The Value of Relevant Learning

Our school's professional development focus for this year is on assessment. As we have been talking about what good assessment looks like I have been thinking about my own life and what assessment looked like as well. This week:

• There was a focus on looking at the data analytics when using the LMS Canvas.
• There was a focus on the value of formative assessment for both students and teachers.
• There was a focus on "Purposeful Work" that supports our Graduate Profile.

I think it is fair to say that assessment can be relevant for teacher feedback in a myriad of ways. A well-written multiple choice test can give a teacher an immediate snapshot of the learning happening in their classroom. This week I shared with our teachers that I believe we are in a period of time that assessing is easier than ever before. Due to technology, we can now know before our students even leave the door for the day what they learned from the day's lesson. Creating quick digital assessments not only lets teachers know how to prepare the course for the next day but with a little training it can also let students know what they need to focus on for the next day as well. I hear a lot of pushback about differentiating and personalization on social media but quite honestly research shows that the use of formative assessments can truly have a transformable impact for students. Teachers have been doing the "show me a thumb up/thumb down- did you get this?" assessment for a long time. With the technology available many classrooms have today, digital formative assessments are both easy to create and accomplish for your students. I'm a big proponent of knowing if your students are grasping the concepts along the way instead of learning they didn't when they take a summative assessment at the end of a unit.

But today we see a big push towards relevant learning or what we now call "purposeful work" at CCS. This can look like many things. For instance, community-based projects, project-based learning/problem-based learning, authentic learning are all things that make students engaged in the learning process. The fear for many educators is that they don't know for sure if their students are truly learning the concepts expected of them. While rubrics and inquiry-based learning feels purposeful, many of our teachers can't help but think "But I know they are going to be tested at the end of the year. What if learning gains aren't achieved with this type of assessment?" 

I personally feel that's where the beauty of digital formative assessment can play a game-changing role. You have objectives you are trying to reach. You also are guiding your students through the process of purposeful work. Knowing daily what they have gained in this process and who you need to have chats with during the process can be attained through this type of assessing. 

I turn 50 next month and I am at that place where I don't remember a lot of the details of my k12 education. I remember people, shocking events, or big happy things but the process of learning...not so much. I will always remember one thing that has stuck with me for all these years that was relevant to my life at that time. I was in a dual-enrollment English class and was asked to write a persuasive open letter to anyone of my choice. There was a newsletter that went out to parents that had really rubbed me the wrong way so my open letter was to our school principal. I saw it as an assignment but my teacher chose to highlight in class because it impacted everyone in the class and because he felt it was well written. That letter changed how I saw myself as a writer. I knew if I felt passionate about something I had the ability to write it in a way that could have a positive impact. 

Relevant learning has the ability to inspire learners for their future. After a rollercoaster ride of various careers, I sit here today being someone that blogs about education on a regular basis. Not only do I share helpful tips about tech integration but I try to focus on the "why." I feel certain that moment back in 12th grade at Hixson High School has a lot to do with it. I was empowered by that moment. I remember being mortified when I realized the teacher was actually reading my letter. You see, I was a fairly quiet student so when he was done, no one could guess who had written it. The letter led to a great classroom discussion and gave me the feeling of educational respect from my peers that I had not experienced before. I was definitely not the smartest student in that class but on that topic, I was the most passionate. Relevant learning has the ability to stick with us, to mold us, and to empower us for something later on. 

So I guess I am writing this post to ask you to not give up on teaching differently. It doesn't mean you can't still assess your students in ways that feel more beneficial to you as a teacher- use formative assessment to know if students "get it" but look for ways that they can also "take it."

Food for thought: Do you remember the details of any multiple choice test you ever took? 

Student Led Professional Development

I've been at school since 6:45am.  I was anxious about my morning and the lofty goals I had. It's now 10:00am and I am basking in the glory of positive completion! This morning ended a 9 week elective opportunity for students that signed up for the "Lower School Tech Team" elective. This team has worked for 9 weeks to create an Escape Room opportunity for the lower school teachers that taught them about STEAM tools. These 8 students created lesson plans and how to videos and modeled how you can teach using an Escape Room as the lesson.

This morning all the lower school teachers had a staggered start to come in and allow the students to show them how to use Dash Cleverbots, Ozobots, Sphero Robotics, Makey Makeys, and Echo Dots in the classroom. Based on feedback from teachers in January, this was an area they felt they needed more training in. The students manned all 5 stations and had the teachers learn more about these tools. As someone that was both nervous about allowing students to lead the PD and hoping that it truly would be seen as beneficial, I truly enjoyed hearing the interactions and the "aha moments" happening as each grade level worked their way through the challenges. Every grade level got through the 5 challenges in less than 20 minutes and my hope is that the teachers will have walked away thinking about potential ways they can use these tools in their own classroom in the future.

The thing that I am most proud of is allowing these students to have the opportunity to be part of authentic learning. The problem put before them was "The teachers want to learn more about tech tools." These kids showed up at 7:30am this morning (even though on Wednesdays their day starts at 9:00am) and enthusiastically taught their teachers what they knew. They supported without "doing it for them." Every one of them left feeling accomplished, needed, and fulfilled in what they participated in this morning. Students want authentic learning and to share their learning more globally. The morning of sharing with the lower school teachers and the website they created for reference allowed them this opportunity. Remember, this was an elective. Think on that for a moment!

Educators as Learning Catalyst Collaborators

Collaborator - Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems. Educators:

• Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.
• Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues.
• Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.
• Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.

"Research has shown the power of collaboration in improving educator practice" (Ronfeldt, Farmer, McQueen, & Grissom, 2015). Creating opportunities in the day for students to have authentic learning opportunities while collaborating with myself or others makes learning relevant to our students.  To acknowledge the fact that teachers no longer have to be the "sage on the stage" imparting all knowledge on our students creates a sense of collaborative learning that grows both the teacher and student. Leveraging technology to knock down the walls of our classrooms to multiple viewpoints and experts creates opportunities for all of us to grow in our learning journeys on any topic.  

Last year we had a group of middle school students that would secretly look up information that their teachers shared with them to see if they were "true" or not. What a great opportunity for teachers to allow those challenges in the classroom and grow forward from them with their students. Personally, I can see a future of using iOT devices in classroom for just these types of challenge moments. Siri, Google, or Alexa could share information with all the students at the same time on the challenged topic. This would allow for students to learn how to do better key internet searches together.

Many teachers fear that their students know more about technology than they do and therefore they don't want it in the classroom. What if we harnessed their knowledge by empowering them to diagnose and discover educational technology issues and tools? Last year I had the joy of working with a group of elementary students that chose to be a part of an elementary tech team. This team empowered them to help others in our school with tech issues. See their website here: https://sites.google.com/a/ccsk12.com/ccstechteam/

I am so thankful for the Google Suites for Education that allow me to collaborate with teachers and students in real time through the use of Google Hangouts, Calendars, Docs, Slides, etc. Leveraging digital real-time tools allows for more group projects to enhance the 21st century skills they need for the future. One of my favorite lessons was when a teacher friend of mine that lives in the Philippines stayed up despite the 12 hour difference for a Skype call with seventh graders learning about Eastern Civilization. This teacher's father actually is in the history books in the Philippines because he was a key soldier during the 1989 coup.  What a real world opportunity for our students! Creating learning environments that teach us and our students about cultural identities can be enhanced through the use of technology to understand those cultural differences. 

What I love about this standard is that there is no expectation on a teacher to know know all the answers. The onus is on the teacher to learn along side the student. This creates a culture of teachers as facilitators of learning and gives ownership to the students for their path of learning. In the immortal words of Albert Einstein,  "education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think."