Author: Judy Imamudeen

Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I'm not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Promoting Student Agency during #COVID-19

Promoting Student Agency during #COVID-19

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Control is an interesting concept, isn’t it? Here we are in the midst of a global pandemic and we are struggling to find some sense and meaning in this crisis. This confusion is the “white noise” that runs in the background of our minds. Within a matter of months, our lives have been turned upside down. We are bearing witness to the failure of our paradigms but where there are children, there is hope. Personally, I find the opportunity that we still can teach in this crisis to be such a refreshing part of all of this. 

But it has made me more aware of the need to develop creative problem solving and imaginative thinking. We need humans who can think for themselves and not only have the intelligence but the empathy to find solutions that benefit all of us. Perhaps it is naive of me, but I believe that if we knew better, we do better.

So I think, more than ever, we have to change our mindset and instead of  “getting through this” challenge, we really “rise above and engage” in the meaningful work that we do every day with students. Resilience has to become our new normal. 

So I think the greatest gift we can get and we can give in this experience is agency. 

(That’s still such a funny-sounding word, isn’t it? Grammarly is always trying to get me to add “the” to it so that it reflects a collective noun vs. an attribute of an individual.)

So whether you are online or in a hybrid situation, we need to be thinking about how we can promote and empower students during these times. Whether our students are 3 years old or 13 years old, we need to provide them with the opportunity to be self-directed and self-regulated. They can’t be waiting for their teachers and parents to tell them what to think or when to think. Thinking and learning must just become like the air that surrounds them–ever-present. They need opportunities to make decisions for themselves and to provide direction in the learning.

So…

How are you using technology to promote student agency?

What structures are you using to promote self-navigation?

Do you give students permission and opportunities to “learn without you” and run a lesson (online or in-person)? 

Let’s give these questions some more airtime….

Technology to Promote Student Agency

The best part of this time is that there are so many apps that are available to promote new forms of learning. The only obstacle we have is our imagination. If you took out a pen right now and listed all the apps you are currently using and then started to brainstorm all the ways you could use it to turn over the learning to students, you could probably come up with a decent list. I’ve set my timer for 1 minute–here’s my list…..

  • SeeSaw: 
    • The Choice Board
    • Student to student feedback in the comments
  • Student Help Desk using Zoom/Google Meet/Microsoft Teams
  •  Flip-Grid
    • Student-Led Book Clubs
    • Board: Student Help Desk with Math problems
    • Board: My home science experiments
  • Padlet or Wakelet
    • I have a question….who has an answer… (Q and A forum)
    • Boards that allow students to do their own research and content curation 
    • Student “puzzlers” (riddles or games) or jokes
  • Student-designed Google Site or Class Blog that they moderate
  • Student-designed Bit-Emoji classroom with links to learning websites and books.

Okay, time is up! Hopefully, this 1-minute brainstorm sparks some ideas—What can you come up with?

Structures to Promote Self-Navigation

First of all, I think we need to think about what it means to “self-navigate”. What are the aspects that impact their ability to make decisions in order to direct their learning? I think these are the main ones:

  • When they get to Learn: Their use and duration of time
  • How they get to Learn: Choice of media
  • What they get to Learn: Choice of activities in a content area
  • Who they get to Learn with: Choice of learning partners

I think EVERY DAY students need the opportunity to make choices within one or more of these areas. The choices students make reflect the values that they have. As a teacher, I think this is critical information to have as. teacher because it provides insight into the student’s heart and mind, directly impacting their level of motivation.  I don’t care how animated and interesting your teaching style is, in the absence of motivation, learning can’t happen. We know that “thrill leads to skill”. Student choice stimulates engagement and develops stamina to get through challenges. 

Choice boards are definitely a vehicle that can address the How to Learn and the What to Learn but the structure of the Must-Do, May-Do Charts also guide students in their decision-making. But I would also challenge you to let your students create their own choice boards and present it as option to think about how they might design their own learning.

The When and Who of learning is something that could be really helpful if you do hybrid learning because instead of a fixed timetable of lessons, students could create their own learning schedule and you could provide “workshops” on learning topics that are assigned on an asynchronized platform. In that way, you can meet with smaller groups of students (mixing in-person and online students who video conference into these workshops). I think when students return to face-to-face instruction, transitioning back to fixed timetables is going to be really difficult. They may find the pace too slow or too fast. We need to think flexibly about time and allow students to structure their learning in such a way that accommodates their needs and preference.

Permission to Learn (without adults)

A couple of years ago I shared a post about What If Students Ran the School? (#SOL meets #EmpowerBook). I know that most of us predict that we would break into chaos or recreate the “Lord of the Flies”  if we give students the freedom to provide governance in how schools operate. But I think this is an excellent opportunity, particularly with online learning, to invite students into the planning and execution of learning. Moreover, we want students to go beyond the “checklist” approach to learning and be able to articulate the different ways that they can exercise their minds on any given day.  I can’t tell you specifically what to do as a classroom teacher, but I would suggest that you pose some open-ended questions like How might we learn …? or What if we ..? and allow students to fill in the blanks. I think this would be where you could start. Imagine how empowering this would be though if we co-designed learning with our students. 

Gosh, I think doing this would be a ton of fun! 

Your Turn

So as we consider the inflection point we are in education, we need to exercise our imagination and engage in experimentation so we can make learning a “team sport”, bringing students’ voices into our planning and providing them with choice into their learning. Although this post is hardly a blueprint or how-to guide, I do most certainly hope it expands some thinking into how we could use this time of crisis for an amazing transformation in student learning. 

Now it’s your turn–what are you going to do to promote student agency? 

Thinking About How to “Make the PYP Happen” Online

Thinking About How to “Make the PYP Happen” Online

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Here we go again! Schools are beginning their 2020-2021 school. For many of us, this is another time at the bat to try on this thing called “online learning”.  Last spring, online was an “emergency” learning situation, but now we must have a more planned approach. Even those schools who are are coming back face-to-face still might see an uptick in numbers of COVID and be forced back into remote learning. Uncertainty is the new normal.

So this means that teachers have to get good at using technology in a thoughtful and intentional way. For our school, we have really been digging into the question of how do you do the PYP online? During our school holiday, I read Teaching and Technology During a Time of Crisis which provided stories about the myriad of approaches to dealing with the sudden shift to online learning. And as I read through these experiences, it got me wondering about how might these experiences be articulated through the lens of “Making the PYP Happen ONLINE”.

Hmmm…

Now that many of our schools get another crack at this, I think we must be truly reflecting on how our PYP students will experience learning differently than in other schools online. What is the difference in our pedagogical approaches?

Well, let’s be clear what online learning is NOT for our students:

It’s rather obvious that we don’t do an inquiry into “worksheets” or stop teaching certain subject areas because it’s too “hard” to do online. It’s not a bunch of choice boards either and calling that “agency”. These things might have been okay during “emergency learning” but now that we face prolonged online learning, we have to be much intentional and develop skillfulness in teaching in this new way.  It’s also not asynchronized lessons only (Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Schoology, etc..) or parking kids in front of a screen and doing synchronized lessons only (Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams). Why?  Because the heart of who we are as PYP educators is a firm belief in social constructivism.

Social constructivism: pedagogical approach that believes that knowledge is something that a learner ‘constructs’ for themselves, rather than passively absorbs.  Students construct their knowledge through conversation and interaction, with each other and with teachers. In this way, students cultivate a better understanding of concepts when they work together and discuss ideas. (Piaget + Vygotsky)

So, as we develop our online learning plans 2.0 and transition into hybrid learning we must keep in mind that students need time to construct meaning on their own and through group discussion. This is why we need a balance of synchronized and synchronized learning experiences.

So after reflecting on this, I sat down and considered the tech tools that classrooms might use to not only increase student engagement but also provide for social interaction online. This 2×2 matrix represents some of my thinking when it comes purposefully using technology to support the PYP online. I also thought it might help teachers think about what platforms they might need to not only get good at for student engagement but also for developing relationships online. Obviously this doesn’t represent every app out there and there’s a lot of nuances missing in how apps can be used, but I wanted our teachers to be thinking about purposely choosing platforms to support social constructivism, whether it was through a synchronized lesson or through synchronized learning. So let’s take a look at some apps and how they might support social constructivism.

Google Jamboard (Free)

If your school has a Google for Education account, it is typically in your suite of apps and is very easy to use. We use Zoom for our live synchronized lessons but when using the Zoom whiteboard in breakout rooms is really different to save and share work. So, Jamboard really comes in handy to promote small group discussions–whether brainstorming ideas, solving math problems, or doing visible thinking routines–this is a great platform for capturing student thinking.  

Pros: Whether you are using Google Meets (need a chrome extension for Breakout rooms )or Zoom, you can have students using this collaborative whiteboard through synchronized lessons in order to share ideas and develop conceptual understandings. It has basic drawing features, the ability to add images, sticky notes, and a variety of backgrounds to support different kinds of learning. 

Cons: Only provides for 16 “touchpoints”, which means that you can only have 16 persons working on a Jamboard at a time so this makes it tricky for a whole class to work on one Jamboard. No audio or video features so student thinking can only be captured in written form. Thus this wouldn’t be good for asynchonized learning. 

FlipGrid (Free)

For synchronized learning, this is one of the best platforms to have a “conversation” online. Students create video responses in order to discuss a topic or describe how to solve a problem. This has soooo many learning applications, that every teacher really should have this tech tool in their teacher toolbox. I’ve used this from everything like a Reader’s Workshop partner reading to sharing unit projects. How you use this platform is only limited to your imagination. 

Pros: Easy for teachers to create discussion topics and can embed a lot of content from other apps. Students love making and engaging in video responses but have the chance to “cover their face” with an emoji in order to protect privacy. Flipgrid has also added written responses as well for those truly camera shy. Also, has assessment embedded into the platform, making it easy to get feedback and have a well-round academic experience online. 

Cons: App smashing can sometimes be clumsy. For example, when students shared a Google Slide presentation, we had permission issues due to restrictions with our Google admin set up. That was more of a Google hiccup than a FlipGrid one–but you always need to test your boards to see their limitations. Also, since their recent updates, boards aren’t as easy to respond to now with their required email sign-in, making code sharing not as simple as before. If you use this with young ones, consider creating a “private” passcode that is easy enough to type in so that young students can make responses. 

Padlet (Free, but limited)

There are so many ways to use this platform, whether you share a padlet during a live lesson to facilitate a discussion or during an asynchronized lesson.  This also has many learning applications: you can curate resources for students, engage in a discussion, or collaborate on a project. 

Pros:  Super simple to use which makes this good for younger as well as older students. Just click on the page and add your content. As you can see in this image, there is a variety of content that can be shared. 

Cons: Adding content to the board is easy but making comments on this content is very limited, especially in the Free edition. So if you want students to make a comment on something shared, it has to be text-based. If you upgrade and get a paid account, there are a lot more features available but I don’t see how responses can be more versatile in this regard. 

Voice Thread (Paid)

This app makes me wish I was still “in the classroom” and not a dedicated PYP Coordinator. On their website, they claim “VoiceThread is a platform where students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills.” After looking at some of the projects on Voice Thread library, I can see how you take a typical video lesson and amplify through creating interaction for students. 

Pros: Teachers can upload, share, and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos. Over 50 different types of media can be used in a VoiceThread, so you can literally have a discussion ON a particular piece of content. Students can comment using either a microphone, webcam, text, phone, or an audio-file upload.

Cons: For $79 per year or $15 per month, you better be committed to using this or you’re throwing your hard-earned money away. Also, I think teachers would need to spend a weekend, at least, at figuring out how to create and train students at creating responses. It’s a robust platform but may need some time to figure out how to use its bells and whistles. 

Parlay (Paid)

I came across this platform when researching new tech tools for online learning. I really liked its concept of chunking discussion into parts, making this very useful for social constructivism. If you look at how discussions are structured, students are provided a provocation and prompt in which they must reflect on it in written form. Then other students can engage in written discussion and provide peer feedback. Then, in the next phase of the discussion, students go “live” during a “roundtable” on Zoom or another video conferencing platform.

Pros: It has a solid approach to developing deeper learning through a process of critical thinking and discussion. 

Cons: You will notice immediately that this platform is better suited for older students because it relies on discussion forums and it frames discussions around a “course” (seems like the target is high school and college students) so test it out during PLC to have teachers think about how you could approach this with intermediate grade levels. 

Although there are lots of choices out there for apps to increase student online engagement, I hope teachers value interaction as a “must-do” for PYP instruction. Hopefully, this blog post provides some food for thought. 

What apps or platforms might you recommend for cultivating social constructivism through online learning? Please share!

Should Fear be the Basis of Decision-making in Schools?

Should Fear be the Basis of Decision-making in Schools?

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Today is our first day of school…online. And I couldn’t be more excited. Today marks the beginning of the end of traditional approaches to education. Tradition isn’t dead, but it is dying. I think we all know this.

But just as we launch our online learning, behind the scenes we are planning for our physical school re-opening. We don’t have a date or an hour, but we are gathering as much data as possible to get students onto campus, safely.

Safety as a primary driving force of education is an odd value to prioritize. In fairness, safety has always been a value but it’s about avoidance–avoidance of loss of life from bullying, drugs, guns, and fires. Lawsuits, mainly, from families because safety is a foundational concern for all our loved ones. But attempting to design our schools’ reopening through the lens of infectious disease protocols terrifies me. Why? Because we haven’t thought these fully through. We are thinking from a very short-term stance and not thinking about the long-term implications. The emotional and intellectual impact of having to teach in fear of disease. Really this fear is bigger than that–it’s the fear of living. This is what CoVid has cultivated in our society as we consider “measured risks” whenever we leave our homes. In the back of our minds, we have to consider if whatever we are going to do is worth dying for.

What a pathetic point of view to make important decisions through.

I am reminded of this quote that rather captures the sentiment of where most schools stand when considering our physical school re-opening:

Soltionitis is the propensity to jump quickly on a solution before fully understanding the exact problem to be solved…When decision makers see complex matters through a narrow lens, solutionitis lures them into unproductive strategies…solutionitis is a barrier to improvement in practice.
From Learning to Improve: How American’s Schools Can Get Better by Bryk, Gomex, Grunow, and LeMahieus

As I listen to architects’ plans of how we can conduct “social distancing” in person, I look at those models and it feels completely Draconian to me. So as teachers perform amazing acts of transformation with their pedagogy online, we have this opposing force happening on our campuses: lining up rows of desks, installing plexiglass between us, constructing cohorts of students to herd, putting down signage and floor markings in order to conduct the flow of traffic and deciding if we should have children playing on the playground.

It feels like a rubberband–there is this amazing force being created as we pull back our instructional practices and upgrade our use of technology as a transformational tool in learning. But there is a counterforce that we have to consider when we “snap back” into face-to-face instruction with all these social distancing measures that are fear-based.

We have to really think clearly about the impact of all of this. Not from a myopic view of “safety” but a broader view that includes student agency, innovation, and creating a more just society.

This post doesn’t have any answers to this conundrum but you can be damned sure I am thinking about. I think we all should in education.

My Summer Reading 2020

My Summer Reading 2020

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First of all, this title is a misnomer. I had to put on a sweatshirt and socks just to be warm enough to start this post. However, my orientation to the Northern Hemisphere means I am experiencing cognitive dissonance, as our upcoming break is really in the midst of winter here in Brazil. Nevertheless, my attention is starting to consider what I want to read during my downtime. I have a few more titles that I am working through right now, but with only a few weeks left of school (Thank you God!) and a likely Stay-cation in our home, I have begun to curate my professional reading list for the "summer". Here's what I have so far:

Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek H. Murthy

I'm interested in this title mostly because it is a timely book that speaks about how we can cultivate social connections despite social isolation with the COVID-19 pandemic. As I think ahead of our re-opening plans (or not), I wonder what the mental toll has been on our community, from teachers to students to our families. If there is something that I can bring forward that is positive from this experience, then I am eager to research and try it. I hope this book will offer ideas and give me hope for what could be possibly the "good" to come out of this crisis.

Self-Regulation Interventions and Strategies: Keeping the Body, Mind & Emotions on Task in Children with Autism, ADHD or Sensory Disorders by Teresa Garland

Learning more about self-regulation and creating self-motivation in students is something that I am keenly interested in. There were a lot of books that I sampled and this one seemed to be the most practical one. This topic is not only deeply personal to me, but I also feel that remote learning was really a challenge for these types of students. Again, thinking forward to our next phase of learning, I am hopeful that I can bring in some fresh ideas and offer support for the teachers (and their families) who may struggle, offline or online, with learning.

Evolving Learner: Shifting From Professional Development to Professional Learning From Kids, Peers, and the World  by  Lainie Jae Rowell, Kristy J. Andre, Lauren Steinmann, and Thomas C. Murray

Due to remote learning, we prioritized schedules for student learning over staff learning. Moving our PLCs (professional learning communities)  online was a bit of a challenge since it required teachers to be more self-directed and collaborative. Professional learning wasn't happening TO THEM but THROUGH THEM. and, honestly, it was a struggle as the weeks online continued. With the possibility of still having a significant chunk of our learning happening online when we return in August, I need some inspiration and fresh thinking about how I can best support teachers in engaging--not only with kids but with each other. If there was ONE thing that I thought was critical to moving from survival to thrival (not sure if that is a word) with our teams, it was the sharing of our knowledge and skills. I think PLCs is the heart of cultivating that spirit of collaborative learning, and I want to make sure we upgrade our ability to support and share with one another.

Active Literacy Across the Curriculum: Connecting Print Literacy with Digital, Media, and Global Competence, K-12 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs

I have to be honest. I really admire the work of Heidi Hayes Jacobs when it has come to curriculum mapping but I have never read any of her books about Digital literacy . So I actually have a few of her titles on my Kindle now, but this is the 1st one I am digging into. Mostly because it challenges what we think about literacies, and how teachers can invite students to be more engaged in developing their reading and writing skills. One of the things I really struggled with has been the more didactic approaches that seem to have prevailed through this time of remote learning. I am not suggesting EVERYONE did that, nor did it happen all the time, but I definitely shared my thoughts that students became Muted during Remote Learning.  Moreover, just because students were forced to work at home didn't make them more autonomous or self-directed simply with the use of tech. So, I am hoping that this book provides a way forward.

Pedagogical Documentation in Early Childhood: Sharing Children's Learning and Teachers' Thinking by Susan Stacey

Next school year, many teachers at our school will be engaged in a book study of this title as a part of our PLCs. So I want to read ahead to help generate questions and see how these ideas can be combined with the work of Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano and her book, A Guide to Documenting Learning: Making Thinking Visible, Meaningful, Shareable, and Amplified. In the Enhanced PYP, there is a shift in our assessment practices in which we are "evidencing learning". This book I think will be invaluable in how we observe and document the growth of our youngest learners.

What's going to be in your stack of books? What are your must-reads for your holiday break? I would love to hear your suggestions!

Addendum: Since the George Floyd protests, I think it's time to get more educated on how to be an ally. Joining the lovely ladies at Erin Kent Consulting in a book club reading of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You . If anyone is interested in joining, you can go to the Reading and Writing Workshop in the International Schools Facebook page to sign up.

Muted? Student Voice during Remote Learning

Muted? Student Voice during Remote Learning

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“Go ahead and remain unmuted during our Zoom meetings.”, Tonya Gilchrist informed our cohort. “I find it’s easier for people to share ideas and ask questions that way. But if you have background noise, then please mute yourself”.

At that moment I was confronted with a reality that I hadn’t considered before: what it means to mute someone online: psychology and emotionally. 

For most of us who teach or have a meeting online, muting “participants” is usually the first thing we do when they come online in order to conduct your meeting uninterrupted and distraction-free. We often don’t provide the choice to do so and if noise does creep into your meeting, then you immediately scramble to find its source and mute it, lest your wise words fall on deaf ears.

And so, when Tonya shared this essential housekeeping rule, it got me wondering if remote learning has made us more teacher-centered or student-centered in our pedagogical approaches.

I’m thinking teacher-centered. 

And here’s why.

I have a folder full of schools’ Online Learning Plans/Academic Continuity Plans. Whatever you want to call it, those were designed for learning in a crisis. From Argentina to China, to New York to Vietnam, none of them considered the importance of student conversations when we went online. Globally we worried about teachers disseminating information to their students, providing them with the systems and tools to do that; all the while ensuring that students had access to that information—not to each other. The tools we insisted upon, were ones that made it easier for teachers to assign work and talk with students. Whether we went with Google Meets or Zoom, SeeSaw or Schoology, Google Suite or Microsoft–the focus was on an urgent need to explain the content and cover our standards.

Sure students probably found ways to connect with each other–that’s not the point I’m trying to make. It’s that, we, in education, didn’t think enough about the peer-to-peer interaction when we went online. We have thrown out social constructivism and used more didactic approaches to validate the “quality” of our education. 

And now that we are facing the possibility that the next school year might have a continued online component, we need to re-examine those “emergency learning plans”  and not only think about “the standards” but to think about pedagogy. We cannot just plop our classrooms online without providing students with access to each other’s minds as a core component of learning.

And so it gets me wondering if what makes remote learning so exhausting is the lack of interaction. There’s little exchange of our energy and enthusiasm for learning among our community of learners. How might we re-design the learning experience if we go into Phase 2 of our Academic Continuity Plans? I think we need to be debating the merits of apps and platforms that encourage student voice and collaboration like FlipGrid and Explain Everything instead of using our teachers’ creative energy on BitEmoji Classrooms. We need to stop pining for the past, teaching like we are in crisis, and start developing learning for our future.

I’m wondering what else have you noticed that should be reconsidered in your school’s version of online learning 2.0?   This isn’t a time to bury our heads in the sand but to engage and debate in critical conversations. Please share your ideas!

Why is the Whole World Upside Down? Education After COVID-19 and #RemoteLearning

Why is the Whole World Upside Down? Education After COVID-19 and #RemoteLearning

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Lately, I’ve been reading and reflecting a lot about Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Somehow when I feel stressed, I turn to science as my security blanket. I feel comfort in the tested theories and proofs as if all of life’s unsolved mysteries can be explained with science. Surely, during these uncertain times, trying to figure out how we got here and where we go next is on everyone’s mind. Mine too.

Darwin’s theory is one that is easily misunderstood. Most people don’t know the backstory of how his theory came about and whether he actually agreed with his conjectures but we accept his ideas as a fact, by and large, and teach it in our textbooks. But his ideas are why the whole world is upside down.

The problem, whether we are aware of it or not, is that his ideas of “selection of the fittest” have paved the way for our economic principles and so much of the discrimination and atrocities in our human world–from civil wars and genocides, to acceptance of violence as a norm–justifying it as our primal urge to compete for scare resources and force “natural selection”. We’ve accepted his ideas because it was the first attempt of describing the complex behaviors that we observe in nature, but collaborationdarwinI think this COVID crisis is helping us to examine these ideas and ask ourselves if this is how we want to continue living as a species. Because the truth is, if we really make a study of nature, there’s a helluva lot more evidence for cooperation rather than competitition in the endurance of living things. Darwin actually wrote about this but it often goes unnoted.

But whether you are taking about plants (The Hidden Life of Trees  )  or microscopic , single-celled organisms (I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life), there is a complicated web of life that is the operating system that runs in the background of all things, from the most mundane elements of Earth (How to Read Water) to the deepest understanding of intelligence (Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness). And the fact that our economies are coming to a grinding halt during this pandemic exposes this fault in our thinking of our origins and purpose in life. Economists may have taken Darwin’s principles too far.

However, to not seize this moment in Education would be a terrible blunder. Especially since we now have the world’s attention of how dang important educators are in our societies. We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.

We’ve been granted a second chance.

Will we take it?

Needless to say, this is bigger than technology. It’s not about the level of preparedness that educators had when walking into remote learning. We could focus on that but I think we should be looking at the glaring equity issues we have–survival of the fittest–if you had access to technology and wifi, you got to continue your education online. If you didn’t, schools either were temporarily canceled or teachers made packets of uninspiring worksheets that put your brain to sleep–and ultimately got burned in a trash heap since districts were too afraid to have teachers actually grade them for the fear of spreading the virus. All that “school work” went up in flames. Ironic and metaphorical at the same time.

There’s this part of Darwin’s theory of Evolution that we should focus on. Adaptation: a change in a behavior or physical feature that improves a living thing’s ability to survive.  If we superimpose this concept onto culture, we call it innovation.

Innovation is often considered to be a value. But I don’t think so. It’s a necessity in my mind, a conscious decision. Natural selection is only one form of evolution but change can be also be a choice. That is where innovation comes in.

In the course, New Learning: Principles and Patterns of Pedagogy , Dr. William Cope reminds us that “

I share these thoughts of Dr. Cope to demonstrate how important this time is to reflect and consider WHAT’S NEXT in our human paradigm and our role to consciously decide as educators how we can support this transition to new ways of thinking and living in our world. I believe that as we move through this pandemic, we will also have a crisis of the heart and mind as we grapple with how we might use this opportunity to innovate in Education and embrace new ways of doing “school”. We can use the power of formal education to steer humanity in a new direction.

An Einstein Approach

Just as we are awakening to the ridiculousness of “standardizing” our students with testing, let’s not make the shallow mistake to make this about apps and tech. It’s much more primal and significant than that.

Albert Einstein once said:

einstein problems.jpeg

So, if our thinking has gotten us into our mess, then we have to revise it.  Education plays a crucial role in this.

The truth is that living things are exposed to disease all the time. That’s not new.

But we deem this a crisis because it has changed our way of living. And that may not be a bad thing in the long game if we get to eradicate the wrongful premise that the only way to survive is at the expense of others.

Because what the scientific evidence is now demonstrating is that it’s our relationships that helps us to solve-problems (code word: adaptation). And doing this TOGETHER will be the only way through this situation. We can not simply survive but we can thrive if we stop doing the same things and thinking in the same ways that got us here.

And, if we don’t want to be “same-same, but different” (same content but with a splash more of technology in there for good measure), then we need to look critically at our curricular content and school structures, while asking if it is truly serving a higher purpose for living beings, big and small. We have the power to choose this.

So, it is in the spirit of Nature’s truth that begs us to rethink schools and rebuild our world.

So what if we got Darwin all wrong?

Here is some of my first thinking what should be the basis of new standards in Education.

  1. Empathy should become a part of our content because it helps us to understand the relationship we have to our world.  We don’t read and write to pass a test, we do it to connect with the world.
  2. As a skill, explicit teaching of cooperation and collaboration should become the new “norm” in our school.
  3. Grades are an artifact of “selection of the fittest” thinking in which we rank and value our students based upon their academic knowledge. It’s an artificial and inhumane way to evaluate students. We need to stop this practice.
  4. No more, dog eat dog: content should include a new paradigmn in which we highlight peace and inter-relationships. How to solve conflict is an essential skill.
  5. Moreover, social emotional learning isn’t fluff. It’s a vital for developing human competence.
  6. Sharing is not just caring, it is an essential component to life. All life. So, the circular economy and sharing economy shouldn’t be a fringe idea, it should be a guiding principle.
  7. Awareness and appreciation of intelligence is not just a human thing. It’s in ALL things and when we recognize it, we can transform our life experience.

So, I want to restate what I said earlier:

We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.

We’ve been granted a second chance.

Will we take it?

Let’s set the world rightside up. We have the power to do that in Education.

 

 

 

 

 

#PYP Exhibition: The Role of Mentors

#PYP Exhibition: The Role of Mentors

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We often say that Exhibition is more about the process over the product, but we rarely recognize or value the relationships that the students have as the foundational piece of that process.

In the early weeks of December, we sat down as a team and created an essential agreement about the PYP Exhibition.  Two fundamental questions that had to be answered was “Who gets to be a mentor?” and “Who gets to choose the mentor for the students?” Answering these questions became the heart of our philosophy and approach to the PYP Exhibition. That 45-minute discussion has made all the difference.

With the COVID-19 outbreak, schools across the globe are scrambling to prepare students to conduct a virtual PYPx. No matter the online platform, there have been some really lovely guidance given and support in a variety of PLNs. Recently I listened to a webinar that shared the 5P framework as the basis of launching a virtual PYPx.

 

5p.jpg
Source: Toddle, Conducting the PYP Exhibition Virtually

As I studied this, I realized that our conversations about Exhibition mentors mirrored this and have been the hinge point to our students’ success. You see, we challenged the notion that mentors should be assigned, and furthermore, no single person would be eliminated for consideration. Parents, who can be well-meaning but interfering, often are asked to sit out on Exhibition. However, we saw this as a major flaw in our thinking. We wanted these mentor relationships to be authentic, real, and purposeful. So, in February, we had a parent meeting to enlist them as mentors.

But there was a catch.

The students got to determine their mentors based on the needs they have and the expertise that mentors might possess. mentor quoteAnd, no mentor was “fixed”. It was important that students do not see adults as the master of their inquiry but as an advisor. Just like in real life, we turn to those who can provide insight into an issue or problem when and as we need them. We didn’t want students to rely on one person, but to know that there was a multitude of “experts” out there who they could turn to for support.

So, although we had no previous knowledge of this 5P model, we intuitively have followed it by providing complete student agency over the PYP mentors.

Prior to our parent meeting, the team created spread-sheet signup, in which mentors could provide their skill sets so that students could make thoughtful choices. They also created a “Mentor Guide” that laid out the expectations of their role:

The mentor’s primary role is to act as a guide and a resource in the accomplishment of specific tasks during the Exhibition process. A mentor can help students to set and meet their goals in the following ways:
● Be available for meetings with different groups, one at a time, as they request
through email during the Exhibition process;
● Help students set goals;
● Encourage and support the efforts of the students by honoring their ideas, but
pushing them to look deeper at the issue;
● Suggest resources to be used in the inquiry;
● Ask probing questions to help facilitate student inquiry, such as, “Have you
thought about …” and “How does this connect to your learning goal(s)?”;
● Guide students with making phone calls, writing emails, scheduling/conducting
interviews, and collecting any needed materials/resources;
● Help students interpret difficult information;
● Coach students in time management and organization;
● Encourage reflection through discussion and logging progress; and
● Ensure that written consent from parents, teachers and the principal is obtained
for any off-campus visits.

Should students need a mentor, you will receive an email inviting you to the meeting through Google Calendar. You will have the option to agree to or decline the meeting.

As you can see, their role was broad. Flexibility was crucial in their ability to support. If one mentor couldn’t be available, the students could turn to another. In fact, students were encouraged to do so. In this way, the loudest voice in their head would be their own, who would guide the research they conducted and the action they took.

Once this expectation was set, then it became a necessity for students to become skillful in time-management and collaborative digital tools. Google calendar became the cornerstone and the students have become quite masterful at it. When we went online on March 18, we had just launched our school’s Exhibition unit. The ink on the page for their central ideas and lines of inquiry had barely dried. Aside from that, they were trained on GoogleMeets. Now, on May 2nd, the students will be showcasing their learning on Zoom.

Since we have been online, Exhibition has been organic. No one was there to hover over them like we would if we were at school. Every step of the way has been decided by them. They’ve initiated every mentor conversation. They’ve brainstormed their actions and debated which technological tool to use. They’ve given each other feedback and are modifying their presentations as I write this blog. Of course, the teachers provided them with the Exhibition guide and encouraged them through the process. They had class meetings to check-ins where they were in the process. But it is validating to know that emphasizing and clarifying mentor relationships has created a positive and productive PYP Exhibition.

During dress rehearsals and the day of the Exhibtion, mentors were assigned but that was due to Zoom licensing issues and the need for one of us to be the “host” in order to turn the reigns over to them.

It is hard to describe how excited I am for our students. Not because I am amazed and overwhelmed by the depth of their research and knowledge. Yes, there is that. But is who they have become as a result of this process that makes my heart swell. Offline or online, I know that this is the essence of what makes the PYP Exhibition a true rite of passage.  Developing proficiency in understanding when I need help and who I can turn to will be an evergreen skill for them. That is true autonomy which will serve them well beyond the memory of this inquiry. And, it is that self-awareness which I admire most in them as they emerge from this experience.

self-knowledge.jpeg

As we reflect on this year’s PYP exhibition, it is my hope that all of us cultivate that level of collaboration and self-reliance in our students through the process. If there was an actual “product” to value–this would be it: Self-knowledge through our relationship with others. This is the role of the mentor.

The Role of the Teacher during #RemoteLearning

The Role of the Teacher during #RemoteLearning

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Indefinite.

That’s the word that currently describes the state of our school’s remote learning. What began as a 2-week quarantine has transformed into a vague timeline. It’s no wonder why people have now redubbed this experience as “emergency learning” since the typical planning and preparation that might have gone into this situation was stymied by the gravity of this crisis. We jumped first before we actually knew how to swim.

But as teachers, we are resilient. We can go with the punches. Flexibility. Humor. Patience. Those rarely show up on our job descriptions but are foundational skills for anyone who makes it past their third year in the classroom.

However, we aren’t the teachers any more.

Not really. It’s the parents.

But in my mind, parents are always the first and last teacher of any child. I borrow their children for a few hours. However, parents never recognized their role as teachers, until now. They may have been educating them in their values and beliefs in a passive way, whereas, we as professionals, are intentional and precise with the skills we want them to have.

When I heard these thoughts shared, I felt it summarized the juxtaposition of this moment:

What gives us energy? Not when the work is small and menial and easy. But when the work is big and important and collaborative. It adds up to something. Everything we believe in is now being put to the test.

-Lucy Calkins, Teaching and Leading in the Midst of COVID-19

So true.

I, like so many educators, am looking for wisdom. A beacon light that will guide me through this experience. But not because I don’t know how to teach. Or that the teachers I lead don’t know how to teach. No, they may struggle with the online environment but they are eager to be effective. The motivation is there. But I lean in and listen because I am seeking the insight in how we might pilot families through these stressful times.

In my mind, this is the role of the teacher during this COVID-19 crisis. It’s helping parents claim their legitimate position as their child’s teacher, despite their lack of pedagogical know-how.

We may design lessons and engage with students online but, to the families, who we are and what we do is so much more valuable than that. Our relationship has shifted. They see who were are and what we do differently……

We are trainers. We instruct them in how to set up their child’s schedule and their learning environment.

We are mentors. We build a genuine connection and share stories of their child’s learning.

We are coaches. We collect data from them. They are the eyes and ears of our student’s learning. We urge them into supporting their child’s next steps.

We encourage. We remind them that what they are doing is hard but it will get better. They can do this. Keep the faith in the capacity to figure things out.

We support. We explain what is working and why it’s helpful to do what matters, as many times as it takes. We never give up. We are there for them.

We remember. We remind them that their child was born to be curious and has a strong desire to learn, even if they don’t always show it. They are growing intellectually, mentally and spiritually during this time. It is their human nature to do so.

We acknowledge. We share our gratitude. We smile. We laugh. We give grace.

We are human. 

This is the role of the teacher. Indefinitely.

 

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

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As we transitioned to remote learning, our struggles have been largely dealing with technology and finding ways to problem solve the glitches that showed up in online lessons. When I saw this graphic shared by Dr. Jennifer Chang Wathall on Twitter, I could relate to where our school’s teaching teams were at with instructional design with remote learning. stages of elearning.jpeg

However, what this graphic doesn’t show is the fierce collaboration that underpins moving from one stage to the next. Collaboration is how we move through those e-learning stages: from survive, to strive, to thrive, to arrive.

Perhaps it has been different at other schools, but our leadership has really demanded our teachers work together as a team, co-planning and co-creating lessons for online learning. We did this for 2 main reasons.

  1. Divide and Conquer: If teacher teams could collectively share lessons and post them onto SeeSaw, then they would feel less overwhelmed with the new demands.
  2. Team building: The collective struggle would help support teams to form stronger bonds, nurturing relationships despite our distance.  Teachers wouldn’t feel “alone”, they’d feel supported during this time.

This has been a transformative process for our grade-level teams. Earlier this year, we did some professional learning into team teaching and best practices for co-teaching. One of the artifacts that we co-constructed was a reflective tool that helped us to define what are the stages  we were at as teams:

What has been interesting, is that since we’ve started remote learning, every one of our teaching teams has encountered conflict which, as they navigated their emotions and processed their perceptions, has deepened their ability to communicate and collaborate. And, as they work through their team challenges, it has moved them through lower-level stages into true “knot working”.  Remote learning has been the catalyst for really digging into our toolbox and using strategies that help members to share openly, be vulnerable and remain open to change. So, instead of confrontation, we have CAREfrontation.

I’m coming to understand that there is an “art” of being in intellectual communion with others. And I have noticed that these CAREfrontations employ the Japenese concept of finding beauty, Wabi-Sabi.

wabi-sabi (侘寂) 
Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society; sabi meant “chill”, “lean” or “withered”. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, the life of the object and its impermanence Wikipedia

When I reflect on this definition, I think about how social distancing has the potential to bring out the worst and the best in us. This belies our own imperfection and flaws. But it is these idiosyncrasies that make us special, a one-of-a-kind. And when members on ouseth godin quote.jpegr teams can convert these flawed images of one another into a new perception, then our weaknesses can become our strengths. According to Barbara Bloom, “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they fill the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.”

Isn’t that lovely? 

So how do we fill these “cracks” with gold on our teams?

I think the first step is having awareness. We know that having differences are inevitable. What matters is how we manage our differences. When we apply Wabi-Sabi to our relationships, we have to embrace the most fundamental aspects of who they are. Yes, we wish they were “perfect” but they are not. They are who they are, so we must accept and value them. This perhaps is the hardest part. Accepting what is. But when we can acknowledge a member’s uniqueness, we validate their worth and the effort that they make to the team. This is a must. It is the only way we can move through conflict.

This validation helps support teacher self-efficacy– the #1 factor that influences positive student outcomes. So the ability to support and appreciate one another on a learning team is a vital component of collaboration. We elevate the learning when we provide an emotional and professional boost to one another.

Through this process, I have come to understand that acceptance of others is a kind of generosity. It is an opening in our hearts to allowing what is presenting before us to be there. If this tender heart doesn’t exist, then we must find a way through this impasse. This becomes the work of leadership, to be the model, to demonstrate this unconditional love. If we can do this, then we can support teams to release their grip on this notion of “perfection” and expand the team’s definition of it to include all the failures and mistakes that are made as we fumble through developing amazing experiences for our students online.

When we can appreciate the learning process that we are all going through professionally and personally, then we can find humility and humor–the gold that can be used to fuse our teams’ gaps.

I cannot say that Wabi-Sabi alone is the only principle that can guide our teams through this transitional period, but it is one that is serving our personal and professional growth at this moment. Perhaps it can benefit your community as well.

 
Small Big Things: The Shifting Culture via #Remote Learning

Small Big Things: The Shifting Culture via #Remote Learning

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A few years ago, I was introduced to the “Ameoba of Cultural Change” model. I found it to be an interesting way to describe how innovation happens in organizations. As simple, single-cell organisms, amoebas blindly step into the unknown, reaching for “food”; so too do organizations, as innovators and change agents push people towards new ideas and inventions. Although I agree with the personalities within this organizational change model, I don’t think that change has to happen this slowly.

amoeba map

Clearly, we are in unprecedently times and CoVid-19 has certainly been the catalyst for rapid changes in “how we do school” across the globe. And you see nations whose educational systems are paralyzed in the midst of this epidemic. It reminds me of the book, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler that describes the emotional anguish that people undergo as they try to adjust to rapid and disruptive technological changes.  I feel that we are definitely in the midst of this feeling as educators who would have been labeled as “laggards”, “curmudgeons”, and “reactionaries” are now unwillingly forced into change. But even those of us who are the “change agents” and “innovators” in our schools can experience equally and acutely how terrifying and painful this experience of remote learning is. The only difference is that our “AHHHHHHHHHH” converts into “AHH-ha” in a shorter period of time. Toffler reminds us all that:

The responsibility for change…lies within us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical.

~ Alvin Toffler

Wise advice for all of us, don’t you think?

Personally, I am excited by the forced change–not because I think we all need an Edtech facelift in our schools, but because of the transformation that is happening pedagogically. In a short amount of time, more and more educators are shuffling off traditional and inefficient models of practice to create more intentional and dynamic learning experiences. Image-1

At our school, we have transformed the way that we have been using SeeSaw in order to provide for asynchronistic learning activities and now we are using Zoom for real-time instruction and social engagement. In less than a month, the teachers have been moving fast and furious in developing a positive challenge mindset, figuring out they can be more collaborative, and fine-tuning intentional approaches to learning and assessment. Although it is very hard for some to see how amazing this metamorphosis is, as a PYP Coordinator, I am in awe of my teachers and have a deep respect for them plunging into the unknown of online learning together. 

Whether we are doing distance learning for another 2 weeks or 2 months, I know that no one will be the same after this experience. At the very least, we will be more critical of curriculum-in-a-box approaches to teaching students and develop the skill of distilling the concepts and the strategies that students need to be successful.  Alvin Toffler explains the importance of this skill well….

You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” ~ Alvin Toffler

To get good at reflecting on our practice is so crucial during this time. But I feel that after we retreat into our long holidays,  all of us will have the opportunity to feel proud of our growth and willingness to tackle fears. Yes, there will be some of us who may feel traumatized and stressed by this technological kick-in-the-butt, however, I feel that a larger majority will be transformed and energized by their professional growth. 

But, you know what they say: Shift Happens.

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