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https://animoto.com/play/U3RJnjatntuUkqdutN2eNg

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Redefining PBL

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Virtual Gurukul

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A School with a Difference

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A SCHOOL WITH A DIFFERENCE- INTERNSHIP AND BLENDED LEARNING

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http://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/03/100-middle-high-schools-worth-visiting/

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School visits are a great way to learn. After a lot of visits of our own and a lot of recommendations, we're excited to share this list of 100 secondary schools that can give educators a refreshing outlook on what schools can do. This list includes schools that achieve extraordinary results for underserved communities, create powerful learning experiences, and/or are innovative blended and competency-based models.

Middle & High Schools

1. Partnerships with business leaders. , in Cambridge Massachusetts, is an innovative school based on a project-based studio model lead by coaches who are leaders in their industry, experts in diverse fields, and passionate thought leaders.

3. Blended character development. Valor Collegiate AcademiesinNashville has two middle schools that will add a grade each year through high school. Their balanced approach combines blended learning, character development and expeditions.

6. Museum. Grand Rapids Public Museum School is a partnership between a museum, three colleges, the city, and the school district. The XQ grant winner will grow into a 6-12 configuration.

10. Blended. Desert View Middle & High School in Yuma Arizona was a pioneer in blended learning with an effective combination of personalized online learning in a lab setting and workshops taught by master teachers.

11. Leadership. Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders serves 800 Austin girls in grades 6-12 in Austin, Texas. All graduates attend college, most in STEM fields.

12. Girls in STEM. Young Women's College Preparatory Academy opened in 2011 in Houston in partnership with the Young Women's Preparatory Network (one of eight other similar schools in Texas). They gave a terrific presentation at SXSWedu on coding and robotics.

13. Community Center. Gary Comer College Prep, part of the 17 school Noble Network, is doing great work in providing new opportunities and a safe learning environment to students in one of Chicago's toughest places to grow up (see our recent feature).

High Schools

18. Zoo. Science and Math Institute (SAMI) at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma is a great STEM school with built in zoo internships and outdoor science (below). They collaborate with SOTA (above) on academic and extracurricular opportunities.

19. Library. e3 Civic High is located in San Diego's spectacular new downtown library. Students learn through a mixture of self-paced online instruction, teacher or student-led small-group instruction, direct instruction, and problem-based and project-based work. They benefit from strong supports and extended learning opportunities ( featured here).

20. Mindset. While in San Diego, visit Kearny High School of Digital Media & Design. The student-centered, project-based school stresses productive "Habits of Mind."

23. Health. Cornerstone Health+Technology High School in Detroit combines individual goal setting, project-based coursework, online learning, internships and teacher support.

31. Travel. THINK Global School students use the latest equipment to "record, report, and share their global education online as they travel the world."

32. Challenge. NYC iSchool blends computer adaptive learning with challenges that require students to work together to present real solutions to real problems.

36. Journalism. The nation's biggest and best journalism program is Palo Alto High School. Esther Wojcicki asks her students to write at least 250 words every day. Students produce professional quality publications.

39. Gradual release. Huntley High School,northwest of Chicago, features a blended learning program where teachers set the number of days in class needed from week to week depending on how the class is doing, or how individual students are progressing. Students can study in the HUB (below) in individual or team spaces. (See our feature and blog on innovation leadership.)

41. Entrepreneurship. Also in Philly is Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, a cool private school with a partnership with Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

48 . New Tools. E.P.I.C.C. Academy at East Hall High School in Gainesville, Georgia, is a dynamic blend launched by @JohnHardison1 and documented weekly on Getting Smart.

52. Alt Early College. Beaverton Early College High School is part of the a network sponsored by Portland Community College where at-risk students can earn a high school diploma and an associate degree (see Early College High Schools).

59 . Tech Jobs. IBM launched the Pathways in Technology Early College High School ( P-TECH) in Brooklyn in 2011 in partnership with CUNY and City Tech. The 9-14 model has been replicated to 37 schools in NY with 70 industry partners. Staffing, scheduling and the strategic use of data are key to their success.

66 . Career High. Carl Wunsche Sr. High School in Spring, TX, puts students on one of three industry career paths (technology, health and professions), and supplements their curriculum with real-world experience (see our feature).

67. Career Skills Development. The Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS), south of Kansas City, takes an innovative business-partnership approach to giving its students professional and business skills that help them succeed in a range of industries.

69. Hospitality. Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Academy of Hospitality & Tourism in North Miami is also an NAF academy. Every student completes a 150-hour internship between their Junior and Senior years. The school has a productive relationship with the adjacent Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism at Florida International University.

71. Design. Design Tech High School (d.tech) is a new charter high school in San Mateo merging blended learning and design thinking with a focus on success skills to help students forge an identity that will help them as students, professionals, and citizens. A new facility on the Oracle campus is being built.

72. SEL. Fusion Academy, founded in Solano Beach, California, is a network of 33 nontraditional, alternative, one-on-one schools educating middle and high school students with particular attention to social emotional learning.

73. Humanities. Humanities Preparatory Academy, in NYC, is one of hundreds of new small coherent high schools formed in NYC in the last decade. Launched in 1997 with support from New Visions for Public Schools, the Humanities Prep team embraced a mission "to provide a philosophical and practical education for all students, an education that features creativity and inquiry, encourages habitual reading and productivity, as well as self-reflection and original thought." As a democratic community, they strive to exemplify the values of democracy: mutual respect, cooperation, empathy, the love of humankind, justice for all, and service to the world. It's also a member of the NYPSC.

76. Essential. Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School, west of Boston, has been in the vanguard of progressive, student-centered public education for over twenty years, and draws most heavily on the work of Ted and Nancy Sizer and the Coalition of Essential Schools ( featured by Springpoint). It's a good place to learn about advisory, assessment, and habits of learning.

78. Flexibility. D-B EXCEL in Kingsport, Tennessee is a small blended and project-based high school with a cool campus and lots of community connections.

82. Urban. Urban Academy Laboratory High School uses performance-based assessment tasks as graduation requirements. The school was a founding members of the New York Performance Standards Consortium that share a rich performance assessment system. It was approved as an alternative to state tests by the Board of Regents in 1995 and reaffirmed in 2008 when additional schools were added ( see feature).

Founder Ann Cook negotiated an early and nationally visible co-location of six schools at the Julia Richmond Education. Cook also cofounded the NY State Standards Performance Consortium (see our feature).

K-12 Schools

83 . College prep. E.L. Haynes was founded in 2004 by now Deputy Mayor for Education Jennifer Niles. When Eric Westendorf was principal, he started creating instructional math videos with his staff-it caught on and became LearnZillion (listen to our podcast with Eric). The college prep program features a longer day and year with lots of enrichment opportunities.

84. Show & Tell. High Tech High has four K-12 feeder patterns-two on the main campus in San Diego, one in north San Diego Country and one near the border in Chula Vista. All are great examples of integrated project-based learning and spectacular student art.

85. Full court press. Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy Charter Schools provides data-driven instruction, Student Advocates who work with children one-on-one and collaborate with parents and teachers, and full wrap around services.

89. Travel. Democracy Prep students have the opportunity to visit five continents while attending this high performing network of 17 east coast schools. Democracy Prep Charter Middle School, opened in 2006, became the highest performing school in Central Harlem and was ranked the number one public middle school in New York City. The network is developing K-12 feeder patterns in New York, Camden New Jersey, and Washington DC.

Cool private schools

92. Achievement and art. Harvard-Westlake School is a 7-12 school located in Los Angeles with an impressive selection of extracurricular arts and sports. It ranks among the top high schools in the country in number of National Merit Semifinalists.

93 . Life Skills. Vistamar School is a high school south of LAX, founded in 2005, where students engage in Life Planning instead of college counseling. A high-quality, college preparatory learning environment serves a student body reflective of the diversity of Los Angeles.

94. Milton Hershey School (MHS) was founded in 1909 by chocolate maker Milton S. Hershey and his wife Catherine. MHS is a private boarding school where the cost is free for those students who qualify. The school focuses on maintaining small class sizes and innovative technology (see our feature).

95. Place-Based Education. Teton Science (K-12), in Wyoming, is on the leading edge of Place-Based Education. They have a wide range of school and professional development programs, and their students love it.

96. Top shelf. Avenues: The World School is the NYC anchor to what will become an international network of K-12 schools. Teachers at the elite private school use a combination of flipped classroom and station rotation strategies. The dual language (Mandarin or Spanish) school make extensive use of open content, and eduClipper is crafting a next-generation platform for qualitative social assessments.

97. EduMakerCincy. Cincinnati Country Day School was an early 1:1 leader. The private elementary has a Montessori option. The middle school has an interdisciplinary focus.

98. Whole child. Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, a private school in Santa Monica founded 40 years ago by Dr. Paul Cummins with a focus on whole-child education, is a pioneer for social-emotional learning. Twenty years ago Cummins opened New Roads School, a similar but more diverse school with a strong commitment to financial aid.

International Bonuses

99. Active learning. Singapore American School. A great school takes a "culture of excellence, possibility and extraordinary care," said Dr. Chip Kimball. SAS is one of a handful that does all three well. Through school visits and PLCs, the 4000 student school was transformed from a school with great test scores to a place that is preparing great people (see case study).

For more great schools to visit, check out our other recent Smart Lists: 85 Middle & High Schools Worth Visiting, 30 School Districts Worth Visiting and 75 Top School and Charter Networks.

This Smart List is sponsored by Getting Smart Services , Getting Smart's consulting division that helps schools, districts, networks and impact-oriented partners create, implement and amplify thought leadership campaigns, education initiatives, powerful learning experiences and forward-leaning strategies. Learn more about what they can do to support your education initiatives here .
Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update . This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures, please see our Partner page

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100 Middle and High Schools Worth Visiting | Getting Smart

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School visits are a great way to learn. After a lot of visits of our own and a lot of recommendations, we're excited to share this list of 100 secondary schools that can give educators a refreshing outlook on what schools can do.

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https://www.campussuite.com/use-school-website-improve-parent-involvement/

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Campus Suite | School Website Design, Notifications & Mobile Apps

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Engaging your students' parents these days is actually easier than ever, thanks to the many channels at your fingertips - and theirs. In this article, I want to review those channels and encourage you and your fellow school administrators and teachers to start making the most of the variety of communication channels that can improve parent involvement at your school.

We all know that when parents are engaged, school seems to be a higher priority for students. Homework gets completed on time. Students are more prepared for tests. They're more active in extracurriculars and the community.

Research from the Southwest Education Development Laboratory (SEDL) found that parental involvement increases the odds for student success in a number of ways, including better attendance, higher grades and test scores, and better social skills and behavior. Students with involved parents were also more likely to attend post-secondary education. In a more recent study, the SEDL underscored that student development depends more than ever on building family-school partnerships.

Numerous studies have been conducted before and after that one, but regardless of the research, common sense tells us that an engaged parent equals successful students. There's no doubt that parent involvement is critical to student success.

Education professor and long-time parent involvement advocate Joyce Epstein has developed a framework which defines six specific areas in which schools can engage parents:

Parenting - Schools can offer information and tools that help parents better understand their child's development and create a home that facilitates learning.

Communicating - Schools can communicate important school events and information with parents.

Volunteering - Schools can recruit parents and families to volunteer at the school and at related community events.

Learning at home - Parents need information on classroom activity so they can help their children continue their learning at home.

Decision making - Parents want to be involved in important school decisions. Surveys, PTO meetings, and community discussion provide that opportunity.

Community collaboration - School can develop partnerships with neighboring businesses and organizations to provide services to the community.

You're probably doing some level of parent outreach in all of these areas. Maybe you're sending home updates on classroom activity, organizing PTO meetings, and even developing community service initiatives. Perhaps you're including parents in school decisions and offering volunteer opportunities in the classroom.

Are you effectively reaching out to parents?

So what can we do to promote and improve parent engagement? What's the best way to increase parent engagement? In what areas should you focus your energy?

If you're not getting the response you want from your engagement efforts, it may be that you're not communicating them effectively. Many schools still rely on traditional forms of communication, like emailing newsletters in the form of PDF attachments or sending home paper announcements in students' folders. Maybe you do use your website to post information to - maybe on the homepage or some other area of your website.

You probably know as well as anyone that parents are busy these days. There may be two working parents in the home who are trying to juggle childcare with their careers. You likely have many students who are raised by a single parent.

To reach these busy parents, you have to make your communications convenient and quick to read. You have to target your outreach efforts in a way that makes them more likely to be received and digested. For most parents, that means online communications. Here are four best practices that you can adopt today:

1. Create a mobile-first parent strategy.

More than anything else, parents want information. They want to know how their children are doing in school. They want to know what activities they have upcoming on the calendar. They want to know when assignments are due.

As you likely know, children are often hesitant to share this information. That can be especially true at the high school levels.

You can provide easy access to this information by giving parents choices about how they want to engage with your school. And we all know that parents are on the go.

The at the core of your mobile communications is a responsive school website that automatically adjusts its design and navigation for any mobile device (tablet, phone, wearable) your parents are using.

The next mobile-first tactic is to offer a notification system that enables parents to receive instant, user-specific targeted text, voice, email, social media and website alerts for time-sensitive news and information.

The last critical component to meeting the needs of your on-the-go parents is a mobile app which has all your content integrated into a branded mobile app that everyone who matters will have on hand.

2. Encourage parent-created content.

Parents know that you want them to be more involved in the school. However, they may not often know what's in it for them and their child. There's no better way to promote engagement than to share the stories of other parents who are actively involved.

Ask your involved parents to contribute to your school's blog or newsletter. Maybe a parent who volunteers in a classroom could share his or her story and why volunteering is so beneficial. A parent who is on PTO or who helped organize a school function could write about his or her positive experience and share it with other parents.

Many school PTOs have their own dedicated websites, distinct from the school website. While some may argue that PTO site should be integrated into the school website, the key point here is that any parent-created website shows that your school puts a priority on parent communications.

PTO Today offers some great tips on how to organize a volunteer-created PTO site. With all due respect to enthusiastic parents who want to publish great content, make sure it's not a rogue site. Be sure any PTO website is approved by and coordinated with your school's communications director.

3. Embrace social media.

Your students' parents are on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even LinkedIn. If you want to reach them, you have to go to the places where they spend time. That means making a concerted social media outreach effort.

Use Facebook to post links to your blog, announcements, and other important information. Facebook is also great for pictures, so use it to post images from your most recent event. Parents can then see exactly what they missed, as well as information on how they can get involved in the next event.

One resource your school can use it the Social Media Guide for Schools, published by Campus Suite, that outlines how public and private schools can use social media to better connect with parents. The more parents you get to join your online network, the stronger your partnerships with entire school community will be.

4. Conduct surveys.

Want parent input on important school decisions? Get them involved early through online surveys. You can use a service like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create and distribute online surveys to parents. The outreach can be done through email, social media, and even on the school website.

A short, five-question survey could be enough to pique a parent's interest in a particular menu or to get spark some online conversation. For example, assume you send out a survey on changes to the school's art program. A parent may complete the survey and immediately become more interested in the outcome. That could drive them to attend meetings, become involved in planning committees, and help to formulate the school's decision making.

Project Appleseed, a non-profit organization dedicated to public school improvement, has assembled a cool parent involvement survey/report card. Even if you're a private or charter school, this survey is still a good one to use as a model if you're serious about assessing parent involvement at your school.

Some content management systems have survey capabilities built right into their software, so the ability to measure opinion or start some healthy dialogue with parents is just a link away.

Parents + online communications tools = engaged parents in your school

With parents busier than ever these days, the challenge of building family-school partnerships has never been greater. Conversely, all the online tools at a school's disposal create numerous ways to connect your school to parents. The important thing about engagement is to make the communication effort in a variety of mediums.

Some parents and students may be focused enough to check folders for notes or to open PDF attachments to emails. However, many aren't. Your challenge is to find the right 'mix' of online tools to build your parent involvement. By using a mixture of digital communications, you're creating a more diversified outreach strategy. That gives you more opportunity to reach parents and creates greater likelihood that they'll become more engaged with your school and students.

As you know firsthand, increased parent engagement is that secret ingredient to student success. Let's just not be so secretive about encouraging and promoting it. Use the online tools outlined above, and start seeing your parent engagement at your school improve.

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Marketing director and content strategist for Campus Suite, Jay's a former school public relations specialist who's helped businesses, schools and colleges use the power of web communications to improve their image, generate support, and optimize relationships. Reach him at jay@campussuite.com or follow him @jay4schools.

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4 Ways to Improve Parent Involvement at Your School | CS Blog

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Engaging your students' parents these days is actually easier than ever, thanks to the many channels at your fingertips - and theirs. In this article, I want to review those channels and encourage you and your fellow school administrators and teachers to start making the most of the variety of communication channels that can improve parent involvement at your school.

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https://www.educationdive.com/news/flex-time-schools-break-out-of-scheduling-ruts-to-improve-learning-for-stu/516878/

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There's no such thing as a typical day for Heather Kostelecky.

On one day, the pre-calculus and Advanced Placement (AP) statistics teacher at Legacy High School in Bismarck, ND, might have small breaks from teaching throughout the day. On another, she is with students all morning. And then some days, she spends time in the school's STEM "Saber Center," where students can find tutoring or time to complete homework.

The variety throughout Kostelecky's week is the result of what the school calls personalized scheduling - a system in which each day is broken down into 22 20-minute blocks, and teachers determine how to stack those blocks for their subject areas throughout the week.

"I don't think all classes need to have the same number of minutes," says Principal Tom Schmidt. The school, now in its fifth year, also tried a block schedule before shifting to this model when it moved into a new building. "We were given the green light to go ahead and do something different."

So, as if they are withdrawing cash from an ATM, teachers decide at the beginning of the semester whether they need 40-, 60- or 80-minute periods throughout the week. An 80, for example, allows for "call back" time in which teachers can meet individually with students who need extra help, while a 40 might be used for completing hands-on projects or student presentations. Students, as a result, don't attend the same classes every day and have breaks within their schedules to study independently, work out in the gym, or visit a Saber Center.

"Students seem to be more present during class since each day is so different," Kostelecky says. "I don't see the monotony of having the same schedule day in and day out setting in, and this is true for teachers as well."

A 'key component' of personalized learning

With more schools shifting some portion of student learning to online platforms, administrators and teachers are finding that the traditional six- or seven-period day in high schools and some middle schools no longer meets their needs. Just as schools are redesigning spaces to accommodate today's learners, they are also implementing innovative schedules that allow for the type of flexibility that both students and teachers want.

The challenge, however, comes in trying to spread such models across a district, says Marilyn Crawford, who works with School by Design to help educators rethink how they can use time and staff members to accomplish what they are trying to achieve with students.

Many schools, she says, try to personalize learning or expand professional learning opportunities for teachers within existing master schedules, without realizing that there is wasted time within the current structure and staff members whose talents could be used in different ways to provide more targeted learning opportunities for students.

In fact, researchers who have examined the growth of personalized models across the country often note that the constraints of traditional bell schedules tend to get in the way. "As schools across the country reimagine their school day schedules, they will be most successful if they customize the use of time to meet content needs rather than adapting content to fit a fixed schedule," wrote the authors of " Reimagining the School Day," a 2017 report from the Center for American Progress.

Researchers from the RAND Corporation, who have been following the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC)'s Breakthrough School Models initiative, also recommended giving schools more autonomy to adapt their schedules. "Flexibility to design a schedule that supports the school model and vision of [personalized learning] and modify it as needed over the course of the year, can be a key component of successful [personalized learning] implementation," they wrote in " Informing Progress: Insights on Personalized Learning Implementation and Effects."

Looking at staff in a different way

Some schools begin adapting their schedules in order to build in more time for teacher collaboration and planning. Melanie Pondant, the director of secondary curriculum for the Longview Independent School District (LISD), about 130 miles east of Dallas, didn't believe what Crawford was describing was possible.

"I was like, 'We can get one day a week where teachers don't teach? Show me,'" Pondant remembers.

And Crawford did.

The change began at two of the district's three middle schools. "Flex" days were built into the weekly schedule, in which teachers in one content area meet together for a day of planning, collaboration and professional learning. Other staff members - those who might have been providing instructional support or teaching electives - teach classes during that time that include study skills, art, choir, technology and other topics. A school nurse could even teach a CPR class. Flex days can also be dropped perhaps if teachers want more time to prepare students for an upcoming state test. In that case, those elective teachers go into the classrooms to provide students with extra help.

"It really forced us to look at our staff in a different way," Pondant says, adding that the design has become a recruitment tool. New teachers out of college might be able to earn more money in Dallas or other large districts, but knowing they'll have one full day a week without students and won't have to take papers home to grade at night is an attractive feature, Pondant says. The district also saves money because it no longer needs to hire substitute teachers to work on professional development days.

Working out the kinks

School and district leaders say brainstorming sessions are necessary before breaking away from old models. At Legacy High, Schmidt asked teachers to propose their ideal week, and in LISD, Pondant asked principals to "poke holes" in the various scenarios being considered. "We want it to be air tight before we put it out there for parents," she says.

One principal, she says, resisted the change based on concerns over a loss of instructional time and because he didn't want students to choose between band or athletics. So Pondant challenged him to develop a plan until he found a scenario in which students didn't have to choose. She adds that because students move through their core classes in a cohort - meaning all the football players might be together - some adjustments were needed to hold down discipline problems.

While the schools have some flexibility to implement a plan that works for them, there are also a few non-negotiables. They can't change the start and end times of the day because those are determined by bus schedules, and classes can't go down to 30 minutes. Next year, the district plans to spread the model to its third middle school and all seven elementary schools, and the plan is to phase in a "college-like" schedule at the high school.

Schmidt adds that, as with any new plan, things can go wrong. On the first day the new model was in place at Legacy, they ended up with a hole in which the entire student body was out of class for 20 minutes. So they fixed that, and now students follow their own schedules throughout the day without bells to tell them when to move.

School that looks different

Even in schools that keep traditional class schedules, there are ways to build in more flexibility, Crawford says. She adds that while some schools use block schedules to provide longer times for instruction, those too can become restricting. "It's not the bell schedule," she says. "It's what you do with it."

She recommends that schools start with a group of teachers from different content areas who decide how to share and regroup students within the existing framework. "One teacher operating in isolation - that's the beast that eats kids and eats teachers," she says.

Platte County High School in Platte City, MO, began its " flexible personalized learning " program by combining classes in 9th-11th grade. For example, an English and government teacher will take the same two periods that they were using before, co-teach for one of them, and spend the second supporting students as they work in "independent learning time." Meanwhile, the students are still getting credit for both courses.

"School just simply needs to look different," says Assistant Principal Shari Waters. "It's a focus on how we can help students learn to collaborate and advocate for themselves. We're not holding them hostage in a seven-period day."

At Platte County High, the flexible model is an option. A quarter of the school's students - about 300 - are enrolled in it. Teachers who have been more reluctant to make the switch, Waters says, are worried their content area will be shortchanged or that they'll lose some control. But she says that it's not unusual for teachers to just give students "things to do" because they are used to filling up a specific block of time.

Opportunities for 'different instructional strategies'

As Crawford notes, it's how teachers and students use the extra time these models provide is what's important. "The schedule actually sets up a ton of things for instruction," she says.

In LISD, the flex periods allow art teachers, for example, to have much more time with students. "Art is important to a lot of kids," Pondant says. "It keeps kids in school."

At Legacy High, Kostelecky says teachers need to learn to plan for a week, not the next day.

"My goal is to have my classes at the same area of instruction by the end of the week, but each class will be slightly different throughout the week due to differing amounts of time each class has on a given day," she says.

She also uses more formative assessments now to determine which students to keep for "call-back time."

"I am more willing to use different instructional strategies, according to the needs for that particular class, because the classes are ultimately different each day already," she says. "One class may need more direct instruction, while another class thrives on flipping the content and doing hands-on activities in class."

Brett Mitchell, who teaches chemistry and physics at Legacy, says he always wished he could have more time for labs. Now he does. In an 80-minute period, he says, students can take more time with a lab, and he still has time to ask "critical questions before kids walk out the door."

Forty-minute periods are great for combining students into the auditorium for a lecture or a presentation that they would all get separately in their classes anyway. The teacher who is especially strong on a particular topic can lead the class, and students, Schmidt says, get practice in learning how to ask a question in a large group. The school also now has an easier time bringing in guest speakers or industry experts, because they can meet with a large group of students in one 40-minute period instead of spending an entire day giving their talk to four different classes.

Mitchell agrees that there might be less time for instruction, but that doesn't mean it's less effective. "Your teaching is much more focused," he says. "You know these are the important things I've got to hit."

Prepared for college

Students also have to learn how to manage their time differently. At Platte County High, those in the flexible program might finish their homework during the school day, help other students and teachers with technology needs, or get their required amount of physical activity. Physical education, Waters says, now takes more of a YMCA-like format with a list of classes from which students can choose. Some also use the time for doctor's appointments or taking their driver's test.

In a student focus group, Waters heard two girls taking the same AP English class compare their lives after school. One in a traditional seven-period day talked about having two to three hours of homework every night, while the other said she now has much more free time.

At Legacy High, some students use their independent time to take an extra class that they need or want. And Mitchell says the model especially benefits lower-income students. In the past, for example, the only time to get one-on-one time with a teacher for extra tutoring was before or after school - options that weren't realistic for students who ride the bus to school. Now they can meet with teachers or find help in a Saber Center during the day.

Those who do learn to use the time well, the teachers and administrators say, are much more prepared for college. "We are hoping this schedule will make college less of an adjustment," Kostelecky says, "because they already know how to manage their time when they leave high school."

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Flex time: Schools break out of scheduling ruts to improve learning for students, teachers

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There's no such thing as a typical day for Heather Kostelecky. On one day, the pre-calculus and Advanced Placement (AP) statistics teacher at Legacy High School in Bismarck, ND, might have small breaks from teaching throughout the day. On another, she is with students all morning.

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ìhttp://www.uschool.org/design-thinking.html

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The U School exists to help people dream. We want to dream with students, because we hope to tap into the creativity and imagination found there, and harness those visionary thoughts and ideas, and...

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ìhttps://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/global-education-21st-century-skills

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Australian Council for Educational Research - ACER

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Research has indicated that young people today are likely to have 17 jobs over five different careers after they leave school. Charles Fadel is a pioneer of the idea of 21st Century skills, founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, and visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's also delivering the 2017 Australian Learning Lecture - The New Success - this month. Teacher caught up with him ahead of his visit to Melbourne.
Research has indicated that young people today are likely to have 17 jobs over five different careers in their lifetime. So, what are the kinds of skills that they'll need in order to thrive in that environment?
Well, it seems to be very natural that they would, at the minimum, have versatility. You know, the ability to go from one to the other to the next job and/or career. That versatility implies, in a sense, a broad and deep education. Deep in the sense of deeper learning of the existing disciplines ... whether it's Mathematics or Humanities or whatever. But, also more modernised knowledge [in areas] such as entrepreneurship and robotics and wellness and so on - which all matter in today's world and certainly for tomorrow's world as well.

In addition to all of this, in addition to modernised knowledge in general and deeper knowledge, it's also a question of how we use that knowledge. So, our learners will need their skills developed ... creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

And above and beyond that, if you reflect about what makes people successful in life it is also how they behave and engage with the world, right? So, their mindfulness, their curiosity, their courage, their resilience, their ethics and their leadership.

And, lastly, and quite importantly in a world that's constantly changing, the ability to reflect and adapt and continuing to learn how to learn comes at a premium. So, the students' metacognition and growth mindset would need to be developed.

All in all, there you have it: four dimensions that make for a deeper, more robust and versatile education which is about modernised knowledge, skills, character and meta learning. In my recent book with Bernie Trilling (Four-Dimensional Education: The Competencies Learners Need to Succeed) we describe a complete range of competencies (beyond just skills) needed for new success.
[Diagram © Center for Curriculum Redesign] Given that we're already in 2017, why do you think we're still grappling with the issue of 21st Century skills and how to develop that 21st Century approach to education?
Well, obviously these requirements date back to ancient Greece and ancient China - actually, ancient civilisations in general. We've always needed, as humans, to function with all these dimensions of ourselves in our education. It's just that in the 21st Century it's becoming all the more critical because of the advance of, in particular, artificial intelligence, to start doing more and more of the human functions. We saw the first, let's say, 'displacement' back with the Industrial Revolution, due to mechanisation and automation. Now, with increased intelligence of devices and robots and so on a lot of occupations will be, if not displaced, at least significantly augmented. And so, like during the Industrial Revolution, we need to upskill ourselves and we're facing several impediments to do that:

Obsolete university entrance requirements, which bias what we can teach;

Narrow assessments focused on traditional knowledge only;

Lack of political courage due to a lack of understanding by the general population of the risks of NOT moving forward;

Narrow-mindedness of academic experts, not behaving altruistically to look beyond their personal expertise to the overall needs of society and employability; and,

Lack of training of teachers to the new requirements.

All of which need to embrace the required changes.
You're in Melbourne on May 11 to give the second Australian Learning Lecture. Is there a country that's leading the way in this area of 21st Century skills, and where does Australia stand in respect of this?
Interestingly, there's research by the Brookings Institution showing that just about any country out there they have surveyed talks a good game about all of these things. And, there's a large difference between saying that you want to teach these skills and character qualities and so on versus doing it in a deliberate, comprehensive, systematic and demonstrable way.

So, the good news is that there's no one ahead of Australia. Everyone is trying to do this and this opens an opportunity for Australia to lead the way.

What is required is a massive rethink about modernising what students learn as an imperative. Where Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) matter increasingly but Humanities and Arts remain essential, each borrowing from the other, for a deeply versatile education. Where working with others, at school, in the community, and in the workplace is as vital as ensuring growth at every level, allowing top students to thrive while assisting all students in areas where they are struggling. Where young people are given the skills and qualities they need to thrive in work and life. There is general acknowledgement around the world that to equip young people for success we need to shift from a knowledge-only based education towards incorporating skills such as creative problem solving, collaboration and character skills such as resilience, agility, compassion and respect. These elements are central to the new success.
In your lecture you'll be talking about the 'new success' - what do you mean by that and what does it look like?
Well, it looks like a fulfilled individual with a sustainable society, a sustainable humanity. It's what we all aspire to. As humans, we've always wanted a world that was more fair, where everyone was thriving rather than reacting, where we would tone down conflict - a more civilised world, in essence. But that's not going to come without a significant rethinking of what we teach and not only at the cognitive level, but the social and emotional level.

The secrets to the New Success for today's and tomorrow's child are:

a move to skills, rather than scores: broader measures of success to monitor students' capabilities... and the quality of our education system;

teachers supported to teach for future success;

parents who understand what success looks like today and tomorrow;

universities that broaden their entrance requirements to reflect the capabilities that matter to future success; and,

politicians with the courage to plan long-term ('cathedral builders').

Finally, the New Success is about fulfilled individuals for sustainable societies. It corresponds to all of Maslow's pyramid of needs, from most basic to self-transcendence, which are universal human aspirations. It is anticipatory not reactive, sharing not greedy, thoughtful not angry, and communal not clannish.
Given that things are changing so rapidly, can education systems actually change quickly enough to keep pace? Or, is it more about us teaching students the skills and coping mechanisms to deal with, and make the most of, change? You mentioned flexibility earlier.
This is really an excellent question. It keeps me up at night quite honestly, whether education systems can catch up fast enough. You know, I'm not concerned that what we're proposing here is too ambitious, I'm concerned that it's not moving fast enough in its implementation - that's what keeps me up at night.

So, you start thinking, well, are there alternatives? If you can think of one I'm all ears, but I don't know of one. We have to succeed or we will be witnessing a lot of social unrest.

The safest option is to change and not to remain immobile.

Now, whether teaching students coping mechanisms ... that's fine, that's part of what we all need to do to - how do we cope with stress and changing situations and so on - but it's in no means a palliative. It's part of a broader education, but it doesn't preclude systems of doing what they have to be doing, which is education with a capital 'E'.
So we need to act quickly, basically. But, as you mentioned earlier, that requires political will and ... people to make decisions that may not be popular with everybody?
But it's possible to lead; and, also educating the public. And what you're doing here [at Teacher magazine], educating the teachers, educating the public at large, is absolutely critical. Because, it's easy to long for the good old days that will never exist again and for ways of doing that might have been perfectly adequate 50 years ago, but certainly no longer are. And so, the safest option is to keep moving forward and not to remain immobile.
Finally then, drilling down from the big picture, from those governments and systems that we've talked about, to individual teachers, leaders and schools - what can they do?
From the teacher perspective, every teacher has a little bit of sway, in their hours of the day and so on ... everyone has a little bit of headroom, about say 20 per cent of the time could be diverted away from just teaching [traditional content] to pay more attention to its deepening through skills acquisition. And there are a variety of organisations and methods out there to help teachers do some of that, which really would be better than nothing. But there's only so much teachers and even administrators can push that envelope.

We need an Australia that believes that the safest option we have for our kids is to educate them to learn, unlearn and relearn in our fast-changing world. We need forces beyond school to assist, not hamper, this process.
Charles Fadel will deliver the second Australian Learning Lecture - The New Success - on 11 May 2017 at the Melbourne Exhibition and Conference Centre.
With a colleague, draw up a list of skills and attributes that you think your students will need in order to thrive in the future. How are you helping students develop those skills and attributes?

Charles Fadel says students will need knowledge in traditional disciplines, but also areas such as entrepreneurship, robotics and wellness. How are you planning for and meeting these needs at a classroom and whole school level?

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Research has indicated that young people today are likely to have 17 jobs over five different careers after they leave school. Charles Fadel is a pioneer of the idea of 21st Century skills, founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, and visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/05/old-school

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When it's time to renovate an old school or build a new one, many principals and teachers have a simple wish list. They "just want buildings that work," says David Stephen, educator, architect, and founder of New Vista Designs for Learning. They're thinking about windows that are operable, good air handling systems, enough classrooms to fit everyone in - the building blocks of a basic, functional school.

But learning has changed, says Stephen, and it's time for educators to seize the chance "to think beyond the traditional school blocks that they're accustomed to." So how can educators help design 21st-century learning spaces?

Usable Knowledge asked Stephen to share some advice. We also asked Daniel Wilson, the educational chair at Harvard's Learning Environments for Tomorrow Institute, and Grace O'Shea, an eighth-grade teacher in New York City and a member of room2learn at the Harvard Innovation Lab, to share their thoughts.

An Architect's Vision

Changes in technology and in teaching methods are making it possible to think of school buildings in far more dynamic terms, says Stephen. Schools no longer have to be "collections of classrooms, administrative spaces, and a gym, auditorium, and cafeteria. They can be high-performance work environments that promote the 21st-century soft skills of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication.

"Schools are becoming interconnected ecosystems - less compartmentalized and departmentalized. Classrooms and the spaces between them, as well as shared amenities such as the cafeterias and media labs, are becoming more flexible and agile."

What does this look like in practice? A focus on project-based learning might mean that workspaces are more flexible - desks can move and stack easily against the walls or connect to form large, flat working surfaces. An emphasis on high-quality learning might mean that classrooms are more physically transparent, so that passersby can see students working in a robotics lab or an art studio. A fully wired school might mean that learning can take place anywhere, so hallways become extended-learning areas.

Teachers as Designers

But an architect designing a new school can't construct these changes on his own. To work in a space that supports their goals and sense of innovation, educators need to be prepared to describe precisely what kind of learning environment they want to create. Wilson, the Director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, thinks the conversation between educators and architects should cover four broad points:

1. Visions and goals. Educators should be ready to share a broad vision of the school's mission and what teachers are trying to achieve, such as "We want students to be global citizens" or "We want students to be collaborators and creators."

2. Illustrations of those goals. Once educators have articulated their general goals, they need to share examples of what success might look like in daily practice. If a principal wants students actively engaged in current events, then the school might need gathering spaces where students can watch and discuss the news during free periods. If teachers want students regularly working in groups, then classrooms might need easily maneuverable desks.

3. Current obstacles. Educators can use this chance to consider some of the biggest challenges they face in their current setting. Are they lacking storage for project materials? Are they missing common spaces for bringing together multiple classes of students?

4. Supporting teacher learning. A new school is an opportunity for teachers to consider the ways they learn and grow at work. They should think about how they collaborate best with colleagues or generate lesson plans, and recognize that a new building is a chance to help them on their path of professional development.

Rebooting Your Classroom

What if you're a teacher who wants to transform her classroom, but a total-school redesign doesn't look feasible? The room2learn team, comprising students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the Harvard Business School, is creating an online platform for teachers and designers to share resources and ideas for transforming classrooms. (The site hasn't publicly launched, but you can learn more here.) O'Shea shares some of her favorite hacks to optimize space and augment learning:

1. Remove the desks. If you want students to be totally absorbed in a specific object, such as a text, drawing, or model, try pushing the desks against the wall and arranging the chairs in a circle in the middle of the room.

2. Repurpose unused furniture. If there are empty bookshelves against the walls in your classroom, try making them into workspaces. Remove the middle shelves, and then have students sit on stools and use the top of the bookshelves as a "bar" to work on.

3. Change writing surfaces. "It's amazing how you can get even the most reluctant writer to enjoy writing when you allow students to write on tables or walls, which you can do by adding idea paint," says O'Shea.

4. Use Velcro. If you apply Velcro to pencil boxes or supply boxes, you can then stick them on the walls anywhere the room. When supplies are visible and accessible for students, there are more opportunities for them to engage in self-directed learning.

How do you know if your space needs a reboot? Stephen, Wilson, and O'Shea say that students themselves will provide a hint. Schools and classrooms are meant to be their spaces. If learning is stagnant, if the arrangement of objects or the layout of the classroom is hindering engagement, it's time to consider a change.

Additional Resources

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When it's time to renovate an old school or build a new one, many principals and teachers have a simple wish list. They "just want buildings that work," says David Stephen, educator, architect, and founder of New Vista Designs for Learning.