Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
Equity in education has — and needs — many lenses. The work is hard, the work is myriad, the work is vital. While listening to VPR’s Vermont edition the other day, a friend and fellow author, Ann Braden came on the air, and was reading from her new middle grade novel called The Benefits …
Continue reading “Unpacking equity in Passion Projects and Genius Hours”
Genius Hour Genius Hour refers to open-ended, student-driven projects during a pre-deterrmined time. Students pick a topic and decide how they will exhibit their learning. During the research phase students often connect with mentors within the school or in the community. (Genius Hour is also called Passion Projects or 20% time.) Check out : This …
Standard 3-part story-driven post: 1) what it is, 2) what it looks like in a school, 3) how to do it in your school
1% teacher inspiration & 99% student-led Genius Hour is a leap of faith in which educators set aside their most precious resource, time, for students to pursue their passions. It doesn’t get much more student-centered than that. But there are actually several aspects of Genius Hour where students can be involved as partners to amp up …
Continue reading “4 ways to partner with students around Genius Hour”
Shouldn’t every hour be a genius hour? Anyone paying attention to education in the US lately has seen the proliferation of the “Genius Hour.” Presumably inspired by Google’s 20% rule, through which employees of the search engine giant spend a day a week on projects of their own choosing, many schools are adopting a model …
Equity is the moral imperative behind all of the work we do here at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. In this new toolkit, we have collected many of our favorite posts about equity, including analyses and syntheses about equity in general, how to support equity in professional learning and in classrooms, and examples of …
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 …
Need more student engagement and wellbeing? Join the club! Educators are always looking for ways to get students more engaged with school. In this third school year impacted by the pandemic, engagement and wellbeing are more important than ever. Ample research links extracurricular opportunities to student engagement and to social emotional learning. We also know …
Continue reading “Student clubs for engagement and wellbeing”
Walking through what it looks like to take commercial curriculum and develop a vibrant, personalized integrated unit. One thing we hear all the time in our work as professional development coordinators is: “How do you both personalize learning for students AND use the curriculum materials adopted by the district or school? Aren’t these things in …
Continue reading “Developing integrated units from commercial curriculum”
The fifteen year old boy slowly hobbled from the parking lot to the school’s main office, stopping to adjust his crutches. He was welcomed by the school’s Flexible Pathway Coordinator, Ian Dinzeo for their 10 o’clock appointment. They both sat down, masked, at opposite ends of a table in the school cafeteria – which offered …
228 days home with my 3 children. 88 days of remote learning, spanning 2 school years and 5 different grade levels. 10 different teachers. 34 Zoom meetings per week (not counting mine). Engagement level: 27%. This is parenting pandemic math. But who’s counting, right? At home, my kids are missing school. Or, more specifically, they …
JOY + CARE + RESILIENCE Co-written by Audrey Homan and Katy Farber Lots of educators, students and families are telling us that we can’t simply replicate in-classroom learning via video conferencing and assignments. It is *too* much for teachers and students and families. It doesn’t offer the kind of hands-on learning we know students enjoy, …
What happens when your work and home ecospheres become one and the same? For many of us this is part of the new normal. As we are responding to a global pandemic, the need to redefine space, roles and schedules has presented itself. Educators are amongst the many feeling disrupted and experiencing the growing pains …
Continue reading “Balancing your new work and home situations”
Teacher Leaders are agents of innovative school change Situated in the heart center of education, teacher leaders are the true heroes of the education system. Your vision and passion lead the quest for deeper learning and transformation. Your intuition and experience guide your path. But what happens when you see the way to bring more …
Hoo boy, we have a CORKER of an episode for you today, with On The Come Up, by Angie Thomas. We’re going to be talking about some of the continual and heartbreaking trauma students of color face in our schools, as well as the incredible resilience of mothers. I’m joined today by Marley Evans, a …
Learning Lab VT is a year-long practicum that networks Vermont educators and students, who conduct classroom research related to the questions: What, exactly, are teachers and students doing in settings that are becoming increasingly personalized, and to what end? How might our findings be helpful to each other, our students, and our colleagues? Below are …
Chapter 1: Personalized Learning for Young Adolescents Foundations and Connections Personalized Learning and Personal Learning Plan,The Glossary of Education Reform, New England Secondary Schools Consortium How Personal Learning is Working in Vermont, Penny Bishop, John Downes, and James Nagle, Educational Leadership, 2017 Promising State Policies for Personalized Learning, Susan Patrick et al., iNACOL, 2016 Chapter …
Just what is Personalized Learning? Personalized learning is a partnership between students and teachers in the design of learning that emerges from students’ interests, questions, needs, and preferences, towards an aim of self-directed learning (Bray & McClaskey, 2014). The best personalization is both personal and social, filled with purpose, and rooted in community. It’s a …
VTDigger reports that Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French said “From our standpoint, we portray districts being on a journey. Just like everyone in the world is on a journey. And we don’t see 2020 as some sort of hard and fast date.” However, regardless of a deadline, we should remain focused on centering equity …
Continue reading “3 ways to ensure equity is at the heart of your work”
OK, so middle school students crave personally meaningful and engaging learning experiences. How do we create these? Ta-da, featuring a non-exclusive list of strategies and practices designed to do just that. Please add your own in the comments and let us know what we’ve missed! Project-based learning In Project-based learning, students identify a question they …
“I think every school should do it!” Soup to nuts, curiosity projects — Genius Hour, 20% time or passion projects by any other name — work for students. At Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, in South Burlington VT, this year’s Curiosity Projects ran the gamut from robots to cooking shows, electromagnetic studies to YouTube economics. …
The why and how of personalization An inquiry question forms the backbone of action research in the classroom. It guides the full shape of the research to come, and forms a foundation for the educator and students to build ongoing research. Learning Lab VT is a program with action research at its heart — action …
Foundations & Connections Equal Opportunity for Deeper Learning, Pedro Noguera, Linda Darling-Hammond and Diane Friedlaender, Jobs for the Future, 2015 Student-Centered Schools: Closing the Opportunity Gap, Diane Friedlaender et al., Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, 2014 What is Blended Learning? Clayton Christensen Institute Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, Center for Applied Special Technology …
Continue reading “Chapter 6: Scaffolding for Equitable, Deeper Learning”
Allan Miller Allan Miller is an innovation coach and Digital Learning Leader at Charlotte Central School, in Charlotte VT. akmiller@cvsdvt.org Inquiry question: “What systems and processes can be implemented at Charlotte to sustainably engage students and teachers in personalized learning that is aligned around our [district’s] core transferable skills? How can we encourage students to …
Virtual bulletin boards to go! Staying organized as a teacher can be a major challenge. Between student work, teacher plans, sticky notes, school supplies it’s easy to get buried and overwhelmed! This can especially be hard in a personalized learning environment, where students are often working at different paces, with different resources. But whether you’re …
Get organized, then get tech Many of your current — or future — collaborators teach at other schools around the state or world. But when you’ve got a great idea for collaboration, don’t let distance stand in your way. Let’s look at this example from three Vermont schools on how to plan, manage and support …
Continue reading “How to run a unit across multiple schools”
Does your community know you as a learner? Flood Brook School buzzed with excitement. Students brought in their projects on tables or on carts, the weight sometimes shared with friends. As they set up their displays, parents, teachers, younger students and community members milled about, waiting for the opportunity to learn more about student projects …
A new recipe for Personalized Learning Plans Rather than trying to get students to care about existing PLPs, some schools are revamping their PLP process to start with what students care about. They are asking students to pursue their passions by crafting projects based on their personal interests and deepest curiosities. The new recipe that …
How did an 8th grader turn his passion project into a summer job? I found Connor in the tech ed room during the first session of Brainado, a school-wide Genius Hour at Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury, Vermont. He was taking apart a lawn mower. When asked why, he shrugged and mumbled something about …
One way to make sure PLPs are student-driven: hand them the keys At the end of last school year, the PLP Student Leadership Team at Crossett Brook Middle School presented to staff their recommendations for the future of PLPs at the school. And the staff unanimously supported all of the recommendations. But it’s one thing …
Continue reading “The new Crossett Brook personalized learning plans”
Seeing failure as iteration A trio of students at Crossett Brook Middle School, in Duxbury VT, have spent the past two years building a go-cart. When their first cart snapped in half on its maiden voyage, the students took that incident as a challenge, and the next year, they figured out what had gone wrong, …
Scheduling The continued movement towards the middle level concept has put tremendous pressure on how schools choose to organize their time. For good reason! The remnants of the junior high days of past still exist. However, emerging schedules that support student-centered learning and best middle level practice are having a greater presence every year. Innovative …
How do project-based learning and makerspaces fit together? Making and PBL may look like two completely different educational movements, but in reality they work well together and each strengthens the other. That’s because they share a common fundamental underpinning: they honor students’ innate curiosity about the world.
Test the waters with “Genius Groups” Start by turning your class over to students. You heard me. Set aside classroom time to let your students design their learning. If you’re not quite ready for a full-on Genius Hour (where each individual student pursues their own learning passion), think about dipping a toe in the water …
Continue reading “Looking to try more student-directed learning?”
Achieving escape velocity with students as partners Congratulations for making it through the first month of school! Whether it’s your first year as an educator or your thirty-first, the launch of the school year is a special — and especially challenging — time. It’s worth taking a moment to reflect and imagine how to build …
New ways to approach teaming Have you every showed up to in-service wondering what the new initiatives for the year will be? Or wondered how to continue to meet the demands of the district and school while balancing the the needs of 21st century young adolescents? takes a deep breath The answer, I suggest, is …
How to get started with service learning Service learning can play a key role in middle level curriculum, yet it can seem daunting to many educators. But it’s so rewarding for students and valuable to the community, and most of all, easy to get started with. Let’s take a look.
Starting up with our students Another exciting year is upon us. It may be difficult to wrest our attention from these glorious days of Vermont summer but never have the opportunities for good teaching been more open to us. As one teacher noted upon leaving this summer’s Middle Grades Institute, “I can bring about positive change in …
An experiment in student-directed, open-ended project-based learning What if an entire school set out to maximize student engagement? What if there were a school-wide commitment to loosening control and trusting students to do great things? What if students were told that they could work for an hour a week on whatever they want with one …
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 …
What they are and how to use them In a recent blog post, I suggested access to technology can empower teachers to be responsive to students’ needs in a blended learning environment. I want to expand upon that notion and explore further how Open Educational Resources play an important role in how we teachers facilitate more …
Continue reading “Personalize learning with Open Educational Resources”
Testing helped me be successful in school. And it was horrible for my learning. I was good at tests. The more standardized, the better. Multiple choice questions were my jam. I specialized in figuring out the correct answer even when I didn’t understand the material. My *bs* abilities were off the charts, which helped for …
Continue reading “Rethinking assessment to rebalance education”
Lovely listeners: today is a work day. Now, we all know that talking about anti-bias work is a vital component of the kind of school change that makes our classrooms safer and more engaging for students of color. Doubly so when we are white educators, and when we teach in predominantly white spaces, in predominantly …
Hooray for summer! Sure, we usually say something along those lines this time of year, but this year? ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. And with that, we turn to our Tarrant correspondents for a peek into the reading bags, shelves, carts and– *squints* — trees, that keep our folks out of trouble.* We’re off reading and …
Chicago-based educator and twitter wunderkind Jess Lifshitz joins Jeanie on the podcast to talk about Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s seminal text on equity and criticality: Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. Jeanie: Thank you so much for joining me, Jess. Just tell us a little bit about who you are and …
Lovely listeners, we have such a treat for you today. Joining us on this episode of the show is Vermont State Librarian Jason Broughton. Now, when I asked him to be on the show, I also invited him to choose the book we’d be discussing, and he chose the wonderful graphic novel ‘Marbles: Mania, Depression, …
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 …
Continue reading “Student intervention for anti-racist education”
Launching a new project cycle with inspiration from the last one Organizing your realia — testimonials, storytelling and artifacts — from a round of projects can feel overwhelming. So much footage! So many interviews! ALL THE IDEAS! Resist the freakout: here’s a recipe for pulling your footage together to inspire a new cycle of learning …
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 …
Get ready for a new vision of innovative education With the advent of personalized learning, many schools and educators are finding the freedom to launch their teaching in a whole new direction. They’re getting #ready2launch into a vision of personalized learning with students as partners, students as leaders, and schools as places where learning is …