Care and Feeding of the PLP

A teenage boy holds a golden retriever puppy

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 check out some examples here.

Developing a district wide PLP

A couple of years ago PLPs were new to TRSU middle grades teachers and students. We started by coming to a consensus on what a PLP was (and wasn’t!). We looked at examples, talked about the purpose of PLPs, and thought about how they would best serve our learners.

The results: a list of non-negotiables.

TRSU PLPs begin with student identity. Students add evidence of learning connected to transferable skills. All kinds of evidence. And they reflect on that learning. It’s simple, really.

Except it’s not. If it were that easy every student in Vermont would have a rockin’ PLP.

First, there is the problem of getting started.

How would teachers introduce PLPs to their students? And how would teachers stay on the same page? Enter the PLP slideshow, two actually.

These slides served as conversation starters – providing enough information for students and teachers to discuss PLPs and hopefully get excited about them.

Second, and more importantly, is the problem of keeping going!

If the PLP was really going to engage students in their learning, it needed to be more than an online filing cabinet. It needed to be a kind of pet – something that needs routine care and feeding. So we set some goals. We would:

Reserve 30 minutes per week to feed the PLP
Use the language of the transferable skills ALL OF THE TIME, in ALL OF OUR CLASSES, not just during PLP time
Talk about the PLP in relation to student learning and class work

A bigger toolbox: Margaret Dunne’s experience

When we first began it felt like PLPs were just one more ball that I needed to keep in the air. My main focus was unpacking what the transferable skills meant for 8-10 year olds and even for myself. Does creativity just mean art? At this point the PLP wasn’t really connected to our other work but it was a start.

Over time It became clear that I needed to center the PLP in the work of my classroom and not view it as an add-on. I thought of the PLP as an artist’s portfolio – a collection of greatest hits.

Through regular care and feeding the PLPs were growing, but some of the posts didn’t fit my idea of a “greatest hit.” I struggled with this, but eventually came to realize that it was not my role to be the gatekeeper of what could or could not be students’ PLPs. What was important was that students’ posts were meaningful to them. I was beginning to relinquish control and share responsibility with my students.

Now my understanding of PLPs has grown even more and I now see PLPs as a tool that can transform my teaching to be student-centered.

One of the major advantages of PLPs is that they center around developing transferable skills, while our report cards focus on standards and content. PLPs raise awareness of the transferable skills and make sure everyone – students, families, and teachers – know these skills are essential.

But, it is not like they are totally separate. While students document growth in the transferable skills they do it in the context of all content areas, from PE to Math. This work challenges me as a teacher to be more student-centered and be open to all of the meaningful learning inside and outside of school.

PLPs allow us to see a student holistically, as a whole person, and they capture the messy complicated story of learning and growth a lot more than a score on a report card. They also help students know themselves better and be known by others, which helps build our learning community. PLPs are truly a transformational tool!

Emma Vastola’s Experience

The PLP process has been empowering for students – giving them opportunities to choose what matters to them and set personally meaningful goals. An important part of this process is self-reflection.

To grow their skill of reflection students are provided many times throughout their day to reflect on a task through the lens of a transferable skill. The more students are asked to reflect on their own self within the context of a task, the deeper their sense of self becomes.

As you might expect, some students are automatically more proficient reflectors, while others need tools to develop the skill. Choice boards, reflective prompts and reflective learning scales are some tools that have been developed as scaffolds for students.

These reflection tools have helped students gain a deeper understanding of themselves. By being mindful of intentionally teaching reflection and metacognition as a literacy/communication skill, students get better at finding evidence of their work and reflecting on their progress over time.

When students focused on identity in their PLPs, they showed more agency and ownership of their learning.

By focusing on identity students are centered in their learning. They are better able to set actionable goals. These become a natural starting point for care and feeding of the PLP. The system becomes both implicitly and explicitly student-led.

A timeline like the one pictured here helps set the stage: where the PLP is woven into the fabric of everyday life in and out of the learning environment. Routine PLP work became more prevalent over time and students began to identify work that was “PLPpropriate” and communicate this work at a Student-Led Conference. Student-Led Conferences have become an opportunity for students to share work they are proud of.

Finally, let’s hear from students!

Here is a reflective “letters to my PLP” from a 6th-grade student:

Dear PLP, Thank you for staying with me throughout the year. I once thought you were hard to deal with the constant updating. But now I love hanging out with you; you’re almost like an academic therapist. We are the best of friends, and I hope you stay with me throughout all of my years. I think you are awesome! I hope you think I am too. You have seen me grow throughout 2021. And I have seen you evolve. I am proud of you, for you are one of my most outstanding achievements. Good-Bye PLP, but only for now.

And here is a poem from another 6th-grade student:

Once Upon a Time I hated you. I struggled to fulfill you. I couldn’t quite grasp what your purpose was, Or how to achieve finishing you. You swallowed my reflections tediously. Then, sometimes you would spit them back out Craving more, more fulfillment. But, at first, I couldn’t give it to you. I tried and tried, but no word was ever good enough; no sentence or paragraph could ever make your content. I worked every day to improve so that my words would be enough so that I would be enough. And, over time, they were, you swallowed them, and they stayed. You hold tightly to the work I am proud of, And the work I use as a reminder to improve. We live in tolerance of one another. The End.

To draw on a well worn cliche, PLPs are about the journey, not the destination!

TRSU teachers have found that that journey can be transformative, but routine care and feeding of the PLP are necessary to sustain it.

November 6, 2020

PLPs, Parenting, and a Pandemic

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 miss their friends, they miss their teachers, they miss recess, they even miss riding the bus.

They love seeing your face, and their classmates in their Zoom meetings. They love sharing their art, or talking about which Garfield character is funnier.

But once the Zoom meetings are over, the twinkle leaves their eyes, as they reluctantly turn to the pile of spelling worksheets… if we’re lucky. And if we’re not, they refuse and instead start to play with the cat, or look for pencils under the couch. Anything to avoid the stack of work piling up.

But in their free time…

Then they are deep in the Lego bin, working together to build an amusement park. Or baking lemon squares. Or building forts in the woods. Designing logos and emblems in SketchUp. Or creating board games. Or training chickens. Designing jet-propelled race cars. Or learning embroidery. Or reading. Or playing Monopoly.

Wait. What?

Did I just say engineering design, fractions, chemistry, physics, writing, fine and gross motor development, literature study and economics?

Despite all the challenges of the moment, kids are doing some cool stuff at home. They are learning things. Maybe just not (only) the things we’ve planned.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could leverage what kids are already doing at home as learning?

There are possibilities. And PLPs.

One way we could do this is with PLPs- personalized learning plans. PLPs. Their blend of learning tool-meets-portfolio might be just the thing to help us navigate this moment.

What if we shifted from a focus on content to a focus on skills? Transferable skills, specifically. Things like problem-solving, reasoning, critical thinking, clear & effective communication, or citizenship. The magic of these skills is that they’re, well, transferable….across contexts and settings.

The communication skills a kid hones while working on their Minecraft tutorial video for YouTube are pretty similar to the skills they’d need to write an expository essay on caring for pets: What information do I need to communicate? How can I most effectively explain what readers/viewers need to know?

And if you know the student well, you can probably figure out which context they’d prefer to develop those skills within.

Less is more.

The last thing any of us needs is more work. We’re all — teachers, students, parents — stretched to our max right now.

So instead, could we shift our synchronous time with students to focus on building relationships, getting to know them and their interests, and then coaching them on how the pursuit of these interests is learning?

Could we teach them to reflect on and document their learning, so that they, too, could appreciate all the learning they already do, every day?

Yeah, we’ll probably still need to teach them to write an effective RACE response, but perhaps it’s focus could be ‘who is the best Jedi?’ or ‘which Lego pieces are the most important.’

Personal Inquiry Projects

Finally, one last thought: last spring, my family sprinted out of the gate with some fantastic school-at-home projects. Any of these projects could easily become the focus of student reflection and documentation in a PLP.

So could Lego villages, chocolate chip cookies, or organizing a bookshelf.

Want to go deeper? What about using personal inquiry projects, such as Genius Hour, Passion Projects, or Curiosity projects to help connect students’ interests to the curriculum. They’re practically pandemic-ready.

And it turns out they’ll continue to be amazing even after all this is a distant memory.

September 23, 2020April 12, 2022

Using Seesaw with Google Classroom for PLPs

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. It’s kid friendly and excellent for connecting families to the learning process.

SeeSaw can complement Google Classroom, which excels as a day to day home base to keep the classroom workflow organized.

While the functionality of these two platforms overlaps considerably, they are potentially most powerful when used in tandem.

Playing to strengths

Google Classroom is a fairly simple, generally effective, and free LMS. It allows teachers to push out work, collect it, provide feedback, and track completion. It works seamlessly with other Google tools such as Google Docs, Google Drive, etc.

Comparing the two side by side?

Google Classroom	Seesaw
Home base Day-to-day workflow Assigning tasks/work Collecting work Grading and feedback	Artifacts & reflections Choice in how to reflect Share work with families Receive comments on work Tagging (folders) Student-led conferences

Families can sign up to receive weekly emails from Google Classroom that summarize the assignments completed and owed by students. But families can’t access the details or see their student’s work inside Google Classroom. That’s a serious drawback.

SeeSaw, in contrast, excels at bringing families into the learning cycle. It’s built on the premise that sharing student work with families will deepen connections and ultimately help the work be more meaningful to students.

(I’ve experienced this with my own children. I get notified when their teacher approves work and I get to check it out and comment on it. Sometimes we have a back and forth exchange via comments (text or audio). And this can also lead to conversations at home.)

The other major thing that SeeSaw does really well is provide kid-friendly tools for posting in a variety of modalities. Students can easily explain or reflect upon work via drawing, audio, video, text, or combinations thereof.

The interface is quite clean and straightforward, with posts organized chronologically from top to bottom that families can scroll through. Students can post spontaneously or in response to teacher assignments, with the stream representing an ongoing cumulative portfolio of their work.

SeeSaw as a PLP

Middle school teachers can use SeeSaw as a PLP portfolio with key artifacts and reflections, separate from the day to day assignments in Google Classroom.

At Lyndon Town School, in Lyndonville VT, for example, middle school teachers have agreed that students will post at least one artifact per unit into SeeSaw. This will include a piece of evidence (for example, a performance task) and a reflection.

Students can tag their posts so that they can access them in an organized way. Tags are called “folders” in SeeSaw, and teachers can set up a classroom to include folders such as subject, transferable skills, or other organizational schema.

For a PLP, the folder system may include things like “About Me” or “Goals.” And perhaps most importantly for typical PLP workflow, there would be a folder/tag for curated work. For example, the Lyndon Town School teachers have a folder for “Conferences” that will include work to be shared during Student Led Conferences.

So from a students point of view, they will regularly use SeeSaw to post evidence and reflections related to class work and goals. And occasionally they will go back through their stream to mark work that they want to share during their conferences. Families would be able to engage with work along the way and then see how students synthesize their learning and reflect on patterns.

Just what a PLP is supposed to do.

Keep it simple

The most straightforward way to use SeeSaw as a portfolio is to create one class called something like “Portfolio and Reflection.” Each teacher of a student would be co-teachers in the class.

Teachers would use assignments, called “activities” in SeeSaw, to keep themselves organized. For example, at the end of a unit a music teacher could create an activity called “Music Artifact 1.” When they log in they can review student work from that activity in order to give feedback and approve posts. They can ignore work assigned by other teachers.

Since folders sit within classes, this allows a student to use the “Conferences” folder in their “Portfolio and Reflection” class to curate their work. In theory, if a student wanted to pull in work from another class, they could grab a link to that SeeSaw post. But keeping the PLP in one place streamlines the workflow.

This is especially useful for teachers who are new to SeeSaw. Teachers who want to use it more extensively could potentially create a separate class.

How to use SeeSaw to organize student reflection

Start and end with Google Classroom

For teachers who want to use Google Classroom to stay organized, they can have students access SeeSaw activities through Google Classroom assignments. Students will click on a link and be taken to their SeeSaw account where they can complete the activity (without needing to sign in again). Then they can mark the assignment as complete in Google Classroom.

Chrissy Park, an educator at Burke Town School, in East Burke VT, does an excellent job of illustrating how Google Classroom and SeeSaw can work together in this screencast.

One lingering question

And that is: how to support spontaneous SeeSaw posts.

The vision for authentic student-centered portfolios is a world where students are learning, in and out of school, and they throw evidence in their PLP whenever they are inspired to do so. But if there are a bunch of co-teachers in one class, they will likely have notifications turned off, so how will they know? If they are using Google Classroom and relying on activities in SeeSaw then there’s no loop there. Students could send an email but it would be nice to automate it.

Are you using these two tools together? What’s been your experience so far?

4 for the Door:

An amazingly comprehensive resource on these two tools from Vermont tech powerhouse Tim O’Leary
Getting going with SeeSaw
Using SeeSaw as a Portfolio
SeeSaw & Google Classroom Workflow

February 1, 2020March 2, 2020

Looking at PLPs

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

But what if students are in the drivers seat of this exploration? And how could all teachers (not just classroom teachers) know students deeply and well, to connect first, develop relationships, then work toward learning goals?

I was at a teacher team meeting recently. One educator was noting a few students who she felt like were disengaged and breaking class norms and expectations. They were pulling back from class discussions and activities. The teachers decided to make a chart of all the students in grades 6-8 and list which teachers felt they had a personal connection with each student. After that, the team looked for themes and noticed that some of the same students who were disconnecting had fewer personal connections with educators.

How would we respond if this was a gap in literacy or math skills? With a plan. And this was a relationship gap. This is new language I picked up from this recent article about the impact of supportive relationships on boys’ learning. When there is a lack of strong relationships, boys can experience a gap, and suffer all sorts of educational and emotional consequences, leaving them open for isolation and invitations into harmful groups and organizations.

Looking at PLPs

And what if there were more ways to connect, for students to show us who they are, and share things with us about their out of school lives, and their learning lives that they might not want to share verbally? Of course nothing will or should take the place of one on one contact and in person relationship building. But Vermont educators have a tool at their disposal and it is ready for students to share with us who they are, how they learn, and what they need. The PLP.

One thing students and teachers are showing us about PLPs is that students need some structures to support developing this reflective and storytelling tool. Because schools have traditionally viewed learning as something that happens in schools only, of course students get that message, and might not share that they indeed got into ice skating finals this weekend, won an ice fishing derby, or made macrons successfully for the first time. They won’t know to record their excitement after video-conferencing with students in Kenya, or discovering that they could survive giving a Ted Talk style speech in front of their classmates.

Care and attention of students + PLPs

How how do we help them?

Like anything, the more attention you give something, the more it grows. Often, teachers launch PLPs with an identity activity, and then it lies dormant until student led conferences. What happened in between? If you are already working on PLPs with your students, when do you find time to look at them? Do the essential arts teachers have a way to look at them? Do families?

One way to get started with that is to set aside a time for looking at PLPs in your teacher team meetings, maybe once a week. Pick one or two PLPs to look at, possibly students who you know are struggling relationally first. Ponder:

What do you notice?
Look closely, what is it telling us?
Consider, what might be next steps?

And if you notice the PLPs are sparse, what might be a good plan for developing it more fully with students? Consider a few of these questions:

What are the structures to support kids creating meaningful and regular work in PLPs?
How can PLPs be used to help to reach/teach students?
How can PLPs be better used to strengthen student and teacher relationships?
Is anyone posting out of school learning? How can educators encourage this?

Developing supports

Based on the answers, your team might come up with a few action steps for looking at PLPs. One could be that in advisory each students will reflect on their growth in transferable skills each week (using art, photos, writing, video), or write a journal type email to caregivers. Or each student will post a highlight and a lowlight from their week in any way that suits them. Or it could be that each week students will post about out of school learning that had an impact on them. Each of these would provide a window for all teachers on the inner learning lives and personal interests of their students. This could be especially important for students who are introverted and might struggle to share things verbally in class.

Get student feedback

Then, ask a student! What do they need to make these meaningful to them and their families? This is their learning story and lived experiences, after all.

PLPs need care and feeding, and looking at PLPs on a regular basis does that. They will become like a binder on a shelf if students aren’t interacting with them in meaningful ways. And I don’t mean in a shallow compliance only sort of way, like show me how you followed the class rules today! A reflection about class norms is awesome, but if the PLP just becomes another instrument where teachers tell kids exactly what to do and how to be, it is another example of teacher-directed learning that undermines the purpose of the PLP.

Educators, how do you help students show their true selves in PLPs? And how do you use this tool to build relationships with students? We are all ears!

October 28, 2019February 25, 2020

PLPs in Seesaw

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 two schools building PLPs and digital portfolios in Seesaw and check out how they’re using this tool to know their students better.

“Look there I am!”

“Dad, I hope you are proud of me.”

“You mean I can post a picture of my hockey team?”

There are student comments I have heard in the last two weeks, in schools I have been working in. The commonalities are stunning: students exclaiming, smiling, satisfied. They are seen, heard, and known.

Let me back up.

The research

It’s become clear to educators and researchers that seeing and valuing our students for who they are — right now, each day — has powerful effects.

Take this study about greeting students by name at the door. Simply starting each day with this has been linked to fewer disruptions and higher engagement. Which is no shock, because we know that developing relationships with students is critically important, and this is one way to support this.

Or this one about the power of having a gay/straight alliance group at your school. The Smithsonian shared a study that illustrated having a GSA at schools reduced discrimination and suicide rates for all students.

The commonality here? Students are seen, heard, respected, and valued.

While this Edutopia article discusses how teachers are making sure they know personal information to be able to connect with each students, Vermont takes it further by having students tell their own stories of their learning lives, both in and out of schools, in the PLP.

Examples from schools

Next, we focus on how schools are making students’ lives and learning visible.

Sutton School

The sixth graders settled into their seats with mild curiosity. They had seen me before, but not in front of the class. On this rainy fall day, Kelly Mulligan and I were going to launch PLPs.

It felt like a big task.

We started with a slideshow with the focus of the PLP as a way to tell your story. Show who you are, inside and outside of school. I asked them to imagine something about their lives that their teachers doesn’t know. They didn’t need to share it out loud, but something important about their lives that could be shared with the teacher.

They paused, thoughtful. A few of them shared what they were thinking. Then we showed this video from Harwood Union School and asked these prompts:

Some kids shifted in their seats. They saw that their home life, their interests, often that are not celebrated in schools, could be noted, validated, and celebrated in this new format.

One students said, “Like you mean how I work on cars in the mornings with my dad?”

YES.

Or how I am the goalie of our hockey team, and we are state champions?

YES.

Or how I love to fix computers and code?

YEP.

You get the idea. The power of validation and choice spread.

Then we used Seesaw, and gave them choice. Use these tools to show us who you are. Here are a few suggestions for activities, but you can post what you think is best to describe what you love, what you do, how you learn, and who you are.

What I saw next was 100 percent engagement, and students popping up to help each other with the tools.

I heard a special educator say, “I didn’t know you were a goalie, that must be really challenging.” (Relationships! See earlier research).

Ottauquechee School

Next up, I was in a co-teaching teacher meeting of third grade teachers at Ottauquechee School. In came Staci McDougall, special educator. She was showing the rest of the team how she used Seesaw to support her students. What I saw next was incredible. She showed a video on Seesaw of a mostly non-verbal student who was engaging with math manipulatives. In the video, he exclaimed, he found numbers, he showed his thinking and work. The teachers were spellbound and teary. They hadn’t seen him this focused, or this engaged, ever. This video had been shared with his parents immediately, and now with his teachers, who see what he can do when barriers are removed.

Earlier that day, I had stopped by Staci’s room, at the exact moment I saw a student with her phone held right up to his mouth. The student said,

“Hi dad! I hope you are having a good day. I made it all day in class today and I hope you are proud of me! Love you dad.”

This was his 18th day of staying in class all day, and before this plan, he had not been able to stay in class with other students. The pride in his voice was clear, and took my breath away. I wondered, how many negative phone calls had this dad received before this? What is the power of regular positive calls and posts on a student and family that has experienced a lot of negative interactions with school?

These two uses of PLPs in Seesaw: as a behavior plan support, and as a tool to increase access and share learning with students with intensive needs, were new to me, but the ideas were not. PLPs, tied with regular family communication, are a tool to help everyone see students, make their lives visible, and are for everyone: caregivers, teachers, and community partners, and help all see students for who they are and what they can do.

Seesaw as a tool

The commonality here was that both schools were using Seesaw as a tool for digital portfolios and PLPs. The benefits of this tool are clear:

Benefits?

It is very easy to use, students can set it up and get going with posting in about 30 minutes or less. Students can login with their school google email tools or a QR code.
It is very intuitive, and looks like a social media feed, but it totally private between the student, caregivers and teachers.
Teachers can set up folders that students can tag their posts to to develop a PLP or portfolio organization system.
And students can explore developing other aspects of their portfolio as PLPs in Seesaw, such as personal and academic goals and college and career explorations.
Families access the portfolio through an app on their phones, so there is no need for computer access. Caregivers are notified every time their child posts something to the portfolio and can interact with the post. This creates a quick and regular feedback loop for families and reduces the need to find and return the papers (which is hard for all).
Use of this tool reduces barriers to the demonstration of learning. Students can pick a tool to demonstrate their reflections and learning, such as video, notes, photos, and art. Almost immediately, I saw the benefits of this. Students did not have to wrangle digital tools to increase access, they were readily available to all, just like the Universal Design for Learning calls for.
To create 100 percent access to family conferences, students could rehearse for their student led conferences with the video feature of Seesaw. That way, if a family can’t attend the conference, they could at least see the presentation via video, and interact with their student through the post.

Ideas for use

Seesaw could also be used as an everything space, where students across curricular subjects learn how to document and reflect on their own learning. Then, they could curate a portfolio of work to share at student led conferences, and these could be created anywhere, in Google slides, a Google site, or other tool. You could link and access these on PLPs in Seesaw as well.

The power of being seen, to tell your own learning story, to show who you are and what is important to you, is universal.

How can we make sure each one of our students feels seen, known, and valued?

November 29, 2017November 22, 2019

3 easy tech tools for PLP reflections

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 use these tools to reflect and to collect evidence for their PLPs.

Continue reading “3 easy tech tools for PLP reflections”

November 8, 2016April 29, 2022

How can students reflect on their PLPs?

Students themselves tell the best stories of their learning

how can students reflect on their PLPs? 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 their PLPs as there are students, so the best we can do is show up with these SIX SPECTACULAR STUDENT EXAMPLES.

Roll tape!

Continue reading “How can students reflect on their PLPs?”