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.