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Stephen Hurley currently lives at the intersection of two passions. A life-long love of radio (since Grade 4) and a 30-year career in public education in Ontario, Canada. Stephen is the architect and chief catalyst behind voicEd Radio—a 24/7 radio station dedicated to deepening the way we talk about education in Canada and around the world. Enjoy!

Your Background and as a Student

I grew up in a suburban neighborhood just outside Toronto, Canada. I was a fairly compliant student. I don’t remember ever disliking school but there were many times when I felt out of place. I learned that I loved to read and write early on in my schooling and I’ve found opportunities to nurture both of these passions in my personal and professional life. I was often caught daydreaming in class—something else that has stayed with me throughout life. 

Fourth grade was, arguably, the most important year of my schooling. It was during this year that I discovered a love for radio and a real passion for music. My Grade 4 teacher, Sr. Leona introduced me to a cassette tape recorder and a Radio Shack microphone and the combination of these two pieces of technology-fueled a passion to work in the broadcasting industry. Unfortunately, my parents insisted that I go to university instead of radio college, but the passion for the medium continued to inspire and attract me.

This was also the year that my parents bought a piano. I had been “playing” at my grandmother’s house since I was a small child but it wasn’t until I was 9 that a piano actually made its way into our house. Music became a central part of my growing up. A few years later I started playing piano and organ at our local church, a post that I held for over 30 years. I still play every day and I find great joy in continuing my journey through the worlds of both jazz and classical music.

Your family and where you live now

I waited until later in life to settle down and get married to the wonderful Zoe Jordan. I retired from teaching 7 years ago, but have 10 and 12-year-old boys (Luke and Liam) and am loving watching them move through these years of living and learning. 

I haven’t ventured too far from the place where I was raised but I do long to pick up stakes and move out to the country! 

Your journey as an educator

Although my mom insists that she always knew I would be a teacher, it wasn’t something that was really on my radar. In fact, I’m one of those people who kind of fell into the profession. I had been studying philosophy and theology and when I left my studies at a Roman Catholic seminary, I really didn’t know what to do. So, after a year working for Bell Canada, I applied to the teachers’ college and immediately fell in love with the work.

Throughout my career, I’ve always enjoyed being “on the edge” of things. An early adopter and enthusiastic “embracer” of change, technology and new approaches to teaching and learning, life as a teacher have allowed me to explore imagination, creativity, and innovation in ways that other professions would not have permitted. 

I’ve always been a little bit restless and this resulted in me applying for a variety of different roles and, when I couldn’t find something that captured my imagination, writing proposals for the positions that I wanted. 

I spent 30 years with the same school district in Ontario but held a variety of roles: Grade 4-8 classroom teacher, technology resource, teacher educator and arts consultant. 

But, you know, there’s a sense in which an entirely new career in education has taken flight since “retiring” 7 years ago.

VoicEd.ca

In 2011, I became a little frustrated by some of the polarization that was developing on social media and across the blogosphere. I felt that there was a need to invite deeper and broader conversations about the issues that were important to us as educators and so I started voicEd.ca—originally a multi-author blog space invited contributions from across the education landscape. I was hoping for a diversity of perspectives, vibrant conversation, and even some disagreement. That happened, to a degree. 

In 2017, I revived that vision but, this time, drawing on my life-long passion for radio to create voicEd Radio. We are a growing community of educators, parents, researchers, policy-makers, and students who are working to help broaden and deepen the conversations that we’re having about education. Our explicit belief at voicEd Radio is, “If we want to change the way we DO education, then we’re going to have to change the way we TALK ABOUT education. And we’re doing that through the creation and network of podcasts including my own, the development of live radio shows and the coverage of education events from across Canada and around the world.   

Next steps for you

I would like to continue to grow the voicEd Radio community and, in particular, nurture a vibrant live radio experience for the education community, nationally and internationally.

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Stephen Hurley has been working in Canada’s education space for 35 years, serving as a classroom teacher, curriculum consultant, and teacher educator. Stephen is passionate about supporting and nurturing new conversations about education across the country. He is the architect and chief catalyst behind voicEd Radio—a 24/7 radio station dedicated to deepening the way we talk about education in Canada.

voicEd Radio is a 24/7 Internet-based radio station designed to both broaden and deepen the conversations that we have about education in Canada. Drawing on the stories, experiences, and passions of educators, students, parents and community members from across the country and around the world, voicEd Radio is a type of national gathering place for lively talk, insight and debate about the things that matter most to us in education.

Website: https://voicEd.ca

Blog: https://stephenhurley.ca

Twitter: @stephen_hurley

Facebook: @voicEdCanada

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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/

Guest post by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D is adapted from her post on usergenerated education

One of the greatest gifts an educator can give to their learners is to see each one; really seeing each and every one of them. . . . seeing each learner’s uniqueness and interacting with each one based on that uniqueness. 

Listen More Than Talk

If educators talk to their learners more than listen to them, then this is a problem. Traditional education models have focused on the teacher being the content area expert – disseminator of information. But we are living in an age where traditional education should no longer be the norm; where the educator should be doing a lot more listening to their learners.

Give Learners Choice

Be Present

In order to be aware of and make the most of the interactions you have with your learners, you have to be able to be to be “in the moment” with them in the classroom. In order for teachers to extend learner’s learning, we must first “be present” with them. This means being aware enough of our own thoughts and emotions that we are able to adjust them and tune into the learner’s immediate thoughts, needs, and emotions. This is no easy task, especially during busy classroom activities. In order to stay in the moment, teachers have to purposefully set aside thoughts about a) what just happened; b) what happened yesterday or this morning; c) what we have to do next; d) how we need to prepare for later; and e) we then feel about XYZ. Specific suggestions for staying present in the classroom can be found at Teacher Tips: Being “In the Moment” with Children.

Put the Learners at the Center

In these days of accountability and high stakes testing, too often the lessons, the curriculum, the standards, and the tests are put at the center of teaching rather than the learners. The term student-centered or learner-centered learning refers to a wide variety of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic support strategies that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual learners and groups of learners. The term learner-centered learning most likely arose in response to educational decisions that did not fully consider what learners needed to know or what methods would be most effective in facilitating learning for individual learners or groups of learners. (Student-Centered Learning)

Putting learners at the center of learning translates into in honoring and leveraging their strengths and interests, grasping onto those teachable moments based on learner inquiry, and having the learners develop and explore their own essential questions. Most of all, putting learners at the center of learning translates into assisting them in internalizing that their own unique selves are of utmost importance in the learning setting.

Acknowledge “Blend in the Woodwork” and Disengaged Learners

The idiom “to blend into the woodwork” means “to behave in a way that does not attract any attention; to disappear or hide.” These are the learners who aren’t the best students nor are they the worse. They do what is told without making any noise or a big deal about it. They are the learners who when asked years later about them, the educator has trouble remembering them.

Seeing each and every learner means that the educator also looks for and acknowledges the achievements of “blend in the woodwork” and disengaged learners. This acknowledgment comes in the form that works best for these learners – a note or quiet comment showing that the educator sees them; that s/he recognizes that they are an important part of the learning environment.

Develop Strategies for Dealing With Annoying Learners

Educators are humans first and there are going to be learners who get on an educator’s nerves. An effective educator acknowledges that s/he might not like all learners the same but works hard to treat them all fairly. To do so, though, educators need to first identify when a learner is touching upon a nerve, and second, to develop strategies for dealing with that learner.

By developing some personal intervention strategies, the educator is actually owning the problem with a self-acknowledgment that: “This is my problem not that learner’s problem. I need to develop strategies to help me cope with his or her annoying behaviors.” Although that learner doesn’t know it, the educator, in this case, is showing the utmost respect as s/he attempts to develop effective and unique ways of building an authentic relationship with that learner.

Overtly Show Learners That You Care

Many, too many in my opinion, teacher education programs instruct teachers to not get emotionally involved with their learners. I believe the opposite. Effective and caring teachers do get emotionally involved with their learners to the point that they actually love them. This is actually congruent with research that indicates that relationships are key to learner achievement. The teacher-learner relationship needs to remain at a professional level but teachers can use their own individual style and techniques to show that they care for each and every learner. It can be as simple as giving a handshake or high five with eye contact and a smile to each learner as she or he enters and leaves the classroom.

Perhaps you’ve heard the statement, “They won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When learners are asked about the qualities of good teachers, they confirm the truth of that statement—caring is always at or near the top of the list. Caring is evident when you recognize learners as unique human beings with different learning needs and preferences, and when you “check-in” with learners through actions such as walking around the classroom, talking to everybody to see how they are doing, answering their questions, and expressing confidence in their ability to improve. (6 Ways to Let Students Know You Care)

Dr. Jackie Gerstein’s byline is, “I don’t do teaching for a living. I live teaching as my doing . . . and technology has amplified my passion for doing so.” Gerstein has been teaching in-person and online for several decades. Currently, she teaches masters-level online courses in educational technology for Boise State, American Intercontinental, and Western Governors’ Universities.

She believes that one of the roles and responsibilities of the 21st-century educator is to share resources, ideas, and instructional strategies with other educators.

Jackie actively blogs at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/ and tweets at https://twitter.com/jackiegerstein

Additional Resources referenced from Jackie’s blog:
Student Voice Comes With Teachers as Listeners
Giving Students a Voice Models High-Quality Learning Processes
Today’s Education Should Be About Giving Learners Voice and Choice.
Show Learners The Possibilities and Get out of the Way

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. 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

2018 went by so fast. It has been a very interesting year in education along with every aspect of our world. Because of the changes, I needed to update some of my posts, graphics, and resources. I have been fortunate to participate in amazing discussions at conferences, summits, and with awesome educators in my podcasts. I have learned so much from inspirational educators and realize that there is always something new to learn and share. Beyond the posts that go with each of the podcasts, I wanted to share the top 10 posts with you that others shared on social media. These are in no particular order. I just wanted you to have access to them from one page.

There are so many aspects of “school” and “learning” where students have not been given the opportunity to be active participants. Giving students voice encourages them to participate in and eventually to own and drive their learning. This means a complete shift from the traditional approach of teaching compliance that develops a “learned helplessness” to encouraging voice where there is authenticity in the learning.

Read the post here…

Are our schools and universities preparing our children for the new skills they will need to be successful? How we taught and still teach our children in our K-12 and university systems is no longer sufficient. There is a sense of urgency about how we prepare our children and our adults for today’s world and their future.

Read the post here…

You can use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide for teaching and designing instruction and DOK as a guide for developing skills and encouraging deeper thinking and learning.

How do you see both either working together or separately to support your teaching practice and the different needs of your learners?

Read the post here…

Teachers may find that they will be learning something new more often than not. Teachers are a valuable element in the classroom and mean so much to each student. They need to be valued and appreciated. The activities need to be personal for each teacher. That is where teachers can take control of their own learning.

Read the post here…

Engagement is about how much any learner is engaged in a task or activity and the balance between the challenge before them and the skills they have to meet that challenge. The levels are more about how the learner is engaged in learning, not about the teacher or the learning environment. This idea of levels of engagement can pertain to any of us who are defining who we are as a learner.

Read the post here…

Moving to learner agency takes time for students and teachers. Students may not be ready to let go. Teachers may not have the support, resources, or time to jump in and change how they teach right away. 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.

Read the post here…

Many teachers believe that providing a set of choices from a computer program or a list of options was enough to give students opportunities for choice. I see so many teachers working way too hard to create opportunities for students to choose the best way to learn. The idea of developing opportunities for choice is to turn over the learning so students learn best by having them be the ones working harder than the teachers.

Read the post here…

Humans are naturally social beings. The better the relationships are at school, the happier and more productive students and teachers will be. When relationships are working, everyone is happier, more innovative and creative. Building positive relationships with students, teachers, and all school staff in school will spill over to the school community.

Read the post here…

Developing ownership of learning takes time and that it doesn’t always happen in school. Most of us grew up in a system that valued sameness and compliance. Learners can move from compliance to autonomy by teachers creating an environment that provides learners with choices and opportunities for growth and ownership of learning. When a learner at any age pursues an interest that they are passionate about, they are motivated to learn and want to own their learning.

Read the post here…

Being uncomfortable is kind of the new norm today. The world is changing so fast that no one knows what is ahead for us. There is uncertainty about the type of work is needed in the future. That impacts all of us. You will be amazed at how you will be able to live with uncertainty easier every day and build a growth mindset about whatever you want to do. “What are the worst things that could happen if I go out of my comfort zone? What are the best things that could happen?

Read the post here…

I hope you enjoy these posts. There are more posts I wrote and resources for you on Rethinking Learning. There is a complementary post for each podcast created by me and the person I interviewed. I guess I’ll have to create another post about why I started my podcast and decided to create separate posts with each one. I welcome any comments and encourage you to share any of the posts on social media.

Jimmy Casas served twenty-two years as a school leader. He is a best-selling author, speaker, leadership coach, and currently serves as an adjunct professor at Drake University teaching a graduate course on Educational Leadership. Jimmy is the CEO and President of J Casas and Associates aimed at serving teachers, principals and superintendents in school districts across the country by providing high quality, practical and meaningful coaching support.

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I’ve been following Jimmy on social media, have read his books and refer to his book, “Culturize” especially when helping schools develop positive cultures. I had so much fun talking with Jimmy and even learned something that I think he never told anyone before. Enjoy!

You and your family

I was born and raised in Iowa and continue to live in Iowa. I also have a home in Chicago since it is the hub and easy to get in and out of. A good reason for moving there was my oldest son, AJ, recently got transferred to Kalamazoo, Michigan and works for Stryker Corporation. He’s done really well and we’re very proud of him and all of our three children. My oldest daughter, Miraya, graduated from college, lives at our home in Bettendorf, and is a full-time nurse in labor and delivery. My youngest daughter, Marisa, who is 18, is a freshman at the University of Iowa. We’re all proud to be hawks and feel very very blessed that we have three beautiful children who are very kind young people. As parents, that’s all we can ask for is that our children are good people who have good hearts.

What Connected Educators Do with Jimmy Casas – YouTube

Experiences in and out of school that impacted you

I struggled in school, but I did have teachers in elementary school who really cared about me, supported me and tolerated me. Somewhere along the way when I got to middle school, I lost my way. That was due to a loss of confidence and struggling in terms of reading. Literacy was always an issue for me. I was good at math in elementary school, but when I got to middle school, I lost confidence in math also. By the time I got to high school, academics was very difficult for me.

“All of these experiences lead us on a journey to who we are and what we do with that. What do we do with the experiences to make a change in a positive way in our personal lives and hopefully in the lives of others?”

When I left school I didn’t intend to become an educator. I actually had other ideas of what I wanted to do. Life comes at you and I wasn’t ready for the rigors of college. I was not only a dropout of college once, twice, but three times. At one point, i gave up and thought college was not for me so I left and went to work in a sales job for a year which went really well. In fact, they wanted me to stay on. When my mentor was released, I was asked to take his place. I was 19 at the time taking a 49-year-old gentleman’s job who has children in college. It dawned on me that he didn’t have an education either and thought, “is that same thing going to happen to me where someone is eventually going to come along and take my job away?”

That’s what prompted me to go back to school and rethink things. I remember how upset the company was at me for leaving. It dawned on me that they really didn’t care about me. They only cared about me if I was making them money. As soon as I made the decision to go back and invest in school and my studies, it didn’t take long for me, I began to build confidence that I could do this right and finally committed to it. Post-secondary is about having opportunities for young people to find themselves and figure out their own path.

Don’t put a timeline on you that others expect you to get this or that done by a certain time. Take your own journey and then you will figure it out.

My father always said to me was “to make hard work your passion because then it doesn’t matter what you decide to do and you will be successful. Don’t label yourself that you have to be this or have to be that. Make hard work your passion. Whatever you decide to do, you will be successful.” Wise words from a person who never finished school.

So what path did you take?

I did my undergrad, and I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I decided I wanted to be an FBI Agent so I went back to follow that process. They told me it would take a couple of years and that I should do something in the meantime just in case I didn’t make it. So I went to grad school and decided to volunteer at an elementary school starting at 4 hours a week, then 4 hours a day to eventually working full-time. They needed help and I wanted to help. I had the time to do it plus the more I did there, the more I liked it.

At Christmas, I got a call to go to Quantico to do my final testing, a physical. I didn’t pass the test because of my eyesight, so I went back to retake it and failed it again. My heart was broken. I even got my picture was taken and ready for the FBI. I really got to know the people over two years who had corrected vision. You see, once you’re in, it didn’t matter. To get in the FBI, you had to qualify in a certain range and it was crushing to not make the range. So I went back to school to do my masters to become a teacher.  Later, I had laser surgery to correct my vision, but I realized then that teaching was my calling.

Your journey as an educator and then principal at Bettendorf HS

My first teaching job was as a bilingual teacher in the Milwaukee Public Schools. I was blessed because there were people who saw potential in me and encouraged me to go back to grad school in an Education Leadership program. Then I spent four years in the classroom and then at the age of 26, I became a principal after being in 3 districts, Milwaukee PS (3 years), Iowa City School District (5 years), and then, in 2002, took the job as principal of Bettendorf High School in Iowa for 14 years, 22 years all together.

We had a great group of people with great support at Bettendorf so we were able to do things we are very proud of. Bettendorf has always been looked upon as one of the best schools in the state of Iowa, but I started thinking that I was walking into an adult-centered culture instead of student-centered. They still had great success. The challenge of that is how do you move an organization that sees themselves as successful so why would they do anything differently? What they didn’t see is that they could be so much better. We needed to do great things for all of our kids. To shift that mindset is very difficult. The good news is that we were blessed to have a real core group of people who understood that. The second thing, in terms of success, is the ability to sustain leadership over a long period of time. The more change in leadership the more issues we create for ourselves and stress on an organization. If we’re doing it right, building a community of leaders, no one principal can do it by themselves. To be truly successful, we need to build our capacity and grow more leaders in our organization. To build the skillset to do this, you need to have the conversations in a way that doesn’t hurt your culture. By avoiding the conversations, you can make the culture worse.

Culturize: Core Principles of Positive School Culture

People want to do really good things for kids, but they get exhausted with a myriad of variables that come into play and over time they lose their focus. They forget their sense of purpose and why they went into the profession. Part of leadership is to keep people focused, energized, and reminding them that what they do does make a difference. But not just telling them, you have to show them. In order to do that, you have to lead from the core.  I’m certainly not the same principal at year 22 than what I was at year 1. We are always evolving in the role as principal.

The idea of culturize is leading from the core. Those core principles are:

• Champion for all students
• Expect Excellence
• Carry the Banner
• Be a Merchant of Hope

When you lead from your core, we have to live that core. If we are not living it, then it comes across pretty disingenuous and losing credibility. People confuse the idea of being a champion for kids. It doesn’t mean we are going to let kids get away with things or that they are always right. It means to hold kids to the highest expectations. When you care about children and you have kids that are struggling in school, it’s really easy to start feeling sorry for those kids. We can’t do that. The reality is that when we begin to feel sorry, we pull back and make things easier for them and we shouldn’t be doing that. To me, it’s an equity issue. So we really should be holding all kids to the same accountability in terms of what we expect from them. What we need to begin to do is see it through their lens and be more empathetic. They don’t need our sympathy, they need our empathy. We need to remember what it feels like to be a child who struggles in school, to know what it feels like to have fear, anxiety, and worrying about what other kids feel about them, and not to let others down. That’s what it means to be a champion for kids.

I shared the story in my book about my baseball coach who was not my champion but I learned from that. Mr. Kelly Morgan, vice principal, was truly my champion for me and many other students. He had a difficult job as a disciplinarian, but he went out of his way to know everyone. He knew me, my family, and helped them navigate the system. What I learned is that I don’t judge anyone for the specific circumstances. It’s what we do with those experiences.

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This is Barbara:

I really enjoyed the conversation with Jimmy and shared so much but there is more than we have here. Please listen to the entire podcast and leave a comment for Jimmy or a review on iTunes. I’m so honored that he shared so many experiences and ideas. He has a new book released on December 9th with his co-author Jeff Zoul, “Stop Right Now: 39 Stops to Making Schools Better.” 

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Jimmy Casas served twenty-two years as a school leader, including fourteen years as Principal at Bettendorf High School. Under his leadership, Bettendorf was named one of the Best High Schools in the country three times by Newsweek and US News & World Report.

Jimmy was named the 2012 Iowa Secondary Principal of the Year and was selected as one of three finalists for NASSP 2013 National Secondary Principal of the Year. In 2014, Jimmy was invited to the White House to speak on the Future Ready Schools pledge. Jimmy is also the author of three books, “What Connected Educators Do Differently,” “Start. Right. Now. – Teach and Lead for Excellence,” and his latest release and best-selling book “Culturize – Every Student. Every Day. Whatever it Takes.”

Jimmy currently serves as an adjunct professor for Drake University, teaching courses in educational leadership. Finally, he is the owner and CEO of J Casas & Associates, an educational leadership company aimed at organizing and providing world-class professional learning services for educators across the country.

Jimmy’s Contact information

• Twitter: @casas_jimmy –  Twitter hashtag: #culturize
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jimmycasasculturize
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmy-casas-bb863432
• Website “Lead with Passion”: https://jimmycasas.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casas_jimmy/

Intro music:

“BossaBossa” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ 

Heather Wolpert-Gawron is a middle school ELA teacher, 21st Century Learning Instructional Coach, curriculum design geek, and PBL coach. She has written many books including her latest, Just Ask Us: Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement. Heather blogs on her site, TweenTeacher and is a staff blogger on Edutopia, a Fellow of the National Writing Project, and a National Faculty member of the Buck Institute.

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I was fortunate to spend some time with Heather at the CUE conference where we geeked out. I just knew I had to learn more about her. It was a hoot having a conversation with Heather so I hope you get a chance to listen to her podcast and read the post we put together. Enjoy!

About you and your family

I am wife to Royce, whom I met in 2nd grade, after karate-chopping him at recess. Additionally, I am a mom to two boys, both of whom always have leaves in their hair from some adventure or other. She lives with all of her boys and their boxer/corgi mix, their laughter, and chaos, in Los Angeles, CA where they play Dungeons & Dragons every week, building their cross-over stories and adventures together.

You know how you never can find a picture of the whole family because someone’s always the one taking the picture? Well, here’s the most recent of us four. I was away presenting at the AMLE conference in Florida this year, and I end each night when I’m away either reading to the boys via Facebook or listening to them and their day. This was a typical day’s end moment of Royce trying to hold down the fort before signing off for the night.

What education was like when you were young

I was a real disengaged student. I went to some great schools but I found ways to do the minimum. I got easy Bs if I like you and tried harder and got some As, but I also got Cs and even a couple Ds in my time. I understand those kids who skirt through school never really being triggered by something exciting. So it was kind of a surprise for me when I realized I wanted to be a teacher which I found kind of late in life.

Your journey as an educator

I went back to school for my credential again was another eye-opening experience because I sat there listening to how to collaborate and do hands-on learning by reading about it in a book. I realized that this lack of engagement was a theme not just in K-12 but beyond. That became a huge focus for me and fueled my interest in project-based learning. It also propelled me to write my latest book and to this passion for engagement. This quote from Kerry Gallagher stuck with me: “Engagement first, then content, then rigor in that order.” You can’t have it any other way. That’s why I am trying to bring engagement standards to the same level of importance as content standards. You can’t teach kids if they don’t want to learn. If we want to be a voice in their heads, we have to be applicable to what’s going on.

What do we do with the kids that do not know how to play the game of school and are disengaged? Being boring is offensive to me. I mean, you are in front of kids. Some teachers heard a message early on that misled them. I think that they just have to rewind to who they were.

Video Trailer for “Just Ask Us”

Let’s talk about your book “Just Ask Us”

In the book, “Just Ask Us,” I share the results of my nationwide survey of 6th-12th graders. In that survey, I asked one simple question: What engages you as a learner? No matter what model of school, what state, what type of environment (rural, suburban, city), every response that came in could be sorted into the same 10 categories of strategies. One of those strategies is that they just want to know you, their teacher.  Some teachers believe they need to be that academic authority. The kids really want to hear your stories, what makes you laugh, about your family, and your similarities. The research showed that can decrease the achievement gap just by sharing commonalities between the students and the authorities in the room.

PBL and Loving to Learn

This is why I love Project-Based Learning (PBL). It gives us an outlet as teachers to embed some of the things that we love into the curriculum itself so we are excited in a different way than we like the content area. I love literature but I have to tell you that there are some books that make me yawn. How do I get jazzed about what I am doing all the time? Being jazzed trickles down. Loving to learn trickles down to the kids. So how do we make that happen in the classroom if we’ve been teaching the same thing for 10 or more years?

Examples of PBL Secret Sauce

For me, the answer is PBL and bringing the kids along on this story of learning. They get to be the characters and they can learn about each other and from each other. Let them teach each other. I think role-playing has a huge (no pun intended) role to play in school. If we can trigger role-playing in these kids, whether they are in the role of teacher, journalist, architect, artist, or whatever it might be, then they can be learning through the research what it takes to do that role. Then they can share that expertise with other students.

School as a Failure Sandbox

In the chapter, “We want you to be human” the kids wanted to hear not only how you failed and got up again but how you are currently doing that. So one of the things I encourage teachers to do it to take on something they’ve never done before so they can model the learning in a more genuine and authentic way. For example, I got a grant for a 3D printer and did not know how to use it. So we went through the process to learn how to use this tool together. The kids became the experts by reading discussion group threads, reading how-to manuals, and talked to the vendor. Our job is to keep a school safe for them to fail. Todd Finley said that “School has to be a failure sandbox.”

That means you have to be in the sandbox with them. I’m looking at PBL from the lens of design-based, passion-based, genius hour, 20% time, and all the various incarnations that bring in student-centered research-driven learning. It’s about breaking down the wall of school life and real life. Our kids are in school for 12 to 18 years and to think that school is real life to them. It is up to us to make it authentic. PBL plays a wall in the authenticity of school. The evidence shows that if we want the content to stick, we have to have it more student-centered and have kids be engaged.

The way we have been teaching isn’t working. If our goal is for kids to learn more deeply, it seems to me that we have to be evolving in our practice.

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This is Barbara. There’s more… make sure you listen to the entire podcast with Heather. I learned so many great ideas and giggled with her. Hope you take time to learn, read her book, and maybe geek out like we did.

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Heather Wolpert-Gawron is an award-winning middle school teacher, coach of one of the largest middle school Speech & Debate teams in the country, and enthusiastic curriculum design geek. She coaches teachers in developing their own Project Based Learning units and works to help tech-tentative teachers become more tech-tenacious.

She is passionate about educational technology and its role in helping students communicate all subjects. Heather helps her students become agile in 21st Century technologies so that they can be a part of the conversations to help develop the technologies for the next century to come.  A 21st Century ELA teacher must focus, she believes, on communicating curriculum in an engaging way while teaching students strategies to communicate their passions themselves.  Students must be able to communicate any content in a meaningful and current way; teachers, she believes must move beyond teaching content and must become more agile in focusing on strategies to communicate that content.

Heather writes a popular education blog as Tweenteacher and is also a staff blogger for The George Lucas Educational Foundation’s Edutopia.org. She is a Fellow of the National Writing Project and a National Faculty member for the Buck Institute.

Heather has a Masters in Instructional Design and Technology with an online learning emphasis, and she believes that the teachers’ Maker Movement is in original curriculum design. Heather tells stories through her curriculum units, and her students help to craft the content’s tale.

Heather was the featured educator for the USDOE Connected Educator Profile of 2013 and the San Gabriel Valley Computer Using Educators Outstanding Teacher of the Year for 2009.

She is a professional speaker, appearing at many educational conferences.  She also has designed and presented webinars for multiple educational organizations, websites, and publishing companies. She has worked with numerous districts and schools to help all grade levels to develop, implement, and enjoy their adopted curriculum.

Contact info:

Twitter: @tweenteacher
Website: http://tweenteacher.com
Email: heather@tweenteacher.com

Heather Wolpert-Gawron is the author of these books:

Just Ask Us: Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement

DIY for Project Based Learning for ELA and History

DIY for Project Based Learning for Math and Science

Writing Behind Every Door: Teaching Common Core Writing in the Content Areas

˜Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers

She has authored three series of workbooks:

Internet Literacy for grades 3-8

Project Based Writing, grades 3-8

Nonfiction Reading Strategies for the Common Core, grades 1-7

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

Hans Appel Counselor, Enterprise Middle School
EMS Counseling Center Website
Email: HansAppel094@gmail.com

Website: http://www.awardwinningculture.com/

• Twitter: @emswildcats1 @HansNAppel
• Instagram: @emscounseling
• Award Winning Culture Blog
• Podcast Page iTunes Stitcher Libsyn GooglePlay Spotify
• YouTube: WildcatNation
• #WildcatNation #AwardWinningCulture

“What will you do for others today?”

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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 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 me and Kathleen McClaskey appears in our book, How to Personalize Learning. I created derivatives with over 40% changes to the content and graphics with several of the continuums mentioned in the book because I am starting with the WHY of learning instead of the What of learning. 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 discovered that the activity, the environment in or out of school, the relationship students have with the 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?