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 …
Continue reading “8 methods for reflection in project-based learning”
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. …
Continue reading “How ubiquitous learning spaces can spur 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 …
Continue reading “Using digital tools to change student goal-setting and reflection”
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, …
Continue reading “The Culturally Responsive Learning Environment”
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 …
Continue reading “Setting goals with students for the new year”
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”
Hybrid and remote teaching environments require us to tap into everything we know about designing engaging and targeted learning opportunities. At the same time, the contexts are often unfamiliar. So what we need is a blended and hybrid teaching toolkit. When looking to design a successful remote or hybrid learning experience, consider thinking about what …
Continue reading “Building a blended & hybrid teaching toolkit”
In spring 2020, during statewide “emergency remote learning” due to the pandemic, many districts and schools changed their approach to grading and reporting. The shift was toward a “do no harm” model. In a moment when everybody was reeling from ongoing collective trauma and uncertainty, this made a lot of sense from a purely human …
Because being “present” is very different from simply being here. Everyone reading this blog has very clearly moved on from beginning each day by simply reading out a list of names and putting a big old checkmark next to each one. Everyone. Those horror stories we’ve heard, about students being marked absent simply because they …
2021-2022 UVM Tarrant Institute Professional Learning Series Thank you for joining us for this series of free online workshops covering topics of immediate relevance to educators nationwide. Each month, we host webinars with in-classroom practitioners and scholars, on a variety of topics with immediate relevance for educators. Attendees should expect to participate in interactive reflection …
How can educators manage PLPs in remote learning? What goes into a Learning Management System? And what does it look like to effectively tie the two together in a smooth workflow? Seesaw + Google Classroom is one increasingly popular combination. SeeSaw is in heavy rotation as a platform for Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) and portfolios. …
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Listeners, I’m angry. I’m angry about the failure of our political leadership, the unmitigated disaster of climate change, and the risks we’re asking our educators and students to take right now. I’m angry, and I’m hurt, and frustrated, and I’m not the only one. I know you’re angry, and I know our students are angry. …
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to think and talk about innovative school change. It’s difficult to see the start of this school year with a heart that’s anything but desperately worried for students, for teachers and for families. We want this school year to be fruitful in terms of learning, but we’re also shocked and dismayed …
Continue reading “What can we learn from summer unschooling?”
This show is a little different. Listeners, I want you to think of this show… as a pre-show. Let me explain. Today I’m joined on the podcast by Aimee Arandia Østensen and we start discussing the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I say ‘we …
The days of hosting public exhibitions and showcases in the school gymnasium appear to be over. For now. Some schools and educators, however, have been very clever at hosting socially distanced and virtual exhibitions of student work and learning, despite the pandemic. Why provide an audience for student work? We know that student engagement and …
Continue reading “What do public exhibitions of learning look like during a pandemic?”
The return to school is usually filled with excitement, anticipation, and maybe a little nervousness. This year though? Much more nervousness with the excitement. How can we anticipate what it will take to keep teachers and students safe? While each of our communities and school leadership put their hearts and minds into that question, we’re …
Continue reading “Re-connect & re-imagine this return to school.”
I’m Jeanie Phillips and we’re back for a third season of vted Reads! Books by, for and with Vermont educators. Kicking off this season we’re joined on the show by author and former teacher Kate Messner. Kate’s here to talk about how we can use books about some dark topics as conduits to reach students …
Emily Hoyler It seems my ‘to-read’ pile is growing faster than I am reading. Luckily it’s summer. These longer days provide daylight well past my bedtime, ensuring I make it a few pages further before dozing off. First up, because my digital hold finally arrived (I love you, Green Mountain Library Consortium!), is The Glass …
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”
What has taken shape in the world with COVID 19 has given me pause to wonder what matters most in life and as an educator a chance to query about what matters most in education. I am quite sure that for all of us, the COVID19 pandemic is uncomfortable, disruptive, scary, and deeply saddening. I …
Listeners: our hearts are breaking. Our hearts are breaking for all of Vermont’s Black students, Black educators, and Black families. But frankly, our broken hearts are not nearly enough. Right now, we need to talk about what this all means for Vermont. What it means to interrogate in schools, and in classrooms, and in ourselves. …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Hemingway, with Elijah Hawkes”
Ah, the end of a school year. Always frenetic, and beautiful, and tear-filled and inspiring. Filled with rituals that educators and schools have developed with and for their community to bring closure. And now, this year. How can we develop new rituals or modify existing ones to honor everyone’s hard, hard (hard) work at the …
Continue reading “5 ways to bring closure to this school year”
It all started with a pandemic Dear reader, as you are well aware, back in March a global pandemic struck and in-person schooling was suspended for the remainder of the school year. Quite suddenly, my family, like many, found ourselves home together all day, every day. My kids, also like many, thrive on routine. When …
In this episode of The 21st Century Classroom: I don’t think a lot of people think that I’m a hunter. I feel like when I have like a good connection with my teachers, they will get to know me and realize that I hunt and fish and do a lot of outdoor stuff, but like …
It is spring. I know, snow has fallen and it has been cold lately, but it’s officially May. And while school might not look like every other bustling year with our end of the year celebrations, showcases, exhibitions, and events, we can still find ways to celebrate and share student learning. You might find yourself …
Continue reading “How to throw culminating events — online!”
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, …
Oh, remember back when we had our project-based learning culminating events all mapped out? Students presenting at Dynamic Landscapes! A school wide community celebration of Cabot Leads! Presentations at Cultivating Sustainable Pathways.. and the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative conference. So many plans, spring days, joining together to celebrate and witness each other’s efforts! Full. stop. …
Getting books in the hands of students is crucial to supporting their sense of well-being and reducing anxiety during the Stay-at-Home order. And while we here are massive fans of ebooks, we also don’t want to overlook the importance of the good old-fashioned paperback. To recap: paperbacks are good. Ebooks are good. Audiobooks, graphic novels, …
Continue reading “How to get physical copies of books to students”
I am NOT a fan of mandatory reading logs. I am, however, a huge fan of reading for pleasure. Stories, real or imagined, build empathy, connect us with the broader world, and help us understand our own lived experience. Getting lost in a book is a real joy, one even the most reluctant readers can …
We find ourselves in a new frontier, suddenly in each other’s homes with online faculty meetings. Now that we are here, how can we make sure to continue to build community, plan, coordinate remote learning, create resources, while upholding some boundaries and norms? Here are some ideas for online norms for faculty meeting that might …
Continue reading “Setting online norms for faculty meetings”
I just got off a Google Meet meeting with teachers. They were trying to decide how to engage with students every day. Starting Monday, this teacher team will share a morning message in Google Classroom, and ask students to post a note back. Simple, and yet a way to see who is there and showing …
We had been preparing for spring student led conferences for months. Feedback had been reviewed. Plans had been coordinated. Schedules were created. And now? Poof. Everything changed. One option is switching to online student led conferences. Okay. Deep breath. Change of plans. We got this! At some schools, this means a pivot to distance conferencing …
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There is not one right response or plan for school closures. Each school community faces different needs, contexts, and situations. And we know in some regions of our beautiful state, access to high speed internet and digital devices are limited. So, not all #vted schools are going to have the same plans for remote learning. …
Continue reading “Creating your school plan for distance learning with limited internet access”
So you’re moving to remote learning. There’s a lot to prepare for, and before anything else, relationships to maintain, strengthen and nurture. One important aspect to consider is how you can adapt the schedule of the learning day to provide structure and reduce anxiety during this period. Consistent schedules help. With so much in the …
Continue reading “Creating a new schedule for remote learning”
As we consider widespread school closures and how we might adapt, it’s important that our aim isn’t to recreate a typical school day, but instead, leverage strong teacher and student relationships and available technology to prioritize connection and support each other, and to create and document learning experiences and activities. We are in uncharted waters. …
I’m Jeanie Phillips and welcome back to #vted Reads: books by, for and with Vermont educators. Today is a little of all three, as we welcome instructional coaches Emily Rinkema and Stan Williams to the show. They’re the authors of The Standards-Based Classroom: Make Learning the Goal, and have been working on implementing and assessing …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: The Standards-Based Classroom”
Feedback is a key component of a successful, celebratory and growth-oriented student-centered conference. And your colleagues, your students and their families can all play vital roles in assessing student-led conferences. Who should be giving and receiving assessments? There’s *lots* of room at this table. Remember: feedback is a gift. (Resist the freakout: when we talk …
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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 …
I’m going to be honest with you, writing this blog post about self-direction has taken, well, a lot of self-direction. I’m a busy person with agendas to develop, meetings to attend, reading to do… and it’s been really easy to put other work ahead of this post. What’s a Professional Development Coordinator to do? I’m …
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 …
What could it look like to get credit for real world math proficiency? Here’s something you should know about me: I knit furiously. All the women in my family do. I learned to knit when I was six, lovingly coached by my grandmother, my mother, and my great aunt, a magician who could turn anything …
Continue reading “Knitting, algebra, & the promise of proficiencies”
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 …
Now that you understand the why of proficiency-based and personalized learning, are you ready to see the how? Learning Lab VT throws open the doors of classrooms around Vermont, so you and other educators like you can see personalized learning in action, up close and personal. Your hosts are educators just like you, who, along …
How can we shape Opportunity Time to introduce the power of personalization to young adolescents?
What does it take for us to see parent-teacher conferences as celebrations? What does it take for families to see those conferences as celebrations? And how can we make sure that students themselves feel celebrated for their achievements? We know student-led conferences push our school systems in the right direction, to a place where students …
Continue reading “The student-led conference as celebration”
Today on the show, we’re going to talk about The End of Average: How to Succeed in a World That Values Sameness, by Todd Rose. We’ll be joined by Emily Gilmore, who teaches world history at South Burlington High School, in South Burlington Vermont. But first, a few words of background for today’s show. In …
Seeing students for who they are and what they can do We’re all still looking at various tools for building PLPs with our students but one thing we can all agree on is the power of PLPs to let us more clearly see our students, and learn more about them as individuals. Let’s look at …
Involve learners with actionable data Wondering how to use data to inform progress for users in proficiency-based education? Assessment provides both learners and educators with data. One of CAST’s Top Ten Universal Design for Learning Tips for Assessment is involving learners in their learning progress through assessment data: “Communicate with learners about their progress towards …
Listeners: how do you talk to your students about the special love that exists between a woman and a Sasquatch? Or between an insect and a robot-powered building? And where and how do you determine which texts are appropriate to give to students? On this episode of the podcast, I’m joined by Sarah Birgé, a …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Dreadful Young Ladies, with Sarah Birgé”
Part of shifting to personalized learning is centering students in the traditional parent-teacher conference. They need to lead the conversation with families and caregivers. And this shift can be hard for folks, because, you know, change is hard! So let’s look at how you can prep families for student-led conferences. It’s all in how …
Continue reading “How to design pre-conference conversations with families”
Seeing back-to-school activities & personalized learning through the lens of trauma-informed classroom practices I had a eureka! moment this summer. We are so lucky when our critical thinking converges ideas in ways previously unrealized. It transformationally reframes our thinking. Those moments enrich ourselves and arrive with the promise that our private learning should have public …
What is a Personalized Learning Plan (PLP)? Ultimately, a PLP is a tool. It can help us get to know our students better and teach us how to support each student’s learning. PLPs can also be: A creative way for students to show their identities, hopes, and interests A portfolio documenting students’ learning journeys. Demonstrations …
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 …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades, with Penny Bishop”
We’ve seen educators launch PLPs in many different ways. And we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Students, of course, have helped show us the way. Here are two ways to avoid common pitfalls. Check out the book to see more of these! DO: Start with engaging learning Often, teachers start with …
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 …
What is formative assessment? Feedback empowers learners to have agency over their learning! Formative assessment is a strategy used by teachers and learners to generate data that informs teaching and learning. Using a variety of methods, they gauge progress towards a learning goal. This data is used to plan and/or revise instruction to meet learners’ …
What are Learning Goals? Learning goals define what proficiency looks like in concise, student-friendly language. While educators may break down the goals into different sized learning targets or progressions, what is crucial is that students understand what they are learning and that they are able to make it relevant to their lives. Explicit, measurable, transferable …
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 …
Engaged, on-topic…and talking over each other? Here’s a scenario: student book groups. Everyone’s read their assigned chapters and prepared for their meeting. The group gathers to begin their discussion. Except what happens is this: the first question is posed, and instead of listening to one another they all begin talking at once, leaving little spaces …
Continue reading “Building discussion skills through Socratic Seminar”
Tracing a middle level social identity unit Identity. Oppression. Social justice. Structural racism. Liberation. These are some intense ideas to grapple with at any age. Yet 6th grade student Deng isn’t willing to wait: “We need to learn about this stuff early on before it gets pushed off and becomes a problem. We are the …
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 …
Continue reading “What does integrated studies look like at Flood Brook?”
7 tips for educators Create a place where all students lives are seen and valued. Expand the idea of what is possible in your classroom or school library. Every student should be able to see aspects of their lives reflected in the books, media and resources they interact with. But they should also be exposed …
Cornelius Minor likes to ask himself three key questions. One: what are his students trying to tell him? Two: What are they *really* trying to tell him, through their actions, and their silences? And three, what do these students — who he worries he might not be reaching — all have in common? I’m Jeanie …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: We Got This, with Kathleen Brinegar”
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 …
Examples & Tools Student-Led Conferences and Engagement in PLPs, Audrey Homan, Tarrant Institute, 2016 The Rise of the Project-Based PLP, Life LeGeros, Tarrant Institute, 2018 What Makes for Good Goal-Setting in a PLP? Life LeGeros, Tarrant Institute, 2015 Growth and Reflection, PLP Pathways One-Year Plan for PLPs and SLCs, Swift House, Williston Central School One-Year …
Continue reading “Chapter 8: PLPs, Goal-Setting, and Student-Led Conferences”
All about makerspaces Makerspaces! What are they, why are they useful, who are they for, and how do they work? What’s a makerspace? A makerspace is a space for creating and making. The term “makerspaces” conjures up different images in almost everybody who uses it. A makerspace can be many different things. Makerspaces can have all …
Rural life and project-based learning You might find students on the skating rink in front of the school, helping out on a goat farm, dirt bike racing, heading to dance class, or fixing broken snowmobiles. All of these life experiences are important to students — and are valid learning experiences in and of themselves! We …
Welcome to Learning Lab VT Ever wonder whether you’re really up to the task of meeting your learners’ needs? We have. Our learners — Vermont middle and high school educators — are in the midst of a monumental transition that, done well, will ensure that Vermont’s public schools deliver on their mission of excellence and …
Lori Lisai Lori Lisai is an innovation coach at Lamoille Union Middle School, in Hyde Park, VT. llisai@luhs18.org Inquiry question: “How can we make reflection an integral part of the personalized learning process?”
Noah Hurlburt Noah Hurlburt teaches 7th & 8th grade science at Rutland Town School, in Rutland VT. noah.hurlburt@grcsu.org Inquiry question: “How can a focus on Digital Badging for transferable skills increase student engagement and create a common language in the PLP process?” Learning Lab reflections:
Charlie Herzog Charlie Herzog teaches 6th grade English, and 6-8th grade Integrated Studies at Flood Brook Union School, in Londonderry VT. cherzog@floodbrook.org Inquiry question: “How might students’ sense of personalization grow as they shift from doing projects to project-based learning?” Learning Lab reflections: This Is Really Scary (And I’ve Never Been More Excited)
Tasha Grey Tasha Grey teaches 6th grade math and social studies at Charlotte Central School, in Charlotte VT. ngrey@cvsdvt.org Inquiry question: “How can we increase students’ ability to reach targets through differentiation and personalization?” Learning Lab Reflections: Fractions, Llamas, and Self-Directed Learning
Marley Evans Marley Evans teaches 7th & 8th grade Humanities at The Charlotte School, in Charlotte VT mevans@cvsdvt.org Inquiry question: “How can I give students a completely independent learning experience through PIP’s and then have students use those same skills to give them personalized learning in the humanities classroom?” Learning Lab Reflections: The Year of …
Courtney Elliott & Corey Smith A 3rd and 4th grade classroom teaching team at Proctor Elementary School, in Proctor VT. courtney.elliott@grcsu.org & corey.smith@grcsu.org Inquiry question: “How might personalization through self-reflection, self-assessment, and flexible grouping and scheduling across grades 3 and 4 at Proctor Elementary School positively impact student engagement and achievement?” Learning Lab reflections: Courtney’s …
Tom Drake Tom Drake is the principal of Crossett Brook Middle School, in Duxbury VT. Learning Lab Reflections: Bright Spots and Belly Flops
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, …
Continue reading “Increasing student engagement in PLPs at Williston Central”
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, …
Students write weekly emails to their families Lizzie Stockbridge, a 6th grade math teacher at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School in South Burlington, Vermont, gives students 15 minutes every week to write an email home. But when she started she had no idea how powerful this simple routine would turn out to be. Unicorn stories! …
Continue reading “Unlocking family communication in math class”
Students in Courtney Elliott’s class work on a Mystery Skype with a class in Wisconsin to demonstrate communication skills and content knowledge of the U.S regions. Inquiry question about personalized learning: How might personalization through self-reflection, self-assessment, and flexible grouping and scheduling across grades 3 and 4 at Proctor Elementary School positively impact student …
Continue reading “Courtney Elliott’s Bright Spots and Belly Flops”
Welcome back to #vted Reads! Now, I recorded this episode back in September out in San Antonio, at the School Reform Initiative’s Fall 2018 meeting. Author Terra Lynch was kind enough to chat with me about her book for the podcast between sessions. Recording spaces were kind of hard to come by at the conference, …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Protocols in the Classroom, with Terra Lynch”
How can you tell the difference between projects and project-based learning? Turns out, even though they both might involve snazzy projects, they are quite different. Let’s take a look at how. This post is based on research of PBL resources (listed below) and classroom experience. Okay, PBL? PBJ? Let’s dig in. Here are some guiding …
Inquiry Question: How might personalization through self-reflection, self-assessment, and flexible grouping and scheduling across grades 3 and 4 at Proctor Elementary School positively impact student engagement and achievement? After our overnight retreat with my Learning Lab colleagues and some discussion about the fear of sharing our work when it doesn’t produce the results we …
To be honest, there has been an even split of successes and failures to date. Let’s take a look shall we? So, reflection time. Trying to avoid the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) moment, sooooo, to change it up a little, I’ll let the images set the stage. Bright spots: I tend to be pretty …
“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 …
Continue reading “How do you measure success with project-based learning?”
In this episode of #vted Reads, we talk about Troublemakers, a book by Carla Shalaby. We touch on what we’re really doing when we ask our students to code-switch, Black Lives Matter, and the trouble with classroom norms, and we pose the question: ‘How do school systems bestow unearned privilege on some, and un-earned hardship, …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Troublemakers with Mike Martin”
Meet Grace Gilmour, and her proficiency-based classroom. “Oh yay. I was like: yay, my heart.” This was Grace Gilmour’s response to a student’s honest appraisal of her class: “I love it in here because I always feel like I know the next steps on the road to improving.” Grace teaches social studies to 7th and …
Tasha Grey’s Learning Lab Reflection: As much as I love division with fractions, and think it makes perfect sense, no matter how much time we spend and how many different approaches I take, student understanding is always incredibly fragile. Like baby hummingbird fragile. Taking the advice of a cohort member, instead of pulling out …
Continue reading “Fractions, Llamas, Self-Directed Learning”
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”
Good meetings can be hard to find We’ve all been there: staff meetings that could have been an email or team meetings spent admiring problems and getting nowhere. And I’m not claiming innocence here: I’m definitely guilty of creating bullet list agendas or meeting with no agenda (or outcome) at all. But over the past couple …
A recipe for video-making proficiency The ubiquity of the digital camera, whether mounted in smartphone, tablet or Chromebook, is getting everyone excited about making videos in the classroom. But it can be hard to translate the squealing, hand-flapping excitement of POWER into concrete, finished products. But making videos gets so much easier when you have two things: …
We just held the Best. In-service. Ever. And all it took was a little love & empathy. Some in-service professional development days are better than others. Sometimes, we get to be active learners and receive just-in-time instruction (and maybe even the gift of time to apply that learning for the benefit of our students). Other …
Continue reading “Run the world (Teachers) aka #TeacherDirectedPD”
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 …
When asked “what is your working definition of personalized learning?” Charlie Herzog, an educator at Flood Brook replied: “Relevancy is the essence of personalized learning. It’s about giving students voice & choice regarding content, and offering multiple pathways to explore/learn the chosen content. It’s about students reflecting on their learning journeys; considering where they’ve come …
Continue reading “This Is Really Scary (And I’ve Never Been More Excited)”
Starting with strengths Imagine you’re reading a written reflection from a student. This particular student writes so beautifully of the lines on his grandfather’s face, and of the time they spent out on the porch together, enjoying a warm spring night. You can almost see the sun setting and feel the wooden bench they sat …
with Katy Farber From real and relevant to what to do in the event of a mountain bike accident, the last predators in Middlesex, and the all-important question of who is responsible for the pizza at your exhibition of learning. That’s right: librarian Jeanie Phillips talks all about service learning with author and educator Katy …
#10 will shock and appall you… Here are 16 best practices we try to follow as writers on this blog. Many of them stem from two key factors: one, people online now have the attention span of lint, and two, search engine algorithms are really picky about what they deem “quality content”. And you want to …
When asked “what is your working definition of personalized learning?” Charlie Herzog, an educator at Flood Brook replied: “Relevancy is the essence of personalized learning. It’s about giving students voice & choice regarding content, and offering multiple pathways to explore/learn the chosen content. It’s about students reflecting on their learning journeys; considering where they’ve come …
Continue reading “This Is Really Scary (And I’ve Never Been More Excited)”
How Passion Projects can fire up a student-led conference Julia is a student at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, in South Burlington VT. She’s an athlete and an artist. So for her Passion Project, she found a way to combine the two disciplines. And embracing these two important parts of her identity gave her a …
Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts? In this episode of our podcast, we kick off our fourth season with legendary librarian Jeanie Phillips. She’ll be sitting down with a series of guests from around the #vted ecosphere and …reviewing books. Not just any books, but books …
Reflections from the Burke Town School At Burke Town School, in West Burke VT, students and teachers dove into integrated project based learning (PBL) last year. Here’s what we learned. Building our PBL unit This work started with an eighth grade unit, based on the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. After hearing about …
Continue reading “5 lessons learned from an integrated middle school PBL unit”
Welcome to the Best Part of My Week And yours, likely. Peoples Academy Middle Level educator Joe Speers shares how to get students to communicate with their families. He uses a technique called The Best Part of My Week. Speers’ sixth grade students use the iOS Explain Everything app to record a short message to …
Continue reading “How to get students to communicate with families”
It’s September. Your feet have probably not stopped moving for a few weeks, with the start of school, the meetings, getting to know your students, setting up all the systems and explaining all the procedures, learning about all the new changes in your schools. You might feel like your brain has too many tabs open. …
Continue reading “5 summer mindsets to bring into this year”
Welcome to the 21st Century Classroom Episode 47: Student Graduations in the time of COVID Episode 46: Quarantine home-schooling: Sisters Academy of Duxbury Episode 45: Hunter education in Vermont Episode 44: Mt Holly student conversations Episode 43: Talking with CVU students Episode 42: What I learned at the climate strike Episode 41: What Orleans …
Leland & Gray lead the way Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School, in Townshend, VT, used a popular 5-stage framework in planning their service learning: investigation, preparation, implementation, reflection, and celebration. And they used this framework to improve their school’s infrastructure in powerful ways. Outdoor classroom, anyone?
Exercises for an LMS This past spring, a small group of Stowe Middle School students gathered to help their teachers and peers solve a problem. As students worked on independent interest projects, they periodically reflected on their learning. All were interested in finding ways to make this reflection meaningful, for both students and teachers. But …
Continue reading “The power of documentation in meaningful learning”
Making time for making at Ottauquechee STEAM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics — gives students the opportunity to create. To make. Maybe to fail. To try again! And to make something that improves a condition, solves a problem, or makes the world a better place. But if your school currently doesn’t offer a …
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.
Community exploration builds connection What happens when you ask your students what they want to learn about and how they like to learn, then you turn them loose on a three-day self-directed series of projects generated from their ideas? Teachers at West Rutland School recently found out. (Spoiler alert: it’s harder, fun, and more engaging …
How did it go? It can be easy to end your project-based learning experiences with students in a big heap of exhaustion and miss the opportunity to reflect on the experience. There is so much to learn and gain from gathering your (and your students’) reflections. But how do you do that? Let’s look at …
Getting connected: online & with community members What if there was a way to spend less time grading your students’ writing, while also providing a valuable writing experience for them? What if there was a way to bring interested, wise community members into your classroom on a regular basis? I think I discovered a way: …
Continue reading “Students blogging for an authentic audience”
Going beyond the gallery walk Exhibition season is upon us! And as you’re making ready to throw open the doors of your school and welcome in the community, let’s look at a handful of ways to jazz up any school event: by planning your capturing in advance, making interactive takeaways, going off-campus(!) or setting up …
Students test drive tools to enhance & amplify project work When Stowe Middle Level educators met to plan for the upcoming student exhibitions of learning, they agreed on two critical ideas. One, that their learners benefit from multiple ways to tell the story of their learning. And two, students are in the best position to …
Lessons from an exhibition These days, I’ve been thinking about the reasons we ask students to share their work. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the connection that a public exhibition provides for parents and community. But as I wrote that piece, some other ideas were percolating in my brain about what happens when …
Continue reading “When students share their work, it deepens the learning”
TED Talks are short, personal powerful storytelling. Now: how can students use this medium as motivation to learn, to explore their purpose, extend their perspectives and understandings, and develop strong storytelling and presentation skills? Let’s find out.
The transformation of Team Quest Educators never feel like they have enough time to do all the things they want to do with students. But for Team Quest at Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury, Vermont, the constraints of traditional subject area, schedule and process had become unbearable. So this two-person grade 5-6 team decided …
Manchester’s 6th graders weigh in… to their Selectboard. Teams of 6th-grade students from Manchester Elementary Middle School researched this question and put their arguments to the town. Should Manchester VT put in a bid to host a future Winter Olympics?
The power of metaphorical thinking A picture can speak a thousand words and convey a complex concept that text on its own can’t quite manage. And the act of crafting them is a powerful way to synthesize understanding. How would you create a visual whose goal is to capture the complexities of personalized learning?
How soon is now? Looking for opportunities to make real-world connections or bring an authentic audience to your students? Typically, a public presentation at the end of a project or unit provides this space for students to share with a wider audience. But authentic audiences can be found at any stage of the work.
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 …
Applying NGSS to… chickens? At the Dorset School, in Dorset VT, the 8th graders know that fresh, farm-raised eggs taste amazing. The problem: their cafeteria cannot afford local, free-range eggs. So they asked: “What would it take to raise chickens at the school?” And they used a combination of design engineering, technology and community partners …
Continue reading “How to build a better (student-made) chicken coop”
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 …
The power of the student consult If you’re wondering what engages, excites and motivates students, the answer is easy: ask them. Creating opportunities for students to give feedback on plans, projects, assessments and activities builds a collaborative learning community, and creates leadership and student voice opportunities. Here’s how one school gave student consultants a shot.
Hope launches in the Northeast Kingdom As part of participating in the UN’s Global Goals, students at Burke Town School, in West Burke VT, kicked off their service learning projects by inviting their community’s leaders to come to the school and ask for what they needed. What would make West Burke a better place to …
Continue reading “Kick off project-based learning with a community event”
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”
Looking at tech tools for formative assessment In a proficiency-based learning environment, frequent, flexible, and transparent assessments become cornerstones of the practice. The importance of formative assessment can’t be understated, and these tech tools make it so much easier.
How do you maximize student learning? What are the ways we can do this, and how might our roles and labels get in the way of helping all students? Words matter. Job titles, given labels, justly or not, can affect how we feel about ourselves and our jobs. They can affect our we are perceived …
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 …
Physical aspects of a student-centered classroom Sometimes what seems like a little change can make a big difference. That’s what two Proctor Elementary School teachers recently confirmed when they decided to incorporate flexible seating into their classrooms. It’s been such a success that now every classroom in their school features some sort of flexible seating …
Continue reading “What flexible seating looks like in action”
The Developmental Designs remix Ever notice how for some kids Mondays are a lot tougher than Wednesdays? Any time there’s a break in the school routine, some kids are likely to fall out of sync. Similarly, after the long December break, crisp classroom routines can seem like a foggy memory. After any break, students and …
Tech tools, tips & inspiration The world is BIG. And overwhelming at times. Especially for our students, who hear bits and pieces of what is happening across the globe, and have questions, worries, and thoughts. It makes sense that we move students beyond their geography, perspectives, and comfort zones. That way we can expand their …
Why structure? One of the most intimidating things about starting to do service and project based learning in the classroom is how to structure the time. One thing I have learned from direct experience in the classroom and from working with teachers is that this is structuring the time a key part of developing your …
Continue reading “3 strategies to create supportive structures during project time”
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 …
Continue reading “Digital badges as evidence of flexible pathways”
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”
The virtual reality cure for wanderlust Despite this gorgeous fall weather here in central Vermont, I’m suffering from a bad case of wanderlust. One antidote I’ve found to satisfy the daily craving to hit the high road is the 360Cities Tab Extension. Now that I’ve added it to my Chrome browser, every time I open …
Continue reading “Choose Your Own Adventure with Google Earth”
When things get tough, the tough use tools. Whether you’re actively trying to embed current events in your curriculum or helping your students respond to the headlines, here are five useful tools to help you wrangle news in the classroom.
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
Makerspace learning at Proctor Elementary In this final post of our series on how maker-centered learning can help students develop transferable skills, we take a look at Integrative and Informed Thinking. During EMMA’s visit to Proctor Elementary School, in Proctor VT, the potential for maker-centered learning to support students’ integrated and informed thinking really came …
Continue reading “How making supports integrative and informed thinking”
The #everydaycourage of being seen Take the iconic back-to-school prompt for students — what I did on my summer vacation — and give it a twist. Imagine how students might respond to the prompt What I think my teacher did on summer vacation. A lot of us wish other folks knew how hard we work during summer: the …
Continue reading “4 ways Vermont educators are sharing their practice”
It takes a courageous village In order for student centered learning to happen, we have to invest in explicitly teaching (and reteaching) routines, expectations, and behaviors for learning. The beginning of the year is an ideal time to first establish a culture and community for learning. But it takes time to learn and practice these …
Continue reading “A Developmental Designs approach to student-directed learning”
When last we left the students of these two plucky Vermont middle schools, they had managed to connect students and educators via Google Hangout. They’d gotten together to make pizzas and plot the future of personalized learning plans (PLPs). And they’d paired up students as PLP peer collaborators and spent some time reviewing PLPs in …
Continue reading “Checking in with Stowe & PAML’s peer PLP collaboration”
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 …
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. …
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
Taking stock on implementing Vermont’s Act 77 “Do you know where you are?” Usually it’s a question medical professionals ask in emergency situations. It’s not as dramatic in the context of education, but it can be just as useful as a diagnostic criteria. We’re going to ask you to take stock of where you are …
Acknowledge, share, recognize The end of the school year is every bit as happy and joyous as it is chaotic and stressful. Make sure that you slow down the hands on the clock to bring closure to your advisory. Acknowledge the successes and challenges of the year. Share the positive things you’ve all learned about …
3 ways to plan for PBL 2.0 You’ve dipped your toe into project based learning. You’ve planned an entry event, shared a high quality driving question, managed student teamwork, created scaffolds, and helped students finish a meaningful project to present to an authentic, engaged audience! Whew! Well done. But we know you. We know you’re a total …
Continue reading “Take project-based learning to the next level”
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
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
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
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
Practice makes proficient What’s special about a proficiency-based environment? Practice, that’s what. I know, it sounded weird to me too. As a former math teacher, I thought of practice as the mind-numbing repetitive stuff that students had to do in order to attain fluency. Practice was for straightforward procedural skills. But Sam Nelson, a social studies …
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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 …
Personalization for school-based service learning Looking for a way to harness students’ energy while giving them meaningful work that appeals to their personal interests? One model for service learning I’ve used is iLead: a “job-based” program that channels student interest into meaningful positions around the school. School community improves, students learn responsibility in a way that …
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Why digital composition matters I’d like you to think back to your days as a student. What kinds of writing did you do? Who read it? What made it important to you? And what made it important to the world? If you’re like most people, you’re probably drawing a blank right now. Some of today’s …
This is Real World PBL Now we’ve been down the PBL highway, looking at PBL planning, entry events, supports for PBL, culminating events, and technology tools. It’s time to examine at what PBL looks like when educators stop being polite and start getting real: this is PBL in real classrooms. Let’s start with Courtney Elliott’s …
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Honor scholars with an authentic audience for their work The culminating event! It’s the lovely finish line of a Project-Based learning unit. The big event. You’ve been planning for months for this event that celebrates the projects and the learning in an authentic, community based forum. All along, it’s been a strong motivator for scholars, …
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Strategies for starting a research project Whether the inspiring teacher examples from my last post roused your inner researcher, or you’re just one of those continuous improvement people (as most teachers are), it’s exciting to think that we could have some potential new knowledge creators out there. So let’s take a look at how to make …
Signs along the way Assessments can be hard to create and manage, but they are a necessary part of PBL. You can do it! Assessments are often done with the elements of Understanding by Design : beginning with the end in mind. Here are some ideas for how to use assessment — both formative and …
5 benefits of doing action research in the classroom Teachers are constantly tinkering, creating, learning, and growing. Action research is a slightly formalized version of what skilled teachers do every day. By honoring action research as systematic professional inquiry, we empower teachers to improve their practice. It’s easy to get started undertaking a small, powerful …
Feedback, feedback, feedback! As educators, it’s absolutely critical that we reflect on our practices, especially new ones. As schools around the state finish with parent-teacher conferences this fall, I’d like to take a look at how to evaluate student-led conferences in particular, by checking in on how one school built feedback metrics into the process …
Students themselves tell the best stories of their learning We wish we could hand you the one right way for students to reflect on their personal learning, on a silver platter. It sure would make the rest of the year a lot easier, right? But there are as many ways for students to reflect on …
Student-led conferences are for students Student-led conferences are a key strategy in personalized, student-centered educational practices. And they’re even more important and potentially powerful in a proficiency-based system.
It’s about time I am fascinated with master schedules! This is certainly a massive understatement. I love the challenge of putting all the pieces together, showing how everything is connected. My mind is wired to think through a systems lens. I am always asking myself, if I change this thing over here what happens over …
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, …
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Resources to tackle project-based learning Welcome to the PBL Highway, my new series aimed at helping you on the road to project-based learning! Setting up a student-driven, rigorous, community-focused project-based learning (PBL) unit can feel daunting, so the best way to tackle anything this huge (it’s yuge!) is to break it down into manageable steps. …
Looking to move from a traditional parent conference model to student-led conferences? Need help rolling them out to families? Not sure how to scaffold the students themselves into leadership? Let’s look at strategies for moving to student-led conferences with the following resources and case studies: Student-Led Conferences: An Overview How to help parents prep for …
8 great ways to approach PBL in the primary grades Picture this: you have a class of primary-grade students. Say grades K-3. They are learning their letters, and how to tie their shoes, how to go to the bathroom independently and write their names. This list of what to learn is long! But we also …
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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.
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 …
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Whose makerspace is it, anyway? A makerspace can take many forms, but fundamentally it should be a locus of student engagement and creativity. So engage them from the start by turning over as much of the design and operation of your makerspace as possible.
Build a community to support project-based learning I bet you have big dreams of creative, innovative projects and engaged students in your classroom. Students who are busy researching, collaborating, creating, and solving authentic problems they are interested in. But this doesn’t happen without a strong community of learners.
In a 1:1 Android environment Copyright. Fair Use. Public Domain. The meaning of these concepts as applied to creative work, has broadened dramatically in our digital world. Students are some of the biggest consumers and creators of work created on digital platforms, but they don’t often understand: what they may legitimately use how they may …
Katy’s 2016 Summer Reading Something about this book title and summer reading fits perfectly. The open ocean, pirates, and fierce independence. I’m hoping you have a bit of time to settle into some reading for fun and some that inspires you in the classroom to have students take on more leadership and develop their own …
Mark’s 2016 summer reading list This past academic year was one of the busiest and most invigorating year I have had in my time as a student or teacher. As my role here at the Tarrant Institute has grown and focused more deeply on the research side of things, I have also been progressing towards …
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My 2016 Summer Reading List There are many thinks to look forward to as summer approaches. As an educator, I appreciate the calm I feel when school is out. You know that tense feeling thinking about what tomorrow’s class will be like. There is nothing like the first Sunday night when you realize you don’t …
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Student reflection with Adobe Voice and Explain Everything Students at Fayston Elementary School worked hard this year with their team of teachers, not just to implement personal learning plans (PLPs), but to understand them to such a level that they could tell their stories. Using the digital tools Adobe Voice and Explain Everything, students crafted …
Scaffolding PLPs so students understand them 5th and 6th graders from Fayston Elementary School took their personal learning plans (PLP) in extraordinary and unexpected directions this year. All because of trust, dedication, and team work by their teachers. This livecast of a presentation at the Dynamic Landscapes conference exemplifies the approach. You will hear students …
Building a democratic classroom at The Edge Part of the power of implementing a negotiated curriculum is that it doesn’t just center student voice, it actually moves the learning space towards a democratic classroom, a place where students can advocate for themselves and their learning interests, goals and styles. It’s an important piece of the …
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The Six Question Framework for reflection As the end of June nears and students take their final exams, clear out their lockers, and begin sleeping in until noon, teachers are gathering their remaining energy, and administrators are giving them space, to take stock of the year, celebrate the successes and challenges, and together learn from …
Try Passage Presentations. The end of every school year is tough. Teachers and administrators struggle to keep students in line, finish assessments, plan field trips, and tie up loose ends. But what’s really important? To provide closure, celebrate accomplishments, and allow students to reflect on how they’ve grown and developed. And including family in those …
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 …
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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 …
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Scaffolding year-end reflections At The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont, students advance through grades by producing evidence of their accomplishments from the year, using the previous year’s reflection to inform the current one. We had the chance to sit down with a student just finishing 11th grade at Compass, and hear not just about his …
What is curiosity? Is curiosity important? What does it mean to be a curious learner? What am I curious about? These are some of the questions Cornwall, VT students considered this winter as they embarked on inquiry-based, personalized, research projects. For six weeks, we turned learning over to our students for the (first annual!) Curiosity …
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Care about equity in education? Start with engagement Educators care about equity. We all want to bring out excellence in our students, but the thing that keeps us up at night is our constant striving to do that for ALL of our students. There are many systemic barriers to equity. Our students and schools mirror …
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 …
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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 …
A case study in Shelburne Arts and citizenship is for 8th graders at Shelburne Community School. This past session, they had a digital media focus, looking at photography and Photoshop and digital manipulation. Most recently they just had a Community Celebration, where the artwork was posted around the school and families and the community came …
Shifting the way we manage time to personalize learning in a blended space In my former professional life, I had the pleasure and the challenge of managing a large high school library media center. An irony of the job, one that made me smile and cringe, was the volume of the bell which rang every …
A teacher-authored case study Today we hear from a grade 5-6 team venturing into the world of personal learning plans (PLPs) using Google Tools. Jared Bailey, math teacher, and Joy Peterson, English Language Arts teacher, provide concrete details on how they rolled out PLPs this year, including links to such resources as graphic organizers that they used for …
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Curating lists of online resources for deep dives into content research We have been spending much of our time here at the Tarrant Institute exploring the idea of what engagement looks like in a learning environment where access to resources is ubiquitous, where learning can and does take place anytime, anywhere. That is why when Lisa …
7th graders learn video as reflection tool When I sat down to work with my students on digital citizenship and literacy, I wanted to do something different. These are 7th graders coming from lots of different schools, different levels of understanding, different exposure to the concepts of digital citizenship and I was trying to think of …
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Goal-setting as a process This presentation, delivered by Harwood Union High School teacher Lissa Fox at the 2016 Middle Grades Conference, describes an Action Research project that looked at the implementation of a one-semester 9th grade course focused on goal setting within Personal Learning Plans (PLPs).
As more and more school move to Chromebooks we receive lots of requests for chrome compatible programs and applications. In a time of transition to deeper personalization, Screencasting has become one of the most popular requests. There’s power having students talk through their evidence of learning and reflection all on one screen and easily exported …
This week on the podcast: Rachel Mark traveled to The Dorset School, in Southern Vermont, to talk with educator Mandy Thomas and her 6th grade students, about how their move to student-led conferences started with screencasting.
How can you support your student in sharing how they learn? In recent decades, schools have turned the table on the traditional parent-teacher conference. More and more, schools are engaging the student and putting him or her in the driver’s seat at this learning conversation. A student-led conference (SLC) can be a beautiful thing. But …
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Is joy in learning an innovation? Recently, I was charmed and inspired upon seeing a first grade student’s take on setting goals to improve healthy habits on the Franklin West Supervisory Union blog. I shared this student photo (at left) with a group of teachers during a goal-setting and reflection workshop. They all smiled, especially after …
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 …
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Reaching beyond the walls I’m always looking for ways for educators and students at different schools to use technology to connect in far-flung locations. One middle-level educator was kind enough to share how he used Google Hangouts, a Google+ Community, back-channeling and plain old email to enable his students to connect with students a couple of …
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3 strategies shared by local educators At Manchester Elementary Middle School, sixth grade students speak fluently about their Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). They’ve been working on setting goals in a PLP for years; some students in this school have been doing so since third grade. Manchester educators Seth Bonnett and Melissa Rice, share what they’ve learned about …
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Modeling a PLP as an adult learner As a new year dawns, are you thinking about self improvement? A Personal Learning Plan (PLP) is a great way to plan and document your professional growth, provide a framework for reflection, and gain a better understanding of how to make PLPs most useful for your students.
A step-by-step guide to publishing your first episode Podcasts have been around for awhile now but can be a little intimidating in terms of knowing the technical aspect of how to launch one. Thinking of starting one for your school but need a little help unpacking the tech? Here’s how to get started podcasting, the …
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Life’s four guidelines for goal-setting In my experience as a teacher and administrator, I noticed a pattern to goal-setting in my school and classroom. We would do some good goal-setting at the beginning of the year and then at some point during the dark depths of winter I would realize that I was too overwhelmed or …
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Using Vialogues for social learning Vialogues: visual dialogues. Video dialogues. (Visible violet dogs? Risible eyelet hogs? Dirigible side-slit frogs?) Vialogues are an online tool that encourages viewers to answer one specific question about a video, and the tool creates a comment thread based on the answers. When applied in an educational capacity, this creates a …
Timeline tools for transformative learning Timeline tools can serve two important purposes: concrete help with project planning (for PLPs, 1:1 rollouts, PBL) and for displaying evidence of learning in an easily digestible format. But the online, anytime/anywhere, collaborative nature of such tools can unlock meta-learning for students, providing them with a platform for bolstering collaboration and …
Steps to a student-led conference Some of my most poignant moments as a teacher occurred around the table of a Student Led Conference. Truly. My eyes have welled with tears at the sheer emotion shared. I’m a believer in giving students the voice and the power to be at this table. It requires a strong …
QR codes unlock learning anywhere These simple workhorses of technology — ink and blank spaces on a screen or page — can be incredibly powerful in making learning an anytime, anywhere endeavor, and turning the world into a classroom.
“Candy apps”, or how to have fun and still learn anyway During a five minute reflection, if a student is given one minute to find a picture and mark the mouth, then he or she still has four minutes to try to come up with something interesting to reflect about. So this is four minutes more …
Who decides the acceptable ways to use devices in your school? You’ve jumped through the hoops, filled out the paperwork, located the three missing chargers and managed to agree on a set of apps and a management system. But what will expectations around tech device usage look like? Will they stay in classrooms? Go home? Hop …
Continue reading “Establishing behavior expectations in a 1:1”
Collaborative blogging puts students’ voices out front Hazen Union School 8th grade student Elijah Lew-Smith shared the first student post of the school year on the school’s shared Middle Level Blog. Check out his post to see this year’s new initiatives: 1:1 with iPads, a new House structure, and the focus on Project Based Learning, from a …
Continue reading “Multiple platforms, multiple voices: scenes from a 1:1 rollout”
Approaching student digital citizenship from many levels Our students live in technology-rich worlds, regardless of how much technology they are using in school on a day-to-day basis. Technology has all kinds of awesome educational benefits, but Uncle Ben’s advice to Spiderman is fitting here: “With great power comes great responsibility.” As educators we’re obliged to …
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Becoming a Google Certified Educator My fascination with Google started in the early 2000’s simply from a financial interest. Here was this really cool “tech” company entering the stock market for just under $100 a share, $85 to be exact, at a time where comparable companies were selling for much higher prices.
Reflections from Vermont educators embarking on the 1:1 process As the 2015 Middle Grades Institute draws to a close, we check in on some of the amazing work educators have been doing with their teams this week. And this time we’re focusing on the 1:1 planning they’ve been doing.
Setting goals for summer learning and beyond It’s Day 3 of the 2015 Middle Grades Institute, a gathering of more than 200 Vermont educators all passionately invested in technology-rich, student-centered educational change. And with the Act 77 deadline requiring a Personal Learning Plan for every student in Vermont grades 7-12 coming up in November, talk …
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Rachel Mark is a Professional Development Coordinator in the southern part of Vermont. Prior to working with the Tarrant Institute, Rachel was a middle school literacy and social studies teacher at Tarrant partner school Manchester Elementary-Middle. As a teacher, Rachel loved exploring new content and new methods with inquisitive young adolescents. She thinks middle schools …
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So many schools in Vermont are engaged in innovative, student-centered, tech-rich education work.We’re proud to partner with The Cabot School for just this reason. Their students write the school’s website updates. They’ve been featured twice on VPR this past year. They win national awards for their recyclable, energy-efficient musical production, and their educators are Rowland …
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Two years ago, our middle level team undertook a pilot project to begin work on personal learning plans (PLPs). Under the guidance of James Nagle, professor of education at St. Michael’s College, Team Summit teachers and students initiated the process of creating personal learning plans as mandated by Act 77 and the state of Vermont. …
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Study the Earth’s ecology with deep-digging tech tools Earth Day is April 22, and if you’re looking for some ideas on how to dig deep into earth sciences with tech, we’ve got 4 Earth Day lesson ideas with iPads. Already made Earth Day plans? These ideas will keep until the weather gets better and it’s really …
What’s your school song? A few months ago I wrote about not spending enough time on personal reflection. It is incredibly easy to be immersed in the many “Top 10” lists of education; and it’s fun spending time trying to solve tool based problems (anyone come up with a best way to insert images on the …
New podcast episode: Essex STEM Academy In this episode, we talk with math educator and STEM Academy leader Lea Ann Smith about Essex High School’s STEM Academy and take a look inside a program that lets students pursue projects in medicine, engineering, computer science, mathematics or biology — by working with community partners during the school …
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At TechJam this past autumn I was fortunate to run into a number of student groups who were there to show off projects. That forum, and others like it, gives learners a space to share, interact, and learn from each other. One group I met was from Big Picture South Burlington (@BigPictureSB), a community of learners …
Keeping your resolution to reflect My colleague, Meredith Swallow, recently shared a post about the importance of reflection in her professional growth, which got me thinking. She points her readers to Reflect or Refract: Top 3 Tips for the Reflective Educator where the authors suggest “reading a wide variety of education blogs regularly exposes educators …
Give your students ownership over their learning through goal-setting activities Happy New Year! With school back in session and a new year upon us, why not use this time as an excuse to take a deep breath, reassess your goals, and refocus on what you and your students are striving to achieve? As your students …
Continue reading “Links Round Up: Goal-Setting for Personalized Learning”
Students provide evidence of increased engagement with social reading platform (Editor’s Note: we asked 5th grade educator Hannah Lindsey to share her experience using the LMS edmodo for a literacy block with students on netbooks. Her blog post is excerpted from a longer reflection prepared for the 2014 AMLE annual conference.) Does the use of a …
[huge_it_slider id=”2″] Meet some of the guest bloggers for the Tarrant Institute: Keegan Albaugh, The Centerpoint School, Winooski VT Jacqueline Drouin, Asian Studies Outreach Program, University of Vermont Rep. Diana Gonzalez, Vermont Legislature, University of Vermont Education Dept. Lindsey Halman, Essex Middle School, Essex VT Jonah Ibson, Harwood Union Middle School, Moretown, VT Supanya Khienjarern, …
This has been a very interesting week for me, trying to write a post for today. The task actually seemed pretty straight-forward. Audrey had passed along an app for me to take a look at: Monster Physics. A number of folks seem to be thinking about it from an education standpoint. At first blush I was …
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A tiny little podcast with big stories on education The 21st Century Classroom podcast aims to showcase young Vermonters talking about the experiences they’re having both in and out of school. Students we talk with do amazing things, and we hope they inspire other educators. The heart of the stories: student interviews. We want …
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.
Free app for students to make quick and easy back-to-school slideshows
Get a sneak peek at the new Thinglink Many of you have undoubtedly heard of Thinglink’s new video service, where you can embed links, text, images, videos and audio directly into videos. We tried it out last week for our iPad case review article, and the finished product looks a little something like this. Now …
Get out there! It’s spring (unless you’re in the Antipodes) and IT HAS FINALLY STOPPED SNOWING. Yes, all those capital letters are really necessary to announce that fact. The sun is out and if you’re planning on doing some outside work with your students, here are four activity ideas for using iPads outside when there’s no access …
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In September of 2009, Sarah, the 9 year-old daughter of our keynote speaker posted a 90-second YouTube response to President Obama’s speech to US students. This video “went viral” and currently has over 190,000 views. In May 2010, a 6th grader in our keynote presenter’s hometown attracted the attention of Ellen Degeneres with his YouTube …
Continue reading ““When Student Published Videos Go Viral” (podcast)”
It’s no secret that here at the Tarrant Institute, we’re a bit batty for badges. Not just because they’re shiny and fun to sew on a sash, but because in our initial experiments with badging platforms, we’re seeing increased teacher/learner engagement and motivation. But what does that really mean? Here, guest blogger Valerie Sullivan weighs …