Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
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 …
Use service learning to grow your community What do you do when you’re a 5th-through-8th middle school housed in two separate buildings? If your 7th-and-8th graders are with the high school, and 5th and 6th graders are off on their own, how can you provide an opportunity all middle graders to feel involved in the …
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 …
We’re #vtgrateful for you This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for the entire #vted community. For everyone working hard in supporting innovative school change in Vermont. What are you #vtgrateful for?
It all starts with an idea. Races Against Racism have taken place around the country, and last spring, a community member and organizer Henry Harris suggested that 15-year-old Hope Petraro organize an event in her community. He said she might be interested in having this event in Montpelier. That was just the spark she needed. …
Displayed. Featured Articles (168) #everydaycourage (16) #readytolaunch (16) ABCs of edtech (26) Curation Station (33) Guest Post (19) Science Saturdays (26) Flexible Pathways (6) Ideas for Administrators (25) Faith-based education (1) Ideas for Educators (212) Android Tutorials (5) Augmented Reality (19) Chromebook Tutorials (13) Edugaming (14) ePortfolios (5) Flipped Classrooms (7) Grow your PLN (5) iPad Tutorials (29) Make mobile apps (2) Place-Based Learning (3) Project-Based Learning (30) Getting On The PBL Highway (6) Real World PBL (6) Teaming (2) …
The United Nations has kicked off a movement for the future. They’ve identified 17 goals for sustainability world-wide, and they’ve given those goals to students around the world. Here in Vermont, a cadre of passionate educators are scaffolding project-based learning around those goals. And #vted students are hard at work, changing the world, one community …
Continue reading “4 ways students are tackling the UN’s Global Goals in Vermont”
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”
Making math real-world relevant Would you tell the school board how to redesign your school? Students at Shelburne Community School, in Shelburne VT, did just that. They were tasked with redesigning the school’s outdated “kiva” space. Using Google Sketch-Up, they created three different designs for renovating the space, and presented those designs to a panel …
What proficiency-based learning looks like Winooski Middle and High School, in bustling Winooski, VT, has been quietly making the journey to proficiency-based learning and proficiency-based graduation requirements for the past six years. And the resources they’ve constructed along the way — to support students, teachers and families — celebrate cultural and ethnic diversity and challenge …
Continue reading “Winooski’s Graduate Proficiencies & Graduate Expectations”
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
Responsible and involved citizenship in Grand Isle We’re looking at how maker-centered learning and makerspace activities can help support students in developing Vermont’s five transferable skills. We’ve looked at clear and effective communication, self-direction, and creative and practical problem-solving. In this post, we recount EMMA’s visit to Grand Isle School, where teachers and students used …
Making as evidence of problem-solving It’s quite easy to see how making often takes students on new journeys, where their imagination provides opportunities to exercise the transferable skill of creative and practical problem solving. After a visit by EMMA, students at Malletts Bay School, in Colchester VT, were inspired to use their new skills to create …
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Making as evidence of transferable skills around Vermont During the past year, EMMA has visited schools around Vermont to fuel the conversation about maker-centered learning. As we reflected on each of EMMA’s visits, we continually noticed that maker centered learning provided evidence of students applying cross-disciplinary transferable skills.
This fall, we’ve been talking about everyday courage in schools. We’ve written about the courage it takes to start a new team, using technology to open up communication with students and to open up our practice. We’ve shared examples about how teachers are showing up, engaging in hard conversations about race, their own practice, about …
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”
Conversations begin at home. And at the bus stop. Also the market. And– So much of the change we need to see right now can be kicked off by starting conversations with members of your community. It takes a certain amount of courage to address issues that affect your whole community — such as bullying, …
How will your students prepare for active engagement in democracy? Last spring Christie Nold, a 6th grade teacher at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, was at Burlington’s Jazz Fest listening to student musicians when she got some disturbing news: someone had spray-painted racist hate speech on her school’s campus. Overwhelmed by her own emotions, Nold …
Continue reading “The #everydaycourage of talking about race in Vermont schools”
Think middle schoolers are too young for a QSA? Think again At the Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) at Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury, Vermont, young adolescents have carved out a space where they can be their authentic selves. While that’s critical during middle school, it’s especially crucial for LGBTQ students. As we kick off …
Continue reading “The Crossett Brook Queer-Straight Alliance”
The birth of a YA teacher’s book club “Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. You’ve just got to keep doing right.” –Starr’s mom, in The Hate U Give by Angela Thomas
“It really is nice being able to teach others. I know that I had an effect on them.” The Essex STEM Academy, at Essex High School, lets students pursue their passion for tech and science with support from the Vermont STEM community. They also let the students teach. We spoke with Ian, an Essex STEM …
School leadership in turbulent times As schools prepare to welcome students through their doors, many educators are researching how to talk with their students about the attacks in Charlottesville or Barcelona. Or how to respond to student concerns about diversity, tolerance and equity. Or, ulp, how to address this recent article by Wired, revealing that …
Continue reading “#vted leads the way with #everydaycourage”
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”
Emily is an educator, facilitator, mother, partner, and mountain dweller. Her work centers on transforming herself and the systems she is enmeshed within toward justice, joy, and sustainability. She is currently the managing director at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, as well as a professional affiliate with Shelburne Farms. Emily has worked as an …
Personalized, proficiency-based PBL or bust During a faculty meeting in late December of 2016, educators and staff talked about the need to provide personalized learning options for students at their small, rural Vermont school. They wanted do so in a way that honored the students’ need for passion-based, independent projects, as well as the desire …
Service learning 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. …
Scheduling The continued movement towards the middle level concept has put tremendous pressure on how schools choose to organize their time. For good reason! The remnants of the junior high days of past still exist. However, emerging schedules that support student-centered learning and best middle level practice are having a greater presence every year. Innovative …
Negotiated curriculum Negotiated Curriculum is the process of intentionally inviting students to be co-constructors of the curriculum and co-designers of the learning opportunities. This process, based on James Beane’s questions of self and world, yields a curriculum of greater relevance and invites students to take responsibility for the outcomes. Most importantly, this democratic process changes …
Project-based learning Project-based learning is a student-centered approach to student engagement and empowerment. Students choose a driving question they want to answer, then work collaboratively to construct a solution. Students focus for an extended period of time on their solution, then present it to real-world stakeholders. Why project-based learning? We believe project-based learning, or PBL, …
Proctor’s STEAM Family Night The sleepy little town of Proctor VT, is making some big waves when it comes to showcasing their students’ STEAM achievements. STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math) is a hot topic in school innovation right now, and rural towns like Proctor are primed and ready to show their communities just …
Let students help you transform your school Creating sustainable systemic change is hard work. Yet there are readily available, free, renewable resources right in your classroom. Students are embedded experts, creative geniuses, ruthless truthtellers, and intrinsic futurists. Here are four examples of students as partners in school change: partners in building a makerspace, redesigning PLPs, serving …
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Expanding student access to reading As a school librarian, I needed to think how I could adopt Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in my own teaching and library space, but I also needed to think about how I could support my teachers as they implemented it in their classrooms. With UDL, teachers can allow students …
Continue reading “Using audiobooks for Universal Design for Learning”
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 …
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
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”
“Every student gets greeted at the start of every day.” At Peoples Academy Middle Level, educators have taken the role of teacher advisory, or TA, to a whole new level. They conduct their advisory to build personal connections with their students. As a result, at PAML, advisory has become a very special thing. But how …
Continue reading “Build personal connections in teacher advisory”
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
What advice would your 7th grade self give you about teaching? Remember when you were first starting out as an educator? The ink on your certification barely dried, and there you were, standing in front of your first class, 30-some pairs of eyeballs staring back at you, waiting for you to lead. We hear from six …
Continue reading “What we can learn from brand new educators”
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”
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
Expand your classroom and keep kids engaged The weather is getting nicer. The sun is finally out. And you are in charge of keeping your class engaged, focused and …inside? Ha! Any teacher who has experienced spring in Vermont knows that students get a little wiggly this time of year. What’s a great way to harness that …
The middle school team at Rutland Town School in Rutland, VT have been working on a more fully integrated implementation of personal learning plans (PLPs) at their school. They’re also passionate believers in student choice and learner-centered classrooms. Given some flexibility to change the school schedule, they came up with iLearn, a model of student self-direction and …
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
Cognitive outcomes vs intersectional traumas We talk with legendary awesome stats guy Mark Olofson — now Dr. Legendary Awesome Stats Guy Mark Olofson — about his research into adverse childhood events and school performance. It’s some pretty important stuff, about how the intersecting traumas that affect students have some long-reaching consequences.
Wondering how to blend project-based learning with STEAM? Yes, STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. Earlier this year we profiled The Cabot School’s amazing public exhibition of sound sculptures highlighting water conservation. They were a big hit with the Cabot community, the students who made them and, it turns out, a fair number of …
Continue reading “The great Brian Eno-powered STEAM PBL caper”
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 …
Continue reading “The crucial role of practice in a proficiency-based environment”
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
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 …
Continue reading “iLead: a model for service learning and leadership”
Student exhibitions of project-based learning At this point we all know how important it is for students to share project-based learning with an authentic audience. It shows students they have power in the world, and that their research really makes a difference. But how best to design an exhibition that empowers students and provides a …
Continue reading “Student TED Talks, sound sculptures and a funk band”
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 …
Google Expedition aims to connect students with refugee experience Teaching empathy to our future citizens of the world may be the most important work that we can do as educators. And it’s not something we can force. It has to be an organic outgrowth of the other lessons we build. Let’s look at how we …
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, …
Continue reading “Culminating Events for Project-Based Learning”
Vermont’s new leading role online In today’s podcast, Mark Olofson talks with Joshua Rosenberg and Spencer Greenhalgh, education researchers from Michigan State University. Their research focuses on the state-level twitter conversations among educators: who is doing it, and what they’re getting out of it. And, spoiler alert, when they looked around the country, Vermont emerged …
Continue reading “Data shows #vted leads nation in educators on Twitter”
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 …
#vted = #vtexcellence A number of Vermont educators have been in the news lately, achieving and being recognized for the amazing work they do inside the classroom and out.
Start with the dramatic, unexpected & memorable Q: What do we really want from project-based learning? A: We want students to care about this subject. To really, truly care about it from their own student perspectives. To engage the active learning parts of their brains and the moral imperative for the work. Entry events are …
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 …