Month: May 2018

In Episode 31, we visited Innovations High School, the only Big Picture Learning School in Nevada, through a conversation with Taylor Harper, lead learner, and Julie Akers, a scholar graduating in 2018. In our conversation, we talked about how Innovations High School navigated the traditional constraints of public education to create a learner-centered learning environment.

Key Competency

Learner-centered leaders have an internal compass that guides them: They love the humans they are responsible for! The transformation at Innovations High School has not been easy as we learn from the conversation with Taylor and Julie. When the work gets messy and times get challenging, leaders go back to their core – why they are doing this work and how it impacts the lives of all that work in the system, teachers and learners. Human-centeredness makes all the difference in a transformation.

Takeaways

Systemic transformation can happen anywhere there are learner-centered mindsets fueling a learner-centered vision. Innovations is a public high school, and only five years ago, was one of the worst performing schools in the Washoe County School District. The school has been a Big Picture Learning school for four years, with year one being the most challenging. A key piece to recognize in the transformation is that Innovations did not start from scratch. The work acknowledged a school-centered system and the accompanying mindsets and gradually shifted toward the elements of learner-centered.

Learning at Innovations High School is highly learner-centered. Learners have the opportunity to make many choices and have their voice heard along their educational journey, including the choice whether or not to attend Innovations High School. Learners also have the opportunity to lead “kick-in” and “kick-out” student meeting as well as gatherings. Another example of voice and choice: at the start and end of each trimester, learners take a survey and meet with their teachers to share feedback on the curriculum. Teachers then take that feedback and make modifications to ensure relevancy to the learners. Learners also have the ability to design an internship experience. Julie is currently involved in an internship in education. The “leave to learn” element of BPL is a core component of learning at Innovations High School.

Julie has a passion for education. Last year she was able to secure a job at a pre-school and found the work fueled her passion for learning. She then set up an internship at an elementary school. She felt like she fit in and the work really connected to her passion. Her teacher has mentored her throughout the internship process. Julie sees the classroom she is in as very learner-centered. Other internships Julie shared include art, music – any variety of internships based on learner passions.

The learners – or scholars as they are called – are responsible for locating the internships. They take the responsibility, often accessing a database that is available through BPL. Julie feels this builds responsibility. The learner sets up an informational interview, then a shadow day. If they feel they have a good match, an internship is established. The work of internships is evaluated through feedback from mentors and advisors. Throughout the process, learners set goals for the internship experience and compose regular reflections on their progress.

In the process of transformation, Innovations has had to let go of many components of the dominant school-centered paradigm. Historically institutionalized inequities have been torn down: how students come to Innovations, how learning happens, the conceptualization of teaching, and the role of learners. These shifts required much unlearning!

Learners have had to unlearn the instinct of, “Just tell me what to do.” Adults and learners have had to let go of the traditional lexicon: class became workshop; teacher became advisor; student became scholar. As a result of changes like these, Innovations became truly human centered; not curriculum, content, standard, test centered. This required adults to learn about the passions, interests and turn-offs of learners.

Taylor shared that learner-centered leaders need to know themselves well enough to know they don’t have all the answers, and there will be times when “I don’t know” is an acceptable response. Sometimes we don’t know exactly the path to get toward the vision of learner-centered. Learners place the human beings at the center of all decisions – adults and learners. “Love the humans you are responsible for. It is a compass that never goes wrong.” Leaders have both patience and impatience. Patience with the messiness – it’s going to be harder before it gets easier. Impatience with any time you see teaching and learning that is not learner-centered. Leaders must always call this out.

Learner-centered leaders must also have persistence and passion. Challenge archaic processes and policies. Be the squeaky wheel until learners gain the agency to activate their own learning experiences.

Advice for leaders who feel the zone of discomfort when expectations are not being met? Taylor suggests reconnecting with internal motivation. If you truly believe your learners can accomplish anything, you keep pushing because it will ultimately help them achieve their potential. “Don’t be afraid of the mess.” When you step back, you are a not-so-innocent bystander. “What got you into this work in the first place.”

Parting advice from Julie: “Don’t be scared of the change because that’s how we learn. Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet; just dive in and do it.”

Parting advice from Taylor: “We don’t have time to pontificate and read more articles. We have kids who are waiting. Don’t be afraid. Get in there and start the work. It’s going to get messy. Just keep focused.”

Connections to Practice

• We are a small, suburban, public school district. The Innovations story of transformation is inspiring!
• We piloted internship programs this year with much success, the “leave to learn” element of PBL.
• With our middle school “school-within-a-school” (Project Wonder), we are starting to shift our lexicon.

Questions Based on Our Practice

• What are our barriers to transformation? How can we look to Innovations High School to overcome the barriers typical of public school systems?
• What can we learn from the Innovations internship process/journey – interview, shadow day, internship?
• How do we provide learners with opportunities to asses and provide feedback on their learning experiences?
• How are we shifting our lexicon?
• How are we building relationships with teachers and learners? Does relationship building move beyond transactional?
• Could our leadership be more human-centered? What if it was?
• What is our why for doing this work?

Next  Steps for Us

• Expand the internship program at our high school. We received very positive feedback from the learners who participated in the pilot program. How can we make these opportunities available to all interested learners?
• Consider giving learners more ownership over the internship process, setting up interviews, shadow and the actual internship work.
• Engage student voice in feedback about learning opportunities.
• Shift the lexicon system-wide, especially as we move from invitation to expectation.
• Reflect upon this idea of human-centered leadership. Do we love the humans we are responsible for?

In Episode 30, we were joined by Helen Beattie and Clara Lew Smith from UP for Learning, an organization focused on the role of youth-adult partnership in the teacher/learner relationship and in school change. UP for Learning stands for “Unleashing the Power of Partnership for Learning.”

 Key Competency

Learner-centered leaders consider multiple perspectives, especially those of young learners, in the design of a transformational vision for education. Learner-centered leaders draw in different voices to understand the perspective of a cross section of community members around the issue of educational transformation. When young learners are invited to the conversation about school transformation, the vision gains a whole new richness.

Takeaways

Vermont legislation mandates personalize learning, competency-based learning, and open-walled learning. Up for Learning recognized a gap between the vision and the current mental model for school. While Vermont was working diligently to provide tools and resources, there was a need for helping others understand the possibilities of learner-centered education.

Clara’s perspective is informed by her work with a team of youth and adults to explore why change needs to happen in schools. Clara has built up trust from adults – she has the community’s best interests at heart. She is invested in the work.  In one example, Clara shares that she was concerned about one of the final candidates in an interview process. Because she has built trust, she was open and able to communicate her concerns.

Change happens because the leaders (both youth and adult) bring people to the table to engage in dialogue. Up uses strategies for inclusive dialogue.

Clara spoke about how she has embraced the invitation for agency. For other young learners to overcome perceived barriers and also accept the invitation, she suggests it is important for learners to feel that adults want to hear what they have to say. Adults can seek out perspective and answers from learners: Let’s talk about what is wrong with this situration. What is going well? Where are the areas for potential growth and change?  

The invitation to enroll in the conversation is based on strong relationships. How do adults view and treat each other? Do adults trust students as people? Do adults treat students like people who have something interesting to say?

Conversation that includes young learners is on-going and serves multiple purposes. UP for Learning utilizes mid-semester feedback protocols. Students self-assess their work and provide honest feedback about the course for the teachers. Then, an important conversation follows. The opinion of every student matters to teachers.

The voice of every learner matters. Adults should reach out to disenfranchised groups. Adults need to recognize that they may not want to hear what students have to say. It is important not to dismiss the conversation when you hear something you don’t like. Adults working to include learner voice should be cautious their actions are not perceived as tokenism. Conversations should go beyond a student council planning event, or a conversation with the typical students – those who speak out in class, participate in different activities, etc.  How are adults providing supports so that more diverse learners can share their opinions?

This is not easy work. School change is a slow, messy process. Both youth and adults are taking on roles which can be messy and uncomfortable. Because of this, it is important to learn along the way. Using rubrics and space for reflection allows the team team leading transformation to have integrity over the process and outcomes. There is a tipping point, and we need to help people experience first-hand and then believe deeply about the youth/adult relationships. Help teens embrace the challenge, be patient with setbacks, and be persistent in pursuit. Every opportunity can be additive to embrace practices which are consistent with learner-centered learning.

If you are an innovator in a system, it can be lonely. We need peers to sustain and support our efforts. When we do this work multi-generationally, we bring back to teachers/leaders the reasons they came into education.

Learner-centered leaders need diverse competencies. They need to understand systems change and learn from a strength-based or asset perspective. What works well in our system? How can these strengths be integrated into solutions?

Faculty can feel battered and disrespected by the current school-centered culture. Those doing the work of school transformation can be more solution-focused – which is fed by the wisdom and creativity of young people.

A leader has to be willing to listen, regardless of what is being said and by whom it is being said. The best leaders are the ones who think about the community around the issues.

The earner-centered paradigm, by its very nature, requires a sharing of power. This is important to the recalibration of the system, and it can be uncomfortable for both adults and youth. We are often good people doing good work. However, we need to think about doing the work with learners instead of to and for them.

We were left with one final thought: be persistent in this change because the work addresses the most basic of human needs – feeling valued, having a sense of purpose, having agency to pursue that purpose. Learners need to know that they have a right to be in these spaces and that the conversation will be better as a result of their participation.

Connections to Practice

• We have several structures in place (Superintendent Student Advisory Council, Social Media Advisory Council), but is it truly meaningful engagement?  How could we reimagine some of these structures to promote honest communication and deeper relationships?

Questions Based on Our Practice

• How might we engage learners in professional development around the vision and learning beliefs?
• How might we engage learners at the board/policy level?
• How do we define the term “relationships”?
• Do our students feel as though we truly listen to them?
• Do our teachers attend to learners as people?
• How do our learners provide teachers mid-semester feedback? Do they ever provide feedback for teachers?
• Are we looking at this change potential through an asset-based model or a deficit-based model?  Where are our building blocks for what’s next.
• Are we doing this work with learners or to and for learners?

Next  Steps for Us

• Talk to small focus groups of learners about “voice” Solicit ideas for how we can better engage learner voice.
• Talk to small focus groups about the importance of change,  Help them understand why we are doing this and why it is important. We will then cultivate student messengers of change.
• Consider a survey of learners. What would our learners say about the relationships they have with their teachers and leaders?
• Consider involving learner voice in professional learning and at the board/policy level. 

In Episode 29, we chatted with Chad Carlson, a coach at One Stone, a high school learning environment in Iowa committed to “making students better leaders and the world a better place,” and Chloe French, a 2nd year learner at One Stone. The learning environment at One Stone is rooted in empathy, innovation, and student-centered learning. Both the design of the school and adults are focused on helping learners prepare to flourish on any path that they choose by providing irresistible experiences for students. One Stone fosters a culture of creativity, collaboration, ownership, and entrepreneurship. One Stone learners thrive on optimism, relish opportunity, build confidence, and strive for success.

Key Competency

Learner-centered leaders believe in the power of students to take ownership of the learning. There is a high level of agency evident in the learning environment at One Stone. It’s clear that the adults have created the conditions for that agency by designing a wide variety of learning spaces for learners to make learning personal and irresistible. The learners respond to these conditions by willingly taking ownership of their learning. The adults trust the learners, and the learners trust the adults. This mutual trust creates a powerful synergy for co-learning.

Takeaways

Learning at One Stone is student-centered and student-driven. Self-directed learners engage with the community and develop their leaedership skills.

Teachers are considered coaches, and their role is to guide students. Learners take ownership for their learning, and work alongside the coaches. The learning model is collaborative, empowering, and a relevant experience. Those big ideas are really important as the most impactful learning does not happen individually. It is socially embedded. Learning happens within groups in all the different learning spaces. Learners build off of each other’s knowledge. The social component of learning at One Stone is empowering because students drive each others learning. The learning is relevant because they work to address real world issues, adding meaning and context.

A few years ago, the school was a set of after school programs – Project Good and Solution Lab. Students and parents were asking why these after school programs couldn’t be the “school” experience. A 24-hour think design challenge resulted in the development of One Stone in the fall of 2016. The school was born as a result of engaging student voice. 

There are approximately 70 learners in the school day, and 150 students come to the after school programs from 12 different high schools.

If you visited One Stone, what would you see? You would see something different everyday!  You might see students working independently or collaboratively in the Foundry. Or teams problem solving in the Design Lab. Maybe students independently pursuing an interest alongside a coach, or engrossed in collaborative courses on topics such as law and the brain. One stone is a learning environment with a variety of different learning possibilities happening in different spaces.

The Foundry is One Stone’s makerspace. Students use tools such as a 3D printers and laser engravers to create designs. Design Lab spreads all around the building. Students self-select around an interest deeply connected to a community organization’s problem. Learners use empathy and ideation to create prototypes, test them, and iterate improved design solutions.

The school also has a commercial grade kitchen – coaches/learners cook for the community every Wednesday. Another learning space is Ripple Studios, basically a closet converted into an actual music/sound studio. Learners use the space to podcast, record and practice their music. The jazz band also plays in the studio, and the students have started renting the space to professional musicians.

The Two Birds room is a student-led advertisement agency. In this space, professional level client meetings are conducted. For example, students work on logos for local organizations and businesses.

Chloe shared an example in which she collaborated with other learners to create an orthotic better suited for patients who experience the condition drop foot.  Learners engaged in the design experience where they first empathized to understand how patients experience drop foot. They ultimately created an orthotic product with improved straps, foam, and an air bladder. Another team has created an app for distracted drivers.  

How is Design Lab organized? Design labs are 12 weeks, and teams are typically 4-6 students. Students meet 4 times a week for approximately 1-2 hours.

Throughout the One Stone learning environment, the role of teacher has evolved to that of a coach. Each Design Lab team has a coach, but lab is led and driven by students. The coach is there to provide help, advice, and to keep the learners on track. Often, coaches may not even have the relevant skills for the task. They work with the learners, guiding them to the right resources and networks to acquire content knowledge and skills needed at the time for the challenge at hand. The coach works as a guide, advocate, and resource officer, but the team is largely student-driven, demonstrating how One Stone values learner agency and the power within each learner.

One Stone works through the lens of opportunities, as opposed to challenges or barriers. The school draws on community members for learning. Students are not learning in classrooms isolated from the community, instead they are learning with the community. One Stone relies on their relationships with the community partners to seek available opportunities and resources. Students are held accountable to the organization or individual.

Every course has specific learning objectives which are similar to other schools, including public schools. Students get qualitative feedback, using a growth-focused model. The students and coaches aim for mastery while validating growth of different skills and strengths.  

What do Chad and Chloe see as key competencies for leaders working in an environment such as One Stone? Collaboration – a most valued skill in the professional world. Learners need to be able to work with a range of perspectives, manage different work ethics and value systems. Learners at One Stone build their collaboration skills through guided and structured activities.

Leaders need to be radically open to what learning can look like. Learner-centered leaders believe in the power of students to own the learning.  One Stone empowers students by believing in their power to design solutions to their own and community problems. Learners set their goals, work with their coaches, set targets, achieve goals, and learn how to learn. 

Coaches also serve as advisors. Advisors have a cohort of about 10 advisees. Advisors meet with their cohort as a whole and individually on a weekly basis. They are connected to the learners and provide space for learners to be introspective. Students have someone to go to when they need additional help. For learners, it feels like someone knows them on a really deep level. The relationship can be “super open” and very trusting. Students know the guidance is coming from a good place.

Learners and coaches have growth mindsets and belive in the power of ambiguity. They believe in failing forward, trying new things, learning how to engage in a new, innovative, progressive approach. Chad indicated he sees himself as an equal with learners and always growing. 

One Stone advises other leaders to take risks and provides an environment where educators are supported to try new things. Learners and leaders fail forward and understand there is something to be learned in everything they do. They believe the environment needs to be safe to take intellectual and academic risks so that innovation may occur. Fail forward, and fail fast…a common phrase at One Stone.  Embracing change with an open mindset brings new learning experiences and insights.

Connections to Practice

• We cannot do the heavy lifting on transformation in isolation. How do we create the conditions for everyone to move forward together?
• Our connections to community could be improved. What are some challenges in the community? How can our learners collaborate with the community to design meaningful solutions?

Questions Based on Our Practice

• Do our teachers and leaders know they have permission to fail forward?  If not, how do we better communicate that?
• One Stone empowers students by believing in the power of students. Do our leaders and teachers believe in the power of learners?
• How can we help our leaders, learners and teachers challenge their school-centered assumptions?
• How can we better engage community resources? What are those resources?

Next  Steps for Us

• Talk to our student group about their perceptions of failing.
• Meet with our Leading #YourSalisbury district professional learning cohort to celebrate successes and failures from this year.
• Reach out to the Workforce Development Board to identify some businesses which might like to engage with our learners.