by Andrew K. Miller | May 18, 2011 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on ASCD Express, a regular ASCD Publication focused on critical topics in education. This article appeared in Vol 6. Number 12, the focus topic being effective school turnaround models and practices. View Original >
Turnaround schools have a unique situation and potential. Because of their mandate to overhaul a school and depart from business as usual, turnaround schools have the ability to create an appropriate culture from the ground up. Professional learning communities (PLCs) can be an ideal way to build that culture.
A PLC refers to a group of educators purposefully collaborating to focus on learning for all students and holding themselves accountable to the results, explains Richard DuFour. DuFour worries that PLCs are at a “critical juncture” where both effective and ineffective implementation has occurred.
A PLC, done well, can be a great tool to build and sustain an effective culture for all members of the school, especially if the staff drives it. However, I have often seen PLCs that aren’t really PLCs. This happens when the administration imposes it from the top down. There’s a lack of buy-in among staff members, who see it as just “another thing to do.”
The following tips can help a turnaround school take advantage of the opportunity to build an effective PLC from scratch.
Have Everyone Create the Norms of the PLC
When first starting your PLC, norms and operating procedures need to be established. It is imperative that these come organically from the entire staff.
These should be a set of four to six norms that are continually referred to throughout the year. They should also be short and pithy. As new staff members are integrated, these should be refined and revisited. It will help foster authentic communication, organization, and trust.
Separate Meetings on School Logistics from Professional Development Time
When it comes down to the week-to-week, there needs to be a separation between professional development and staff meetings about school logistics. These logistical or nuts-and-bolts conversations might be about signing out textbooks, a new disciplinary procedure or protocol in communications with students or parents, announcements from student groups, and even technical support accessing the learning management system. All are necessary discussions, but they need to be separated from PLC conversations. For example, professional development about the integration of technology into the classroom is different from training in the technology tool that will be used.
Schools should consider using technology to disseminate logistical information. Can you use an online forum to change problem wording on a schoolwide document? Can you use e-mail effectively to disseminate critical information? Can you record jings or webinars to train teachers in your school’s technology? The answer to all these is yes! Differentiate between the two uses of valuable staff time so that you can guarantee that the professional development time is sacred and reserved for critical reflection and growth as a professional.
Create Opportunities for Staff to Evaluate and Be Evaluated
All too often, there is one evaluator of a teacher. However, we all know the collective wisdom that is in the room: everyone in the school community and on teaching staff has strengths and weaknesses. Present evaluation protocols and criteria clearly and openly. Have staff members and administrators practice using them in a variety of classroom visits. Build in reflection time and goal setting. When evaluation becomes ongoing and done through a lens of trust and community, it becomes less stressful.
Keep a Focus on Mission, Vision, and Identity
Often, turnaround schools get an influx of funds, and the temptation is to spend it on a variety of resources and training programs. If you have multiple curricula, tools, and structures, it can often be just as burdensome to the new teacher as to the new PLC. A school might try to be a standards-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), PBL (problem-based learning), or RTI (response to intervention) school that uses a variety of technologies and hybrid learning. Once you start doing everything, it becomes daunting and teachers can easily burn out. Educators recognize the common experience of doing too much and trying to meet the needs of everyone. Whether a school calls itself a problem-based learning STEM school, a hybrid career tech academy, or a standards-based RTI school, keep your focus.
Find the few things that really align to your mission, vision, and identity. It will keep professional development relevant and focused and increase morale for the entire PLC. If you feel that you can’t lose a piece, find how it might fit under the umbrella of a larger component.
Just like in a good PLC, use these selected tips and strategies to build a culture-shifting PLC from the ground up so that it will be sustainable. Do it the right way—or don’t do it at all.
by Andrew K. Miller | May 10, 2011 | Blog, Edutopia
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
Let’s be honest. Designing PBL for Math can be a different beast. With the pressure of high-stakes testing and a packed curriculum, I often coach teachers who are nervous about giving time to a robust PBL project. In addition, because of the plethora of math standards, it can be difficult to choose the right learning target(s) for the project. Here are some tips for teachers designing individual Math PBL projects.
Reframe the term “Real Life” Math
Many standards include the idea of applying math to real life. We all want this as teachers. We want our students to not only see the connection in math to real life, but also to explore them. Below is an example from the Math Common Core Standards.
Solve real-life and mathematical problems using numerical and algebraic expressions and equations.
3. Solve multi-step real-life and mathematical problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form (whole numbers, fractions and decimals) using tools strategically. Apply properties of operations to calculate with numbers in any form; fonvert between forms as appropriate; and assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies. For example: If a woman making $25 an hour gets a 10% raise, she will make an additional 1/10 of her salary an hour, or $2.50, for a new salary of $27.50. If you want to place a towel bar 9 3/4 inches in the center of a door that is 27 1/2 inches wide, you will need to place the bar about 9 inches from each edge; this estimate can be used as a check on the exact computation.
4. Use variables to represent quantities in a real-world or mathematical proble, and construct simple equations and inequalities to solve problems by reasoning about the quantities
There are many more standards like this throughout the Common Core that related to “real life” math. This is a great place to start, but we can do better. I think the real potential lies in the redefining the word “problem.” I think this term has been sampled over the years. When you say “math problem” we often envision an equation, whether that be word or simple calculation to solve. Couldn’t it be more? What if the problem was that we need to find the most cost effective design for a classroom, given materials and certain parameters? What if the problem were to predict what would happen if the oil spill in the Gulf had not been stopped, and using this information to convince policy makers to make changes in environmental protections? What if the problem was to create a salary schedule for the student store to reward hard workers while still keeping a profit? These are the types of ideas teachers need to be having when thinking about the word “problem” in math. The old definition of the word “problem” is not rigorous. Redefining the word “problem” within the frame of Project-Based Learning is rigorous, and still demands real world connections in an authentic way.
Pick or Make the Appropriate Time
I know the structures in place for Math teachers. Sometimes there is not enough time for a project. Sometimes, it’s just not the best use of time. If a standard needs to be covered in a short week unit, then it isn’t the best place for a project. However, if there is a 3-week unit coming up around a specific math learning target, this would be a great opportunity to create a project. There is time and space for you the teacher to get your “feet wet” in implementing the project. In addition, you might be able to combine the learning targets in a project that seem to fit together. Your allow time increases and you can have students create products that demonstrate learning of both targets or standards. As a teacher, be creative with the time you have, either in looking for the best opportunity or creating an opportunity.
Pick a Standard with Easy Real-Life Application
“Don’t try to fit a square peg through a round hole.” Sometimes you can try too hard to make a PBL project align to a math standard. Some are easier than others to align. Pick standards that you know or have seen used in real life. If you are unsure, ask you colleagues. I like to say, “The Wisdom is in the room.” I’m sure your colleagues, whether it be math teachers or CTE teachers have some great ideas. Pick standards that clearly can have a practical purpose in analyzing a problem and/or design a solution to that problem. It is much easier to teach Right angle triangles, number sense, or graphing in a PBL project that it is factoring. (PS: I would love to hear from any teachers who have managed to create a PBL project from a seemingly difficult math standard. You rock!)
As teachers, we always have structure and forces as work, from the federal to the school level. Curriculum and Instruction can be a challenging place to navigate in these structures, especially where the curriculum and pedagogy is counter-paradigm to the traditional. I encourage teachers Math teachers specifically to give PBL a shot, regardless of the structures. Hopefully, these tips give you some strategies and comfort you enough to implement Math PBL projects in their classroom. Feel free to steal ideas from the Buck Institute for Education’s Project Search, but make it your own. Remember, if we want our students to really wrestle with rigorous math concepts, then we must create space and environment for this work to happen.
by Andrew K. Miller | May 2, 2011 | Blog, Webinars
I have an upcoming webinar next week titled “Project Based Learning Online – Essential Elements and Examples”, part of iNACOL Teacher Talk series. Next week Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 6:00 PM (Eastern). It should be a good one.
Register Now!
For teachers, project-based learning (PBL) is a “front-loaded” experience. That means considerable planning happens on the front end, before students ever enter the picture. Participants will explore the essentials elements of PBL design as well as look at example student projects from various courses, including English and Game Design. Andrew Miller will walk participants through the PBL projects of his and students’ design, looking at student products and learning management design in Moodle. Andrew will focus on what PBL looks like in a completely online environment. Suzie Boss will describe how an online PBL Camp that uses a variety of Web 2.0 tools to support professional learning, helps teachers find collaborators, invest in planning time, and gain familiarity with project-based learning strategies.
Speakers
Andrew Miller is currently an online teacher for Giant Campus in a variety of project-based courses. He is a regular blogger, writer and presenter on various topics including PBL, Culturally Responsive teaching and online education. He also serves on the National Faculty for the Buck Institute for Education, traveling the country conducting workshops for numerous schools, districts and states.
Suzie Boss is co-author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age. She contributes regularly to Edutopia and is on the National Faculty of the Buck Institute for Education.
by Andrew K. Miller | Apr 22, 2011 | Blog, InService
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
View Original >
The term “career and college ready,” or any other variation, is thrown around all the time in K-12 education with good intentions. We all want students to leave our classrooms with passion for learning, prepared for their job or their next step in education. However, you can’t simply rely on these ideas to engage your students.
One of the pitfalls to avoid with career and college readiness is just what the term can imply: “This will matter when you go to college.” Why do we default to the response that this material will help you later? For some kids, career and college has never been an option and seems well out of their realm of possibilities. Simply using it as a talking point will not break through to them. In fact, it may even create a barrier. A student could view this as a lack of understanding of their world and where they come from.
This is not to say you should never use future-oriented language. I have seen some amazing schools where the culture is “You WILL go to college,” but again, this is in the whole school’s culture, not simply a phrase that is used to try and get students engaged in the work. I think this culture of excellence needs to be paired with a culture on authenticity and relevancy in the present moment. As Chris Lehmann asked in a recent TED talk, “Why can’t what students do matter now?”
I agree. We can do better. We can show kids, through authentic and relevant tasks based in the present, that their work is important NOW. You can make students “now” ready. You can make the teaching and learning matter to them now, honoring them as crucial to creating and innovating in the current world around them.
Instead of having students investigate world religions in a traditional research paper or presentation, have them work in teams to debunk current myths, stereotypes, or misunderstandings for the local community through a variety of products and presentations. Instead of just interactive labs about the human body’s structures and systems, have students investigate current health care technologies or practices and suggest innovations and improvements in treatment. Instead of having them create a blueprint of detailed measurements and angles, have them engage in a design challenge to create a new outdoor school structure that will meet all teachers’ and students’ needs at the school (Ed. Note: see the work of 2011 Outstanding Young Educator Brad Kuntz).
Notice that in all these examples they will still learn significant content, but for an authentic purpose in the present. Making students “now” ready creates a culture of present and future excellence. Engaging students in critical thinking, rigorous work, and authentic learning today will convey the skills and content for success tomorrow.
by Andrew K. Miller | Apr 20, 2011 | Blog, edReformer
This post originally appeared on edReformer, a community of advocates, entrepreneurs, educators, policy makers, philanthropists and investors seeking to promote excellence and equity in education through innovatation. edRefomer serves as a catalyst for innovation in education by encouraging and promoting public and private investment in new learning tools, schools, and platforms. View Original >
Innovation Spotlight – Conspiracy Code
There are progressive reforms out there in online education, people and organizations who are thinking outside of the box of what it means to engage our students in the online classroom. Florida Virtual School has implemented Conspiracy Code™: American History, a game-based course in American History. It is one of the first courses of its kind to be available to students on a large scale. I like some, was intrigued by the idea, but of course had my reservations. I was lucky enough to set up a interview with Courtney Calfee, FLVS Curriculum Specialist and one of the lead curriculum designers for the project. Below is the QA from our conversation.
What was the inspiration for constructing a course like this?
Florida Virtual School (FLVS) created a partnership with 360ed, a game development company, to design the game interface and a Learning Management System. FLVS also worked with the University of Central Florida to ensure the facilitation of Caine & Caine brain-based learning in instructional design. The interactive nature of gameplay allows for higher order thinking assessment and incentivized learning through engaging gameplay. Conspiracy Code™: American History was created as an appealing, interactive game-based program with the hopes of leveraging technology to effectively engage students and teach them social studies content knowledge and skills. The historical content is tied into game interaction and storyline to create a meaningful learning experience.
Describe what an example unit looks like, including instruction methods and assessment. What do the assessments look like? Are they authentic?
Conspiracy Code™: American History is organized into 10 missions that are mostly linear, but also organized thematically to allow students to identify changes over history and gain a deeper understanding of historical content. Florida Virtual School students collect historical clues which contain a chunk of information such as text, images, video, audio, primary documents, chart, etc. To check for understanding, the student receives a mini-game following each clue that requires them to select the appropriate images for the clue, answer a Wheel of Fortune- type game, put events in order, or perform another quick content knowledge check. Throughout the game, students are on the hunt to identify enemy agents by asking them historical questions. If the character tells historical inaccuracies, the player knows that this character is an agent. The player can then challenge the agent to a content knowledge duel, which if successful, will remove the agent from the game. Students submit their Conspiracy Logs to their instructors throughout the mission and answer higher cognitive level questions about the content to ensure understanding. Students collaborate in the Forum by participating in discussions on historical content. Finally, the students complete a discussion-based assessment with their instructor and complete an authentic mission project demonstrating mastery over the content.
What data have you collected that illustrates Conspiracy Code’s success?
Conspiracy Code™: American History is currently being tested with students to validate and measure learning gains through efficacy testing. Florida Virtual School students should finalize course work and study activities through the summer months, and a report will be available by the end of the year.
How is this course culturally responsive or helps to serve the needs of all students? How is the course differentiated?
The students encounter a wide-range of characters throughout the course which allows students to see someone like them in the game. Students can take this course for honors credit and are encouraged to extend their thinking with culminating mission projects. Additionally, students are allowed to progress through the game at their own pace to allow time to digest the content and review content. The content is chunked into manageable pieces of history to help students digest information before moving on to new content. The Conspiracy Code™: American History mini-games help all students evaluate their understanding of clues before moving on to new material.
How do students collaborate with each other?
The students taking Conspiracy Code™: American History participate in a forum where they collaborate and discuss historical topics.
Regarding efficiency: How do you know that this is an efficient use of learning time?
The teachers provide constant feedback on their students’ level of engagement by conducting discussion-based assessments with their Conspiracy Code™: American History students. The documentation of the interaction demonstrates that the students gain a deeper understanding of American History than in traditional courses.
What are your plans for extending this type of course design to other FLVS courses? Will you keep the theme of “conspiracy” or branch out into other thematic games?
Future plans include a development of a middle school U.S. History course and a high school World History course using the same characters in different environments. Currently, we also have an Intensive Reading version of the course being tested in lab settings for a blended model delivery.
How do you train teachers on teaching this type of course? How is the same or different from teaching other traditional FLVS courses?
We train teachers on Conspiracy Code™: American History by giving them hands-on experience in the course. Our teachers are all very highly-qualified and knowledgeable in their own subject areas so they are already awesome teachers – we just need to train them to use their skills in a slightly different environment.
What has been your biggest learning experience as a course designer for Conspiracy Code?
The most rewarding learning experience has been to see how content goals and gameplay goals can be integrated and accomplished together.
Conspiracy Code™: American History is definitely appealing to a variety of learners and can serve as an engaging environment to learn important content. There are a variety of assessments, media and activities to check students understanding of the context, as well as learn the content initially. As the developers are reflective, they see some potential to reflect and improve upon the course. I think the next step is building authenticity for an outside audience in a course design, similar to Jane McGonigal’s Evoke project, as well as true collaboration to produce the assessments, more than simply chatting on a discussion board. Conspiracy Code™: American History is a great example of thoughtful innovation and commitment to exciting options for all students. Like Jane McGonigal says, “Gaming can make the world a better place,” so why not allow our students game to learn.
by Andrew K. Miller | Apr 20, 2011 | Blog, Whole Child Blog
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. View Original >
Project-based learning (PBL) is being embraced by schools nationally and across grade levels. Educators know that each grade level comes with its challenges as students are in a variety of developmental levels and abilities. However, through practicing 21st century skills in a PBL environment, students can build their social, emotional, and cognitive capacity.
Because the middle grades are a paradigm shift for most students, middle-grades teachers are presented with an exciting opportunity to engage 21st century learners, but they also need to keep in mind that these students need unique scaffolding.
As someone who taught using PBL at the middle-grades level, I have seen students be very successful, with careful and deliberate scaffolding. Of course, there are unique challenges when working with middle-grades students, not only in terms of their development but also in terms of the level of PBL project they have accomplished previously, if any at all.
Because many students have not done PBL regularly, it is important that the PBL projects are tightly managed and teacher-directed at first. This is because you need to make it safe for students. PBL has students collaborate, present, and think critically. Although these may seem like “skills,” they are crucial to any child developmentally. Just as good teachers scaffold content learning, teachers need to scaffold this learning as well. Middle-grades students can collaborate, present, and critically think, they just require more scaffolding and focused guidance.
Below are the first stages of a PBL development guide created by Angela Dye of the Small Schools Project. I think these are great targets for teachers to use at the middle grades. I believe that if you are using PBL effectively and regularly in the classroom, students can reach stage 3 or higher by the time they leave your classroom for high school. In fact many elementary schools focus on PBL projects that would fit in steps 1 and 2; so if PBL is built into the scope and sequence of the entire life of a student, one can only imagine the amazing things students can do at the middle-grades level, let alone in high school.
Step 1: Project Taskmaster
At this level, students are connecting themselves to the problem-solving process. Here is where they commit to learning the problem by completing specific, subject-matter tasks. They take responsibility for building their knowledge base for the project. They use the computer effectively to collect and display data. They collaborate with others for accuracy of data and information. They learn to view the teacher as an advisor and not the central source for knowledge and learning.
Deliverable
- Report of problem (outlined by facilitator)
Step 2: Project Scholar
At this level, students analyze the global aspects of the problem. They are able to take the data collected and articulate a sound description of the problem. In addition, they use the Internet and other resources (other than the teacher) to add depth to their analysis.
Deliverables
- Report of problem (outlined by facilitator)
- Problem analysis
Step 3: Project Leader
At this level, students are able to use their global awareness of the problem to identify outcomes (needs) of the problem. By connecting these needs to a social institution, they then design a solution that is a concrete object, an event (or activity), or a process. Although the solution is not carried out at this level, the design is valid (researched) and applicable (realistic) and ready for implementation.
Deliverables
- Report of problem (outlined by facilitator)
- Problem analysis
- Project design
PBL is a great way to not only build skills but also foster student growth emotionally, socially, and cognitively. When students collaborate, they become social beings in a context. When students present their work, they build their emotional confidence. When students critically think, their brains are working hard. How thankful your high school will be when your middle-grades students leave you as not only project leaders, but also confident and secure young adults.
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