Two examples of implementing proficiency-based scales of learning
Vermont educators and their students are on a journey. Let’s look at how one school is implementing proficiency-based learning in a way that ensures all learners have the opportunity to thrive.
When we clearly articulate learning targets both for and with learners, the end is clear to all and learning can proceed along a progression with multiple opportunities for demonstrating growth and mastery.
Continue reading Proficiency-based teaching and learning in Vermont: who, why and how →
Achieving escape velocity with students as partners
Congratulations for making it through the first month of school! Whether it’s your first year as an educator or your thirty-first, the launch of the school year is a special — and especially challenging — time.
It’s worth taking a moment to reflect and imagine how to build on what you’ve started.
Continue reading Onward and upward →
How 30 minutes can leave a lasting impact on the day.
Advisory: the first 15 to 30 minutes of every middle school day, during which you’re trying to build relationships with your students and engage them in meaningful social interaction.
You also might be fighting off the administrative minutiae of the morning: Attendance. Lunch money. Permission slips. Bus notes.
Let’s look at some strategies for powering up advisory programs
Continue reading Power up your Advisory programs →
There is no tired like teachers at the beginning (or end) of the school year are tired. Establishing routines, procedures, community and trust takes time and lots (and lots!) of energy.
How can you create classroom routines and norms so the class feels safe, comfortable, happy and ready for learning? Here are eight ideas.
Continue reading 8 tips for creating classroom routines and norms →
#vted weighs in again on twitter
Is your school implementing proficiency-based learning?
It’s an idea that’s taking hold all over, so some folks from Vermont’s education community wrestled with the opportunities and challenges presented by implementing proficiency-based learning.
Continue reading How proficient are you with proficiency-based learning? →
New ways to approach teaming
Have you every showed up to in-service wondering what the new initiatives for the year will be? Or wondered how to continue to meet the demands of the district and school while balancing the the needs of 21st century young adolescents?
takes a deep breath
The answer, I suggest, is teaming, but with a new focus.
Continue reading Get #ready2launch your team this year →
A twitter showcase of amazing Vermont schools
Wish you could see more of the innovative ways Vermont students and educators are changing learning? Have difficulty finding a full year to travel around the state?
Let twitter help. With @ThisIsVTED.
Continue reading Meet @ThisIsVTED →
What Vermont students really think about personal learning plans
Put 47 middle-level students together, challenge them to think differently about ways to create effective, relevant and meaningful Personalized Learning Plans, and watch the magic happen.
This past summer, we did exactly that.
Continue reading (Re) Designing PLPs with students →
Student leadership at a school Open House? You betcha.
You’ve heard of student-led conferences, but how about a Student-Led Open House? An idea so strange it just might work.
When we partner with young adolescents, we give them voice and choice. We know that is one of the best practices of middle level education. In theory, schools and teachers engage in this throughout the school experience. But let’s face it, sometimes giving up control can feel a little intimidating. Let’s look at 3 easy ways to move towards a student-led open house
Continue reading 3 ways to create a student-led open house →
1% teacher inspiration & 99% student-led
Genius Hour is a leap of faith in which educators set aside their most precious resource, time, for students to pursue their passions. It doesn’t get much more student-centered than that.
But there are actually several aspects of Genius Hour where students can be involved as partners to amp up the genius quotient.
Continue reading 4 ways to partner with students around Genius Hour →
Whose makerspace is it, anyway?
A makerspace can take many forms, but fundamentally it should be a locus of student engagement and creativity.
So engage them from the start by turning over as much of the design and operation of your makerspace as possible. Continue reading 5 ways to partner with students in a makerspace →
Create open, flexible, engaging spaces for active student learning.
The beginning of the school year! Desks, mailboxes, coat hooks labeled. Books organized, materials in bins. This task is often overlooked and underestimated in terms of time. How can you create a welcoming, flexible and inspired space? Here are some tips and ideas.
Just get some help dragging those desks around, okay?
Continue reading Designing learning spaces for students →
Introduce a student-centered tech-rich year
Looking for ways to explore digital identity with students? Here are 4 student-centered, tech-rich digital identity exercises for working with students. As a bonus, all the exercises produce media that students can add to their digital portfolios. Let’s watch!
Continue reading 4 digital identity exercises for students →
Build a community to support project-based learning
I bet you have big dreams of creative, innovative projects and engaged students in your classroom. Students who are busy researching, collaborating, creating, and solving authentic problems they are interested in.
But this doesn’t happen without a strong community of learners.
Continue reading Creating a PBL culture from Day One →
Student Leadership: The time is now
August is usually a time crammed with planning logistics for the start of the school year. It’s a time when educators’ coffee intake increases exponentially and that ever-popular 4AM anxiety dream makes you jump out of bed in a sweat. Yet somehow it all falls into place and school opens, students show up, and off we go.
Now, my question to you is how many schools embrace the student’s voice in planning for this opening?
Continue reading Finding ways to encourage student leadership →
Starting up with our students
Another exciting year is upon us. It may be difficult to wrest our attention from these glorious days of Vermont summer but never have the opportunities for good teaching been more open to us. As one teacher noted upon leaving this summer’s Middle Grades Institute, “I can bring about positive change in my classroom and school. I just have to follow my heart and do what I know is best for kids: personalized, flexible and proficiency based learning!”
In the next several weeks, we’ll dive into making the most of the first weeks of school so you can follow your heart and do what’s best for kids.
Continue reading Climate, Community and Voice from Day 1 →
A blog exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
