High School Redesign Conference

All students prepared for success! Some states call it proficiency, some competency, yet others mastery. The bottom line is that the New England Secondary Schools Consortium is committed to providing a high quality education for all their students. I had the good fortune to attend this High School Redesign Conference and hear from schools across Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut. Each school had its own story to tell about their personalized learning efforts with a focus not just on implementation, but sustainability.

To look back at some of the key learnings, I encourage you to search the hashtag #NESSC14 on Twitter.

I cannot go any further, without saying how fortunate we are in Southeastern Wisconsin to have the leadership of Jim Rickabaugh and his work with The Institute at CESA 1. Their mission, to establish personalized learning as the prevailing approach to educating youth, is an inspiring mission that has helped guide my own leadership journey at Waukesha North High School as we work to transform our teaching and learning practices.

This is the fifth year that the New England Secondary Schools Consortium has gathered at a conference, this year with 650 participants, to network and share forward-thinking innovations in the design and delivery of secondary education. These schools are dedicated to increasing the percentage of students who graduate from high school college-ready. This laser-like focus was paramount throughout each presentation.

The cornerstones of their efforts included: (1) Maximizing student-centered learning opportunities; (2) Providing personalized, flexible proficiency-based pathways for all students; and (3) High school graduation based on students demonstrating proficiency on learning standards.
No longer is seat time and getting by with a "D" good enough for their students.

Strategies were shared in the area of policy, practice, and public will. Advancing state-led policies, networking with their League of Innovative Schools and building public understanding and support for more innovative approaches to educating today's students, are areas that I believe leaders in Wisconsin can learn from. I am encouraged by the thoughtful and caring leaders I have met through The Institute. I look forward to working more deeply on the personalized learning elements of the honeycomb as I continue to challenge high school level legacy based practices and work towards more student-centered practices. Lets connect via Twitter @InstituteCESA1 or @jlandish13 to positively transform education for students in Southeastern Wisconsin. Now is the time, to get learning right the first time, every time.

What does #GAFE mean?

@WaukeshaNorth1 was able to send a group of teachers down to Illinois to participate in the GAFE (Google Apps for Education) Summit last weekend. On a Friday afternoon, when most teachers were heading home for a restful weekend, this group of Northstar warriors headed down to Illinois looking forward to learning and growing professionally with their colleagues around the use of technology to increase student engagement and achievement.

A summation of their take-aways are below. Please take time to read everyone's insights.

"I would say using digital portfolios for students to walk away from graduation with all the highlights of their high school learning experience.  The person we listened to has the kids use Google sites, then for a graduation gift she purchased a URL for every student. $.99 domain names, and after year 85% of her kids renewed their URLs."  ~Jill Werner  

"My biggest take away was that we need to teach kids how to lead with their knowledge. The "accessing technology" playing field is now pretty even in terms of the "haves" and "have-nots."  The new chasm/gap is between the kids who know how to leverage the information they find and produce meaningful experiences with it.  As educators, our role has significantly shifted...we need to teach kids skills...skills like leadership, innovation, collaboration, etc.  The tech that is available are tools that teachers need in order to teach their students those skills. I have always known what I just stated above is the "why", but the "how" became more clear to me over the weekend."  ~Becky Newcomer 

"My biggest take away came from the keynote speaker, David Jakes, who's topic was Expeditions, Journeys, Curiosity and Wonder.  He asked the question "Is your classroom and school a base-camp of wonder?", meaning, do you give people permission to wonder and explore their learning and big ideas?  He presented the quote "Inquiry starts with teachers as engaged learners and researchers, with the foundational belief that the topics they teach are rich, living, and generous places of wonder and exploration".  He incorporated this sense of wonder with technology and how people had the choice of technology use to be evolutionary and fulfilling that sense of wonder or controlled and viewed as a negative addition therefore seen as disruption.  

Another connection David Jakes made to a sense of wonder was the concept of Moonshot Thinking (http://youtu.be/0uaquGZKx_0) . Instead of a mere 10% gain, a moonshot aims for a 10x improvement over what currently exists. The Moonshot Thinking video clip discusses that what we know as the greatest things that have happened have only succeeded because it took someone the courage to try.  Also, if we become afraid to take these great big risks we stop inspiring people, we stop achieving things, and the biggest nightmare scenario is that we won't have what it takes to solve the really big challenges.  Having the mindset of "we don't know how we're going to do this yet, but we're going to do it anyway" sets the stage for wonder and curiosity which leads to these great expeditions, journeys and discoveries."  ~Darci VanAdestine 

"The biggest take way was learning about more apps to enhance the learning experience of students. Enhancing the learning experience includes empowering students with apps that are student learning focused and age appropriate. Moreover, I got some good ideas from several sessions on how I can help students think

creatively about telling stories (writing), presenting information, and making arguments."  ~Athena Alwan

"I came away with some digital presentation ideas and some apps that we can definitely use including the new Google Maps Lite engine next year for Human Geography. The more significant impression was hammered home during the demo slam. If we are not careful, we will get overwhelmed by the means and lose sight of the goal. What can we use in a meaningful way? What is cool but really a distraction? What works? We need to manage the assets out there, not let them manage us. The real interface to Google, and everything on the Internet, is a flesh and blood student."  ~Jim Nelson

"We (the collective We, that is) have "grown up" a little and are making more sensible choices. We can be and need to be more discriminate in the tech we choose, realizing that there are so many apps out there and, honestly some of them aren't good.  We don't have to use all of them to be cool teachers, we need to use some of them well to be more effective educators.  That's a shift in tone from previous sessions I've attended.  

This was evident in the "iPad Apps" session I attended.  Basically, an overview of about 25 apps that are useful, with dialogue and discussion.  It centered on finding the best apps for the job, not just 7 apps that do it but always have a problem, an issue, or a shortcoming.  There was very little "Gee, I wish it did THIS" and more "It does it all, and theres a neat thing coming in the next update!".  That's a definite paradigm shift. 

In the end, the takeaway is this:  Not every app needs to be used... it's about finding the right app for the job and sticking with it, as long as it meets the instructional need."  ~Lansing Dimon 

"Using "google docs" as a user-friendly research tool, using "google forms" for turning work in, and creating individual portfolios were valuable to me.  While I was taking notes for the "google docs research" seminar in "word" (feel the irony) I finally started making connections about why google docs can be more user friendly in terms of individual project based research.  Using the research, cite, scholar, images, etc. tools so easily sure can speed up a student's process. I have a lot of former AP Psych students who tell me they use APA format a lot in college papers and this resource will allow me to assign just such a project after the AP test.  Grading student work has been a challenge for me (is it in their folder?  did they email to me?  etc. etc.).  By using google forms, all their assignments will be together and easier for both myself and the students.  I am working on that now...found a few bugs but getting there.  My head was still spinning after the portfolio session (it was the last session of the day) but I do have the notes and contacts to pick this up when I have more time.  I would like to apply this to my Intro Psych class because it will be something they can use if they take AP.  I can also see how I can use these in AP as way to create their own review sessions but that is still in my mind's infancy stage! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to go.  It was great to get to know Darcy, Jill, Becky, Jim, Greta, and Lansing better! In fact THAT was probably the biggest biggest take away."  ~John Ricciardi

"Celebrate! We are doing some awesome things at Waukesha North in a 1:1 world. In fact, I would say we have many teachers and administrators who could easily have led terrific sessions at this conference. Broadly speaking, our school has been able to make the shift towards using iPads as a means of substituting technology for traditional practices (ex. creating a paperless classroom) and establishing more efficient practices (ex. using Flubaroo to grade formative assessments). In less than a year, our school has taken significant steps toward effectively implementing iPads into the classroom and helping our students develop 21st century skills. Now what? How can we transform the educational environment in order to help our students develop the skills necessary to effectively leverage electronic data as part of the new digital divide (those who can utilize the digital information effectively and those who cannot)? How can we use technology to push our instructional strategies to the M (modification) and R (redefinition) portion of the SAMR model by rethinking the classroom environment, learning space, and student educational experience? An iPad in the hands of a student will not inherently transform the learning experience, but I believe very strongly that we, as educators, can use technology to revolutionize how students learn. Technology is truly a game changer, but this requires us to live out our imagination, not our history. Some of the most powerful moments from the conference came from brainstorming with my colleagues. As part of these discussions, I began to view my classroom in a whole different way. In fact, I wondered how I could eliminate the structure (in terms of time, rigid content, traditional assessments, etc) in order to create a more personalized and meaningful educational experience. As a result, I am looking seriously into developing a Physics classrooms rooted in competency-based grading using E-Portfolios, creating the opportunity for skill-based assessments and flexible, personalized learning."   ~Greta Voit

And next week, I head out to Massachusetts, for the New England Consortium Schools, High School Re-Design conference! Let the innovation continue!!

Danielson's component 3b: Using questioning and discussion techniques

The urge to write this blog, comes from an article in this month's Educational Leadership by Dylan Wiliam titled, The Right Questions, The Right Way.  It is also a follow up to my colleagues post in January at http://robertblessington.blogspot.com/ and the fact that as of March 1, our teachers @WaukeshaNorth1 need to continue their growth in the area of questioning and discussion techniques as you can see from our classroom walk-through data below.

3b: Questioning and Discussion Techniques                     Level 1- (17)      5%

                                                                                         Level 2- (188)   55%
                                                                                         Level 3- (121)   36%
                                                                                         Level 4- (13)        4%

                                                             

Most classroom questioning occurs when a teacher asks a question, several student raise their hands, the teacher selects one of those with a hand raised, the student gives a response, the teacher evaluates the response, and the cycle begins again. Yet just about every aspect of this scenario actually gets in the way of learning- and it doesn't provide enough information on what most students in the class know and need to learn.

The fundamental flaw in this traditional questioning model is that it makes participation voluntary. A second problem with this approach is that even if a teacher chooses students at random, the teacher will only be assessing the understanding of one or two students. The third problem with this standard questioning model is that teachers rarely plan the questions they use.

The simplest way to improve classroom questioning, and the first step, is simply NOT to ask for volunteers, but instead to choose students at random. Students would only raise their hands to ask questions, not to answer them. "No hands up" may be the most significant thing a teacher can do. 

As a teacher, you shouldn't worry about students answering the question correctly. If the students are answering every one of your questions correctly, then you are wasting their time. If the questions are not causing students to think, they are probably not worth asking.

The no-hands up approach will make discussions more engaging, but this first step still only assesses the learning of a few students. To plan next steps, teachers need information from EVERY student in the class. Quick response using the iPads as whiteboards or the iPads as a quick response formative assessment, allows the teacher to see immediate responses from every student.

Planning questions ahead of time is especially important and is something all teachers should strive to incorporate into their practice.

These three ideas- no hands up, all student response systems, and planning questions ahead of time, allow you to increase the engagement of your students. It will also improve the feedback from the teacher. One teacher described the process as making the students' voices louder and making the teacher's hearing better. Seems like a win-win for us all!