Community of Practice, and the District 287 Teaching and Learning Network. Internally we networked this week as well when we brought together our Innovation Coaches from each site, our parent representatives, and representatives from the Minnetonka Foundation. In all of these instances I walked out with greater clarity around my next steps, and possibilities for improving processes.

Student learning goals are one component of teachers’ evaluation in the recently enacted teacher evaluation law. At the Q-Comp Leadership Network, my colleague from Edina shared the rubric that they are using to evaluate teachers’ student learning goals. Rather than focusing on just the results, they will take into consideration the implementation of the strategies being used to meet the goal as well as reflections on the implementation. By including both the implementation of and reflections on the learning, they are recognizing the complexity of student learning. Similarly, at the TDE Community of Practice, my colleague from Anoka Hennepin shared a rubric that they are using to evaluate student learning goals as well. They, too, recognize and value that goal setting has many facets. Principals will consider five components of the student learning goal: determining needs, creating goals, planning instructional strategies to meet the goal, monitoring student progress, and reflecting on the goal. These two rubrics will be great conversation starters when our TDE committee meets again in November.

It’s also been pretty awesome to watch the internal networking of our Innovation Coaches. After some initial brainstorming in person, the conversation around our innovation efforts has continued in their Schoology group. They’re having fun as they decide how to further the culture of innovation in Minnetonka.

Every meeting we attend is an opportunity for different experiences to collide. As our networks expand, so do our perspectives.  And our loads are a little lighter as a result. 

Moths and Cockroaches

On the way home from work the other day, I caught the tail end of an interview on NPR. The interviewee was discussing moths and cockroaches. Curious about the context of this topic, I tuned in. He was saying that moths fly to the light while cockroaches scurry from the light and look for dark places. It turns out that he was discussing stage actors. The interviewee believed that actors tend to be one or the other. He, as the director or teacher (I never did find out which), sometimes had to literally move an actor into the spotlight. It was the only way an actor could become the lead. And it started me thinking: is this true in all walks of life? Are we either moths or a cockroaches? Are we instinctually drawn to either light or darkness? And can a cockroach become a moth?

I think we all know individuals who tend to be attracted to possibilities. They have an aura of optimism. Their glasses tend to have a rosy tint. And, when their idealism is tempered with realism, they attract others to them.

On the contrary, we probably also know individuals who dash into dark corners when the spotlight shines. They congregate and multiply. And, as is true for the cockroach, the attraction to darkness is a survival mechanism. In the light they are vulnerable and exposed. Simply shining more and brighter light makes them retreat faster. Perhaps dimming the light, and understanding the fears that are sending them into sinister places, will make the world more hospitable.

How is "Establishing a Culture of Learning" like a refrigerator? 

During Minnetonka Public Schools’ New Teacher Orientation, I asked teachers to compare this Charlotte Danielson concept to an appliance. The one that stayed with me was an analogy of buying a refrigerator. The teachers explained that taking the time to set up expectations at the beginning of the year was like investing in a top-of-the-line refrigerator. It’s expensive. And worth it. Everything has a place and gets the treatment it needs to stay fresh. It doesn’t take long, in a bad refrigerator, for things to start to stink and pretty soon you’re spending time with the repairman. In the end, it’s more expensive and is wasteful.

As teachers, we know the importance of setting up expectations for our kids on that first day of class. Equally important is taking the time to set up expectations for adult behavior when working in teams or committees. It can be tempting to simply adopt norms from previous years or committees. The danger is that there isn’t any ownership.

Learning Forward, the National Staff Development Council, suggests two means of creating norms (Richardson, 1999). The first is documenting current practices. Of course this suggests that the current practices are working! The second method is for each member to submit ideal behaviors for the group. While it is tempting to list behaviors that disrupt meetings, it is far better to identify behaviors to embrace than to identify behaviors to avoid.

Setting the norms is the easy part. Enforcing them is the challenge. Kathryn Blumsack, an educational consultant from Maryland who specializes in team development, said, “If you don’t call attention to the fact that a norm has been violated, in effect you’re creating a second set of norms. For example, a common norm is expecting everyone to be on time. If you don’t point out when someone violates that norm, then, in effect, you’re saying that it’s really not important to be on time.” Finding a way to do this in light, humorous ways is far preferable than shaming. You’ll need a norm around this as well.

Invest in the top-of-the-line refrigerator. Establish the culture for learning in your teams.

Richardson, Joan. Norms put the ‘Golden Rule’ into practice. Tools for Schools, August/September 1999.

The Diamond Ring of Instruction: Student Engagement

Think about times when you were most engaged in a conversation, in a class, in a book, or in a movie. I bet you can remember it well. When we’re actively engaged, we learn and remember. The Minnesota legislature recognized the importance of engagement when it passed its teacher evaluation law in a special session in 2011. All teachers will now be evaluated not only on their skills in the classroom and on the achievement of their students, but also on the engagement of those students.  What leads to engagement? According to Dr. Robert Marzano’s meta-analysis, when students answer in the affirmative to these questions, they are most likely to be engaged in learning:

·         How do I feel?

·         Am I interested?

·         Is it important?

·         Can I do it?

In the 2013-14 school year, teachers in the Minnetonka Public School District learned teaching strategies to specifically address these questions.

The first two questions refer to attention-getting strategies. The core of how a student feels is the relationship the students feel with the teacher and their classmates and how they feel about the class itself. Humor, pacing, intensity and enthusiasm, and physical movement all have the potential to impact how a student feels in class. Interest can be increased through games, friendly controversy, unusual information, and questioning techniques.

The latter questions lead to cognitive engagement.  Students will believe that the learning is important when it is relevant to their own interests, when they have ownership of the learning through choice, and when they can see its relevance to other subjects or the real-world. Finally, students need to believe that they can be successful. If a student’s answer to “Can I do this?” is “No,” Dr. Marzano suggests that “students might lessen or abort their involvement – even if they have positive feelings about the task, are interested in the topic, and perceive it as related to their personal goals” (Marzano, 2013). Students need to believe that there is a correlation between effort and achievement.

The real challenge with the new requirement in the teacher evaluation law is not how to create engagement; it’s how to measure it. A student could be staring out the window, seemingly disengaged while actually deep in thought about a topic. Another student could be giving all of the right body language, smiling, nodding, and looking at the speaker, all while planning what she’s going to wear to the football game. And engagement looks different in PE than in English lit, and it looks different in kindergarten than 11^th grade. A one-size-fits-all measurement won’t work.

To accommodate different subjects, different age groups, different job roles, the Minnetonka Teacher Evaluation Team created multiple paths for measuring student engagement. The first path teachers could consider is using the third-party survey that the District has purchased. Or a teacher could choose to create and deploy a survey of their own making. Another option is for teachers to use the Marzano self-assessments on student engagement. Or teachers can create their own plan for studying their students’ engagement.

Measuring anything as abstract as engagement is complex. A single snaphsot is unlikely to reveal the entire picture. And it's a starting place.