13 Reasons Why: High School Doesn’t Have to SUCK. (unabridged)

After witnessing the impact Cohort21 has had on its many participants over the years, I found myself in a conversation at our 3rd F2F (Season 8) with Lincoln Smith (@lsmith), about how to help teachers recognize their own ability to transform their practice. It occurred to me that even though I had taught public school in Australia for 7 years, and have now taught in private schools in Canada for a further 5 years, it wasn’t until Cohort21 that my inner innovator was unleashed. Huge gratitude must be shared with @gnichols and @jmedved for modelling the type of collaborative, initiative-seeking mindsets in their PD’s, that first set me on a path to rethinking education. Cohort21, and its many passionate alumi innovators (@lmcbeth, @ddoucet, @timrollwagen, @adamcaplan, @shelleythomas, @brenthurley, @gvogt, @egelleny) provided me with the necessary permission to take disruptive risks in my own teaching practice. Seeing how hindsight is 2020, it makes sense to look back as I also look forward to my riskiest venture yet— my new future as co-founder of my own innovative high school, SiTE Schools Dundas.

The following is a list of common sense changes to secondary school education, if we are looking to represent adolescents in a more dignified and developmentally appropriate way. Many colleagues (@nblair, @tjagdeo, @ljensen, @mhodal, @acampbellrogers, @amacrae, @eoboyle, @lmustard, @tfaucher, @jsheppard, @lmitchell, @bblack, @estewart, @mbrims, @wdarby, @lbettencourt, @rabbiento, @elee) were asking me if I have started recording the pedagogical innovations on my journey. I have no doubt there will one day be a book. For now, this blog (now in its entirety, with further resources at the end) is a start in that direction. The new Montessori high school (SiTE Schools) I have co-founded with Tony Evans, is proof that truly engaging alternatives to mainstream education exist.

Paper Crane Project | SiTE School

1. Small Class Sizes

Every educator knows the secret ingredient of teaching lies in the relationship formed between pupil and teacher. This can be a whole class relationship or one-on-one. Both are vital. Yes, some studies suggest class size does not make a marked difference to academic achievement at the secondary level. But it never hurts. I’ve yet to see a student or parent complain of too few classmates. In my experience, the optimal class size sits somewhere between 10–16. Less than that and you may find it hard to motivate, initiate discussions, or form dynamic groupings. More than that and you inevitably have students who hide, succumb to distraction, or fall through the cracks — making it impossible to personalize learning and create meaningful connection. Class size is the silver bullet of education reform. Teachers and students and parents agree. It is more fundamental than resources or buildings or curriculum, and has the ultra-cool added benefit of providing more jobs.

2. Mixed-Age Groupings

Having a balance of multi-age students in a classroom not only helps with peer tutoring and mentorship, you simultaneously vanish the stigma of both underachievers and overachievers. You also provide authentic extension material for those students ready to move through the course at a faster pace (which can and should include moving to the next grade), and you erase the arbitrary notion of age being the determining factor of ability. The Montessori framework preferences a 3-year age grouping, which works well in an adjusted high-school arrangement of Grades 7–9 and 10–12. Students in these scenarios very quickly forget their age differences and become more interested in sharing knowledge and gaining experience. For a student moving through these levels, this means at least two opportunities to review and understand the material with peers and a further opportunity to teach it to the class; which is the ultimate form of education, allowing the teacher to take the necessary step back and get out of the way of the learning.

3. Purposeful Work

We know that what often drives us in our lives are those moments when our passions produce “flow states”, described as when time becomes insignificant, the work we do, joyful. Are teenagers any different? Perhaps they are even more drawn to this way of being. They crave meaning in their lives at the exact time when their quest for identity has hit its stride, when the questions of difference between themselves, their parents, or other social groups is all encompassing. If high schools don’t answer this call to action, if they don’t provide authentic academic experiences that relate to student interests and have real-world consequences, then they have failed adolescents. If knowledge content becomes diminished at this stage, so be it. Social-emotional learning (SEL) and social justice appeals have proven to be more significant and will help teenagers gain the self-confidence that will foster intrinsic motivation towards lifelong learning. We know that resilience comes from overcoming challenge and failure. So challenge them, and let them fail.

4. Meaningful Context

Why are we learning this? This may be the only question worth asking in the information age. If today’s teacher can’t answer this in a practical way, it’s fair to say that subject’s easy-to-search content should not be taught. Contextual learning can come in many forms; you can teach the history of math, uncover local environmental issues, or invite experts. Teachers should be trained to relate popular culture, current events and the latest innovations, into a classroom discussion to build engagement through mutual relevance. What you should never do is plan your entire lesson in advance, because context is like live theatre: it only works in the moment and will change from class to class and year to year. Overplanning for the sake of admin compliance is not only a recipe for teacher stress and anxiety, it actively works against the needs of adolescents. A teacher who is unable to observe the mood and interests of the class and improvise with their subject material, is not modelling the very flexibility we are asking the students to develop.

5. Learning Happens Everywhere

Too often, high schoolers spend their days shuffling from one uninspiring classroom box to another. Small respites can be found at lunch or during spare. Increasingly, even these breaks are becoming pressured into further programming such as wellbeing training. What effect does this have on the autonomy of the adolescent who is entirely shaped by their environment? How do they perceive scholastic institutions when everything is institutionalized? What if learning could happen anywhere and the separation between the real-world and the school-world wasn’t so defined by the boundaries of property. Adolescents must connect to this outside world and a new definition of community: projects, publishing, protesting, presenting — however and whenever there is more at stake than a mark. Co-ops, internships, and service should be compulsory. An abundance of connections exists through any parent community. If churches produce reverence, museums a sense of wonder, galleries artistic appreciation, then what are schools built for?

Communication class at The Printed Word bookstore, Dundas, Ontario

6. Question, Discuss, Repeat

Maria Montessori refers to the 3rd Plane of Development, the stage known as adolescence, as the time when the youth becomes a “social newborn”. It goes without saying, then, that a large amount of this time is set aside for talking with peers; talking about relationships, talking about problems, about dreams, hopes, frustrations, absurdities. The role for adults at this stage is to listen without judgement, observe and guide where appropriate. The role for teenagers is to ask great questions. This is in fact the only way to check one’s ideas and ideals. In a properly curated discussion, where respectful communication is modelled, the most amazing epiphanies and analogies will spontaneously arise. Deeper learning will flow from inquiry, dialogue will become discourse, provocations will lead to new perspectives. Call it Socratic seminar, Harkness method, classic debate — what matters is there is space for everyone to be heard. Discussion is the first, best, and last method of education. Best of all, it does not require wifi!

7. Less Rubrics, More Resilience

Current pedagogical practice will tell you the more scaffolding and transparency you provide a student, the greater chance they may have to satisfy assignment expectations. They’ve even given it a name — universal design for learning (UDL). What they don’t tell you is how this very strategy also reduces creativity and originality as youth limit themselves to imitate exemplars instead of reaching towards a unique product. I’ve seen it too often, where teenagers ask what it takes to get a 90% rather than asking how they can tailor their personal interests into a project that satisfies the criteria. When we consider the rise of learning difficulties experienced by students today, and the overall lack of resilience and adaptability found as a result, do we not need to look at ourselves as educators and find our own heavily administered practice culpable? Find as many ways to co-construct assessments as possible. Have adolescents write their own reports. This isn’t sidestepping your duty, it’s allowing them ownership over theirs.

8. Go Gradeless Already!

Process over product. Formative versus summative. Ongoing checkpoints as opposed to strict outcomes. Stop the debating and give adolescents and parents the only solution proven to decrease anxiety and stress. The minute you remove standard numerical assessment, the sooner you see teenagers learn for the sake of learning. The minute you dissolve arbitrary deadlines, watch as youth become negotiators of their own work habits. When you give constructive feedback instead of points, observe how students will spontaneously do another draft to correct their mistakes and appease their own growing success and worth. Because what it comes down to is, what is the self worth? It may take many years for grades to cease being the benchmark for post-secondary acceptance but these numbers don’t have to be shared with students now. The increasing trend of skills-based reports and project portfolios — applications preferencing experience — suggests it won’t be long before what we measure is the capacity for being open to learning and not the learning itself.

9. Freedom to Teach

Teaching is an artform. The development of one’s individual style and voice is the career goal. Despite attempts for schools to carry on popular programs when a revered teacher leaves, something is always lost in the absence of a great educator. This is because at its core, teaching is an individual practice, separate from the mission statements of boards and curriculum standards of ministries. Teachers facilitate with dynamic personality and accumulated experience; the more they have of both these traits, the better they usually fare in this most noble of professions. Principals and department heads would be wise to heed this advice: let your teachers follow their bliss and watch as their students likewise become more open minded and curious individuals in the face of such passion. As soon as teachers become bogged by administrative duties, caught in union politics, or are viewed as less important than alumni or parents, you have limited society’s most vital resource for transmitting Enlightenment values.

10. Think Outside the Domain

“Modern life requires range, making connections across far-flung domains and ideas.” (David Epstein, Range) By the time students reach secondary school they have already been standardized into the narrow structures of subject-specific thinking. For many, English and Math seem separated by gulfs of unbridgeable content. Yet if we simply renamed these traditional disciplines, say, Communication or Problem Solving, we might suddenly see just how connected they are in terms of broad application. Adolescents feel pulled in a thousand directions by the various methods subjects silo them into. This can easily be changed by focussing on each subject for an immersive period of time instead of grazing superficially. What if teenagers could master skills and mindsets in each discipline before moving to the next one? What if these transitions were not arbitrary, but curated, to allow an understanding of subject similarities instead of emphasizing differences. You don’t take an Uber to the “science” part of town. All knowledge is transformational and integrated.

Photo by Lindsay Palmer | http://lindsaypalmer.ca/

11. Dignity is Not a Four Letter Word

Adolescents are ready for the adult-world but they feel a great amount of unrest about this burgeoning responsibility. In another time and place they would have already been part of the workforce, helping out on the farm, married, or fighting in a war. Their passion and energy for life is unmatched and has the capacity to start revolutions or go viral. Look at the great work of climate activist, Greta Thunberg. She is respected because of her unique perspective; she has not compromised her values for an adult rationalization of how the world works. Self-determination is the result of feeling individual worth. This is not some small measure of character but rather a developmental necessity for growth and dignity. If you lend adolescents a sense of autonomy and self-direction through voice, choice, expression, and movement, you will earn that same dignity back. This two-way street is the rough pavement our teenagers tread. Uncertainty breeds opportunity. Adolescence is a time when you get fired by the boss and hope you get hired back on as a consultant.

12. Actual Critical Thinking

Perhaps the most overused and underdeveloped term in education. Very simply, critical thinking is the ability to recognize what is not being said in any given situation. It was developed by the Frankfurt School of German philosophers escaping to America during WWII. Determined to never let a totalitarian regime happen again, they rallied against the status quo by questioning all of society’s codes and conventions. If education is based on liberal values, on the emancipation of the individual becoming a more informed and productive citizen, then this skill of discernment is primary. It should be explicitly developed through credible research and metacognition. Thinking about thinking is a powerful way for adolescents to move beyond a black and white view of the world. By embracing paradox, challenging bias, dissecting mental models, and confronting counter-intuitive scenarios, youth learn to hold space for meaningful reflection. This is why, as Montessori said, “establishing lasting peace is the work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

Dundas, Ontario

13. Nature is Nurture

Get outside, more often. Or as Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods says, “school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.” This generation is driven by a social and moral imperative to help save our planet from climate change. High schools should provide experiential situations where this passion for sustaining the natural can be fostered. Again and again. Despite all the advantages our amazing technologies can provide, we must do more as humans to embrace deep ecology. Educator Mitchell Tomashow says, “the ability to conceptualize environmental issues on a global scale, one must first have the trained skills to observe the details of local interrelationships, relationships that one can actually perceive with one’s own senses.” Teenagers need to work with their hands, build up, dig down, use tools, investigate, and reaffirm their relationship with nature through a renewed respect of place. Every school should be a forest school.

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References

1. Small Class Sizes

Allison, Derek J. Secondary School Class Sizes and Student Performance:

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/secondary-school-class-sizes-and-student-performance-in-canada.pdf

Alphonso, Caroline. Does Class Size Matter? Many Teachers are Adamant it is Crucial: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-does-class-size-matter-many-teachers-are-adamant-it-is-crucial/

2. Mixed-Age Groupings

Three-Year Age Spans in Montessori Classrooms: https://www.public-montessori.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Three-Year-Age-Spans-in-Upper-Elementary.pdf

3. Purposeful Work

Oppland, Mike. 8 Ways to Create Flow: https://positivepsychology.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/

Weissberg, Roger. Why Social and Emotional Learning is Essential for Students: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-sel-essential-for-students-weissberg-durlak-domitrovich-gullotta

4. Meaningful Context

Andriotis, Nikos. Contextualised Learning: Teaching Made Highly Effective: https://www.efrontlearning.com/blog/2017/06/contextualized-learning-effective-elearning.html

Pg Hj Besar, Dk Siti Norainna. Situated Learning Theory: The Key to Effective Classroom Teaching: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327530821_Situated_Learning_Theory_The_Key_to_Effective_Classroom_Teaching

5. Learning Happens Everywhere

Martinez, Monica. Four Practical Steps to Deepen School and Community Connections: https://medium.com/xqamerica/four-practical-steps-to-deepen-school-community-connections-ddcc921b00bf

O’Keefe, Brendan. 5 Steps to Better School/Community Collaboration: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/school-community-collaboration-brendan-okeefe

6. Question, Discuss, Repeat

Andrews, Sarah Werner. Montessori Institute Northwest. Four Planes of Development: https://montessoritraining.blogspot.com/2007/07/montessori-philosophy-third-plane-of.html

7. Less Rubrics, More Resilience

Morin, Amanda. Universal Design for Living (UDL): What you Need to Know: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-thinking-differences/treatments-approaches/educational-strategies/universal-design-for-learning-what-it-is-and-how-it-works

Reuser, K. Co-Constructivism in Education Theory and Practice: https://www.ife.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-3212-6146-0000-00004ae1a3f6/Co_Constructivism.pdf

The Education Hub: https://theeducationhub.org.nz/how-to-help-students-improve-their-resilience/

8. Go Gradeless Already

Whitmell, Terry. More Teacher Are Going Gradeless. I Asked Them Why: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol14/num31/more-teachers-are-going-gradeless-i-asked-them-why.aspx

9. Freedom to Teach

Sinclar, Ashley-Lamb. Why Teachers Need Their Freedom: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/09/why-teachers-need-their-freedom/539151/

10. Think Outside the Domain

Edutopia. Why Schools Should Embrace Integrated Studies: https://www.edutopia.org/integrated-studies-introduction

Epstein, David. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: https://www.davidepstein.com/the-range/

Quest University. The Block Plan: https://questu.ca/academics/the-block-plan/

11. Dignity is Not a Four Letter Word

Ark, Tom Vander. Developing Self-Directed Learners: https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/12/developing-self-directed-learners/

Casey, BJ. The Storm and Stress of Adolescence: Insights from Human Imaging and Mouse Genetics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2850961/

Saxelby, Meaghan. Bring Dignity Into Your School and Transform Culture: https://culturesofdignity.com/bring-dignity-into-your-school-and-transform-culture/

12. Actual Critical Thinking

Duckworth, Cheryl. Maria Montessori’s Contribution to Peace Education: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/epe/epe-entries/Duckworth_ch4_22feb08.pdf

Illing, Sean. If You Want to Understand the Age of Trump, Read the Frankfurt School: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/12/27/14038406/donald-trump-frankfurt-school-brexit-critical-theory

13. Nature is Nurture

Drengson, Alan. Some Though on the Deep Ecology Movement: http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm

Ewert-Krocker, Laurie. The Adolescent: Taking on the Task of Humanity—Conducting the Dialogue Between Nature and Supranature: http://www.montessori-namta.org/PDF/theadolescentandnature.pdf

Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/

Tomashow, Mitchell. Bringing the Biosphere Home: http://www.mitchellthomashow.com/our-crew

DISCOVERY DAYS: A Work in Progress

PROGRESS REPORT

EARLY FEEDBACK (Day 6 of 12)

The initial six weeks of Rosseau Lake College’s DISCOVERY DAYS have had a mixed reception amongst a small percentage of students and parents. Early criticism came from our Grade 12 class who felt this type of “experimental” learning would interrupt their academic goals of achieving high marks for post-secondary applications. They initially preferred the old system of teacher-developed ISU’s (Independent Study Units) or CT’s (Culminating Tasks) delivered in the last two weeks of a course. DISCOVERY DAYS’ longer timelines gave some students increased stress.

Much of this student-created survey can be interpreted as resistance to change and aversion to risk, especially with those students who have succeeded at the “game of school”. Now that the rules are changing, the development of new skills in previously untested areas is uncomfortable.

A small percentage of dissension has come from traditional analytical learners who feel classroom instruction has been diminished and therefore their opportunities to obtain important information in knowledge-based subjects such as Science and Math compromised.

The academic team sat down with students to listen to their voices and concerns and develop workable solutions. One such solution involved the creation of a “University Preparation” club, for senior students, to run during the Winter Term Active Time block. Facilitated by Math and Science teachers, this period will be used for a multitude of senior academic purposes: individual study, tutorials, catch-up classes, guest lecturers, and post-secondary application workshops.

As well as surveying the students on their level of engagement, we also asked the faculty to assess our progress with individual DISCOVERY DAY initiatives. Again, the results were not surprising given how different and unstructured these days can initially feel. Learning Spaces are still not being recognized or utilized by students as differing to their classroom function. Many students are drawn to spaces because of friendship groups rather than project needs. The Discovery Projects themselves are open-ended and some facilitators find it challenging as to how to help motivate students or link ideas to finished products.

What does success look like?

As quantitative achievement data has yet to be calculated (realistically, we will have to measure this with a longitudinal study over numerous years), we have only anecdotal responses and engagement surveys to gauge initial reception. Active Time has already been received positively by the majority of students who tend to learn in this manner.

For most students, success with Design Time and Flex Time may look something like appreciation of new skills learned and broader knowledge shared. Often times general academic acceptance is retroactive and only given credence after the fact or in the case of individual recognition.

For teachers, success will be in the form of professional development, sharing exciting and innovative ideas around the concept of facilitation.

For me, success already looks like this:

Our entire student body is involved in Project-Based Learning and has developed “How Might We… ?” questions. Added to that, more than half of the students have fully integrated questions that cross most or all of their subject areas.

One definitive measure RLC will be searching for, however, is the quality of the projects themselves. Deep learning experiences should lead to more original and interesting end products. It remains to be seen if the grade-oriented Discovery Projects or the fuelled-by-interests Passion Projects will produce that much-lauded exemplar. In either case, successful projects will be shared and displayed for present and future students of RLC to gain inspiration for continued discoveries.

SUMMARY CONCLUSION

 

A desire to see what students can do with their hands inspired a recent change at one of the world’s most renowned campuses. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (motto: “Mens et manus,” Latin for “Mind and hand”) now gives applicants the option of submitting a Maker Portfolio to show their “technical creativity.”

Applicants can send images, a short video and a PDF that shed light on a project they’ve undertaken — clothing they’ve made, apps they’ve designed, cakes they’ve baked, furniture they’ve built, chainmail they’ve woven. M.I.T. also asks students to explain what the project meant to them, as well as how much help they got. A panel of faculty members and alumni reviews the portfolios.

– Eric Hoover (Education Life), New York Times, November 1, 2017

Post-secondary needs have changed. Universities and colleges are starting to require evidence of 21st-Century skill development as part of their application process. Technology, especially developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI), ensures that many jobs will soon become automated, forcing greater reliance on those humanistic attributes that can’t be easily “Googled”.

Despite some resistance to this change at all levels of education (teachers, students, parents, board members) there is sufficient evidence to suggest the tide has already turned and those schools not incorporating at least some aspects of these learning modalities will quickly find themselves behind the times.

The DISCOVERY DAYS model is perfectly suited for smaller independent schools looking for ways to innovate teaching and learning within a traditional framework.

Benefits of a Discovery Day ‘Inquiry & Experiential’ Program:

  • Student autonomy helps foster resiliency
  • Cross-curricular projects help develop critical thinking skills
  • Longer time-scale for projects helps promote self-management
  • Interweaving direct instruction during the week helps students make authentic connections to their project as it unfolds
  • Passion projects help produce engagement and intrinsic motivation
  • Vertical integration helps foster mentorship and collaboration
  • Club creation helps promote entrepreneurship
  • Outdoor Learning helps promote mindfulness and environmental awareness

10 Next Steps

  1. Ongoing communication with all stakeholders (parents, community, board, CIS Ontario, CAIS, media)
  2. Targeted communication with students regarding weekly objectives (via Discovery Board, Google Classroom, Instagram, assembly announcements)
  3. Co-construction of assessment rubrics and templates for (discovery & passion) projects
  4. Further facilitator training (action plans) for teachers
  5. Observation, feedback, and support for teachers in new facilitator role
  6. Individual budgetary line items for various Discovery Day expenses
  7. Booking of whole-school activities and upcoming guest speakers (spring)
  8. Building of NEW Makerspaces (Tinkering Space & Music Recording Studio)
  9. Planning of Discovery Fair with Mastery Badges (https://credly.com/badge-builder)
  10. Planning and scripting of DISCOVERY DAYS marketing video (spring)

Gamifying 21st Century Skills: Part 2

 

FULL DISCLOSURE: (this post was first written, like, months ago, and then not published, and then completely abandoned, and now, in desperation to publish something, published; still not sure on the why, nevertheless working on the how!)

When you blow-up any traditional concept, in education or otherwise, there is always the inherent danger the pieces of your good intentions may become scattered and disconnected from the whole. Another way of saying this is, if you are not careful, you may lose your audience. Or in this case, your student? Or, as Australians are prone to say— the proverbial plot!

In my over ten years of teaching, I have found that educators typically fall into two somewhat contradictory mindsets: those who feel strongly we are preparing students for the harsh realities of the world, and those who believe students are the ones who will create their own brave new world. Did you notice the subtle yet fundamental difference there? One proposes to enrich a generation with the passed-down tools of success, the other prefers to engender resilience through autonomy. I am willing to admit that over the years I have found myself on both sides of this debate. I don’t believe either stance is necessarily the correct one. In fact, I am almost certain you need both of them in order to improve student engagement and achievement, in order to make education relevant again.

In my last post, I began the process of describing the intentions and HMW questions behind my Action Research Plan. To quote George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, who we are perhaps only now recognising will go down in history as the Charles Dickens of the 20th century or at the very least the John D. Rockefeller, “ideas are cheap”. What he meant by this, in spite of his billion-dollar Disney payout, is that anyone can have a good idea, but only the intrepid few can make it past the initial wonder-wall of sticky-note brainstorming and into the deadline-centric prototyping arena.

I am not usually one of those intrepid few. But I know a few people who are, and that has made all the difference.

THOSE NEXT STEPS

There have been plenty. Too many. I should have a pedagogical Fitbit for this.

Let us speed-date our way through this Escher. First, there was the User Feedback. I interviewed a student and a teacher, both of whom would benefit from this initiative. Here are some student thoughts around the why and how of skill development:

At one point I even had a few students on board to create a critical thinking APP. That idea quickly died when we all realised no one knew the first thing about designing an APP. But boy, let me tell you the excitement in the room….

So from those very positive user comments (suggesting I was indeed heading in the right direction) I created a mindmap version of the 7 LIKA Skills which our school has already subscribed to (Self-Management, Thinking, Network & Communication, Teamwork, Learning, Design & Innovation, Information Management). You will notice that a Levelling-Up strategy was initiated with each skill unfolding into a series of 5 increasingly challenging competencies. Not quite the Nintendo-style edtech “game” I had imagined, but nevertheless, something to aspire to. And quite pretty I might add (thank you coggle.it!)

 

Earlier in the year, I adjusted the achievement chart at our school for all subsequent assessments to cater for a Level 5 (instead of 4+, because, hey, it’s Level 5!). I then added Quality Descriptors so that our progress reports became gradeless and work habits could now be labelled as either Beginning, Developing, Deepening, Enhancing, or Mastering.

It made sense, to me at least, for our 21st Century Skills to follow a similar success criteria.

But it wasn’t enough. How would the unpacking of this work in the classroom? Or if not the classroom, where and when would teachers guide students through these 7 skills with 5 Levels each (that’s 35 separate competencies if you’re counting). Most importantly, how would they be assessed?

Then an idea hit me after the last Cohort21 meeting on Mars. The Parlay start-up boys that spoke to our whole group had an interesting functionality on their collaborative online forum— that of endorsement!

I would get the students to track their own skill development and ENDORSE others in the class who had likewise achieved a Level-Up. So that graphic looked like this:

I still needed the teacher to be somewhat accountable for this (without it being onerous) so a class tracking sheet for the teacher was also created. It looked like this:

I then spent too much time thinking about whether or not students would even be motivated to Level-Up on their own. I toyed with the idea that we should perhaps be giving some marks for soft skills, after all, there is a very good argument that all of these can be cultivated through each subject area and often make up a significant component any curriculum document (read your first 15 pages if you don’t believe me). But Should that be 5% of their final mark, 10%?

What if each student in the class started with a baseline 50% and then was given 5% for each skill they obtained and/or each endorsement? They wouldn’t be required to complete all 35 LIKA Skills, just 5 skills and 5 endorsements in order to reach 100%.

It wasn’t until a particularly poignant Google Hangout call with some Cohort21 alumni members that convinced me the road to success is not paved with extrinsic motivation. I couldn’t slide back into marks after having called for their exile! There would have to be another way!

While I was waiting for this other way, I asked our French teacher to get the kids to help them translate our new skills chart into French. It was a cool distraction, and resulted in this:

And so… HERE IS WHERE I AM! This is where my bitumen-paved butt hits gravel…. for a limited time only.

As the teaching faculty at my school and I prepare ourselves for another whole-school initiative (DISCOVERY DAYS, don’t ask, but please, ask?), I decided it was too much, too soon to unleash this particular 21st Century Skills beast on them. I wouldn’t say I’ve shelved it insomuch as I’ve merely back-burnered it for later in the year.

A few ideas that have recently hit me regarding the use and assessment of these skills:

  • perhaps they are used as a way to strengthen abilities for student passion projects instead of assessed by each teacher in their subject areas
  • explicitly taught and tracked by mentors
  • LV 5 badges attached to high school transcript

http://eddesignlab.org/education_design_lab_news/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAqdLDBRDD-b2sv6-i6MsBEiQAkT3wAsqiAdWG5O6EYhKK83e0w8NgfHBZ1pxQUr-jBgRQtKwaAnzj8P8HAQ

REFLECTION

There is another difference I’ve noticed over the years, regarding how teachers conduct themselves in the workplace. There are those teachers who would like to be told exactly what to do, and there are those who work best when left alone to do their own thing. Again, at various points in my career, I’ve found myself on both sides of this professional fence— very often dependent on the workload, one doesn’t always have time to play in the clouds when all you can do most days is survive unscathed.

We are lucky to be engaged in a profession where we are, to a certain degree, responsible only to ourselves, our own individual classrooms, our own knowledge and expertise, our students. I cherish this about teaching. I have also, only just this year, understood the vital importance of networking and collaboration in my reflective practice. Cohort21 is the first time in my professional life I’ve felt this way.

A huge thanks to @ddoucet, @shelleythomas, @jsmith, @brenthurley, @jweening, @egelleny, @timrollwagen, @Think_teach, @jmedved, @lesmcbeth and others I may have failed to mention, for their continued assistance, guidance, ENDORSEMENT, and encouragement.

Finally, a non-baby-boomer PD!  Cohort, you make me feel 21 again!

Gamifying 21st Century Skills: Part 1

 

Cohort21 continues to be a game-changer for me.

Mentally shifting my previous professional teaching experiences, from schools of well-intentioned colleagues, to this collaborative learning hive of like-minded ed-heads, has transformed my teaching practice in ways I have yet to truly reflect on. Except here:

I walked into the last F2F meeting with more than just a head-cold; I also had a head full of ideas and scatterbrain proposals from which to dump on this unsuspecting source of formative feedback junkies. My new role as Academic Lead at Rosseau Lake College has awarded me the freedom to develop areas of interest that “might” just indeed help our school move forward. Of course, almost instantaneously, the dreaded symbolic starting block reared it’s cosmetically challenged head, in oversized, day-glo sky-writing: Where do I begin?

LEVEL 1: THE WHERE

Luckily, our esteemed facilitators (@jmedved & @gnichols) and coaches at Cohort21, are well-versed in the language of stumble, and had problem-solving solutions waiting in the wings (literally, the wings of the York School hallways, used brilliantly as limbic nerve-system galleries of crowd-sourcing). The Design Thinking worksheets, sticky-note brainstorms and timed exercises, provided by @lmcbeth and Future Design School, were also a wonderfully scaffolded entry point into generative thinking, well away from the usual Saturday PD day-dreaming and doodle sessions of my past.

My original intention was to use the Cohort community as supercharged leverage for reimagining and rebooting our Master Schedule— a commitment to change which RLC (Roseau Lake College) is currently highly invested in. The unique process of design-thinking around this challenge, we began as a school last spring; with typical brainstorming results benefiting most from a speculative standpoint, with the not unusual— sometimes confusing and muddling— side effect of losing some staff through endless permutations of opportunity and critique. Ultimately, I concluded, that, as a school, we were already well ahead in unpacking this sticky-note problem— already at the prototyping phase, really (exciting stuff, TBA!)— and this being too specific a challenge, to be used as my Cohort21 action research springboard.

So, as a poet of pedagogy, as an agent of change, an adjunct adaptor of assessment, and as I am wont to do, I revised my original plan. Not changed tactics so much as I lessened the scope of my (ego)concentric circle to focus on another of my whole-school pet passion projects/peeves: 21st Century Skill Development.

1. Essential Skills from Most Likely to Succeed on Vimeo.

LEVEL 2: THE WHY

I’m certainly not the first teacher to notice the writing on the pedagogical wall; the recent paradigm shift in teaching and learning, away from content and towards competencies, has been slowly evolving over the past decade or more (http://www.p21.org/our-work/resources/for-educators#SkillsMaps). The internet is a far better provider of knowledge than any one teacher could ever hope to be. One only need look at the proliferate example of Khan Academy, how its open-source adaptive technology has enabled a whole new generation of students to effectively tech-learn numeric knowledge in a scaffolded way, previously only possible through linear textbook instruction (Khan has naturally set their sites on literacy and grammar as well: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar)

This evolution is a great relief to me, I’ve never been interested in any aspect of teaching that has me churning out cookie-cutter lessons or exacting standardized assessments like a machine; unfortunately, this delicate transition has been an obstacle to some teachers who have, perhaps unconsciously, staked, not only their professional claim, but also their identity around a proven silo of knowledge and/or singular interpretation of curriculum (especially at the secondary school level). I say, let the robots take over all the deductive aspects of school and learning! The computer has already made obsolescence a fact of life in other disciplines such as banking, manufacturing, health, military— why not education? If we, as educators, want to not only stay relevant, but also stay employed in the 21st century, we need to use content to teach skills. We need to become critical and creative facilitators of deeper learning skills and life skills. We need to become Poets of Pedagogy!

LEVEL 3: THE WHAT

After much reflecting and validating (… the Discovery Process…) on a possible teaching problem, and through the integral help of a feedback partner (@vboomgaardt), I finally widdled-down my “mighty” action research question:

How might we gamify 21st century skill development, so students can track their own learning, and teachers can gain meaningful evidence for feedback and reporting?

In order to arrive at this question, I first had to empathize with TWO END USERS in my design problem: both students and teachers. TWO END USERS!?! I think that’s okay, isn’t it? Yes, I think that’s just fine. The students will, of course, be the benefactors of a more streamlined, transparent, credential-focussed, success-driven criteria program around 21st century skill development. The teachers, as well, will need to be able to adapt these competencies and rubrics into their curriculum in ways that deepen and heighten curriculum expectations. If, along the way, we can get all edtech and add an app somewhere in the mix, well, hell, as my grandmother used to say, we’re cookin’ with gas!

Throughout this iterative process, I asked around the cohort to see if other CIS schools had identified “soft skills” as a potential problem worth solving. Similar questions around competencies did indeed exist, however, the conclusion I came to was although every school reported on work habits and had even made inroads into critical and creative thinking, there didn’t seem to be a whole-school system out there for assessing competencies in an intrinsic or adaptive way. It seems to very much still be at the mercy of individual teachers, which doesn’t really signal to the students or parents the importance of this shift in education. One of the simple questions I asked my fellow teachers was this: “What is the difference between a Grade 7 collaboration and a Grade 12 collaboration when it comes to assessing work habits?”. No one was able to give me an answer with any authority or consistency. With this Action Plan, I am to change that.

LEVEL 4: THE HOW

“Curious kids learn how to learn, and how to enjoy it – and that, more than any specific body of knowledge, is what they will need to have in the future. The world is changing so rapidly that by the time a student graduates from university, everything he or she learned may already be headed toward obsolescence. The main thing that students need to know is not what to think but how to think in order to face new challenges and solve new problems.” (p.14)

This is from Amanda Lang’s, The Power of Why. I haven’t read her book, and I probably won’t have time, sadly. Nevertheless, this quote, taken from a MindShift blog about skills education (https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/14/why-academic-teaching-doesnt-help-kids-excel-in-life/), resonated with my predicament.

When I arrived at Rosseau Lake College last year, they had already started a transition into a new strategic plan (Future Forward) which I am lucky to help continue to shape this year. One of the hallmarks of this plan is a personalized approach to education, using what we call a PLP (Personalized Learning Profile). Partnering with the learning and development company, LIKA (http://www.lika.ca/home2/), our students are able to approximate their learning preference through a multiple-intelligence, psychometric online test. Simply, this allows each student and teacher to see individual learning strengths and weaknesses as a visual quadrant infographic.

In addition to the PLP, LIKA has recently developed a list of 7 Skills which have already been Ministry approved and will form the foundation of RLC’s 21st Century Competencies.

These skills will be the basis for my Action Plan:

  • Self-Management
  • Teamwork
  • Thinking
  • Networking and Communication
  • Information Management
  • Learning
  • Design and Innovation

Finally, through the crowd-sourcing inspiration stage of our last F2F, I received a heap of ideas, many of them game and tech-related, to help me on my quest.

LEVEL 5: THE WHEN

It’s all happening in Semester 2. I am lucky to have both Junior and Senior Division Curriculum leads to help co-construct criteria around these skills. There is much research to conduct around badge creation, interactive motivator apps, Google Suite apps, JoeZoo, Doc Appender, and LMS systems. As well, I will be interviewing both of my END USERS throughout the process for feedback and suggestions.

A huge thanks to @ddoucet, @shelleythomas, @jsmith, @brenthurley, @jweening, @egelleny, @timrollwagen, and others I may have failed to mention, for their continued assistance, guidance, and encouragement.

To be continued in PART 2.