Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
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”
Educators? We need to talk personal boundaries for remote learning. Every day, you used to dress and pack a bag for school. You walked out the door and into a classroom, where you spent eight hours with dynamic, interesting, and beloved students, made space to listen and laugh with co-workers and administrators, and waved to …
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Just what is Personalized Learning? Personalized learning is a partnership between students and teachers in the design of learning that emerges from students’ interests, questions, needs, and preferences, towards an aim of self-directed learning (Bray & McClaskey, 2014). The best personalization is both personal and social, filled with purpose, and rooted in community. It’s a …
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”
What do the Global Goals look sound like in action? The three Essex Middle School students who delivered the keynote address at the 2nd annual Cultivating Pathways to Sustainability conference spoke from the heart. They also spoke from experience, having spent the previous year using the #GlobalGoals to address hunger in their communities.
Does your community know you as a learner? Flood Brook School buzzed with excitement. Students brought in their projects on tables or on carts, the weight sometimes shared with friends. As they set up their displays, parents, teachers, younger students and community members milled about, waiting for the opportunity to learn more about student projects …
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 …
Continue reading “Curiosity Projects: A stepping-stone to Personalized Learning”
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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Many schools and classrooms across the country identify student skills for success. Ideally, those skills cut across content areas and are grouped within grade bands. They are communicated and prioritized within the learning community. While Vermont’s AOE has identified five Transferable Skills, some learning institutions choose different ones – sometimes also known as “21st century …
Many schools and classrooms across the country identify student skills for success. Ideally, those skills cut across content areas and are grouped within grade bands. They are communicated and prioritized within the learning community. While Vermont’s AOE has identified five Transferable Skills, some learning institutions choose different ones – sometimes also known as “21st century skills”. …
Continue reading “NEW Essential Skills & Dispositions Toolkit”
Middle school is not a Zoom room. When the quick switch to a remote environment was required, Charlotte Central School decided to go with what they know. And these folks know their students. Specifically, they know “Personal Interest Projects” (PIPs, aka passion projects, aka Brainado, aka curiosity projects) work for their students. Charlotte Central students …
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, …
Hoo boy, we have a CORKER of an episode for you today, with On The Come Up, by Angie Thomas. We’re going to be talking about some of the continual and heartbreaking trauma students of color face in our schools, as well as the incredible resilience of mothers. I’m joined today by Marley Evans, a …
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 …
Students are an integral part of Learning Lab VT. They have to be. When educators sign up to host Learning Lab visits, this necessarily involves and impacts their students. We all want Vermont’s students to have and use their voices, and we hope that open classrooms give students more audience for those voices. You well …
Allan Miller Allan Miller is an innovation coach and Digital Learning Leader at Charlotte Central School, in Charlotte VT. akmiller@cvsdvt.org Inquiry question: “What systems and processes can be implemented at Charlotte to sustainably engage students and teachers in personalized learning that is aligned around our [district’s] core transferable skills? How can we encourage students to …
The Year of Yes Or, Why My Kids Have Their Phones Out… I am a stickler for a plan. Type A. Enneagram Type 3. Call it what you will. My closet is color-coded and sleeve-organized. I leave the house every morning with beds made and dishes washed. I never get behind on laundry. My son …
Genius Hour Genius Hour refers to open-ended, student-driven projects during a pre-deterrmined time. Students pick a topic and decide how they will exhibit their learning. During the research phase students often connect with mentors within the school or in the community. (Genius Hour is also called Passion Projects or 20% time.) Check out : This …
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 …
The beginning of a school year is a great time to explore and reflect on identity. For teachers who are working with students for the first time, exploring identity is a great way to get to know them and to build relationships. For teachers working with returning students, well, they may have changed a lot …
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 …
Need more student engagement and wellbeing? Join the club! Educators are always looking for ways to get students more engaged with school. In this third school year impacted by the pandemic, engagement and wellbeing are more important than ever. Ample research links extracurricular opportunities to student engagement and to social emotional learning. We also know …
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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. …
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”
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 …
“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. …
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”
This year, I am hearing that many teachers feel they aren’t practicing the kind of teaching they believe in as much as they are used to and want to. They are stretched thin with all of the protocols and decisions and shifting situations the pandemic brings. That personalized learning, and service learning, feel further away …
The fifteen year old boy slowly hobbled from the parking lot to the school’s main office, stopping to adjust his crutches. He was welcomed by the school’s Flexible Pathway Coordinator, Ian Dinzeo for their 10 o’clock appointment. They both sat down, masked, at opposite ends of a table in the school cafeteria – which offered …
My mom is into homeopathy and I am part Japanese. So for Christmas she gave me a book by Japanese scientist and holistic thinker Masaru Emoto called The Secret Life of Water. This guy has been taking photographs of ice crystals for decades. The photos reveal how different things impact the formation of these crystals …
Lovely listeners, we have such a treat for you today. Joining us on this episode of the show is Vermont State Librarian Jason Broughton. Now, when I asked him to be on the show, I also invited him to choose the book we’d be discussing, and he chose the wonderful graphic novel ‘Marbles: Mania, Depression, …
Spoiler alert: When we adjust learning conditions to be more in sync with the known laws of brain-based learning, learning improves. Momentum builds. Trust the science For 15 years I’ve been helping Vermont educators and school systems apply what we know about the brain to inform what we do in our schools. And for 15 …
Continue reading “Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to upgrade our educational OS”
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 …
What does outdoor education and place-based learning look like right now? One of the recommendations from leading health officials is to conduct classes outside. But what if you’ve never done that before? What if you could use some pointers? How are other educators tackling this topic? And why should we keep taking students outdoors, …
In this episode, we sit down with the executive director of the Vermont Humanities Council, Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup. The Vermont Humanities Council runs Vermont Reads (not to be confused with Vermont *ed* Reads), in which they choose a book for our whole state to read, ponder and talk about. This year, that book is Angie …
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 …
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 …
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!”
I’m Jeanie Phillips and welcome to #vted Reads, we are here to talk books for educators, by educators and with educators. Today I’m with Meg Falby and we’ll be talking about two books by Laurie Halse Anderson: Speak, and Speak: The Graphic Novel. We’ll also be mentioning Shout, Laurie Halse Anderson’s memoir in verse. Lovely …
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We’re not talking enough with students about climate change At least, many of us are not. At the Global Youth Climate Strike last fall, I spoke with a lot of students who are really concerned about the future. Like, really concerned. Topping their list of worries is that not only are adults not doing enough …
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Welcome back to #vted Reads! The podcast for, with and by Vermont educators. I’m Jeanie Phillips and in this episode, we’re joined by Dolan, in talking about Juliet Takes a Breath, by Gabby Rivera. Along the way, we talk white fragility, preferred pronouns (and how your students can let you know what’s safe and appropriate …
Welcome to another episode of #vted Reads! We’re so glad you could make it. In this episode, we talk with librarian Margi Putney, from the Burr & Burton Academy, down in Manchester Vermont. She and I read Dive Into Inquiry: Amplify Learning & Empower Student Voice, by Trevor MacKenzie. Don’t those two things sound amazing? …
Today on the 21st Century Classroom: Beckett: When the school systems were created was to produce factory workers, to have good workers for their assembly lines and could make cars and they all knew basic information and could all say the same facts. It was a standardized person pretty much, being produced into the workforce. …
Continue reading “What CVU students want you to know about education”
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”
How can we shape Opportunity Time to introduce the power of personalization to young adolescents?
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 …
Lucie delaBruere has spent 30 years in Vermont school teaching and learning with students from kindergarten to grad school. For 20 years her classrooms at Concord HS, Cabot School, and North Country HS and Career Center were filled with project-based learning that was hands-on minds-on and integrated within both local and global community. Her students …
This episode is all. About. QUESTIONS. Why are we here? Who was here before us? What kinds of stories do we tell about the world around us? And: how can we change from seeing the world as something to be studied, to something that can be acted upon …and changed. First-year educator Thierry Uwilingiyamana — …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Place-Based Curriculum Design”
This one goes deep, folks. On this episode educator Corey Smith joins me to talk about The Benefits of Being an Octopus, by Ann Braden. We talk glitter and posterboard, coffee and peanut-butter smoothies, and using the Equity Literacy Framework to dismantle inequality in our systems of learning with both students AND adults. What might …
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What would you do if you were given the time and space to create a school where students could tell you exactly what and how they wanted to learn? Where they arrived cheerful and excited with boundless energy for the school day… And what if I told you it was grounded in the most powerful …
Continue reading “On the cutting Edge of student-centered education”
VTDigger reports that Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French said “From our standpoint, we portray districts being on a journey. Just like everyone in the world is on a journey. And we don’t see 2020 as some sort of hard and fast date.” However, regardless of a deadline, we should remain focused on centering equity …
Continue reading “3 ways to ensure equity is at the heart of your work”
Phew! How can you sustain all of this great work? That’s a perennial question. Continuing to push forward can sometimes feel isolating, interrupted, or disjointed. Here are just a few ideas to help you feel connected, supported and inspired instead! Expand your digital learning networks Think about how social media helps us connect with others. …
Ah, that second pillar. Flexible pathways are key to engaging learning. They’re all those great ways we engage students actively and meaningfully. According to the Vermont Agency of Education: Flexible Pathways are any combination of high-quality expanded learning opportunities, including academic and experiential components, which build and assess attainment of identified proficiencies and lead to …
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 …
OK, so middle school students crave personally meaningful and engaging learning experiences. How do we create these? Ta-da, featuring a non-exclusive list of strategies and practices designed to do just that. Please add your own in the comments and let us know what we’ve missed! Project-based learning In Project-based learning, students identify a question they …
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?”
Thank you for joining us for another episode of #vted Reads. This time we will be discussing The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. We’ll look for ways to make classroom moments more powerful, explore opportunities to raise the stakes for your students, and visit the popsicle hotline. Oh, and we’ll talk …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: The Power of Moments, with Rachel Mark”
What’s the plan? Here’s a quick reminder of my focus question for this year’s Learning Lab: How can social justice be a lens for personalized, student-designed curriculum? Here’s how — at this moment anyway — I would adjust the wording of my focus question: How can students use social justice as a lens for designing …
Reading and discussing graphic novels OMG Check Please! Librarian Jeanie Phillips talks graphic novels with Peter Langella, Vermont librarian, educator and former minor league hockey player and coach. First off the bench: “Check Please!” by Ngozi Ukazu, and how a good coming out story still needs all the other bits. Come for the comics, stay …
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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 …
Flexible pathways in digital music We had a chance to hear from student digital audio producers at Randolph Union High School, in Randolph VT. They, along with innovative educator Raymond Cole, shared what makes this project-based learning class such a hit. A full transcript follows below. In this episode of The 21st Century Classroom, …
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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”
What work looks like at St. Albans City School Students at St Albans City School, in St. Albans VT, have the ability to apply for in-school intern positions such as Financial Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Director of Communication and a whole lot more. What would it look like if your students could do an internship right …