Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
In a personalized learning environment, students and teachers take on new roles. Teachers are still essential, but in different ways. They’re empowerers, scouts, scaffolders, assessors, and community builders. Teachers are: empowerers. scouts. assessors. scaffolders. community builders. This is personal, close-in work. And often it better meets students’ needs, improves relationships, and deepens learning. By adopting …
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 is meaningful instruction? Meaningful instruction is the heart of the proficiency based education model. Educators know that good teaching is personal, relevant, engaging, responsive, dynamic, and rooted in strong student relationships. Meaningful instruction includes plans for how instructors will provide multiple ways for students to learn, engage, and practice what they need to know, …
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 …
What is summative assessment? Summative Assessment is the opportunity for students to show what they know and demonstrate what they can do with that knowledge independently and in novel contexts. It’s a moment for celebrating all of the learning your students have done and can do! Their work provides evidence that they are proficient: that …
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 …
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 …
Sometimes pursuing systemic equity in education can feel a little like the carrot vs. the stick. Since No Child Left Behind, federal education policy has talked about equity while applying punitive measures to schools based on students’ aggregate performance. We have been largely mired in deficit-based policy that is ineffective for spurring transformation and generally …
The Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education’s recent book, Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades, published by Harvard Education Press, places Vermont in the national conversation about deeper learning, personalized learning policy, and postsecondary access and success. The book is a synthesis of the institute’s research into school change and education for young adolescents. In addition, …
Continue reading “Tarrant Institute writes the book on Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades”
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 …
with 6th grader Abby Bunting As we close out the first season of #vted Reads, we celebrate another first: our first student guest on the podcast. In this episode, I’m joined by South Burlington sixth-grader Abby Bunting, as we discuss the book Watch Us Rise, by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan. We’ll meet the book’s …
So, maybe you’ve been using protocols at faculty meetings or professional learning community sessions. Perhaps you’ve found that they make space for all voices in conversations about proficiency-based education. Or you like how they foster collaboration as you work together to structure personalized learning plans. Know what else they can do? Support us as we …
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?”
There’s more math, biology, and chemistry than you’d think. It’s a wintry morning in one of the coldest Februarys in recent memory, with the temperature hovering around five degrees Fahrenheit. A cobalt-blue hatchback slowly navigates icy slush on a dirt road, heading toward two silver grain silos. The rutted road winds between deep snow berms, …
Continue reading “Connecting Vermont students with dairy farms”
Reader, today we’re going to talk toilets. Now, not in a weird way or a gross way, but because they’re a central theme in Susin Neilson’s No Fixed Address. They’re big white porcelain symbols of the main character’s resourcefulness as he navigates housing insecurity, and they’re really important to think about in terms of access …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: No Fixed Address with Annie Brabazon”
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 …
These 4th graders say yes. With a little help from the UN’s Global Goals. Students at Ottauquechee Elementary School took Minecraft, the popular video game platform, and turned it to something serious: saving the world. They paired Minecraft with the UN’s 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development, and started creating towns that are innovative, sustainable, …
Bright Spots: They say imitation is the highest form of flattery… I guess I’m flattered. It never ceases to amaze me how humorous middle school students are by accident, and not when they try to be. I try to tell them I’m the only funny one around. To which they reply: “Funny… looking!” It’s safe …
The Case of The Library Diversity Audit Whose stories are being told in your library? Whose stories are being left out? Look around your library. It is such a beautiful space. It’s filled with vibrant colors and flexible furniture, student art and encouraging signs and posters. Maybe it has a makerspace. And it’s stocked full …
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”
Think Global Goals, make local change The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are ambitious goals that countries, organizations, and institutions are committed to. They provide a framework that inspires students to connect local issues with global movements, to care deeply, and to make their own a plans for positive change. They include things such …
Continue reading “How to make real, sustainable change in the Northeast Kingdom”
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 …
Foundations & Connections What is Proficiency-Based Learning? Vermont Agency of Education A New Era for Educational Assessment, David T. Conley, Jobs for the Future, 2014 How Selective Colleges and Universities Evaluate Proficiency-Based High School Transcripts: Insights for Students and Schools, Erika Blauth and Sarah Hadjian, New England Board of Higher Education, 2016 What is the …
Continue reading “Chapter 7: PLPs and Proficiency-Based Assessment”
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”
Foundations & Connections Equal Opportunity for Deeper Learning, Pedro Noguera, Linda Darling-Hammond and Diane Friedlaender, Jobs for the Future, 2015 Student-Centered Schools: Closing the Opportunity Gap, Diane Friedlaender et al., Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, 2014 What is Blended Learning? Clayton Christensen Institute Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, Center for Applied Special Technology …
Continue reading “Chapter 6: Scaffolding for Equitable, Deeper Learning”
Foundations & Connections Types of Student Involvement, Schlechty Center on Engagement, What Are Flexible Pathways? Vermont Agency of Education, April 19, 2017 Examples & Tools PBL Planning Template, Katy Farber, Rachel Mark and Jeanie Phillips, Tarrant Institute Service Learning Planning Template, Katy Farber, Tarrant Institute How to Plan a Service Learning Project in 5 Stages, …
Continue reading “Chapter 5: Designing Flexible Learning Pathways”
Foundations & Connections Learner Profiles, The Institute for Personalized Learning Vermont Personalized Learning Plan: Conceptual Framework Narrative for Students, Vermont Agency of Education Examples & Tools Identity Project: Who am I now? Lindsey Halman, Essex Middle School Personal Learning Plan Community Page, Team Summit, Montpelier Main Street Middle School, Vermont How Can Students Teach Educators …
Continue reading “Chapter 4: Launching PLPs with the Learner Profile”
Foundations & Connections The Learning Edge: Supporting Student Success in a Competency-Based Learning Environment, Laura Shubilla and Chris Sturgis, iNACOL, 2012 What is SEL? The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Gold Standard Project Based Learning, Buck Institute for Education Transferable Skills: Sample Graduation Proficiencies and Performance Indicators, Vermont Agency of Education Examples and …
Continue reading “Chapter 3: Laying the Groundwork for Personalized Learning”
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 …
What does Jane Austen have to do with a Drake mixtape? For this episode, I was joined by Vermont rockstar librarian Meg Alison, in discussing Ibi Zoboi’s Pride, a Pride and Prejudice Remix. We talk about gentrification, agency, and the amazing power of spoken word poetry, we give a shout out to DisruptTexts and ask …
When I travel to schools around Vermont, I hear many versions of the same concerns: Going anywhere from our school costs hundreds of dollars. We want to take students into the community, but we burn through our budget by October. Transportation funds are running low (or are gone). We know it is so important to …
Continue reading “Vermont schools have a transportation equity problem.”
Battle Physics hosts first multi-school tournament That is just what Allan Garvin and Becky Bushey did to raise the stakes of their annual Battle Physics competition. After four years of engaging students in the designing, building, calibrating, and competing of projectile launchers, they invited other schools to join the learning and the fun. Wait… what …
Continue reading “Nevermind the physics: it’s all about collaboration”
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Heidi Ringer Heidi Ringer teaches 6th grade English at Warren Elementary School, in Warren VT. hringer@wwsu.org Inquiry question: “How can adding personalization to project-based learning foster strong student engagement?”
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 …
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)
Kyle Chadburn & Andrea Gratton 6th- 8th Humanities teaching team at Orleans Elementary School, in Orleans VT. kchadburn@ocsu.org & agratton@ocsu.org | Visit their classroom Inquiry question: “How can we increase student voice and extend opportunities for personalization through project-based learning?”
Jon Brown 7th & 8th grade math teacher at Lamoille Union Middle School, Hyde Park VT. jbrown@luhs18.org Inquiry question: “Can project-based math yield the results we we want to see on testing? (The project is fun, but does the math get lost?)”
Welcome back to #vted Reads! In this episode, we’re talking about the comic memoir Hey, Kiddo. As we discuss Jarrett Krosoczka’s real-life story, we find empathy for young people living with the impacts of addiction and mental illness. And we explore other themes: how to really see kids, the importance of representation in books, and …
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 …
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 …
In this episode of #vted Reads, we talk about the 57 Bus by Dashka Slater. Based on a real-life incident, this book chronicles the experiences of two young people before and after an act of violence. We explore both perspectives of a specific crime: the victims and the perpetrators. Along the way, we learn more …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: The 57 Bus with Caitlin Classen”
Reviving Manchester’s past through oral histories & 3D printing With support from the local historical society, 7th graders in Manchester VT set about documenting the history of individual buildings during the town’s 1910 heyday. They went on walking tours, interviewed longtime residents, dug through old historical documents and photos, produced a documentary for each building …
Continue reading “Who are the keepers of your town’s history?”
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 …
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 …
Burke students share their learning with district leaders How many school board meetings have you sat through where the only voices you heard came from adults? When was the last time your community — in school or out — asked students what they liked about school? And what would you do with that information if …
Continue reading “How does your district hear from — and listen to — students?”
Releasing responsibility in Ottauquechee Ottauquechee Elementary School teacher Kim Dumont had a vision. She wanted to build her students’s self-direction and self-efficacy. She wanted students to feel like leaders of their classroom and their own learning. Over the summer, with the help of a week at Vermont’s Middle Grades Conference, Dumont put together a plan …
First, what is #vted Reads? Big news, listeners! #vted Reads has spun off from The 21st Century Classroom and is now available as a podcast in its own right! To recap: in each episode, I sit down with a Vermont educator or author and we discuss one book we think is relevant to Vermont learners. …
Continue reading “#vted Reads: Orbiting Jupiter, with Stacy Raphael”
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 …
The art of listening We are big believers in including student voice in our storytelling. Usually we ask students to talk about a specific project or experience that we are featuring. But what if we left it open ended? We wanted to find out what students would talk about in a free-flowing conversation about what …
Continue reading “What students want you to know about school”
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”
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 …
One of the best things about winter break is the chance to slow down and, for readers, the chance to take a break from the madcap holiday festivities and curl up in the corner with a good book. Here’s what the TIIE staff are reading this 2018 holiday season. Audrey While I usually go for …
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 …
Continue reading “Check, Please! #Hockey with Peter Langella”
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”