The Rutland Town School middle school team at the Middle Grades Institute, 2016. Brian Crane is second from left, Melissa Theis is fourth from the left, and Erica Zimmer second from the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLike any good idea, this was born from a problem.<\/h3>\n Melissa Theis:<\/strong>\u00a0Last year, we were trying to accomplish PLPs and I was the only one teaching all of our 115 students and trying to fit it in a 30-minute block, which was our flex time. Yes, we did PLPs, but it was not connected in any way to our teachers in the middle school. They had no idea what was happening with students, and it wasn\u2019t connected to our group at all.<\/p>\nSo, we wanted to think of a creative solution to make those things happen: how to change our schedule to be able to do that.<\/p>\n
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Erica Zimmer:<\/strong> This year where we have what we call an “iLearn” block in the morning. Tuesday through Friday.<\/p>\nBefore in the schedule, there would be electives and flex or response intervention time. But we noticed that a lot of kids that had<\/em> to go to these response interventions missed out on a lot of the fun electives. And\u00a0we wanted them to participate as well.<\/p>\nSo we came up with this extended teacher’s advisory (TA). It\u2019s done in two-week blocks, and on the first Monday of the\u00a0block, students sign up for classes. They have a variety of options, and some of them are exploratory.<\/p>\n
Teachers might have something that a student mentioned they want to explore, so that gets offered, and\u00a0shared with other students. There\u2019s also office hour times. Teachers may be like: \u201cYou know what, I have some kids struggling with something so, I\u2019m going to offer some office hour times this weekend next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the first Monday, students meet individually with their TA teacher — we wanted to preserve that relationship between the adviser and the student — to choose what they will do during iLearn, Tuesday through Friday for the two weeks.<\/p>\n
The adviser can say, \u201cHey, it looks like you\u2019re struggling a little bit in this class. Maybe you need to have office hours with that teacher\u201d, or \u201cI know you don\u2019t have internet at home. Can we pick out some office hours during the week where you could just use your prompt up to get things done that you need to accomplish?\u201d Or, \u201cI know you\u2019re really into art. Let\u2019s find some things that might relate in the exploratory because that\u2019s what really interests you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brian Crane:<\/strong> The bottom line is Mondays are PLP work; then Tuesday through Friday, the students are making the choice\u00a0of where they go, which is really mind-boggling, allowing every student to make their own choices.<\/p>\nSo, how can we use this new block of time that our administrators so generously gave us to build community and maximize student choice?<\/p>\n
One thing to know about our district is our district, we are moving towards proficiency-based grading and learner-centered classrooms. In learner-centered classrooms, \u00a0teachers no longer give direct instruction. I never get up in front of the room and explain, \u201cHey, density is equal to mass over volume.\u201d \u00a0If I\u2019m no longer giving instruction, the kids are in-charge of their own learning.<\/p>\n
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<\/path><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn my experience, they\u2019re making excellent choices. I\u2019ve had to let go of a lot of things this year. It\u2019s been a hard but really, really profound year. I had to let go and let students make their choices: bad choices and good choices.<\/p>\n
But without self-direction skills, it all falls apart. They can\u2019t drive their own learning if they don\u2019t know how.<\/h3>\nThat\u2019s where this iLearn comes in.<\/h2>\n [huge_it_slider id=”14″]<\/p>\n
Brian Crane:<\/strong> One of the big problems we had is that we have around 115 students all signing up for iLearn classes essentially every other Monday. When you have 115 entries going in to the same spreadsheet, how do you get everybody to sign up at the same time?<\/p>\nWhat will happen is, for example, the\u00a0Friday before the start of the iLearn block,\u00a0students will get a listing of what office hours are available, when teachers want to work on content, and what exploratories are available, what special things teachers are offering.<\/p>\n
I print out the menu Monday morning and\u00a0make eight copies. I hand it to the students in my advisory. They review it. They circle their first choice on each day that that they have available and they\u2019ll bring it to me and we\u2019ll sit down and look at their choices.<\/p>\n
The student will have all that information and they will come up to me and say, \u201cMr. Crane, this Monday I know that Math teacher is offering doodle and I\u2019d like to participate in that.\u201d We talk about it and then I enter their name. At the same time, since this is a Google Doc, shared between all 13 advisers, you\u00a0see things filling up.<\/p>\n
As a team of educators, we\u00a0made an agreement that there would be a 20-person cap on every iLearn.<\/h3>\n If I\u2019m offering “Ping-Pong Spins”, it doesn’t work to have\u00a055 students on the table trying to learn how to spin a ping pong ball. We can\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n
It is up to you as the mentor and adviser to say, \u201cHey, you signed up for three exploratories and I know you need to work, I know you have a project coming.\u201d And if you have a good relationship with the students in your advisory, that student is not going to say no. In my experience, all eight of my advisees are making excellent choices for themselves. They\u2019re splitting up office hours and exploratories where they think they need it. I\u2019ve been really, really impressed by that this year.<\/p>\n
Rotating 115 kids every two weeks is challenging<\/h2>\n Brian Crane: <\/strong>Some students say, \u201cHey, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to office hours, I think I\u2019m going to go to open library today\u201d, and then show up at office hours anyway. We\u2019ve had to work through being better attendance-takers, making sure kids are where they\u2019re supposed to go.<\/p>\nWe do allow them to change, though.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say a student\u00a0signed up for an exploratory, and then the next week they find that they\u2019re way behind or they were sick, and they want to switch into my office hour. We just talk to the adviser. We try to keep the communication up. That\u2019s happened in my team many, many times. And honestly it\u2019s been very powerful.<\/p>\n
Does it work for everyone?<\/h2>\n Erica Zimmer:<\/strong> One thing\u00a0is that the\u00a0struggle has always been on special education services. How do we ensure that it\u2019s fair for those students that have to have services?\u00a0We have less than five students who have services Tuesday through Friday. Everybody is together on Mondays. There are no special education services on Monday because we believe that everyone should be together in\u00a0teacher advisory.<\/p>\nThe real challenge in our conversation that we have had is that if we have a student who\u00a0on Tuesdays and Thursdays, has services, they\u00a0might not\u00a0be able to make both sessions\u00a0of a single thing. So we\u2019ve had to be really flexible because what we all agree is that we want\u00a0it\u00a0to be accessible for everybody. And fair.<\/p>\n
This is, honestly, the best that we have been able to come up with. In past years, our special education students always missed electives. And we were like, \u201cThis isn\u2019t fair, it\u2019s not right.\u201d This is the best way we found to make it accountable.<\/p>\n
Brian Crane:<\/strong> I have a TA member who\u00a0receives a lot of services. And I\u2019ve worked with the special educator to try to at least get\u00a0that student\u00a0into one of the exploratories each time so they\u2019re not missing out.<\/p>\nStaff and community members help provide instruction in exploratories<\/h2>\n Erica Zimmer:<\/strong>\u00a0 As a tech innovationist, I can offer iLearn exploratories.\u00a0I\u2019ve just been doing things with what I have in my makerspace right now like 3D printing, and the kids love it.<\/p>\nAll the exploratory teachers are core teachers or specialists–<\/p>\n
Melissa Theis (school guidance counselor):<\/strong> And people like me.<\/p>\nBrian Crane:<\/strong> If anybody\u2019s available and they have something to share, then we\u2019ve encouraged them.<\/p>\nMelissa Theis:<\/strong> Our behavioral interventionist is starting an exploratory this coming week. She’s a dancer so she\u2019s going to lead a choreography class. That was born of a student who\u2019s really struggling right now and who’s\u00a0really into dance and choreography.<\/p>\nI said, \u201cWell, wouldn’t it be so cool if you could become a leader in a dance iLearn?\u201d<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m going to cover the interventionist’s behavior duties for that time so she can offer that class.<\/p>\n
Once again, it\u2019s a really nice way for students to bond with adults in the building. That comes back to some of our core beliefs that we want students to make connections with adults and to see that we have interests and passions outside of ourselves in this area.<\/p>\n
Brian Crane:<\/strong> We have guest speakers coming in the language FSC show.<\/p>\nErica Zimmer:<\/strong> And a financial planner.<\/p>\nThere must be a way for students to teach iLearn exploratories<\/h2>\n Brian Crane:<\/strong> One of the big deals\u00a0we\u2019re having right now is we have students who want to give<\/em> iLearns.\u00a0We have the \u201cBalloon Man\u201d who wants to do balloon-building. So right now we\u2019re in the process of creating a structure around that so it\u2019s not a free-for-all and it\u2019s valuable for everybody. But I\u2019m pretty sure we\u2019re going to make that happen.<\/p>\nErica Zimmer:<\/strong> That\u2019s our desire: to eventually give this over to students. Right now,\u00a0\u00a0we\u2019re not allowing service choice 100 percent because we’re directing what we offer. That\u2019s our final goal, is to really listen to students about what they want and offer what they want, not what we think we have to offer.<\/p>\nMelissa Theis:<\/strong> I think you came up with a name that it’ll be: iTeach.<\/p>\nErica Zimmer:<\/strong> iTeach. Right.<\/p>\nWhat do students think of iLearn?<\/h2>\n
Melissa Theis:<\/strong> We\u00a0did a little questionnaire with the students to kind of gauge how do they feel this is going. These are some of the responses that they\u2019ve said: that they thought it was working. A\u00a0lot of students, they like not having to be stuck in one class for an entire time.\u00a0Some of the responses were that being able to do the office hours seem to be really beneficial for them.<\/p>\nBrian Crane:<\/strong> Obviously, nothing is perfect.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest things is how you make it fair for everybody. Some 8th graders think 8th graders should pick first. I mean, that makes sense sometimes but… I like to, say, 8th graders pick first one week; 7th graders pick first the next week. Every adviser does it a little bit differently, but that has been a challenge.<\/p>\n
Brian Crane:<\/strong>\u00a0“I make thoughtful choices about whether to sign up for office hours or exploratories based on my academic needs”. We have 58 students strongly agreeing with that and another 48 students saying they agreed.<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s excellent. I gave this survey out at the beginning of one of my sessions. I said, \u201cPlease be honest, be fair. Be fair but be honest.\u201d And I think they have.<\/p>\n
So, there\u2019s been a lot of change this year but I like to think of the iLearn block as a middle school, this is one of our shining lights. This is one of our things that we can think of about this year 2016-2017, while that was a hard year, we had a lot of challenges, but the iLearn is really a positive thing, an innovative thing – something new that we\u2019ve created that our students love.<\/p>\n
Overall, adding more student choice into the schedule seems to have gone over pretty well.<\/h2>\n Erica Zimmer:<\/strong> We had a lot of change, and there\u2019s a whole lot of anxiety around all this change, but iLearn seems to be the constant that people are enjoying and liking, and it\u2019s the one thing that freely hasn\u2019t had a whole lot of complaints about teachers and students.<\/p>\nMelissa Theis:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only heard positive from parents.\u00a0That\u2019s uniquely different than anything in our school. But we have heard overwhelmingly positive about iLearn from students, from parents, and another team. Everyone agrees that this is something we enjoy doing and want to keep and works well.<\/p>\n
The middle school team at Rutland Town School in Rutland, VT have been working on a more fully integrated implementation of personal learning plans (PLPs) at their school. They’re also passionate believers in student choice and learner-centered classrooms.\u00a0Given some flexibility to change the school schedule,\u00a0they came up with iLearn, a model of student self-direction and … <\/p>\n
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