Category: remote learning
Chaos to Clarity: PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized and Asynchronized Learning

Chaos to Clarity: PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized and Asynchronized Learning

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Six months. Half a year. 

That’s been the length of this experience, and, as the Covid-19 numbers are not abating, the “finish line” is not in sight. Shutting ourselves up in our homes and pivoting suddenly has been quite agonizing. When schools all had to suddenly go online, we scrambled to figure out the technology to continue learning.  Very few schools had the systems in place to support a smooth transition and while we trained teachers, we also had to train families and students. But here we are. 

I think about the gifts that are “wrapped up in sandpaper” from this collective experience. The prize chief among this is developing resiliency, in which I can build mental and emotional strength. There is a real possibility for ‘Post-traumatic’ growth. So when I look at that graphic, I can reflect on all the domains and see how I am for the better due to this pandemic.

And, although this has been hell, there has a great opportunity to turn this into a positive experience for us professionally. This is really a powerful moment when we are being confronted with what we truly believe about student learning and the role of the teacher. So we are really grappling with how to figure out how to create self-directed learning and do online learning really, really well. 

So, I feel one of the most important things I can do as a leader is to create clarity out of this confusion, provide structure despite the backdrop of turmoil and ambiguity.  Thus, when our school revised our online learning plan, I really wanted to define how we can do the PYP online because what we would have done over the course of a day now must be condensed into a handful of learning experiences.  I’ve developed an architecture around lesson planning for our teachers in order to support a meaningful and engaging learning experience for our students. For my new-to-the-PYP staff, I really wanted them to be able to name and notice the key areas of learning that we need to be planning for in our online learning program. Here is some of that thinking:

PYP Practitioner Checklist for Synchronized Learning

During this lesson, have I ….?

  • Lead with a Guiding Question so I can start with an inquiry stance
  • Developed a Concept 
  • Provided opportunities to grow one or more Approaches to Learning (Atls)
  • Cultivated the Learner Profile (in the guiding question or as a part of self-reflection)
  • Taught through interaction in order to honor Social Constructivism (dialogue brings new understanding)
  • Embedded Assessment

Structuring our lessons intentionally to “cover” this checklist will eventually lead teachers to develop “muscle memory” with practice. It’s important that teachers can name and notice these aspects of the PYP in daily synchronized lessons, which we conduct through the Zoom platform. We continue to reflect and refine how we teach our live lessons. 

But we also do a fair amount of learning through activities posted on SeeSaw. So, again, I have created another concise structure to delineate the elements that are important to cultivate self-navigating learners:

PYP Practitioner Checklist for Asynchronized Learning
  • Guiding Question (start with an inquiry-stance)
  • Concept Development
  • Success Criteria
  • Timely feedback

Here is an example of what a post looks like:

Although not stated in the checklist, teachers also have to include video, audio (translated into Portuguese), and visual instructions so that they can be successful in their learning. This is also included in our school’s online learning plan. 

As we continue to reflect and review our practices, I think these structures will serve us post-pandemic because it helps to develop teacher efficacy or as it is more commonly known as “competance”. They say that Practice makes progress, so I am hopeful that these structures facilitate the process of progressing from incompetence to competence as a skillful PYP practitioner.

So, in my heart, I want to support my teachers with this clarity and design frameworks for online learning that will help all our teachers, new or experienced into refining their ability to “make the PYP happen” online. Although this is not perfect, I believe it is a step forward in helping teachers and can act as a catalyst for the mindful practice of our pedagogical principles. 

 

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!

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