To help encourage conversations and dialogue about reflection and this past year of learning, our topic/question for the dinner table is: How/why was this a good year for you as a learner? Process of Reflection (Week of 6/10/18) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
Blake's Guiding Lights
Our Students
Blake's Core Values: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reflection
Our Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
Our Mission: Blake Middle School believes in a living mission statement, based on the concept that our community seeks and respects knowledge, integrity, character, wisdom, and the willingness to adapt to a continually evolving world.
With the beautiful weather we had this past weekend, I hope that everyone was able to get outside for a bit and take it in. The morning light and sunsets have just been lovely. After enjoying a date night with Katie on Friday seeing The Head and the Heart in East Providence, we had our last spring sports Saturday with soccer and baseball for the boys and having a low-key Saturday night. With our last full week of school this week for me and our kids, Katie and I are 'attempting' to get things settled, breathe, and simply make sure we are not forgetting anything - I am sure I am not alone with that feeling!
Since James Ryan's (Dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education) commencement speech in 2016, I have shared his words below at both the beginning and end of the school year...
With all of this going on and known as our current reality, it is completely understandable to put the practice of reflection aside. Believe it or not I was feeling that way last Thursday before the #MedfieldPS twitter chat. As much as I love the connections and have a sincere hope that they will continue to foster connections for our community, it just felt like 'one more thing'. If I'm being honest, had I not been the one facilitating the chat, I probably would have done something else for that hour. As it turns out it was what I needed most - although it was a small group on the chat (if you get a chance, check out the archived #MedfieldPS June 2018 chat thanks to @techmonstah), the energy helped to focus my thinking and prompt further reflection. As I look ahead to this last week together as a school community, I am sharing three posts that did the same for me - helped me to reflect, ground me, made me think, helped me to step back, and simply reflect. I hope that they may do the same for others and that we can all share our own sources of inspiration with one another as well...
From Final Exam to Defense of Learning
by Beth Holland (@brholland) in Education Week
Beth shared this post with me last week and it spoke to me on many levels (student, parent, educator, and administrator). Her post was sparked by Dan Meyer's (@ddmeyer) tweet: Final exams make less and less sense to me the longer I'm out of the classroom. This teacher gets it. Coupled with her recent work as a doctoral student, Beth proposes a 'defense of learning' approach to assessment and feedback. I simply could not agree more.
Questions:
what is worth retrieving and retaining when students can easily access low-level facts and information through their phones?
what is the purpose of the exam itself?
what is the purpose of this type of final exam beyond maybe a rite of passage?
I started wondering whether the process of preparing and the final event need to be considered as symbiotic and yet entirely separate entities. If the greater purpose of the final examination is to demonstrate a depth of knowledge and the capacity to work with that knowledge through analysis, synthesis, or application, then what new cognitive gains, skills, and understandings might students acquire through studying and preparation?
I realize that it may not be realistic - or appropriate - for every student to have a two-hour conversation as an exam, but what if the entire notion of exams became a defense of learning versus a regurgitation of information? What if students could choose whether they wanted to defend orally, in writing, through video, in audio, as a visual, with a portfolio...? How might changing final exams to a final defense impact how our students approach learning?
Be Firm in Your Principles. Be Flexible in Your Practices
By David Guerin (@DavidGuerin)
This post is one that I believe is important - articulate principles and practices, but be mindful of which ones should be static and which should be fluid.
I'm a big advocate of positive and productive change. If one thing is certain, it's change. There will be change, and we must adapt. Our students must adapt. Our schools must adapt. The world is becoming more complex and uncertain, and that makes change even more imperative. But some things never change. Teaching principles, for instance, stand the test of time. Principles are fundamental truths. They are universal and unchanging at their core. These things should be the foundation of who we are and what we do as educators.
But our practices are different. Our practices should be much different than 50 years ago. They should even be different than 5 years ago. They may be different tomorrow, based on our students' needs. We must adapt our practices to the needs of the students we are working with today, right now. We need to adapt to the changes that are happening in the world right now as well. Teaching practices are only effective in certain situations and change over time: grading, curriculum, technology, strategies, and lessons all must change to stay relevant.
Be firm in your principles. They are your core beliefs. Be flexible in your practices. They flow from your principles and are your actions today. Be firm in your mission. It's your purpose as an educator. Be flexible in your methods. Your methods are how you achieve your purpose and may change with the situation.
Edcamps: The ‘Unconferences,’ Where Teachers Teach Themselves
by Katherine Schulten in The New York Times
Ken Robinson (@SirKenRobinson) tweeted this post earlier this week - given the great work and feedback that has come out of our #EdCampBlake sessions in May (as well as in the past), this model is one that I hope to continue and build upon in the coming year(s). I am also interested in looking into expanding it with other schools and districts. The tenets posted below are ones to consider for all of our work in education - with students, parents, and staff - not necessarily in all situations, but the tenets speak to the true essence of public education.
Perhaps the best known of many so-called unconference models, Edcamps arose out of the idea that teachers, just like their students, need “voice and choice” to help them learn. Anyone who shows up to these free events can suggest or lead a session, and participants are invited to “vote with their feet” about which to attend. Or, as Kisha Slaughter put it in Newark that morning: “Edcamps are more of a conversation than a presentation.”
Tenets of Edcamp
Participant-driven: Sessions are determined the morning of the event. There are no scheduled presentations or keynotes.
Cost: Free to all attendees.
Experience, not experts: Sessions are led by participants rather than through planned presentations.
‘Rule of Two Feet’: Participants are encouraged to find sessions that best meet their needs, and leave ones that don’t.
Continuing this thread of reflection, as shared last week, all Blake staff will be asked to individually and collectively #slowitdown, reflect, and answer the questions below. I will be setting aside some time over the next week to answer these questions as well...
- What was meaningful this year? What made teaching worthwhile? What mattered?
- Describe a positive interaction or experience you had with a student during this academic year.
- Describe or explain an accomplishment you attained or something you are proud of taking place during this academic year.
- Describe a particular student or situation during the school year who or that you feel you could have handled in a way that would have resulted in a more positive learning experience.
- How have you 'lived' our mission statement in your work and growth this year?
- What is an area that you would like to grow professionally?
- What have you learned this year from a student?
- What messages do you want to leave for our students? What do you want them to remember? (A humbling but important and centering question)
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for Thursday Packet Information.
Take care.
Nat