Voices Heard: learning from our students

In the past few months, we’ve been meeting with groups of students from six Vermont schools, asking them about their experience this year. What might next year look like if they had a say? Inspired by the Imagining September Project –the MIT Teaching Systems Lab & Harvard’s Graduate School of Education that gathers student input to imagine what school might be like in September–we set out to conduct our own mini September Project.

We have access to students who are accustomed to talking with their teachers and each other about what’s working and what needs work in their particular setting. As co-facilitators of the Learning Lab–a network of educators conducting classroom research in partnership with their students and each other–we connect educators and students in a community committed to frank conversations that honor, and help improve, teaching and learning now and throughout the school year.

Most recently, we’ve met with students in three contexts:

Learning Lab Student Summits (Putting the Pieces Back Together…Better: Student Summit Agenda), which conducted three rounds of conversations, each answering one of our three questions:
- Has the pandemic caused you to realize that there are parts of school that you were taking for granted that you now have a new appreciation for? What are the parts of school you’ve grown to appreciate?
- Are there silver linings to the pandemic, new ways of living and learning in the world that you would like to see continue and evolve next year? What might those parts be?
- Looking back over this last year, what are you most proud of?

Single teachers who were curious to learn:
- What’s working for you as a learner? What can I do to improve your experience?

Middle School Team & Principal who wanted to know:
- What are some of the things that you do in school that you enjoy or that are helpful for you when you’re learning?

With Them

Something unexpected happened with each group we listened to. Toward the end of each conversation, we asked if there was anything else they wanted to share. To our delight, individuals in each group conveyed a deep gratitude for us asking these questions and listening intently to their answers. We’re not talking about a casual end-of-conversation “thanks”, but an effusive outpouring of appreciation. Most importantly, when they learned that we planned on sharing these findings with a wider audience of educators, they were blown away.

We shouldn’t have been so surprised. Throughout the year-long Learning Lab experience, students provide formative feedback to their teachers to help them improve. Some students even join a Site-Based Sounding Board team, who occasionally meet with their teacher to make sense of recent data. We’ve witnessed first-hand the enthusiasm of listened-to learners.

Their enthusiasm, in part, stems from the novelty of the experience. Most students, be they adults or youngsters, are not part of an ongoing conversation with their teacher and their classmates about how things are going and what might make them better. They might be asked to complete an end-of-course evaluation, after the ship has sailed and ended its journey. As John Hattie puts it, “Assessment is something we have done to students rather than with them.”

Their Ideas

Thayer, a student at Orleans Elementary School, puts it a little differently. As educators consider how to move forward next year, he advises that they aim for balance. “Balance is key, a mix of what students want to do and teachers need to do in a great structure fixes problems.”

Our most recent round of conversations with students kept returning to this idea, that there needs to be more give and take for learners to experience the kind of agency that keeps humans engaged. And this affirms one of the most important findings we’ve taken from five years of Learning Lab. Doing assessment to learners, rather than with them, poisons even the most well-designed learning well. But making the shift from doing assessment “to them” to doing assessment “with them” makes a profound, positive impact on learning. Making assessment an ongoing conversation, it turns out, improves the quality of the learning well.

Here are three patterns identified across all of our recent conversations with students:

New appreciations for this thing we call school

One student shared he took for granted “having the ability to go to different places for different classes.” Another surprised himself with an awareness of how much he appreciated being in school 5 days a week. One student shared her appreciation for her teachers’ ability to create engaged and authentic learning experiences despite the constraints. “Our teachers do 3 different things in humanities that teach us real world problems and work toward changing our school’s environment.” While another saw teachers’ supports in a new light. “I appreciate the mini-lesson and the teacher support we have in person.” And some mentioned the collective efforts to keep each other healthy and safe. “People are more considerate and aware about how what they were doing could affect other people.” “Better hygiene!”

Pride in their growth in terms of time management and self direction skills

“I feel like I’ve gotten to figure out what learning environments work best for me, and I’ve gotten better at time management” For some following this thread they pointed to teachers’ efforts to publish work in advance. That made it “easier to catch up on missing school work because everything is available online.” While many of us are zoomed out, some students found technology to be useful. “I like using more technology to do more things. It feels more efficient. Sharing our work visually on the computer has been cool.”

Breaks, breaks, and more breaks

One group all agreed that Brain Breaks were a key to their ability to engage and stay focused. “Brain breaks are very helpful when you want to chill. Or to have some time to breathe without a mask.” “We need more breaks. School limits them now to snack, lunch, and a brain break at end of day.”

How to strike the right balance between on-task time and breaks? One student offered his perception that “school can only do so much in the way you want it to go. It’s a place for learning even though we want breaks some time.” But teachers might consider “a break day every third Friday: with no work. I’m not sure if we are allowed to have no work.” Imagine the informal learning that takes place during these breaks! Time for consolidating learning and engaging in relationship building. We think they’re onto something here.

Courageous Conversations

It can be scary to invite students into an ongoing conversation about how their learning is going and what adjustments we and they can make to make things better. It takes courage to listen and really hear feedback that challenges us to change.

But when we walk this walk with our learners, the journey improves. We are relieved of the crushing load of doing all of the planning, teaching, assessing, and reporting. And students are more engaged and doing more, achieving the kind of balance that Thayer and so many of his peers described.

Learn more about how to make assessment an ongoing conversation. Check out the resources we’ve included below. And if you’re interested in joining a network of educators committed to this approach to teaching and learning, learn more here.

Bill Rich & Susan Hennessey

Some Resources

Results of a state-wide effort to gather student voice from Up for Learning’s Youth Advisory Council

Some student responses from the Imagining September Project

Why Should We (& How Can We) Involve Students in the Assessment Process?

This seven minute mini-lesson/screencast describes the assessment rut we can easily fall into. It offers a few ideas and resources for heading for higher ground.

Assidere/Adsidere

Share with your students the latin derivation for assessment (to sit beside / to sit with in counsel or office). Propose to your learners a plan for moving away from grading / scoring everything. Rather, aim towards an ongoing conversation about what’s working and what needs work–in their work and ours.

Students Own Their Progress – watch 6th grade students track their strengths and challenges as they analyze their own data.

3 ways to capture student reflection/feedback in google slides

When Students Track Their Progress

Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Your Students

A fantastic resource brought to you by the remarkable Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzales’ website. She curates resources that support “crazy good teaching.’

Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to upgrade our educational OS

Giving Students a Say: Smarter Assessment Practices to Empower and Engage

Myron Dueck’s wonderful book about how to partner with students throughout the assessment process.

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

Daniel Pink’s compelling exploration of what motivates humans. The counterintuitive findings explain why a compensation approach to assessment leads to low-level compliance rather than deep engagement.

May 27, 2021May 27, 2021

UP for (Changes to) Learning

When schools closed to in-person learning in March of 2020, UP for Learning’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC) continued to meet regularly. We wanted to check-in and dialogue about their experiences and the experiences of their peers. Through these conversations, it became clear that it was important to understand how youth across Vermont were experiencing their new reality of the pandemic.

The YAC put out a survey in Spring of 2020. In it, we asked Vermont middle and high school youth what support they needed during full remote learning.

What was the purpose of the survey?

Why did we want to gather this data?

What rose to the top were:

social connections
academic support and
access to resources and information.

We then connected with youth across the state to support their needs throughout the remainder of the academic year.

The YAC also wanted to revisit Vermont’s youth needs as we moved from full remote to hybrid to full in-person learning and sent a new survey out in winter of 2021. The main purpose of this survey was to gather data about what was learned during the 2020-2021 academic year and what opportunities arose for change.

Youth responded from 14 different communities across Vermont, as well as youth who were engaged in the Virtual Learning Academy.

Findings from the Survey

UP for Learning Youth Advisory Council survey 2021

Link to the full .pdf in Google Drive

What are our initial reactions to the data?

Evelyn: My initial reaction was that it was interesting to see how my reality and understanding and adaptation to learning during the pandemic mirrored the experience of many other youth across the state. More specifically, I have been struggling with my sense of engagement and mental health; hearing that other youth are identifying these as opportunities as well makes me believe that we can begin to create real, systemic change as we re-enter full in-person learning.

Lindsey: My initial reaction to the data was that what was already known about what does not work for ALL youth in the educational system became even more abundantly clear. It really just put an exclamation point on it. Youth want an education that is built on deep relationships, engaging learning opportunities and time to care for all of their developmental needs: social/emotional, physical and cognitive.

What stood out as a major takeaway?

For both of us, what stood out was the lack of knowledge about, or experience with, social emotional learning. In our minds, this was the opportune time to create opportunities for more in depth community-building, prioritizing young people’s social emotional needs during such an uncertain year.

The potential for changing school schedules in particular, struck YAC student member Galen. He put it this way:

“I love how tactile that feels? It feels like something we can do, like, right now. Get it done, and make change. I think sometimes we almost get lost in like, the systems thinking. I think people often talk about making change but it’s hard to find concrete ways to do it sometimes? And I love that we’ve kind of put a name to that. Like, here’s something we can do to make change… right now.”

Harnessing the power of community

The YAC also gathered with community members to look at this data. And from there, we worked together in small, deeply connecting groups to draw conclusions from it as to how best to move forward.

UP for Learning: Where do we go from here?

How do we make sure we take these lessons and move them forward instead of going back to the status-quo?

This is a quote that resonates with us from adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Shaping Worlds. She writes that “How we live and grow and stay purposeful in the face of constant change actually does determine both the quality of our lives, and the impact that we can have when we move into action together.”

Purpose. Trust. Relationships. What if we designed our work around our values? What would we need to change individually and collectively?

Where do we go from here?

To end our community session, we created a Jamboard, and asked attendees to fill it out. To guide them, we asked simply, “How do we make sure we take these lessons and move them forward instead of going back to the status quo?”

These are their responses.

“We have to listen.”
“Later start to the day.”
“Continue to provide the community connections and build on them.”
“Listen to students! Make change with them, not to them.”
“Were students able to do more self-designed learning? If yes, can this continue?”
“Feels like VT AOE and legislators need to continue to hear from VT youth!”

And we ask you the same question.

Educators, students, and community members,

“How do we make sure we take these lessons and move them forward instead of going back to the status quo?”

We would love to hear from you.

October 21, 2019February 25, 2020

What Orleans students want you to know about student voice

On this episode of The 21st Century Classroom:

It makes me happy to come to school every day, because I show up and I’m like, I know I’m able to do this because I changed the way it was. Like I’m happy that I feel like I’m being heard, like appreciated.

Today we’re going to listen in on a conversation between three students from Orleans Elementary School in Barton, Vermont.

I had the honor of interviewing these students in a very open-ended format that starts with the question “What do you find meaningful about school?” and lets it flow from there. These students talk about about the importance of community, the empowerment of student voice and choice, and offer some brilliant insights about how and why schools can adapt to serve the needs of so-called “troublemaker” students.

Before we start, a little bit about Orleans Elementary School.

It’s home to 125 students from kindergarten to eighth grade, with grades 5-8 considered the middle school. It’s nestled in the part of Vermont referred to as the Northeast Kingdom, within a few miles of the clear cold deep waters of Lake Willoughby. The middle school sits on the second floor of the two story building, with math taught by Shannon Laliberty, science taught by Sarah Hisman, and humanities taught by a two-person team of Andrea Gratton and Kyle Chadburn. These teachers have worked hard to move toward personalized learning practices such as project based learning and increasing student voice and choice.

Personalized learning does not mean individualized learning, though. While you are listening to the conversation, consider this question: How do students see relationships and community as keys for supporting personalized learning?

Annabelle, an 8th grader at Orleans Elementary School.

Annabelle: I guess I can go first. The most meaningful thing to me about school is probably like, community? Because I feel like I learn better knowing that there’s people there for me? And like, who will help me if I need some help or I don’t understand something. It’s nice. Like, academics are what you’re there for, but it’s nice to have a support system and people that you know you can go to if you have trouble with something.

Braden: One of the things that I find really important is being able to work at your own level. Because you don’t want to be stuck back with things that you know how to do? But you also don’t want to be way ahead of what you know how to do.

Bianca: I think that what’s most important is like… what Annabel said? It’s that you know that there’s people that can help you when you need help or something? When you need to talk to someone or something. I feel like that’s a nice part of it, yeah.

Life: I’m hearing two different things. Help me understand it. Are they in opposition or is there a way they go together? Because Annabelle, you said ‘community’ and ‘working with other people’ — and Bianca, you said that too — but Braden, you said being able to go ahead or behind sounds like individualistic to me. Do these things not go together or what?

Braden: They can go together. If you’re working at your own level, you may still need a little bit of help understanding something, and if you don’t want help, then you don’t need help, you can just go by yourself.

Annabelle: Yeah. I feel like it’s nice not always having someone like, *there* with you so you can be by yourself and it’s nice that you can go at your own pace. But it’s also nice to know that there’s always going to be someone there if you need to step back and get some help. Or you don’t know exactly what to do. You are an individual but there’s always someone that you know is going to be there for you if you really need it.

Bianca: I like that we can like… we can be independent and we can do stuff by ourselves? But like, there is someone that you can meet to get help from.

Life: Does ‘community’ mean something other than just getting help from somebody with your learning? Are there other ways that you see community in schools being important?

Braden: You can get support from your community, but community will also not only help you, but it’s possible that they’ll try to stop you from doing something that you want to do. Community can be good, but it can also be bad if the community you are around isn’t good.

Life: Yeah I’m gonna need an example.

Braden: I’m talking about a classroom community. You’re in a class, right? And there’s always going to be those couple of troublemakers in your class. And some people will choose to listen to them and it’ll hold them back. Because they are around a good community, they’ll hang around these people that misbehave, then they’ll start misbehaving, then that group sort of grows. And as it grows, there’s less people that will actually behave and listen.

Annabelle: I feel like it’s… another thing that’s for community in school is not just like teachers and students, it’s like students and students. I know that I don’t always need to ask a teacher a question because I know that there’s going to be like, “Oh, I know this kid’s really good at science.” So, since the teacher is busy, I’m going to ask [that student] my science question because I know he’ll help me.

And then also, I feel like teachers are part of your community because when I come into class, they ask me questions like, “Oh, how was your basketball game?” or “I heard that your brother had a concert the other day, how was that? How’s your weekend go?” And it really makes you feel like, welcomed and that they actually care about you. So that’s nice to know that they care about you. That’s community for me.

Life: Is that important for your learning? Or just for like… just feeling good about stuff? ‘Cause I was a math teacher and I definitely knew other math teachers who just say, ‘You know, math is math, and we got to know the math. We’re going to focus on the math, and I don’t necessarily have time for a lot of soft stuff and that kind of thing.’ So, are you saying that when your teachers know you and care about you, that helps you learn?

Annabelle: Yeah. I feel like because I feel comfortable around them because they know about me and they are curious to know about me, that I feel comfortable asking them questions or telling them stuff that might be preventing me from learning? Like if I go through something that’s like really frustrating or rough, I feel like I can tell them. Because it might be stopping me from learning. Like, if my pet died and I was really upset about it, and I couldn’t focus because I was just thinking about it. I feel like I could tell them about it and they’ll be able to help me and be like, “Oh, it’s okay, we’ll just figure this out and then I’ll help you focus back on your learning.”

Braden: No matter who you are or when you walk through the door, they’ll ask you a question like, what Annabel was saying like, “How was the basketball game?” and stuff like that. I’ve seen them do it to every student.

Bianca, a 5th grader at Orleans Elementary School.

Bianca: Like, in the morning, not when we’re in class, but when we’re outside about to go in? Someone will always be like, “Hey, how was your weekend?” Or “Good morning.” It’s always just good to feel that way, get a good start of your day.

Life: That’s cool. Are there other things that happen to help community happen other than just teachers going out of their way to check? Are there certain things within school that you feel bring you together as a community?

Annabelle: We do have Town Meeting. Which is basically when we all come together, all the middle school, and the middle school teachers. And we talk about what’s going to happen for the afternoon — because we have afternoon activities about team-building and stuff like that. And we give the teachers suggestions on what we think should change, and–

Braden: –there’s recognitions.

Annabelle: Yeah, recognitions. We talk about recognitions where they… students and teachers can recognize you for something. So, a week or two ago, there was a kid who recognized someone else just for like holding the door open and just always being kind to them. And so they recognized that. After that, the kid steps forward and everyone claps for him and stuff like that. It’s really nice to feel like everyone can see the good things that you’re doing? And it feels nice to be noticed by everyone.

Braden: Well, also in Town Meeting, we have privilege of the floor. Basically, you go up share whatever you want. And it could be something like: can we try this out? It’s nice to have your own voice in the community as well. Because those ideas will be brought up to Miss Hastings. Then, a couple of students will go talk to her about it, and then we’ll see if it works. We’ll do our trial period, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Annabelle: Like, we used to have a no-gum rule? And a lot of students talked about it, and shared how we wanted to have gum in school again. Because we thought that we were responsible enough to take care of it, and throw it away and be appropriate. So, we talked to the teachers about it, and then they said, ‘Well, get some information together, and then talk to the principal’. And so we talked to the principal, and we shared our feelings and why we thought it would be different this time? And we ended up getting a trial period, and after the trial period, we still are allowed to chew gum in the middle school now.

Life: Whoa. Seriously? That happened this year?

Annabelle: Yeah. That happened this year.

Life: Nice. So, do you think that student voice is big here? And why is that important?

Annabelle: Student voice is definitely big here because we have changed a lot of things, because not only with Town Meeting, like our classroom, some of our classrooms upstairs, we have couches and beanbag chairs and stuff like that because the students *voiced* that comfortable seating would help us learn. So we helped design and changed all that.

It makes me happy to come to school every day, because I show up and I’m like, I know I’m able to do this because I changed the way it was. Like I’m happy that I feel like I’m being heard, like appreciated. I feel like, I come in everyday — like I’m proud the rooms changed I’m like, now everybody gets to have a good time, and sit on the beanbag chair and read because my class decided that we wanted to change this thing. It makes a better experience because of something that I said and the teachers listened.

Our last project was about community and we designed our own spaces of how we wanted the room to be and then we picked out the materials we wanted to have. We saw what we could reuse and change? And we created a new learning space for everyone and we researched for a while for it to figure out what would work best for our class, for the rest of the class, for the rest of middle school. And like what would work best to help people learn as well, so we made sure that there were tables, so people could work and sit and there were comfortable sitting spaces where people could read or talk, discuss, kind of thing.

Braden, a 6th grader at Orleans Elementary School.

Braden: You… come to school knowing that you help changed, improved something. But what else is important about student voice is, things aren’t just going to stay the same forever. Things are going to keep changing and improving. And if things just stayed the same forever? Most people say they don’t like school because it’s boring, because they do a bunch of learning and don’t get to have fun. You really come to school to get educated. But here, you get a lot of student voice. So you shouldn’t come to school thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to have to sit down and listen to the teachers all day.’ I get to talk to the teachers and see what I want to change, and bring it up, and if it gets changed then, yay. but if it doesn’t, I’m still fine because I know that other people can still change things in our school.

But what happens when the needs of an individual are not being met?

What happens when the official process isn’t working?

In our democracy we are supposed to leave room for public dissent and protest. What John Lewis famously calls “good trouble.”

Life: I’m just wondering how this fits in with the troublemakers that you mentioned earlier.

Braden: The troublemakers, people are friends with them who still behave. But over time, they start actually doing what the troublemakers say, and then they are one of the troublemakers. Student voice. And the troublemakers. If one of the troublemakers tries to change something but nobody else agrees, he’ll keep trying. And he’ll keep annoying people. And they’ll keep bugging people until it gets changed. That could definitely get annoying.

Annabelle: I feel like also because we have student voice, some of that like people getting in trouble happens less often than it used to? Because I’m an older kid and I remember when we didn’t have as much choice. And there was kids that used to get in trouble every single day. Because they are a certain type of learner, like they’re a hands-on learner. And they just get talked at every single day. And so couldn’t learn and so they’d get in trouble a lot.

Now that, like, some of the kids that are troublemakers or that don’t learn the same way as others can voice their opinion? And really change how they learn so they don’t get in trouble as much because they kind of are able to understand better? Because of the way it changed. They would have been happy if that one thing was changed. And they probably wouldn’t have gotten into as much trouble.

Life: That’s so interesting. Because it seems like you two have like slightly different views on it, right? I’m wondering, Bianca, what do you think about this idea of troublemakers?

Bianca: I think that the student voice has made the troublemakers, probably who learn different, not get in so much trouble because they get to change things. They actually get to voice what they want to change. Like what Annabelle was saying, I think that they’ve gotten a lot less trouble than they would because they get to change what they want.

Life: Is this convincing you at all, Braden?

Braden: A little bit, but I still think that sometimes they just do it for the attention. So student voice may have no impact on some of the troublemakers at all because they just want attention. But yeah what they said has changed my opinion on it.

Life: Nice job. That means a lot. Not many people can actually be open and listen, and change when they got something.

Amazing, right?

Engaging in dialogue and allowing your opinion on something to change because of it?

More great modeling of what we hope for in a democracy.

This last exchange also connected with the research of Carla Shalaby. She presents it in compelling terms in her book Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School.

Her thesis, drawn from intensive observations and extensive interviews with elementary students, is that we have a lot to learn from students who don’t fit well with school. That they offer insights into how we could transform schools into more humane and democratic environments. It is a powerful and influential study that is well worth reading for educators of all grade levels and roles. At the end of her book, Shalaby adds a letter to teachers. It’s titled “On teaching love and learning freedom.” In it, she says:

“These are times to remember our power as teachers. In no other profession do people have the opportunity to literally create a parallel world – a world that is safer, fairer, freer. The four walls of your classroom can be the world we want, hope for, dream of, rather than the world we have now. It can allow children to practice the skills they need to create and to sustain a place where people are neither shunned nor labeled; a shared, public space in which every community member is treated as a free person, an invaluable person, a gifted and good and loved person.”

Annabelle: I feel like it’s kind of… it’s their job to teach us, but also, it’s our job to learn kind of. Snd if you don’t really listen to us, we’re not going to want to learn from you. Snd we’re honestly probably not going to like you. If you give us the opportunity to try feedback, we’re more likely to listen to you and… we’re more likely to respect you a lot. I respect my teachers a *ton*. Because they listen to me and they make me feel like I’m important and I’m a good human being. So I feel like I respect them a lot and they’ve really like changed my life. Because they let me… say what I think.

Braden: It’s kind of like you respect my opinion and I’ll respect you, in general, because if our opinions don’t get heard like Annabel said, we’re probably not going to like you. If everything is decided by students though, then school wouldn’t be school. It’d just be: you sit and play on phone all day.

Bianca: I think that teachers should think about it like this way: so, if you have a student voice in your school, then it’ll most likely make it easier for you when you grow up because you feel like you can put your ideas out there.

Annabelle: Also, like think of being in our spot, like how great it would feel for you if you were our age and you were able to like change something about your schooling, like if you had one thing that you want to change, and you are able to change that, that would feel really cool and really good, and they might like affect your whole experience.

Just thank you, literally. Because, before, it was really difficult to learn, so thank you for trying. Like, even if you’re going to get there and even if you’re like you’re trying to figure it out right now? Like thank you for trying and thinking of us. Because it’s really helpful, and yeah.

Narrator: The 21st Century Classroom is the podcast of the The Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education at the University of Vermont. This episode about student voice was produced by me, Life LeGeros. Huge thank you to Annabel, Bianca, Braden, and their teachers at Orleans Elementary School. Our theme music is “Sunset” by Meizong and Yeeflex, the Argofox release. The series producer is Audrey Homan. Thank you for listening everybody, and don’t forget to make some good trouble out there.

May 27, 2019June 4, 2019

How to do a library diversity audit

7 tips for educators

Create a place where all students lives are seen and valued.

Ottauquechee students with new books purchased based on their research. High interest!

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 to stories from different perspectives. Rudine Sims Bishop describes the role of diverse literature this way:

Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.

One way to do that is to have learners lead the inquiry charge by analyzing what books are in the collection, and whose stories might be missing. And then? They can do something about it.

One way to learn about library audits is by seeing one in action. Change-agent and book hero Becky Whitney shared how she launched a full-fledged library exploration with her students, the Diversity Detectives. Now read on to learn how YOU can do a library diversity audit. This is meaningful and critical work with students.

1. Remember the WHY

One look at this data and it is easy to remember WHY this work is so critical.

Becky reflects on the deep purpose of why it is important to expose students to a variety of texts from historically underrepresented and marginalized authors and topics.

There’s so many people in Vermont, in Hartford, who grew up in Hartford, and go to Hartford schools, and they still live in Hartford, and now they teach in Hartford, and that isn’t — it’s not enough exposure to the wider world. If they don’t have those life experiences, then where else can they get that information? So students and teachers have to get it through books.

In fact, as author, educator, and producer Tananarive Due says,

‘Diversity’ should just be called ‘reality.’ Your books, your tv shows, your movies, your articles, your curricula need to reflect reality.

Diverse collections provide us with the opportunity to see ourselves in the books, and also to see others. Study after study shows that reading (especially fiction) builds empathy and emotional intelligence. Libraries then are key to developing these skills in the learners they serve, and developing robust collections that are representative of our larger culture are imperative!

But diverse collections have other positive impacts as well. Studies have linked them to increased academic performance, social-emotional learning, career and college readiness, and engagement in reading. Diversifying your collection is a win on all counts, and this is real work that your students can do!

2. Find the leaders of this movement

Many activists, scholars, and educators have been leading the way in promoting a diverse books and the auditing of school libraries. Educators beginning this process can find allies and experts who are doing the work, daily, and sharing their knowledge. On Twitter, search out the hashtags #disrupttext and #weneeddiversebooks. Find authors, literacy advocates and scholars to connect with and gain inspiration from (find Dr. Debbie Reese, Dr. Lara M. Jimenez, Mike Jung and Lyn Miller-Lachman to start with!). Remember you’re not the first person to tackle this issue. Listen to the people who’ve already been putting in time.

3. Give students choice – then share with each other

Becky noticed that students were not uncomfortable with this project, and she thinks it has to do with the level of choice she was giving them. Students were able to pick the area they wanted to explore, and then learned from others. The focus could be based on their interest, but expand to include what they are learning from the data and each other. Students could explore a topic such as gender representation in different ways: Do we have any female protagonists in the action/adventure section? Do we have any mysteries that have female protagonists? Or you could even look at the authors. How many women are writing sports books?

This questionnaire focused on cultural responsiveness is one way to consider choices for your learners:

How culturally responsive and diverse is your (classroom) library? Find out using this great tool by @LEEandLOW: https://t.co/dW3L5IGaLZ #maketheforeignfeelfamiliar #readyourworld #stories #startyoung

— One Globe Kids (@OneGlobeKids) December 5, 2018

Here are some additional lenses through which students could choose to focus their work:

Holidays: which holidays are represented in our collection? Which ones are missing?
History: what historical events are represented? Where are there gaps?
Science: what scientific innovations and scientists are represented? Who and what might be missing?
Biography: whose life stories are on the shelves (gender, race, nationality, ability, sexual orientation, etc.)? Whose stories would make our collection more representative of the larger world?
Sports and hobbies: what sports, hobbies, and special interest areas show up on the shelves? What’s missing?

There are so many ways to examine the collection. Allowing students to choose their area of interest increases engagement and focuses their work.

4. Treat learning about diversity just like any other learning

Critical text analysis, creating and analyzing data, and deep dialogue are part of a robust education, and this project is an example of that. Becky used her normal way of communicating with families about this unit: the Facebook page, the blog, and the newsletter. This way, she wasn’t framing this work as “controversial” but just part of the library curriculum and learning. And in fact, examining a library collection for bias isn’t controversial. Fewer than 2% of librarians surveyed find building diverse collections “unimportant,” while 94% find this work important or very important. If you are concerned about negative parental feedback, host a parent night to provide information and answer questions or concerns.

5. Find school and community partners in this work

library diversity audit — John Hall (kneeling, right), chair of the committee for Racial Inclusion and Equality in Hartford VT, joined Ottauquechee students for their discussions around inclusion and equality in their school library catalog.

A student-led library audit is an excellent opportunity for engaging local community partners! Becky shares:

I would recommend incorporating as many people as you can. It would have been really nice if I could have worked out a way to incorporate more people in the school, so that more people are aware of what I’m doing, and maybe — those conversations could trickle out into other areas. It’s like a conversation-starter if they’re studying something else. And then bringing in the gentleman from the Hartford committee, that was really powerful, and it helped open, potentially open a door for this further conversation about this entire idea in schools.

Students can work with experts to develop recommendations for weeding and adding to the collection. Local historians, scientists, and professionals can share their expertise. Discipline-specific experts in the school district might help students as they examine discipline specific books. And Vermont organizations can weigh in on increasing diversity about specific issues. Consider this list of possible partners:

Outright Vermont: Queer and LGBTQ+ advocacy and support
Vermont Women’s Fund: gender equity
Peace and Justice Center: human rights and racial justice
Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity: inclusivity

6. Your students CAN do this

Book purchases based on students’ research and a desire to make the library a place where all students can see themselves and others. Click or tap to enlarge.

Many people think that younger students are not ready for this kind of inquiry and these issues. But Becky finds them eager and open participants and researchers in the work, and finds this age to be the perfect time to engage in inquiry and discourse:

It’s kind of like the whole goalkeeper thing, too, when you say to them “who’s going to solve this problem?” They’re like “us, we are, we’re going to solve this problem. We are the goalkeepers, we’re the game-changers. We’re going to solve this problem.” I just think that they are — they’re really, they’re very aware of what is right and wrong. They are very passionate about justice.

Studies show that kids are aware of differences from a very early age. Work like this helps them make better sense of the world and build their capacity for understanding difference and taking action when they notice bias and inequity.

7. Remember to ask: what do the students think?

Students are key partners in this work. They are learning to navigate information, representation, and are often grappling with their own identities and societal norms, pressures, and current events. Be sure to check in with them frequently, and provide many opportunities for reflection. Becky shared about her students:

I think that they are just so much more accepting. They see the world as this diverse place, and I just don’t think they have the hang-ups yet. I would like them — to go at the world with curiosity, and fairness, and — drive for justice. And if they leave the library with that, and the understanding that libraries are not just mirrors, and not just windows, and not just doors — but I love the idea I read about them being maps. All of those things.

But I’m hoping that this is going to spark them to be inquisitive and find — if I have questions, if I don’t know, then we’ll figure it out in the library. Let’s go figure it out.

Here are a variety of tools to have students reflect on their learning through an audit experience.

The role of the librarian as change agent

Libraries are often the places where societal shifts happen, are cultivated, and explored. As the hub of a school (and some would say, the heart), libraries foster critical thinking, empathy, connection, and imagination How about we add creating the world we would like to see?

Becky considers the role of the librarian in helping students understand what it might be like to not see yourself reflected in the library:

Especially in Vermont, since it’s predominantly white, you have to make students feel what it’s like to not have your story be told. If you don’t say that, if you don’t make them feel it, they won’t care.

These boys are looking around the room, and they see Hatchet and they see Holes, and they see My Side of the Mountain, and they’re just like “Oh yeah, look, white boys and dogs, they’re everywhere.” But people who aren’t white boys, or white girls — where are their stories?

So, they have to realize that that’s a problem. If they don’t get that that’s a problem, then — you missed it. Great that they can do research, great they can use Canva to create an infographic. You improved their skills. You missed the opportunity to create good humans.

Deep exploration and expansion of library collection is possible and can be lead by students. By becoming researchers of the library collection, students learn to look for biases, dominant narratives, and who’s story is missing at their own level, with support. This work opens their eyes to systems of power in our society in clear ways and allow them to learn and then follow that up with action.

How might you engage in an exploration of your school’s library and who’s story might not be included (yet)?

April 1, 2019April 29, 2022

Increasing student engagement in PLPs at Williston Central

It’s about providing choice in reflection tools

Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) across the state have taken many different forms and serve a few different purposes. One common thread among educators is a wondering of how to increase student engagement in the PLP process. How to make it more meaningful and relevant. Michael Willis, Jared Bailey, and middle grades student Hudson, accepted this challenge and over the course of the year, conducted action research on what might actually work. The three of them presented the results of that research to a packed audience at the Vermont Middle Grades Conference at the University of Vermont, this past January. Below, you’ll find a video recording of the presentation that includes the presenters’ materials. And below that, we’ve laid out that recorded presentation as a text for you to read, again accompanied by the presenters’ materials. A huge thank you to Mr. Willis, Mr. Bailey and Hudson, for sharing this story.

Solving the mystery of PLPs

Mr. Willis: “Last summer was the fourth MGI (Middle Grades Institute) that I’ve been to and I decided that I would do something around student engagement in PLPs. One, I don’t know that much about them. I hadn’t had any practice with the kind of official version using Protean, which we use in Williston. As a third and fourth grade teacher, I had done goal setting and reflecting and using blogs. But, that was all fine and good until you put the label of “PLP” on it. Then it seems that the attitude, as probably a lot of you know, starts to suddenly change.

I was just texting my daughter (who is now in high school) and she asked what I was presenting on, and I told her and she went, “Oh, that’s boring. PLP is so boring.” I asked her why? She said she didn’t know. So there’s this shroud of mystery around them. So I thought I would try to engage students differently by just giving them some different options of how to reflect.

Putting the pieces together

I did want to try and give students some options of how to reflect. The idea of setting a goal wasn’t brand new. The idea of collecting evidence wasn’t brand new, but the idea of how to reflect? That was kind of a sticky wicket. I thought, well, maybe video, maybe audio, maybe some photos, which they were pretty comfortable doing. Maybe just: how could it be less about writing? So that’s where this came from. I did this survey in the beginning of the year:

What did our data say?

Well, the opinions were all over the map in terms of what students think about PLPs, specifically. But in terms of what they thought about reflecting, the majority of students still prefer written reflections. I thought it was interesting if given the choice, students chose writing, yet nobody’s seemed to like the idea of having to do that writing. It’s a mystery!

The fifth graders were really my trial group. Two times a week we meet in skills group and we do a number of things. But over the last month or so we’ve been thinking about PLPs.

Enter Sketchnoting!

Can you Hudson, talk a little bit about what your experience has been with goal setting and having to collect evidence?

Hudson: I did start out. I did write a goal but it was just hard because I had to write all the other responses to that goal, like my evidence. Then I did something called sketchnoting and it’s like you basically draw a quick sketch and then you draw and then you write like a few little captions. And it just like helped me out a lot.

Mr. Willis: When I said that they were clear in their opinions about having choice, I wondered if they really believed that they have a choice. It occurred to me after talking to Hudson was that maybe they didn’t know they had all these options. You’re going to find that both the fifth and the sixth grade believe that having choices is important yet… I don’t know if they thought they had choices available.

Reflection doesn’t have to be museum quality

Last summer, I first heard of sketchnoting. Now, I’m a writer. I communicate better in writing and I’m not a drawer. I told Hudson my sketchnoting would be stick figures and well you said to me—

Hudson: It doesn’t really have to be like a perfect sketch, like museum or any kind of… quality.

Mr. Willis: That to me? Is perfect news. And I think that’s the message that so I just dove right in. Now, I’m also the kind of person who doesn’t necessarily do all of this reading first, to be honest. I just dive in. We did a month-long integrated unit about trash and waste, relating to content areas. We called it garbology. That’s a new word, Google Docs didn’t recognize it. We piloted it. Thank you. I showed them a video from Brainpop about waste management and said there aren’t a lot of rules here, go for it. Not every student liked it. Below you can see definitely one of the kind of flashier, more complete versions that I got. But the idea that a student could do this without much instruction, without much guidance really sold me on the idea of, well, maybe it could be used for a reflection on your PLP.

One student’s sketchnote on waste management. Click or tap to enlarge.

Sketchnoting from a student perspective

Hudson, the reason that you’re here is that sketchnoting did appeal to you. Right? You said it doesn’t have to be a museum piece. How does writing make you feel?

Hudson: It gets me a little stressed and I just feel like it’s writing [the same thing] all over again every week.

Mr. Willis: What is it about writing that kind of gives you that feeling?

Hudson: Just staring at a screen and typing the whole time when you could be drawing and doing quick little like notes just like what I really like to do.

Examples, organizers, and responsibility, oh my…

Mr. Willis: I learned that students would reflect on their PLP after the summative activities in the unit. One of their complaints is that we only do this after summative activities and I thought, well that’s true, but one thing at a time. How can we make that action, that activity perhaps be a bit more engaging, and have this idea of choice? Here’s a student example I thought was interesting:

Mr. Bailey was doing the social studies piece. This idea of this graphic organizers came first and I thought was interesting with this student taking responsibility. They’ve got the goal listed to take initiative and responsibility for learning. This person actually, you see the picture of the house. We don’t always chat. I’m busy teaching the math piece and they’re doing theirs and seeing the student reflect and say, look, I did some of this at home. I did it in class.

That was new for me. I had no idea that student was even doing that. I know the student loves to draw. So, this seemed like a natural choice for this one but the learning that I got from it, I’m not sure would have come out in writing. I appreciated that piece.

An example of visual reflection via sketchnote

Now, Hudson and his tablemate, Tommy really were two that dove into this idea of being able to use sketchnoting, this idea of visually reflecting. Hudson, what does this show about your work on the integrated unit?

Hudson: Well, this just shows all my classwork that I did on computers and on paper.

Mr. Willis: What made this work for you?

Hudson: Well, it wasn’t really writing, but it was, so, I used like a cycle WeVideo and it was kind of cool and just like put in like little clips of videos. Then I got good sources. Like what I said, good sources makes for good products. I don’t mean a product like a computer kind of product, I mean a good piece of classwork.

Mr. Willis: I like that you’ve got those visuals. So those people who don’t end up in Washington that have no idea about what we did during our unit, I’m feeling like we look at this graphing shows up in math. What’s this on the left hand side? You said it brought up a genuine problem.

Hudson: It was about how marine animals and animals are getting sick in the oceans

Hudson: Yeah, are getting hurt by that.

Mr. Willis: Then the top left hand one, what does that detail mean? So, you’ve got this drawing, it’s pretty detailed…

Hudson: By detail I mean, I added stuff for like color coding and…

Mr. Willis: Now, was that a goal of yours, detail?

Hudson: Not really.

Student opinions on sketchnotes

Mr. Willis: A couple of the top two students, you can see this idea of what Hudson was saying. “I don’t feel the pressure”, “I don’t feel this idea that has to be perfect when I do it”, “I can see my thinking” and they can communicate visually. The bottom two I thought were interesting because they are people that actually, students that actually do choose the words that they’re feeling like either not a fan of drawing or if it’s notetaking, it’s hard to keep up.

A sign of success: students revisiting their reflections

Mr. Willis: I’ve got to wrestle with this idea of how using it to take notes during learning, which is I think maybe the next step into math as I was saying earlier. But also I think the reflection piece though, there is no real timeline. It isn’t really like you have to be done at the end of the class. Hudson saying it’s something I can revisit. I’ve noticed students want to revisit a sketchnote more than they want to go back and revise the paragraph. I’m sure that that’s not something that I’m sure that’s something you’ve heard before as well.

“Let’s Recap”: A tool for reflection

Mr Willis: I did go back to something that I had used in the past. It’s called Let’s Recap. Let’s Recap is great because it organizes video reflections from students. You can send out a prompt, they get to join code. They with their Chromebooks have the ability to film and record answers to a question you put out there. They get a little window that pops up and they record themselves. Then you can then take this video and embed it in something, or share a link. Students can download it to their own files. My students downloaded their videos and inserted them into their Protean PLPs. That’s what Williston is using; they all have their own Protean accounts.

Video reflections from Let’s Recap

Here are four Williston students reflecting on… reflecting on their PLPs.

My PLP goal is that I will take initiative and responsibility for my learning.

It's cool to know I have an option to do videos.

My goal is to organize and use purposeful communication in my writing.

My opinion, on reflecting about PLP, has changed.

We did have them practice off a script here. Some will be just kind of, and this is me and here’s my reflection. You can tell you in practice a bit more. The fact that you get him to talk with those transferrable skills language. We did have them set goals and in the past I believe it was maybe as something as simple as I want to get my spelling homework.

Transferable skills help students see cross-curricular

Mr. Bailey: Now with these transferable skills goals, they’re able to pull evidence from other places. Our district has transferable skills which go on to become graduation standards in grades nine through twelve.

Champlain Valley School District's transferable skills, along with the evidence students provide to show they've achieved them. Click or tap to enlarge. — Champlain Valley School District’s transferable skills, along with the evidence students provide to show they’ve achieved them. Click or tap to enlarge.

We’re having students pick one of those transferable skills as their goal, to really help them see the cross-curricular piece of all the transferable skills. It was much harder to track them last year when a kid had a personal goal of scoring in the soccer season, because then they were like, well, it’s not soccer season right now. So we have no evidence this week. Most importantly, what we’re doing with intentionality is having them take a deeper dive into that transferrable skill, see it spread across their day and outside of their life in school rather than having them pick a personal goal, an academic goal, and trying to juggle the two. Pick one goal and let’s go deeper on that and see it kind of come through in all your classes.

What did we accomplish?

Mr. Willis: If you had to choose now and or say at the end of the work that we’ve done over the last couple of months, do you feel like you have more choice now?

Hudson: Yes, like I said before, I thought it was just writing for a long time. Now, I have like three or four new choices that I can do.

Mr. Willis: What does that feel like, in terms of when the assignment comes now?

Hudson: I can just think into it instead of thinking, oh, I have to write again. Do another sketch here or maybe do a video recording.

Mr. Bailey: You were saying in the lobby that it kind of feels more freeing. That you’re able to think more about what you want to say in the reflection, rather than having to worry about making it fit into a writing piece.

Mr. Willis: Right.

Mr. Bailey: He’s able to focus much more on actually what he wants to say and the quality of the reflection, because he’s not having to try to figure out how to do a high quality reflection and then transfer that as a writing piece. Additionally, I did use Let’s Recap as a way of having students reflect on: how do you feel about the newer choices?

What’s next?

For me, the Protean learning curve is what we all need to keep working on. I think just the micro of it, the minutia of sharing and making it public? Just the pieces of that. As I’ve heard from a lot of workshops, finding more time to do it is tricky, and that’s what makes me think that this evidence collection needs to be able to happen anytime. I’ve yet to really do that as well as I want to. I do want to give an actual survey using Google Forms, but the video feedback is what I use for now. I don’t know if people are familiar with Protean or if you’re using it, but these videos and sketchnotes can be uploaded right into the evidence of a PLP in Protean.

These are flexible pathways for reflection

Kind of like taking a flexible pathway and putting it in a flexible pathway! It’s that idea of if we’re going to give students flexible pathways for learning, let’s give them flexible pathways for reflecting on their learning. Subsequently, what we found at Sterling and what Michael’s brought to the table and is his year with us, is this idea of giving them multiple cause. We were so text driven in their reflections. However, that doesn’t really seem to fit with the philosophy of a personalized learning plan.

The idea is to find tools that make you successful and to learn how to play to those strengths. As a result, coming up with a variety of options for reflecting on a personalized learning plan is a light bulb moment for us and the rest of the team. So that’s been great.

Hudson, thank you for coming. I appreciate you presenting with me. Thank you very much.

January 21, 2019December 12, 2019

What students want you to know about school

students from Crossett Brook Middle School

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 is meaningful for them about school. We learned a lot, and we hope you do too.

A full transcript appears below.

Rowan: School shootings: like that happened and it was just yesterday. I’ll come to school knowing that just happened, I’m not okay right now. If we talk about it in class, then when I go to sleep at night I’m not worrying about it anymore because I know that I can change that or that I can be part of the change.

Narrator: Today, on the 21st Century Classroom, we are going into listening mode. We want to feature student voice in a new way by asking students to talk about school. Our questions are open-ended and our agenda non-existent.

We bet that educators will be able to learn a lot by tuning in to a free-form of conversation among adolescents.

Our students today hail from Crossett Brook Middle School in Duxbury, VT. 250 grade 5-8 students from Duxbury and the larger town of Waterbury attend the school. These two towns form a rural community that sits on the east slope of the Green Mountains right under the majestic Camel’s Hump, Vermont’s second tallest and most recognizable peak. Looking at the school from the scenic Route 100 highway, you see a modern looking structure surrounded by soccer fields with a forested hillside as a backdrop. A long driveway lined with maple trees leads to the school. You might also notice the chicken coop of the school’s signature sustainability program, colorfully decorated by a student-created mural.

Although the school sits geographically on its own – most everybody needs to drive or take a bus to get there –

Our students today talk mostly about how much they want their schoolwork to connect to the community and the real world.

Let’s meet them.

Shyannah: My name is Shyannah. I am an eighth grade.

Damien: My name is Damien and I’m in seventh grade.

Jordan: I am Jordan and I’m in eighth grade.

Rowan: I’m Rowan and I’m in seventh grade.

Narrator: So these four wonderful students were somewhat randomly selected by social studies teacher, Lori Morse, who is on Team Prodigy, one of two 7-8 grade teams in the school. As the discussion ensues, don’t worry about trying to track who is saying what, just roll with it as a group conversation. Try to tune in to what these students express when given an open opportunity to share.

The first question was simply: what is meaningful to you in school?

Jordan: Any opportunity to grow and learn in the area of kind of just outside world like sustainability and Ms. Morse does a really nice job with, you know, she actually changed the world as an opportunity to donate money to humane societies or maybe just make our community better.

Shyannah: Yes. I think sustainability helps us to notice what’s going on around the world that we’re not really aware of. I definitely think that it’s good that we have something like that and Ms. Morse just teaches a lot about like how it’s good to be a good person and to help in the little things that could change a person’s life.

Rowan: This Civil War project that was due recently, that whole thing, just even the little bits of the video, things that may have liked researched at home, all those little things. Even though they were like in the past you can still kind of– I don’t really know what the right word is but like, kind of like apply it to what’s kind of happening now and kind of like some things, not all things–

Damien: Yes, if we don’t know what happened in the past we don’t know what we’re going to do in the future like we’ll never learn from our mistakes. She kind of tells us– In the beginning she told us like this happened to get rid of slavery but racism is still real and stuff like that. Sexism, and a whole bunch of other things.

Narrator: What kind of connections did you make from the Civil War up to what’s going on now?

Shyannah: I noticed that even though the confederates were fighting for like slavery, it’d still be going but not all of them were bad. I’d like to think that they were all for it, they just lived there. Because I’m African-American, I hear a lot of racist things but I don’t let it ruin my life because African-Americans then were treated a lot worse than I am. I’d like to think that I had it better than they did.

Damien: I agree. I’m also African-American and although racism isn’t all the way gone, it’s nothing like it used to be. I hear some things that are nasty or bad, but African-Americans used to be treated much worse than we are now. So it’s kind of not really nice to think about but and I’m not sure I want to talk about it because it’s kind of a sensitive topic. Someone might not have the same opinion but I think the way he targets his audience is people who feel vulnerable or want something and he targets them by saying something they want to believe.

Rowan: They kind of feed it.

Damien: Yes, like he feeds them false information and they want to believe it so they do believe it’s true. If you heard something like I don’t know, like if you heard something you wanted to believe you want to believe it.

Rowan: Like a rumor that you like, I don’t know. I’m not sure if like is the right word but, yes.

Narrator: Does she just tell you these things because she has really strong opinions or how does it actually play out–

Shyannah: She does like to talk about if there’s school shootings she’ll make sure that we’re okay and that if we ever want to talk about it we can–

Rowan: It’s okay.

Shyannah: Yes, it’s open to talk about it.

Rowan: Because it’s something that’s happening now and it could be like somebody has changed the world. You can kind of openly talk about it in her classroom and kind of hear other people’s opinions, her opinion, what everybody has to say about it. Sometimes you may have like this giant weight on your shoulders because of it and after that you’re kind of just like, oh, good.

Narrator: That was interesting because I started up by saying what’s kind of the most meaningful stuff for you. I thought you’d maybe talk about something that’s really fun but you guys talked about sustainability and kind of some heavy stuff you’ve been looking at, social studies. Help me understand that.

Do you think students like to deal with serious stuff?

Damien: I don’t think we like enjoy it but it’s not like something I’m going to talk about all the bad things for fun but it’s like–

Rowan: Like a reality check.

Damien: Yes, it’s like reality check and when you talk about it it takes the weight off your shoulders.

Narrator: Help me understand that.

Shyannah: I think it’s helpful because if your parents don’t watch the news and there’s something that like bad happened–

Rowan: And we just hear it from around.

Shyannah: Yes, and we talk about it, I think that feels really helpful because I don’t like to watch the news because there’s a lot of politics and I don’t like to think about politics because I’m still too young to vote. I definitely think it’s helpful because if there’s a school shooting you’ll hear about it but it’s not totally clear. If you know someone from where it is, it’s definitely helpful so that you can check up on them and it’s scary to think that there are so many things wrong and that we’re not doing anything about it. I think that she should try to help us understand that.

Narrator: I’ve had conversations about these kinds of heavy things before where I came away feeling like overwhelmed. You guys said sometimes it makes you feel like it’s a weight off your shoulders. I don’t know if you’ve had both of those experiences or if you know what makes the difference for moving it towards kind of the more positive.

Rowan: Sometimes I come to school kind of knowing back to actually the school shootings and like that happened and it was just yesterday. I’ll come to school knowing that just happened, I’m not okay right now. If we talk about it in class, then when I go to sleep at night I’m not worrying about it anymore because I know that I can change that or that I can be part of the change and then sometimes it’s like even if there’s not a little bit of talk about it like how you can change it, sometimes I’ll just go to sleep feeling, oh my gosh, a lot.

Shyannah: I think it helps to talk about tough stuff. It feels like it takes a weight off the shoulders.

In sustainability class last year, we all wrote letters to ourselves. About what we wanted to do when we grow up and how we want to change the world. I said to be more sustainable and not use a lot of electricity because of what it’s doing to the Earth. Part of my letter was like I want my children to be able to drink water. To be able to see animals that are still around because they’re dying off because of what we’re doing to the earth. It’s a lot of pressure for us because we’re still young. But we can still do things about it. It does put a lot of pressure on us. But it kind of lifts like the weight off when we talk about it and when we actually do things.

Jordan: Adding on to what you said, also they’re educating us about this because they want us to pursue a job in the future that can help lead these global causes and help us keep animals, keep the giraffes and stuff in the places that are being destroyed. I think that is probably, I mean when you think about it and you watch the news and stuff, at first it’s not great but I think one leading to another,

You have to feel not great first to feel like the weight is lifted off your shoulders once you do something about it.

Narrator: Do you get a chance to do stuff about in school?

Shyannah: Yes, like change the world. You pick a topic and you can do anything. I’m doing something with animals. I earn money and give it to the homeless shelter. I also would want to go there and just see the animals. See how they’re treated because they might not be treated well. And if they don’t get a home they usually get put down, so…. I think that we should offer the teams to do change the world because we could do a lot. And like other schools too. We could change the world so fast if we had a lot more people involved.

Narrator: It’s a cool idea. That’s like my next question.

In your wildest dreams, what would school be if you could just like make it out from scratch?

The #everydaycourage of building a better go-cart

Jordan: I think that math is great, science is great, language arts is great, and social studies is also really good. But, if I could add something it would probably be a class about global problems or something like that where each student pursues a problem and find something to do about it. I think that’s what partnership for the goals is when it comes down to the global goals. I think that they could definitely benefit from that.

Shyannah: I think that if we have like a class to teach us about… not really business but how we’re going to go into life not closed-minded, be like more open-minded.

Rowan: Knowing what we’re going into and kind of not that we’re closed off from the world right now but kind of being more that class when in my mind we would like open up and allow us to understand what we would be going into.

Narrator: What about beyond the subjects?

Do you have ideas about how school would be better like if the way teachers taught was different?

Damien: I think teachers do a pretty good job with this already but more hands-on learning like projects. I think it would be a lot better instead of writing on paper if we did some sort of project. Which I feel like in social studies, in science we do that a lot.

Shyannah: I feel like if we– Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. I feel like if we did a lot more things off of electronics. And you did a lot more paper. Because all we’re doing is sitting on our phone book most of the day. It’s really not good for you.

Also, to add what classes we should have I think band and chorus is definitely helpful because since I’ve started band I’ve been getting a lot better grades.

Rowan: You have to learn fast. You have to keep up, you have to keep practicing, and you have to learn the pieces. You only have maybe one or two months to learn that a piece and you have to learn it well or, you know, we are kind of going to just be not blowing and just kind of figuring off.

Narrator: It’s really performance.

Damien: Right.

Shyannah: It makes us feel good when we’re all together and we’re all doing well even though that sometimes we’re not totally focused on what we’re doing in band. We’re all learning and we’re learning to work together with people even if we’re not friends.

Rowan: You kind of nail that piece eventually and you’re like, I just did that.

I can do that in all my classes and then you succeed in every one of your classes. It’s great.

Narrator: If I can see a theme, it sounds like a lot of the stuff you are saying is about connecting to the world. With sustainability and change the world, you’re all doing stuff on the road. You’re in a band, you’re actually performing for raw audience. Is that too big of a generalization to say that–

Shyannah: No. And I think chorus is also very good, too. Because this year I got a solo and it was like adrenaline. I was really proud of myself. I was able to stand up and sing in front of a bunch of people that I didn’t know.

Even though I was nervous, I was still proud of myself. It like pushes us to do stuff that we might not be comfortable with. It pushes us out of our comfort zone.

Rowan: It’s kind of, oh right. Miss Dubois, she does the musical. You do have to audition but this year it was Ms. Dubois and Ms. Morse and they’re really supportive. They’re like you did a great job. That’s really nice to hear but then there’s only two people. Then once you finally get on stage and start performing the night of the show … I was terrified this year because I never had a big role. It’s kind of like you’re performing in front of, I don’t know like–

Shyannah: Hundred?

Rowan: Maybe a hundred people that you don’t know over half of them. Once you do it, you’re kind of like–

Damien: It’s really cool to have out of school communities and I really had fun in school this year kind of having the music weirdly.

It was just nice knowing that if I’m like down, if I’m not doing well or something I can just think of it. If I could like get this role in musical and if I can do this then, yes. I don’t know, it’s just really nice.

Narrator: Wow, what a great conversation. The last comment in particular was so interesting. I later found out that this student had recently played the lead in the school play. He had worked hard to get the part, and then worked hard to make sure he did an awesome job. No wonder he plans to look back at that when he’s having a tough time. Basically he’s built that resilience. The resilience that comes with having been challenged, truly motivated to try, and then supported to succeed.

My big take-away from this conversation is that these kids are asking to be pushed out of their comfort zone.

They don’t want school to be a sheltered place – they want as much contact with the real world as possible. Students want to talk about tough things, like slavery, modern racism, climate change, and school shootings. They want to face authentic challenges, like making a positive impact on their community, or performing for an audience.

So let’s give it to them – the real world, warts and all, with opportunities to make it better. This conversation makes me confident that the young adolescents of today will rise to the challenge.

Thank you to the Crossett Brook Middle School Chorus for that wonderful rendition of the state song.

The 21st Century Classroom is the podcast of the The Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education at the University of Vermont. This episode was produced by me, Life LeGeros. Huge thank you to Damien, Shyannah, Jordan, Rowan, and their teacher Lori Morse. Our theme music is “Sunset” by Meizong and Yeeflex, the Argofox release.

Good luck out there, educators, and whatever you do, keep listening to students.

November 26, 2018November 26, 2018

Voice + choice = a better math classroom

Start by listening to students

Elizabeth Tarno asked her students for feedback about their math class at the end of 5th grade. Then she did something incredible: she completely redesigned her classroom to address what students asked for.

Elizabeth teaches both 5th and 6th grade math (and science) at the Warren Elementary School. She spent her summer working to rethink her approach through the lens of personalization.

The result? She turned her 6th grade math class into a self-paced course that came to be known as “Choose Your Own Adventure Math Class.” Students worked individually or in partners, used printed or digital materials, and took assessments only when they decided they were ready. They even created their own homework.

Elizabeth listened, she personalized, and her students responded positively. By the end of the initial experiment, Elizabeth had thoughts on how to improve this new approach. But she was clear about one thing: “I’m not going back.”

Continue reading “Voice + choice = a better math classroom”

August 24, 2016April 19, 2018

Climate, Community and Voice from Day 1

Starting up with our students

ready2L 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”

May 30, 2016February 26, 2019

Mathew’s Y.E.A.R. at The Compass School

Scaffolding year-end reflections

At The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont, students advance through grades by producing evidence of their accomplishments from the year, using the previous year’s reflection to inform the current one. We had the chance to sit down with a student just finishing 11th grade at Compass, and hear not just about his Y.E.A.R. (year-end academic reflection) but how it’s going to prepare him for the all-important graduating Roundtable.

Continue reading “Mathew’s Y.E.A.R. at The Compass School”

October 12, 2015April 22, 2022

V is for Voice Recordings

Why voice recordings work for young adolescents

As students use technology to explore and capture projects that show both their emerging proficiency with skills and snapshots of who they have been, are and may become, tools that allow students to add their own human voice to multimedia can be invaluable in the discovery and showcasing process.

Here’s why voice recordings work for young adolescents and 3 tools we like for creating them.

Continue reading “V is for Voice Recordings”

September 3, 2015September 3, 2015

Multiple platforms, multiple voices: scenes from a 1:1 rollout

Collaborative blogging puts students’ voices out front

Hazen Union School 8th grade student Elijah Lew-Smith shared the first student post of the school year on the school’s shared Middle Level Blog.

Check out his post to see this year’s new initiatives: 1:1 with iPads, a new House structure, and the focus on Project Based Learning, from a student perspective.

But that’s not all.

Continue reading “Multiple platforms, multiple voices: scenes from a 1:1 rollout”

January 30, 2015April 29, 2022

Project-based learning at Essex Middle School: algebra and songwriting

Making math and music at The Edge

We were lucky enough to get to sit down with three groups of students at Essex Middle School’s Edge Academy just before the break and hear how their year-long project-based learning (PBL) projects are going.

In the final installment of the series, we talk with three students making math and music in equal measures.

Continue reading “Project-based learning at Essex Middle School: algebra and songwriting”

December 17, 2014

Hour of Code at Essex Middle School

Students report enjoyment and challenges learning programming

A huge congratulations to everyone — students, teachers and families — who participated in this year’s #HourofCode! The students from the Edge team at Essex Middle School were kind enough to share their reactions to trying coding, and a little bit about what they worked on.

Continue reading “Hour of Code at Essex Middle School”

November 15, 2014April 15, 2022

The Problem with Genius Hour

Shouldn’t every hour be a genius hour?

Anyone paying attention to education in the US lately has seen the proliferation of the “Genius Hour.” Presumably inspired by Google’s 20% rule, through which employees of the search engine giant spend a day a week on projects of their own choosing, many schools are adopting a model described by best selling author Daniel Pink as “60 minutes to work on new ideas or master new skills.” By setting aside an hour of instructional time, schools enable students to connect, construct or create, without the constraints or distractions of business-as-usual. What could be better than that?

Continue reading “The Problem with Genius Hour”

January 20, 2014

Why is everyone doin’ it for the Vine?

Vine is a tool where users can craft looping six-second videos for sharing globally, and other users can up-vote them, follow favored Vine-creators (some of whom have one million+ followers) and comment. It’s available for the Android, iOS and Windows platforms, and despite the nominal age-17 requirement for the platform, it’s more than likely that students in your class are more than likely Vining.

And what they’re making are awesome. Here’s why:

1. Authentic student voice

Want to know what students really think about school? Get on Vine and follow the #school hashtag.

They aren’t Vining for a grade or for any school project. This is what students really think about school. It’s not always pretty, and it’s definitely not always complimentary towards the schools in question, but what it is is startlingly honest.

And 2., this is a really fascinating digital storytelling medium.

Think about all the skills that come into play in figuring out how to tell a story in six seconds.

But it’s not just students who are using Vine.

At Orchard School in South Burlington, librarian/rock-star Donna McDonald is using Vine with her students to create a series of six-second book reviews to share for the #MockCaldecott awards. First of all, they’re epic, and second, they’re each only six seconds long, so you can easily justify watching every last one. Such as this one:

And this:

(Seriously, just go follow @OrchardVT on twitter. They share fantastic work and those #MockCaldecott Vines are this close >< to becoming their own meme.)

All of which brings up two questions: Do you Vine? And do you know what your students are Vining?

August 13, 2013February 28, 2016

How one teacher learned to let go and trust her students to lead their learning

While we’re all over here recovering from the epic spectacle that was this year’s Code Camp, please enjoy Shelly Wright’s TEDTalk, on her journey as a teacher.

They’re all excited and they’re telling people, and texting and I’m thinking this is gonna be awesome, you know? We’ll raise a couple thousand dollars, the kids’ll feel like they’re important, this’ll be great.

And so, the next day we come back to school and my students come back to the class and they say, “Mrs. Wright, we have decided on a goal…We have decided that we want to raise ten thousand dollars.”

Inside my head I’m thinking, “Oh. My. Gosh. Do you have any idea how much money ten thousand dollars is???”

And my outside voice said, “That’s awesome! How do you propose we do that?”

The power of student-driven learning: Shelley Wright at TEDxWestVancouverED

Featuring social justice work, community connections, and all the cats in
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, this 15-minute video is worth every second.

(Entirely related, Wright’s blog post on the power of student-driven learning is every bit as good.)

July 23, 2013

“When Student Published Videos Go Viral” (podcast)

In September of 2009, Sarah, the 9 year-old daughter of our keynote speaker posted a 90-second YouTube response to President Obama’s speech to US students. This video “went viral” and currently has over 190,000 views. In May 2010, a 6th grader in our keynote presenter’s hometown attracted the attention of Ellen Degeneres with his YouTube remix of a Lady Gaga song. Greyson Chance is now a household name and national star with a record contract and his own manager. Join this session to discuss the issues raised by these two situations and lessons learned including Internet safety and digital citizenship responsibilities.

Very powerful reflections from 9-year-old Sarah Fryer and her father, educator and technologist Wes Fryer, on digital citizenship for students on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. This podcast captured their presentation, When Student Videos Go Viral, at the Mid-America Association for Computers in Education (MACE) 2011.

July 11, 2013

Student documentary: “The Merge: School Consolidation”

Montpelier’s U32 students did an amazing job crafting this documentary about school consolidation issues in Vermont. A fantastic example of using technology to engage with community issues. Highly recommended.

June 20, 2013

How to: use iMovie on the iPad

A brief but effective demonstration of how to use iMovie to construct a poem recital video, courtesy a student at Harwood Union Middle School. Enjoy!

June 17, 2013

In the spotlight: Harwood Union Middle School

Henessey_interview — Susan Hennessey, with the help of videographers from Hen House Media, sat down to talk with one of Harwood’s middle grades students about improved technology integration at the school.

Traveled down to Harwood Union Middle School in Moretown VT on Friday to interview some of the students and teachers about the work they’ve been doing this year. So inspiring to hear how excited they are, and how generously they shared their stories. Thank you, Harwood!

June 10, 2013January 22, 2015

Edge Innovation Tour

“It’s not that I feel smarter in learning, I feel smarter in everything.”

Tarrant professional development coordinator Meredith Swallow learning about batch processing files from a 6th grader at Essex Middle School.

Essex Middle School’s Edge team opened their doors to the community May 16th as one of three Innovation schools in Vermont. Students and facilitators discussed some of the projects they’ve accomplished and some of the things they’ve learned as part of this unique environment.

“I’ve learned things high schools seniors don’t know,” commented 7th grader Isaac.

Continue reading “Edge Innovation Tour”

February 24, 2013

Edmodo at Warp Speed

Working through the Dorothy Canfield Fisher books with Edmodo: Warp Speed by Lisa Yee, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanha Lai, incorporating students into Edmodo, badging, book clubs and new scarves. It’s all in here.