Principle #10: An Evolution Through a Familiar Avenue

  This is not only my last post of 2019, but also the last post of a series of 10 which focused on 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning.  The goal for me was to reflect on each of the 10 principles as they compare to what is currently taking place in our school district.   Overall, we have some growing to do, but that is something that is #1 not a surprise and #2 is expected as spelled out in principle #10 for schools of Modern Learning.

Principle #10: Modern Schools embrace and anticipate constant change and evolution.

     This is where my science background comes in handy as I tend to view many things through the lens of  Biology. Viewing Schools as a Greenhouse and The Red Queen Effect are just two examples of applying that Biology lens to schooling.  In this case, principle #10 points out that schools need to be in a constant evolution in order to stay relevant, which is basically The Red Queen Effect as applied to the culture of schools and not just individual professional development.  This is the challenge as the ability to change a culture, by definition, is a much harder task than to change the view of an individual. However, “little drops of water and little grains of sand make the mighty oceans and the pleasant land…,” so with this in mind I would like to suggest how our district can continue our evolution.

     The foundations of this evolution are really already in place.  Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) provide an avenue to come together and build collective efficacy as mentioned in an early blog post.  This structure  allows us to work towards building a culture from day one that is student centered and focused on continuous improvement and growth for all.  I suspect you remember from Biology class that evolution is connected to the phrase “survival of the fittest” which is the common description for natural selection.  However, the phrase I emphasized when teaching about natural selection was “survival of the best fit.” The reason for this slight play on words is because often times the “fittest” did not survive (think of dinosaurs), but instead those that best fit into the pressures from the current environment.  It is these “pressures” that are the real driver of the evolution that takes place because without the pressure there is no need to change and therefore no evolution.

     If we want schools to evolve, there needs to be a similar environmental “pressure” that drives the needed changes.  Those pressures arise from the opportunities to stay abreast of changes both inside and outside education and those opportunities can arise during professional development.  It is through PLCs that we can support innovation and trying new things from a pedagogical standpoint. The conversations and reflections about the innovations that take place during a PLC meeting serve to provide the pressure for change in the form of “discomfort and depth” while at the same time allow teachers to follow and share current best practices.  PLCs are professional development opportunities that are valuable because they are considered to be both continuous and job embedded.

Job embedded professional development gives teachers the time to collaborate and focus more on assessments for learning (formative assessments).  It also promotes peer-driven networks focused on student learning which help teachers shift the prime motivator of success from the fear factor of standardized tests to the peer factor of collaboration with a focus on student learning as a measure of success (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2010).  Linda Darling-Hammond has supported this idea stating, “Effective professional development is sustained, ongoing, content-focused, and embedded in professional learning communities where teachers work over time on problems of practice with other teachers in their subject area or school” (Darling-Hamond, 2010, p. 266).  

PLCs do provide more time for teachers to work together which has the potential to lead to an increase in student learning.  However, “For [teachers] to learn from one another, they must readily share information about their success and failures, as medical professionals do, rather than act as rivals in a struggle for survival” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 228).  Therefore, if teachers are to be most effective they must not work in competition or in isolation, but instead work together to diagnose why a student is struggling much like doctors diagnose a patient when making rounds. These teachers should also use data to inform instruction rather than drive instruction.  

So, in the end, I believe PLCs provide the avenue to “embrace and anticipate constant change and evolution” that schools of modern learning demand.  They are the best way for us to build and support a culture that promotes continuous improvement which will provide the pressure needed to lead to an evolution of our schools.

References

Darling-Hammond, Linda (2010).  The Flat World and Education.  New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hargreaves, Andy & Shirley, Dennis (2010).  The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Ravitch, Diane (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System:  How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Communicating Service to Our Communities (Principle #9)

Principle #9:  Modern Schools encourage community wide participation in the equitable, effective, educaton of children.

     I’ve  mentioned the importance of getting the community in the schools and the schools in the community in a post titled Connecting to the Community to Enrich the School Narrative, so I will try not to go down that path in this post.  I do think it is important to recognize that Principle #9 is the second (Principle #5) to emphasize the importance of the community and school connection.

    Principle #5, which focuses on real world application, differs slightly from principle #9.  Where the former focuses on young people in schools getting into the community the latter emphasizes getting the community into the schools.  This is a fine line that schools must walk, but I think it boils down to communication. Most communities trust their schools and often acquiesce to the expertise of the teachers and principals as long as they are kept in the loop.  It is important for schools to communicate to all parents and be sure not to listen to just the loudest parents. One way to help avoid this trap is to set up a consistent way to communicate with parents and the community as a whole.   Meeting with community leaders in order to not only share the vision of the school, but to revisit it with examples from the school is important. This can be done through organizations that are already established such as Rotary, Chamber of Commerce,  and Parent Teacher Organizations to name a few examples. By communicating with these groups we provided a narrative beyond the test scores and rankings which they can then share with other members of the community. These relationships also allow the schools to keep a pulse on the needs and concerns of the community.  This is important because a district which has the flexibility to adapt to not only the needs of the young people in school, but the needs of the community surrounding the school will be one that will be valued and supported.

Aurora Learners-Future Ready (Principle #8)

Very rarely does the title of a blog post come to my mind before the actual post is written.  Similar to writing an introductory paragraph for a paper, I typically write the body of the blog and then try to come up with a title based on the overall message.  However, this morning “Aurora Learners-Future Ready” immediately came to mind after reading Principle #8 from the 10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning. 

Principle #8:  Modern Schools develop and communicate in powerful ways new stories of learning, teaching and modern context for schooling.

The reason “Aurora Learners-Future Ready” popped in my head is because it is one of the proposed “mantras” for our district’s new Strategic Vision.  I say “one of the mantras” because there are two out there. I like this particular mantra, which was actually proposed by one of the students on the committee, because it speaks to Principle #8.  Besides, you can’t go wrong when young people play a key role in your district’s strategic vision. To be honest, the strategic vision is not technically finalized, so I am not going to reveal too much of it just yet.  However, I can share some information obtained from an anonymous source within the committee. :)

     It is no secret that I believe schools should not be run as a factory or a business, but that schools should instead be looked to as a greenhouse.  (See Adopting a Greenhouse Philosophy for Schools).  The metaphor for schools as a greenhouse works because nurturing takes place in both a school and a greenhouse.  In a greenhouse the roots of plants are nurtured so that as they develop they will be able to successfully anchor and support the plant no matter the environment outside the greenhouse.  The analogous “roots” of students which are nurtured in schools are the soft skills students develop that are not seen on the surface nor are easily measured. Nonetheless, these “soft skills” or “competencies”  help anchor and support the young person no matter where they lay down their roots once they leave school. It is the development of these “roots” or “competencies” of the young people attending Aurora Schools that our strategic vision is built upon.  

     We introduce this new vision of schools with the following narrative:

Today’s schools must not only build a solid foundation of academic knowledge, but also nurture a deep sense of purpose and self in young people. These young people are not merely students, but LEARNERS with a skill set that prepares them to be successful in an ever changing world.  The following six competencies paint a portrait of our areas of emphasis for all young people (K-12) in the Aurora City Schools as defined by community stakeholders. 

This narrative ties in nicely with the aforementioned mantra:  Aurora Learners-Future Ready This mantra is a sound byte that can easily be shared and when combined with the strategic vision visual will help build the capacity of our community to understand the changes required for a modern education.  I would love to dive deeper into the competencies, but as I mentioned earlier, they are not yet official. Instead, I will just say that they are congruent with A New Narrative for our Schools introduced on this blog in September and leave the rest for another time.   

Using Technology Less for Teaching & More for Learning

With apologies to Charles Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was an opportunity to use technology to expand thinking, it was a requirement to store technology in pockets, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.  So goes the story of young people as they travel from classroom to classroom throughout the school day.

Principle 7: Modern Schools use technology as an amplifier for learning, creating, connecting, communicating, and problem solving.

  One of the more puzzling observations I have made in our district, one in which we are one-to-one with chromebooks in grades 2-12, is the mounting of cell phone holders on some classrooms walls.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, see the picture at the left. Someone came up with the idea to take a shoe holder for your closet (pictured on the right), put numbers on it, and then market it to schools as a good idea.  Students enter the classroom, take out their cell phone, and place it in the presumably assigned pocket number so that the cell phone does not become a distraction during class. Before anyone gets too worked up about this observation, one way or the other, I am NOT saying that valuable learning isn’t taking place in classrooms with these cell phone holders.  I am just saying that schools are sending a mixed message to young people concerning the value of technology in the age of information if these pocketed cellphone holders co-exist with one-to-one technology. If this is a familiar dilemma in your district,two questions you might ask are:

How are young people and adults using technology to learn?

To what extent are personal devices controlled by the user?

     “In the modern, globally connected work and life environment, everyone is expected to have skills that allow them to both consume and create content for the Web and that show an ability to connect, collaborate, and problem solve” (Richardson & Dixon, 2017, p.14). This is a big part of the reason that schools have spent public funds to provide young people access to the internet via one-to-one devices. However, these devices should not only be used as electronic versions of chalkboards, notebooks, or filmstrips.  They instead should provide opportunities for young people in schools to think and learn differently than in past school environments. In other words we need to help young people to take advantage of all the information that is now available to them. Today learning in schools should be less about accumulating information and more about learning to use information.  We could get lost with all the different ways chromebooks can be used to help young people to learn how to learn, so instead I wanted to share three ways in which we are using technology to help young people think, create, and problem solve differently in Aurora.  

     The first is the use of Bee Bots in our kindergarten classrooms.  These little guys allow our kindergarteners to collaborate and problem solve how to “program” the bee to travel through a series of steps that they can determine or that is given to them as a challenge.  The Bee Bots basically provide the opportunity to allow for learning and discovery involving programmatic thinking through play. That is to say young people learning socially with no direct instruction.  I’ve seen these guys in action and it is amazing some of the conversations, thinking, and application through collaborating that are taking place between these 5 to 6 year olds. A second use of technology that promotes thinking and is completely controlled by young people is the use of Dash Robots in our second grade classrooms.  This technology allows the second graders (and eventually first graders once our pilot is done) to think programmatically through scratch coding.  The second graders have loved the challenge of getting the robots to do various tasks and again the conversations and thinking are impressive.  Finally, the third way of promoting thinking, collaborating, and problem solving is being used in the 5th grade with the goal of expanding to 3rd and 4th for the second semester.  This group of young people are using Turing Tumble to promote programmatic thinking using this more mechanical versus electrical set-up.  These young people are learning to think logically, visualize what moves will need to be made, collaborate to determine what parts need to be placed where, and basically develop their ability to problem solve.  Each of these activities are great examples of what can be done in all classrooms, but they do come across as more of an add on than a daily use of technology. The reason why I bring them up is all three demonstrate how we can use technology to help young people create, collaborate, and problem solve.  These same skills can be applied everyday in the classroom with some forethought on how to use chromebooks in a similar manner. The key is to use technology to promote the process over producing a product. If we can use this as our guiding factor for the use of technology in each of our classrooms there will be a clear message to young people on the value of using technology to promote learning in the Information Age.

References

Richardson, Will & Dixon, Bruce (2017).  10 Principles for Schools of Modern 

     Learning.  White Paper from modernlearners.com.