Hans Appel has been a Counselor at Enterprise Middle School in the Richland School District in WA for the past 17+ years. Recently, Hans launched his own blog about School Culture and this fall rolled out a student-led leadership podcast called Award Winning Culture: Hosted by Wildcat Nation.

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Hans is absolutely driven to helping students and educators find purpose and joy in life. Just listening to his passion when he talks about school culture and Character Strong made me want to learn more about him, his life, the kids, and his school. Below are excerpts from our conversation.   

About you and where you live

I was born in Westfield, New Jersey, and an only child. My family moved to Corpus Christie, Texas when I was a little kid. My dad was a chemical engineer and my mom was an art teacher and interior designer. When I was in second grade, we moved to Richland, Washington so he could work at the Hanford Nuclear site. I spent most of my life here and went to Hanford High School where I met my wife, Jennifer and been married for 19 of the 24 years we’ve been together. Jennifer is a passionate educator and teaches at the same school as me, Enterprise Middle School, as a Language Arts teacher and teaches leadership. We are fortunate to work together and talk the same language.

We don’t have children of our own. Our kids are the kids at our school where we spend our energy. We have two dogs that are Shelties who are babies who we love and spoil. We live in the city of Kennewick which is in the Southeast corner of Washington and is much drier than Seattle. It is more like the climate of Napa, CA so it is conducive to growing wine.

Your journey in school

A school was good up through elementary school. Middle school was where school got really hard for me. My parents were fighting a lot in kind of an abusive home and not the greatest situation for me at that age. Learning in school really became secondary. I didn’t get good grades in middle school and didn’t find my own until high school where I got into sports. I’m 6’4” so I was a basketball player. The more I got into basketball, the more I realized that grades mattered. I had to keep my grades up to stay eligible, but that is also where I started getting excited about my education. I went to Central Washington University which was 2 hours away. I took business and psychology classes. The more psychology classes I took, the more I realized I was more into human behavior and how to help others.

While I was in college, my parents went through a divorce, and I became their mediator. This was a weird role to play as a 19 or 20-year-old kid, but I kind of helped both of them through that experience. So while all of that was going on, Jennifer was in the education program. She had come from a long line of educators who asked me if I ever thought of education. As I took more psychology classes and was learning to help others, it just felt like a natural fit. When I was graduating with a masters in school counseling and because of my own experiences, I knew, unequivocally, that I only wanted to work in middle school. I believed that was where the kids needed me the most.

School Counselor at Enterprise Middle School (EMS Counselor)

When I graduated, I went to work at Hanford Middle School which was my alma mater which closed in 2005. The district built Enterprise MS where most of the Hanford MS staff went. There’s this core group, two-thirds of us, that have been together for 15 to 20 years. It’s like we’re a family here, and it is pretty special. I’m lucky to have the best administration in the district and top of the line support staff and teachers who put kids first and care about making this place amazing. I realized as a school counselor there are a lot of things I don’t have influence over what happens to students at home or around decisions made at the district office. As a counselor, I have a lot of influence on what our school culture looks like and how that impacts experiences for students. Love this quote from Peter Drucker:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

That makes so much sense to me because there are so many intentional small things we can do on a daily basis that lift other people’s spirits

About Wildcat Nation

Wildcat Nation is Our Brand. We have spent a few years building that brand. Joe Sanfellipo has this quote that really stuck with me.

“Your brand is what people say about you when you are not around.”

School brands have to go beyond mascots and logos and have to be rooted in authenticity. It can’t be a couple of people coming up with a cool name or idea. It has to be something that grows naturally. We focused on three main parts with these questions:

• Character: Will you do the right thing?
• Excellence: Will you do your best?
• Community: What will you do for others today?

Wildcat Nation has become who we are. A student mentioned to me that school for her is “a place where kindness is normal.”

Kindness and Social Emotional Learning program

We’ve been doing advisories for about 8 years that involve three areas:

• Social-emotional learning
• College and career
• Academic

The first 30 minutes of every Friday, students learning one of those aspects of education. Students loop with their teachers so they build relationships with their teachers that last three years. It has been pretty successful for a while, but we decided it was time to update our social-emotional curriculum.

We found in our research CHARACTER STRONG that was created by John Norlin and Houston Kraft who have combined character ed and social-emotional learning. We realized we were missing the character ed piece because character really gives social-emotional the why. Instead of teaching kids what not to do, it’s more a proactive way of teaching them how to be kind, to serve, and use empathy. It’s highly experiential because it gets kids up and moving around. Not only in lessons, but there are also challenges outside of advisory. They do things called “Character Dares” where they are asked to do things in the community, in the school, in other classes, and at home. There is part of this program that will move you to tears and impactful for teachers and students. The two-day training I had a year ago on Character Strong was the best professional training that I’ve had my entire career. It was a life changing event for me and highly recommend it for other educators. It really helps you deeply discover your why and is so powerful in how you can use that message to change the world.

What Character Strong looks like at EMS

Every morning, our kids greet others as they come to school. There are high fives, fist bumps, and music playing. It’s so powerful. No matter what the weather is, the kids make everyone feel welcome to our school. We have something that we call “Golden Broom” which is a demonstration of service to those who serve us. It is really special when we recognize people like our custodian and had the kids work for the custodian for 30 minutes to give him a break. They also made hot cider and cookies and brought those to the bus drivers. Those kinds of things were sprinkled throughout the year.

Golden Broom: “A Demonstration of Service to those who SERVE US.”

Blogging about Special Magic

It started because our school was getting attention and people wanted to see what is the special magic that is happening at Enterprise Middle School. John Norlin and Houston Kraft reached out to me to start writing some blog posts for Character Strong just sharing our story. That basically morphed into having other people at our school writing. So we asked educators and others  LA Teacher, Parent, B-Ball Coach, Math Teacher who were experiencing the magic like I was. What they found was that those were some of the most popular blogs that were posted on Character Strong. When the students started sharing their stories, that’s when I got excited about student voice.

Student-led podcast

In early Spring 2018, I attended the annual SERVUS Conference in Kent, Wa where students, speakers, authors, celebrities, and athletes showed up with 7-8 hours of inspiring work. Just imagine all the best leadership minds in your state together in an arena to learn from each other. I was listening to some of the speakers and there was this holocaust survivor that was talking. I mentioned to my wife that we need to make this happen more than once a year.

Listen to more from Hans Appel about the student-led podcast and how it was created in the podcast along with information about the following awards:

-2018 ASCD Whole Child Award for the State of Washington
-2017-2018 Global Class Act Award for Random Acts of Kindness

Hans Appel has been a Counselor in the Richland School District, for the past 17+ years and at Enterprise Middle School since it opened in 2005.  He’s passionate about school culture, servant leadership, and kindness. In 2018, EMS was awarded the ASCD Whole Child Award for the State of Washington, for creating a culture of excellence through kindness, service, and empathy.

 Additionally, RandomActs of Kindness chose Wildcat Nation as the 2017-2018 Global Class Act Winner for “making kindness normal.” Recently, Hans launched his own blog about School Culture and this fall rolled out a student-led leadership podcast called Award Winning Culture: Hosted by Wildcat Nation.  Hans is absolutely driven to help students and educators find purpose and joy in life.

Contact Info

HansAppel094@gmail.com
#AwardWinningCulture
@hansappel094
@emswildcats1

The Spectrum of Voice by Barbara Bray @bbray27 was adapted from the research “Motivation, Engagement, & Student Voice” by Toshalis & Nakkula for Students at the Center @StudentCntrHub. The content in this post that was originally developed by Bray and Kathleen McClaskey @khmmc as the Continuum of Voice* and is a new derivative developed by Bray along with new graphics by Sylvia Duckworth @sylviaduckworth.

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Why Spectrum with new content and graphics and not use Continuum?

*The original Continuum of Voice created by Kathleen McClaskey and me appears in our book, How to Personalize Learning. I have been creating derivatives with over 40% changes to the content and graphics with several of the continuums mentioned in the book. I am basing the changes on new research I am finding, the feedback I am getting from educators, and the new direction I am going.

In particular, for the concept of voice, I believe that in the continuums the focus on the environment was what impacted where learners were in the continuum (i.e. teacher-centered or learner-centered). I now have discovered that an activity, the environment in or out of school, the relationship students have with a teacher or mentor, and their mindset about learning could impact how they use or not use their voice.

For example, let’s take one student who has a passion to change the status quo and is advocating about gun control. They may even be leading a protest about the issue. That same student may not be doing that well in their math class, does not have a good relationship with their teacher, and tends to be compliant or just working toward a grade. Does this mean they are in the Expression level or Leadership level or both? The idea of saying that one student or teacher was in a specific level concerned educators I talked to. Some teachers may not be that comfortable teaching in a learner-centered environment all the time. But if teachers understand that a student can be affected by a situation or the relationship they have or do not have with different teachers, or extrinsic factors like grades, then they can look at the Spectrum of Voice to understand the whole child.

Think about that and then let’s discuss more situations with different students.

Questions to consider when discussing voice:

• When do you feel like you have a voice in the direction of your learning?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you did not have a voice about what and how you learn?
• How did that feel? Were you able to change that situation? How did you do that?
• Do you know students who are at the Expression level and tend to be compliant?
• What could you do to empower those students to take more ownership of their learning? How can you encourage them to have a voice in what and how they learn?
• Do you have examples of students who found their voice and self-advocate for what they believe?
• Do you know any students that could be compliant in one class and in the partnership level in another?
• Any other questions you would like to share about voice?

Teachers have so much on their plate. When you ask them to step out of their comfort zone and personalize learning, some throw their hands up and shake their heads. The idea of personalizing learning means something different to different people. Some teachers only heard that they have to change and felt they were being attacked for the way they taught. Others were confused about the terms. Yet, teaching practice is changing because the world is changing. Preparing children for their future means building competencies and skills along with academics. It also means empowering students to take more responsibility for their learning. This is why I created the Teaching and Learning Approaches chart.

The last PDI v3 chart was created over five years ago in 2013. That chart has helped educators understand the differences between the terms. Kathleen McClaskey and I worked with schools around the US for over 5 years using that chart in our work and our books. I am proud of all the work that Kathleen and I did during that time. We decided last year to close our company, Personalize Learning, LLC and go in our own directions to do what we do best.

Over several years, I was being contacted by schools and teachers from around the world with questions about the Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization (PDI) v3 chart. Here are just a few of the questions educators were confused about:

• Why is Personalization in the first column?
• Why didn’t we include the whole class?
• Is it wrong to differentiate or individualize instruction?
• From outside the US, I was asked: “what is the Carnegie unit?”
• Why did we put teacher and learner at the top of the columns?
• How can learners be responsible for teaching and learning?
• What does an assessment OF, FOR, and AS learning mean?
• How can I move to Personalization when my students are not ready?
• How can I help my students develop agency when the system doesn’t allow it?

I then invited educators to provide me feedback so I could help guide the new direction: the Teaching and Learning Approaches chart. What everyone agreed on was that a teacher may address some of the criteria under the different columns and from all of these approaches in a day and maybe even in one lesson. In the work with teachers implementing one lesson or project, teachers may…

• introduce a topic to the whole class.
• provide resources and support for different groups.
• work one-on-one with individual learners.
• encourage learners to have voice and choice.

Personal or personalized learning is when learners drive the learning with support from the teacher. You can use the term “Personal Learning” instead of “Personalization” if you are confused around the latter term. The confusion brought up questions about who owns and drives the learning or if the learning is being done to the learner. Some organizations feel more comfortable using the term “personalization.” All of this is up to you and how you want to adopt any of these approaches in your teaching practice.

I didn’t want to argue over semantics so what I tried to make clear in this chart is how much value a teacher is in all of the approaches and that it is all about the “person” who is learning. That can be the teacher who is also learning about changing their teaching practice. Moving to learner agency takes time for students and teachers. Students may not be ready to let go. Many have learned how to do school and may resist change. Teachers may not have the support, resources, or time to jump in and change how they teach right away. It was clear to me from the feedback how important and more effective scaffolding the skills was for teachers to gently nudge and empower students to take more ownership of their learning. When teachers and learners build positive relationships first and a culture where everyone’s voice is valued, they will know when to change and try new ideas. This chart is meant as a guide and to calm the fears about changing what they know and do around teaching and learning that I heard from teachers.

I just added a link to Download the chart from here. You are also able to view and download this chart from the Slideshare above.

Please let me know what you think of this chart and how you might use it. You can either email me at barbara.bray@gmail.com or use the contact me on this site, leave a comment below, or share on social media.

I will be sharing more materials and professional learning opportunities soon, so if you would like to subscribe, go to the top left to connect so you’ll be the first to receive those announcements and resources in my newsletter.

Michael Mohammad, a high school science teacher in Elmbrook School District in Wisconsin, is passionate about personalizing learning for all learners. Mike writes a blog post, Mo Physics, Mo Problems about his own journey to personalize learning and building his PLN.

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Mike shares what happens in his class on social media. I’ve been part of Mike’s PLN for several years and have enjoyed what he shares with the world. When he first learned about personalized learning, he decided to try it right away with his kids. I was pretty excited about the results and just wanted to learn more what his kids were doing in his class. So it just made sense to invite Mike to join me in a conversation. Below are excerpts from the podcast:

Can you share a little about you and your background? Why did you go into teaching?

I grew up in Wisconsin. I live outside of Milwaukee, WI with my wife and my new puppy who is a Golden Doodle named Georgia. My parents are immigrants from Pakistan and they pushed me to be a doctor. My mother never went to school and my father became a pediatrician. I actually did work that would take me down the path to become a lawyer or doctor. I always loved school, because it came easy. I was good at “doing school”, but enjoyed English because it allowed me to create and be imaginative. Science was sit and get, English was creative thinking. It was a big leap for me to push to become a teacher. I found in college that I really liked science education and it really made that connection to who I am. There was no push back once they saw I was happy. My parents are very happy with my career choice.

What are the best things about teaching science and high school for you?

I teach 10th through 12th grade Physics. The best thing about science is that you can really make it hands-on. It’s not that hard of a leap to make learning hands-on for students and it’s a great place for students to take risks. When we talk about engineering and designing, it is fantastic. I see the world through science. I am able to take risks without fear. This is science at its best: when we are challenged to think, do, and learn.

Why is it important to personalize learning? Can you share how you are creating a space for every learner?

Learners have passions and aspirations. I need to bridge their passions and aspirations to the content.

It comes down to my Why statement. When I think about when I was a kid doing things just to do them. I cannot tell you a single thing I did in my physics class in high school except the day we went to Great America. When I polled my students to see if they knew what physics was, 90% had no clue. I wanted my students to know how physics connects to their lives not just the world at large. I live physics and want them to experience it the same as I do. Students have to do hands-on with physics or it is not personal to them. Everyone is different. They need to talk about who they are.  It doesn’t matter what subject you teach or population, there is a spectrum of abilities and preferences. It is about removing the obstacles from learning and building the “why” for learning. Teaching learners to know how to learn for themselves rather than simply absorbing information.

What are some strategies you are using to build a culture of learning in your classes?

On the very first day, I ask students to build portfolios using Google Sites starting with a passion page. They are asked to find four videos that talk to you about who you are, your passions, what you want to do, etc. and embed those on the page. Then they write a paragraph about the videos and how they connect to you as a person. This post talks about the portfolio and how it changed over the last term.   http://mophysicsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2017/11/portfoli-o-yeah.html

I enjoy going through the portfolios and learning about them and what they love beyond school. Then I have them create a Learner Profile that you shared with me and that really helps them understand who they are as a learner. After 9 weeks, they go back to reflect on their passion page and most usually want to update the videos because of how much they changed. I tell them to keep the old videos and just add to them. The portfolios also include standards and evidence of learning. I shared with my kids how I needed a portfolio when I was learning to become a teacher. I wanted them to know that collecting evidence, reflecting on it in a portfolio and defending themselves on why they chose that evidence is a lifelong skill. I want them to have a voice and own their learning. It’s not about me. It’s about them. Here’s a link to Hannah’s Portfolio:   https://sites.google.com/elmbrookschools.org/hannahphysicsportfolio/home

Can you share some of the projects you do with your kids?

The biggest project I have been working on is a year-long Passion Project. They choose something they are passionate about and it is my job to find the physics behind it. The night before exams, we’ll have an expo with all the classes that is open to the community including parents. Students are responsible for presenting their learning. Instead of just presenting to your class, I want them to experience what it is like to present to an authentic audience. I have 90 kids so I split the presentations with 45 presenting first and then the other half after. I want them to have a chance to be in the audience as well so they can ask questions and give feedback to their fellow learners.

Click on this link to Thinglink to be able to access all the projects:

Why does your PLN matter so much to you?

I love getting on social media and listening to podcast. My learning was limited to the building I was in. Now my PLN provides me ideas on the edge of innovation and how to define what’s possible. I learn about resources for classroom use and strategies for communicating to staff. I also learn about new technology and how to hack it. I use social media to challenge and celebrate my learners.

I found your blog, Mo Physics, Mo Problems. Here are two posts to share:

Overarching Standards to Drive Personalization.

What are the essentials of NGSS science practices? If standards are being written into narrowly framed learning targets, everyone can’t get through them. It is important not to  be specific to products, but to be specific to skills and big ideas. Then students can find their own path to mastery. Don’t define the problem, help learners define the problem.

Practices in the Classroom are Practices for Life

Habits of Mind! Many standards (CCSS, NGSS) have habits of mind ingrained in practices. We need to highlight these components not simply the content standards.

Can you share one last thing for our audience?

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens unlocked understanding of Personalized Learning for my peers at my school. It cut through mixed messages and put it back in simple questions to ask about learners in your classroom. Starting with the Why, then the what and how.

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Mike Mohammad was born and raised in Sheboygan, WI. Mike attended UW Madison where he received his degree in Secondary Education in Broadfield Science and Biology with additional certifications in chemistry and physics. He’s been a secondary educator for 17 years, 13 of which have been at Brookfield Central High School in Brookfield, WI. His interests in education focus on putting students at the center of their own learning experience. He lives in Brown Deer, WI with his wife and dog.

Email: mohammam@elmbrookschools.org
Website: http://mophysicsmoproblems.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @mo_physics

Mike winning Trailblazer Award from the Institute for Personalized Learning (picture in graphic above is when he received the award):    http://www.elmbrookschools.org/brookfield-central-high-school/news-details/~post/mike-mohammad-receives-trailblazer-award-20171103

Michelle Baldwin is a Lead Teacher at Anastasis Academy in Centennial, Colorado. She believes in inspiring students to follow their natural curiosity and take ownership of their learning through inquiry, problem-based and experiential learning, and the Arts.

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I’ve known Michelle for many years always meeting up with her at different conferences. When I talked to Michelle at the Digital Badge summit, she shared some exciting things that were happening at her school. So, of course, I wanted to have a conversation with her. Below are excerpts from the podcast:

Can you share your background and your family?

I was born and lived in Omaha, Nebraska. I went into teaching as a 7-12 music educator for six years, then I started to lose my voice and didn’t have enough opportunities to see my children. Being a music educator is time intensive, and I found myself at the school all the time. I decided I wanted to see my children grow up too. I went into the corporate world for a while and did some technology training and that’s where I got into all that techie thing. I remember thinking around 2000-2001 that there was so much potential for education. After that, I went into technology staff development and helped teachers use technology in their classrooms. Then it wasn’t long before I missed kids and needed to get back into the classroom. I taught elementary music for a couple of years. At that time (2009-2011), three of our four kids had already graduated high school. All four of our children are now in their mid-twenties. We are expecting a grandchild in December. Three of our children are still in Nebraska; two are in Omaha and the other in Lincoln. Our youngest daughter is in Lenexa, Kansas (works in Overland Park).

Photo by M. Stokes Photography

Then, my wonderful friend, Kelly Tenkeley said: “I think I would like to start a school.” She explained school is starting to take the joy out of learning and how kids are so naturally curious when they come to us. After being in school, they are just going through the motions. So we talked back and forth for a while and I said, “if you build it, I will come.” She did and my husband said, let’s move to Colorado. Colorado is beautiful so it was not a hardship to move here. Even though our children are not here, we aren’t that far away and visit them often.

What is the background and philosophy of Anastasis Academy?

Kelly started the school August 2011. We really wanted to start with that piece of each child where you know every kids’ name. Kelly has written many blog posts how she came to think how we would design the school, how she wanted to have it run on a daily basis. It starts with the kids. We don’t do grade levels so we have mixed-age classrooms. The way that we place the children with a teacher is based on where they are social, emotionally, and academically and their peers are. The way that I do it that I have 5 to 7-year-olds. The next class there are 7 to 10-year-olds and so on. We are a K-8 school with five-year-olds up to fourteen-year-old kids. We have a lot of overlap age-wise in classes throughout the school. That’s a big change for a lot of kids. We don’t do homework. Everything kids need to do they do during the school day. We honor the time they have with families and the learning that happens outside of the school. We don’t need to monopolize that time. That again is something different for kids. We are a 1:1 iPad and BYOD school so we have kids who bring in their laptop or whatever device the kids need for the tasks.

Using @seesaw to document our learning about the bean seeds.

How do you build the culture and help kids develop the structures?

We call it from day one the first week or month our detox time. Someone pointed out that the initials for Anastasis Academy is AA so maybe we need to rethink that. [laughter] We do take that time especially for kids that come from other schools. We start right away to build the community and have lunch together every day. This is a faith-based private school so kids are looking at the world view a little differently. They all come together in a way that the kids will tell you really feels like family. So they start to get used to that these people care about me and my behavior. But, on the other part of that, we have a lot of freedom and independence in our school where we help kids manage those freedoms. There are natural consequences when things don’t get done. They have a lot of decision making on what they are to do to learn. In other schools, those decisions tend to be made for them. We have a structured environment; it’s just a different structure. We help the kids to build their own structures for them.

Scenes from #dayofplay with Team Baldwin

How do you get to know your kids?

Our very first thing we do every school year is to start learner profiles. That involves the kids meeting one-on-one with the teacher and we ask them what they are interested in, what is a struggle for them, what they think they are really good at favorite books and movies. We just sit and have a conversation. It is great to get to know the kids that way before they come to the classroom. We ask them what are their favorite ways to learn? Kelly devised a card game that they have to play that takes them through different learning preferences, styles, and brain dominance. We don’t use the results to teach them a specific way to being a visual learner. It’s more about the information we get about the kids. It’s really fun to have the conversations around who the kids think they are. When we first started Anastasis Academy, I taught 8, 9, and 10-year-olds. The 3rd or 4th year in, I moved to the youngest kids in the school. It’s really interesting to hear the different kinds of answers I get to questions.

My favorite question is: “If there is one thing you could change about yourself, what would that be?” Most of our kids, especially the little guys, say that they wouldn’t change anything or they don’t know. They don’t have anything that they think is a flaw, deficit, or weakness. Which is awesome!! We build on that helping them to understand that you are great and continually develop who you are. That’s my favorite part of the whole year is getting to know the kids.

What about kids that need additional support at the higher level?

If we have kids that basically go through our model before they are ready to go on to the high school, we offer a capstone year as well. Last year we had two 13 and 14-year-old girls who did their capstone projects. This year we have one. They meet with the oldest classes we have and do a lot of independent work as well. They can have multiple projects throughout the year. Last year, the two girls were very passionate about the plight of refugees and how people view refugees. They wanted to make sure that our community understood and didn’t just hear misinformation about what a refugee is and who they are. So they had a ‘Come Meet People’ night along with a presentation, brought in people from different organizations, who were refugees themselves, and others who are working toward their citizenship. It was a great informational night, but the girls, through the whole project, raised money to donate to organizations. They see at 13 and 14 years old that they can make a difference by helping people become more informed and to show compassion about what people go through as refugees. This project helped them remember the humanity behind it. If we say who we really are, are we acting as we think we are? Those girls know that you don’t have to wait until you graduate from high school to make a definite difference in someones’ lives.

Can you share Architects of Wonder and Team Baldwin?

When I started that blog, Architects of Wonder, I was teaching the older kids, ages 8 to 11 years old.  We needed a catchy name for our blog that described it well. One of my students named it from saying that we are “architects” building our own learning and because we are curious by asking and searching questions, we have that sense of wonder. We all agreed that was a perfect name that we started in 2012. I kept it going with the younger classes even when I moved to the older kids. Now I have 5, 6, and 7-year-olds keeping the blog going and people respond to them on Twitter on Team Baldwin. I told them that when you share what you are learning and thinking about, it does matter to other people. I told that there was an author who thanked them for reading her book. They started to realize that their learning matters outside of these four walls. That to me is super important because it is not just what we do at school, and what I do at home. It’s now that learning is connected throughout wherever we are. Kids, especially the younger kids, go on photo shoots holding their iPads up taking pictures or videos where they become mini-documentarians. They are narrating everything that they see and capture. Last spring, kids took pictures of buds and narrated how they will turn into flowers or leaves. All of a sudden, they saw a hawk circling around and they all started recording the hawk narrating what they thought was happening. One little guy sounded like a sports commentator. It was okay for them to record something that wasn’t part of the objectives for the day.

Two of Michelle’s blog posts…

What is the difference between Learning vs. Teaching?

I think for a long time, especially early on when formal education started in the US, it was about delivering information that you couldn’t gain anywhere else. So you had to memorize a lot of things and more about retaining content. The skills necessary for our kids is completely different. We have access to those facts. For so long we delivered content to kids. We know that if we gave a lecture, gave a worksheet, or a textbook to kids, and then they take a test that Friday, within a few weeks even if they got 100%, they might fail that same test. They are not retaining anything in their long-term memory because they haven’t experienced it in hands-on or as a real-world activity. Our kids have got to be able to direct their own learning.

We are in blocks in our school where we take the International Baccaulareate themes and right now we are in the Who we are them. Some other themes are Place and Time and How the World Works. We still meet all the content areas but it all integrated. The kids are discovering things. I might share a video that could be an inquiry provocation. One example was when they viewed a BrainPop movie on space exploration that ended up with the kids wanting to build a model of the space station out of cardboard. Learning didn’t stop there. They wanted to learn everything about Scott Kelly who was on the space station and what it meant to be living on the space station. They then built their own space station and space module in Minecraft. It was incredible to watch this unfold. I didn’t deliver any of that information to them. That was two years ago. To this day, kids who participated in creating the space station can tell me more about space exploration than the average person on the street. They owned their learning because they were the ones wanted to keep going further and further about space exploration.

Using the NASA app to learn more about space exploration

What are “Your Thoughts on Motivation?”

It actually came from a debate on Twitter. Instead of arguing with anyone, I decided to write a blog post. Where in the debate could I think more deeply about motivation? For too long, we have kids that are incentivized to get through school like giving grades. By the way, Anastasis does not give grades. That fails because some kids don’t care about their grades. A grade as an incentive or punishment doesn’t work in the long run or tell the story of the whole kid. For me, motivation comes down to where’s the freedom in decision making and where are kids allowed to have a choice. When you watch a child working on something that she’s passionate about, she’s going to stay focused and engaged in the learning. My response to teachers who say that kids need to learn certain things is that you can give me any topic with kids of any age and incorporate those things into what kids choose to learn about. 

***

There is more in the conversation so I hope you listen to the whole podcast to hear how kids are motivated to use inquiry to bring creativity and joy in their learning. 

***

Michelle Baldwin is a Lead Teacher at Anastasis Academy in Centennial, Colorado. She believes in inspiring students to follow their natural curiosity and take ownership of their learning through inquiry, problem-based and experiential learning, and the Arts. Michelle loves to share what students have taught her about the joys of learning, cultivating creativity, and connecting our learning with others.

School Website: http://www.anastasisacademy.com/
Team Baldwin: http://architectsofwonder.edublogs.org/
Twitter:@TeamBaldwin
Email: michellek107@gmail.com
Twitter: michellek107
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellekbaldwin
Website: http://avenue4learning.com/
Instagram – instagram.com/teamanastasis
YouTube – www.youtube.com/user/TeamAnastasis

I was brought up to think on my own; to color outside the lines; to be creative, and always ask “why” even if there were no answers to the questions. I have always been curious asking why we are here; why the grass is green and the sky is blue; why being passionate about something makes you feel so good; and even why there were so many questions. A few years ago, I wrote what I believe and don’t believe about learning which still works for me today.

What do you believe and don’t believe about learning?

It’s been wonderful having conversations with amazing educators in the Rethinking Learning podcast series. In doing several of the podcasts and learning about their pasts, I decided I wanted to reflect on how I got to now.

Being Different

If you know me, you may not believe that I was actually very shy. I don’t remember much of kindergarten except that I had problems coloring inside the lines. My mom was an artist and told me there were no lines and to draw where ever I wanted. She made all my clothes and finger curled my hair so I looked like Shirley Temple. She made me believe that I was beautiful, smart, and could do anything. When I went to school, reality hit me. I had trouble fitting in with everyone else. Some of the other kids made fun of my clothes and my curly hair. I didn’t look like everyone else. Actually, the real problem was because I didn’t want to follow the rules, so I kept my mouth shut.

My life at home was so different than my experiences at school. My parents told me I was beautiful and asked me every day what I did that day. I had a voice at the dinner table and with my sisters. Yet, in school, I had very few interactions with others and felt invisible. My teachers made me sit still, fold my hands, keep quiet, and only go to the bathroom when they allowed it.

Learning My Options

In third grade, I had a new teacher who believed in play, being creative and encouraging everyone’s voice. We did projects in groups. I remember creating a paper-maché map, sitting wherever we wanted, dancing, and playing fun roles in plays. We did a lot of giggling and had fun in class. He took time to get to know all of us. It was the first time I really enjoyed school and felt like someone cared. Halfway through the school year, he was evaluated by the principal and the classroom changed. He made even stricter rules than I had before. We had to sit in rows. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Learning was fun and now back to the same old ways. Fourth grade was even stricter and I only spoke when called on. My parents were told that I wasn’t going to go very far if I didn’t follow the rules. My parents were my advocates, but there weren’t that many options for me in school other than following the rules and keeping my mouth shut when I was young.

Nothing much changed in my K-12 world. A few teachers took the time to get to know me, but most of the time I just went through the motions. Very few ever asked me how I learn, why I was not getting something or even interacted with me. I learned how to “do” school. A high school counselor told me that I may want to look for a job instead of college. What? I loved learning but not the way school was then. I was just being compliant because that’s what the system seemed to want me to do. Now I wish I stood up and stood out. I did want to go to college and learn more.

Finding my Voice

So I went to a community college, and that’s where I found my voice. I tried a little of everything and realized I could do something if I put my mind to it. I loved writing and wrote a poem that my English teacher said was really good. He asked me to read it in the quad to other students at noon. I did, and they loved it. Wow! He then published my poem in the school newspaper and received wonderful reviews. I started writing more and wrote a short story that I entered into a contest and won. Looking back, I just wonder who I would be now if I knew I could write and found my voice earlier.

I do have to say now when I look back at my younger self, I wish I appreciated my privileged life. I had a family who cared for me and believed in me. I went to good schools. The teachers only did what they were taught or told to do. It was just the system that wasn’t working for me. I made a choice back when I was younger to be compliant.

Later when I realized it was my choice on how I was going to learn, that I decided I was going to do whatever I could to change the education system. I knew that every child needed to have a voice in how and what they learn. They need to know they can have a voice and make a choice on how and what they want to learn. That’s why I went into education. Maybe I had to go through what I went through to be who I am today. I know so many others who are adamant in changing the system because of their own experiences. I tried to change the system for my children, but it’s not that easy to change it as a parent. That’s another post to write. So through my journey, I eventually found my voice and discovered that my purpose is to share stories of awesome educators, administrators, and learners and how they changed the way they teach and learn. That’s why I have this website and started my podcast series, Conversations on Learning.

So I believe…

We have to transform teaching and learning because the system still encourages compliance for most of our kids and teachers. But things are changing. The future is here now. Businesses want people who are creative, critical thinkers and can self-advocate for what they believe in. We need to prepare our kids to be global citizens in a world that encourages agency so they embrace and demonstrate creativity, imagination, and innovation.

Let’s be there for all children and educators so they have a voice in discovering their passion and purpose for learning.

How did you find your voice?

What is your purpose for learning?

“What, Huh? What did you say?”
“Are you really listening?”

The problem with “kind of” listening is that it can lead to mistakes, misunderstandings, the wrong goals, wasting time and lack of teamwork. I love the quote in the graphic above from Ernest Hemingway. There are so many reasons for us to pause before we act. This pertains to listening as well. As a coach, I learned the importance of careful and thoughtful listening. Yet, I still have to remind myself about active listening. Some people think they are listening but to build positive relationships that work, they need to listen well.

“Listening is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.” – John Marshall

They may be listening just enough to jump in to say what they want to say. Some have trouble concentrating on what the other person is saying so they zone out or daydream while the person is talking. There are others who think they are listening but actually are thinking of all the things they want to say or need to do that day. Listening is less important than how you listen. By listening in a way that demonstrates understanding and respect, you build a true foundation for a good relationship no matter if it is between coach and coachee, teacher and students, friends, mother and child, spouses, or team members.

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

Ten tips to listening well:

1. Decide you want to listen: Remember the old adage about having two ears and one mouth. Maybe we’re supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. Whatever, it starts with the decision to listen.
2. Come with an open mind: It is very easy to come to a conversation with a preconceived idea about the other person and what they are going to say. Give them a chance to surprise you and you surprise them with an open mind and listening well.
3. Hear what they say: Make sure you can really hear the other person. It is surprising how often people do not realize that they cannot even hear other people. Make that you can really hear them first for effective listening. Let them know if you cannot hear what they are saying.
4. Give 100%: Show you care about the other person or persons by giving 100% of your attention to them and suspending all other activities. If you multitask while listening, you are not listening.
5. Listen 75%, speak 25% of the time: This is a powerful tip unless you are giving a speech. Try to allow the other person to speak more than you and listen to them.
6. Show interest: While the other person is speaking, lean forward and maintain eye contact. Be sensitive to their cultural background while listening. Some cultures find smiling offensive. Some people talk with their hands. When you are listening, use similar cultural gestures and actions.
7. Let the speaker finish the point they were making: Our brains speed along four times faster than when we speak. Try not to finish their sentences or interrupt. Wait for Pauses. When the speaker pauses, you might be able to jump in and ask a clarifying question. If there are not good long pauses, then wait until the speaker has completed speaking their idea.
8. Show understanding: Just saying “I understand” is not enough. People need some sort of evidence of understanding. You can demonstrate that you understand by occasionally restating the idea they were sharing or ask them a question that probes deeper into the main idea. Try not to repeat what they said just to prove you were listening. Active listening means you can show you understand what the other person is saying.
9. Respond with interest: You can demonstrate you received the message and how it had an impact on you. When you respond, speak at the same energy level as the other person. This will help the person who is speaking that they really got through to you and will not have to repeat what they said.
10. Be respectful: Let them know you take their views and ideas seriously. Be willing to communicate with others at their level of understanding and attitude by adjusting your tone of voice, the rate of speech and choice of words to show that you are empathetic and trying to imagine being where they are at the moment.

“I think one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.” – Diane Sawyer

 

Resources:

How to improve your listening skills
Listening Secrets
Listening First Aid
The Art of Effective Listening
Talking is Sharing, but Listening is Caring
Listening is crucial in a Multicultural Workplace
Training in the Art of Listening

“Teaching is telling. Learning is listening.” Chris Watkins

This is a repost and update of an earlier post I did in 2010 on active listening. You are welcome to add any tips or ideas on active listening below.

Rethinking Learning Episode #6

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, adjunct professor, and the author of three books. Her newest book is Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Her most rewarding role is being the mother of Savvy and Rosco the pug.

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I connected with Shelly on Twitter long ago and met her in person around eight years ago at the ISTE conference. I love her energy. At ISTE in San Antonio this year, I had the honor of meeting her beautiful daughter, Savvy. In fact, Savvy interviewed me — actually Shelly asked the questions. It was so much fun so I asked Shelly if I could have a conversation with her. Her podcast is episode #6 and when I listen to it, I remember the smiles and giggles we had when I was with Savvy. I captured some excerpts from the podcast and added them in the post below for you.

Why are you so passionate about digital learning?

One of the reasons why I am so excited and passionate about digital learning is because of access. Now with the Internet and so many digital tools, students around the world especially so many who do not have the opportunity to learn, now can learn so many dynamic things because of their access to tools. Now if students want to be a scientist, doctor, or inventors, they can actually talk to innovators in those fields. I find that really exciting.  

Why is social media so important for educators?

One reason is that our learners use social media. I think to be able to teach them the skills they will need to prepare learners for their future, we need to experience these skills ourselves. For many educators, social media is scary which is really a good thing. We have to think about the things that we tackle like imbalance or getting addicted to social media. We need to know how to handle that or decide what and what not to post, publish and share. I shared Rosco the Pug who connected with others like you so it made it personal for me and comfortable for others to share online. All of that really helps us with our learners’ journeys. Another great thing about social media is that you get to connect with other educators around the world that really inspire you. That’s the way we met and many other educators who I eventually met in person, presented with, interviewed, and even created conferences with. 

The world is in love with your daughter. Can you explain why you share Savvy on social media?

I wrote about sharing so much of my daughter’s life in my book right now. Some people might question that, but Savvy had a digital footprint before she was born. For me being on social media, I thought it was important to start her digital footprint early. There is no way of avoiding what people were going to know about her because I was always on social media when I was pregnant. Another reason is that our learners today start their digital footprint before they are born. For most of them, people announce they are pregnant on social media like I did. Our children especially those really young or not born yet have no control over what people write, say, or what pictures they put up on social media about them.

I thought it was really important to put positive information up there about my child. Because I shared her digital footprint early, you and other great people followed and connected to her even before you met her in person. She is making people happy with her presence right away before she has to tackle any negative activity on social media. I love sharing her not only virtually but face-to-face with people who I love. I took a picture of Savvy interviewing you at the Badge Summit before ISTE 2017 in San Antonio.

We have to mention #edchat since you are a co-founder. What a difference #edchat has made for so many.  Can you tell me how #edchat started and about its impact?

Tom Whitby @tomwhitby is a fun guy who wears Hawaiian shirts. So in 2009, I asked him to guest blog. One day he direct messaged (DM) me about an idea and asked me “How can we make Twitter into a much bigger conversation.” I suggested the hashtag #edchat. We asked Steven Anderson @web20classroom to help us organize #edchat. So in July 2009, we co-founded the Bammy winning education chat, #Edchat, which has inspired over 400 education hashtags!

I was honored to be included in the 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers. Can you tell us about the book and the challenge?

The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers started about the same time as #edchat in 2009. When I jumped onto Twitter, I was just so excited and inspired by so many educators that I met. I wanted to share my ideas. So part of that was the 30 Goals Challenge. Since I saw how powerful social media and crowdsourcing knowledge was in my life and professional, I really wanted to test what the possibilities were. Even though I had been blogging a couple of months, I decided that I’m going to try and accomplish the challenge goals starting in January. At first, I was going to try to do one small goal as a challenge in the classroom of something you could accomplish in a day. I invited other educators to join me. Since then over 10,000 teachers have joined this challenge. Trying to do all 30 goals in one month was too much, so now it is spaced out throughout the year. The book takes some of the 30 initial goals and the others are the ones I thought would be the most enlightening for teachers. We have free online conferences now where teachers share their experiences, a Facebook group that is free to join, and a lot of ways to support each other.

I just got your eBook: Learning to Go and love the lessons you share and the format. Can you tell the audience about this book and the design?

I have very good friends in Oxford who are like a second family to me. I was there and had just run a MOOC on designing digital books. I was getting frustrated with the way digital books were designed. Most were PDFs and not very interactive. Now with technology, you can do so much. So when I was in the shower, I thought of Learning to Go. It includes lesson plans to bring in your own technology and mobile learning, but the way that it is designed is to test the boundaries of what a digital book could do. So even offline, it is almost like a website. Instead of a table of contents, it has a content map that is accessible on every page. If you want a lesson plan, you can click on each circle that has a link at the bottom of the page. It’s very interactive. It’s also designed in a way like a mind map and not linear. My dream, when I get a chance, is to create a textbook in the same format where teachers and learners can access content where it matches what they need to learn best.  

I hear you just finished writing a new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Please tell us about this book.

My new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom, is coming out either end of August or beginning of September. It was going to come out earlier, but he publisher got very excited about the missions so we ended up making more of those. So we decided to add more material to it. I’m working with the HackLearning series, and it’s been great since they let me do a lot with it. It goes back to the concept of the 30 Goals. There are small goals to inspire teachers to do mission minded learning. If we are given a goal every day or regularly throughout the year, then we feel good if we achieve them and strive to accomplish more.  This book is for students with 10 EdTech missions. Each of the missions has a mission card that teachers can give their students digitally or they can print them out. Students can earn badges for accomplishing the different missions. The missions have to do with meaningful ways to use technology. These address the way students already use technology and where they might not be very responsible or do not have a purpose for.  For example, being an amateur journalist. We see this problem with fake news and how to be responsible as a journalist knowing what ethics are involved. Students broadcast their own news, walk through the steps as an investigative reporter doing interviews, and get footage around the news. There are so many things students do in the missions to be able to learn those roles.

Make sure you visit Shelly’s updated blog at TeacherRebootCamp.com and I’ll end with her mission statement…

“Let’s collaborate on strategies for engaging all our students through effective instructional methods and technology.”

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Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, elearning and digital learning specialist and the author of The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Teaching, Learning to Go: Lesson Ideas for Teaching with Mobile Devices, Cell Phones and BYOT, and Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. She has trained teachers and taught learners in over 20 countries as an invited guest expert by organizations, like UNESCO Bangkok, the Venezuelan-US Embassy, Cultura Inglesa of Brazil, the British Council in Tel Aviv, IATEFL Slovenia, EduTECH Australia, and HUPE Croatia. She has been recognized by the ELTon Awards, The New York Times,  NPR, and Microsoft’s Heroes for Education as a leader in the movement of teacher driven professional development as the founder and organizer of various online conferences, Twitter chats, MOOCs, and webinars. Recently, she was named Woman of the Year by Star Jone’s National Association of Professional Women, awarded a Bammy Award as a founder of #Edchat, and named as one of the 10 Most Influential People in EdTech by Tech & Learning. Her latest project is the creation of Edspeakers to enrich the field of education with passionate voices (spoken and written) from those of diverse experiences and backgrounds.

Shelly has an Honors BA in English with a Minor in Communication and a specialization in Electronic Media from UTSA, a Masters in Curriculum Instruction ESL from the University of Phoenix, and a CELTA from CELT Athens. Her greatest joy is being the mother of Savannah Duncan-Sanchez and Rosco the pug.

Url- ShellyTerrell.com  Blog- TeacherRebootCamp.com  Twitter- @ShellTerrell

Slide Presentations and Keynotes- Slideshare.com/ShellTerrell

Hack Learning book

Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom
https://www.hacklearningacademy.com/p/edtech-mission-f038c7de-5d65-4bfb-bf26-fa29167c9822

For all learners to grow and flourish, we need to create environments where every child is recognized and validated as a learner with unique talents, interests, and beliefs. A culture that values every learner will empower them to discover the joy and purpose of learning. However, building this culture doesn’t happen overnight.

We need to unlock the learning by recognizing the key constraints that keep our kids from reaching their full potential as learners.

The key constraints that might inhibit learning and a sense of belonging include:

Compliance. When learners feel uncomfortable or are not sure about something, they tend to go back to what they did before and resist new challenges and ideas.

Low Self-Esteem. Learners may feel insecure by being concerned about losing face, being uninformed or feeling not particularly smart. This could also impact how they relate to others.

Fear of Failure. Learners may be afraid to take any risks and tend to seek ways to avoid the embarrassment that they believe happens from failure.

Secrets. Learners come to school with issues at home, with family, or with peers. Some secrets are big and may be difficult to talk about. These secrets probably impact how they feel about themselves and others.

These constraints could be the reasons why some kids have trouble succeeding in school. I believe it is important to take at least two weeks at the beginning of school to get to know your kids. Creating a culture of learning is about developing relationships based on trust and respect. Each child needs to have a sense of belonging in the classroom community and to feel that you and others in the class care about them before you jump right into academics. For some kids, you may find it will take longer to build that relationship especially if they hold on to some secrets that are harming them or cannot open up to share their feelings with you. The following tips may help your learners feel like they belong and want to participate in the class community.

8 Tips to foster a sense of belonging:

1. Introduce you. Send an email, note, or a link to your website or blog to your parents to introduce you to their family.
2. Make it personal. Include a fun picture that includes your family members, pets, or you doing your favorite hobby. Write a personal note about what your class is going to be like this year along with contact information.
3. Know their names. Get a list of your children’s names with pictures before the first class and memorize their names.
4. Greet each child. Stand outside the door, greet each child and say their name while shaking their hands. You can even come up with a fun way to make it more personal by creating your own special handshake that you want the kids to memorize.
5. Create Outside Inside. Have each child create a drawing or write a reflection of themselves. Ask them to write on the left side what people see and know about them. On the right side, ask them to write what they believe about themselves that others may not know.
6. Encourage voice. Invite your learners to brainstorm together what they believe is their Bill of Rights and Rules for the classroom. Ask your kids to come up with their own handshake to teach you. Share your stories of how you learned from failure. Encourage learners to be open to voice concerns so they can learn from mistakes instead of feeling like a failure.
7. Provide journals. Give learners a journal so they can reflect on their feelings, how they learn or have trouble learning, and how they interact with others in the class. Make sure they know the journals are for them only and it is up to them if they want to share them with anyone even you.
8. Schedule meeting times. Invite each learner to schedule times on the calendar for you to meet one-on-one with each of them to reflect on their Outside Inside and, if the learners are willing to share their journals.

These are just a few tips to start building a positive culture and can be adapted for any age. The idea is to develop relationships based on trust and respect. There are other tips but thought I’d start with these first. I’ll be adding future posts with other tips for culture building and socio-emotional learning activities.  I welcome any comments or tips.

Guest post by Darren Ellwein, Principal of Harrisburg South Middle School, Harrisburg, South Dakota

It has been well-documented that not much has changed in education in the past century. The classroom environment today has eerie similarities to the past. Students in colleges and universities around the world are trained to believe they are the holders of all knowledge. This then transfers to a ‘modern’ classroom with a teacher providing all students in a room the same information, even though some are ready to move on or need more time to comprehend the material.

This does not exemplify all schools, though. Harrisburg South Middle School in Harrisburg, South Dakota, has several examples that break this traditional model that has been in place since the Industrial Revolution. Within our walls we have learners, not students.

We have learners that are embracing the freedom to drive their learning.  

My belief is that middle school students are constantly stuck ‘in the middle’ and not considered able to make adequate decisions for themselves. Well, that is a lie and/or a myth. I believe that learners from elementary age to high school are able to advocate for themselves. Unfortunately, adults hinder their growth by believing they (teachers) have all the answers. Many schools still do not want to or know how to allow voice and choice for their students.

Voice at South MS happens from the simple: learner input to the student handbook, attendance and a voice in our parent group, and feedback with our personalized learning model called Team Innovate. Choice appears in individual classrooms, Team Innovate video of learner choosing her learning and iChoose (combination of Edcamp for learners with 20% time sessions).

Here’s another video showing a learner in Team Innovate choosing Instagram to prove Mastery:

How It Started

Three years ago I began researching 20% time, commonly called Genius Hour. I had a few early adopters to the model within their classroom. After one semester I had an entire grade level of teachers ask to create time to do this model with each student in the grade. After a few semesters of this model, another grade level wanted to engage in 20% time. Our 6th grade was then tasked to ‘sandbox’ an Edcamp model for their students. We then created time every Wednesday for our whole student body to complete 20% time projects or attend sessions they created.  

During the summer of 2016, we began our work on a personalized learning model that had our social studies, english/language arts and science facilitators dovetail their standards to create offerings for a group of learners. Their work, with much assistance from Pioneer Ridge Middle School in Chaska, MN, was mapped into strands called  iLearn, iPractice and iMaster. With this idea in mind, I penned the name iChoose.  

At the same time we began a personalized learning pilot for half of our sixth graders. Team Innovate is a unique model that offers learners a choice of offerings to fit their learning.  With the assistance of a scheduling software from Personalized Learning Tools, www.personalizedlearningtools.com, learners form their schedule on a daily basis to match their learning needs. This form of choice has been amazing to watch this past year.  

iChoose

Scuba Session in Edcamp

The Edcamp portion is learner-generated. A week before an iChoose Friday, we ask the learners in the building, grades 6-8, to generate topics they are interested in learning.  From this list, we form 10 or more “sessions” for them to choose.  Session topics have included coding creations (2-Player Pong, Fruit Ninja, etc.), endangered animals, ASL courses, the math behind an NFL salary cap, drafting your own NBA team with a salary cap, magic, Sphero Art and so many more.  Learners then take 5 minutes or less on the Thursday before the iChoose to sign-up for their session. With the scheduling software mentioned previously, sessions do have a capacity that is set. For some sessions, there is a rush to enroll in a session before it is full.  Session offerings can last multiple weeks depending on interest/request of the learner and the amount of material they want to cover.  Session offerings were also led or prepared ahead of time by programmers in the community and architects discussing space. Here’s a video of learners presenting their ideal school:

What about 20% Time?

The great piece to iChoose involves empowering learners to engage in their passions.  As mentioned above, we had a portion of our learners who did not engage in the 20% Time projects.  These learners who did not engage can now have voice in the Edcamp model. What about the learners who DO want to work on a project? Well, they have voice and choice as well. Built into the iChoose schedule, learners can enroll themselves into the session for 20% Time or Genius Hour with again, the scheduling software from Personalized Learning Tools.

Coding Session in iChoose

Once they enroll in this session, they will embark on a year-long project that fits one of two categories, Passion or Butterfly Effect projects. Passion projects include high-interest topics that they research, pursue or simply learn about. This past year South has had Passion projects that included creation of crystals, the production of a horror movie and a research study of Alzheimer’s (video below):

Butterfly Effect projects involve bringing awareness to an issue or making life better for a group of people.  Projects included working with patients at our local children’s hospital, creating an anonymous website highlighting positive traits of every 6th grade peer, and a group of 8th grade girls who visit with younger girls to build our school culture. A few Genius Hour projects from last year that became TED Talks at a Showcase Night were up-cycling, Anti-Bullying Campaign led by learners, discrimination study, doorstop invention, musical instrument made from PVC pipe and autism awareness.  

Throughout this year, we also discovered that our Edcamp topics could evolve into Passion projects. One example was an ASL offering during Edcamp that led two girls to create a Passion project. They have led ASL during our choir concerts and created their own Edcamp offering for their peers to attend. As iChoose continues to evolve, we anticipate more learners will be leading sessions for their peers.  

We All Need To Choose

I believe educators have to make a choice.  We either choose to reside in a model of learning that was created a century ago, or we can think differently.  I want our opportunities to be learner-driven, instead of one person holding knowledge and deciding when it is imparted to the masses in the room.  The shift to more learner choice is difficult for most educators.  Often I hear discouraged educators trying to institute change being told, “Just do it the way we have always done it.” or their colleagues saying, “Why can’t you just be traditional?”  I heard a quote recently that fits my mindset.  “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you will.”  My time within this timeframe of education is short, so my choice is “I can.”  Will you say the same so we can transform learning together?  

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Darren Ellwein @dellwein

Darren Ellwein is a middle school principal from South Dakota who recently received the 2017 Digital Principal of the Year from the National Association of Secondary Principals.  His mission is to bring voice and choice to learners by allowing opportunities for innovation and creativity in his school.  Risk is promoted, and failure is a learning opportunity to find successful solutions.  His school has embarked with a unique personalized learning model, and he has created a learning opportunity called iChoose.  ‘No Box Thinking’ is a phrase he has coined that drives his vision for the learning opportunities of his facilitators and students.  

Twitter: @dellwein
Email: darren.ellwein@k12.sd.us
Blog: https://edtransformed.wordpress.com
Harrisburg MS website: http://southmiddleschool.harrisburgdistrict41-2.org
Team Innovate (PL program): http://plinnovate.weebly.com