Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
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 …
Continue reading “Some final reflections from former TIIE staff”
How PAML scaffolds screencasts for students Students and their families at Peoples Academy Middle Level have participated in student led conferences for a number of years now. What’s new this year? The opportunity for each 5th and 6th grader to tell the story of their learning through video evidence and reflection. It’s these “Learner Story” …
Continue reading “Video evidence & reflection for student-led conferences”
There is very little learning without reflection. John Dewey himself noted: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” So how do we get students reflecting in a way that is creative, dynamic, has choice, and doesn’t promote groans and sighs? We move away from “Please write 7 sentences about your …
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.
Answer Garden, Flipgrid and Adobe Spark “What are you grateful for?” We posed this question to 7th grade Stowe Middle School students, the Monday before the holiday break. The activity may seem simple, but it allowed us to introduce the students to three easy tech tools: Answer Garden, Flipgrid and Adobe Spark. Stowe students will …
Reflection Thinking about learning, including making sense of new learning, analyzing learning processes, or considering progress on goals. Related posts: Encouraging students to reflect on their learning means providing them with questions that provoke authentic and personal responses. The flip side of that is then providing the time, the tools and the support for students …
Reflect, celebrate and plan Oh, the spring. Such a busy time for teachers. There are all those transition meetings, already getting ready for the next year. Then there are placement meetings, figuring out who will be in what class, core or group. And of course, all those ceremonies, exhibitions, and spring events. It’s easy to forget …
Continue reading “8 year-end reflection tools and activities”
It’s where the learning is It is easy to not plan time for reflection in project-based learning (PBL) because there is just so much DOING! The students are engaged, and it’s fun and hands-on, and everything moves pretty quickly. But for PBL to connect to learning targets and goals and transferable skills, frequent reflection needs …
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I’ve just returned from the Middle Grades Institute, and honestly, I am still reeling. My brain is finally slowing down and trying to process all that happened there. The short of it: teachers, professors, Tarrant Institute staff, and students from across Vermont gathered to learn how to better personalize learning, engage early adolescent students, create …
Ubiquitous learning at the Sycamore School (Ed Note: Susan Hennessey recently traveled to Malibu, California to check out some innovative schools there and attend Deeper Learning 2016.) While waiting at the Sycamore School in Malibu, California for our tour guide, my colleagues and I were entertained by a tree full of very talkative wild parrots. …
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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 …
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Students create screencasts for student-led conferences Sixth graders at The Dorset School in southern Vermont are in their second year of working with Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). These exuberant adolescents have fond memories of one experience. Last year, these students were paired with teacher Amanda Thomas. Mid-way through the year of working with her students …
Getting real about student reflection Ah, reflection. It may bring to mind an introspective moment, perhaps gazing into the still waters of a mountain lake and seeing a slightly puzzled person staring back. That’s not the kind of reflection we are talking about here. Reflection in a 21st Century learning sense is a key component …
Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be sea monsters It’s summer and along with a lighter posting schedule for the month of July, I’m in need of some relaxing reading along with my reflection. Also some removing of hex bug brains and replacing them with better brains, but that’s a different blogpost. As …
“We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” John Dewey Growing up, I participated in a lot of team sports. It didn’t matter the sport, my age, or if we won or lost; after every game we talked about what went well, and what didn’t. We celebrated what we achieved, and made …
Continue reading “Winter break reading: on reflection as an educator”
This blog is a record of the amazing and innovative work being done in Vermont schools from 2012-2022. We encourage you to spend some time with the educators and students who took the time to share their work, their reflections, their hopes, dreams, and fears for education in Vermont. Please share this work broadly. Please …
We have a saying around here that “middle school is not a building” and we also believe that classrooms do not have to be rooms. There are so many benefits to being outside for humans’ wellbeing and for students’ learning. We’ve collected our favorite blog posts – find the toolkit’s permanent link here. Outdoor and …
Continue reading “Introducing our Outdoor and Place-Based Learning Toolkit”
We have a saying around here that “middle school is not a building” and we also believe that classrooms do not have to be rooms. There are so many benefits to being outside for humans’ wellbeing and for students’ learning. Outdoor and place-based learning are tightly connected with so many other things we hold dear. …
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 …
Dillin, a seventh grade student at Newark Street School (NSS), had this to say about starting school with 30 minutes of daily movement: “So my perspective is, I really like it. It gets you healthy. Your heart beats, and then you get ready for the day you have after you’re done doing it. Like you …
Continue reading “Prioritizing daily movement and experiential learning in Newark”
You know the vibe when you walk into a classroom where everyone is engaged and buzzing with learning, and the room is humming with good energy? It’s not accidental. Culture takes deliberate work to build and grow. Learning is happening. Collaboration is smooth. Laughter is present. How do we get more of that? Building community, …
Continue reading “Introducing our NEW Community & Culture Toolkit!”
You know the vibe when you walk into a classroom where everyone is engaged and buzzing with learning, and the room is humming with good energy? It’s not accidental. Culture takes deliberate work to build and grow. Learning is happening. Collaboration is smooth. Laughter is present. How do we get more of that? Building community, …
It was a perfect match. The sixth grade team at Lyndon Town School were looking for an end of year interdisciplinary project. They wanted students to reconnect with the community after two years of pandemic schooling. The Town of Lyndon was calling for community members to help generate ideas about how to improve downtown. They …
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 …
Continue reading “PLPs to Know Students Well: Introducing the Personal Learning Plan Toolkit”
Around this time of year, many middle schools begin to prepare for a fall student-led conference. This conference serves as a valuable tool for getting to know your students and connecting with their families. It can be a truly memorable experience, but it takes work, too. We have gathered some of our most important resources …
The Why We teach a precious and somewhat precarious age group. Our middle grades students are in the throes of one of life’s most pivotal and seminal periods in human development. They are growing faster than at almost any other time in life, and are grappling with some of life’s most significant milestones which will …
The school year is almost over and this one may well be remembered as your toughest yet. If hardship makes us stronger, we’ve got that covered. And, we have learned lots about how to be, live, and teach in this challenging time. My first two posts nudge us to consider slowing down and rethinking what …
Continue reading “What Matters Most Now: Lesson Three – Authenticity”
Lovely listeners, welcome back. I’m Jeanie Phillips, and on this episode, I get to talk about “The Last Cuentista”, a book by Donna Barba Higuera. It’s a fantastic middle grades book that touches on the tension between technology and organic life, duty and desire, along with what we know about identity — and how we …
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. …
Continue reading “#VTED Reads: Care Work with Dr. Winnie Looby”
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 …
Dear Readers, We are rolling into that time of year when we hope that you find time to get cozied up to a good book. These short amounts of daylight should beckon us to find warm and bright spots within our homes. For many of us at TIIE, that means getting into your favorite chair …
Lovely listeners: we’re baaaaaaack! And we missed each and every one of you. To celebrate our return, in this episode we brought back guests from *Vermont* Reads, a statewide program that encourages everyone across Vermont to read one book each year, and then turn and, you know, talk to one another. We are HUGE fans. …
With contributions from Emma Vastola Take a moment to think about a learning experience that was meaningful to your students. How do you know that it was meaningful? How did they communicate that to you? In the Two Rivers Supervisory Union (TRSU), middle grades students are documenting their meaningful learning experiences using PLPs. You can …
In late October, the middle school 7th and 8th grade team at Flood Brook School realized that the 2021 school year was off to a rocky start. Students and teachers alike were pretty miserable. So, they bravely brought their entire team community together – that’s teachers, students and support staff – for a three day …
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 …
Continue reading “A Vermont-centric look at personalized learning for social justice”
What do you see when you look at this picture? (For real, I’m not being sarcastic, what do you see?) I’m guessing you said, “cow.” According to Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human, “When shown a picture of a cow in a pasture, most Westerners will see a picture of a cow. Most Easterners, on …
Continue reading “Transferable Skill Deep Dive: Fostering communication”
Even in the best of times, October can be a tough month for teachers. And it’s hard to call covid times the best. In the latest issue of Educational Leadership, noted teaching coach Elena Aguilar suggests several ways to boost teacher resilience. Paired with understanding what personal efficacy looks like for young adolescents, teachers and …
Continue reading “Building resilience (for all) through personal efficacy”
“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” That. Quote. Drives. Me. Nuts. I mean, duh! And of course! And who else am I gonna be?! [Also it makes the librarian in me nuts because it is often attributed to Oscar Wilde, but there is no evidence he ever said it. Additionally, he doesn’t seem to have …
Continue reading “Student-centered personalized learning starts with identity”
As we begin the year with students in our classrooms, it’s important to start with a focus on building the culture. Whether it’s by building the culture for advisory, or building the culture for project-based learning, or just building relationships in the classroom and team, one thing is certain: time spent now on building culture …
How can a school community emerge from isolation to reflect on individual and collective experiences from this uniquely challenging and transformative year? This spring, Hazen Union Middle/High School came back together around a creative engagement installation: the Sounding Board. Part of a broader Hazen Youth Voices Project — a collaborative initiative launched by the school’s …
Continue reading “Fostering a Sound Culture at Hazen: Youth Voices and the Sounding Board Project”
Listeners! Today I’m joined by Jaida and Emma, two marvelous students from Southern Vermont, and the three of us share our love of picture books. The art, the messages, the emotions, the relatability… the art. So we’re going to be asking you to listen to this episode with both your ears and your eyes — …
Audio only Resources Slides from “Fostering Brave Spaces” Annotated Transcript Hello, my name is Grace Gilmour. I’m a seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher. And today I’m going to be talking about: “How do we foster brave spaces for discussions about race and other forms of oppression in our classrooms?” In the fall …
In the past few months, we’ve been meeting with groups of students from six Vermont schools, asking them about their experience this year. What might next year look like if they had a say? Inspired by the Imagining September Project –the MIT Teaching Systems Lab & Harvard’s Graduate School of Education that gathers student input …
“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. …
Today on the podcast, Alex Shevrin Venet joins us to talk about her new book, Equity-Centered, Trauma-Informed Education. How does it work in classrooms? How can you, as an educator, use your own coping strategies to dismantle inequity at your school? Will action research help? And what does convincing your landlord to let you have …
“How to Facilitate Healthy & Respectful Conversations (Online & Off)” is an interactive online workshop for educators that we offered in March 2021. It featured Vermont educator Kathy Cadwell and six of her students at Harwood Union High School, in Moretown VT. In this workshop, Katherine Cadwell and her students shared their experiences addressing the …
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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 …
Continue reading “Place-Based, De-Colonized Ecology in Middle School”
Signs of spring surround us: snow is melting, the days are lengthening, and the mud has returned. So it must be time to think about school gardens! School gardens have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and for good reasons. They’re highly engaging, and ripe with educational opportunities, ha ha. But did you …
Continue reading “Personalized learning in the spring garden”
Imagine a place where every person can be their authentic whole human selves. A culturally responsive learning environment is a place where everybody belongs. The posters and images on walls, books and materials on shelves, the furniture and flow of the space all radiate belonging. These tangible items convey important information: what is valued, …
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Playlists & Other Strategies for Supporting Independent Learners is an interactive online workshop for educators that we offered in December 2020. It featured Kyle Chadburn & Andrea Gratton, both of the Orleans Elementary School, in Barton VT. Below please find a recording of the workshop, optimized for solo or team playback. The workshop itself contains …
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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 …
Continue reading “#vted Reads about Equity & Cultural Responsiveness in the Middle Grades”
Decolonizing Place-Based Education is an interactive online workshop for educators that we offered in February 2021. It is a collaborative project of the UVM Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, Gedakina, the UVM Rubenstein School for Nature & Environmental Resources, and Shelburne Farms. Educators Judy Dow, Marie Vea, Aimee Arandia Østensen and Emily Hoyler designed and co-facilitated …
Mornings at Mount Holly used to buzz with parents and kids in the cafeteria, in the hallways and in our classrooms. There were so many opportunities for parents to get to know this place where their children spent so much of their day. I knew that was not going to be the case this year: …
Continue reading “How a classroom newsletter gave my students a voice”
Are you there, #vted? It’s me, Jeanie. On this episode of the podcast, we’re re-joined by one of the very first guests on our show, Jory Hearst. She returns to talk about All-American Muslim Girl, by Nadine Jolie Courtney. Jory shares her own journey through and relationship with Judaism, and the ways she found her …
Who’s Outside? How to Build An Anti-Racist Bookshelf is an interactive online workshop for educators we offered in January 2021. We offered it in collaboration with Shelburne Farms. Additionally, educators Jeanie Phillips and Aimee Arandia Østensen courageously co-facilitated this workshop. Below you’ll find a recording of the workshop, optimized for solo or team playback. The …
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 …
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No matter what that new year looks like. At the start of a new year, we often think about our hopes and set resolutions. Is setting goals passé now? Not for students. And especially not for young adolescents, regardless of what else is happening in the larger world. Goals make the world manageable. They make …
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Editorial Note: This post was scheduled for publication prior to the events in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. As ever-increasing cracks in the foundation of our democracy reveal weakness and corruption, so too do these revelations allow the light of justice and truth to penetrate. As educators, our work to help young people learn …
While most of the time, we’re looking forward to the winter part of our winter reading break, this year it’s really more about the break. This year, a lot of us leaned into the escape, the support, and the love that we get from books. We hope you are too. This year we took a …
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. …
Continue reading ““Because internet”: learning to communicate in different online spaces”
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 …
In this episode, we get real about what educators can do in their classrooms to make a more equitable playing field, how to walk that fine line between supporting student activism and co-opting it, and how to juggle the competing demands of educational and intersectional change. Also, we talk local soccer. It’s a full workout …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: So You Want to Talk About Race”