Unpacking a great action research project

A tale of research-driven change Last year two educators at Crossett Brook Middle School undertook an amazing action research project that directly improved their interactions with students. Mollie Burke-Bendzunas, speech pathologist, and Melanie Zima, special educator, took a three-day class together during the summer. The class focused on structured teaching as a strategy for working …

Action research

What is action research? It’s research that springs from a state of mind: “By systematically studying my practice I can continuously improve and potentially inform others.” While it’s helpful to look at action research case studies to get a full feeling of how it works, this graphic summarizes the research cycle nicely:   Put another …

Our Research Agenda

Staying grounded in best practices Research in the middle grades shares a common goal of understanding and improving teaching and learning. Best practices in middle grades education underpins everything we do here at the Tarrant Institute: the professional development we provide partner educators, the action research projects we help those educators undertake in their classrooms, …

Revolutionize student research with Padlet

Organize research materials digitally and collaboratively Tiffany Michael, from Crossett Brook Middle School in Waterbury, Vermont, describes how her use of Padlet evolved to eventually revolutionize the way that she teaches students to conduct research. I love her story because it has something for everybody. In addition to practical and actionable advice for teachers who …

Carmen Smith, Researcher

Carmen Petrick Smith is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Vermont. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the effects of embodied actions on learning geometry. Her research interests center on embodied cognition, games for learning, and STEM education. She is …

Meredith Swallow, Research Associate & Professional Development Coordinator

Meredith Swallow is in her fourth year as a doctoral student at UVM, and is now working with the Tarrant Institute as a research associate and professional development coordinator. As a former middle school and high school math teacher, Meredith facilitated environments of engaged, active learning by supporting the connection of knowledge through interaction, understanding …

Citizen Science: routes to collaboration on scientific research

For a lot of kids, science can be something you learn about, instead of something that you do. This is understandable – a lot of experiments that students do in the classroom aren’t exactly leading towards new discoveries. Even if it’s an amazing reaction or a wonderful simulation, it can be hard for students to …

Publications & Presentations

Presentations Local Presentations Grow Community Through Service Learning and Leadership. Katy Farber & Peter Stratman. Presented at Vermont Fest, November 2018. Conversations About Micro-Credentialing. Susan Hennessey & Tim O’Leary. Presented at Vermont Fest, November 2018. Ideas Into Action Through School-Driven Change. Penny Bishop, John, Downes, Scott Thompson, and Life LeGeros. Presented at Rowland Conference at …

PLPs to Know Students Well: Introducing the Personal Learning Plan Toolkit

  Introducing our updated PLP Toolkit Knowing each student well is essential to a year of flourishing for students and educators. It’s a prerequisite to ensuring equitable access to belonging and wellbeing, a culturally-responsive learning environment, and deep learning. And it enriches the relationships so central to a thriving school. Personal learning plans (PLPs) can …

Challenging Simplified Notions of Health Equity in the Middle Grades

Lindsay McQueen, a middle school science educator at Edmunds Middle School, in Burlington VT, originally presented “Challenging Simplified Notions About Health Equity in the Middle Grades” in January 2021. She presented it as part of the 2021 Middle Grades Conference at the University of Vermont. Below please find a video recording of the workshop, optimized for …

Place-Based, De-Colonized Ecology in Middle School

Natalie Smith, a middle school science educator at Lyndon Town School, in Lyndonville VT, originally presented “Making Science Authentic: Teaching Place-Based, Decolonized Ecology in the Middle School Science Classroom” in January 2021. She presented it as part of the 2021 Middle Grades Conference at the University of Vermont. Below please find a recording of the …

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We publish articles, videos and new podcast episodes three times per week, ranging on topics from equity to action research, blended learning to negotiated curriculum. If it helps you move towards truly student-centered middle school learning, we want to talk about it. [jetpack_subscription_form title=”Subscribe” subscribe_text=”Sign up” subscribe_button=”Sign Me Up”]

Creating community through advisory

Using mergers as community opportunities Vermont Act 46 mergers challenged communities to restructure systems. Under a mandated merger, two schools came together to build one thriving community, focused on building a healthy culture. Challenging, yes? Through a shared, engaging advisory program, these two schools worked together to establish a culture that explicitly values: identity development …

Ch 7: PLPs & Proficiency-Based Assessment

What do PLPs and proficiency-based assessment have in common? They both emphasize what students CAN do. They’re not about ranking, sorting, and labeling. They’re about growth, progress, and opportunity for all. First, some definitions: According to the Vermont Agency of Education: The focus of proficiency-based learning is on students’ demonstration of desired learning outcomes. Students …

Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs)

Knowing each student well is essential to a year of flourishing for students and educators. It’s a prerequisite to ensuring equitable access to belonging and wellbeing, a culturally-responsive learning environment, and deep learning. And it enriches the relationships so central to thriving among youth and adults alike. Personal learning plans (PLPs) can drive a rich …

Ch 8: Student-led PLP conferences

Asking students to share their PLPs is one powerful way to engage families in a deeper understanding of their child’s learning and progress. What does one look like? At Lamoille Union Middle-High School, in Hyde Park VT, middle school teams began moving toward PLP-based student-led conferences several years ago. The conferences consisted of students preparing …

Increasing student engagement in PLPs at Williston Central

It’s about providing choice in reflection tools Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) across the state have taken many different forms and serve a few different purposes. One common thread among educators is a wondering of how to increase student engagement in the PLP process. How to make it more meaningful and relevant. Michael Willis, Jared Bailey, …

About Our Learning Lab

What is Learning Lab VT?   Learning Lab VT is a network of Vermont educators who are implementing personalized learning strategies with their students. This year-long experience provides a cohort of educators the networked support they need to partner with their students and each other to explore strategies that answers the questions: Why personalization? What, …

How do you measure success with project-based learning?

“A Tale of Three Projects” Two Vermont educators share how they measure success with project-based learning units… in space! Allan Miller and Natasha Grey, two educators from Charlotte Central School, Charlotte VT, shared their journey towards authentic, meaningful, engaging project-based learning. The “Gold Standard” in project-based learning. At the 2019 Middle Grades Conference, they candidly …

Toward a student-directed classroom

Releasing responsibility in Ottauquechee Ottauquechee Elementary School teacher Kim Dumont had a vision. She wanted to build her students’s self-direction and self-efficacy. She wanted students to feel like leaders of their classroom and their own learning. Over the summer, with the help of a week at Vermont’s Middle Grades Conference, Dumont put together a plan …

Learning Lab Posts

Curious about how educators in the Learning Lab VT approach personalized learning? Participants in Learning Lab VT commit to reflecting on how their action research is progressing throughout the year. These reflections can be written or video in form. They often feature collaboration with students. A huge part of the Learning Lab VT commitment is …

How to build teacher advisory

Peoples Academy Middle Level shares their action research “It’s getting personal”. Peoples Academy Middle Level teachers discuss how they’ve created personal connections with students in their TAs (teacher advisories), and the difference that’s made to classroom environments. Presented at the 2017 Middle Grades Conference, at the University of Vermont.     Transcript pending.

Phys ed 2.0: More learning, less suffering

Personalizing PE In this era of personalized learning, it’s not just the jocks that find P.E. enjoyable. At Crossett Brook Middle School and Shelburne Community School, students employ cool technology, develop creative projects, and pursue personal interests and goals while developing autonomy, healthy habits, and deep understandings.

3 ways to use Flipgrid for reflection

Video reflection + social interaction The role of feedback and reflection are key strategies in best middle level practice for students and educators alike. Finding engaging ways for this exchange to take place in meaningful and relevant ways is, for many of us, a challenge. Enter Flipgrid.

Digital badges as evidence of flexible pathways

Realizing the promise of micro-credentialing As teachers and students grapple with how to implement proficiency-based assessment, flexible pathways and personalized learning, what can we learn from digital badge eco-systems? What’s been tried? What’s worked?  And what do we need to think about as we implement micro-credentialing to help us grapple, not just with the requirements …

Student-led conferences

A student-led conference (or SLC) can be a magical opportunity for teachers to engage deeply with a student and their family. It typically involves a middle schooler gathering some evidence of their learning, strengths and challenges, and possibly their goals and aspirations. They assemble that evidence along with reflections into some format; many use a …

Identity

Young adolescents are compelled to explore various aspects of their identities, including values, beliefs, social identities, learning profiles, interests, cultures, and aspirations. When teachers provide opportunities for exploring and expressing identities, they will be able to strengthen relationships and provide personalized support to students’ academic and social emotional learning. As students seek to understand the …

Can sustained silent reading help reluctant readers?

How student choice can support literacy English teacher Laela Warnecke set out to answer one question: “How might sustained silent reading impact 8th graders?” Warnecke examined the effect of sustained silent reading on the engagement and achievement of her students. She surveyed her students and helped them set aside time during the day to read whatever they …

LEARN

Keys to innovative school change We all want students to engage more fully with school by experiencing it as a place that facilitates relevant, meaningful experiences that encourage growth. But what does that mean for educators and administrators? We’ve gathered resources, definitions and tech-rich, student-centered examples from Vermont schools to help educators and school leaders …

How mobile devices can enhance field trips

Deepen place-based learning and boost emotional engagement Having signed the permission slips, helped raise money, converted US dollars to Canadian, and reviewed the itinerary multiple times, I attended an information night for my daughters’ end-of-year field trip: a 3-day adventure in Quebec City. I learned (among other things) how to be certain if mobile devices …

Implementing 1:1 norms and digital citizenship

How do student behaviors change? Debi Serafino, a math teacher at Brattleboro Area Middle School, presents the results of her semester-long action research project examining the effects of implementing 1:1 norms and digital citizenship on the behavior of the incoming 7th graders, all of whom participate in a 1:1 Chromebook project. Here’s what she and her team discovered.

A community-based interdisciplinary unit

A tech-rich case study from rural Vermont The team from Hazen Union Middle School, in Hardwick, Vermont, conducted an action research project over the fall semester of 2015, centered around deepening students’ connection to their community. They called the unit “I Belong”. It provided students with tech-rich opportunities to engage with the small and rural community of their …

Using digital tools to change student goal-setting and reflection

Measuring how students approach goal-setting in the 5th and 6th grades   Educators at Wallingford Elementary School and Shrewsbury Mountain School, in central Vermont, undertook an action research project measuring how their use of digital tools — specifically Google Docs, Forms and Sites — changed how middle grades students approached setting goals and reflecting on their …

Student-led conferences and engagement in PLPs

A middle school case study Katie Bryant, an English teacher at Lamoille Union Middle School, presents the results of her semester-long action research project examining the relationship between student-led conferences and engagement in PLPs, or personal learning plans. Here’s what she and her team discovered. Transcript appears below. Hi! I’m Katie Bryant. I teach at …

PLPs and literacy

Incorporating student choice into reading This screencast, from Crossett Brook Middle School, in Waterbury, Vermont, describes an action research project based on the premise that students would benefit if day-to-day classroom instruction reflected the choice and self-direction at the heart of Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs). In addition to the positive response of students, one of the …

Some final reflections from former TIIE staff

John Dewey once famously said, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” As the Tarrant Institute for Innovation Education (TIIE) sunsets as an organization, we found it appropriate to reflect and share some tidbits of what we have learned. Here are some thoughts and reflections from former TIIE staff (alphabetized by …

Equity toolkit

The moral imperative behind our work at TIIE has always been equity. It is also the basis of the middle school movement that we hold dear, which originated as a challenge to the status quo of junior high schools. As progressive educators, we promote shifts in education to bring more equitable outcomes, more humane learning …

#VTED Reads: Care Work with Dr. Winnie Looby

Welcome, listeners, to another episode of vted Reads: talking about books by, for, and with Vermont educators. In this episode… we own an oversight. On this show, we are dedicated to breaking down systems of inequity in education. We administer flying kicks to the forehead of intersectional oppression! But we haven’t yet talked about disability. …

#vted Reads: Community Schools Blueprint with Kathleen Kesson

In this episode, we welcome author, educator, and Vermont transplant Kathleen Kesson who talks about Community Schools Blueprint: Transforming Our School Community Partnership. Kathleen and I talk about the possibilities we see for widening the cracks in traditional schooling by building opportunities for students and communities to support one another in authentic, real-world ways.

A Vermont-centric look at personalized learning for social justice

The recent issue of the research journal Middle Grades Review was extraordinary for two reasons. First, it focused on the intersection of personalized learning and social justice education. And second, Vermont educators authored all but one of the articles. I encourage folks to peruse the entire issue, but this may not be realistic in the …

Increasing Student Self-Direction

“Increasing Student Self-Direction” was a webinar presented by Rachel Mark as part of the 2020-2021 UVM Tarrant Institute Professional Learning Series. We present it here in its entirety. You can either watch the webinar recording, listen to an audio version, or read the annotated transcript. Follow-up questions about self-direction in your classroom? Email rbmarkvt@gmail.com.   …

Culturally Responsive Curriculum by design

If you want to know what an organization prioritizes, examine its budget. If you want to know what educators care about, look at their curriculum. Curriculum is perhaps the most concrete representation of educational values. Students’ day-to-day experiences are rooted in their direct engagement with this bundle of lesson plans, materials, and assignments. We package …

#vted Reads about Equity & Cultural Responsiveness in the Middle Grades

In January 2020, the Vermont state legislature proposed a resolution formally apologizing for the legislature’s role in passing a 1931 law making eugenics perfectly legal and encouraged in the Green Mountain State. Meanwhile, on the Standing Rock Reservation, in South Dakota, the future of the Dakota Access Pipeline is in doubt, but only at the …

Culturally responsive practices for equity in the classroom

Equity. In Vermont and beyond, educators and administrators are talking about equity. But what does equity look like in practice? Most importantly, how do we stop talking about it and start doing it? Culturally responsive practices are a concrete way to do equity work in the classroom. So what are they and what do they …

Lessons learned from a community conversation on race

How do we effectively engage people in our community who aren’t already predisposed to discuss race and the impacts of racism? How do we pull people into a community conversation on race? Especially people who aren’t already striving to be more antiracist? I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that the more community conversations …

“Because internet”: learning to communicate in different online spaces

When is a “lol” not a “lol”? Would a “ftw” hit as hard by any other name? Two things: Shakespeare’s now spinning in his grave like a turbine, powering most of greater Stratford; That’s absolutely fine with us. Language evolves. It grows and bends and twists and curls back on itself like you wouldn’t believe. …

Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to upgrade our educational OS

Spoiler alert: When we adjust learning conditions to be more in sync with the known laws of brain-based learning, learning improves. Momentum builds. Trust the science For 15 years I’ve been helping Vermont educators and school systems apply what we know about the brain to inform what we do in our schools. And for 15 …

5 keys to a successful virtual parent night: 2020 edition

How do you blend a time-honored tradition and an unprecedented moment of social, civil and personal upheaval? Carefully. Very carefully. So, in order to make lemonade from 2020’s truckload of lemons, currently broken down in the fast lane of our lives, let’s look at 5 keys to a successful virtual parent night. 1.Provide choice — …

De-Colonizing Your Thanksgiving Curriculum

  De-Colonizing Your Thanksgiving Curriculum is the title of an interactive online workshop for educators offered in late October and early November of 2020. It is a collaborative project of Gedakina, the UVM Institute for Innovative Education, Shelburne Farms and Vermont Learning for the Future. The courageous  co-facilitators of this webinar are Judy Dow, Emily Hoyler, …

Student intervention for anti-racist education

Schools are committed to bringing anti-racism into curricula and systems more than ever before. Even in predominantly white schools there appears to be a growing acknowledgment that anti-racist education is crucial for all students. Big changes seem to be underfoot. And that’s a wonderful thing. But there will be pushback. White fragility and white rage …

Trauma-informed distance learning, with Alex Shevrin Venet

The need for trauma-informed practice is particularly salient during the current global pandemic, when many if not all of us are experiencing trauma daily. And educators are working hard to translate trauma-informed practice to emergency remote learning. Luckily, we have experts like Alex Shevrin Venet engaged in the current moment. She’s a local Vermont educator …

Digging into self-direction

When states around the country shifted towards standards-based, competency-based and proficiency-based learning and reporting, that involved separating the content-specific skills and knowledge from the learner-specific habits and behaviors. The particular set of learner habits and behaviors that districts and states chose to measure and report have varied. Similarly, some states adopted guiding structures such as …

On equity in the middle school movement

The middle school movement has been a powerful force for positive change. It’s rooted in progressive education, with special attention to the developmental needs of young adolescents. In Vermont, we are ahead of most other states in implementing middle school systems and associated student-centered practices. That’s a good thing. Relative newcomers to this place, like …

Looking at PLPs

Connecting deeply with students matters. Research tell us this. So does teacher experience. Educators spend a lot of time learning about student interests, their families and cultures, their identities and dreams. This is important work, and is often based on what they show us, or tell us. But what if students are in the drivers …

3 ways to bring positive emotional energy to your school

Positive emotional energy makes positive learning. We need systems focused on creating positive and safe climates. We also need, as educators, to be focused on developing, building, and sustaining learning institutions brimming with positive emotions. That is an enormous task, but we can start by having some personal accountability for just ourselves. What if our …

#vted Reads: The Benefits of Being an Octopus

This one goes deep, folks. On this episode educator Corey Smith joins me to talk about The Benefits of Being an Octopus, by Ann Braden. We talk glitter and posterboard, coffee and peanut-butter smoothies, and using the Equity Literacy Framework to dismantle inequality in our systems of learning with both students AND adults. What might …

#vted Reads: Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades, with Penny Bishop

HELLO! I’m Jeanie Phillips and welcome back to vted Reads! We’re kicking off our second season of the podcast with none other than author, professor, associate dean and Vermont education LEGEND, Dr. Penny Bishop. We’ll talk VT PLPs, the power of a compelling school example in changing classrooms practices, and how to steal all the …

Getting personal about systemic equity

Sometimes pursuing systemic equity in education can feel a little like the carrot vs. the stick. Since No Child Left Behind, federal education policy has talked about equity while applying punitive measures to schools based on students’ aggregate performance. We have been largely mired in deficit-based policy that is ineffective for spurring transformation and generally …

#vted Reads: Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty

In this episode of #vted Reads, I return to my old stomping grounds at Green Mountain Union High School. I’m talking with school counselor Ally Oswald, about the realities of reaching and teaching students in poverty. Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty is also the title of a 2013 book by educator and reformer Paul …

What does integrated studies look like at Flood Brook?

At Flood Brook School, middle level teachers believe in an integrated approach to curriculum delivery. Four years into implementing an integrated (science & social studies), multiage (grades 6-8) approach towards units of study, Charlie Herzog responded to student concerns with a focused inquiry cycle asking this important question: How might student attitudes towards integrated units …

How to make real, sustainable change in the Northeast Kingdom

Think Global Goals, make local change   The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are ambitious goals that countries, organizations, and institutions are committed to. They provide a framework that inspires students to connect local issues with global movements, to care deeply, and to make their own a plans for positive change. They include things such …

#vted Reads: The Power of Moments, with Rachel Mark

Thank you for joining us for another episode of #vted Reads. This time we will be discussing The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. We’ll look for ways to make classroom moments more powerful, explore opportunities to raise the stakes for your students, and visit the popsicle hotline. Oh, and we’ll talk …

Turning passion projects into real world change

Public displays of learning are not always the end. How do you know when meaningful, relevant, personalized and authentic learning has really occurred? Is the charge and scaffolding strong enough to continue the learning after the in-school time has expired? One measure is looking at what happens after the project ends.

The #everydaycourage of staying curious in the face of negative feedback

Feedback often feels like criticism. But what if we used it as an opportunity to grow? In third grade, I had my own time-out chair in the principal’s office. My exuberant chattiness, combined with an 8-year-old’s lack of social filter frequently earned me a trip to that chair that sat in the corner facing the …

#everydaycourage

It’s time we celebrated it in our schools. When we walk into Vermont schools, we see it. It’s there, every time, when our eyes scan the hallways, the classrooms, and the shared spaces. It’s #everydaycourage, and it lies at the heart of innovative education.

J-Term at Hazen Union

Personalized, proficiency-based PBL or bust During a faculty meeting in late December of 2016, educators and staff talked about the need to provide personalized learning options for students at their small, rural Vermont school. They wanted do so in a way that  honored the students’ need for passion-based, independent projects, as well as the desire …

Service learning

Service learning Creating teaching and learning opportunities where students identify, research, propose, and implement solutions to real needs in their school community as part of their curriculum. Ponder these other definitions. What do they have in common? Why do service learning? Read researcher Shelley Billig’s take on why service learning benefits students in many ways. …

How do adverse childhood events affect student performance?

Cognitive outcomes vs intersectional traumas We talk with legendary awesome stats guy Mark Olofson — now Dr. Legendary Awesome Stats Guy Mark Olofson — about his research into adverse childhood events and school performance. It’s some pretty important stuff, about how the intersecting traumas that affect students have some long-reaching consequences.

Tracking proficiencies in Schoology

3 ways Schoology supports sustainable Proficiency-Based Learning A learning management system (LMS) can be used to manage classroom workflow, create self-paced differentiated units, and collaborate within or across classrooms and schools. As teachers in Vermont and elsewhere grapple with how to create proficiency-based learning environments, they are looking for new strategies and routines. Let’s explore …

Data shows #vted leads nation in educators on Twitter

Vermont’s new leading role online In today’s podcast, Mark Olofson talks with Joshua Rosenberg and Spencer Greenhalgh, education researchers from Michigan State University. Their research focuses on the state-level twitter conversations among educators: who is doing it, and what they’re getting out of it. And, spoiler alert, when they looked around the country, Vermont emerged …

3 visualization exercises for proficiency-based learning

Outcomes, process and automaticity I worked with a group of teachers this summer to re-think goal-setting with their students. We know it’s a key component to developing Personalized Learning Plans (PLP), but students reported little engagement in following through on and reflecting about their goals. In our attempts to think differently about goal-setting and reflection, …

VT Secretary of Education speaks on equity in Vermont

“I don’t believe you can be an educator committed to student voice and not be a powerful advocate for equity.” This past August, the University of Vermont played host to an international conference focused on ways to amplify student voice and increase student partnership in the classroom. Attendees were lucky enough to hear an address …

Exploring careers in middle school

How one school tackles work-based learning “Work-based learning experiences are activities that involve actual work experience or that connect classroom learning to employment and careers. Through work-based learning experiences, educational programs become more relevant, rigorous, challenging, and rewarding for students, parents, educators, and businesses. These opportunities particularly help students make the connection between academic principles …

Making history on the radio with community partners

Middle school students power Brattleboro’s radio days Brattleboro, Vermont was incorporated back in 1753, a former military fort that embraced trading, commerce and the power of nearby Whetstone Falls to spur mill production. It was where Rudyard Kipling settled to write The Jungle Book, and where Harriet Beecher Stowe came to seek the famous 18th …

Interactive map tools for creating deeper place-based learning

Revisiting the possibilities of student-created geographies The rate at which technology changes has reached a dizzying speed, with new tools and platforms emerging constantly. But what hasn’t changed is students’ curiosity about the world and their need to explore their own place in it. Young adolescents in particular, burn with the urge to make and …

20 time in the middle school classroom

Lessons learned from passion-based research Passion-based research goes by many different names; 20% Time and Genius Hour are just two different terms that describe school projects that center upon personal inquiry and innovation to spark motivation in students. For the past several years, students in my 7th grade social studies classes have engaged in 20 …

Study National Parks with digital tools

Student-created virtual park tours With access to online and tablet-based tools for digital curation and content creation, students can research the history, challenges and attractions of one of our nation’s 58 (!) National Parks. Under the rubric of planning a visit to them, students can answer an essential and timeless question: What features make National Parks special …

Real-world problems and project-based learning

Adapting big science for a middle school classroom One of the keys of the Project-Based Learning approach is to engage students in solving real-world problems. Ideally, students are involved in exploring relevant and authentic challenges in their community, state, nation, or world. Sometimes teachers and students have to search hard for a need or an …

How schools can conduct a community conversation

A case study in engaging your community I attended an event last week that was of huge personal and professional importance: a screening of the film Most Likely to Succeed followed by a facilitated conversation. As a new community member, it was inspiring to see a transformative vision of schooling put forth by education leadership. As …

Defining innovation in Vermont education

What do we mean when we talk about innovation in Vermont education? Recently, the #vted Twitter chat focused on innovation, and the conversation brought a mix of practical tips, brilliant insight, and positive sentiment. The take-home message for me was that innovation thrives in an environment with a balance of risk-taking, moral support, and professional learning.

To lock or not to lock

School approaches to filtering internet content As social media,Youtube, and gaming become more educationally relevant, how do we leverage their educational potential while keeping student data safe and teaching them digital citizenship? Lock it down! “We need to keep everyone safe.” Open it up! “It’s how the real world operates.” I’ve heard strong arguments for …

What goes into measuring the success of edtech?

What does “quality” mean in assessing statewide digital efforts? The Foundation for Excellence in Education recently released its 2014 Digital Learning Report Card. According to this report, Vermont does not support digital learning. In fact, all of New England is a digital wasteland. But what does the data really say? How are these researchers quantifying “digital learning”? And how …

A flipped classroom in Thailand

Comparing achievement in an economics classroom The flipped classroom is a new teaching method that reverses the traditional homework model. In the flipped classroom, students watch video as homework and then use valuable class time to complete assignments when teachers are available to provide one-on-one assistance and discuss deeper into a concept.

Project-based learning at Essex Middle School: algebra and songwriting

Making math and music at The Edge We were lucky enough to get to sit down with three groups of students at Essex Middle School’s Edge Academy just before the break and hear how their year-long project-based learning (PBL) projects are going. In the final installment of the series, we talk with three students making math …

Newton’s Laws, standards, and practices

Here at the Tarrant Institute, we have spent years focusing on the unique characteristics of young adolescent learners. Many of our values and practices are aligned with or adopted from the essential attributes and characteristics of effective middle grades education as outlined by the Association for Middle Level Education. Here in Vermont, we see many of …

Too much good stuff: a wealth of reading and curation resources for the classroom

The technology cannot thwart us, it can only make us stronger As many of you are aware, I was out at Harwood Union High School this past week for the Washington West Supervisory Union (WWSU) inservice day, armed to the teeth with iPads, apps, and tips and tricks for integrating technology into the classroom in …

Making the most of twitter in your classroom

Twitter’s not just a great way to build your PLN as an educator, it’s also a powerful tool to connect students with the world around them in very unique ways. But how can you make those connections authentic learning experiences? Let’s look at making the most of twitter in your classroom.

5 off-beat ways to use QR codes in the classroom

By now, almost everyone’s familiar with QR codes, the distinctive-looking black-and-white graphics which, when scanned, take the scanner to a url. No? Not sounding familiar? Then how about: If you have a phone, iPad or tablet with a QR-scanning app installed (we like Barcode Generator/Reader for Android, and Scan for iOS) open it up and center …

Testing unbound

Turn formative testing into a learning opportunity Wonder what words, when using free association, are conjured from folks when they hear the word TEST? Pulled quickly from my psyche are: anxiety, study, judgment, memorize, prep, control My guess is these are some common possibilities, but the word LEARN probably wouldn’t make most peoples’ list.  

Meet Emily Howe, pre-service educator and technology fan

Emily Howe joined the Tarrant Institute this past summer as our first ever pre-service teacher intern. She was instrumental in pulling off Code Camp, and actively assists in our research. For her first blog post, Howe answered the question: Describe a situation in which you feel instruction could’ve benefited from the appropriate integration of technology. …