Making Lemonade out of Lemons

I wasn’t planning on posting this week as I was literally supposed to be on a plane to Key West with my wife to celebrate our 25th Anniversary as I type this blog.  First World problems. :) We both are very appreciative and realize we are blessed to be healthy, along with our children, in these uncertain times. So, thanks to COVID-19, I decided to practice some cognitive jiu-jitsu on myself and think about how we can take advantage of the current situation that has schools closed with the expectation for some form of on-line learning to take place at home.

     Two concepts popped in my mind as I started to look at the upside of what is taking place.  The first is that we have always known the importance of the community/school connection. That is to say we are always trying to find ways to get the community in the schools and the schools out into the community.  Today we find ourselves in a scenario in which the schools are in the community as each parent is now getting a small dose of what is taking place in the classroom. I say a small dose because, as you know, what is going home is just a shadow of the activities, conversations, and learning taking place on a daily basis in the classroom.  However, I think this is a great opportunity for parents to gain a better understanding of our approach to teaching and learning. With that said, it is very important to avoid the curriculum delivery model approach when designing on-line lessons. These lessons must not be about covering content, but instead focusing on the opportunities for LEARNING.  

     These opportunities for learning give parents a chance to see how schools have evolved since they attended.  In our district, we are fortunate to have two outstanding Academic Coaches in Jen Miller, our ELA Specialist, and Cara Morelos, our Math Specialist.  Cara and Jen used our math and ELA frameworks and each designed an on-line lesson that was then shared with teachers as a potential model to focus less on content delivery and more on the learning.   As you can see in the K-1 and 2-5 ELA Online Activity Framework and the K-5 Math Online Activity Framework, there is a heavy emphasis on nurturing the skills for reading, writing, and mathematics.  If parents see their kids working on activities such as these, the conversations at home will be more focused on what a young person learned today rather than what they covered today.  This is why it is so important to stay away from worksheets and/or “activities” that check off the box of covering content. Parents might be more willing to acquiesce to this approach for their children in grades K-5, but many will worry that in grades 6-12 this approach won’t work as there is typically a heavier curriculum coverage focus.

    I was happy to see that even the College Board, the group that is responsible for Advanced Placement courses and testing, recognized that this time should not be about covering content.  In their most recent update, published on 3/20/20, the College Board has slashed units and expectations of covering content for each of their courses and emphasized the reduced testing that will be done is going to be focused less on content and more on application (free response).   Although it is not official yet, the writing is on the wall for Ohio to cancel the state testing for grades 3-11 as well. Once this takes place, which I believe will happen by next week, the imaginary shackles we have put on ourselves for covering the content will also be removed leaving an opportunity for this on-line experience to be about the learning that can take place at home.  In education, time is currency, that is to say, what we spend our time on is what we value. This is a great opportunity to design activities and on-line environments that have young people spending more time on building and applying skills and less on covering content. It is more important than ever for teachers to consider our Design Specifications for Learning Environments when developing on-line lessons.   Designing activities such as these will also steer us away from the second concept we should take advantage of under the current situation which is an opportunity to de-emphasize points and grades.

      It is understood this opportunity for learning can not take the place of the face-to-face and day-to-day interactions that occur during a typical school day and our goal should not be to try to replicate the classroom experience.   As a result, our expectations should not be to assign points or grades to activities, but rather provide actionable feedback to the work which young people submit through this process. Actionable or formative feedback focuses on where the young person’s current understanding of a concept is and what are the next best steps for that individual’s learning.  The actionable part allows young people to set goals with the support of their teacher and starts a dialog between the two that can be revisited and expanded over time. This changes the narrative from completion and coverage to learning and growth. When parents hear and see this new narrative they will begin to have a better understanding of how schooling is evolving since they last attended.  

     As parents become more familiar with the focus on skill-building taking place in schools, they will begin to change their own understanding of what schools should look and sound like.  Expectations and discussions will shift away from points and grades and toward skills and growth. This online learning/homeschooling scenario can provide the opportunity for parents to see and begin to articulate this new narrative.  By creating/nurturing online environments that provide opportunities for this process, we will not only be emphasizing a school culture that prepares young people for life, but we will also be embracing a connection to the community which will enrich the narrative of our schools far beyond scores and rankings.  What if those experiences demonstrate a narrative shift from the school being an “A” district to being a district that prepares young people for life?  How do the schools prepare young people for life?  In grades K-12, the schools design learning environments that honor identity through relationships, understand learning is social, nurture innovation, value process over product, and go beyond points and grades.   This is how we make lemonade out of the lemons we have been given.

A Purpose, A Vision & A Process

A Purpose 

     In his book “The Greatest Generation,” Tom Brokaw speaks of an overwhelming driving force that provided an opportunity for ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary tasks.  This force was a sense of common purpose. Brokaw remembers from when he was five, “Looking back, I can recall that the grown-ups all seemed to have a sense of purpose...there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small”(Brokaw, 1998, p.11).  The theme is revisited throughout the book in the many stories he shares. This sense of common purpose for Americans to defeat the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy), the driving force at the time, provided them the opportunity to rise to the occasion. I can think of no more powerful example of the value of a shared vision or common purpose.  The power behind a common purpose can be easily connected to building our school culture through the metaphor of looking at schools as a greenhouse.

     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.  

A Vision

     The Aurora City Schools Strategic Vision stresses the importance of focusing on the whole child which aligns with the Ohio Department of Education’s “Each Child- Our Future” vision.  We believe 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.  This vision, Aurora Learners-Future Ready, is intended to serve as a guide or north star for the day to day learning taking place in grades PreK-12 and is composed of six competencies which help to support Aurora Learners to be future ready.

    These competencies:  Balanced, Resilient, Innovative, Collaborative, Empathetic, and being a Critical Thinker function as the aforementioned “roots” when thinking about Schools as a Greenhouse.  The greenhouse is intended to provide the ideal conditions for the plant’s roots to develop, so that those roots will be able to anchor, support, and provide nutrients to the plant no matter the environment in which the plant is placed once it leaves the greenhouse.  So too should the environment in our schools nurture the “roots” of young people as these “roots” will allow young people to be anchored and supported no matter the environment (school, work, or military) in which they place down their roots. As we work to nurture these competencies  of the young people who attend our schools these “roots” grow deeper and stronger year by year throughout their PreK-12 experience so that in the end the young people who attend the Aurora City Schools will be deeply rooted and prepared to contribute once they graduate.

A Process

     The common purpose of creating schools that act as a greenhouse combined with the vision of providing an environment which will nurture the competencies that prepare young people to be successful once they leave our schools need to be combined with one more element in order to be successful and that is a way or process in which to make this come to fruition.  In other words, we need a process that is able to address just HOW the purpose and vision can be fulfilled.  

     The first step towards creating such an environment is more mental than physical.  It is a mindshift for all educators that require us to shift from the mindset of a curriculum delivery model for teachers to one in which teachers instead design environments for learning.  These environments ideally put young people in situations which allow them to recognize patterns within the new information, create relationships between the concepts introduced, and make connections to their past learning.  This process requires teachers to consider certain requirements or specifications when creating or designing activities and lessons. Considering these specifications when designing lessons are HOW the purpose and vision become reality.

     The shift from a traditional model of schools which emphasizes curriculum delivery to a model in which young people are prepared for life can be made if we focus on five main ideas or specifications when designing our classroom environments.

Specification 1: Honoring Identity Through Relationships

Specification 2: Learning is Social 

Specification 3: Nurturing Innovation

Specification 4: Process vs. Product

Specification 5: Beyond Points and Grades

How this will look will be very different for a first grade classroom than in a Calculus class, but the five specifications serve as a common framework for teachers to consider.  If classroom activities and lessons are designed with these specifications in mind, instead of focusing on covering content through the curriculum delivery model, the purpose and vision we have proposed for young people in schools will be fulfilled no matter the age level.  

      A school culture  in which all educators (teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists, etc.) focus on a common purpose, vision, and process for developing young people’s ability to learn (Nurture the Roots) more than the curriculum to be delivered or the scores students produce is why we went into education, what our parents want, and how kids need to learn.

References

Brokaw, Tom. (1998).  The Greatest Generation.  New York, NY.: Random House.

Culling Fears Part 4: The Power of Empowering

This is the fourth and final post of a series on  Culling Fears of Classroom Cultural Shifts.  The first blog of the series focused on why it is important to design classroom environments which promote learning and stretch young people while at the same time avoid an amygdala hijacking caused by triggers of anxiety.  This week I wanted to finish discussing the “why” by continuing to address just how the Design Specifications for Learning Environments can lower anxiety and as a result promote learning.

     As a reminder, below is a chart which summarizes the connection between the social interaction elements found in schools which could lead to threats or fears (i.e. anxiety) that undermine learning and the design specifications to consider when creating learning environments to counter these threats.

SOCIAL INTERACTION ELEMENTS THAT ACTIVATE THREATS & THE ENVIRONMENTS THAT WE CAN DESIGN TO COUNTER THE THREAT

Element	Description & Threat (Hammond, 2015, p.65)	Design Specs to Counter the Threat
Standing	One’s sense of importance relative to others.  Threat = not belonging/being expelled	-Beyond Points & Grades -Honoring Identity Through Relationships
Certainty	One’s need for clarity and predictability. Threat = embarrassment/not knowing what to do	-Nurturing Innovation
Control	One’s sense of empowerment. Threat = being told what to do, where to go, how to behave	-Honoring Identity Through Relationships
Connection	One’s sense of connection and security with others. Threat = fear of being an outsider/excluded	-Learning is Social
Equity	One’s sense of fairness and non-biased exchange with others. Threat = feeling of being disadvantaged or others being advantaged	-Process vs. Product -Honoring Identity Through Relationships

This week’s focus is on designing environments that take into account our natural concerns for control, connections, and equity when working with others.

The Power of Empowering 

     Most, but not all, educators recognize the importance of having an engaging classroom environment over one that is dependent on compliance.  However, even an engaging classroom environment can end up triggering an amygdala hijacking if a young person is being told what to do, where to go, and how to behave during an activity.  Yes, the students are engaged during the activity, but because the activity is being controlled by the teacher, the young people still bear the burden of trying to follow what the teacher wants them to do which includes the uncertaining of,“Are we doing this right?”  If the lesson/activity is designed with honoring identity through relationships in mind, then it will naturally shift the power from the teachers thinking to the thinking of the young people completing the activity and by default provide more voice, choice, and empowerment.  Activities designed with empathy and voice in mind can move an engaging activity to become an empowering activity.  

     As an example,  “cookbook” labs in science class (these require students to follow step-by-step instructions) are often engaging activities, but fall short of being empowering for young people.  A typical “engaging” cookbook lab might require students in a middle school science class to travel to each station, follow directions which include a series of steps such as “use your ruler to measure…”, “take a stopwatch…”, “measure the speed of…”, “fill in the data table”, etc. at one station.  The students then go to the next station and repeatedly follow the same directions. The lesson is engaging, as the students are up and moving around, but is not very empowering or based in science inquiry. The same lesson, when honoring identity through relationships, can go from an engaging lesson to an empowering lesson by instead presenting a question for the young people to wonder about and investigate rather than a set of directions to follow.  It might look like this “My Money is on the Monkey.”  In this format, the same objectives are being met, but the approach is one that allows young people to be in control of their thinking, more engaged, and less likely to fall victim of an amygdala hijacking.  Of course, yielding some control or empowering young people is not the only fear young people face in the classroom or out of the classroom for that matter.

     Making connections and concerns of equity are also on the minds of young people and should be on the minds of adults when designing lessons/activities for young people.  Keeping the same science cookbook activities as our example, these labs stress following directions and emphasize the teacher’s thinking. If we can instead keep the fact that learning is social in mind when designing activities and focus on the process of learning over the product we can naturally reduce the anxiety young people would feel during the activity.  As an example, young people who need time to process what they think and read about fall victim to inequity during a cookbook lab situation because they are often left behind during the lab.  Students who process thinking faster often take over the cookbook lab with the goal of getting it done (the product) over thinking about the connections to what they are learning (the process).  In this case, none of the students make the connections that the teachers hope that they make, but the appearance of understanding is presented because the lab gets done. Labs which are designed to have a “low floor and high ceiling” (like My Money is on the Monkey) allow for multiple entry points for different levels of thinkers and are designed to promote collaboration because they provide multiple ways to tackle the same problem.  These types of labs also emphasize connections between lab groups or partners because they end up being more interdependent as different ideas on how to answer the question at hand are able to be discussed. As different ideas are discussed and used, young people are able to feel ownership (empowered) and part of the group (connectedness). This will minimize the chance for an amygdala hijacking because the young person’s brain remains relatively safe (due to being connected) and happy (thanks to being empowered).  [I do feel the need to include a disclaimer here, especially when it comes to science labs. As a Biology and Chemistry teacher, I am aware that not ALL labs can be designed like this as saftey needs to be the number one priority. However, there are many opportunities for designing activites like this where appropriate. :) ]

     The Design Specifications for Learning Environments discussed in this series of blog posts provide an avenue to reduce anxiety in our schools.  They are how we can work towards creating classrooms which nurture young people to be able to be more: balanced, resilient, innovative, collaborative, empathetic, and of course better critical thinkers.  The design specs are able to nurture these competencies because they provide the conditions which lower the probability of an amygdala hijacking and as a result create better environments for learning because our young people (and their brain) feel more safe and happy.

References

Hammond, Zaretta (2015).  Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Publishing.

Culling Fears Part 3: Nurturing Innovation & Certainty

  This is the third of a series on Culling Fears of Classroom Cultural Shifts.  The first blog of the series focused on why it is important to design classroom environments which promote learning and stretch young people while at the same time avoid an amygdala hijacking caused by triggers of anxiety.  This week I wanted to follow up on the “why” by continuing to discuss just how the Design Specifications for Learning Environments can lower anxiety and as a result promote learning.

     Below is a chart which summarizes the connection between the social interaction elements found in schools which could lead to threats or fears (i.e. anxiety) that undermine learning and the design specifications to consider when creating learning environments to counter these threats.

SOCIAL INTERACTION ELEMENTS THAT ACTIVATE THREATS & THE ENVIRONMENTS THAT WE CAN DESIGN TO COUNTER THE THREAT

Element	Description & Threat (Hammond, 2015, p.65)	Design Specs to Counter the Threat
Standing	One’s sense of importance relative to others.  Threat = not belonging/being expelled	-Beyond Points & Grades -Honoring Identity Through Relationships
Certainty	One’s need for clarity and predictability. Threat = embarrassment/not knowing what to do	-Nurturing Innovation
Control	One’s sense of empowerment. Threat = being told what to do, where to go, how to behave	-Honoring Identity Through Relationships
Connection	One’s sense of connection and security with others. Threat = fear of being an outsider/excluded	-Learning is Social
Equity	One’s sense of fairness and non-biased exchange with others. Threat = feeling of being disadvantaged or others being advantaged	-Process vs. Product -Honoring Identity Through Relationships

This week’s focus is on designing environments that reduce uncertaining through routines which promote innovation.

Countering Uncertaining with Certainty

    Our brain, specifically the amygdala, does not like uncertainty and much more prefers predictability.  That is why it is easy to fall into the trap of swooping in to “save” students who start to struggle or who say, “I don’t understand” immediately after a problem or challenge is introduced.  When this happens this feels like we are teaching, and being told what to do is interpreted by students as learning, because after all they now know what to do for that situation. So in the end, everyone is happy because we all just avoided an amygdala hijacking, yet we also avoided an opportunity for the young person to learn.  Instead, if we are more intentional about routinely putting young people in situations that encourages them to think differently we can create a classroom culture that promotes learning while still avoiding the dreaded amygdala hijacking. This can be done if we keep in mind Nurturing Innovation when designing learning environments for young people.

     The brain develops according to how it's used and therefore environments should promote active reflection and productive struggle by giving young people meaningful practice in iterating through failure, even at the cost of efficiency.   The key adjectives here being productive and meaningful. Young people need to first connect to the problem in some way. This is the first challenge when designing activities. We must keep empathy on the forefront of our mind when designing lessons.  An important question to ask ourselves is, “How can we grab a young person’s attention with a “hook” or draw them in with a connection to the past?”   Once a connection to the problem is made, we have to next design the activity in such a way that it accounts for the variety of hurdles or potholes that young people will encounter along the way.  This does not mean that we remove the barriers and fill the holes for them, but instead design environments that routinely put young people in situations which allow them to remove the barrier or skirt around the hole on their own.  This can be done if we design low floor/high ceiling challenges and activities. Such activities or situations provide multiple entry points that not only promote productive struggle, but also routinely put young people in situations that help them to build a tolerance to uncertainty.  In essence, they start to become more resilient as they establish habits that will assist them in achieving goals and rethink a chosen process after reflection.  If we can design environments in which this routinely happens, young people (along with their amygdalas) will begin to think differently when confronting a challenge and will as a result start to become more desensitized to uncertainty when they meet it. They will instead develop a routine that asks,  “What is the next best step?” This routine will actually reduce the uncertainty that arises when a challenge or obstacle is met and will allow the young person to think clearly about what to do next.  By doing this, they become more innovative in their approach to thinking and will start to be able to “know what to do when they don’t know what to do.” This action alone is the hallmark of a LEARNER who is becoming more future ready.       (AURORA LEARNERS-FUTURE READY)

Thanks for Reading.  Next Week: Control, Connections, & Equity