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Personalized Learning Core Four  Article.pdf

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Personalized Learning Culture of Innovation graphic.pdf

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DALLAS - In December 1997, a sixth-grader at Dan D. Rogers Elementary School here set a three-alarm fire in the library. Erin and Sean Jett, whose house is so nearby they hear the school bell ring, did not have school-aged children at the time. But it left an impression. "My child will not go there," said Erin.

When it comes to their children's education, parents are like drug-sniffing dogs. Test scores matter. But so do other things. Which is why now, more than 10 years later, Emma Jett will be a fifth-grader at the Dallas school this fall. And her parents are happy about it.

Their changed view - and that of others who shunned Rogers and now want in - is driven by what seems to be a magic educational elixir: personalized learning.

Amid all the bellowing about charters, school choice and vouchers, a potentially more revolutionary reform movement is bubbling up. Philanthropists, state education officials, reform advocates - even charter school leaders - are examining personalized learning.

The big idea is to create a customized path so students learn at their own pace, in the manner that resonates best with them, with content tailored to their interests, aided by their computers. It feels natural to a generation groomed to presume that everything is calibrated to their needs and wants - whether it's online shopping, news or math homework - and raised with smartphones in their hands.

It sounds benign, and wonderful, to many parents. Schools, districts and even entire states are embracing it. Teacher unions cautiously endorse it, while flagging the concern that teachers could be replaced by technology.

But personalized learning raises big questions about educational equity. Is it important for all children to be taught common skills and content? Could personalized learning spur an even more splintered society? Is the purpose of education to forge a thoughtful citizenry or to equip students for jobs? What does personalized learning mean to the perennial tug-of-war over content - in higher education's "great books" debate over whether students should absorb the Western canon or study what they want, and, at the K-12 level, over the Common Core? Is sameness the key to equal opportunity?

Concerns about the content, or even the variable pace, of personalized learning derive from a middle-class educational ideal that is outdated and misses the point, says Trace Pickering, proponent of personalized learning, leader of Education Reimagined and co-founder of Iowa BIG, an experience-based high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. More important, he said, is for educators to ask, "How can we effectively self-actualize human beings?"
Related: Choosing personalized learning as a strategy for educational equity

What can that look like? When Dan D. Rogers Elementary became one of five schools in the Dallas Independent School District to pilot personalized learning in 2015-16, principal Lisa Lovato said she and her team grappled with decisions on granular issues, such as "How long should it take a kindergartner to log into a computer?" and big philosophical questions such as "What matters most?"

But perhaps the most dramatic decision the school made was to explicitly teach students to lead their own learning. Students would not be recipients of lessons, but drivers of them.

This basic idea matters because even given current excitement around personalized learning, much of what's declared fresh about it has been done for years. Differentiated instruction was conceived in the 1950s. Before and since, teachers have given different students different worksheets and assignments.

What's new at Rogers is that children are taking the lead - and some responsibility - not just for what they do at a given moment in class, but for their growth as students, said Marissa Limon, the assistant principal. They work with teachers to create learning plans, and they reflect on their progress.

Even in kindergarten, teacher Pauline Hayden schedules brief conferences every few weeks with each of her 20 students.

"We discuss their goals and what they are working on, and if they had an assessment we might talk about that," she said. They set new goals, including nonacademic ones. "They are in charge of their learning," said Hayden. "We are teaching that in kindergarten."

Each classroom operates differently - independence has one look in kindergarten and another in fifth grade - but students display a striking sense of academic self-awareness. "I am pretty low in multiplying and dividing by decimals," Carlie Lovato, a fifth-grader, offered. She admitted, "I like to talk a lot," and her conversation can slip from school to TV shows. She's working on it. Arnav Jain, in kindergarten, aspires "to do addition really fast."
Related: The massive experiment in New Orleans schools that few have noticed
Such insight matters. It means that even though Genesis Velazquez is 11 math lessons behind David Nava in teacher Sudhir Vasal's fourth-grade class ("My pace is super fast," David said), Genesis has not lost an ounce of pride in her work. "I don't like to go that fast, because then I can get some problems wrong," she explained confidently as she worked through a lesson on geometric symmetry. Her corresponding quiz scores: 100, 92, 92.

Technology is a big part of the personalized learning story. Silicon Valley's robust push into education has made tech spending an increasingly large school budget line. Smart tools like lesson software that adjusts to students' responses (and automatically provides more practice when they stumble) can enable increasingly specific levels of independence. Software can also integrate student data into teacher programs to help them track progress in ways unthinkable several years ago. In Vasal's class, students take a test; he instantly sees their errors and can explain their mistakes.

Overall, the rise of online learning - from MOOCs to Khan Academy - makes "blended" learning that combines computer and live instruction feel normal to students. And it will follow them into the workplace and throughout their careers. Even now, curricula in some cutting-edge tech fields exists online (not on campus), making Silicon Valley a driver of high-level training. So it's no surprise that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative just gave $14 million to Chicago Public Schools to develop personalized learning.

But does personalized learning work? That is harder to answer. A RAND Corporation study conducted for the Gates Foundation (both the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation are among the many funders of The Hechinger Report) and published last year noted that, "while PL is promising in theory, there are very few evaluations of students' learning outcomes." The study tracked math and reading test scores and compared students who got personalized learning instruction with those who got traditional instruction. It found a small, statistically significant bump in math (3 percentage points) and a "similar trend" (but "not significant") in reading. Hardly earth-shattering results.
Related: Personalized learning gives students a sense of control over chaotic lives
What's new here is that children are taking the lead - and some responsibility - not just for what they do at a given moment in class, but for their growth as students.

Yet if the focus is on learning - as opposed to testing - this personalized approach does make sense. And not just to technophiles. It seems obvious that the quirks, habits, passions and temperaments of individual students will affect not just what they learn, but the energy they put into the effort. Human variation is not an inconvenience, in this view, but a tool for engagement. Teachers at Rogers Elementary said they keep their ears perked for hints of student passions (one: outer space) to slip into explanations and assignments.

Test scores have become the public face of school quality. But talk to parents and you hear less about numbers and more about a child's happiness. It's why a fire in the library tarnishes a school's reputation in the minds of parents, sometimes for years.

At Rogers, test scores have ticked up slightly. But the surveys put parent satisfaction in the 88th to 96th percentiles. Parents connect the dots between their child's academic engagement and sense of well-being. Rogers, once shunned, now has 200-some transfers among its 520 students, Lovato says.

Kristen Watkins, director of personalized learning for the Dallas Independent School District, said it is catching on, and will be in 10 schools in the fall. But the district does not dictate a top-down recipe. "We gave autonomy to the schools," she said.

At Rogers, the Jetts said they appreciate the tone personalized learning has brought.

"In the classroom, if you want, you can sit at a table. If you want to sit at a desk, you sit at a desk. You can sit on the floor. If you want, you can sit on a ball," said Sean.

Everyone learns, said Erin, "in the way they want to learn. It is not merely tolerated. It is embraced."

This story about personalized learning was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Personalized learning is the new education reform hiding in plain sight

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DALLAS - In December 1997, a sixth-grader at Dan D. Rogers Elementary School here set a three-alarm fire in the library. Erin and Sean Jett, whose house is so nearby they hear the school bell ring, did not have school-aged children at the time. But it left an impression.

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One of the major complaints that I have heard in my community as we have adopted personalized learning relates to the idea that personalized learning means that we are adopting technology and getting rid of teachers. There may be some places that are doing that, but my vision for personalized learning doesn't include removing teachers - instead, it requires asking even more of teachers.

I read an article by Rick Hess at EdWeek called, " A Confession and a Question on Personalized Learning ." He shares a letter from Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify, an EdTech company. The headline is a bit of clickbait, where the confession is really a recognition of what good educators have known for many years.

He buried the "question" pretty deep in the letter, so I'll bring it up here:

"What did your best teachers and coaches do for you-without the benefit of maps, algorithms, or data-to personalize your learning?"

I've been saying my whole career that not only is personalized learning not trying to get rid of teachers, it requires teachers to be even better than they are now.

When we were kids, our teachers had more homogeneous groupings of students than teachers now do. And so, for current teachers to be able to meet the needs of so many diverse students (and compete with video games and social media and other technology), they need to be really amazing.

Mr. Berger talks about the approach he has used for personalized learning, which he calls the engineering model. He says:

"You start with a map of all the things that kids need to learn.Then you measure the kids so that you can place each kid on the map in just the spot where they know everything behind them, and in front of them is what they should learn next. Then you assemble a vast library of learning objects and ask an algorithm to sort through it to find the optimal learning object for each kid at that particular moment. Then you make each kid use the learning object. Then you measure the kids again. If they have learned what you wanted them to learn, you move them to the next place on the map. If they didn't learn it, you try something simpler. If the map, the assessments, and the library were used by millions of kids, then the algorithms would get smarter and smarter, and make better, more personalized choices about which things to put in front of which kids."

For those of us in education, working with kids every day, we know this engineering model of personalized learning is not the answer. This is why we get so frustrated with EdTech companies that claim to have the answer. A day may exist when this is viable, but it is not today.

Our goal is NOT the engineering model of personalized learning.

When I say we give students what they need, we need teachers that are highly compassionate, intuitive, and know a lot about what students need to be effective.

This idea that algorithms and technology can "save" the education system is fundamentally flawed. All throughout the history of education, great teachers have made positive, powerful connections with students and given them an opportunity to soar!

Parallel to those great teachers have been teachers that do not help students progress.

In my mind, personalized learning is a request for every teacher to step up their game, know their students, and make sure those students are getting what they need, when they need it.

And it extends beyond one teacher's classroom. Personalized learning recognizes and values learning that happens from multiple sources, not just what was in a textbook.

I'll close with a question similar to Mr. Berger's:

"What are you going to do for your students-without the benefit of maps, algorithms, or data-to personalize their learning?"

This is THE question. If technology can help, then use it, but technology is not the savior of education.
[Curious about the role of technology in the classroom? Check out this point of view on how to actually use technology to support learning.]

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How Teachers Are at the Core of Personalized Learning - Not Technology

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One of the major complaints that I have heard in my community as we have adopted personalized learning relates to the idea that personalized learning means that we are adopting technology and getting rid of teachers. There may be some places that are doing that, but my vision for personalized learning doesn't include removing teachers - instead, it requires asking even more of teachers.

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HUNTER, N.D. - On windswept fields outside Fargo, North Dakota, a bold experiment in education has begun. In a lone building flanked by farmland, the Northern Cass School District is heading into year two of a three-year journey to abolish grade levels. By the fall of 2020, all Northern Cass students will plot their own academic courses to high school graduation, while sticking with same-age peers for things like gym class and field trips.

The goal is to stop tethering teaching to "seat time" - where students are grouped by age and taught at a uniform, semester pace - and instead adopt competency-based education, in which students progress through skills and concepts by demonstrating proficiency.

That alone isn't unusual; a majority of states now allow competency-based pilot programs, and many schools have fully implemented the approach. What makes Northern Cass notable is that very few mainstream schools, let alone districts, have set out to topple grade levels.

But as the movement against seat-time learning grows, more schools nationwide will be grappling with grade levels, deciding whether to keep them or to hack through thickets of political, logistical and cultural barriers to uproot them.

Some school leaders insist that competency-based education can survive and even thrive within grade levels, or a modified version of them. Others, however, echo Northern Cass superintendent, Cory Steiner.

"We can't keep structures that would allow us to fall back into a more traditional system," said Steiner. "If we're going to do this, we're going to have to manage without grade levels."

***

One recent spring afternoon, about a dozen Northern Cass students working on laptops made themselves comfortable in a large classroom with mobile furniture, beanbag pillows and a plush blue couch.

"We've decoupled the curriculum from those grade levels. You are studying what you need to study at your level."

Bill Zima, superintendent, Kennebec (Maine) Intra-District Schools regional school unit #2

The kids were rounding out eighth or ninth grade, but that had little to do with their choices of self-paced lessons in several subjects. Some had finished all the material pegged to their grade level months ago and had moved on, while others were taking more time.

Two teachers, known as "academic advisors," were on call to field questions and ensure everybody stayed on task (the teachers also lead weekly seminars or labs to bolster the computer work).

These students, and a couple dozen others circulating through the classroom for three periods each day, make up Jaguar Academy (named for the district's feline mascot). As a first-year pilot, Jaguar Academy is just part of the larger overhaul. But it's one of the district's first steps toward a grade-free future.

For students like Katelyn Stavenes, reclining on the couch and catching up on science she missed during an illness, Jaguar Academy is a welcome taste of autonomy.

"I can just lean back and do my stuff instead of always watching the clock and wondering, when can I get out of here?" said Stavenes, who will be a ninth-grader this fall.

Meanwhile, at one of the tables in the hallway set up for kids working together, a girl named Silver Anderson said that doing three courses in Jaguar Academy (physical science, English and American history) gave her the schedule flexibility to meet with the band teacher on Friday mornings for an informal class in music theory and composition.

"I've been experimenting with chord progressions," she said. "There's so much behind music to learn."

The district plans to expand the pilot until it's an option for all students in what are now called the eighth through twelfth grades. And, beyond Jaguar Academy, Northern Cass educators are rewriting lessons and assessments, both for academic subjects and for "habits of work," such as perseverance and collaboration, into progressions of competencies free of grade-level expectations. They have spent evenings and school breaks shuffling teacher schedules and prepping for competency-based classrooms; they've visited other schools around the nation that have a head start down this road; they've added another guidance counselor to beef up internship opportunities for older students; and they've held several workshops to explain it all to parents.

"I'd love to tell you we have every answer," Steiner said, but "we've got a long way to go."

***

While seat-time schooling is fiercely opposed by reformers, it is backed by state and federal law. Northern Cass's reforms rely on North Dakota's 2017 decision to let districts apply for waivers from requirements such as hours of instruction.

Most states have something on the books to encourage competency-based options, but only about a half-dozen have loosened seat-time dictates enough to dispense with grade levels, according to Matt Williams, chief operating officer and vice president of policy and advocacy for the personalized-learning nonprofit KnowledgeWorks.

In North Dakota, Williams and his colleagues worked with Kirsten Baesler, the state superintendent of public instruction, to write the waiver bill, and Northern Cass leaders lobbied legislators to pass it.

They pushed for radical change even though North Dakota districts were doing well by traditional measures, such as graduation rates, ACT scores and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, on which the state regularly ranks among the top fifteen in most subjects and grade levels tested.

"We'll do whatever we have to do for testing. But we won't put any extra effort or incentive into them. They'll be something we have to do and move on."

Cory Steiner, superintendent, Northern Cass (N.D.) school district

According to Baesler, however, "We were too often teaching to a test. Educators wanted students to engage more and apply their learning in meaningful ways."

At Northern Cass, momentum for change began during the district's 2016 accreditation renewal when staff checked up on students after graduation. They found that graduates' college grades tended to dip compared to their high-school GPAs, and the students bounced around a lot - switching majors, transferring to other universities or dropping out. District leaders decided they hadn't done enough to prepare students for life after high school.

According to Melissa Uetz (pronounced yoots), a special education teacher who became Jaguar Academy's lead facilitator, the message was, "We needed to help kids find their passions before they left school."

That meant more flexibility and potential for exploration in student schedules. The primary goal for Jaguar Academy was to give high school students more opportunities for job shadows and internships. More proposed changes spiraled out from there, including the decision to do away with grade levels.

"Teachers said, 'If this is good for kids, why not bring it to all of them?' " said Steiner. "Our conversation went from Jaguar Academy to 'What if we tore the whole system down?' "

Of course, no matter what individual states and districts allow, federal law still mandates grade-level-pegged testing. Education departments use those scores to evaluate schools. Quite often, so do parents.

California's Lindsay Unified School District, which switched to competency-based education years ago and has been mentoring Northern Cass, kept grade levels because of standardized tests. Lindsay Unified's director of advancement, Barry Sommer, said he would love to scrap grade levels, because they get in the way of "truly moving to a 21st-century school that's learner centered." But California's district-accountability tracking system is based on grade-level achievement tests.

Meanwhile, even the handful of schools that have successfully ditched grade levels, such as Waukesha STEM Academy, a charter school about 20 miles west of Milwaukee, must still keep age-based groupings in the background to sort students for standardized testing.

"We take the tests. But we don't think much about them, quite honestly," said James Murray, Waukesha's principal.

Steiner plans a similar approach. For testing and student data reporting, Northern Cass will still link students with an expected year of graduation.

"We'll do whatever we have to do for testing," said Steiner. "But we won't put any extra effort or incentive into them. They'll be something we have to do and move on."

***

Jaguar Academy is often library-quiet. Prepackaged lessons from an online curriculum provider comprised about 80 percent of students' work in the first year. Steiner wants to cut that online learning quotient way back, to 20 percent, partly by expanding the number of seminars in which teachers lead a deeper exploration or a lab on select topics.

Still, it has been hard enough to schedule just one weekly seminar, he said. Students often skip a non-Jaguar Academy class to attend, and there have been no math seminars, because none of the academic advisors are math teachers.

And seminar scheduling is just one of the logistical headaches Northern Cass will face as grade levels disappear.

"Competency-based schools still need structures - they just need new structures," said Sydney Schaef, a mastery learning designer for reDesign, a Boston company that guides school overhauls. "We still need ways to identify where kids need to be when they come into the building in the morning." And when kids should stop going to elementary school and start attending a middle school across town. (Because the Northern Cass district is in a single building, they dodge that particular challenge.)

"Even reimagining space is bigger than any of us thought," said Steiner. "Classrooms that used to be owned by a teacher will have to be more flexibly used. We're looking at one of our gyms and asking, does it have to double as a classroom space?"

Then there's the question of whether to place limits on how quickly or slowly students move through competencies. For instance, another of the districts mentoring Northern Cass found that just letting students work "at their own pace" led some kids to slack off and disrupt classmates.

"I remind teachers that we need to put some controls on this," said Bill Zima, superintendent of the district in question, Maine's Kennebec Intra-District Schools regional school unit #2 (RSU2). "First-graders are not ready to completely manage their time. Nor are seniors. Nor are adults, really."

The solution for some is grouping kids who would traditionally be in two or three different grade levels together in a single classroom, a longstanding practice of Montessori schools.

"A lot of schools are finding ways to blur grade levels rather than getting rid of them," said Karla Phillips, policy director for personalized learning at the Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education, or ExcelinEd.

At Northern Cass, teachers plan to step in if a student gets more than three weeks behind or ahead of an expected "teacher pace." Students who struggle will get extra support. Students who speed ahead will get a conversation about next steps.

"Maybe we let them fly," said Steiner. "Or maybe they want to do an independent project, or work as a peer teacher or go back to work more on a competency where they've struggled."

Meanwhile, the district is reworking teacher assignments to better fit a school where age and academics are no longer tied together. Last year, for example, the elementary teachers stopped being generalists and started to specialize. The idea is that teachers will encounter students in a broader range of ages and abilities, but only in their own academic areas of expertise.

"We asked, who's passionate about math, writing or science, and so forth. And we ran with it," Steiner explained.

"We were too often teaching to a test. Educators wanted students to engage more and apply their learning in meaningful ways."

Kirsten Baesler, North Dakota state superintendent of public instruction

One early adopter was math teacher Danielle Bosse. On a typical day, most of her students spread around the classroom, working independently on math skills, while one or two at a time pull up a chair to Bosse's desk for a coaching session. Kids who feel ready to move on ask Bosse to unlock an online test, which they take at a table topped with black cardboard dividers.

Asked how students have adjusted, Bosse said, "Standard operating procedures. We did a lot of standard operating procedures."

Known around Northern Cass as "SOPs," these procedures are co-developed by students and teachers to help kids manage their time and stay organized. An SOP might require students to take out planners at the start of class and jot down their learning targets or put their names on a whiteboard next to the competency they are working on that day.

The SOP brainstorming began last October, after many students struggled with their newfound autonomy. In fact, Steiner's plan is to start this coming fall with a week devoted just to SOPs and other "soft skills," such as critical thinking.

"All these key skills we want kids to learn, like time management," he said, "we need to teach them very explicitly.

***

After cutting the regulatory red tape and solving the logistical puzzles, a deeper challenge remains in the move away from seat-time. Grade levels are part of our culture, deeply rooted in how we think about learning and childhood more broadly.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to have to manage without grade levels."

Cory Steiner, superintendent, Northern Cass (N.D.) School District

"When you meet somebody and ask how old their kids are, they say, oh, they're in third grade or fourth grade," noted Phillips of ExcelinEd.

Cultural norms have kept grade levels partially intact in Maine's RSU2 district, which has hosted Steiner and Northern Cass teachers many times.

"We've decoupled the curriculum from those grade levels," said RSU2's Zima. "You are studying what you need to study at your level." But, he added, the district has kept the grade levels as a "social moniker."

Even Waukesha STEM Academy gives grade levels a cameo in student progress reports. "Parents still wanted to know how their kid was doing compared to a kindergarten through 12th-grade scale," said superintendent Murray. So, the school added a grade-level scale across the top of report cards that mostly measured student progress along broader "learning continuums."

"Parents had the comfort of seeing the old system while being aware that the new system and progression was in place in school," said Murray.

Some competency-based schools want to keep grade levels for reasons beyond offering parents a safety blanket. Grade levels, they argue, can give students a sense of camaraderie and enhance social learning. For instance, at Casco Bay High School, in Portland, Maine, two or three interdisciplinary "learning expeditions" a year are arranged by grade level. Last year, a junior-year expedition had teams of students visit rural Maine to interview local "unsung heroes" and create mini-documentaries about them. that were stitched into a large, single documentary for the entire grade.

"There's an element of 'we're all in this together.' We're all taking on the same complex project," said the Casco Bay principal, Derek Pierce. "Our kids support each other, and they are really good at giving each other feedback, because the quality of your project will reflect on the whole project and, therefore, reflect on me."

Back at Northern Cass, however, they believe that grade levels would become a crutch for students and teachers and ultimately stymie reform. "All of us have a pit in our stomach right now," said Steiner. "We know that we're taking a big leap and not everybody's going to be on board."

This summer, Northern Cass teachers and administrators have continued rewriting lesson plans and assessments, including those for "habits of work." They've also been visiting more-experienced competency-based districts such as Lindsay Unified. By 2020, Steiner wants Northern Cass to be the district hosting visitors, as a mentor to other schools mulling the idea of nixing grade levels.

"On their way to visit Lindsay or another of these pioneering schools, they can stop in North Dakota," Steiner said, "because there's a school out in the middle of a cornfield that's doing this transformative work."

This story about competency-based education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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HUNTER, N.D. - On windswept fields outside Fargo, North Dakota, a bold experiment in education has begun. In a lone building flanked by farmland, the Northern Cass School District is heading into year two of a three-year journey to abolish grade levels.

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TheFirst 20 days of Personalized Learning

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I was lying to myself and didn't even realize it. After completing numerous 5K and 10K runs, I was considering taking my running to the next level by training for my first half marathon. I would visit the specialty running store and look longingly at the glass case of GPS smart watches. "If I only had one, I'd run more," I'd say to myself. "I would have up-to-the-second data and an increased desire to run. Everything would be easier." I took the plunge and made the purchase. The features were helpful, and for the first few days, I did get excited to take my watch out for a spin. But over time, did it make me run more or was it essential to my running? Not at all.

I hear educators across the country telling themselves the same lie: "I would love to personalize learning for students, but I can't because I don't have the technology." Or sometimes it's phrased a little differently: "This initiative is great, but I'm behind the times with technology." Or even more bluntly: "Are you here for the computer training?"
It's not about the device
I understand where these educators are coming from. When I was a teacher, I had exactly two dusty computers from the stone age that were missing most of their cords, and I did not have an interactive board. The sign-out sheet for the laptop cart was always filled months in advance. I wanted to personalize lessons for students, but felt like that was a hopeless situation without devices.

One of the reasons I see this "technology trap" is because personalized learning has become synonymous for some with blended learning. To me, the relationship between blended and personalized learning reminds me of the relationship between a square and a rectangle. Blended learning (the square) is a type of personalized learning (the rectangle), but personalized learning (the rectangle) doesn't have to include blended learning (the square). Got it? You don't have to do blended learning ( which in many schools looks like a station rotation with adaptive digital content ) in order to personalize learning.

How can you personalize learning with few or no devices? Here are a some ideas using Education Elements' Core Four of Personalized Learning :

Why not try a station rotation a digital content station? Consider a teacher-led small group, independent work station, and collaborative group -- no devices required. You'll want to ensure you still teach protocols and a process for collaboration before diving in. Just ask Corcoran High School in Syracuse, NY. Their ninth grade classrooms have begun using a three station rotation without devices this winter. Their "why" for personalized learning was to increase student collaboration and so they have spent a good deal of time teaching students how to be a good collaborator and setting up expectations for success.without

Increase student choice and ownership through targeted instruction with a Tic-Tac-Toe board, "Must Do, Can Do Sheet" or learning playlist. In these instances, students have a list or menu of learning activities or learning products that they can choose from. This is an easy practice that doesn't require any technology but can become very personalized particularly if groups of students or even individual students have playlists personalized for their needs.

Data-driven Decisions

There are many cool technology tools out there that can help you make more data-driven decisions through easier formative assessment. One of my favorites is Plickers , which is short for "paper clickers." Using this free app and printable, teachers can easily and quickly collect multiple choice question data from students without expensive clicker systems or computers.

Not sure what your students were working on in the independent station while you're working with another small group? Enter Seesaw . With one iPad, students can upload a photo of their completed independent work in their digital portfolio for teachers to review later. This increases student ownership, accountability, and is particularly helpful with independent centers that have to be reused by multiple students.

Student Reflection & Ownership

Consider expanding upon your current practices of goal-setting and reflection, particularly with regards to having students set goals or reflect on work in an independent or collaborative station. Or have students set goals or reflect on data from a recent formative assessment (use Plickers!). Consider having students create "I can" or "I will" statements to ensure that all of your stations or learning activities are connected to standards and to boost student ownership and excitement for learning.

Once you have a practice of goal-setting and reflection in place, try conferencing 1-1 with students on their goal-setting and reflection. These conferences don't have to be super formal -- just 5 minutes to check-in with students on their goals, progress, and interests.

Another tech-free way to add more ownership and engagement to your classroom is to increase your use of real-world and project-based learning activities to your classroom. Edutopia has a wealth of .great resources and ideas to get started

It's about the instructional design

In so many classrooms across the country, devices have become really fancy, really expensive pencils. Why? Because students are independently completing the same worksheet on their laptops as they would on a piece of paper. In truly personalized classrooms, devices are used: to increase student collaboration on documents or presentations; to connect students to authentic audiences through student-created blog posts, podcasts, or movies; to provide students with instruction and practice through quality digital content - and to quickly and easily provide teachers with actionable data through digital formative assessments.

If you are able to secure devices for your classroom, you're going to have the opportunity to do some cool things for kids. But just because you have them doesn't mean you will. If you don't have devices that doesn't mean you can't still create an amazing personalized learning experience for your students.

And by the way, I'm about to start training for my third marathon - and I usually leave my GPS smartwatch at home.

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The Technology Trap: Can You Personalize Learning Without Devices?

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I was lying to myself and didn't even realize it. After completing numerous 5K and 10K runs, I was considering taking my running to the next level by training for my first half marathon. I would visit the specialty running store and look longingly at the glass case of GPS smart watches.

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An elementary school's version of personalized learning.

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Editor's note: This story led off this week's Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers' inboxes every Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation. Subscribe today!
The idea was never to disregard the individual student.

Yet, over the past 25 years the official quest for educational progress has tightly molded itself around measurable content standards and achievement goals, making testing the single most powerful legacy of education reform in America.

That measurement mania has dominated what being in school feels like for students (and teachers), as well as what counts and what gets discussed. It glosses over the herky-jerky reality of learning and the nuanced practice of teaching. Which is what stirred teachers at Orchard Lake Elementary School in Minnesota back in 2011.

In what now looks prescient - years before the "personalized learning" craze ignited a new national interest in tailoring schooling with the student at its center - a group of teachers saw trouble with the lockstep approach to progress.

In most schools, "It is, 'OK you are nine years old, you sit here for nine months and then you get to the next box,' " said Julene Oxton, one of the Lakeville Area Public School teachers who were bothered by the system. Test scores were fine, said Oxton, "but what was really happening down in the trenches was that not every kid was getting their needs met."

Even though federal law since No Child Left Behind had required tracking student performance in ways that encouraged teachers to notice each child, the top-down system - curriculum, schedule, student groupings - ignored individual differences. (Some say the system also shut down earlier stabs at student-centered innovation.)

That got teachers gathering on Sundays in Oxton's living room. With 106 years of classroom leadership among them, seven educators over the next two years grappled with a key question: Could you keep the same 6 ½-hour school day, and the same school personnel, but design a radically different learning experience for students?

In other words, could you innovate within the rigid confines of a traditional public school?

What the teachers created was a handmade forerunner of what good educational software does now: Find students' granular learning level and customize instruction. (Physically, it did require knocking down walls to make fluid learning spaces.)
Related: Is the new education reform hiding in plain sight?
Each student was assigned to a K-5, multi-age "community." Teachers arranged the schedule so that all students had reading and math simultaneously. They chunked the curriculum into "strands," with assessments so students could progress at their own pace.

During reading and math blocks, students got their "right fit" group. A fourth grader could tackle fifth-grade math topics, then speed up or slow down. If a student was spatially inclined and "got geometry," he or she zipped ahead. If, say, algebra was confounding, the same student could slow down. As a result, students are constantly "moving up and down the ladder," said Oxton.

"There is a middle ground between the top-down scripted approach and the teacher as the lone wolf in the classroom."

Lars Edsal, executive director of Education Evolving, a Minnesota nonprofit advocating teacher-driven, student-centered learning

The approach has worked, she said, because when students are in lessons, "the learning is relevant to them, it is do-able." Even those who need more time, she said, "are like, 'Wow, I can do this.' That breeds a success mindset."

The teachers called it Impact Academy and piloted it in the fall of 2013 within Orchard Lake Elementary. In 2016-2017, it was expanded to the entire school, where it continues. Oxton, who served two years as the district's Innovation Coordinator, said so many educators came to observe the model that she has gathered them into a network, a move supported by the St. Paul-based Bush Foundation.

Now three elementary schools in Minnesota - two charters and one district - are using the approach this year for math. This fall, Oxton will also be working with EdVisions, a St. Paul nonprofit that has focused on charters, to build innovations in district schools.

Lars Edsal, executive director of Education Evolving, a Minnesota nonprofit advocating teacher-driven, student-centered learning, sees an exploding conversation around personalized learning that is focused on the power of teacher innovation.

"There is a middle ground between the top-down scripted approach and the teacher as the lone wolf in the classroom," he said. "We are designers, we are entrepreneurs."

Teachers understand the subtle needs of their students, said Oxton. She is not opposed to technology, but believes that just because tech has gotten good at presenting 3-D, does not mean every math concept should be taught on a screen. Especially in elementary school, she said, "there is nothing like picking up base-10 blocks or money - and feeling it."
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Before personalized learning became a trend, teachers built their own forerunner

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Editor's note: This story led off this week's Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers' inboxes every Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation. Subscribe today! The idea was never to disregard the individual student.

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Design Parameters graphic

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Building the Culture- book and video

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Standardized tests don't measure student engagement or deep thinking about relevant, meaningful content. The tests have their place, said Cucchiara, who also serves on the board of the city's newest project-based high school, but "they don't begin to capture all the things that we're hoping [kids] will get out of this education."

That's a potential liability in a city looking to change the narrative of an urban school system that persistently lags behind statewide averages in academic proficiency. Philadelphia's move toward the project-based model is part of a broader push to open alternatives to neighborhood comprehensive schools, which have struggled in the face of chronic underfunding.

Project-based learning advocates are confident that the model can succeed in Philadelphia by providing students with skills that translate equally to both postsecondary and career options. Less certain, however, is whether its adoption can push educators, students and families to re-examine assumptions about the very purpose of high school. Is the goal to improve test scores or prepare students for adulthood?

At the city's project-based schools, the student experience is markedly different from that in more traditional high schools.

Spread out among the retro-chic sofas and love seats of the Bar Hygge brewpub in Philadelphia's gentrified Fairmount neighborhood, a class of ninth-graders from Vaux Big Picture High School listens to restaurant co-owner Stew Keener talk about the collaboration and problem-solving that occurs on a daily basis in the food business. "Every meal service here is like the fourth quarter of a tie ball game," he told them. "So when a problem comes up you can't look for somebody to blame, you have to work together and come up with a solution."

The message of teamwork and accountability, all in the service of a tangible product is, by now, a familiar one for this inaugural class of students at Vaux, the newest addition to Philadelphia's network of recently opened small high schools designed around the project-based learning curriculum.

The visit to Bar Hygge is part of a required course in which freshmen spend one afternoon each week visiting a different business or community organization in order to identify internship opportunities they'd like to pursue in their sophomore year.

The internships will serve as a linchpin of the school's "real-world learning" academic model, said David Bromley, founder and executive director of Big Picture Philadelphia, which started the school. "For us, PBL is when they're developing projects that they're interested in with somebody in the community ... projects that have some kind of impact. Our goal is that everything they learn in the classroom they apply in their internships."

Vaux principal Gabriel Kuriloff emphasizes that the school has developed rigorous internal assessments to measure progress. "We're getting an incredible amount of data about our students on the ground. But that doesn't translate to a school report card," he said, referring to the annual assessments that highlight a school's performance on standardized tests. "There's no [statewide] assessment for being able to look people in the eye and speak clearly."

One of the barriers to measuring the effectiveness of the model is that there's no universal standard for what constitutes a project-based learning curriculum. At Vaux, the model is designed around the internship program. Some schools have adopted a more career and technical education approach while others focus on projects tied to community needs.

At The Workshop School, a project-based high school just a few miles west of Philadelphia's Center City, more than 50 percent of each student's day is dedicated to the research and implementation of a project, from designing a solar cellphone charger for personal use to auto repair for neighborhood clients (the school houses automotive and woodworking facilities). College-bound 18-year-old senior Miracle Townes has dreamed of owning her own businesses from an early age. She's always been a self-motivated student, but what's changed during her time at the school has been her ability to work with others. "When I came here," she said, "I didn't really want to share my work with people. I used to take the projects over and just do it myself, like 'I'm gonna get us all an A on this project.' But here you have to make sure everybody participates."

What she's learned, she says, is how to recognize group dynamics. "We have a few people in my class who are shy and don't like to talk," she explained. "If I'm placed in a group project with them I won't say anything at the beginning even if I already have an idea because I want to hear from them. In my career I'm going to be working with other people and bringing my ideas to the table. Now I feel like I can tell when I'm talking too much, so I'll know when to pull back."

The process of learning is just as important as the resulting product, said Workshop principal Simon Hauger. "For our kids, we want the work of school to be closely tied to the work that's going to be demanded of them as adults."

Hauger doesn't sugarcoat the challenges that his students face. "Our kids are dealing with the trauma of poverty," he said. (Eighty-eight percent of the school's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a national measure of poverty.) Hauger believes that the project-based learning framework is flexible enough to accommodate the needs of schools serving affluent neighborhoods and those serving under-resourced neighborhoods because, at its core, he says, is the effort to build a real sense of community where kids feel safe enough to take risks, identify their passions and act on honest self-evaluations of their strengths and weaknesses. High school, he said, should be a place where students "develop a deep sense of who they are and tie that to a future vision for themselves."

Education advocates say that, looking beyond test scores, a more accurate measure of success for Workshop, or any other high school, should involve following kids in the years after graduation. Are they engaged in a postsecondary experience that's meaningful, like working at a living wage job with upward mobility or attending a college or technical school?

Fostering that kind of success isn't easy. It demands unwavering commitment from teachers and stable leadership through the inevitable challenges. North Philadelphia's The LINC High School, set in an area with one of the city's highest violent crime rates, has faced several obstacles in its short history. Designed around a project-based learning curriculum when it opened in 2014, the school's founding principal announced she was leaving for a job in Baltimore just days into the first school year, a move that led to an exodus of some faculty and students and a retreat to more traditional methods.

Current principal Bridget Bujak says that following the upheaval of having three principals in a single year, the school did not begin to reintroduce the schoolwide project-based learning curriculum until 2017. "Everyone really struggled with the model," she said, noting that as a nonselective school, she has some ninth-graders coming in at a kindergarten reading level. While the program is less hands-on than Workshop's, student work remains focused on the surrounding community. Recent projects involved creating designs for residential construction and analysis of neighborhood crime patterns.

"Projects are really hard, collaboration is really hard," said Bujak. "For this to work there has to be a culture of care for each other. And when there is friction among students or teachers we have to put it on the table. We have sit-downs, we have conversations. We can't ignore it."

Project-based learning's student-focused approach, which values the process of learning for each child rather than simply recording test grades, forces everyone in the building to work more closely together, Philadelphia educators in the project-based learning schools say. The result has been strengthened relationships between students and teachers, helping schools be more attentive to their students' needs beyond academics.

Sixteen-year-old junior, Rosbeiris Gomez, who will be taking community college classes during her senior year, says the work at LINC has been challenging and meaningful. But just as important, she adds, is the sense of care, which has allowed her to talk to school staff about personal issues in situations where she has needed outside help. "Everybody here knows each other," she said. "There are times when I walk by Ms. Bujak in the hallway and she's like 'Rose, come here.' She wants to catch up if it's been a while since we have talked because she knows that since my first year, when I was down or feeling sad, she would be the one I would go to."

Building meaningful, caring relationships like these is crucial to success, teachers and principals say, but is not something you're rewarded for on a proficiency test. Philadelphia assistant superintendent Christina Grant, who oversees the district's network of project-based learning high schools, stresses that while project-based learning schools may put an emphasis on difficult-to-measure metrics, they will be held to the same level of accountability as other district schools. "None of the things we measure have shifted," she said.

If the project-based learning schools show measurable gains in test scores or graduation rates, she said, the district will look to them for methods that can be expanded to primary schools.

An unqualified success for these new schools would be results like those at Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school that is home to the district's longest-running project-based learning program, which opened in 2006. The school combines rigorous research with student-driven projects that have impact beyond the school building. One student project involved putting on a city-wide Ultimate Frisbee tournament. In the 2016-17 school year, 99 percent of its seniors graduated, and 84 percent attended college immediately afterward. Algebra, Biology and English literature proficiency scores at the school are more than double the district high school average.

"As a magnet school," said Science Leadership Academy principal Chris Lehmann, "we need to be able to prove that the learning we engage in here shows up on the test ... without falling into a teach-for-the-test problem. It's a balancing act. It always has been."

It may prove difficult for other schools to replicate Science Leadership Academy's performance, however. As a magnet school, it has selective admissions and attracts students from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds (fewer than half its students receive free or reduced-price lunch, for example) than the city's other project-based learning schools.

Lehmann acknowledges the inherent advantages at a school that's able to choose its students - applicants must meet minimum grade requirements and sit for an interview - but, like his counterparts at Philadelphia's nonselective project-based learning schools, he argues that we need to be taking a more holistic view of school performance. "How you judge a school is an incredibly nuanced thing," he said. "The way that we take care of each other and the way that we learn are intertwined." There may not be a quantitative metric to assess whether students are being provided with meaningful work in an environment that lets them know they are cared for, but Lehmann believes that without those components, grades and test scores become an end unto themselves.

Tamir Harper is an 18-year-old senior at Science Leadership Academy whose passion is education reform: In 2017 he founded a nonprofit that advocates for quality urban education. He says that when he arrived at the school he was obsessed with grades. "I just wanted to know 'How can I get an A?' I didn't care if I was learning, or comprehending," he said. "Now I'm a student that wants to learn, and I don't worry about the end result [grade]. I'm into the process." He says a big part of that shift was the relationships he forged at school. "We're not just project-based, we're a community-driven school," he said.

Fellow senior Madison Militello, 18, says her middle school was very strict, with no room for individual connections. "Here I don't feel like the teachers are above me. I feel like we're on the same level," she said, noting that she's still close with some teachers even though she doesn't have their classes anymore. "You can't teach a group of students you don't have a connection with."

That sentiment was a common refrain at Vaux, LINC and Workshop, each of which offer slightly different approaches to project-based learning in underserved communities. Educators at each are confident that the skills their students are acquiring - collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving - will eventually manifest themselves in improved results on more traditional metrics like math and reading tests. More importantly, however, they believe that students will be much more prepared for the real world when they leave school. Whether project-based learning done on a larger scale can turn the tide in Philadelphia is another question.

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Can Schools Change Measures of Success by Focusing on Meaningful Work Instead of Test Scores?

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Standardized tests don't measure student engagement or deep thinking about relevant, meaningful content. The tests have their place, said Cucchiara, who also serves on the board of the city's newest project-based high school, but "they don't begin to capture all the things that we're hoping [kids] will get out of this education."

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5 Things That Make Project-Based Learning Culturally Responsive | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE

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by Joe Truss Principal, Visitacion Valley Middle School, San Francisco (Originally posted at www.culturallyresponsiveleadership.com) Project-based learning (PBL) is starting to catch on across the country and it's important that we understand why it works. As we look for answers to close the opportunity gap, for our historically oppressed groups in society, it's useful to see the connections between PBL and culturally responsive teaching (CRT).

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Sleep. The fact that the circadian rhythm matters. That the body clock changes at puberty. There's a kind of shift in the body clock by about two hours during the teenage years, meaning that teenagers feel sleepy a couple of hours later at night than adults. They, therefore, feel very tired in the morning, much more than they did as children or than they will feel as adults.

That has implications for school start times, because school starts very early in the morning. Schools normally start about 8:30 a.m. or earlier - and that, for a teenager, is arguably in the middle of their night. From a biological point of view, they should still be asleep.

Of course, this is really tricky because the whole of society revolves around young people being at school during the working day and parents are reluctant to leave their children at home while they go to work. So it's very difficult from a societal/policy point of view to implement this change. But a few schools are playing with start times and trying to monitor the results to see if later school start times improve educational outcomes and social-emotional outcomes.
You also suggest that teenagers themselves should be learning about the science happening in their brains.
I think that understanding the teen brain should be part of the education curriculum for teenagers. They should learn about their own brains and how they're changing because I think it's empowering for young people to know and understand more about why they might be feeling a certain way.

They should understand why they might be particularly self-conscious or susceptible to peer-influence, or more likely to take risks. The teenage years are a really important time in terms of vulnerability to mental illnesses. We know that most mental illnesses first appear during adolescence; at some point before the age of 24. It's important for teens to understand the biological reasons and the social reasons why that might be, in terms of trying to cope with different feelings and possibly mental health problems.
So brains are continuing to develop into the mid-20s. Does that mean that learning is easier during this period than adulthood? What's the relationship between development and plasticity?
So the brain is undergoing huge amounts of change in adolescence, both in terms of its structure - the composition, the amount of grey and white matter - and also in terms of how it functions: How it activates when you do different things.

Now the interesting thing about that is, what does it mean for brain plasticity and learning? And there's a general assumption based on a lot of research that this development that we see during the adolescent years, means that the brain is particularly plastic - at least in some brain regions.

The brain is particularly influenced by the environment during the teenage years and might be particularly amenable to learning certain skills. It's a sensitive period for social information, meaning that the brain is set up during adolescence to understand other people and to find out about other people's minds, their emotions. Brains at this time are good at understanding social hierarchies.
So peers and friends are really important during this time.
Friends take on an extra step in terms of their importance and the role they play in adolescents' lives. Adolescents do have an increased propensity to be influenced by their friends, particularly in areas like risk-taking. Things like smoking or drinking or experimenting with drugs, those are risks that they tend not to take when they're on their own. I think particularly the fear of being excluded by the peer group is a big driver of adolescent typical behavior.
Can schools use those social motivators to help students learn or to stop bullying, or increase awareness about health issues?
There's a model in public health. There's been research showing [that], if you educate the well-connected young people in the class about the negative effects of bullying and social exclusion and then you motivate them and incentivize them to run a kind of anti-bullying campaign, that leads to hugely reduced incidents of bullying and social exclusion. It also leads to changes in attitudes towards bullying and social exclusion across the whole year group over the following year.

That's exactly what young people care about. They care about what their friends think and the social norms. So trying to change attitudes and behaviors around people maybe around risk-taking or bullying should focus on judging. And teachers can use that model, too.
How does social media influence all this?
It really matters to teenagers to be included by their social group, by their friends, and so they're more likely to go along with what their friends think. Social media like Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook or whatever it might be, allows teenagers to exercise their desire to make social contact all the time. They never get away from it, even in the middle of the night.

There's not very much research on how social media affects the developing brain, but one area that I'm pretty convinced by is the effect on sleep. A lot of young people who I work with, they will have their phones on all night. They won't turn them off. They won't put them on silent and they even respond to messages that come in throughout the night. That surely affects sleep and we all know that sleep is so critical for mental health and learning.
What's the next thing you want to investigate?

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Why Teens Should Understand Their Own Brains (And Why Their Teachers Should, Too!) | KQED

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Sleep. The fact that the circadian rhythm matters. That the body clock changes at puberty. There's a kind of shift in the body clock by about two hours during the teenage years, meaning that teenagers feel sleepy a couple of hours later at night than adults.

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To do this, we collected nearly 30,000 in-the-moment student surveys. Using a technology that prompted students in grades six through 12 to answer a few questions at random times during class, we captured a snapshot of their real-time reactions to school. We also surveyed third through fifth graders during the last five minutes of class, and found that elementary students were just as capable as their older schoolmates of providing rich and telling insight into their lives at school.

Across our five partner school systems, we also observed nearly a thousand full-length lessons at all grade levels from K-12, and reviewed almost 5,000 assignments and more than 20,000 individual student work samples. We visited each participating school daily for a week straight at three points in the year, which gave us the chance to see the same teachers and students at the beginning, middle, and end of their time together (and offered a much more comprehensive lens on the learning environment than a single day's lesson could have). These classrooms were not substantially different than the others in their districts, and they represented a wide range: those with new teachers and veterans; those at all age levels; a diverse range of subjects; mixed-ability classes and tracked ones. Four of these school systems were located in states that use standards aligned to the Common Core State Standards; one was not.

To assess the quality of content students worked on, we looked at four elements of every assignment: (1) whether the content in the assignments was aligned to relevant grade-level academic standards; (2) whether the assignments gave students the chance to engage in important content-specific practices, like citing evidence from rigorous texts in literacy, or discussing mathematical ideas using precise mathematical language; (3) whether the assignments gave students a chance to learn relevant content that built their knowledge of the world or helped them see how what they were learning could be applied in the real world; and (4) student performance on both the assignments themselves and against the bar for their grade-level standards.

To study instruction, we observed full-length class periods and assessed (1) whether students were doing what they were asked; (2) whether they were being asked to work on grade-level content; and (3) whether teachers were using instructional practices that gave students the chance to do most of the thinking in the lesson.

We surveyed teachers to capture their knowledge of grade-level standards, their opinions on those standards, and their beliefs about their classroom practices and their students' abilities. We conducted focus groups with nearly 100 teachers and interviewed 24 school leaders at multiple times throughout the year. And we assessed a large set of extant data provided to us by our partner districts on course access, enrollment policies, and district policies on curriculum adoption, among others.

We hypothesized that students' experiences of school were influenced by a confluence of factors-among them, the quality of the work they were doing, the instruction they received, and the expectations of their teachers-and that those factors would interact to have an impact on their academic growth. Taken together with students' in-the-moment survey responses, we were able to triangulate students' perspectives with the classes they were in, the work they were doing and instruction they were receiving, and their academic outcomes.

In addition to amassing this rich data set, we also sat down with a smaller subset of students (more than 50 over two school years), and got to know them. We observed them in class and spoke to them about their experiences, their likes and dislikes, their families, their goals. Just a few of those students are profiled here. While their names and identifying characteristics have been changed throughout this report, their stories help us understand what the data means in the real lives of individual young people.

They also help us understand what real, tangible changes school systems can make-starting tomorrow and over the long haul-to provide more students with school experiences that are meaningful, that honor their aspirations for themselves and their families, and that give them a fighting chance to meet those goals.
For our complete methodology, including further explanation of our analytical approaches and full analysis results, see the Technical Appendix.

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What can 4,000 students teach us about school? Read The Opportunity Myth.

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Model Projects

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Preparing university faculty, preservice teachers, and cooperating teachers for high quality PBL

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Students read books as part of Waltham High School's 24-hour read-a-thon to select a book that the entire school will read together over the summer. (Courtesy of Allyson McHugh)

Several years ago, Waltham High School educators were trying to think of some way to enliven summer reading. They had tried book lists and they had tried letting students just read what they wanted but they were missing a deeper level of student engagement.

"We felt like we needed something different that was more meaningful," said English teacher Emilie Perna.

They wanted a reading program that would be fun, multidisciplinary and included the community so that students would learn that reading is a life-long adventure. The educators developed a " One School, One Story" program that gives students more voice in which book gets selected during the summer and continues the dialogue with authors and members of the community throughout the year.

The story selection process starts in the fall, when teachers from different departments come together to read books during Thanksgiving break. They narrow a list of about 100 books to 16.

In the spring, more than 60 students participate in the 24-hour read-a-thon in the school library, where they winnow down the selections, bracket-style, to four books. By the end of 24 hours, all the students vote on the best choice out of the four books.

"We try to put as much responsibility in the students' hands as we can," said Waltham High School English Language Arts director Allyson McHugh.

In doing so, educators have learned that what adults think students should be reading doesn't necessarily align with what the students think they should be reading, she added.

The first year, students picked " Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis." The book was about a young man who worked to exonerate the captain of the USS Indianapolis, who was unfairly court-martialed for the sinking of a ship in WWII.

They invited that young man, Hunter Scott, to school, and students were to able "to see a story come to life," said Perna. They also worked with a local veterans group so that students could meet with war veterans. "We had kids graduate last year who said that was some of the most meaningful discussions that they had in a high school setting," said Perna.

Thanks to a fund from the Waltham Family Foundation they are able to buy about 1,800 copies of each year's book so all high school students, eighth-graders and faculty have a copy. They receive about $1,000 a year to buy the books and bring in speakers. Local businesses donate goods to help with various events.

"The fact that they had the book in their hands, that is huge," said Perna.

The program has even allowed students to choose a podcast instead of a book. In their second year, students surprised everyone by picking the podcast "Serial." But, again, the same ideas applied: Get people engaged in a conversation. When the fall came around, teachers connected the crime story told in "Serial" to other classes -- science teachers set up a forensics science scene and history teachers looked at how life for Muslims has changed since 1999 since the podcast is about a young Muslim convicted of a crime in that year. Even math teachers got involved by showing how to triangulate a person's location using cellphone towers. Even though people assume students are tech-savvy, many had never listened to a podcast before, so "Serial" was an opportunity to teach students how to access and listen to a whole other type of storytelling.
BUILDING COMMUNITY
Rebekah Tierney started work as the Waltham High School librarian in January and was initially reluctant when she heard about "One School, One Story" because she usually is a proponent of letting kids choose their own book for the summer. But then she saw how focusing on one book connects the wider community -- the program went beyond catering to individual favorites and challenged readers to talk about a book, even they didn't like it. It forces students to look at issues from a different perspective, said Tierney.

Engagement and reading levels are at an all-time high for students at Waltham because this type of program starts conversations and kids can find relevance in their communities. For last year's " All American Boys," (which delves into police brutality and racial profiling) they brought in the authors, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. For many students, it was the first time they had seen a black author.

"Watching the students watch these two authors up on stage was one of the most fulfilling things as a teacher," said Perna. "That was a moment, where as teacher, I was like, 'I can't top that, but I'll try.' "

As part of the larger community discussion, Waltham educators worked closely with the town's police department for a workshop where officers led discussions about community policing with some 600 students, said Perna. Community members were nervous about tackling such a topics , but it's the students who are "really the ones pulling us along and saying it's time to have these difficult conversations," said Perna.

This year's selection is also covering a difficult topic. The book committee of 64 students selected " Speak," by Laurie Halse Anderson, a story in which an incident of rape factors into the plot. McHugh and other organizers are working with a student group called PAVE (Peers against Violence), a rape counseling center in Boston and a group that educates students on domestic violence and safe dating skills as an opportunity to bring the community in for important conversations.

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How 'One Story' Can Excite Students About Reading And Connecting With Community

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Students read books as part of Waltham High School's 24-hour read-a-thon to select a book that the entire school will read together over the summer. (Courtesy of Allyson McHugh) Several years ago, Waltham High School educators were trying to think of some way to enliven summer reading.

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Neveln Elementary School Parents - Mr. Wolff, Principal

My Child's DNA

Back to School has come upon us! Within one week, our doors will be open for all our Neveln families to come and meet the teachers, check out desks and lockers, and see old friends!

As you prepare for your child's conference, I would encourage you to share with your child's teacher about your child's 'DNA.'

DNA stands for 'Dreams, Needs, and Abilities.'

Dreams - what does your child dream about be in, being part of, problems they want to solve, or goals they want to accomplish. Regardless how lofty, teachers want to know about your child's passions and what drives them to excel.

Needs - we all have needs in order for us be feel successful; whether our needs are to get a fist bump from every teacher or a quiet place to read or the need to feel like their voice is heard...regardless how big or small, teachers want the best for your child.

Abilities - we are all proud of our talents and areas that we may potentially excel in; these abilities are great insights for teachers to know about so they understand your child's hobbies and areas of interest.

By knowing your child's 'DNA,' we are able to know your child 'inside and out!'

Welcome to Neveln Elementary School and to a wonderful 2018-2019 school year!

David Wolff

Principal

Neveln Elementary School Welcomes Visitors!

Student safety is of utmost importance to the staff of Neveln. As parents, you entrust your children to our care - something we take very seriously. To ensure this level of safety, we ask that all visitors and guests follow specific procedures.

Visitors and Guests are asked to follow our procedure:

The morning bell rings at 8:05am. The front doors will be locked from 8:05am-2:30pm.

All visitors and guests must enter the office and sign-in to get a visitor's pass.

Neveln Teachers and Staff like to welcome you by name; please wear your visitor's pass in a visible location on the front of your shirt/coat.

All visitors and guests must enter Neveln Elementary School through the front doors; all other entrances are locked.

Guests picking their child up are asked to wait in the office where they will meet their child before signing them out for the day.

Guests that are coming to eat lunch with their child are asked to wait in the office until your child's lunch period begins.

Guests bringing birthday treats are asked to drop off the treats in the office where a staff member will deliver the treats to the classroom.

Neveln Knight Swag

Are you ready to show your school pride with our community?

We are proud, proud Knights and want everyone to know what a great school we have.

At Parent/Teacher Conferences, you will have the opportunity to purchase Knight Swag - from hoodies to shirts to coffee mugs to window decals.

One goal we have is that EVERY child has the opportunity to show their school spirit. We will have order forms for new Neveln Knight T-Shirts for students for $3.00/shirt!!!! Order one...order ten...for $3.00/shirt you can't go wrong!!!

Thank you to Games People Play for your partnership!

Meet the Classroom Teachers!
Grade 1: Madi Reuter Gerilyn Vesel Michelle Braun Grade 2: Janene Lunning Brenda Hackensmith Maria Mickelson Grade 3: Julie Nelson Shelley Weinmann Erik LaRock Grade 4: Pam Schwarz Gina Williams Megan Schwenn
Meet the Specialists and Interventionist!
English Language Teachers: Nicole Thompson Stephanie Garbisch Special Education Teachers: Kate Jordal Robin Withum Math Intervention Teacher: Steve Askelson Reading Intervention Teachers: Tracy Garry Marilyn Oswald Art Teacher: Jackie Porter Gym Teachers: Brandon Tharp [Gr. 1] Music Teachers: Nikki Tolde [Gr. 1]

Mr. Wolff, Principal

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Neveln Elementary School Parents - Mr. Wolff, Principal Back to School has come upon us! Within one week, our doors will be open for all our Neveln families to come and meet the teachers, check out desks and lockers, and see old friends!

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One of the questions, I am asked the most often is, "What do you do if you don't have Accelerated Reader?" Or insert whatever computer program here. It is a question filled with emotion, after all, change is hard, and for some kids, AR and programs like it seem to work. For some teachers, it works. And yet, it doesn't work for all, it is expensive, and in my opinion, it is not worthy of the precious time we have with students every day.

Last night, as I sat surrounded by incredible passionate educators and leaders in the Imperial Valley in California, I was asked that question again, and here is how I answered it.

Giving up AR can be scary. After all, it is a program that seems to tell us things we need to know; has this child read the book? Have they understood it? It is a program that allows us to chart progress, to reward growth. To have an understanding of the complex process that is often hidden from view. And yet, how much of AR is actually a true view? How often are kids able to take the test without fully reading the book? How often do they fail the test despite having read the book? How often do we end up policing the testing, the book choice, the kids without actually doing meaningful work?

Our job as teachers is not to police reading, it is to support the love of reading. There is a huge difference.

So we start by looking at the components already in place. Every child deserves a classroom library, a school library staffed with a certified librarian. Every child deserves a teacher who read children's literature, who is knowledgeable and excited about reading. Every child deserves time to read a self-selected book in a supportive reading environment. Every child deserves to do meaningful work once they finish these books, building a reading community one book, one conversation, one connection at a time.

If we hold these components as rights, then the only thing AR really fulfills is the check off when it comes to whether a book has been read. When we remove that, we must find other ways to see whether children are reading and whether they understand what they have read.

In my own classrooms, we have different methods to see whether kids are reading. I have gone into more details about this here and also in Passionate Readers, but the first component is to simply kid watch. How are they picking up books? Are they picking up the same book day after day? Are they making progress in the book? We use Penny Kittle's page tracker to help us see the page kids are on in class. That way if a child is on the same page day after day, I know a conversation is waiting to happen. Perhaps the book is boring, perhaps they don't understand it, perhaps something is happening outside of class that is affecting them in class. Either way, that small sheet of paper allows me to see if they are making progress. I don't need it as a reading log, I need it so that kids can take control over their own reading habits and see whether they are making true progress as they challenge themselves. That way they have tangible data when we reflect at the end of every quarter.

We also set meaningful goals. I recently wrote about what that looks like at the beginning of the year, but it is these goals that I discuss with kids. While some may be quantity based, others are based on habit. You may notice that so much of what we do is conversation based. Not having a computer to tell me these things forces me to speak more to students, for them to actually reflect on their lives as readers, this is always a great thing.

When students finish a book, they often do what we adults do. They recommend it. They put it back on the shelf. They hand it to someone to read it as well. Sometimes they write about it in a reading response, but not often, because I have found that it is often all of the things we have kids do with their reading that actually makes them dislike reading. This year, I will also have them do reading ladders, an idea created by Teri Lesene, explained here, so that students can ponder whether they are challenging themselves or simply reading at the same rung. They also keep a list of books they have read, finished, or abandoned in their notebook and at any point, I can ask to see that. This list is something we update in class so that the kids that forget also have a chance to do it. For kids who are motivated by competition, I try to make it an internal one. Can they beat last year's numbers of books or some other goal? I do not believe that reading should be rewarded with a prize because it tells kids that reading itself is not worthy of their time. That it is something they are being bribed to do because it has no value on its own. Reading is its own reward.

And finally, when it comes to the assessment of skills, I don't need a test on a book to tell me whether they comprehend it. I can either discuss the book with them even if I haven't read it or I can use a common text, such as a short story, read aloud, or picture book to assess their skills of reading. After all, all of the independent reading we do is for practice, for building the love, it is not to be graded, the skills we are developing are what we need to grade and that can happen with any text that we know together.

Getting rid of any component that has been a cornerstone of instruction is scary, it takes work, and it takes a change in practice. But it is worth it for our students and the reading experiences they deserve. I would recommend anyone who is looking to get rid of a computer program to really speak about the experiences that need to replace it. How will that look on a day-to-day basis and also how it will help the students.

Teaching is hard work, it is easy to see how we can be persuaded to place children in front of computers to help us out. To see the short-term gains sometimes from these programs. And yet, what about the long-term? At what point do children, and adults for that matter, need to internalize what reading really is? A discovery of self? A discovery of the world? A transport into more understanding, more empathy, more imagination? Removing AR is a process, but one that is worthy of our time, because kids deserve rich reading experiences at every level, and computers, no matter how well-tested their programs are, cannot provide the same meaningful interaction as we get from a conversation, real assessment, and building a community of readers.

To see more thoughts on AR please see Jen Robinson's posts which showcase other work on it. Donalyn Miller's post on it and do take the time to read Stephen Krashen's discussion of the research that AR uses as a selling point.

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One of the questions, I am asked the most often is, "What do you do if you don't have Accelerated Reader?" Or insert whatever computer program here. It is a question filled with emotion, after all, change is hard, and for some kids, AR and programs like it seem to work.

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Middle School

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Our research shows that when the school is made to feel smaller, that's when young adolescents flourish more. With a K-8 school you have potentially more students in the school because you have all the way from 5-year-olds to 13- and 14-year-olds.

An effective middle school, or middle grades, program needs to go beyond the grade configuration change. You can change the grade configuration of a school all day long. But you can also do some other things, and should do some things, that are developmentally responsive to young adolescents.

Of course safety and security is paramount, so we want students to not feel like they're going to be bullied or picked on or harassed in a school setting. But if you just change it to a K-8 school from a 6-8 school it doesn't guarantee that there is going to be less bullying and less transition issues for kids. There need to be other characteristics in place.
So how can we design middle schools to make the sixth-grade experience better?
It starts with identifying what their unique characteristics are. Identifying that they are trying to achieve not just academically or cognitively, but they're achieving and really working on social, emotional, behavioral, psychological, ethical - all that stuff at one time in a rapid way. So, we start with that understanding, plus a shared vision of what type of programs and what type of people we need to have in our buildings to serve those kids, that's where it really begins.

Without a common language, a common understanding and a common passion, then it's really not going to work as well as it should. It might function, but it won't help them flourish.
You talk about keeping schools small - what does that look like?
There are a couple of different structures that a middle grades program can put into place to make the learning community smaller. One of those key structures is called interdisciplinary teaming. It has both an academic focus as well as a social and emotional learning focus. Interdisciplinary in place of departments, because that's the junior high model, where you have separate departments that really never meet.

Instead, you take a large student body and you create a smaller learning community through interdisciplinary teams. Those teams can be two people. So for instance on a sixth-grade team, you have two teachers: One teaches English, language arts, reading and social studies and the other teaches math and science. Then, they can just really focus on those kids.
So how do you make a K-8 school feel small?
What it takes to make that happen is a master bell schedule that provides common planning. Which sounds like a mundane logistical piece, but that's where really creative work happens in a middle grades program - to have a schedule where those grade level teachers can meet across the content areas.

But the point is if it's just about the grade configuration but no attention is paid to interdisciplinary teaming or other developmentally responsive programs and initiatives, then you're really just putting more grades in the building.
What are some other structures that would help?
Another structure that is imperative, I think, is something called advisory or advisement. In the Utopian sense of it, it [a middle school] really should have a dedicated time during the day when students are meeting with an adult advocate in the building. That could be a teacher that they have or, it could be a teacher that they don't have that just meets with them. In these advisory periods, they work on social-emotional learning, behavioral issues, they work on skill development, they work on character education.

That's the environment in which young adolescents flourish: When they feel like they have a personal connection and someone who really cares about them. It's that old adage of they don't care to learn, unless they learn that we care.
When sixth-graders go to a new school they may not have those relationships that they had at their old elementary school. Is that part of the problem?
It really depends on what they call the "feeder patterns" of the school, so how the elementary schools matriculate up to the middle school. I've been in a middle school where they had five elementary schools feed into the school. That can be an issue. So that means even more that there needs to be a dialogue between elementary and middle grades to make sure those transitions are smooth.

Now in a K-8 structure, those conversations still need to happen, but the benefit of that is that everyone's in the same building. Transition conversations need to happen to ease the transition of sixth-grade students regardless of a 6-8 school or a K-8 school or whatever it is.
Sixth grade can be a rough time. Is being a sixth-grade student just always hard?
Well, they're a young adolescent first. So a young adolescent has unique characteristics that the school needs to recognize and respond to. For instance, they're undergoing the most rapid physical and cognitive change in their life in this grade. The only other time that it's this fast is birth to 3.

So, having a difficult time as a sixth-grader is in some ways regardless of the grade configuration. They're going through a massive identity shift with friends, with family, with their relationship to academics, to other adults in their lives, to other kids in their lives, trying to figure it all out.

Having difficulty in the sixth grade is part of that young adolescent journey. How we respond to and support them on that journey starts with an awareness that they're on it.

Quite honestly, one of the first things that a middle grades program needs to do is just to remember that. Have the teachers and administrators and staff members in the school take those characteristics of young adolescents that they have and remember what they were like at this age too.
Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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How Can Middle Schools Best Organize to Help Young Adolescents Thrive?

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Our research shows that when the school is made to feel smaller, that's when young adolescents flourish more. With a K-8 school you have potentially more students in the school because you have all the way from 5-year-olds to 13- and 14-year-olds. An effective middle school, or middle grades, program needs to go beyond the grade configuration change.

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These experiences teaching ultimately led her to the work she currently does, guiding teams of educators in an inquiry process to identify specific, granular gaps in students' ability to write. Peg Tyre documented one school's inquiry and implementation process at New Dorp High School in her article " The Writing Revolution," published in The Atlantic. Despite initially pushing back, Tyre writes that through inquiry teachers began to see that their students didn't understand things like how the conjunctions "but, because and so" work in sentences, and these gaps were preventing them from expressing complexity in writing.

"I think what's most counter-cultural, and not really in the knowledge base, is how to develop students at the level of the sentence and all the ramifications that has in terms of thinking and content," Scharff Panero said. She has recently published a paper titled "Progressive mastery through deliberate practice: A promising approach for improving writing" in the journal Improving Schools about the New Dorp approach and how it compares to commonly held beliefs about writing instruction, as well as the existing literature on how to teach writing.

"There's a belief that you immerse kids in it and they kind of figure it out," Scharff Panero said. And some kids can, especially if they grow up in a language-rich environment without any of the common barriers found in public school classrooms, like learning English as a second language, special needs, trauma and poverty. The idea is that models of good writing naturally transfer to students as they regularly practice their own writing, but sometimes students don't pick up on crucial ideas that end up inhibiting them as they advance in school.

Indeed, many students in the public education system aren't "catching" what they need to know about writing -- the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress writing test found almost 75 percent of eighth- and 12th-graders in the U.S. wrote below grade level and only 3 percent of U.S. students, across all demographics, wrote at an "advanced" level.

"Some people can make it, but how do we learn more about how we can teach it better, so everyone does better?" Scharff Panero asked.

The strategies New Dorp teachers used to fill gaps in students' understanding came from Judith Hochman's book Teaching Basic Writing Skills, and they seem simplistic. To the average high school teacher, spending a semester on sentence-level exercises that are heavily scaffolded seems easy and boring. But Scharff Panero said that when teachers try taking instruction back to basics using what she calls "progressive mastery," they see big improvements in the quality of both thinking and writing, and that students can meet high school expectations when teachers slow down to show them how to write well.

The New Dorp turnaround inspired New York City to require the approach at the 30 lowest-performing high schools in the district, called Renewal Schools. Some of these schools are now beginning to see a shift, but only after some difficult discussions with staff.

"It was very much an attitude that we went in; we taught it; the kids didn't pay attention; they didn't study; and they should have learned it," said Dan Scanlon, principal of John Adams High School. "A lot of people felt they were being blamed for their kids not learning something."

Scanlon said it was difficult for his staff to acknowledge that pointing fingers at students wasn't going to improve performance. Instead, the staff had to accept the reality of where their students were at and try something new and different for most high school teachers. Because John Adams has been a low-achieving school for a long time and has been designated a Renewal School, teachers ultimately had no choice. The whole staff got trained in the writing strategies, called Writing is Thinking through Strategic Inquiry (WITsi), and learned how to apply them to their content areas.

"We have better teacher practice because of their implementation of WIT and that has improved performance on Regents exams," said Joanna Cohen, a vice-principal at John Adams. School administrators chose to implement writing across the curriculum because they began to see that many of the gaps in writing knowledge also pointed to fundamental abilities to express relationships. Using "so" correctly in a sentence, for example, indicates causality, an idea that's just as important in math and science as it is in more writing-intensive disciplines like social studies and English.
HOW PROGRESSIVE MASTERY WORKS
The WIT activities are not a set curriculum meant to be used exactly the same way by every teacher. Instead, Scharff Panero explained that teachers are trained in the strategies and then use their own discretion to introduce different approaches, according to their instructional goals. For the program to work well, it's important for teachers to be able to pick out and focus on writing structures that indicate a way of thinking, no matter the discipline. For example, distinguishing general ideas from specific statements is a crucial skill that comes up when students write paragraphs that include a topic sentence, along with supporting sentences that back up the topic sentence.

When the idea of distinguishing general from specific is the focus of the lesson, the teacher can approach it in a different way. For example, in the Hochman Method used at New Dorp and studied by Scharff Panero, teachers started by giving students a paragraph and asking them to pick out the general statement, the topic sentence and specific statements, the supporting detail. Starting with the model before asking students to write their own topic sentences helped reinforce the bigger idea of the difference between general and specific.

The idea behind progressive mastery is to protect students from what confuses them until they have mastered each individual component. With that in mind, the freshman high school students Scharff Panero studied focused on the level of the sentence, as well as note-taking strategies, for a whole semester. They looked at examples, identified different kinds of sentences and the details within them, filled in word stems, learned to expand sentences and how to combine them.

Many of these activities are "closed" in that they have a right or a wrong answer that indicates both how well students understand the writing structure, as well as the content involved. Scharff Panero is aware that many educators believe writing in this didactic way inhibits creativity and free expression, but she says students need to understand the rules of writing before they can break them. And, she pushes back against the idea that this approach is dumbing down expectations, arguing that short, sentence-level exercises can contain a lot of rigor and show deep thought.

"My feeling is that if you believe, as I do, that they're missing foundational skills, then if all you do is increase the rigor without closing the skill gap, then you'll just make the divide bigger," she said. Asking students to read longer and more challenging texts, and to write longer essays without first showing them in concrete ways how to build up to that level, defeats the purpose in her mind.

After mastering sentences, teachers move on to how to build a paragraph. They teach students how to write quick outlines using a specific note-taking strategy that can then provide an easy guide for writing. Many of these ideas are familiar to English teachers, but the difference with the progressive mastery or WIT strategies is how teachers break down each aspect of writing. Many high school teachers haven't been taught to teach this way, and while they know how to write themselves, they may not be thinking clearly about the scaffolded steps required to accurately summarize or build on an idea. As simple as they sound, these writing strategies are meant to fill in those gaps.
JOHN ADAMS HIGH SCHOOL
It was frustrating, but John Adams teachers had to face the reality that their kids needed them to step back and explicitly teach things like how to effectively use conjunctions in a sentence. While it's natural that the English department expected to be reading and analyzing literature, its teachers soon realized that if they didn't help their students master writing, they'd never get there.

"We weren't really sure how well it was going to work because we thought it was really low level for high school," said Loribeth Libretta, an English teacher at John Adams. She's been using the WIT strategies for five years now and has seen the difference it has made for students. She remembers one shy freshman boy who lacked confidence and most writing skills. Now, he's a junior in her class and she says it's a joy to read his well-developed paragraphs that flow together and express high-level thinking. He's also become much more confident as a learner.

"Ideally they should have learned this in elementary and junior high school," said Lauren Salamone, who teaches sophomores Global History. "That's your automatic reaction, but it's not the reality."

There's a lot of writing on the New York Regents Global History exam, which requires students to answer several document-based questions as well as two essays covering a lot of content. Salamone didn't resist the writing strategies because she could see early on that her students didn't have the skills to write at the level required of them. And, to her surprise, her students were grateful to learn the code to good writing.

"They just kind of naturally grabbed on," Salamone said. "They didn't really question at all. If anything they found the benefit in it."

As a science teacher, Jennifer McHugh was skeptical of the schoolwide writing strategy. She didn't see why she should use valuable class time to teach writing when students wouldn't need that information to pass the Regents test in her class. But, she complied with the program because she had to, and has come around to how the writing strategies improved her students' scientific thinking as well.

Asking students to use "but, because and so" about the science they are learning has given students new tools and perspectives to discuss what they know. And, McHugh has found that the writing exercises help her see where students have gaps in their knowledge. For example, if a student uses "but" incorrectly in a sentence, it's likely he or she doesn't understand the relationship between the two things yet.

"It helps with their critical thinking skills because they're thinking from multiple perspectives," McHugh said. She's seen her students grow over the year and they earned better Regents scores as well.

What started out as a writing program has become a way to scaffold content and improve teacher performance at John Adams. Teachers are consistently asked to dive into the data in their classrooms and try to understand where the gaps are and how they can be filled. The inquiry that staff did to find the gaps and develop strategies to fill them is ongoing. This work is pushing them to think more critically about how they teach as well.

Scharff Panero believes education researchers need to do more explicit studies on best practices to teach writing, and sees her paper as a starting point for that work. Research has already shown that improving writing also improves thinking, content knowledge and speaking skills. She's not convinced the WIT strategies that she helped develop for New York City's Renewal Schools are the only way to see pronounced growth in students' writing abilities. It could just be that identifying and actively trying to fill gaps in writing, no matter how it's done, is enough.

She's also skeptical that a software program could find and remediate weaknesses in writing. The processes she has witnessed are very human-based, requiring a teacher's expertise. Principal Scanlon also thought it might be hard for a computer program to yield the same results. He pointed out that software can give a teacher a lot of data, but how he or she uses that data is much more important. He believes that requiring teacher teams to do cycles of inquiry into their students' skills, while providing them with support and ideas for closing gaps, serves the important purpose of helping teachers grow, too.

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Is It Time To Go Back To Basics With Writing Instruction? | MindShift | KQED News

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These experiences teaching ultimately led her to the work she currently does, guiding teams of educators in an inquiry process to identify specific, granular gaps in students' ability to write. Peg Tyre documented one school's inquiry and implementation process at New Dorp High School in her article " The Writing Revolution," published in The Atlantic.

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What lions are the kids in your classroom running from? Many kids are being chased 24/7. As a caring adult, you have the unique opportunity to step in and make a difference.Award winning educator,...

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"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

Watch SirKenRobinson's classic TED Talk about how schools can nurture creativity: http://bit.ly/2rsrove...

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redesignu.org

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We believe that all young people can become independent, passionate learners who are prepared for college, regardless of economic circumstance, race, or family history. For us, education is fundamentally an issue of social justice.

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High School Redesign

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Windsor works on a "core" model where one group of students share the same English, science and history teacher as a way to create smaller communities within the big comprehensive high school. This schedule allowed Tucker to team up with Marika Neto, a science teacher, to offer the Next Evolution of Work-based Learning core, or N.E.W. school.

The two teachers share a mix of 60 freshmen and sophomores, teaching them English, science and a technology elective in an interdisciplinary way. Tucker and Neto develop themed units that connect concepts of the science curriculum with the books they are reading and the writing they are doing. For example, in a mental health unit students learned about the neurobiology of mental health disorders and applied that understanding to their reading of "Romeo and Juliet."

Each student psychoanalyzed a character, using research to back up claims about how the character's actions and words indicate they may have had a specific mental disorder. At the same time, students also had to do a project educating a specific audience on some aspect of mental health. Students could work together or alone, and had a lot of freedom to choose how and what they would dive into.

For a Mental Health unit project these girls raised $800 for homeless packs. The power of project-based learning! @Catlin_Tucker #NEWSchool pic.twitter.com/dSrpNKsaD2

- Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) December 16, 2016

One student made an infographic in Spanish and English to educate the Spanish-speaking community about the dangers of depression and where people can get help locally. Another group wanted to build a life-size mannequin that could show what anxiety looks like in the body. They weren't sure how to realize their vision, so they formally reached out to the engineering teacher for help programming a device that would light up when certain parts of the brain trigger or when the heartbeat accelerates.

"These girls were never interested in programming and now they're doing it on their off-time just to complete this project," said Marika Neto. She's been amazed at how deeply students are willing to examine a topic when they have the freedom to choose something that interests them and can show their learning in various ways. That's especially apparent in science; many students claimed they used to hate science, but are loving it the way Neto teaches.
THE SCHEDULE
Tucker and Neto have their N.E.W. students only every other day, but on core days students are with them for a 4½-hour block that the teachers can program however they want. The co-teachers put together a slide deck for every day with each activity, links to resources, and transition times. Students are responsible for looking at the deck and independently transitioning between activities. Sometimes half the students will work on a science lesson while the other half work on a writing assignment. Other times all 60 kids have "My time" to work on anything they need to get done.

The effect is that there's no herding students from room to room based on a bell schedule. Visitors to class don't always know what students are working on unless they ask, and often one student will be doing different work from her neighbor.

Tucker and Neto don't formally assign homework, but they try to give lots of work time in class. And students often do extra work on their projects at home if they haven't been focused in class or they aren't satisfied with their work. Tucker has also tried as much as possible not to collect and grade work at home. Instead, she synchronously edits student writing in Google Docs. She believes that giving students real-time actionable feedback as they are drafting benefits them more than when she stamps a grade on at the end. Too often students never look at that feedback again.

And because Tucker and Neto have complete control of the schedule of N.E.W. core, they can invite outside experts in, plan field trips and generally enrich what happens in the classroom by connecting students to other resources at Windsor High or out in the community at large.
BREAKING DEPENDENCE
One of the big goals of the N.E.W. program is to create a learning environment where students are empowered and supported to be independent learners. That can be a challenge for students arriving to the program with eight or nine years of experiences with teachers who tell them exactly how to do well. Students in the N.E.W. program struggled with the freedom of the program at first and asked for more direct instruction.

"In middle school it was more like you sit down, they teach you, you memorize everything, you do your work and that's it, you're out," said Natali, a freshman in the program. "But here it was more, I wouldn't say self-taught, but as a student you really had to buckle down yourself if you really wanted to get it done."

One of the big ways Tucker and Neto are trying to build student ownership of learning is through the grading system. They are aware that any pedagogical approach must be s upported by an assessment policy that furthers the same goals. The grading policy in a classroom can easily send a conflicting message to students if teachers don't think it through carefully.

At the beginning of each unit Tucker identifies the key English and technology standards and Neto picks the science ones. They put those targets in a spreadsheet with columns for students to self-evaluate on each skill, as well as columns for teachers to give feedback and evaluation. Every week students have time to reflect on the work they've done and to give themselves a grade 1-4 that indicates how well they believe they are meeting the standard. Crucially, they also have to say why they believe that grade is appropriate and link to work samples as evidence.

"The doc is meant to be an ongoing silent conversation between the two of us," Tucker said. If she goes through and gives a student a 2, that's not the end of the conversation. The student can then take that feedback, make changes to the work, update his column and ask for the teacher to look again. This process encourages students to constantly reflect on what they are doing well, what they can improve, and to actively use teacher feedback to revise work.

"Throughout the unit they're constantly being asked to look at their body of work, look at the skills we're targeting, and identify what pieces reflect their growth or their proficiency, or their developing proficiency in relation to a particular standard," Tucker said.

Since Windsor is a traditional public school, Tucker and Neto have to report out grades every six weeks. At that time they conduct grading interviews with each student in which the student presents the grade she thinks she deserves and evidence to support that claim. The teacher comes with her own grade and evidence, and the two have a conversation about it.

"The first time I did a grading interview I was like so nervous," said Josh, a sophomore student. "But then by the second time it was much more relaxed. And I'm like, OK, I'm just showing what I've done and I should be proud of it." He appreciates that he has a voice in the process and that his grade isn't arbitrarily decided by his teacher.

"I think those conversations were some of the scariest things we've asked them to do because they're not asked to think about their learning that way, articulate where they're at in their learning, and what they think their grade should be," Tucker said. Students are having to retrain themselves to use those types of metacognitive skills, which is a big shift for them.

A conversation after a grade-less interview "It is nice to not be defined by doing bad on one assignment; instead the focus is on my growth"

- Marika Neto (@MarikaNeto) September 28, 2016

This approach has also been an adjustment for parents who generally were educated in a more traditional system. They have become accustomed to classrooms where every assignment is graded, and if their child misses an assignment or performs poorly on a test it can start to create a hole in their grade. And, for parents whose children did well in the traditional system, but are adjusting to the independence and autonomy of N.E.W. school, all the changes can be a little scary.

"She was struggling at the beginning," said Carrie Carstensen of her daughter. "And I thought, how is this going to look on her report card? Are her grades going to go down because this is something completely different and new and challenging?'"

Ultimately, Carstensen decided she'd rather her daughter learn the content deeply, even if her grades aren't as strong, in the hopes that the many other skills she's learning in the hands-on, project-based and tech-savvy program will serve her well later. It doesn't hurt that her daughter is much more excited about school now.

Other parents were thrown by the idea that students can go back, revise and improve an initial grade. While foreign to many parents at first, it was not unwelcome.

"They're trying to teach them that you might start off with a 1 and you're a straight-A student because there's so much room to grow," said Toni Rooney, a freshman parent. "And so when they give them increases in their number, I feel like it means more to them."

Rooney has been impressed with the passion for learning that the N.E.W. core has brought out in her daughter, Brooke. While Brooke was never a struggling student, she also didn't particularly like school. Now Brooke is excited to talk with her mom about what she's learning, how she's tackling projects and the improvements she's made.

"My other son spends hours sitting at his desk doing homework and I don't think he's getting more from his education," said Dianne Wagner, Josh's mom. Josh has a twin brother who is in a more traditional honors-track core. Wagner likes that Josh's schoolwork not only excites him, but that he's becoming a well-rounded person who can collaborate, juggle project deadlines on his own, communicate about his work and take ownership. And, she likes that when he's home from school he has time to help out with chores and hang out with his family because he's not so stressed out by how much homework he has.

"What they do here in N.E.W. core is they figure out how to apply the knowledge that they need to learn to the life that they have in front of them, and connecting those dots makes that information more valuable," Wagner said.
ROOM TO STRETCH
Tucker and Neto originally conceived of the N.E.W. core as a way to reach the many students for whom school is "not super stimulating." Connecting the curriculum to the real world, giving students choice, making science more hands-on and fun, and building in a lot of collaboration are all ways these teachers are trying to shake up the traditional model in order to re-engage kids who haven't experienced a lot of success in school or who are already checked out.

And while there are many students in the program who are thriving in that new environment when they might not have elsewhere, one surprise has been how well the model works for students who also excel at traditional school. Tucker initially worried that having such a broad array of learners in one hectic space would make it hard to challenge her high-flyers, but they've told her the opposite.

"I have had experiences in past classes where I would do an assignment and I wasn't super excited about it, but I would still get an A," said sophomore Samantha Moberly. Samantha is the kind of student who would probably do well anywhere, but she says the freedom she has to pursue her interests motivates her much more than a grade (although she still cares about those, too). "I'm actually working to get to a point where I'm really satisfied with my work. And because I'm grading myself, I'm not just stopping at a point where I know I would get a certain grade. I go until I'm satisfied," she said.

That attitude has allowed her to pursue some impressive projects. In science, Neto gave groups of students corn on the cob, canned corn or packaged corn, and told them they needed to design a lab from the ground up under the theme of nutrition. The "Iron Chef Lab" required students to come up with an interesting question, write a hypothesis, develop lab procedures and carry out the experiment. On top of that, Neto tasked students with identifying specific skills they would need for their labs so she could run skills stations to support them.

Samantha's group had packaged corn, so they decided to test for the effects of Bisphenol A (BPA) -- commonly found in plastic -- on their corn. They couldn't buy BPA, so they asked the AP Chemistry teacher for help extracting BPA from a plastic water bottle so they could use it in their lab.

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Be The Change You Want to See By Shifting Traditional High School | KQED

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Windsor works on a "core" model where one group of students share the same English, science and history teacher as a way to create smaller communities within the big comprehensive high school. This schedule allowed Tucker to team up with Marika Neto, a science teacher, to offer the Next Evolution of Work-based Learning core, or N.E.W.

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To get at the depth of purpose and engagement necessary for learners today, there's work to do in PBL. The way out of the box is to encourage teachers to let go, take risks, live with uncertain outcomes-and design projects that matter. Enter the world as it is at this time-as a place of wide open spaces and immense needs. Invent and deliver projects that retain the full power of PBL and, in the process, push education forward to meet its mid-century destiny. How? Here are five big ideas:

See PBL as a mind shift, not a method. PBL offers a great structure for problem solving - it's a Monday morning solution. But the process of PBL, when done well, takes students deep. It can awaken as well as teach, help students dig into their psyche a bit, and actually mature young people in ways that problem based and front of the room instruction can't touch. PBL gives us a path forward out of the industrial past and into a world that requires a deep set of attitudes and skills necessary for navigation. But since the future is not fully unveiled, PBL teachers should be mission-driven, fueled by a sense of urgency and contribution.

Put challenge first. Obviously, standards need to be addressed. That's why starting a project plan by listing standards to be taught has become conventional advice from today's PBL top trainers. I disagree. Teachers see standards as a helpful guide and organizer, but orienting to standards alone is dispiriting; they are not the grail we seek.

Once the human mind sees a list, it's in check-off mode. Instead, start with a challenge that excites students. Daydream. Muse. Envision students' faces at the end of the project. Once the vision and intention is fixed-and a teacher feels the challenge-that's the time to return to linear mode: What standards will students learn, and how?

Get a lot better at Driving Questions. In general, PBL experts do not show teachers how to write great Driving Questions, nor is it well understood that the question or the problem is the high leverage key to deeper learning. For example, a typical question such as 'How can we prevent climate change?' encourages in-the-box thinking and a laundry list of suggestions drawn from the internet. That's more coverage. Instead, 'How can we, as 7 th graders facing severe climate issues in adulthood, use data to effectively lobby our community about the dangers of climate change?' forces students to grapple with core, authentic issues around the topic of climate change: Who do we believe? Why? How do we educate ourselves? How do we change attitudes?

Turn skills and content into one conversation. PBL advocates assure doubters that PBL teaches academic content. And it does-but in depth, not quantity. It's time to own that little sidestep. Also, 21 st century skills still feel the tailwind from the past. Generally, skills are taught as an add-on to content. The goal is to define a third way that paints a fully realized, blended picture of knowing and doing. PBL offers a learning experience that seamlessly blends core concepts, key facts, reflective thinking, careful judgment, and skillful application of knowledge-all of which coalesce into a solution to a meaningful problem. In life and learning, skills and strengths now assume a role equal to or paramount to content acquisition. Identifying and verbalizing that new definition of rigor is central to overcoming the argument about lack of 'wisdom.'

Coach for openness. A skillful PBL teacher does much more than teach, and PBL offers amazing opportunities to go for the real gold in education: Helping young people become open, curious adults. A meaningful project taps into a student's-and a teacher's-desire to engage in purposeful work. From shared purpose flows a natural, engaged, caring, relationship where feeling, emotion, and respectful conversation become a central tool for opening the mind to intellectual work and a desire for further inquiry. The brain never works in isolation from the body and the heart, and when the whole child enrolls in the process of learning, the sense of satisfaction translates into a permanent attitude. There's a shift, most likely in the neuronal pathways, but also in the less understood realms of brightness, a forward-facing personality, and the desire for wisdom. Simply put, good coaching can push the permanent learning button.

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How to Make Sure That Project-based Learning is Applied Well in Schools | KQED

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To get at the depth of purpose and engagement necessary for learners today, there's work to do in PBL. The way out of the box is to encourage teachers to let go, take risks, live with uncertain outcomes-and design projects that matter.

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July 23, 2018
Inside Out: A Science Unit that Taught Me the In's & Out's of PBL

by Kelly Samuels
Middle School Science Faculty, Journeys School, Jackson, WY

As a second year middle school science teacher at a school with strong PBL leanings, I had only started to dip my toes into the Project Based Learning realm. I had heard so many great things about it and was theoretically bought in, but in practice I wasn't sure how to make a project great-not necessarily a great product, but a great learning experience.

I was basing my fears and worries on the fact that the projects I had experimented with so far in my teaching career, the kind that take two weeks and result in sub-par poster making, weren't that great. Looking back, my problem was that I actually wasn't doing Project Based Learning, even when I thought I might have been. Once I completed my first "authentically" Project Based Learning unit, my views radically shifted.

A Human Body Project Takes Shape
At the Journeys School Middle School, our science curriculum rotates on a three-year basis and this year my third unit was going to be about the human body. This was exciting because not only I am familiar with human body systems, but it is also such a naturally engaging topic for students.

My previous version of the unit involved a fun, but fast, run through of all the body systems in about three weeks. While I think giving the students a peek into what every system in their body does is valuable, this time I was more interested in having each student dive deep into a body system of their choice that intrigued them and learn how that system is connected to all the other body systems.

Finding an Authentic Audience
As I was just starting to think about this unit, our art teacher approached me to suggest we collaborate on the human body unit. I quickly agreed and we brainstormed how to integrate art and science in the project. But there was one big piece of the project missing. I knew, for this project to be really successful, meaningful to the students, and result in the highest quality products and learning, I needed to find an authentic audience.

The Jackson Hole Children's Museum came to mind and I emailed the director. As luck would have it, they were in the process of pulling down an outdated exhibit and determining what would replace it. Their only rough idea at the time was a doctor's office. It was perfect match, and felt as though the stars had aligned for this project to happen.

I spent a month creating an exhibit proposal for students to complete, gathering middle school friendly resources about all of the body's systems for when research would commence, and emailing the art teacher and the gallery designer at the children's museum many times. When the unit started I dedicated four classes to what I called "body systems speed dating" so that the students knew which systems existed for further learning. Then the project launch was upon us.

An Engaging Project Launch & Product Development
Considering the frequently apathetic facade that middle school students put on, I knew the launch of this project needed to be authentic. So I had Francis, the exhibit designer at the museum who had been a teacher, come in and present as the "client" for our project. She outlined who the audience of our exhibit would be and outlined the keys to successful museum exhibits. Then we dove into workshop mode, prompting students to share their ideas and propose them to me and Francis for feedback.

The students were hooked. In science class we dove into the research, and although I knew a lot about human body systems, I learned so much more from my students. In art class, students began designing and drafting the art component of their portion of the exhibit. Their objective was to teach small children about the human body through scientific drawings, art, and simple, clear explanations. What the product would be was largely their decision.

Every student interviewed a doctor or physical therapist to uncover the information that was just a bit confusing or to connect the dots between what they had found in their research. After weeks of digging in and learning we shifted our focus to creating and building. Students were writing children's stories, making lifesize models of the lungs and spine, creating games, and so much more. Following this we dedicated almost two weeks to peer-edits, teacher edits, rounds of feedback connected to multiple improvements of products. While this was a struggle for some, ultimately this dedication to doing our best resulted in an exhibit that everyone was proud of. More importantly, students learned how to give and incorporate feedback.

Public Exhibition
A week before the exhibit went live, the art teacher and I took the eighth graders to install our multi-media art and science museum installation. In the end, our students had created eight infographics, three models (one of which you could "inhale" to inflate the lungs), two games, a five-chapter childrens book, a light-up spine, and a lifesize human body puzzle with a massive accompanying key that explained each organ. It was more than I could have imagined and most importantly the students were proud of themselves, impressed with their peers, and had learned a lot.

The exhibit was titled "Inside Out" and this project certainly taught me the in's and out's of PBL. Here are a few of the most salient learnings I came away with:

Plan early and work through the details before the project starts because plenty of unexpected planning and creating and materials shopping, etc. will come up during the project

Get as many community members involved as you can. This establishes the authenticity of the project and reminds students that their learning is embedded in the larger community that exists outside the classroom walls.

Push students. When working more independently than they may be used to, often students want to settle with what is easy. All of my students thrived with a little push in the right direction on how to make their product even better or how to gain a deeper knowledge of their body system through sustained and effective research.

Take time to celebrate at the end. We had an exhibit opening party on the Friday afternoon following its installation. This really emphasized the authenticity of their work and learning.

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by Kelly Samuels Middle School Science Faculty, Journeys School, Jackson, WY As a second year middle school science teacher at a school with strong PBL leanings, I had only started to dip my toes into the Project Based Learning realm.

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"There are a lot of other things that we're not attentive to enough, and that we're not measuring, to make it important in schools," Duncan-Andrade said. Educators have known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for decades, but Duncan-Andrade contends it has to be at the center of everything educators do. He's found it essential that students believe he cares about them on that basic level before they'll be willing to learn from him.

Research coming out of the medical field about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) fuels Duncan-Andrade's argument that inequality has a huge impact on the health and learning of children. Some researchers estimate that one in three residents of urban areas with high rates of violent crimes has post-traumatic stress disorder. But even worse, these young people aren't "post traumatic" because the trauma they experience is ongoing, around them always. Researchers have come up with a new name for this disorder: complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The symptoms are more complex than what they're seeing in the military," Duncan-Andrade said, and schools are not equipping teachers to handle this health crisis. "The best I see in schools is a one-off training on trauma, and now you're trauma-informed and go help those kids." That's nowhere near enough to equip people to show up for kids in the difficult but necessary ways required.
THE ROLE OF HOPE
"Hope is the best indicator for the degree to which kids will successfully navigate toxic stress, and the degree to which kids are less likely to engage in self-harming behavior," Duncan-Andrade told me in another interview. But he warns the hope he's talking about can't be a false hope -- kids see right through that.

Too often, he said, teachers send the message that if students come to class and study hard they will succeed. The problem is that's often not true, and kids know that. It's a type of hope that comes from outside the community, based on assumptions that aren't rooted in the reality that many of the most struggling students experience. Parroting this message devalues the lived experiences of kids by ignoring them.

But there's another kind of hope that's equally bad -- deferred hope. This is when people know better than to blame the kids, so they blame the system instead. "The problem with this is, of course, that their critique never results in a transformative program for the kids," Duncan-Andrade said in a talk he gave at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Blaming the system defers a solution for the kids in school right now, waiting for a utopian society where inequality, racism and poverty don't exist. Kids need hope now.

That's why Duncan-Andrade advocates for something he calls "critical hope." To achieve critical hope educators have to combine material resources, like great teaching, with fierce love for students demonstrated with actions, not words. This is incredibly hard work, but through all its ups and downs critical hope requires educators to continue believing they can do what they've never done before. Duncan-Andrade knows what he's asking is hard, but he also knows that students are watching the adults.

"Wounded children tell the most truth," Duncan-Andrade said at the Deeper Learning Conference. "And they tell it in the most raw ways. And it's painful to hear that." But when teachers send those wounded children out of class, passing them off to someone else in the building, it sends a message that they're too difficult to love. He's clear that fiercely loving students does not mean there is no conflict. Any good parent knows sometimes doing what's best for kids doesn't make them like you, but it should always show your love.

"You win the heart to get to the head," Duncan-Andrade said. "We keep banging on their heads."

The most "hopeful" teachers for Duncan-Andrade are the ones who see their classrooms as microecosystems. Teachers have no control over the institutional racisms kids face, the families they come from, where they live, or what happened on the way to school that day, but they can control the conditions of their classroom. They can create a new kind of soil for the roses to grow in, soil that isn't toxic, that allows them to flourish.

"No master gardener blames the seed for not growing," Duncan-Andrade said. "They know they have to change the soil. You've got to license yourself to be audacious."

Students will make mistakes on this journey; they'll lose all the progress they've made when another destabilizing event happens. And it will be incredibly frustrating to the teachers that love them. But, "We have to learn to love that about kids. And when we learn to love that about kids, we can remain audaciously hopeful," Duncan-Andrade said.

As a high school teacher, college professor and founder of the Roses in Concrete Community School in Oakland, Duncan-Andrade tries to embody the tenets of effective teaching that he champions. He admits he doesn't have it all figured out. He has never had a perfect day, but he hopes that approaching teaching as "radical healing" will start to heal the community, too.

He doesn't want the battered roses growing up in his square of Oakland concrete to get transplanted to a rose garden, never to return. He wants them to go off to institutions of higher education and take advantage of the knowledge, resources, opportunities and access found there before coming back to reinsert themselves into the concrete. Because when the people who "got out" come back, they widen the cracks for the seeds coming up behind them.

"So much of what we teach our young people is that those battered petals are bad, as opposed to that's what enabled them to reach the sun," Duncan-Andrade said. He thinks young people still love Tupac because his narrative is about staying connected to the concrete -- the parents, community and places of one's childhood -- even when one has become a healthy, thriving rose.
*A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Duncan-Andrade was still teaching at Fremont High School. He no longer does. We regret the error.

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Why Critical Hope May Be the Resource Kids Need Most From Their Teachers

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"There are a lot of other things that we're not attentive to enough, and that we're not measuring, to make it important in schools," Duncan-Andrade said. Educators have known about Maslow's hierarchy of needs for decades, but Duncan-Andrade contends it has to be at the center of everything educators do.

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July 18, 2018
PBL & Literacy: Teaching Reading While on a Learning Journey

Teaching literacy is an ongoing task. It isn't a wham-bam-and-you're-done one-shot lesson where kids can show their learning and you move on. Teaching literacy is as much about creating a culture of reading as it is about using targeted strategies to ensure that students are interacting with texts, sometimes really challenging ones that make them stretch far beyond their reach.

That productive struggle is also a part of a PBL mindset. It's vital to stretch and push these students so they don't fear brain sweat in the future. But we must, all of us, use scaffolds to teach literacy behind every door.

How Does Literacy Come Into Play in a PBL Unit?
PBL is entrenched in the concept of the elements being "ongoing." Building a PBL culture in the classroom isn't just about doing a project every quarter. It's about using the Design Elements as often as possible. It's about offering Choice in different assignments, rubrics, deadlines, or partnerships on an everyday basis. It's about training students to ask great questions not just when creating a Need to Know list, but when using Google, when asking for feedback, or to even develop their own peer-to-peer assessments. The need to teach literacy is also ongoing.

Teaching literacy begins on day one of any classroom. For instance, take the ongoing literacy of text structures:

On the first day of class, many of us send out a letter home to parents asking for a signature of some kind. As teachers, we often instinctively use different text structures to chunk these letters. We use subheadings, a bulleted list, or numbering to help explain the rules and policies of our classroom. These are literacy strategies we use to help break down informational text. Bring them to your students' attention on day one.

When next we see text structures, it could be on a cover letter (like this example) or check list that we hand out to students when we launch our first PBL unit of the school year. This list gives the big picture overview of what's to come and makes our methodology transparent. These checklists can also be broken down into chunks like Driving Question, Major Products, Standards, etc.

Throughout the unit, students will also encounter text structures as they read articles in newspapers, magazines, and online. Pull in the parallels they saw in your own documentation, and have them begin to recognize that authors and journalists use text structures to help readers find and comprehend information.

When students write, also have them mimic text structures in their own writing. I, for instance, never use the term "Five-paragraph essay" in my middle school class. I also never answer questions about the quantity of paragraphs to achieve "done"-instead, I say "sections." When my students have to write an executive summary to pitch their solution to a committee of funders, it isn't about a magic number of paragraphs to write persuasively. It's about these three sections: Background Information, Evidence, Recommendations.

All of these are offset by subheadings. All of these might use paragraphs, but they also might use bulleted lists or links to videos with student-written captions underneath in a different font. By first recognizing text structures used in the research they are reading, students can then mimic those formats in their own work. That brings more authenticity to their project, another goal of PBL.

So, What Strategies Can Be Used to Teach Literacy in Every PBL Classroom?
As I said, teaching literacy can begin on Day One. In fact, I would make the argument that along with your content area, the one concept you are ALWAYS teaching, on a daily basis, is literacy. Here are some ways to teach literacy and where they might appear in a PBL unit:

1. Leveled texts. Students are constantly looking for research on their topics. But don't wait for the project to begin. Start to seed the way you want them to read texts from the get-go. Teach math? Find a great post from Newsela related to the math in the world around us and assign it based on a student's reading level. This program can be adjusted to meet the levels of the learners, giving all students access to the same content.
Use in a PBL unit: Prior to the research stage to build content knowledge and during the research stage to help students learn independently.

2. Graphic Organizers. Graphic organizers aren't just to organize thoughts before writing. They can be used to help analyze text being read. There are different graphic organizers for argument, narrative, and informative writing. Having said that, remember to give students choice; not all graphic organizers work for all students.
Use in a PBL unit: Graphic organizers can be used as students take notes, draft, and give critique.

3. Transition Words. Another part of understanding text structures is in learning about which words mark a shift in the author's message. Words like however, consequently, first, in conclusion, etc. create a shift in the meaning of the writing.
Use in a PBL unit: During direct instruction time (yes, PBL allows for that!), read whole-class articles with students to help them recognize those words or phrases that mark a shift in an author's thought process. Gradually release them to read articles they've found themselves and have them make note of the transition words.

4. Text annotation. While students are reading, have them mark up the text. For younger kids, have them use simple symbols like question marks to denote confusion or stars to denote facts or phrases that they like. For older students, have them use the symbols as well as key words and comments.
Use in a PBL unit: Encourage students to get down and dirty with literacy by annotating all of their research during small group collaboration time. Use a program like Scrible so students can share their research and pass their annotations between them, circling, highlighting, and commentating on shared articles and pdfs.

5. Just let 'em read. Want to really help teach literacy? Give students time to read. Let them read anything that interests them and then discuss what they are reading. Be a part of that conversation so that your enthusiasm trickles down to them and vice versa.
Use in a PBL unit: PBL is all about student choice and student-propelled inquiry. What better way to have them be a part of their own literacy than to allow students the chance to choose their own topics or points of view and read about issues that interest them?

Teaching literacy comes down to being the voice in their head as they read. Give students the chance to read and be a part of that inner discussion going on in their heads. Make the writing process transparent in your content area, and their literacy will improve. PBL is a journey and giving students access to strategies in literacy keeps them jogging along their learning path.

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Teaching literacy is an ongoing task. It isn't a wham-bam-and-you're-done one-shot lesson where kids can show their learning and you move on. Teaching literacy is as much about creating a culture of reading as it is about using targeted strategies to ensure that students are interacting with texts, sometimes really challenging ones that make them stretch far beyond their reach.

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Understanding Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation in the Classroom

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Interdisciplinary Project

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June 9, 2016
How We Designed an Interdisciplinary Project

Are you thinking about doing an interdisciplinary project? There's a lot to consider. My colleagues and I created such a project for 7th grade students at a K-12 charter school in Round Rock Texas. It included Theater Arts, World Languages (French and Spanish), and my Design Thinking course.

The most obvious thing to say about the project design process with multiple subjects is that there has to be an initial conversation between two or three (or more) teachers who want to work together. At our school that conversation happened between the theater teacher and me a few months prior to the project launch.

The theater teacher wanted to do a puppet show "towards the end of the year." That initial discussion concentrated on how the design students would be involved. Could they build scenery, or props, or puppets for the show? We decided on the puppets. During this discussion came the idea that, maybe, the world language classes could be involved. All of the 7th grade students at this school take either French or Spanish (and it is nearly a 50/50 split). We approached the language teachers with the project idea and they were excited to be a part of it.

In one day the theater teacher and I had moved from a simple conversation to a commitment by five teachers. The next step was to create a rough calendar. To properly do backward design, the teachers had to start with the furthest item out. Scheduling the puppet show would drive the other dates. The puppet show date led to establishing when the puppets would have to be completed. Since the students would be reading stories in their language classes and the stories, in turn, would become the basis for a script, when to start reading the stories had to be entered into the equation.

Those first steps were items that each teacher had to negotiate so that the overall project was successful. Individually, the teachers had to plan their classes so that their part of the process was completed on time with success. For example, as the Design Thinking teacher I wanted time to build empathy and time to start the inquiry process. We decided that the project's entry event would happen in the design class. I created a problem statement and specific product due dates for the building of the puppets.

The theater teacher and I decided that the students would all create the same type of puppet so they could help each other. An interesting and common (for interdisciplinary projects) issue came to light at this stage: The students who were together in design were not all together in their theater classes. And, the language classes students were not all in the design or theater classes. This was important because the groups in theater class, who were presenting a specific story, all took the same language. But that didn't mean they were in the same language class period. And when it came time for building puppets none of them might be in the same design class period. It must be said that this was not a deal killer - a minor headache? Yes. A stop the presses moment? Definitely not.

So, how do you coordinate a project that kicks off in a design class, forces students to ask their language teachers for story or poem suggestions that they can read, and ends up with scripts being written in theater so that a puppet show can happen? The answer is actually pretty simple. Once teachers have due dates on the calendar you can let the students dictate the course of the project.

In this project students arrived in their design class and were given the task of building puppets for a puppet show in their theater class. In theater class they were told they were going to be having a puppet show where they would be writing scripts based upon either French or Spanish children's stories that they would read in their language classes. And, finally, the students were told by their language teachers that they would be selecting children's stories to read that would be used for a puppet show in theater. The time it took for all students to get an understanding of the overall scheme of the project took less than a week.

As far as deep understanding, this project worked well for sustained inquiry. Many of the students were with a group of students creating a puppet show in their theater class, but never were in class with their group members again during the day. But puppets representing each character had to be built. Scripts had to be written based upon a story that each group member was reading and, since they weren't in the same language class, they had to trust that their group members were all at a point where they understood the story well enough to have input for the script they were writing.

Students rose to the occasion. They learned about puppetry from areas all over the globe. They read for understanding in their language classes and discussed the nuances of the characters in their stories. They wrote scripts and made puppets that truly reflected the character they were in their story. And, in the end, they had a fun time performing puppet shows.

Do you have questions or comments about interdisciplinary projects? Please enter them below.

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How We Designed an Interdisciplinary Project | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE

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Are you thinking about doing an interdisciplinary project? There's a lot to consider. My colleagues and I created such a project for 7th grade students at a K-12 charter school in Round Rock Texas. It included Theater Arts, World Languages (French and Spanish), and my Design Thinking course.

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Edcamps: The ‘Unconferences,’ Where Teachers Teach Themselves (Published 2018)

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Tired of traditional professional development that may not meet their needs, teachers are creating their own events and giving up weekends to do it.

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4DX Powerpoint

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A guide to achieving your wildly important goals.

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4DX Scoreboard examples

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4 Disciplines summary

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon https://t.co/5k2GGgXKNA

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon pic.twitter.com/5k2GGgXKNA
— Mark Dodge (@MDodgeEdS) October 16, 2018

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon https://t.co/5k2GGgXKNA

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon https://t.co/5k2GGgXKNA

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Looking for a reason to redesign schools? Let this image percolate for a minute. #KansansCan #kstothemoon

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Talking to Parents about Redesign

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"For them if you use words like makerspaces, project-based learning, different pedagogies, it scares them," Berger said. "They feel like, 'don't experiment with my kids. My kids are already at risk. My kids just need the basic skills. They need to pass those tests. They need to do well in life. Don't try crazy new ideas with our kids.' And I empathize with that. I totally understand it."

That's why when Berger talks with parents and educators about deeper learning he starts by pointing out the success stories of kids at other Expeditionary Learning schools, serving kids with the same demographics and family backgrounds, who have thrived in this kind of model.

"We go into those schools and we lead with what they are hoping for for their kids," Berger said. "We lead with the outcome. And then the way we get there is second." When he is able to show examples of schools that are far outperforming the other district schools in the area, while complying with the same rules, it's much easier to get traction. It also helps convince doubtful educators or administrators.

"It's the same kids," Berger said. "You could say it's a lack in the kids, there's a lack in the families, but this school is proving that's not it. It's not a problem with the kids. It's not a problem with the families. Under the right conditions those kids can be ready and get into college." Berger is trying to demonstrate to anyone who falls back on these common excuses that they don't hold up. Deeper learning can be done with all kids; all kids are capable of producing beautiful work, but it does take more time and a willingness to break from the sheer breadth of content and dig deeper in a few areas.
GETTING STARTED WITH DEEPER LEARNING
Berger understands the pressure many teachers feel to cover every topic that might be on statewide exams, but he also knows most teachers didn't get into the profession to skim through content, knowing full well students aren't understanding or remembering everything. Most teachers got into the profession because they love kids, want to help them become lifelong learners and deeply care about the subject they teach in all its complexity. Berger suggests that teachers in a traditional setting stop the coverage marathon at least once a year and go deep on one, rich topic.

"Start small and do some really powerful, complex and beautiful work with kids that they can share with their families with pride, and that you can share with the community with pride, and build from that," Berger said. Maybe that's a project where students identify an environmental problem in the community, do data collection, write up a scientific report, bring in scientific experts to critique it, and read real scientific papers. Crucially, there should be time to get reflect, incorporate feedback, and turn in multiple drafts.

"That alone could change the whole school experience for those kids," Berger said. "And it's not totally interdisciplinary; it's not totally project-based learning; it's not scary. But once you've done that, then the parents and kids are proud to have done something much deeper and more complex and challenging." He firmly believes that once a kid does high-quality work, she will never be the same after that. She will know she's capable of that kind of work all the time.

"Give them time to do it and struggle through it," Berger said. "And let them be proud to have done something more valuable and more meaningful than they're used to."

Another way to introduce deeper learning principles to families in a non-threatening way is through the practice of student-led conferences. This is a central practice at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS), a school Berger's organization works with closely. Principal Tom Rochowicz says now that the school is in its tenth year, families trust its results. But when parents come in for the first student-led conferences in sixth grade, it's an educational moment.

Parents come in expecting to hear mostly from the teacher about their child's progress. Instead, most of the conference time is taken up with the student presenting his or her work, focusing on strengths, weaknesses and learning habits. "Parents see their students talking about their work in meaningful ways and they say, oh, that is better," Rochowicz said.

High School Student-Led Conference from EL Education on Vimeo.

At WHEELS even the pre-K students lead their own conferences, often disproving their parents' belief that they aren't ready for the challenge. "That's the greatest example of a powerful practice that we do here consistently well," Rochowicz said. It takes time to explain to parents what's going to happen and why it's different, but the payoff is enormous.
DAY TO DAY CHALLENGES
WHEELS is the type of school Berger points to when he tell educators everywhere that deeper learning is possible in every community. The New York City district school mostly serves the community in the surrounding few blocks, which is overwhelmingly low-income. Over the past ten years it has developed a reputation as the "good" school in the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean the teachers and administrators don't struggle with the same behavior issues as other schools or that they don't have high school students reading at an elementary school level. The difference is how those students are treated.

"We seek to know kids well," Rochowicz said. "And then we get to know families well and communities well." Rochowicz is in his first year as the school's principal after apprenticing with the outgoing founding principal. He also taught high school social studies at the school for five years.

When he taught seniors, Rochowicz would often ask his students what qualities they hoped the school will always have, no matter how much change it undergoes. "They all agree almost unanimously on the relationships and the rigor," he said.

At WHEELS, rigor looks like engaging students in tasks with real consequences that also allow for broader conversations about concepts. For example, one of Rochowicz' favorite projects was when he asked students to create business plans about something important to them. These weren't pretend business plans. Rochowicz downloaded a small business plan template from the New York City website and students used those to build their plans. They interviewed people in the field doing the same type of work, talked to potential consumers and found business advisors. At the end, entrepreneurs came in to evaluate student pitches in a "Shark Tank" style event.

"That engaging task meant that my kids wanted to argue about whether Keynesian or supply-side economics would best support their business," Rochowicz said. He believes that most behavior management problems in classrooms are actually instructional problems.

"They didn't plan well that day or their unit plan is not authentic and engaging where students want to work towards it," he said. When students are involved in work that matters to them and that really gets them thinking, there are often fewer behavior issues. He says social justice is a great place to start with many adolescents; they find issues that affect them daily engaging.

The other common structure many Expeditionary Learning schools have is the crew, a consistent group of peers and a facilitator who meet daily to check in, talk through life problems and support one another. "That's where you start to see some of the peer-to-peer relationships that have significant impact," Rochowicz said.

Ron Berger's organization, EL Education, partners directly with district or charter schools to implement the whole school model at work in schools like WHEELS.* Additionally, Berger and other staff are mining best practices from the initial 150 schools to create free online resources any district could use. This approach has advantages and liabilities. On one hand, the organization has much less ability to control for quality, but on the other hand, their resources are reaching far more educators.

The English Language Arts curriculum EL Education created out of novels, primary source documents, and non-fiction books has been downloaded six million times. Berger has no idea how the curriculum is being used, but he and his staff have tried to design it in a way that encourages teachers to use it to build school culture. Most of the curriculum is not teacher directed and many of the protocols call for students to analyze text together, think together and present together. These are good first steps towards a deeper level of learning that can reach any teacher looking to get started.
*This post was updated to clarify that EL Education still works with its original partner schools, but has also shifted to focus on free online resources.

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Why the Language We Use About Learning Determines Inclusivity

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"For them if you use words like makerspaces, project-based learning, different pedagogies, it scares them," Berger said. "They feel like, 'don't experiment with my kids. My kids are already at risk. My kids just need the basic skills. They need to pass those tests. They need to do well in life.

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"It's not something we're making up because we procrastinated."

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A teacher named Kerri recently emailed me to ask:

What do you do for that student that continually chooses to misbehave? We have tried everything but nothing fazes him and it's sending a message to to the other students in my class that I have a different standard of behavior for him. I feel like I argue and nag all day with him and that isn't the type of teacher I usually am.

If you can relate to Kerri, here are a few things to consider.

1) Don't take the behavior personally

Unfortunately, there's a kid like this in almost every classroom. Unless the student only misbehaves in your classroom, the problem is probably not with you. Don't take it personally, and don't feel like you are the cause of this child's issues. The way you choose to interact with this child certainly impacts him and influences his behavior, but you cannot control him.

Remind yourself: I am not responsible for any choices but my own. I am not responsible for the root of his issues and refuse to blame myself for them. I will not waste my time and energy trying to control another person. I will focus on my actions and reactions, and being the type of teacher I want to be.

Kerri's observation that she isn't acting like the type of teacher she usually is? That feeling is what tends to be our undoing as teachers. We allow kids with extreme behavioral or socio-emotional issues to turn us into people we don't want to be. We watch ourselves become the type of teacher who screams at a student, who shames them, who punishes out of desperation and frustration. We hate the person who we've become, and we blame the child for making us that way.

But we are responsible for our own choices. No one can make us think or feel in a way that we don't to. We can choose to love kids when they act in unloving ways. We can make a conscious choice to act from a place of love even when students do not.

2) Don't let the student bait you into reacting

Remind yourself that the kids who need love the most will often ask for it in the most unloving ways. Use that thought to stir up the patience you need to respond to misbehavior in constructive ways that don't just stop the behavior, but pro-actively prevent it from happening again by meeting kids' underlying needs.

Most of time, you can catch more flies with honey. If you aim to be a calm, empathetic, unshakeable role mode for your students, you will get better results than if you teach kids to fear you or fear punishment from you. Fear is a strong motivator in the short term, but it doesn't produce the results we want long term. Don't make tough love your default reaction. Be the mature adult in the midst of tense, emotionally-charged situations instead of letting kids bait you into reacting to them.

3) Don't be quick to assume you've really tried everything

When you have students that are unresponsive to any type of intervention, the most important thing is to be consistent, calm, and give the strategies you're trying some time to work.

Everyone THINKS they do this, but most of the time, we really aren't doing that at all.

I remember sitting in a Child Study meeting fighting back tears and feeling like I wanted to scream because the student was so disruptive in my classroom that I literally could not teach for 2 minutes without an interruption. I was trying desperately to get the child evaluated and was so angry that no one was doing anything and my entire class' education was suffering because of it.

I was sitting in this meeting and the team asked me what interventions I'd tried. I told them, "Oh, I've tried everything! I did this and that and this and that, and none of it worked. See, look, here's the data to prove it!" And I gleefully laid out all of the documentation that I had resentfully spent so many hours recording.

It was my moment of triumph. I was sure that I had conclusively proved that this kid could not function in the general ed classroom and needed either a one-on-one aide or to be moved to a different setting. You can't refute data, right? Finally, this kid was going to get the help he needed and I was going to be able to teach the rest of the class.

And the psychologist looked over all of my paperwork very carefully, and then she said to me, "This is very impressive, Angela. You've certainly tried a lot of different strategies, and they're very good. I'm wondering how you were able it implement all of this, considering it's only the end of September?"

And I froze as the reality of what she said hit me. Because every minute I spent with that child felt like an eternity, and every minute of implementing some intervention felt like a week. The amount of stress I was under had caused me to completely lose perspective and decide this kid was incapable of growth and improvement after just 6 weeks of trying.

4) Don't set yourself up for disappointment by counting on a "silver bullet" solution

What I described above is the behavior of a desperate teacher. I was looking for a silver bullet that would cure a lifetime of issues in a child overnight. I tried a new strategy for a couple of days, didn't see an improvement, and so I'd adjust it and try something else. It's good to be constantly monitoring and adapting a set of interventions, but I realized that day in the meeting that you can't implement a new behavior plan on Monday and decide it didn't work when the kid is behaving the same way on Friday.

Who knows what happened to the child at home that particular week that threw the results off. And who knows what will happen if you stick with the plan, and keep doggedly going back in the classroom each day determined to be patient and loving toward that child. Kids with extreme behaviors tend to have a lot of inconsistency in their lives, and finding out they had a new behavior plan every week is generally not very helpful for them.

What these kids often need more than anything is someone who is willing to stick with them and not get frustrated.

5) Don't wallow in self-pity and assume YOU are the only one who's overwhelmed

When you are feeling desperate, remember that the child is feeling desperate, too. Nobody WANTS to bang their head on a table, throw desks, and be ostracized from a room full of people who think they're weird. Nobody wants to sit alone because they're incapable of getting along with their peers for 30 seconds. Nobody wants to be lectured and nagged and shamed and punished and questioned and disciplined over and over again. If the kid was capable of making choices that resulted in a better life and better school experience, she or he would do it!

And we have proof of that, because we see those little moments of breakthroughs. We observe as that child is able to be successful for a few minutes at a time in class, and think, why can't they be like this all the time?

But those few minutes are proof that when the child is in a stable emotional state, she or he chooses to work, chooses to interact socially with peers, and chooses to be successful. When she or he hits a wall or something triggers an issue deep inside, the child isn't able to be successful any more in that moment. That out-of-control state might be the default, but it's not what the child really wants. Of course deep down the child would rather fit in and be part of the group and excel in school.

And so our job is to help the child get in that mental state more often.

6) Don't confuse a problem with a person

When you feel yourself getting really, really frustrated, remind yourself that the behavior is meeting some need of the child's and it makes sense within the context of his or her reality. Kids have their own inner struggles we know nothing about.

Try the 2×10 strategy where you talk to the student about anything she or he wants for 2 minutes a day, 10 school days in a row. Focus not on fixing the kid, but on understanding him or her.

Stop worrying about finding the perfect intervention and start listening, start empathizing, start trying to get to know the student beyond just as a problem for you to fix but as a person for you to learn with and from.
You can't teach kids 2 behave better by making them feel worse. Feeling better=behaving better. (Pam Leo) Click To Tweet
7) Don't assume that dealing with student misbehavior should be easier for you

We have to help our troubled students feel better. And in the process of doing so, we have to get real about how much hard work is involved with that. Everything I suggested that you do is going to be HARD. It's going to require a great deal of self-control and energy.

But the more you view the child as a real person, a person you can get to know and maybe even actually like, the less you will resent having him or her in the classroom.

Don't think for a moment that students don't sense our feelings toward them. Change your attitude and the rest WILL follow, I promise. You can do this! It's not going to be easy, it's going to be worth it.

See blog posts/transcripts for all episodes Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Subscribe to the podcast in Stitcher This post is based on the latest episode of my weekly podcast, Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers. A podcast is like a free talk radio show you can listen to online, or download and take with you wherever you go. I release a new 10-15 minute episode each Sunday and feature it here on the blog to help you get energized and motivated for the week ahead. I'd love to hear your thoughts below in the comment section!

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Extreme student behavior: 7 traps to avoid when NOTHING seems to work

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A teacher named Kerri recently emailed me to ask: What do you do for that student that continually chooses to misbehave? We have tried everything but nothing fazes him and it's sending a message to to the other students in my class that I have a different standard of behavior for him.

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That's much more time on the playground than most public school kids get in the U.S. Over the past couple of decades, trends show schools have cut recess time to make room for tests and test prep.

Ask Journey why she and her friends get so much more recess time and she giggles. "Lucky," she says.

But ask the adults and they'll tell you it's because Eagle Mountain is part of a project in which the school day is modeled after the Finnish school system, which consistently scores at or near the top in international education rankings. The project's designer is Texas Christian University kinesiologist Debbie Rhea.

"I went over there to find out where they've come in the last 20 to 25 years. Yes, their test scores are good, but they are also healthy in many regards," she says.

The biggest difference Rhea noticed was that students in Finland get much more recess than American kids do. "So, I came back with the idea to bring recess back to the schools. Not just one recess, but multiple recesses."

This year Eagle Mountain Elementary started tripling recess time, from 20 minutes to an hour. The program also focuses on character development --things like empathy and positive behavior.

Rhea is working with a handful of local schools already. More will join next year in Texas, California and Oklahoma.

Teachers at Eagle Mountain say they've seen a huge transformation in their students. They say kids are less distracted, they make more eye contact and they tattle less.

And then there are the pencils.

"You know why I was sharpening them? Because they were grinding on them, they were breaking them, they were chewing on them. They're not doing that now. They're actually using their pencils for the way that they were designed - to write things!" says first grade teacher Cathy Wells.

Wells and her fellow first grade teacher, Donna McBride, have six decades of teaching between them and say this year feels different. They were nervous about fitting in all the extra recess and covering the basics, but Wells says that halfway through the school year, her kids are way ahead of schedule.

"If you want a child to be attentive and stay on task, and also if you want them to encode the information you're giving them in their memory, you've got to give them regular breaks," says Ohio State University pediatrician Bob Murray.

He's complied research that backs up what teachers at Eagle Mountain are seeing in class. Murray says brain imaging has shown that kids learn better after a break for physical activity and unstructured play.

He and his collegaues wrote up a policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics suggesting that kids with regular recess behave better, are physically healthier and exhibit stronger social and emotional development. That's as school districts nationwide have been taking recess out of the school day.

"They want more academic time, they want more time to do the core subjects," Murray says. "They have pretty much carved away anything that got in the way of those minutes for teaching."

Debbie Rhea, the Texas Christian University kinesiologist, sees her program as a shift away from that thinking to giving kids more than just academics.

"We keep thinking as adults that we need to control the way they do things. I wish we'd get out of that. They know how to play, they know how to structure their own play, they need that time to grow responsibly."

When it comes down to it, Rhea says, our kids are better off if we just let them be kids.

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More Playtime! How Kids Succeed with Recess Four Times a Day at School

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That's much more time on the playground than most public school kids get in the U.S. Over the past couple of decades, trends show schools have cut recess time to make room for tests and test prep. Ask Journey why she and her friends get so much more recess time and she giggles.

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Our children aren't being taught to read in ways that line up with what scientists have discovered about how people actually learn.

It's a problem that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more than six in 10 fourth graders aren't proficient readers. It has been this way since testing began. A third of kids can't read at a basic level.

How do we know that a big part of the problem is how children are being taught? Because reading researchers have done studies in classrooms and clinics, and they've shown over and over that virtually all kids can learn to read - if they're taught with approaches that use what scientists have discovered about how the brain does the work of reading. But many teachers don't know this science.

What have scientists figured out? First of all, while learning to talk is a natural process that occurs when children are surrounded by spoken language, learning to read is not. To become readers, kids need to learn how the words they know how to say connect to print on the page. They need explicit, systematic phonics instruction. There are hundreds of studies that back this up.

[ The Opinion section is now on Instagram. Follow us at @nytopinion.]

But talk to teachers and many will tell you they learned something different about how children learn to read in their teacher preparation programs. Jennifer Rigney-Carroll, who completed a master's degree in special education in 2016, told me she was taught that children "read naturally if they have access to books." Jessica Root, an intervention specialist in Ohio, said she learned "you want to get" children "excited about what they're reading, find books that they're interested in, and just read, read, read." Kathy Bast, an elementary school principal in Pennsylvania, learned the same thing. "It was just: Put literature in front of the kids, teach the story, and the children will learn how to read through exposure," she said.

These ideas are rooted in beliefs about reading that were once commonly called "whole language" and that gained a lot of traction in the 1980s. Whole-language proponents dismissed the need for phonics. Reading is "the most natural activity in the world," Frank Smith, one of the intellectual leaders of the whole-language movement, wrote. It "is only through reading that children learn to read. Trying to teach children to read by teaching them the sounds of letters is literally a meaningless activity."

These ideas had been debunked by the early 2000s. It may seem as if kids are learning to read when they're exposed to books, and some kids do pick up sound-letter correspondences quickly and easily. But the science shows clearly that to become a good reader, you must learn to decode words. Many whole-language proponents added some phonics to their approach and rebranded it "balanced literacy."

But they did not give up their core belief that learning to read is a natural process that occurs when parents and teachers expose children to good books. So, while you're likely to find some phonics lessons in a balanced-literacy classroom, you're also likely to find a lot of other practices rooted in the idea that children learn to read by reading rather than by direct instruction in the relationship between sounds and letters. For example, teachers will give young children books that contain words with letter patterns the children haven't yet been taught. You'll see alphabetical "word walls" that rest on the idea that learning to read is a visual memory process rather than a process of understanding how letters represent sounds. You'll hear teachers telling kids to guess at words they don't know based on context and pictures rather than systematically teaching children how to decode.

Many teachers learn these approaches in their teacher preparation programs. Publishers perpetuate these ideas, and school districts buy in. But colleges of education - which should be at the forefront of pushing the best research - have largely ignored the scientific evidence on reading.

The National Council on Teacher Quality reviewed the syllabuses of teacher preparation programs nationwide and found that fewer than four in 10 taught the components of effective reading instruction identified by research. A study of early-literacy instruction in teacher preparation programs across the University of North Carolina system found that instructional strategies based on research were mentioned "in a cursory way, if at all, on most syllabuses." (Some instructors required students to write their "personal philosophies" about how to teach reading.) Kelly Butler of the Barksdale Reading Institute in Mississippi interviewed more than 100 deans and faculty members of schools of education as part of a study of teacher preparation programs in the state and found that most of them could not explain basic scientific principles about how children learn to read.

It's not just ignorance. There's active resistance to the science, too. I interviewed a professor of literacy in Mississippi who told me she was "philosophically opposed" to phonics instruction. One of her colleagues told me she didn't agree with the findings of reading scientists because "it's their science."

There is no excuse for this. Colleges of education have to start requiring that their faculties teach the science of reading. Children's futures depend on it.

Emily Hanford (@ehanford) is a senior education correspondent for APM Reports and the producer of the audio documentary " Hard Words: Why Aren't Kids Being Taught to Read? " This article is based on her reporting for that project.

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Opinion | Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?

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Our children aren't being taught to read in ways that line up with what scientists have discovered about how people actually learn. It's a problem that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more than six in 10 fourth graders aren't proficient readers.

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The "False" Growth Mindset

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Truth For Teachers - A crash course on trauma-informed teaching

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This week on the Truth for Teachers podcast, I'm giving you an overview of and a solid foundation for understanding trauma-informed teaching practices. You'll learn ways that trauma impacts students and what we can do to support kids without carrying the weight of that trauma ourselves.

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Presentation Plan

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Harnessing the Learning Potential of the Adolescent Brain

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"The adolescent brain is exquisitely sensitive to experience," Steinberg said. "It is like the recording device is turned up to a different level of sensitivity." That's why humans tend to remember even the most mundane events from adolescence much better than even important events that took place later in life. It also means adolescence could be an extremely important window for learning that sticks. Steinberg notes this window is also lengthening as scientists observe the onset of puberty happening earlier and young people taking on adult roles later in life. Between these two factors, one biological and one social, adolescence researchers now generally say the period lasts 15 years between the ages of 10 and 25.

"When adolescence is this long, we can't look at it as something to just survive," Steinberg said.

Teenagers get a bad reputation as risk-takers because parts of their brains are more plastic than others, creating an imbalance. The prefrontal cortex, which controls things like planning, thinking ahead, weighing risk and reward, and logical reasoning is the most malleable during adolescence. Meanwhile, sex hormones released by puberty affect brain functioning by adding more dopamine to the system. Every time an adolescent feels good about something he gets a dopamine squirt. That's why adolescents seek out pleasurable experiences, despite the risks.

"Nothing will ever feel as good to you for the rest of your life as it did when you were a teenager," Steinberg said. The imbalance between an aroused dopamine system and a still developing prefrontal cortex, which would inhibit some of the risky pleasure-seeking behaviors, is why adolescence is such a dangerous time. While adolescents are extremely healthy, mortality rates increase by 200-300 percent due to risky behavior. Scientists have also shown that reward pathways are activated when an adolescent is with a group of peers, which is why kids take extra risks when with friends that they might not take when alone.

The imbalance between aroused dopamine systems and self-regulation systems sounds like a scary story, but it also represents a unique opportunity to reach adolescents with positive stimuli that will be hard-wired in high definition years later. Unfortunately, American high schools are by and large not taking advantage of this opportunity.

"Our high school students are among the worst in the developed world," Steinberg said. The high school math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have been flat for 40 years. In contrast, both elementary school students and middle school students have improved. And U.S. schools tend to spend more money on high schools, those teachers make more money, and on the whole elementary schools enroll more low-income kids than high schools. Steinberg contends that the traditional arguments for why schools fail don't explain everything that's going on.

"It's because our high schools are so boring," Steinberg said. He notes U.S. high school students who study abroad report their experiences were more interesting and more challenging, while foreign students who study in the U.S. say American high school is more boring.

Steinberg believes part of the reason school is so boring for teens is that it doesn't challenge them; they're bored. Students themselves report that they can get by in school without doing much. "When we are not challenging our kids in high school, not only are we hindering their academic development, but we also aren't taking advantage of the plastic prefrontal cortex," Steinberg said. The prefrontal cortex is strengthened by challenge and novelty.

"This is when we want them to be challenged and pushed because this is when we can develop advanced thinking, as well as self-regulation," Steinberg said.

Teachers often say their students struggle with work that is below grade level and must catch up before they can take on more challenging tasks. But scaffolding can ensure that even the catch-up process is challenging in an interesting way. Consistently providing students with work that is slightly more challenging than their current level keeps them engaged. If the work is too easy, they will disengage and become frustrated.

The problem is that many high schools confuse "challenging work" with "amount of work." Students are stressed out by the volume of tasks they must complete each night or week, but that isn't the same thing as being challenged by the work. Steinberg points out that hours of repetitious work that is not challenging do nothing but make kids hate school.

"Rates of anxiety disorders among adolescents are at record levels," Steinberg said. "We are raising generations of students who we are driving crazy with what we are asking of them." Recognizing this pitfall is not only important for maximizing the opportunity to make a lasting impact on students' extremely malleable developing brains, but also because a plastic brain is also vulnerable to the wrong influences.

Adolescence is the most likely time for mental illness to develop, and substance abuse is 10 times worse if a student starts using before the age of 15. "It's not just the type of people who begin using earlier, it's the way the adolescent brain is responding to the use," Steinberg said. The aroused dopamine system in the adolescent brain craves drugs, nicotine or alcohol in a different way than at other times in life.

Stress also has a big impact on adolescent brains. A recent study from UC Berkeley showed that growing up as an adolescent during wartime took years off people's lives. "[Stress] takes more years off of your life if you are a teenager than if you are a child or an adult," Steinberg said.
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A MALLEABLE BRAIN
Understanding the neuroscience at work in the adolescents populating classrooms can help teachers develop lessons that challenge, engage and satisfy the search for novelty in teens. Those experiences in turn could be some of the most meaningful ones in their lives. If educators and parents don't take note of this research, kids will continue to tune out, seek pleasure in risky places and continue on into college-level courses unprepared.

Research has shown that targeting prefrontal cortex development in adolescents does help. Despite being a bit clichéd, Steinberg pointed to initial research findings that mindfulness in schools can improve self-regulation, the single most important quality to leading a successful life. Steinberg says that statistically there are four things everyone has to do to have a good life: graduate high school, don't have a child until being married, don't get in trouble with the law and don't be idle.

"If you play by those rules you will be guaranteed a basically decent life," Steinberg said. "This is not a moral thing, this is a statistical fact."

Self-regulation and delayed gratification are important skills to clear those four hurdles. Steinberg basically says that if educators and parents can teach kids self-regulation, they can reduce poverty.

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Harnessing the Incredible Learning Potential of the Adolescent Brain

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"The adolescent brain is exquisitely sensitive to experience," Steinberg said. "It is like the recording device is turned up to a different level of sensitivity." That's why humans tend to remember even the most mundane events from adolescence much better than even important events that took place later in life.

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Inspire Your Students to Write, Write, Write

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Are you giving students permission to fire write (write like crazy)? If there is too much pressure to get it right on the first draft it can often freeze up writers-not just young writers, all of us. Share with them the golden rule of fire writing: Don't stop to erase, just keep writing. Sneeze those words onto the page!

Also, think of ways to create a space that is inviting to your writers. That might mean playing music at a low volume while they fire write, or taking them outside to sit under the trees with their notebooks. Contemplate all the ways you can lighten the mood to convey, hey, we're just writing.

Low-Pressure Writing

Highly engaging writing prompts are one way to assist students in building writing fluency and stamina. Find or create prompts that allow students to share their lives, opinions, and prior knowledge. Consider including an image to help students make deeper meaning of the prompt.

Once your students finish writing, don't just have them close their notebooks or laptops. Let them share in pairs or triads. Have them read or talk about what they wrote. Make it optional for them to hand their writing over for others to read. This lets them share in a safe environment. Sharing as a routine takes their writing out of isolation and can encourage them to write more or more deeply, knowing they will be sharing their thoughts and ideas with peers.

Creating a space for your students to write often and routinely in a low-pressure way allows more creativity to discover what they might want to say-and to see what they don't want to write about. Just as we tell students it's fine to abandon a book they are reading and choose another, we can invite them to do the same with their writing-start again, with a new topic or a different structure.

In terms of grading, simply give credit, but do not correct. Students can choose a fire writing assignment to develop later (for more formal writing assignments), and that's where and when accuracy comes in. In the meantime, tell your students: Let's get it down and then worry about making it better later. I'd show my eleventh-grade writers a copy of Tupac's book of poetry, The Rose That Grew from Concrete. In the book, to the left side of each typed poem, is his handwritten draft of the poem, words crossed out, some misspellings, and arrows redirecting lines. "See," I'd say, "writing begins by just getting it down."

Choice Is Essential

Speaking of formal writing assignments, just because we formally measure a writing assignment with a rubric or criteria chart, it doesn't mean that the assignment should not include choice. We engage and motivate young writers more when we design assignments that allow for choice. This may mean, for example, a choice in the structure-a short story, report, skit, poem, or spoken word piece.

When possible, give room for them to have some choice in the topic as well. If they are learning argumentative/persuasive writing, let them decide on the issue they are most interested in-social, environmental, political, local, or global-that they would like to tackle in their writing.

While designing those more formal writing tasks, consider using a planning strategy called GRASPS (Goal, Role, Audience, Structure, Product, Standards, and Criteria). You decide on the goal and the standards and criteria, and let the student choose the role, audience, structure, and product.

An Audience Beyond the Teacher

School writing has historically often meant an audience of one-the teacher. Take some of those writing assignments beyond the four classroom walls and into the homes and communities of your students. Having an audience beyond the teacher will entice students (especially your reluctant and struggling writers).

Letters are a great way to engage students in writing for a real audience. Can they write a persuasive letter to a parent or guardian? How about an informational letter to a younger family member sharing advice on what they've learned in life so far? What about a letter to a local elected official about a community issue? A few other writing products students can create and share outside of the classroom: informational pamphlets, blog posts, and articles and editorials for the school or community newspapers.

What are ways you engage students in low-pressure writing? In high-stakes writing, how do you use choice to motivate your students? Please share in the comments section below.

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New Teachers: Inspire Your Students to Write, Write, Write | Edutopia

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Are you giving students permission to fire write (write like crazy)? If there is too much pressure to get it right on the first draft it can often freeze up writers-not just young writers, all of us. Share with them the golden rule of fire writing: Don't stop to erase, just keep writing.

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For example, students may create "mood mandalas" by drawing and coloring symbols to convey their inner worlds. They can also paint their worries on small "comfort" boxes and fill the container with personal items that bring solace. Others list their insecurities in "place book" journals, including healing words, like "Learn to accept your flaws and learn to accept beauty." All group members receive "place books" where they privately record their thoughts and feelings.

During each gathering, Wardrip shares phrases like, "Remember, you don't feel better by feeling less" and "Your thoughts are always valid." Using these prompts, she invites students to begin a discussion. Although they're not required to participate, most of them do. For many students, being surrounded by a community of nonjudgmental listeners helps them open up, and kids who once felt afraid begin to feel brave, according to Wardrip.
Mental Health is Personal
Mental illness is a topic Wardrip knows intimately. For nearly a decade, she silently battled depression, hiding her psychological pain from family and friends.

"My depression never made sense to me," she says. "I didn't understand why I felt hopeless when I had a good life. I stayed quiet because I didn't want people to think less of me."

It wasn't until Wardrip began a graduate school program, Creative Pulse at the University of Montana, that she began to heal from her depression. Creative Pulse is a master's program, teaching educators how to integrate art, creativity, movement and mindfulness into the classroom.

"In my program, I was challenged to do the most important thing I could do for myself, which helped me open up about my depression and suicidal tendencies. I firmly believe the program saved my life," says Wardrip.

During her graduate studies, she relied on art and mindfulness to help her access and express emotions she had kept bottled up for years. Eventually, Wardrip opened up to close family and friends. Her journey taught her that shame often prevents people from seeking psychological care.

Unfortunately, Wardrip's experience is not unusual. Although depression and anxiety are the most common mental health concerns, surveys have found that 80 percent of adolescents with a diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of depressed kids do not receive treatment. In fact, a recent survey conducted by Kaiser Permanente found 55 percent of people view depression as a personal weakness, and 24 percent of millennials believe most people can recover without professional services, like psychotherapy.*

"I realize how stigma is silencing, especially for adolescents. I want to be a role model for our students, which is why I began Creative Courage," says Wardrip.

Many of the kids in Wardrip's 10-week group struggle with depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria. Others feel lonely and out of place. All of these students are searching for someone who can understand their suffering.

To help create a safe space, Wardrip begins each meeting with a wellness check-in, followed by a guided meditation and an art-related activity. Her group combines creative process with psychological theory.
Art Equity
According to the American Art Therapy Association, artistic expression may decrease anxiety, feelings of anger and depression. This creative process can also enhance cognitive abilities, foster greater self-awareness and help students regulate their emotions.

Despite these findings, there's an equity gap in arts education. A survey conducted in 2012 by the Department of Education discovered students in low-poverty schools were more likely to receive art instruction than kids attending high-poverty schools. While proposed federal cuts could eliminate art education in many schools, teachers like Wardrip advocate for art inclusion.

"Art teaches kids problem-solving and decision-making skills," says Wardrip. "Creativity also promotes identity development, helping students find their 'place' in the world."

Wardrip finds that by the end of the 10-week course, students begin to heal. Her data from last year's group suggest participants' symptoms of anxiety and depression lessened by 40 percent. To measure this change, each group member completed an anxiety and depression questionnaire: one before the group began, and another after completing the course.

For many of these kids, art becomes a tool, helping them to share their authentic selves in a community that understands.
Juli Fraga is a psychologist and writer in San Francisco. You can find her on Twitter @dr_fraga *This post has been updated to more accurately reflect the results of the survey.

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How Making Art Helps Teens Better Understand Their Mental Health | KQED

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For example, students may create "mood mandalas" by drawing and coloring symbols to convey their inner worlds. They can also paint their worries on small "comfort" boxes and fill the container with personal items that bring solace. Others list their insecurities in "place book" journals, including healing words, like "Learn to accept your flaws and learn to accept beauty."

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7 Reasons Why PBL is Not a Fad

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Project-based learning (PBL) is a hot topic right now. It feels like the education pendulum is swinging back (finally!) from the extreme test prep brought on by No Child Left Behind. From the skills-based Next Generation Science Standards to the popularization of makerspaces, there are more and more initiatives that focus on students and learning. But is PBL just the latest education fad? Is it the next flavor of the month for professional development? I don't think so.

PBL is not a new idea. John Dewey laid out the foundational ideas of PBL over one hundred years ago when he reported on the benefits of hands-on, experiential learning. Student-centered learning through PBL has been happening in pockets for decades. It is now finally getting mainstream attention. Here are seven reasons why high-quality PBL is not a fad, but a lasting framework that your school should adopt.

The traditional style of lecturing, student note-taking, and regurgitating those notes on a test-rinse and repeat-is BORING. continue to show that many students are not engaged in school, with engagement decreasing as they get older. The also shows that engaged students are the most successful ones. In PBL, students explore authentic problems in real contexts. The focus of the class shifts from the teacher being front and center to students actively learning together in groups. Active research and academic conversations, instead of passive listening, drive classroom time. Students explore relevant, personalized learning rather than an abstract, sterilized curriculum.

We know the skills that students need to be successful in their careers and personal lives go beyond the curriculum. There is constant feedback from employers that students need more success skills, which include leadership, communication, collaboration, and time-management skills. In PBL, students are taught and assessed on these skills constantly. The skills are built into the project process. They are emphasized because the project work requires them. Students learn how to negotiate problems in their groups and communicate their solutions to a public audience. They gain confidence in themselves by developing these important life skills.

While learning success skills is vital for students' futures, we still have an obligation to teach them our required curriculum. A myth about project based learning is that it is light on content. Done correctly, PBL dives deeply into content through student inquiry. It connects standards to current issues in the community, making required content relevant. PBL challenges students to synthesize and apply their content knowledge to new situations. This leads to a depth of understanding that won't be forgotten a week after the test.

It is no longer enough that a student makes strong academic progress in school. Educators have a duty to grow children holistically, and there has been an increased focus on mental health. Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a framework for meeting all of a students' needs. SEL is a natural connection to PBL's previously mentioned success skills. It allows educators to develop these skills in students in a way that is naturally part of the classroom routine. A key emphasis of a project-based-learning classroom is student voice and choice. PBL encourages students to become self-managers who are responsible and respectful of others in their groups. Learning to collaborate and work with others is a key aspect of social-emotional learning.

We all want our students to grow up to be contributing members of the community. PBL is the perfect vehicle for a service-learning project, allowing students to make a difference. Students of all ages can work on a local issue, such as homelessness, clean water, or recycling. Too often we treat students like we are preparing them to do important work "someday." Instead students should be doing meaningful work right now! And this does not just need to be in a service-learning class. Any PBL classroom can tie service learning into the content work.

A high-quality project based learning project requires a public product from students. Students create something throughout the course of the project to use or display publicly. This provides a great opportunity to strengthen ties between schools, parents, and the community at large by publicly showing important work that students are doing.

For example, students from Schoolcraft Elementary School helped a major farming operation choose the right potato to plant for the best yields. The students researched and studied the data to make their determination. In the end, they presented at a board meeting of farmers from across the Midwest and the East Coast, and the students' recommendation was unanimously approved! Schoolcraft's principal said that PBL projects are building up the school district's reputation in the community. This, of course, leads to the support every school needs.

What do you remember about school? Chances are it is one or two teachers who really connected with you and some kind of meaningful project that you participated in. I can guarantee it wasn't a worksheet or test-prep activity. PBL gives students the opportunity to complete meaningful work that they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. Students remember their favorite projects and are proud of them. Project based learning lets kids make a difference while learning the content and practicing success skills. PBL is not a fad. It's a great framework where all kids will learn!
Join the great conversations going on about school leadership in our Facebook groups at Plus, check out this article about giving teachers voice and choice. and High School Principal Life .

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7 Reasons Why Project Based Learning is NOT a Fad

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Project-based learning (PBL) is a hot topic right now. It feels like the education pendulum is swinging back (finally!) from the extreme test prep brought on by No Child Left Behind. From the skills-based Next Generation Science Standards to the popularization of makerspaces, there are more and more initiatives that focus on students and learning.

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Standardized tests don't measure student engagement or deep thinking about relevant, meaningful content. The tests have their place, said Cucchiara, who also serves on the board of the city's newest project-based high school, but "they don't begin to capture all the things that we're hoping [kids] will get out of this education."

That's a potential liability in a city looking to change the narrative of an urban school system that persistently lags behind statewide averages in academic proficiency. Philadelphia's move toward the project-based model is part of a broader push to open alternatives to neighborhood comprehensive schools, which have struggled in the face of chronic underfunding.

Project-based learning advocates are confident that the model can succeed in Philadelphia by providing students with skills that translate equally to both postsecondary and career options. Less certain, however, is whether its adoption can push educators, students and families to re-examine assumptions about the very purpose of high school. Is the goal to improve test scores or prepare students for adulthood?

At the city's project-based schools, the student experience is markedly different from that in more traditional high schools.

Spread out among the retro-chic sofas and love seats of the Bar Hygge brewpub in Philadelphia's gentrified Fairmount neighborhood, a class of ninth-graders from Vaux Big Picture High School listens to restaurant co-owner Stew Keener talk about the collaboration and problem-solving that occurs on a daily basis in the food business. "Every meal service here is like the fourth quarter of a tie ball game," he told them. "So when a problem comes up you can't look for somebody to blame, you have to work together and come up with a solution."

The message of teamwork and accountability, all in the service of a tangible product is, by now, a familiar one for this inaugural class of students at Vaux, the newest addition to Philadelphia's network of recently opened small high schools designed around the project-based learning curriculum.

The visit to Bar Hygge is part of a required course in which freshmen spend one afternoon each week visiting a different business or community organization in order to identify internship opportunities they'd like to pursue in their sophomore year.

The internships will serve as a linchpin of the school's "real-world learning" academic model, said David Bromley, founder and executive director of Big Picture Philadelphia, which started the school. "For us, PBL is when they're developing projects that they're interested in with somebody in the community ... projects that have some kind of impact. Our goal is that everything they learn in the classroom they apply in their internships."

Vaux principal Gabriel Kuriloff emphasizes that the school has developed rigorous internal assessments to measure progress. "We're getting an incredible amount of data about our students on the ground. But that doesn't translate to a school report card," he said, referring to the annual assessments that highlight a school's performance on standardized tests. "There's no [statewide] assessment for being able to look people in the eye and speak clearly."

One of the barriers to measuring the effectiveness of the model is that there's no universal standard for what constitutes a project-based learning curriculum. At Vaux, the model is designed around the internship program. Some schools have adopted a more career and technical education approach while others focus on projects tied to community needs.

At The Workshop School, a project-based high school just a few miles west of Philadelphia's Center City, more than 50 percent of each student's day is dedicated to the research and implementation of a project, from designing a solar cellphone charger for personal use to auto repair for neighborhood clients (the school houses automotive and woodworking facilities). College-bound 18-year-old senior Miracle Townes has dreamed of owning her own businesses from an early age. She's always been a self-motivated student, but what's changed during her time at the school has been her ability to work with others. "When I came here," she said, "I didn't really want to share my work with people. I used to take the projects over and just do it myself, like 'I'm gonna get us all an A on this project.' But here you have to make sure everybody participates."

What she's learned, she says, is how to recognize group dynamics. "We have a few people in my class who are shy and don't like to talk," she explained. "If I'm placed in a group project with them I won't say anything at the beginning even if I already have an idea because I want to hear from them. In my career I'm going to be working with other people and bringing my ideas to the table. Now I feel like I can tell when I'm talking too much, so I'll know when to pull back."

The process of learning is just as important as the resulting product, said Workshop principal Simon Hauger. "For our kids, we want the work of school to be closely tied to the work that's going to be demanded of them as adults."

Hauger doesn't sugarcoat the challenges that his students face. "Our kids are dealing with the trauma of poverty," he said. (Eighty-eight percent of the school's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a national measure of poverty.) Hauger believes that the project-based learning framework is flexible enough to accommodate the needs of schools serving affluent neighborhoods and those serving under-resourced neighborhoods because, at its core, he says, is the effort to build a real sense of community where kids feel safe enough to take risks, identify their passions and act on honest self-evaluations of their strengths and weaknesses. High school, he said, should be a place where students "develop a deep sense of who they are and tie that to a future vision for themselves."

Education advocates say that, looking beyond test scores, a more accurate measure of success for Workshop, or any other high school, should involve following kids in the years after graduation. Are they engaged in a postsecondary experience that's meaningful, like working at a living wage job with upward mobility or attending a college or technical school?

Fostering that kind of success isn't easy. It demands unwavering commitment from teachers and stable leadership through the inevitable challenges. North Philadelphia's The LINC High School, set in an area with one of the city's highest violent crime rates, has faced several obstacles in its short history. Designed around a project-based learning curriculum when it opened in 2014, the school's founding principal announced she was leaving for a job in Baltimore just days into the first school year, a move that led to an exodus of some faculty and students and a retreat to more traditional methods.

Current principal Bridget Bujak says that following the upheaval of having three principals in a single year, the school did not begin to reintroduce the schoolwide project-based learning curriculum until 2017. "Everyone really struggled with the model," she said, noting that as a nonselective school, she has some ninth-graders coming in at a kindergarten reading level. While the program is less hands-on than Workshop's, student work remains focused on the surrounding community. Recent projects involved creating designs for residential construction and analysis of neighborhood crime patterns.

"Projects are really hard, collaboration is really hard," said Bujak. "For this to work there has to be a culture of care for each other. And when there is friction among students or teachers we have to put it on the table. We have sit-downs, we have conversations. We can't ignore it."

Project-based learning's student-focused approach, which values the process of learning for each child rather than simply recording test grades, forces everyone in the building to work more closely together, Philadelphia educators in the project-based learning schools say. The result has been strengthened relationships between students and teachers, helping schools be more attentive to their students' needs beyond academics.

Sixteen-year-old junior, Rosbeiris Gomez, who will be taking community college classes during her senior year, says the work at LINC has been challenging and meaningful. But just as important, she adds, is the sense of care, which has allowed her to talk to school staff about personal issues in situations where she has needed outside help. "Everybody here knows each other," she said. "There are times when I walk by Ms. Bujak in the hallway and she's like 'Rose, come here.' She wants to catch up if it's been a while since we have talked because she knows that since my first year, when I was down or feeling sad, she would be the one I would go to."

Building meaningful, caring relationships like these is crucial to success, teachers and principals say, but is not something you're rewarded for on a proficiency test. Philadelphia assistant superintendent Christina Grant, who oversees the district's network of project-based learning high schools, stresses that while project-based learning schools may put an emphasis on difficult-to-measure metrics, they will be held to the same level of accountability as other district schools. "None of the things we measure have shifted," she said.

If the project-based learning schools show measurable gains in test scores or graduation rates, she said, the district will look to them for methods that can be expanded to primary schools.

An unqualified success for these new schools would be results like those at Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school that is home to the district's longest-running project-based learning program, which opened in 2006. The school combines rigorous research with student-driven projects that have impact beyond the school building. One student project involved putting on a city-wide Ultimate Frisbee tournament. In the 2016-17 school year, 99 percent of its seniors graduated, and 84 percent attended college immediately afterward. Algebra, Biology and English literature proficiency scores at the school are more than double the district high school average.

"As a magnet school," said Science Leadership Academy principal Chris Lehmann, "we need to be able to prove that the learning we engage in here shows up on the test ... without falling into a teach-for-the-test problem. It's a balancing act. It always has been."

It may prove difficult for other schools to replicate Science Leadership Academy's performance, however. As a magnet school, it has selective admissions and attracts students from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds (fewer than half its students receive free or reduced-price lunch, for example) than the city's other project-based learning schools.

Lehmann acknowledges the inherent advantages at a school that's able to choose its students - applicants must meet minimum grade requirements and sit for an interview - but, like his counterparts at Philadelphia's nonselective project-based learning schools, he argues that we need to be taking a more holistic view of school performance. "How you judge a school is an incredibly nuanced thing," he said. "The way that we take care of each other and the way that we learn are intertwined." There may not be a quantitative metric to assess whether students are being provided with meaningful work in an environment that lets them know they are cared for, but Lehmann believes that without those components, grades and test scores become an end unto themselves.

Tamir Harper is an 18-year-old senior at Science Leadership Academy whose passion is education reform: In 2017 he founded a nonprofit that advocates for quality urban education. He says that when he arrived at the school he was obsessed with grades. "I just wanted to know 'How can I get an A?' I didn't care if I was learning, or comprehending," he said. "Now I'm a student that wants to learn, and I don't worry about the end result [grade]. I'm into the process." He says a big part of that shift was the relationships he forged at school. "We're not just project-based, we're a community-driven school," he said.

Fellow senior Madison Militello, 18, says her middle school was very strict, with no room for individual connections. "Here I don't feel like the teachers are above me. I feel like we're on the same level," she said, noting that she's still close with some teachers even though she doesn't have their classes anymore. "You can't teach a group of students you don't have a connection with."

That sentiment was a common refrain at Vaux, LINC and Workshop, each of which offer slightly different approaches to project-based learning in underserved communities. Educators at each are confident that the skills their students are acquiring - collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving - will eventually manifest themselves in improved results on more traditional metrics like math and reading tests. More importantly, however, they believe that students will be much more prepared for the real world when they leave school. Whether project-based learning done on a larger scale can turn the tide in Philadelphia is another question.

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Can Schools Change Measures of Success by Focusing on Meaningful Work Instead of Test Scores?

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Standardized tests don't measure student engagement or deep thinking about relevant, meaningful content. The tests have their place, said Cucchiara, who also serves on the board of the city's newest project-based high school, but "they don't begin to capture all the things that we're hoping [kids] will get out of this education."

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To do this, we collected nearly 30,000 in-the-moment student surveys. Using a technology that prompted students in grades six through 12 to answer a few questions at random times during class, we captured a snapshot of their real-time reactions to school. We also surveyed third through fifth graders during the last five minutes of class, and found that elementary students were just as capable as their older schoolmates of providing rich and telling insight into their lives at school.

Across our five partner school systems, we also observed nearly a thousand full-length lessons at all grade levels from K-12, and reviewed almost 5,000 assignments and more than 20,000 individual student work samples. We visited each participating school daily for a week straight at three points in the year, which gave us the chance to see the same teachers and students at the beginning, middle, and end of their time together (and offered a much more comprehensive lens on the learning environment than a single day's lesson could have). These classrooms were not substantially different than the others in their districts, and they represented a wide range: those with new teachers and veterans; those at all age levels; a diverse range of subjects; mixed-ability classes and tracked ones. Four of these school systems were located in states that use standards aligned to the Common Core State Standards; one was not.

To assess the quality of content students worked on, we looked at four elements of every assignment: (1) whether the content in the assignments was aligned to relevant grade-level academic standards; (2) whether the assignments gave students the chance to engage in important content-specific practices, like citing evidence from rigorous texts in literacy, or discussing mathematical ideas using precise mathematical language; (3) whether the assignments gave students a chance to learn relevant content that built their knowledge of the world or helped them see how what they were learning could be applied in the real world; and (4) student performance on both the assignments themselves and against the bar for their grade-level standards.

To study instruction, we observed full-length class periods and assessed (1) whether students were doing what they were asked; (2) whether they were being asked to work on grade-level content; and (3) whether teachers were using instructional practices that gave students the chance to do most of the thinking in the lesson.

We surveyed teachers to capture their knowledge of grade-level standards, their opinions on those standards, and their beliefs about their classroom practices and their students' abilities. We conducted focus groups with nearly 100 teachers and interviewed 24 school leaders at multiple times throughout the year. And we assessed a large set of extant data provided to us by our partner districts on course access, enrollment policies, and district policies on curriculum adoption, among others.

We hypothesized that students' experiences of school were influenced by a confluence of factors-among them, the quality of the work they were doing, the instruction they received, and the expectations of their teachers-and that those factors would interact to have an impact on their academic growth. Taken together with students' in-the-moment survey responses, we were able to triangulate students' perspectives with the classes they were in, the work they were doing and instruction they were receiving, and their academic outcomes.

In addition to amassing this rich data set, we also sat down with a smaller subset of students (more than 50 over two school years), and got to know them. We observed them in class and spoke to them about their experiences, their likes and dislikes, their families, their goals. Just a few of those students are profiled here. While their names and identifying characteristics have been changed throughout this report, their stories help us understand what the data means in the real lives of individual young people.

They also help us understand what real, tangible changes school systems can make-starting tomorrow and over the long haul-to provide more students with school experiences that are meaningful, that honor their aspirations for themselves and their families, and that give them a fighting chance to meet those goals.
For our complete methodology, including further explanation of our analytical approaches and full analysis results, see the Technical Appendix.

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What can 4,000 students teach us about school? Read The Opportunity Myth.

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Benefits of Being Part of a "House" Within a School

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Principal Hayes believes these mentoring activities are to thank for helping reduce bullying and other behavioral problems. Since the house system was introduced at Lake Canyon, suspensions went from nine to zero, she said, and instances of students being sent to the office for discipline greatly decreased.

A sense of inclusion and engagement in a common enterprise can have academic benefits as well as social-emotional ones, according to Jennifer Kloczko, the principal of Stoneridge Elementary School in Roseville, California. Two teams of her teachers traveled to observe Lake Canyon's house system in action as they launched their own. "When kids are really excited about school," Kloczko said, "they are happier and they tend to learn more." It's a proposition supported by scholarly research tying a heightened sense of belonging to increased achievement.
HELPING KIDS TRANSITION
Another touted benefit of houses is easing transitions. Last year the incoming kindergarten students at Lake Canyon were welcomed by sixth-graders who had planned a new tradition. The big kids formed a cheering tunnel, placed a Hawaiian lei in one of the house colors around each little one's neck, and invited them to play. Jeff Gilbert, the principal of Hillsdale High School in the San Francisco Bay Area, credits his school's house system with helping ninth-graders acclimate to a student body of nearly 1,500 and what can be an overwhelming roster of classes and teachers.

Each Hillsdale ninth-grader spends five periods a day-math, English, social studies, science and advisory-with their 111 housemates. Four teachers coordinate with one another in mostly adjacent classrooms as they teach those subjects, and each takes responsibility for advising 28 of the house's students, whom they follow through the end of sophomore year.

"You talk about students all the time," Gilbert said. "You know every family, and you know every student. You stop dealing with them in these sort of large abstract cohorts." In addition to allowing for "much more individualized responses," he said, the house system helps replicate the coherence of the elementary experience. "Our honors students know our special ed students," he said. "It's not always perfect, but those cliques and those tensions have dramatically reduced."

Modern elementary and secondary house systems aren't just a California thing. The 735 kindergarten through fifth-grade students at Richard J. Lee Elementary School in the small Dallas suburb of Coppell, Texas, eat lunch with their houses. Ottway Elementary in Greenville, Tennessee, provides students with lanyards marked by the colors and names of the school's four houses, each named for a rare gemstone. And at Jackson Road Elementary School in Griffin, Georgia-where houses have not just missions, colors, chants and symbols but also hand signs and mottos-each classroom contains four colored containers. Students who earn a house point are given a bean to place in their house's container which, along with the others, gets periodically emptied into a larger one near the front office.
BENEFITS TO SCHOOLS
Educators at schools like these claim additional systemic advantages. Gilbert said he thinks Hillsdale's house system empowers teachers and in so doing gives the high school an edge in recruitment and retention. Kloczko said Stoneridge's houses help attract parents in Roseville's choice system: "It makes us special." And according to Hayes, the staff at Lake Canyon is more united "because now they have another small group ... they are collaborating with."

Of course, the specific successes of Lake Canyon might have something to do with the way the school rolled out the idea. In the spring of 2016, Hayes, Seamons and six others traveled to the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, a nonprofit middle school created to serve as a model school for educator training programs. After observing a house system in action there, the group volunteered to form a committee, calling themselves "the Hags" for "House Advisory Group."

They introduced staff to the concept before school let out for summer and asked for help choosing the six character traits that would determine the house identities. "We really wanted a buy-in from the rest of the staff," Seamons said. "They were familiar with the Harry Potter books," Hayes added, "so it wasn't a completely foreign concept," but she made sure to hammer home the potential benefits. She was also careful not to demand too much extra work from teachers, setting aside about 25 minutes out of each 90-minute staff meeting for planning house meeting activities.

"There was no rhyme or reason" to the way Lake Canyon split students, teachers and staff up into six groups. They didn't even pay attention to gender, but Hayes said, "It all kind of worked out." (One thing the committee did massage: placement of children with special needs to ensure proper support.) Some people anticipated problems with students wanting to switch houses, but Hayes said that hasn't really happened. "With the older kids, maybe their best friend is in a different house, and that's an issue at lunch perhaps," Seamons said, "but not really."
TOOLS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
One focus the Hags maintained throughout was positivity. In order for the house system to function as an effective way to reinforce desired behavior, unlike at Hogwarts, teachers and staff at Lake Canyon only award points, never taking them away. Seamons said teachers also take steps to emphasize the "friendly" part of "friendly competition," because students need to be taught "how to compete successfully."

Dan Green helped launch a house system at California's Goleta Valley Junior High in 2003. In a paper on the topic, he wrote that some teachers worried competition might decrease collegiality and self-esteem. Administrators there responded by carefully calibrating the point system "to award participation, effort and growth just as much as achievement," Green reported.

Lake Canyon's experience would seem to provide a roadmap for successful implementation, but it might not be that simple. Hayes paid for things like the banners and T-shirts with a portion of federal funds the district won in 2012. At Stoneridge, Kloczko relied on the financial support of the school's Parent Teacher Club, as well as nine teachers who fundraised to attend the Ron Clark Academy. Gilbert said Hillsdale received a smaller learning community planning grant in the late 1990s and another grant in 2002.

Aside from some expense, "it requires a long-term commitment," Hayes said, as well as whole-school involvement.

There also doesn't yet seem to be reliable data on the efficacy of houses. Lake Canyon's suspensions decreased, yes, but causation is difficult to establish since the school launched a restorative justice discipline model around the same time.

Hayes was careful to add a final caveat: For a house system to succeed, there has to be something substantive behind it, an underlying ethos being reinforced. At Lake Canyon, that's a list of 33 "soft skills" such as "do not brag" and "be courteous."

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How Being Part of a 'House' Within a School Helps Students Gain A Sense of Belonging | KQED

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Principal Hayes believes these mentoring activities are to thank for helping reduce bullying and other behavioral problems. Since the house system was introduced at Lake Canyon, suspensions went from nine to zero, she said, and instances of students being sent to the office for discipline greatly decreased.

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KS School Redesign (@KSDEredesign)
10/21/18, 7:11 PM⁦@perezhasclass⁩ ⁦@GingerLewman⁩ One of the Redesign schools has a longer, more family style, lunch period and what do you know? Kids are eating more at lunch! They are getting more healthy food in and there is less waste. So simple - makes sense!!

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Grading - what does it mean?

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BROOKFIELD - Teacher Sarah Beck sits at a table in her classroom at St. Joseph's with a handful of fifth- and sixth-graders, discussing subjects and predicates.

But across the room, other students are focused on different tasks. Some draw plot diagrams on their Chromebooks, while other students write personal narratives, making notes on their white board table top.

A girl decorates a banner on C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," and a boy uses his Chromebook while sitting on the ground on a pad-one of the new flexible seating options at the school.

These stations are a key part of St. Joseph's new model, which focuses on personalized learning and grouping together students from multiple grades.

Teachers and students said they love it.

"The children are just remarkably embracing all of it," said Mary Maloney, interim head of school and president of Immaculate High School.

Bishop Frank Caggiano implemented the new model, which is used in some other Catholic schools in the state, to save the school from closure. Along with the new paradigm, the school's was renamed St. Joseph's Catholic Academy.

Like other Catholic schools, St. Joseph's has suffered from rising debt and shrinking enrollment. The school went from 170 students in 2016-17 to 150 students in 2017-18, making a traditional teaching model unsustainable.

This year, there are 102 students, but the model is flexible, so that number works.

Benefactors helped pay for new technology, flexible seating and more to make the program affordable. Fewer teachers are needed, as well.

Teachers worked over the summer to rewrite curriculum and learn the new model. Consultants also visit the school each week to help teachers hone their craft.

Unlike in traditional classrooms, multiple grades are grouped together in "bands." The school has pre-kindergarten, kindergarten through second grade, third and fourth grade, fifth and sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade bands.

This has made class sizes larger, with the average band having 20 students. In comparison, last year's second grade had four students.

"It's better for socialization," said Beck, who is in her third year teaching at St. Joseph's.

She said her fifth and sixth graders immediately adjusted to the bands.

"This fifth through sixth group was made to be together," Beck said.

The older students in the band are also seen as leaders, and the eighth-graders have "buddies" in the kindergarten through second grade band.

"The students are just embracing it," Maloney said. "They love the idea of being able to help the younger ones."

This has spilled outside the classroom, too, said Pam Fallon, the school's director and the English language arts teacher for seventh and eighth grade. She said some older students have volunteered to help the pre-kindergarteners at parent drop-off time.

"It really extends our sense of discipleship," Fallon said.

The students often do work on their Chromebooks using a software called Edmentum that tracks their progress and allows teachers and students to better see kids' strengths and weaknesses.

The staff stressed this technology is not a replacement for the teachers, but an extra tool to tailor learning to particular students.

Fallon said the data was a big hit with parents at recent conferences with teachers.

"There was a lot of excitement that the parents actually had a chance to see, in black and white, their students' skill profiles, where they were hitting those student proficiency outcomes and where there may be some gaps," she said.

The Edmentum software is interactive, fun and allows students to review material they did not understand.

"It lets everyone learn on their own levels and pace," seventh-grader Abby Cristaudo said.

Seventh-grader Sonny Williams said he has practiced many different subject through Edmentum.

"The sky is the limit," he said. "You could work on it all day, all night if you wanted. It's basically a teacher sitting on your shoulder all the time."

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Teachers, students try new teaching model at St. Joseph's

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BROOKFIELD - Teacher Sarah Beck sits at a table in her classroom at St. Joseph's with a handful of fifth- and sixth-graders, discussing subjects and predicates. But across the room, other students are focused on different tasks. Some draw plot diagrams on their Chromebooks, while other students write personal narratives, making notes on their white board table top.

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KS School Redesign (@KSDEredesign)
10/26/18, 9:18 AMRedesign is a practice and a mindset, not a schedule or a checklist. Redesign has to change instruction. - Tom Hanken ⁦@WestviewElem⁩ #KStotheMoon

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This blog post was originally published on the CompetencyWorks website, based on data from former Ed Elements team member Mike Wolking.
Mike Wolking, currently completing an Axford Fellowship, sent me a summary of a short investigationhe completed in how a student spends their day. He followed a student in a New Zealand secondary school for a day and tracked her activities. As I read through the summary, I thought it might be a helpful way to begin to think about the quality of personalized, competency-based education. This type of data could be useful for reflection and opening up conversations about where there might be opportunities for strengthening instruction, assessment, and learning experiences as well as identifying where operational policies or organizational habits are getting in the way. One would have to also consider the question: How do we think a student should spend their time in order to optimize learning and development?

Wolking tracked the minutes spent on entering the class, opening the class and lesson framing, direct instruction, student working on learning activities, student presentations of learning, student reflection on learning, and exiting the class. I'd probably want to add student talking with teacher individually or in small group.

He then compared the way the student spent her day across subject areas.

He also tried to capture the level of rigor (in terms of depth of knowledge) at which a student was working.

What I found absolutely fascinating is that once the data is presented visually, it's easy to start thinking a bit more micro. How might a teacher use entry and exit time the most effectively for learning? During the time a student is working on learning activities, how might we use the science of learning better in terms of managing cognitive load, moving to long-term memory, and retrieval? How is direct instruction organized so that students are actively engaged and teachers have opportunity for formative assessment as part of the instruction?

Wolking also included an assessment of policies that shaped the student's day: what defined what she should be learning; at what performance or grade level she should be learning; the curricular resources she needed to use; and the technology that was used.

Just think about the types of questions we might look at through this type of investigation. We could ask:

When and where students have some control (choice) over their learning (where they sit, how they learn, how they demonstrate learning).

When students get feedback on their learning (from students, from teachers, from an educational software program).

How many questions did the student generate?

In what way did a student advocate for themselves and seek help?

I'd be particularly interested in seeing how the data generated from this type of investigation might vary for students who are considered high achievers compared to those who may have significant gaps in their learning or are perceived as not caring about learning.

There are at least two caveats about the value of this type of research and reflection. First, a snapshot of a day tells us little or nothing about the actual process of learning over time. It doesn't tell us how the teacher formed relationships that ground learning. It doesn't tell us how the teacher created a culture of learning. It doesn't tell us about all the thinking and prep work that teachers put into place before the student walks in the door. And it doesn't tell us how a student is developing the Building Blocks of Learning (growth mindset, self-regulation, metacognition, and perseverance, etc) or where they are in the midst of learning new skills and concepts.

Second, one day in the life of a student may not reflect the overall learning experiences. Schools organize how they offer deeper learning activities in different ways, some setting aside time during the year. If you follow a student when they are planning for a project, their day might look substantially different from when they are in the midst of doing the project.

What do you say? Could understanding and looking at data on a day in the life of a student lead to higher quality personalized, competency-based education? For certain it would lead to the rich conversations about learning that we want to see taking place in schools.
Originally published on CompetencyWorks.

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A Day in the Life of a Student in a Personalized, Competency-Based School

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How does a student in a personalized learning setting spend her time? Here are some thoughtful questions to ask in order to maximize a student

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Listen to my interview with Tracy Enos or read the transcript here.

In our never-ending quest to find better ways to differentiate and personalize instruction for students, we have plenty of options. I covered a lot of the basics in my Differentiation Starter Kit. Then last year we learned how math teacher Natalie McCutchen manages a self-paced classroom. And for ESL students, there are the Can-Do Descriptors.

Now, Rhode Island teacher Tracy Enos shares her system for customizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. She calls it a playlist, an individualized digital assignment chart that students work through at their own pace.

First, consider what we usually do: When planning a typical unit of instruction, teachers map out a series of lessons to deliver, assignments for students to complete, and some kind of final assessment at the end. They might share this plan with students, but then the execution is done by the teacher: The teacher delivers the lessons, tells students when to do the assignments, and guides students toward the final assessment.

With playlists, the responsibility for executing the learning plan shifts: Students are given the unit plan, including access to all the lessons (in text or video form), ahead of time. With the learning plan in hand, students work through the lessons and assignments at their own pace. And because each student has her own digital copy of the playlist (delivered through a system like Google Classroom), the teacher can customize the list to meet each student's needs.

"A playlist is basically like a road map," Enos explains. "I started using them in my classroom when I looked at my room full of 26 students and I saw the variety in their abilities. I knew I needed something different so that I could meet the needs of each one of those kids. Instead of just saying, 'OK, everybody, we're going to work on this lesson today,' I needed to individualize it so that different kids are working on things that they needed."

The term playlist, by the way, was coined by one of Enos' colleagues, math teacher Jason Appel.

Here are screenshots of three sample playlists from Enos's class. If you click on each one, you'll be taken to the full version to view in Google Docs. Although these examples come from a language arts class, Enos feels strongly that the playlist concept could be used in any content area.

Argument Writing Playlist

The first playlist is for a unit on argument writing. What you see here is just the first few tasks; there are 19 on the full playlist.

In the first column, Enos simply names the task. The second column provides specific instructions for the task. The third column is set up for students to record any notes they have about the task, and the fourth is where students record the date they completed the task.

Although much of the playlist will be exactly the same for each student, especially for the first few tasks, individual tasks can be customized to meet individual needs. Because the playlist is stored in digital form, the teacher can go into each student's playlist at any time and make adjustments as needed.

In addition to adjusting certain tasks, Enos also builds space in each playlist for purely individualized tasks. If we look further down her playlist, we see that tasks #14 and #15 have been left open for individualized focus revision activities, to be determined after the student has written her draft:

Enos does place occasional hard deadlines into her playlists; item 13 above has a date assigned to it. Although students are allowed to complete the work before the deadline, having this task pinned to a specific date helps prevent students from getting too far off track from each other.

Parts of Speech Playlist

This next one is from a unit designed to review the parts of speech. Notice that some of the tasks are quite simple and quick: Students just need to log on to a certain platform, create an account, or join an online group. This makes the playlist a practical tool as well as a good instructional vehicle: One place to keep learning tasks AND the kinds of housekeeping items that accompany most units. And breaking units into smaller tasks gives students a feeling of accomplishment as they move through each item.

To see the full version of this playlist, click the image below:

Again, the "Directions" column allows for maximum flexibility. The teacher can add tech tips, reminders, or any other information that might help student complete the task more smoothly. And if this is done in digital form, the teacher can easily add tips, links, or other comments at any time, making the playlist a living document.

Book Club Playlist

The final example is a playlist created for a unit on dystopian fiction, in which students participated in book clubs.

Notice that the playlist also includes checkpoints, where students must touch base with their teacher before moving on. These can be built in at any point for any reason, such as making sure students have completed key housekeeping tasks (like in the example above) or having the teacher review a draft for quality.

Many of the tasks in the playlist will ultimately result in the student submitting work through Google Classroom, or they might require a paper submission in a class that hasn't gone quite so digital. In fact, the whole system could be done on paper-one look at how student learning is managed in a Montessori classroom and you'll see how that can work. What's key is that students work through the list on their own, which frees the teacher up to spend more time working one-on-one with students.

If students are truly working at their own pace, wouldn't that mean some are way ahead, even finished with a unit, while others drag way behind? Setting a few hard deadlines (as shown in the argument writing playlist) can help keep the pacing from spiraling too far out of whack, but if our goal is true individualization, then we shouldn't want everyone to be too closely aligned.

This can be managed on a day-to-day basis. Students who are taking longer to master key tasks will likely get more one-on-one assistance from the teacher or be placed in groups to help them. Those who finish the required material quickly can be given enrichment tasks that take the learning to more advanced levels.

Homework also takes on a different role in a class that uses playlists: Because students work through the playlists on their own, they decide whether they get homework or not. If a student is moving through a playlist quickly, they may not have a need to spend extra time on the work at home. Conversely, if a student finds he needs extra help in class, he may decide to catch up on a few videos at home.

For a more in-depth exploration of playlists, listen to my podcast interview with Tracy Enos using the player above or by listening on iTunes or Stitcher (for Android). If you have questions, ask them in the comments below and I'll have Tracy come over and answer them. And if you have used a system that's similar to playlists, please share your experiences in the comments so we can all learn together.♦

There's a lot more where this came from.
Join the Cult of Pedagogy mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading. If you are already a subscriber and want this resource, just check your most recent email for a link to the Members-Only Library-it's in there!

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Using Playlists to Differentiate Instruction

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Want better differentiation? Learn how to use this simple method for providing students with customized plans for working through a unit of study.

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Every year it seems as if spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have become a little harder for students to master. Despite the great lessons they have had before. Despite the repeated instruction, reminders, and opportunities in previous year's classes, the fundamentals of writing just seem harder to master.

Some might say that it is not a big deal. That most written work doesn't require handwriting anyway. That handwritten work is slowly dying and so why waste time worrying about things that can be auto-corrected. And sure, computers are definitely the way of the future, the way much of our society already is, and yet, there is still a place for handwriting. For sitting down with a paper and pen(cil) and doing the work. Even if kids choose to not do so on their own. And while, I am a fan of spellcheck, Grammarly, and all of the autocorrections Google Docs does for us, we kept wondering as a team whether these tools were part of the problem. Perhaps because we have moved so much of our writing to the computer, kids are not naturally noticing their own patterns? Not noticing when they don't capitalize on their own name, the beginnings of sentences, proper nouns because the computer does it for them? Perhaps punctuation is being added at the end because it is easy to do on a computer and so it is missed while writing? The only way to find out was to try to integrate more handwriting, see if it would make a difference.

So this year, every single time we do our free writes in our writer's notebook, they are by hand. Typing is no longer a choice unless it is a required component of an IEP. Kids are asked to grab a pencil, we have plenty, and to formulate their thoughts on paper. In the beginning, there were groans, complaints of how their hand hurt, which I get, how they preferred to type. But we stuck with it. Asking them to create in pencil, revise in pen, get a smelly sticker if you put in the effort (whatever they think effort might be).

And slowly, we are seeing a change. More punctuation, for sure. A greater awareness when sentences don't make sense. More capitalization. The small components that seem to be needed as students grow as better writers. Better letter formation as kids realize that they can control their handwriting because they need to. We don't assess their free writes, they are for them to play with writing, not for us to create a grade, but we do ask them to pay attention to the basics: Does it make sense? Did you capitalize? Did you use punctuation? But that is not the only change. We are seeing more writing. More ideas coming quicker. Better ideas being developed. Kids wanting to share their stories, their thoughts. Kids experimenting with the way they write and what they write about. An added bonus, but an important one, as we tackle all of the emotions that sometimes stop kids from feeling like writers.

Typed writing is still a part of our class. When we do large projects, when we research and such. And yet, there needs to be a space for the written word by hand as well. As more and more districts race toward one-to-one, I worry about the effect of eyesight with the increase in screen time, I worry about the lost instructional time every time a child has to log in, find the website, and the internet is slow. I worry about how kids share that sometimes staring at a blank document is more overwhelming for some of our kids than a blank piece of paper. So as my students tell me time and time again; everything in moderation, and that includes working on a computer.

For now, we will continue to sharpen our pencils every day, share a prompt, and ask the kids to fall into their writing. To simply try to write something, even if it is not very good. To focus on reclaiming this part of themselves that they may have become disconnected from in rush to computers. Settle in, settle down, get to writing...
If you like what you read here, consider reading my book, Passionate Readers - The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child. This book focuses on the five keys we can implement into any reading community to strengthen student reading experiences, even within the 45 minute English block. If you are looking for solutions and ideas for how to re-engage all of your students consider reading my very first book Passionate Learners - How to Engage and Empower Your Students. Also, if you are wondering where I will be in the coming year or would like to have me speak, please see this page.

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Every year it seems as if spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have become a little harder for students to master. Despite the great lessons they have had before. Despite the repeated instruction, reminders, and opportunities in previous year's classes, the fundamentals of writing just seem harder to master.

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How to Build a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom Where All Learners Feel Safe

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In this way, teachers are uniquely positioned to ameliorate some of the effects of early trauma. "The adults in the school environment may be the most stable and mentally well people [some children] have contact with," said Jennings. "Their teachers can become role models for them for what a healthy adult is like.

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Kansans Can Competency K-12 Sequence.pdf

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Collete and Career Competency Framework (interactive wheel link)

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The College and Career Competency Framework, developed by Drs. Gaumer Erickson and Noonan, supports educators in systematically embedding intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive competencies into course content. In this way, educators support students to develop into career-equipped, lifelong learners who are socially and emotionally engaged. The College and Career Competency Wheel includes 26 specific competencies categorized in three domains. Each competency is integral to in-school and post-secondary success, as determined by current and emerging research.

This site includes free, research-based instructional resources for all 26 competencies, as well as professional development opportunities to systematically teach competencies and academic learning standards simultaneously, thereby improving academic achievement, engagement, and post-school outcomes.

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College & Career Competencies FrameworkOverview

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The College and Career Competency Framework, developed by Drs. Gaumer Erickson and Noonan, supports educators in systematically embedding intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive competencies into course content. In this way, educators support students to develop into career-equipped, lifelong learners who are socially and emotionally engaged.

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'We're not always going to have teachers or friends or parents to depend on. And sometimes you will make mistakes on your own, and knowing how to grow from that has really helped me.' High school senior Adeline Rodriguez

When Clark suggested Rodriguez take AP biology she resisted, scared she'd be unprepared for the challenge. She thought that if she had struggled in freshman biology, there was no way she could hack the tougher course. But Clark convinced her to challenge herself, making the case that no one grows inside their comfort zone. Rodriguez says that class changed her life.

"It was one of those classes where the bell rings and you don't want to leave. You want to keep discussing," Rodriguez said. "And it's what I want to do now for a career. I really love biology."

In the summer between her junior and senior year, Rodriguez even took a college-level genetics class for fun, although she found out later she'd get college credits for it.

Rodriguez may have found her growth mindset in science class, but she's applying it to all of her life. Take math, one of her least favorite subjects: "It's not my strength, but I have to get through it to get to where I want to be," Rodriguez said. "Sometimes you have to learn to love things you aren't as good at. It will be hard, but you will get through it."

Rodriguez has also taken a whole new approach to class participation. She now sees that when she participates, she's helping shape the direction of the class. She recognizes that it's hard for teenagers to speak up and risk being wrong in front of their peers -- she always worried about being judged for getting the wrong answer -- but when that brave student speaks up, it empowers everyone.

"Don't be afraid to be the first one, because you can make that change in someone else and that would be awesome," Rodriguez said.

Perhaps most importantly, the growth mindset Rodriguez has learned at Arroyo will be a big help to her when she leaves high school.

"I'm a senior, I'm going to go out into the real world soon, by myself," she said. "We're not always going to have teachers or friends or parents to depend on. And sometimes you will make mistakes on your own, and knowing how to grow from that has really helped me."
GROWING CONFIDENT STUDENTS
Rodriguez is the product of four years of messaging from her high school teachers. The Academy of Health and Medicine, a small learning community within Arroyo High, has been pioneering a focused approach to teaching growth mindset that starts with Strong Start, a summer institute that incoming ninth-graders are highly encouraged to attend.

"We'll purposefully try to put them in situations where they'll be uncomfortable, and yet not feel vulnerable -- it's a kinda fine line we walk -- and then provide opportunities for them to work their way through it and find some success," Clark said.

Students deconstruct how working through something challenging felt. Returning sophomores lead the program, many of whom the ninth-graders know from middle school, and who have already been through a year of practicing growth mindset themselves.

Students also talk about the definitions of fixed and growth mindsets and then talk through various challenges from each perspective. When the school year starts, those lessons continue in the classroom. Every teacher in the Academy of Health and Medicine has read Carol Dweck's book, "Mindset," and has discussed how to implement it in their classrooms. The school has moved to standards-based grading to emphasize that mistakes are part of learning and that understanding will come.

"It just reinforces the fact that understanding the first time you hear something isn't the goal," Clark said. "Smart isn't being right fast. It's working through things and understanding things eventually."

Clark brought the idea of growth mindset to Arroyo after a chance encounter with Dweck at a conference. The idea that intelligence grows with effort is one that comes naturally to him as a teacher because of his experiences as a basketball coach. Now, he's trying to get students to approach academics with the same dedication to practice and risk-taking that they bring to sports or other extracurriculars.

"At the end of the day we're trying to create successful kids, some of whom will grow up to do science and some of whom won't," Clark said. "But if they can take what they learn in our classrooms and apply it somewhere else, that's kind of what we're here for."

'When you believe it, they believe. If I didn't believe this, they wouldn't buy what I'm selling.' Arroyo health teacher India Rodgers

He's clear that his job is to teach science, but it's also his job to nurture the individuals he teaches.

The kids at Arroyo often have a lot of challenges outside the classroom. Many of these students will be the first in their families to go to college. Clark knows this and it makes him even more passionate about growth mindset.

"Redefining smart as something that's more effort-based than genetics-based has opened the door for kids," Clark said. "They don't feel like they're behind other kids any longer because they feel that their future is in their own hands, and if they just work through their problems they're going to be OK."
GROWING AS TEACHERS
The multiyear effort to infuse growth mindset into every class is paying off in a big way for students like Rodriguez, and in smaller ways for all students. Health teacher India Rodgers said she notices slight behavior changes in her freshmen first: Quiet but competent kids speak up more and struggling kids receive help from peers more readily.

She also knows that for some kids, the message can take awhile to penetrate. She says students have come back to her years later after having an experience that finally drove the concept home. It's also tough for some kids to transfer the idea that "it's OK to fail" to the academic subjects students find most difficult.

"It's really easy to start with my stuff, and then I try to use what they can do here and help them in other classes," Rodgers said. Students discuss a lot of life issues in her class, so she often has strong relationships with them. She uses those to help them shift their mindsets about classes like math.

She also tries hard to model a growth mindset to her students by being open about her own struggles as a parent and a teacher.

"They're not used to teachers apologizing," Rodgers said. "But I tell them I'm going to make mistakes all the time. And I think showing that helps them realize they can actually make mistakes."

When teachers and administrators say they want kids to have a growth mindset, the school environment has to back up that rhetoric. At Arroyo, the emphasis on growth mindset came alongside a shift to standards-based grading. Kids can see that mistakes along the way aren't negatively affecting them and keep working to master the concepts.

"When you believe it; they believe," Rodgers said. "If I didn't believe this, they wouldn't buy what I'm selling."

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How To Weave Growth Mindset Into School Culture

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'We're not always going to have teachers or friends or parents to depend on. And sometimes you will make mistakes on your own, and knowing how to grow from that has really helped me.' High school senior Adeline Rodriguez When Clark suggested Rodriguez take AP biology she resisted, scared she'd be unprepared for the challenge.

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"There's all these other things that teachers have to do, that are outside of the core scheduled experience, that they feel overwhelmed," said Chris Walsh, the head of growth and impact at Abl, a company that makes scheduling software. Before Abl, Walsh was a teacher and tech coordinator and has worked for New Tech Network. He understands that grading, calling parents, meeting with students after class, filling out paperwork, prepping lesson plans, new district initiatives and mandatory professional development can make teachers feel like there's never enough time.

"I really see time and how you use time as one of the most critical levers for change in school because so many things revolve around it," Walsh said. And he thinks schools can be more creative about how they use the time they have, without lengthening the school day, which is costly and difficult to achieve at the bargaining table. Through his work with Abl, Walsh has come to realize there are fewer restrictions on how time can be used than people think. That means there's more flexibility and room for creative thinking about how to make the master schedule serve the strategic goals of a school.

"Ultimately we're trying to build a movement to help schools rethink time across the board," Walsh said. "A lot of what we're battling is cultural norms."

Abl is part of the Unlocking Time Project, which provides free resources for school leaders at all levels to assess how they're using time and to start conversations with staff about what could change.

Unlocking Time offers a free school time assessment tool that asks principals to gather information in four areas: the master schedule, bell schedule, staff time and calendaring. After filling in some basic information in those four areas, the principal gets a personalized link with a 15-minute assessment for staff. It asks teachers how they currently use time, and their ideas and openness for changing how time is used. All this information is gathered into a presentation that principals can use to start the dialogue with staff.

"There's no judgment on our part," Walsh said. "We're not trying to push people one way or another. What's good for one school might not be good for another." And, in fact, he's found that in this area practitioners are leading the way in thinking about how time could be used more creatively. School leaders are trying different approaches, pushing ahead of the research in this area.
THE HEADACHES OF SCHEDULING
For anyone who doesn't have to do the scheduling in a school, it may not be apparent what a challenging and frustrating job it is. Almost every student has some kind of special schedule that needs accommodation, whether that's an Individualized Education Program (IEP), Advanced Placement (AP) classes, an IB program, resource classes or even sports. On top of that, assistant principals, who are often tasked with scheduling, are looking to balance classes so there are even numbers of special education and English language learners in different sections. They're trying to give grade-level teachers the same period off so they can plan together, and they're thinking about professional development time.

Most assistant principals currently use some combination of paper-based requests, massive Excel spreadsheets, a physical magnet board and their Student Information System (SIS) to schedule students. And it quickly turns into a big mess. There are hundreds of moving pieces and often a lot of conflicts. In this cobbled-together process it can be hard for the scheduler to know if a conflict is an essential problem or something that can be ignored.

Marc Heiser started using Abl's master scheduling software when it was in its infancy because he wanted to schedule strategically. He wanted to move toward a more inclusive model for special education students. Rather than pulling them out of class, he created a schedule within a schedule for kids with IEPs. Then he assigned a resource teacher to those rooms so they could provide extra support in the classroom to kids who needed it, with the added benefit of sharing their wisdom on differentiation with the content teacher. He said that would not have been possible with his old system.

Abl, which is currently offered only to secondary schools, gives Heiser more insight into who the students are in each class. He can mock up a schedule, see conflicts and then click on each one to see which student it is and the specifics of the conflict. He can also run reports specifically looking at the balance of classes by race, by language status, by special needs. When he makes changes to the schedule he can see how it's going to ripple out and affect other students.

"It allows me to dig into the number of conflicts and who the kids are," Heiser said. "I have more knowledge and information when I'm building it rather than waiting for the end to have some conversations."

It also saved Heiser time, so he was able to bring counselors and teachers into the scheduling conversation to get their perspectives on what students needed. This not only supported students, but it also gave teachers insight into how the schedule is made.

"Teachers now understand the bigger picture and they understand why I can or can't do something," Heiser said. They also saw how hard it was for him to give them common planning time to work in professional learning communities, and they started taking better advantage of those precious minutes.

"It opened my eyes to how I scheduled," Heiser said. He began to see how choices he made that "fixed the schedule" might be impacting the class schedule of real students. The technology took some of the logistical burden off him. He no longer had to manually tag kids, for example, so he could think about the process from a more human standpoint.

"Every decision I make is going to affect a kid and I want that personalization from the counselor," said Heiser, explaining why he relies heavily on counselors when making decisions. "Counselors get to show off how much they know about their kids and advocate for their kids."
EQUITY
When Dr. Christina Casillas, principal of Roosevelt International Middle School in San Diego, started thinking seriously about scheduling she came at the issue from a data-driven perspective. At the time she was the principal of a nearby high school, where she dug into her school's testing data. She noticed that students who were not identified as gifted were underperforming, which led her to wonder about their experience during the school day. She began to notice more overtly the tracking that the gifted program created in her school and began to wonder if students were underperforming because of the way they were scheduled.

"I wondered if there were low expectations, especially due to having a separate classroom setting," Casillas said.

She wanted the ability to look at live data while she was scheduling and to take an entirely student-centered approach to the scheduling process. And she wanted heterogeneous, balanced classes that included the students with special needs, who were still learning English, and who had not been identified as gifted into classes with gifted peers.

"The master schedule is the heart and soul of a school reflecting our vision and priorities," Casillas said. "I really wanted to explore how I could design a master schedule that was really centered on the student."

When she became the principal at Roosevelt Middle, she had a chance to experiment with scheduling designed to support the students who struggled the most. She decided to start by scheduling the neediest students into support classes first, and then layer in other students, starting with those who needed a class that is only offered at one time -- a "singleton" in scheduler lingo.

She also wanted to assign staff to balanced teaching assignments and provide time for teacher collaboration so they could share strategies, develop common assessments and look at student work together.

"What I was really paying attention to was how the kids were grouped within the school day and how they traveled throughout the day," Casillas said. The district's Student Information System had a scheduling tool, but it was blunt and didn't allow Casillas to think about individual students in this way. The district asked her to pilot Abl to see if it could achieve some of the equity goals she sought.

Abl allowed her to identify students who needed extra math and literacy intervention and schedule them so they had the same English, history, math and science teacher. Scheduling by cohort in this way allowed those teachers to meet, discuss and plan around the same group of students, providing them better support. The students who needed extra support weren't necessarily all in the same class period, but they have the same teachers at some point in the day.

"Teachers are now realizing they share the same set of kids and how powerful they can make the school experience when they're working together in teams," Casillas said.

Roosevelt is in its first year of experimenting with this schedule, so there are still kinks and it's not yet clear how it will impact achievement data. But Casillas is optimistic because teacher professional learning communities are now centered around specific students. Counselors have joined as well.

"They also provide a lens on the students in terms of social emotional aspects, working with the home, looking at attendance. They bring another value when talking with the teacher team," Casillas said.
EFFICIENCY
Jason Medlin was Abl's first end-to-end user and he claims he hit every glitch. But he still recommends the software to other schedulers. He's now the principal at Academy of Richmond County High School, a Title I school in Augusta, Georgia. But he used to be the assistant principal in charge of scheduling. Many of his students are transient and others choose to come to the school from wealthier neighborhoods for the school's International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Medlin said his roster changes up until the day school starts and he often has 50-70 new kids show up on the first day of school.

He wanted a tool that allowed him to see how changes would affect the rest of the school without messing up everything he had already scheduled. Medlin's experience of scheduling before Abl was the spreadsheet, clunky SIS variety. He considered it a positive if he could get about 70 percent of students scheduled with the SIS software and then he would hand-schedule the rest.

"Because you're doing it by hand you stay in the trees and you never see the forest," Medlin said. It's hard to see the big picture of the school when he's making changes to individual student schedules by hand. And every year the first few days of school saw over 100 kids in the gym trying to fix their schedules one by one.

So, Medlin was astounded when he was able to get 92 percent of his school scheduled using Abl on the first run. "My principal said he had never hit 60 percent the first time," Medlin said. Even better, out of almost 1,000 student requests, only 13 weren't satisfied.

That's a feat because like so many schedulers, Medlin has to think about meeting IEPs first, then making sure students in the IB track have their required classes. Next come the AP classes and finally the general education classes. But on top of that, some students go to an off-site skilled trades center to take certificated courses in the afternoon, so they needed to have their core classes in the morning.

"Those things are real challenges," Medlin said. He's proud that he was able to schedule every student in a pathway -- whether IB, AP, or trade center -- with the right classes to complete their course of study. On top of that he was able to schedule so that all foreign language teachers and core content teachers had common planning time and department chairs had an extra planning period.

"We just remained very nimble in our master schedule all the way up to the end," Medlin said. He could see the downstream effects of changes without locking specific students into schedules that couldn't change, which helped tremendously.

The efficiency he found in scheduling allowed him to tell the district he didn't need three of the full-time employees designated to the school based on their size, which meant they had more money in the budget to use elsewhere.

As the first real Abl user, the process was not smooth. Medlin said Abl's software didn't communicate with the district's SIS, so he'd make adjustments in Abl and then have to load it into the SIS to see how it looked. Worse, load times were slow. But, he says the Abl staff were always available to help him with his questions and he understands that his experience helped them work out glitches in their system. Despite the challenges, he'd recommend the software because of what it allowed him to accomplish with the schedule.

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Time Is an Essential Teacher Resource, So How Can Schools Be More Creative With It?

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"There's all these other things that teachers have to do, that are outside of the core scheduled experience, that they feel overwhelmed," said Chris Walsh, the head of growth and impact at Abl, a company that makes scheduling software. Before Abl, Walsh was a teacher and tech coordinator and has worked for New Tech Network.

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Analysis

A Personalized Learning Backlash

Four-plus years after it was first published, a report on personalized instruction is getting renewed attention as schools in the northeast consider calling their experiments in the instructional model a failure. In his report, " Personalized Instruction: New Interest, Old Rhetoric, Limited Results, and the Need for a New Direction for Computer-Mediated Learning," Noel Enyedy, an associate professor at the University of California Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, suggested that there's "little evidence for the effectiveness" of personalized instruction delivered through technology. The primary reason: The term encompasses so many disparate systems, it's "nearly impossible to make reasonable claims one way or the other." Implementation in the classroom matters, as does how personalized learning is integrated into classroom "routines and structures" and how the computer itself is used in the instructional process.

A recent article by the National Education Policy Center referred to Enyedy's report, which it published, as it examined incidences in which personalized learning experienced what it called a "backlash."

In Brooklyn's Secondary School for Journalism, students walked out of school for an hour last November, to protest the use of Summit Learning, a web-based learning experience designed by Facebook engineers and funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. According to the New York Post, students said the programming forced them "to stare at computers for hours and 'teach ourselves.'" Shortly after, the New York City Department of Education said it would drop use of the Summit program in its grade 11 and 12 classes.

In 2017 several elementary and middle schools in Cheshire, CT adopted the Summit model, including issuance of Chromebooks to every participating student, but within months, according to reporting by the Intelligencer, the implementation "collapsed into a suburban disaster, playing out in school board meetings and, of course, on Facebook." In that district, a task force is still working on the Summit initiative.

Among the problems with Summit, according to the NEPC story, is that students spend too little time with their teachers and too much time staring at screens; there are concerns about how the data generated by the system is being used; software has had glitches, kicking students off for days at a time; and lessons are too easy "to game and trick."

According to Summit, the program is in use in more than 380 schools, reaching 72,000 students. The organization expects to launch a new nonprofit to "lead and operate" the Summit Learning Program to continue "expanding" its impact, particularly in middle schools, kicking off in time for the 2019-2020 school year.

Enyedy offered seven recommendations in his report:

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A Personalized Learning Backlash -- THE Journal

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Analysis Four-plus years after it was first published, a report on personalized instruction is getting renewed attention as schools in the northeast consider calling their experiments in the instructional model a failure.

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AGENDA: Building the Rocket Workshop Day 1