Cary Harrod started as an elementary teacher, was a gifted specialist for 19 years and spent 10 years as the instructional technology specialist for Forest Hills School District, Ohio. In 2016, she decided to re-enter the classroom, where it all began and is celebrating her 30th year in education.

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I worked with Forest Hills School District with Cary Harrod as the lead around 2006 and knew right away that she was a great person to know. We have kept in touch ever since. I definitely had to have a conversation with Cary. Hope you enjoy our conversation!

 

Where you grew up

I grew up in Bowling Green, OH. A beautiful place to grow up…a small town but made bigger due to the university. My childhood was idyllic; I spent loads of time riding my horse and wandering all over town with friends. My dad was a teacher, my mother a stay-at-home mom. Around my Junior year, our family imploded when my father lost his teaching job. The only thing my father loved more than teaching was his family; unable to secure another teaching job, he spent the rest of his life in a dark cloud, leaving us shattered and lost.

Your family and where you live now

I have been married to Bill for almost 23 years. We have a 21-year-old son, Liam. We live in Cincinnati, OH but recently built a home in Traverse City, MI. We plan to retire there. Friends think we’re crazy for going north, where it’s cold but we love everything about Traverse City…the weather, our view of the deep, blue waters of Lake Michigan and the rich cultural life. Here is a timeline of my life:

Born in Bowling Green, OH.

• Moved to Cincinnati in 1988. Began job at Forest Hills School District in 1988.
• 1988- 1997 3rd and 4th grade
• 1997 – 2007 Gifted Specialist
• 2006 – 2016 District Instructional Technology Specialist
• 2016 – Present 5th Grade ELA/Social Studies teacher

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I loved elementary school. To this day, I can name all seven of my elementary teachers; I carry a piece of each one of them with me and hope to bring those pieces with me when I enter my classroom each day. I was a good student, up until 8th grade where I struggled to understand algebra. I received my first “D” and something was extinguished inside me. I became completely detached from school and learning; it would be years later that I rediscovered a love for learning.

Your journey as a teacher and gifted educator

I love my story. Each step of my journey has led me to this moment in time; the steps, a rich tapestry of experiences, today guide me as I venture through the landscape of personalized learning. With only two years left before I can retire, I often think about how I could simply be coasting to the finish line but instead, I’m working harder than ever. If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that there is more to learn that we have envisioned for the past 100 years…and it is beautiful.

Our classroom is featured in the newly released book, “Welcome to Writing Workshop: Engaging Today’s Students with a Model That Works.” Excerpt HERE.

Instructional Technology Specialist

In 2004, I was a technophobe; in 2006, I was asked to lead a district-wide five-year project that would support over 400 staff members, as they learned how to use technology to support learning. I inherently understood that technology was a game changer; it would level the playing field. Then, in 2011, I led a district effort to bring a BYOD program to our middle school.

Personalized Learning: Back in the classroom – I had been studying personalized learning for about two years. (2014-2016) when I took Barbara’s personalized learning course. In 2016, I decided to return to the classroom to see firsthand what personalized learning looks like.

Key Points we discussed:

• The world has changed; therefore, reading and writing should change.
• Use five elements to support the work I’m doing around personalized learning: VOICE, CHOICE, PACE, PLACE, AND PATH steeped in student-directed learning.
• Our literacy classroom is built on the idea of volume–authentic reading and writing all the time. We are laser focused on becoming better readers and writers through real reading and writing experiences. Busy work in the form of worksheets and projects have been removed. We call our literacy time “STUDIO”, where students work to hone their craft.
  
• No longer plan “lessons” but rather design experiences that are open-ended, allow for individual pathways and reflect real life. (Edublog Student challenge, Slice of Life Blogging Challenge, Mock Newberry, March Book Madness and Connections.)
• First 6 weeks is setting the foundation for the personalized classroom: Knowing and Understanding Ourselves; School Routines; Student agency; Relationships/Culture/Community building; Learning? What is It?; Content related; Skills and habits needed to support deeper learning; Connected learning.

Hope you listen to the whole conversation so you get to the part when we talked about education today and in the future.

 

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Cary Harrod

  Twitter: @charrod

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cary.harrod

  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryharrod/

  Blog: Like Never Before

Website: Like Never Before

 

What I have come to understand, however, is that we will not achieve better education systems or outcomes without stepping back from the constraints of “school thinking.” I need to let go of what I know and think about school–its structures, history, and influence–in order to be able to think more openly about education and its possibilities. And in order to do that, it feels necessary to break some rules, to upset some conventions, to seize authority rather than wait for it to be granted.                                                                                                                                                                ~Sherri Spelic

 

 

 

I always believed project-based learning (PBL) could be personal by encouraging students to collaborate with others and be responsible for their own learning. However, there was confusion around the differences between projects and project-based learning.

I saw this when my children were in fourth grade and brought home directions to make replicas of California missions. As a family project, we went to visit their assigned missions, took pictures, and learned about the mission. We worked together to make little replicas that looked just like the missions they were assigned.

Now I look back and ask, “what were our children learning?” The teachers were teaching the same project every year with the same directions to every child in the fourth grade. On top of that, one teacher called these projects a PBL. Instead of objecting, I shared a chart with the teacher similar to this one. In many California schools, teachers are still mandated to do this project.

Projects	Project Based Learning (PBL)
Teacher-directed	Student-directed
About the product	About the process
Directions same as last year	Designed by questions from teacher and students
Follows expectations from teacher	Includes a “Knows and Needs to Know” from students
Products submitted to the teacher	Products and process presented to the audience
Tend to lack real-world relevance	Based on real-world problems or challenges

New Social Studies Framework

There has been a push by the California Department of Education to scrap the Mission project according to the article by Diana Lambert in The Sacramento Bee:

Put away the Popsicle sticks, glue and sugar cubes. The fourth-grade mission project, a rite of passage for elementary students for decades, may be on its way out. California’s new history and social science framework, passed by the state Board of Education last year, recommends against the longtime tradition of building miniature replicas of the state’s Spanish colonial missions, calling it insensitive. Thousands of Native Americans died from introduced diseases and were forced to labor at the missions, it notes.

The new framework increases the emphasis on inquiry and literacy in history and social science classrooms and teaching students about the impact of the missions on the state’s people and its natural environment. Teaching and learning about the missions can change through a PBL that is more personal and using the standards:

California HSS Content Standards

4.2 Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods.

4.2.5 Describe the daily lives of the people, native and nonnative, who occupied the presidios, missions, ranchos, and pueblos.

Instead of the traditional mission project, the new framework suggests alternative lessons for fourth-graders. [Source: UC Davis 2017] They include inquiry-based activities that are designed to help students investigate the past by examining primary sources — documents and other artifacts from the period itself. To make this unit personal and relevant for students, we can have students consider different perspectives using the driving question:

“What was the impact that mission life had on Native Americans?”

Unfortunately, there are very few sources from the Native American perspective to corroborate or contradict European accounts. Have students review the primary sources included in this document [Source: UC Davis pdf, 2017]. Each student in the group can refer to different perspectives in different roles as native Californians, missionaries, or settlers using the questions.  

• What was life like for native Californians before other settlers arrived?
• What was the purpose of the Spanish Missions?
• What might Native Californians have liked or not liked about living in the Missions?

Multiple formats and Learning Strategies to Personalize PBL

Change the Perspective
Driving question	Each group brainstorms multiple questions to come up with one open question that encourages deeper learning, i.e. “What would life have been for the Native Americans without the Missions?”
Summary	Each group agrees on the question, problem or challenge with the action they plan to take, the purpose of the project, and who will benefit from the project.
Product	Each group will agree on the best medium that will demonstrate, persuade or showcase how the different people will live together in the Missions. (Presentation can be a skit, dance, slides, video, interview, animation, FlipGrid, or ?).
Roles	Students brainstorm ideas for each of the different roles and who would be best for specific roles. Roles are not only from the different perspectives but also who will collect the artifacts, do the research, check on tasks to be completed, etc.
Entry event	Students can brainstorm what they believe their audience will need to learn and what they will need to know for the project. They then will design a way to “hook” the audience and pitch it to the class for constructive feedback.
Initial Feedback	Each member of the group participates in the “pitch” to hook the audience so they want to learn more. The audience will use “I like, I wonder” for feedback.
Assessment	Students prove input on the design of the rubric and include expectations for process and products. They determine what to collect for the group and individually as evidence of learning.
Reflection	Students keep an individual journal to reflect on the process as they learn and invite feedback from peers.

Project-based learning engages learners in authentic learning activities around real-world problems. Having students take on different perspectives through historical roles empowers voice and choice and builds empathy and curiosity about the people of that time. To make this project more relevant for today’s students, you can ask them to follow up this activity by putting themselves in the future 100 years from now. They can look back and create a project about what they saw as school then from different perspectives (i.e. teacher, student, parent).

A possible question for students imagining the future 100 years from now could be “How did school 100 years ago prepare me for today and my future?”

When students are encouraged to ask questions and have a voice about something they are interested in, then that is more personal for them than traditional direct instruction. When they can choose the best person for a role as part of the PBL based on their strengths, they build skills and competencies that help them grow. When kids have a chance to play, experiment, tinker, create and do meaningful tasks, they are more motivated to want to learn. If the students have voice and choice about the topic, roles, and direction of a project, you will see more ownership of the process and project-based learning that is more personal.

 

Want to learn more about ownership, go to the post on the Development of Ownership: From Compliance to Autonomy.

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Weinstein, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mindprint Learning, has an MBA from Harvard Business School with an extensive background in business, including work at Goldman Sachs, The Walt Disney Company Corporate Strategic Planning, Bristol Myers Squibb, and several smaller Internet companies.

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Nancy recognizes the challenges students face today, from succeeding at school to managing hectic after-school schedules, to dealing with social media. While we can’t put the genie back in the bottle, she knows that teachers and parents can (must!) help students learn to manage these complex demands. She co-authored a new book, The Empowered Student that we talk about in the podcast. So honored to have a conversation with Nancy. Enjoy!

Your background

I grew up in New Jersey and lived in the same house for 18 years before I went to college in Philadelphia. I started dating my husband in college. We went to the same high school but did not date in high school. He is my co-founder of Mindprint Learning and also the co-founder of my two children. After college, I worked on Wall Street in NY for a couple of years. Then I always wanted to live in California, so I took a job at Disney in their corporate strategic planning group in Burbank, CA. I did that for some time and then because my whole family was back east, I moved back. My family lives in New Jersey outside of Princeton.

What was it like for you as a student?

I was a good student and followed the line. Even though I understood things, I was always stressed. I know now working on Mindprint why. I had a good ability to reason but I didn’t have a very good memory. Studying always took me longer than it felt like it should. I believed that if I didn’t study harder than I would forget on the test. It was so stressful. It didn’t need to be that way.

The reason I became an engineer instead of going to medical school is that I didn’t need to memorize anything. In engineering, every test was open book, open note. It was all about problem-solving. Everything in pre-med was about memorizing (or at least that is how I perceived it). So even though I would have loved medicine, I became an engineer instead because it felt less stressful. In hindsight, if someone had just shown me HOW to study better, I would have done what I really wanted to do — not just what I thought was more achievable.

Retention is all about how we make those connections to things that we know so that we can make what we are learning stick.

Consider students studying history. If we begin by discussing what’s going on today in the world, we make it relevant. We show them why they should care. Then we can compare the similarities or differences to events in history. Students will be more engaged and they will remember more because it’s relevant and it has context.

You and your family

You might say we are all in this together. My experiences with my daughters’ schooling inspired the idea for Mindprint and my husband helped me start the company. He was my #1 supporter getting this company going as a mom with two school-aged kids, and he continues to help me with everything from finance to strategy to legal.

My daughters also play key roles for me. If they weren’t so supportive of my doing this, I really wouldn’t be here. And they also help with the company on a regular basis. A lot of the images you see on our site, my older daughter created. She did almost all the images for our book at age 12. Her strengths are so opposite of mine. She is an amazing designer and I have a terrible time with it. My younger daughter is my “go to person”. If I want to figure out if we should try something new for students, I ask her first. She has this great self-awareness of what will and won’t work for her. She also has great empathy so she senses what will resonate for peers and what won’t. She’s prevented me from making a lot of mistakes.

How did being a parent encourage you to become involved in education?

I came to education technology as a parent. My daughters are two years, two weeks, two days apart. They are also so different. And so different from my husband and I. It was clear to me After a few attempts at helping with homework that they were not going to adapt to who I was. I needed to adapt to them. And if I didn’t understand them there was no way I could help or be the parent I wanted to be.

I was intent on what I could do differently and started to learn about the brain. Back then I would laugh and say that it was genetically impossible that two people who think so similarly could have two kids two years apart who inherently think so differently. Let’s just say, it’s definitely possible. And common, ask your listeners how many of them have had trouble helping their own kids with homework. And they’re teachers!

Co-Founder of Mindprint Learning, LLC

https://mindprintlearning.com

 

I started reading and learning about educational evaluations that identify how students learn. One of the things I discovered was that these tests were really expensive, time intensive, and only available from a child psychologist. It made me question why in this age of the Internet that this was the only way we could understand how our kids learn. I decided that we could do this testing for each child and it wouldn’t need to be that expensive or time-consuming.

I found this amazing team at the University of Pennsylvania Brain Behavior Lab that developed this short test that could do what we wanted. Fun fact is that NASA uses the same test with the astronauts if you’ve read about the Kelly twins.. https://mindprintlearning.com/blog/nasa-twins-study/

So we are now in schools helping educators understand how each student learns best. If I had known that my reasoning skills are good but my memory is not as good, I could have learned strategies so I could memorize more easily. I probably would have become a doctor. Imagine how less stressful that school would have been for me and how much more I could have enjoyed it. We want to do that for every kid.

Dr. Paul Yellen runs The Yellin Center for Mind, Brain and Education at NYU. He uses the greatest analogy of a tennis player. With enough practice, anyone can be good at tennis. No matter how great a player you are. Everybody has their strong shot and everyone has a weaker shot. You’re constantly strategizing  to use your stronger shot and to compensate for your weaker shot. But you know you need to practice both because you’re going to need both shots in a match. his is similar to how we learn. We all have our strongest skills. We all have something we’re not as good at. How do we make sure that we use our strengths to help us succeed without letting our weaker shot get in the way? I love that analogy.

When kids see their learner profile, they feel that finally they are understood. We will hear students say “this is me. Nobody understood me before.” Everybody needs to be understood at the most fundamental level. We use that understanding to create self-awareness. When students are self-aware, then they can really learn. We can’t expect students to regulate and be in control of their learning if they don’t know how–what strengths can they use and where they might need to compensate. Just like tennis players.

Mindprint Profile learning strengths and needs

Action (Personalized Toolbox) that includes Individual Learning Plans and aggregated data for whole class instruction

Nancy shared all of the amazing resources on MindPrint Learning. Make sure you check out this page to find strategies and tools to support every student’s academic, cognitive, and social-emotional strengths and needs.

The Empowered Student: A Guide to Self-Regulated Learning by Nancy Weinstein and Mary-Vicki Algeri (Book) published by CAST

http://castpublishing.org/books-media/empowered-student/

In The Empowered Student: A Guide to Self-Regulated Learning, authors Nancy Weinstein and Mary-Vicki Algeri provide teachers with a practical workbook so they can help students develop the skills they need to take charge of their own learning.

Part 1 is dedicated to getting students on board, laying the foundation for self-regulated learning with the basic neuroscience on how learning happens and what that means in practical terms for effort and motivation.

Part 2 gets specific, delving into exactly what self-regulation looks like in the classroom, relying on the Universal Design for Learning curriculum development framework developed by the researchers at CAST.

This book is packed with tips, strategies and student activities, The Empowered Student is light on words and heavy on examples. The authors assert that self-regulation is not just a set of skills but a way of being, and students who learn it need the guidance of patient, caring adults who embrace the trial and error of ongoing personal growth.

 

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Nancy Weinstein is the co-founder and CEO of Princeton, NJ-based Mindprint Learning. She founded Mindprint Learning with the perspectives of both a parent and an innovator. Realizing a need to address a common challenge for parents and educators, she drew upon her background in science and business to create Mindprint.

Nancy has an extensive background in business, including work at Goldman Sachs, The Walt Disney Company Corporate Strategic Planning, Bristol Myers Squibb, and several smaller Internet companies. Nancy has an MBA from Harvard Business School with first-year honors and a BS/BSE summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton School of Management and Technology Program, Bioengineering and Finance.

 

Contact Information

• Email: nancy@mindprintlearning.com
• Website: https://mindprintlearning.com
• Twitter: @MindprintLearn

 

The only universal characteristic of successful students is that they have an adult in their life who is committed to helping them succeed. Each of us has the opportunity to be that adult in a child’s life.

 

 

Kindergartners will be world changers. Right now they are learning to share, cooperate, and take turns. It is inspiring to think that one day these amazing little humans will make our world a better place.

The kindergartners at De Vargas Elementary School, in San Jose, California, recently completed a Project Based Learning (PBL) Unit called World Changers. What is PBL? It is a teaching method in which learners gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and answer an authentic and engaging question. PBL enables the learning to be personalized so that each learner has access to and ownership over their learning.  

Academic standards are embedded into each PBL. The kindergarten social science standards include learning about now and long ago, learning about the community, and learning how to work together. All these standards were embedded within this PBL. In addition, key vocabulary and sentence structures were taught as most of our school population are English language learners.

Launching the Project

The Driving Question for this World Changers PBL was: How can you change the world when you grow up? This is a big question for little kids and one that they took seriously.  To launch this project and give them the hook to inspire their curiosity and wonder, we invited community members to come, dressed in their professional wardrobes, and talk to the children about their careers and how that impacts the world.

Community members talk about their professions

This community member talked about the importance of heating and cooling homes.

Expanding the Driving Question

After learning from people in our community, we returned to the driving question for our PBL.  We brainstormed things we need to know and new vocabulary needed for this project. We kept track of this information on our PBL Wall.

The children had opportunities to choose books on a variety of career topics that interested them. We found some video clips to aid in this discovery.  More discussion took place, as they learned about different careers. They noticed that some careers that were important in the past are not needed presently. We talked about how and why those changes took place.

During playtime, they enjoyed dressing up and trying on different career choices.

Choosing Careers the will Change the World

Towards the end of the project, the children chose the future career they felt would fit them best. They created a model of their future self and stated how they will change the world. The children displayed these products in the Guided Learning Center for learners, staff, parents, and community to see. They also documented all their learning on a digital portfolio that is shared with their parents.

“When I grow up I want to be a veterinarian. I will change the world. I will help animals.”

“When I grow up I want to be a chef. I will change the world by making food for others.”

“When I grow up I want to be a shopper. I will change the world by buying food for people.”

“When I grow up I want to be a scientist. I will change the world by making medicine so people get better.”

“When I grow up I want to be a pilot. I will change the world by taking people to the other side.”

Through this project, the children learned about different kinds of careers, and the many ways in which they can change the world. They are now looking towards the future, and they are excited about what they can do and how their actions will affect others.  It is my hope that this PBL will inspire the children to continue to think about how they will become world changers.

 

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Paula Ford graduated from the University of California at Davis with a Bilingual Cross-Cultural Language and Academic (BCLAD) multiple subject teaching credential. She also has a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and Early Childhood Education. She has been teaching for over twenty years. She began her career in bilingual education and then moved to teach second language learners.

Paula taught kindergarten, first grade, third grade, and has been a resource teacher for grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. The majority of her career has been teaching low-socioeconomic English language learners. Currently, Paula is teaching kindergarten at Manuel De Vargas Elementary School, and she absolutely loves it.

Make sure you follow Paula on Twitter at @prford5

 

Other Posts by Paula on Rethinking Learning

• Kindergarten PBL with School in Africa
• Random Acts of Kindness PBL
• Farm and City PBL Part 1 Traveling Toy Animals Part One
• Farm and City PBL Part 2 Traveling Toy Animals Part Two
• Episode #4 Podcast and Post with Paula Ford on Collaborative PBL with Kindergartners

 

 

 

 

 

Ira Socol is Senior Provocateur and Learning Environment Specialist at Socol Moran Partners LLC. He is a co-author of Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools with Pam Moran and Chad Ratliff.  

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Ira presents nationally and internationally on the need to radically change the four technologies of school – time, the division of students and content, spaces, and information and communication tools – in order to give all students an opportunity to succeed. I was lucky to have a selfie with Ira at SXSW EDU. Enjoy Ira’s journey.

 

Your Background

I started my journey in education in some problematic ways. School was never my favorite thing. Classrooms are not my favorite places. The structure of school never really worked for me. I started out in an urban setting outside the Bronx in New York, the first city north of the Mason-Dixon line to have a Supreme Court desegregation rule. I went to a K-6 elementary school that was a huge place of 1200 students with 5-6 classes that had 30-36 students in each grade level. It was a place where teachers had a lot of independence to try a lot of things.

Even though I didn’t have a particularly good time in that school, I also knew a lot of people were trying to find solutions and new things. I deeply appreciated that and wrote a novel a long time ago that includes part of that in the story. The failures I experienced were not the fault of educators not trying.

The Drool Room https://www.amazon.com/Drool-Room-Ira-Socol/dp/0615165443/

 

What it was like for you as a student

I was lucky enough after middle school to end up in a brilliant alternative high school that was created by some local teachers in New Rochelle, NY. Neil Postman who had had just written Teaching as a Conserving Activity built that then was called a “School without Walls”. There were really no requirements credits, we had to take the NY Regents exams at the end of a required class. Other than that, we were able to learn on our own, with another, with a group. How we got the knowledge base was entirely up to the student. What I learned is that it put a lot of pressure on you. Teachers would say if you don’t want to do it that way, then do it another way. That forces you into a lot of adult thinking and makes you really process things.

This school graduated 99% of its students and sent 95% to four-year colleges. This was way above the other high schools even though it was made up of kids who were failing or because the school was not working for them. Many of the graduates have led pretty successful lives. The school existed for about 18 years until the conservative crackdown

How being a New York City Police Officer led to Technology

I studied studio art at Michigan State University and then came back to Brooklyn, NY in the mid-1980s to study architecture. The area in Brooklyn at the time was going through the most difficult time that was incredibly violent and a dangerous place. It was the neighborhood in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.”

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/06/great-schools-3-profession-without.html

One of the things I did to help pay tuition was security tours around the neighborhood for incoming freshmen. In doing that, I met a number of officers from the 88th precinct. From talking to them, I found a way to contribute every day to society as a man in his twenties wanting to have an ability to make an impact. Being a NY police officer was an immediate impact job. It was a time when people were happy to see a policeman. They convinced me to take the civil service test. They were extremely accommodating to my reading difficulties. The police academy education was a remarkable education and I worked in some really crazy environments.

I got hurt a number of times. When I was hurt the last time, they handed me an early IBM PC and said to see if they could use this for anything. That was my introduction to computers. I figured that coding was something I could do and also how to assemble and share knowledge. I never fully understood algebra until I really needed to find X (the criminal we were looking for). Then I had to assemble an equation to what we knew to what we didn’t know. Somehow algebra in the Sherlock Holmes way made sense to me.

Share your journey with Assistive Technology

I was always looking for something next to do that gave me that sense of what happens when you intervene at a key moment in someone’s life and change that moment. That search eventually led me to schools. I moved to western Michigan and worked in another of things to pay the bills. Then I went to Grand Valley University through the technology and educational psychology departments led me to assistive special education technology. Instead of working in the classroom, I worked in special needs technology in a high school. I was looking for technology that could read to me and that I could dictate to. The technology I found was used for blind people and not appropriate for people with dyslexia. My boss gave me a year to research to come up with a plan to make the campus accessible from a computing point of view. All the assistive technology was hidden in the disabled student office, basement, or library. One of the things I’m very proud of is that we put accessible computers everywhere there were students. People shouldn’t need a diagnosis to use the tools they need.

 

Toolbelt Theory

As technology began to change while I was working in schools and a vocational rehab agency, I realized that I was starting to use multiple technologies throughout my day. I wasn’t using the same things to read to me in my car as I was in my home or classroom. The writing was different at work then by myself. The driving question is “what is your skill at the moment?”

Humans are tool users. When students use tools, they choose it based on what they have to do. You don’t use the same saw to create a table that you would use to cut down a Christmas tree. The environment you’re in matters. If you’re out in the woods, you’re doing one thing. In a machine shop, you’re doing other things. Feelings even matter. Disability and ability are not stable states. You need to know the tools that are available.

One of the things we started pumping into the schools I worked with was lots of different choices of things on the computers of the time. Back then we had a variety of text-to-speech readers, browsers. The theory became the most important thing we can leave our kids with is to know how to use their technology to solve their own problems.

In 1999, I said “no technology we are teaching your kids will last more than 5 years. So we better teach them how to learn it and research it.”

The Toolbelt Theory is that you assemble your toolbelt and that toolbelt changes as you change. The theory works today. In Albemarle County School District, we always said that with computers there are always three ways to do something. Three browsers, three different word processors, three different text-to-speech systems, and more. We tried to create different tools so students could choose.

These are personal learning devices. If a student cannot control or personalize the device, then that is not personalized learning. This was a hard sell at first to some teachers, administrators, and even tech staff. Kids were learning and understood the consequences because they could lose everything on their computer.

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This is Barbara. I had the most wonderful conversation with Ira and pulled out some interesting conversations. There is more in the podcast. Ira shared resources with me that I want to share with you of his work at Albemarle County Public Schools with Pam Moran and Chad Ratliff especially their book, Timeless Learning.

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Multiage Learning Spaces

Here is a presentation on how kids can use technology to close the opportunity gap. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SNY2EtiTK1eJ-UrmfoTpEijM9wYWQqhXZst0MiOu5IU/edit?usp=sharing

Wondering what it looks like, here’s a short video and this is what Ira described the scene:  We’d like to share one of the spaces we created and get you to observe and think about this space — we can’t do justice to what it means for young people to learn in a multiage setting but we want to challenge you to consider how learning is different when kids are not stamped and graded by age

Your Book, Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools with Dr. Pam Moran and Chad Ratliff

https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Learning-Imagination-Observation-Zero-Based/dp/1119461693

Best to have Ira share his book in this interview with DisruptED TV.

 

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Ira David Socol is the Senior Provocateur at Educology Partners as he works to complete is a doctorate in education at Michigan State University. He works extensively with Michigan’s Integrated Technology Initiative (where he developed the “Freedom Stick” universal design applications suite with the help of RSC-Scotland-North+East), with Michigan’s Vocational Rehabilitation Agency, with the Albemarle County (Virginia) Public Schools, and with many other schools, districts, and divisions. He presents nationally and internationally on the need to radically change the four technologies of school – time, the division of students and content, spaces, and information and communication tools – in order to give all students an opportunity to succeed. He is the author of the “somewhat educationally-based” novel, The Drool Room, and blogs at speedchange.blogspot.com

Ira’s Contact Information:

• Website: https://sites.google.com/site/iradavidsocol/
• Blog: speedchange.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @irasocol

 

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For all of the Conversations on Learning podcasts with Barbara Bray,
click on the podcast tab at the top, the logo below or go to https://barbarabray.net/podcasts/

 

 

 

 

The Teaching and Learning Continuum was designed to support changing teaching practice. Teachers may not have the tools, resources, and support to change teaching practice on their own. The main challenge for teachers is time.

Schools are looking at strategies to empower teachers to take control of their personal professional learning. That is tough for some especially if the system doesn’t support them. The Stages of Personalized Learning did not address some of the concerns teachers were telling me. Schools reached out to me asking about the contents and why we didn’t include traditional models. They also felt specific criteria were missing. When I started working with Rose Colby on personalized, competency-based education, I realized how much I didn’t know. I interviewed Rose in Episode #43, read her book, and have presented with her twice at iNACOL. It’s not just about personalizing learning. It’s about changing the system to address competencies, skills, and dispositions. I got it that there is still so much more to do.

CCSSO (Council of Chief State SchoolOfficers) along with QED Foundation’s Transformational Model created a CSSR Best Practice Continua in 2012 that I saw when it was in the draft mode. I’m not able to find it now. I saw the potential within that document as a starting point and worked with several schools who were looking for classroom observation forms, coaching tools, ways to identify and monitor progress, etc. So in working with different ideas and models, I co-developed different tools including several ideas similar to this chart. When I shared several iterations with teachers in focus groups, we came up with different criteria and approaches across the continuum. This chart is a general overview with criteria for support moving to a personalized, competency-based system and learner agency.

My focus has been on supporting teachers as a coach for almost 30 years. I see how difficult it is for teachers in traditional systems to be innovative. Yet, the teachers I’ve met and know are amazing. They are my heroes. They do the day-to-day work to make a difference in children’s lives. They have demonstrated to me how they can take an existing lesson and look at areas where they can bring in voice, choice, and autonomy so students start developing learner agency. However, I get questions and see requests on social media for ideas, tools, resources, and other strategies to support teachers and systems. It really is more than just changing one lesson but sometimes starting small opens doors to magical learning.

You can download the chart from the link above in SlideShare and use it. Please let me know how it is working for you in the comments below, contact me here or with my email barbara.bray@gmail.com

 

Dr. Winston Sakurai is Principal of The Prep at St. Andrews School in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was named 2016 @NASSP National Digital Principal and 2016 HASSA Hawaii Principal of the Year, and is moderator of the Twitter chat #PrinLeaderChat  Sunday evenings at 9pm ET for all school leaders.

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I’m so fortunate to have worked with Winston at St. Andrews School and with so many awesome educators. After learning more about all the innovation that is happening in Hawaii and at his school. I really wanted to share his story with you. Aloha!

Your background

I was born and raised in Hawaii. I grew up on the windward side of Oahu. My parents understood the value of education.  They moved from Honolulu to another part of the island where the school system was really good to put education first. They would say that they didn’t want me to have to work as hard as they did. They had to do a lot of manual labor and didn’t go to college. My dad repaired air conditioning units. My mom would get up at 4am as a cafeteria worker at the high school down the road. They put every effort into their children’s education so I could go to college and do well.

Your family

It’s a great story. My wife, Rochelle, and I have had the opportunity of working together as educators in the same schools since we began. She has been a kindergarten and 6th-grade teacher, early childhood and then with our middle school and high school and past ten years before I was here at the Prep, she was the college counselor and I was the principal for the middle and high schools in the upper school. We worked together as a team. We call it “Team Sakurai.” She’s now the college counselor at the Priory at St. Andrews Schools. Her office is right down the hall from where I am.

Rochelle makes me better. I appreciate her because she is smarter than me and she does a lot of things that point me in the right direction. We have two children. I am fortunate to be the principal for my son, Matthew, who is in fourth grade and my daughter, Madison, is in first grade. Not every educator gets the chance to develop a school that your children will go to and benefit from. Even though we are working together as a team, we also get the benefit of seeing our children having those experiences that we create for all children here. I’m very blessed to have this opportunity.

What it was like for you as a student

I did have a little bit of a struggle. I remember third grade and taking the standardized assessment tests and scoring really high. But they wouldn’t put me in the Gifted and Talented Program because my grades in school were just average. I didn’t do well on everyday work because it was kind of confusing. Math was easy. English was a struggle.

My mom asked the school for diagnostics about speech delays and impediments. Through the testing, they couldn’t find anything. In 1983, I made it through because my parents purchased a Commodore 64 for me. It had a spellchecker and a word processor so I was able to get through school.

[This is Barbara: make sure you listen to more about how technology and his mom helped him starting around 14:00]

It wasn’t until later when I was in college and couldn’t get through the foreign language class that I found I had dyslexia. I’m thankful for the University of Hawaii who understood that there are ways to get through college even through struggles with language acquisition. I remember what Mrs. Ito from the student services center said to me, “I can help you.” That was the support I needed.

Voice of Reason on the Hawaii state board

In 1993 at the age of 20, I was appointed by Governor John Waihee to the Hawaii State Board of Education and served multiple terms as Vice Chairperson. I helped to create the BOE’s Committee on Budget and Fiscal Accountability where he redirected hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful spending back to schools. I was known as the BOE’s “Voice of Reason” during my ten-year tenure, My accomplishments include blocking privatization of public schools, stopping class size increases, and negotiating a settlement to the statewide teacher’s strike.

I would also serve as a voting member on the National State Boards of Education Association and National School Boards of Education. In 1996, I was named by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as one of 10 people “Who Would Make a Difference in Hawaii’s Future” along with notables such as Governor Ben Cayetano, US Senator Mazi Hirono & US Representative Mark Takai.

Your journey as a teacher and becoming an administrator

I “retired” from the BOE to teach History at Hanalani Schools and spent five years as the elementary administrator before becoming principal of Hanalani’s Upper School in 2008. During my tenure, the school developed an international championship robotics program, national award-winning student government, National Honor Society chapter national recognized for service, raising Advanced Placement (AP) passing exam scores and a college readiness program where 100% of graduates are accepted to college.

Award for National Digital Principal in 2016

My wife was the one who had me apply for the National Digital Principal award. I told her that I’m not anybody and not at that level that everyone else is. I remember that Eric Sheninger won the award in 2012 and I thought I would never be like him. She told me every single year, that I was good enough to apply. It took a lot of her encouragement helping to develop who I am that brought out the best in what I could do. I was one of three digital Principals of 2016. Here is a picture of me with Bobby Dodd and Glenn Robbins.

Principal at The Prep at  St. Andrews School

The Prep, a school within St. Andrews School, is four years old and an all-boys school right in the heart of Honolulu. We’re trying to make it one of the most innovative schools in the state. For a principal to have the opportunity to build a new school is unbelievable. Currently, we’re kindergarten through 4th grade and we hope to continue growing. Even now we’re talking about what to do for our incoming 5th and 6th graders and beyond. We’re building a school with great teachers and the sky is the limit. Having to build things on our own, we have to think creatively and outside the box. Everything is new each year. Follow #WeThePrep on Twitter. Technology brings students together at The Prep.

Design Studio 4

We’re using the design thinking process from Stanford that places a focus on empathy. Our students are building things here on campus and creating different spaces for learning to take place. The kids own the process. Having them think about others and not themselves, being empathetic, understanding people is a process that will help them become successful. They problem-solve, create, iterate, test things out, iterate again until things are right. That’s how life is. We teach them that you don’t fail until you stop and quit. We encourage them to keep on going, going, going and make it better. When you stop because you’re giving up, that’s when a failure takes place. But if you iterate, iterate, iterate, you’re constantly getting better and moving forward, you’ll be very successful for the rest of your life.

It’s hard. We’re in a world where we have to understand each other. In order to understand each other in a way that you’re very helpful to each other as well. It’s not just taking something and saying, “I get it.” It’s about what we can do to help that other person be successful as well. Give them opportunities. Help them to be better. Our society will move forward and get better because we’re looking out for each other, trying to help each other move to the next level. We get the opportunity of knowing that the next generation is going to take our nation to a different place that is so unique and so spectacular that we couldn’t even imagine those things.

Why are you so passionate about changing school?

I see that lightbulb go on that they wouldn’t see if they were reading out of a textbook because it wasn’t relevant to them. My son comes home sometimes and asks me “what’s the relevance of this worksheet?” I have to question that, too. Now, he doesn’t say that as much. He goes, “this is difficult, but I think I can figure it out.” Which is spectacular!! It’s such a difference in how he’s learning and how he’s doing things because he’s processing stuff because he wants to. He thinks the challenge is important to tackle and fix.

 

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Dr. Winston Sakurai has distinguished himself as an innovative educational leader at the state and national level for over 25 years. He was recently named by the National Association of Secondary School Principals as a 2016 National Digital Principal of the Year and by the Hawaii Association of Secondary School Administrators as the 2015-16 Hawaii State Principal of the Year. He currently moderates a national education chat for school leaders, #PrinLeaderChat, on twitter.

Winston’s Contact info

Winston Y. Sakurai, Ed.D
winstonsakurai@gmail.com
NASSP National Digital Principal
Former Hawaii State Board of Education Vice Chair
The Principal of The Prep, St. Andrew’s  Schools 
https://standrewsschools.org

• Website: http://winstonsakurai.weebly.com
• Twitter: @winstonsakurai
• Twitter chat: #PrinLeaderchat
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/winstonsakurai
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonsakurai

New Book: Education Write Now: Top Strategies for Improving Relationships and Culture with multiple authors including Dr. Winston Sakurai

 

 

Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm shift that must be made to make schools relevant.

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Pam Moran is a leading advocate of an educational model that prepares all students for success. She emphasizes the value of student-led research, project-based learning and contemporary flexible learning spaces that promote collaboration, creativity, analytical problem-solving, critical thinking, and communications competencies among all students.

You and your family

I grew up in a family of makers. My husband, John, is a maker and artist extraordinaire.. He went to the University of New Mexico but then started making jewelry and working with silver. Included a picture of some of his beautiful jewelry to the right.  John built our timber frame house we live in and he’s a wonderful dad. Despite the fact that he is wheelchair bound, he is still someone who is active and interested in so much. Every day, my son, Jason, who is a digital media director in New York City, calls his father and they have wonderful conversations.

Life is such a great place. If we see ourselves as open to learning, we can continue to evolve and develop who we are and what we can bring to this planet. If we define ourselves as educators, we’re constantly focused on seeing learning as a lifetime event not just something that happens when you got to school.

I have a mother who is 97 years old. She was actually a World War II Vet who worked for naval intelligence in Bainbridge, Washington which is an island outside of Seattle. She worked on breaking Japanese code during WWII. She just received a Congressional award for her work. Two pictures of my mom at 23 and 97.

One of the interesting things is that there was secrecy about her work. She was not allowed to share that she received this medal from the Secretary of the Navy at that time. In 1996, she told our family during the holidays that she had something to share. She pulled out a box with a letter that she had just gotten something that was declassified. That meant she could tell her family what she actually did in the war. She had kept that secret for a lifetime. We never had a clue what she did in the Navy. What this taught me is that my mom was always a person who lived her life by doing what she says and saying what she’s going to do.

I am so grateful that I’m still able to have amazing conversations with her. She has been a great model for me to really think about what it means to just stay open and interested in everything that is going on in life. She’s still that way at 97, and she has amazing stories.

TedTalk. Hacking Schools: Getting Ourselves to Yes

We can learn from anyone if we continue to remember that the lessons of life really are timeless. Even when you do have conflict in the work that you do, that if you come from a position of honesty, integrity, and trust, what a difference it makes in terms of the relationships you have.  

What it was like for you as a student

I had a different trajectory as a student. I grew up on a farm in the low country in South Carolina. We grew up when segregation du jour was the law by redistricting of schools. It was a different experience. When you live in a place like I did, you grow up in a very diverse community. Our African-American community was a strong community and one that was very present and a lot of interaction with the Caucasian community. If you were white, as I look back, the privileges you have are very apparent. If you were very thoughtful about growing up in a very segregated school system. The fact is that in rural South Carolina when I went through school, it was very limiting and no one had the breadth and depth of education we have today. We had some good teachers, but I had a lot of teachers who had not finished four year colleges but went to “normal” schools to become teachers.

My Science teacher was also my guidance counselor was an incredible influence on a lot of kids. She encouraged kids to look at opportunities that would take us beyond the boundaries of our little county. She asked me 2 questions:

(1) Have you ever thought about majoring in science since I loved biology? and  
(2) Have you ever thought of being a teacher?

So I went off to college to a small liberal arts college, Furman university, in a program that was pulled together around field biology doing a lot of work in the outdoors. I enjoyed the work of field biology, but  I ended up teaching in Virginia and doing a Masters and Doctorate at the University of Virginia. 

Your journey as a teacher and becoming an administrator

My career in public education began as a high school science teacher. I subsequently served as a central office science coordinator and staff developer, elementary school principal, director of instruction, assistant superintendent for instruction, and adjunct instructor in educational leadership for the University of Virginia’s Curry School and the School of Continuing Education. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Furman University and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the University of Virginia. I am also an alumnus of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Executive Educators Leadership Institute. 

I am a past President of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, Women Educational Leaders of Virginia and the Virginia Association of Science Supervisors. I’ve held leadership positions with the regional Chamber of Commerce, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Education Fund, and the University of Virginia-Public Schools Educational Partnership.

Albemarle County Public Schools Superintendent

I served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools since January 2006 until June 2017. The division includes more than 1,200 teachers educating 13,700 students in 25 schools. During mys tenure, Albemarle County Public Schools has become one of the top performing school divisions for students in the state with an on-time graduation rate of 95 percent.  Two out of every three high school seniors graduate with an Advanced Studies Diploma, 30 percent higher than the state average for all school divisions.

Best way for me to share what happened in Albemarle County Public Schools is to show you. Edutopia collection of shared articles about the students and schools. 

Albemarle County Public Schools is comprised of 26 schools in Albemarle County, Virginia. A blend of primarily rural but also suburban and urban schools, each one embodies the culture of innovation and risk-taking that is the core of the district’s approach to teaching and learning. From makerspaces and curriculum to the use of social media, flexible classrooms, and instructional coaches, Albemarle gives students the life-long learning skills they’ll require to succeed.

Multiage learning space at Woodbrook Elementary
(source: Article by Tom Vander Ark. Forbes)

In 2017, a national survey organization ranked Albemarle County Public Schools in the top three of all school divisions in Virginia and among the top two percent of all school divisions in the county. Among the school division’s flagship programs are its Learning Commons, AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) and M-Cubed. Both the Learning Commons and M-Cubed have received the National School Board Association’s Magna Award, given annually to the school division in the nation with the most innovative and effective program.  The school division is the only one in the history of the Magna Award to twice receive the association’s highest performance honor. The school’s Learning Commons, which is a multi-disciplined, technology-infused learning center, has attracted visits by MIT, Harvard, the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina and from the Smithsonian Museum and the New York Hall of Science.  M-Cubed is a program that supports black middle school males in year-round advanced math studies to improve their high school academic performance. The division’s Jack Jouett Middle School is in the top three percent of all schools in the world for the success of its AVID college and career readiness program.

 

Your Book

Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools with Ira Socol and Chad Ratliff

Writing was a labor of life. After single year of my 43 years of my career, one thing is that if you are open to learning, that every single year of your life can be filled with amazing new opportunities to learn and develop and be a part of a community that makes things better for kids. 

I was fortunate to co-author this book with Chief Technology Officer Ira Socol and Lab Schools Principal Chad Ratliff to demonstrate how you can implement innovative practices that have shown remarkable success. We use progressive design principles to inform pathways to disrupt traditions of education today and show you how to make innovations real that will have a timeless and meaningful impact on students, keeping alive the natural curiosity and passion for learning with which children enter school.

• Discover the power of project-based and student-designed learning
• Find out what “maker learning” entails
• Launch connected and interactive digital learning
• Benefit from the authors’ “opening up learning” space and time

Using examples from our own district as well as others around the country, we created a map of the processes necessary to move from schools in which content-driven, adult-determined teaching has been the traditional norm to new learning spaces and communities in which context-driven, child-determined learning is the progressive norm. 

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This is Barbara. I shared a few of the excerpts from our conversation and hope you listen to the entire podcast with Pam. I learned so much from her about Albemarle County Public Schools, their book, and her new journey with Socol Moran Partners LLC with Ira Socol. I highly recommend that you read Timeless Learning or contact Pam for any school or district interested in transforming teaching and learning.  Thank you, Pam for sharing your story!

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Dr. Pam Moran’s contact information

Website: https://spacesforlearning.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @pammoran

Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm shift that must be made to make schools relevant.

A past gubernatorial appointee to the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia, Dr. Moran was selected by her peers across the Commonwealth as Virginia’s 2016 Superintendent of the Year.  She subsequently was one of four statewide superintendents of the year to be selected as a finalist for 2016 National Superintendent of the Year.

In 2016, Dr. Moran was selected to serve on the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development. She is a member of the MakerEdorg advisory committee and has delivered several TED Talks on the impact of creating a contemporary learning environment for students, one shaped around a student-centered project-based instructional model.   Under her guidance, Albemarle County Public Schools was selected in 2015 for membership in the League of Innovative Schools., a nonprofit organization authorized by the U.S. Congress to accelerate innovation in education.

Dr. Moran has appeared on the cover of Education Week’s Digital Directions magazine as a “National Mover and Shaker” for her advocacy of a curricular digital integration model, which will be featured in an upcoming profile by Edutopia.  She also was selected by eSchool Media as one of its national Tech-Savvy Superintendents of the Year and under her leadership, the school division received the Virginia Governor’s Tech Innovation Award.

Dr. Pamela R. Moran has been named the new Executive Director of the Virginia School Consortium for Learning (VaSCL). A statewide education organization headquartered in Palmyra, VaSCL includes a membership of more than 70 school divisions across the state. Its mission is to improve the quality of K-12 education in the state by providing high-quality professional learning to educators and by facilitating the sharing of best practices among school divisions.

 

Allison Zmuda is an education consultant specializing in curriculum, assessment, and instruction. She works with national and international educators to design learning experiences that are relevant, meaningful, challenging, and appropriate. Previously, she served as a high school social studies teacher for eight years. Allison has authored eleven books and co-developed a series of online courses.

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I have read several of Allison’s books, follow her on social media, and was very excited to have a conversation with her.  I learned so much about her and am honored to share her story with you. Enjoy!

 

You and your family

My husband, Tom, and I have two children, my son, Cuda, and my daughter, Zoe. We lived in a small town in Connecticut. When my son was in second grade and my daughter was in preschool going to start Kindergarten, I was looking around to what kind of public school system for my kids could have to grow. So we settled on Virginia Beach. I was doing some consulting work there for a couple of years. The level of innovation that was happening there at the time as well as the level of diversity was what we wanted. The opportunity to see what’s possible when you have a large scale school system as opposed to a regional small town system.

I wanted my kids to experience a range of perspectives, points of views, diversity, and also wanted to make sure they received a high-quality education. We moved to Virginia Beach with 68,000 students, eleven high schools, and not sure how many middle schools. My kids worked through the system, and now Zoe is in 9th grade and Cuda is in 12th grade. So we’re starting to think about college and university. They really thrived in their experience there and my kids coach me on the idea of what personalized learning looks like to them. It’s interesting to see how they find joy, interests, and passions sometimes in school and sometimes in an area they are interested in.

[This is Barbara. Make sure you listen to how Allison and her husband came up with Cuda’s and Zoe’s names.]

What was your experience in school

I was born in 1971. Growing up in the late 1970s and 80s, magnet schools were part of my public school experience. I went to a Science and Technology Magnet School in the late 70s where there was a planetarium at my elementary school. That was the first time I was on an Apple IIe where we learned turtle logo and Olympics of the Mind. The power of these experiences enriched my learning. All of these were great roots of gifted education infused into the public schools so everybody had access to it.

Montclair, New Jersey has a significant amount of diversity and choice. In middle school, it was an open system with no walls and a level of flexibility and innovation. Then I moved a traditional high school program and went on to Yale University thinking about going to law school or teaching. I was in the teacher preparation starting my sophomore year and graduated with a teaching license. Tore up my LSAT scores and to jump full-fledge into teaching.

Your mission

I was a high school social studies teacher in Newtown, Connecticut for eight years. When I was pregnant with my first child, I was starting to figure out how I can continue to influence the thinking not just of my students by also my peers and colleagues. I had an opportunity to write an article that turned into my very first book with my teaching partner at the time, Mary Tomaino. I wanted to think of a more flexible way of working and started my consulting career at 28. I’ve been at it for close to 19 years. I think about how to grow the heart, the energy, and the joy of what teaching and learning look like feel like and sounds like. That’s been my mission from the very beginning. How we can continue to create that level of joy, passion, energy, and focus while there’s so much anxiety, stress, and worry that not only our students are demonstrating but, clearly, our teachers are as well?

Experiences in middle school

What’s on my mind right now is that we need to look at middle school different than high school should look like. We need to consider the social-emotional aspect of learning and how we can continue to capture energy and life as they transition from elementary to middle school. We’re trying to grow the compassion and empathy as well as cognition as part of their middle school experience.

It is about these kinds of timeless experiences where we believe what we’re doing is in the best interests of the students and also grows the entire school culture. It also involves the willingness of the faculty to grow their possibilities and imaginings of what it is that they can hope for themselves and their students.

Purpose of learning

Learning from mistakes video on ASCD http://www.ascd.org/Publications/ascd-authors/allison-zmuda.aspx

I met Jay McTighe @jaymctighe and Grant Wiggins @grantwiggins early in my career who became my professional mentors, coaches, and colleagues. I was working at a regional center in Connecticut working with magnet schools in the Hartford area that grew my thinking about the possibilities of magnet schools all over again. I also started to think about how to make school more interesting for both kids and adults. That’s when my daughter told me she wanted to learn how to play the ukulele, buy her own ukulele, and then teach herself how to play using YouTube. [This is Barbara: I found a YouTube video on how to strum the Ukulele.]

When a child is interested in something, they go about it organically. It is very different than what we as educators might imagine. I asked Zoe what she wanted to do with the ukulele and she said it was a stress reliever and unwind. Every child and adult needs to figure out a way of unwinding and also giving themselves a level of energy and joy. What they want to learn is connected to motivation or purpose. Why am I doing it in the first place? Trying to grow discovery can be an action plan, something they want to do in a genius hour, or like my daughter, learning to play the ukulele.

What experience changed you?

I had a stroke when I was 37. It was terrifying. I was at my daughter’s soccer field when she was in kindergarten. I tried to stand up and cheer her on and I couldn’t stand up. It turned out that I fell over and immediately an ambulance was called. At the hospital, they performed surgery. When I woke up, I was not able to speak with maybe two or three words in my vocabulary. I was also paralyzed on my right side. After 72 hours, the paralysis worked its way out, but the speech didn’t. I was conscious and my mental faculties were okay the whole time, but the ability to explain my thinking was so highly tortured.

It was interesting because I had turned in to the editor the one book I had written by myself. I knew 6-8 weeks down the road that my book was going to come back to me and I would have to edit it one last time. Trying to think about how to grow my capacity to speak, to write, to communicate. The work I do as a consultant is organic and grounded in what the school or district is imagining. It’s not a canned presentation and every site is different. When I was going through rehab, one of the first persons who worked with me said that I was probably not able to work again. This was 2010.

[Barbara here. Listen at 28:10 to how Allison was determined to come back after this altering life event.] 

LearningPersonalized.com 

My company is just me. Learning Personalized grew out of how do we create a like-minded community of teachers, parents, students, and administrators around the idea of personalized learning. What are the challenges, problems that they are having? What are some of the success stories? Learning Personalized was sort of an act of community to continue to grow the thinking of people in that space.

As part of my consulting, educators have the ability to share their stories or something in a blog on my site. The idea is to for teachers and administrators to help us have a window into their journey even if they are uncomfortable about sharing and that level of risk-taking. You are now focusing on being an engineer, an architect, or an artist as opposed to anyone who is perfecting anything.  That is the spirit of what the community is trying to do. It’s messier because children are going shoulder-to-shoulder with you on that journey. It is growing you as an educator.

The secret of writing books

The secret of writing eleven books is that only one was written solely by me. One of the things that I find incredibly enriching is to think, imagine, and co-create with other authors and consultants. The interesting part about that is it is as much a thing to grow my thinking as it is something I do on behalf of a readership. It’s always a little bit selfish, in that to be in this space where you’re imagining ideas together with another author is just so enlightening. Barbara captured most of my books here.

Students at the Center

Video: Personalized Learning with Dr. Bena Kallick @benakallick and Allison Zmuda

Dispositions for Students and Educators

When you are starting to think about dispositions, it would be helpful to isolate an example that we agree is important. When you are thinking about goals or feedback, there are related dispositions that teachers and students need to grow into. If they are going to be able to create meaningful work and conversations around both of those areas. For example, when you start thinking about feedback, what are the most important roles from a classroom teacher’s point of view when they are providing feedback to students? Based on my continuous collaboration with Dr.Bena Kallick with Students at the Center, feedback is as much an act of teacher’s questioning and problem posing as it is delivering information on how to improve it.

Often times, we jump to guide them before we have a good understanding of what was the intention of what the students were after in the first place. From a student’s point of view, I have to be open to the idea of continuous learning. When we are engaged in rich and robust feedback, often we are looking at making it actionable and regular, but it doesn’t always get to the heart to do on behalf of the learner. We’re trying to grow students’ understanding of the value of feedback and the notion that feedback is something that is accessible from others and knowing that they are growing from their own self-analysis and improvement.

Four attributes of personalized learning

 

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Allison Zmuda is going on 17 years as a full-time education consultant specializing in curriculum, assessment, and instruction.

She works with her clients to imagine learning experiences that are worthy of the pursuit for both students and educators, designing work that is relevant, meaningful, challenging, and appropriate. Since 2001, she has co-authored 10 books, her most recent being The Quest for Learning (Solution Tree), co-authored with Marie Alcock and Michael Fisher and released October 2017, and Students at the Center: Personalized Learning and Habits of Mind (ASCD) co-authored with Bena Kallick, which was released January 2017.

In addition to her consulting work, Allison curates learningpersonalized.com, a website community comprised of her writing and that of colleagues and other educators. She has also developed a series of online personalized learning courses with Bena Kallick, available on Eduplanet21.

Allison lives in Virginia Beach, VA with her husband and two teenage children.

You can follow Allison on Twitter (@allison_zmuda), Facebook, LinkedIn, or reach her via e-mail at allison@allisonzmuda.com.

Website: https://learningpersonalized.com

ASCD Author Page: http://www.ascd.org/Publications/ascd-authors/allison-zmuda.aspx

 

Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, an education innovation lab dedicated to the transformation of public education. Jim formerly served as the Director of the Institute for six years and as a superintendent in several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

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Jim is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders and co-author of Five Levers To Improve Learning: How To Prioritize For Powerful Results In Your School. I have been fortunate to participate in several summits with Jim, attend his sessions at conferences, and collaborate on blogs about personalized learning. I learned some new things about Jim in the podcast. Enjoy!

 

You and your family

We are a family of educators. My wife, Lynn, has been a math tutor for a long time and so supportive of the work I’m doing. Our oldest son, Jay, with a newly minted Ph.D., is a professor at Appalachian State University. Our daughter, Christine, is an early childhood educator. I have spent more than 45 years in education with more than 20 years as a superintendent. I loved that. The work I’ve done for the last ten years around personalized learning has actually become all consuming and a fun journey.

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I tend to be an achiever. For me, a school was all about if a task or challenge was set up, I would go after it. When I think back to my experiences in education, what was missing often was the connection to purpose. Rarely, do I recall a specific or compelling purpose around learning? Being an achiever, my focus typically was around doing well on the test and getting good grades. I was fortunate to do well most of the time. The downside of that was how much I forgot because I learned it for the test, not for its inherent benefit or for other value it brought to me. Not that I forgot everything, but I saw the same thing happening with my students.

Jim Rickabaugh: “Getting Learning Right the First Time, Every Time”

When we learn for the task if that’s the driver or if we say  “you need to know this will be on the test” and the test is over, too often what was learned is let go. It’s an unfortunate consequence for learning. The sad part is that even the act of learning tended to be very linear and focused what was going to be on the test. In the process, we ignored and failed to explore so much that would have been interesting, compelling, and enriching. No one ever thought to stop and talk about why we were learning that was value for us. Every once in a while, something would come along like a project or a concept that was so powerful that it transformed all of that and become a really meaningful thing. Unfortunately, that experience was more the exception that it was the rule.

Your journey as an educator

I’m the first educator among my parents and siblings. The choice to go into education was driven by two things. I wanted to make a difference in children’s lives and two there were educators I admired who were brilliant people who impacted me. One, in particular, was in eighth grade. We were doing a project exploring careers. I was having difficulty finding a topic, and my teacher, Mr. David Kitch, said to me, “Jim, you really should think about going into education. I think you’d make a great teacher.” I admired Mr. Kitch as a great teacher, and if he thinks I would make a great teacher, I should pay attention to that. 25 years later, I was visiting the school district I attended and Mr. Kitch was retiring that year. I was so appreciative of his encouragement and advice that I took time to call him and thank him. Mr. Kitch remembered me but didn’t remember the comment and was shocked that it made such an impact for me. For me, it was a driving force because he was such a brilliant teacher.

If teachers only knew how much they made a difference in children’s lives, they would be absolutely humbled. Our influence becomes integrated into who they are, that they might even separate it. It is true that educators rarely know the full impact that they have on the students’ lives they touch.  For many students who don’t have the support system at home, educators are their support system.

Your journey as a teacher and administrator

I taught history and Spanish in a small high school in Wisconsin near Madison. Just before I graduated from college, one of my professors who I respected said, “so to be really clear, your graduation is not the end, it is the beginning. You might start working on your masters immediately. If you don’t, life happens and it will be more difficult later.” So my first year, I worked and started working on my masters and continued working while I worked on my Ph.D. while  I was a teacher. I worked at that school for four years and then moved to the Chicago suburbs as a dean of students handling mostly discipline issues. I learned a lot but I found my perspective about students was too narrow and unhealthy. So I pushed on to become a building administrator, then joined the district office as head of the curriculum, and then became superintendent at a suburb of Milwaukee. After that, I became superintendent of a district in Minnesota and then went back to Wisconsin to become superintendent of Whitefish Bay School District until 2010.

AEI Speakers: Jim Rickabaugh

 

Starting the Institute for Personalized Learning (https://institute4pl.org/)

There were a group of superintendents scratching our heads with two observations. One observation was that educators were working under more stress, pressure, and working harder than any of us could recall in our careers. Yet, we’re still not reaching so many kids. Our conclusion was that it is not that educators don’t care. The second observation was that in 2010 we were continuing to get more money for schools, but we found ourselves continually cutting programs. We committed to spending a year to see if anyone had figured out this issue. In 2010, people thought “Personalized Learning” was computer learning. We read everything and talked to everyone we knew. Ultimately, we came to a very obvious conclusion.

The problem is not that people are working hard enough and the problem isn’t money. It’s that we have a school design that is not aligned to what we’re asking schools to do. All learning is personal, but we have a system as if it is a corporate activity.

Our question was: “What would happen if we actually started the design process looking at it through the eyes of a learner instead of looking at it through the curriculum or other structural elements.”

So it turned out that learning has always been personal. We knew that. We practiced that up until the point when we needed to prepare workers for industry and assembly lines. We asked ourselves how would we engage learners if we didn’t have the system we have? Suddenly, there are all kinds of really good options that engaged learners that were not engaged in the current system in far better ways. We ended up writing a white paper, Transforming Public Education: A Regional Call to Action, on this topic that is still on our website. We were lucky that CESA1  (Cooperative Education Service Agency) was willing to put money behind this for the first two years and then see if there was enough momentum to keep it going. It continues to grow by shifting into a pay-as-you-go model and operates on services we provide using the resources they had. Thankfully, we are coming up on the 10th year and there are over 60 formal memberships and supporting over 100 projects around the Midwest. There were 500 people from 13 different states represented at our last convening.

It’s not always easy, but if people make those design decisions on the front end, then you are less likely to let it go later. Too often, good ideas have been left behind because the funding ran out. Not that the ideas weren’t good. It didn’t matter. The idea is for the each of us to own our learning and the system needs to support that process.

What Personalized Learning looks like

There is always a mystery to learning and still confusion around personalized learning. That’s why the Institute continues and we are constantly surprised by what it does for the lives of children. We partnered with a research team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison to visit schools involved in personalizing learning. They had a question for us that they were struggling with: “Every place we go where this work is going on, why do they all look different?” They asked us about fidelity to the protocol, and we came up with it being fidelity to purpose. When you are really clear that we’re trying to develop capable learners, we’re promoting ownership and agency. These discussions really pushed our thinking. This idea of fidelity to purpose brings passion to our work.

 

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This is Barbara: There is more so make sure you listen to the rest of the podcast to discuss his books and his latest venture: you learn purpose for learning (Start and Stay with the Why)

A picture at the iNACOL 2018 conference during Jim’s presentation on change

 

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Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, an education innovation lab dedicated to the transformation of public education. The Institute serves a growing number of member school districts engaged in personalizing learning and is a part of the multi-state Innovation Lab Network coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Jim formerly served as the Director of the Institute for six years and as a superintendent in several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dr. Rickabaugh was Wisconsin Superintendent of the Year in 2008 and Minnesota Superintendent of the Year in 1996. He is a member of the boards of the Wisconsin Education Business Roundtable and the Innovative Schools Network and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Midwest Comprehensive Center. He received the Excellence in Educational Leadership Award in 2005 from the University Council for Educational Administration and a lifetime achievement award from the Master Teacher in 2010.

Dr. Rickabaugh is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders focused on helping principals and other educational leaders to engage their staffs in designing and implementing personalized learning ecosystems. Jim is also a co-author of Five Levers To Improve Learning: How To Prioritize For Powerful Results In Your School. An engaging speaker, Jim has presented on personalized learning at several national conferences including the Annual Visible Learning Conference, ASCD Annual Conference, AESA Annual Conference and iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium, among others.

Senior Advisor, Institute for Personalized Learning
Twitter: @drrickabaugh

Resources:

Placing Learners at the Center Article

Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning – ASCD 2016 

Keys to Implementing Personalized Learning as a Leader: An Interview with Dr. James Rickabaugh