Category: Monitoring Student Learning

Equity through pedagogy - part 4: Formative assessment

1/31/2019

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

Leading up to the Mid-Atlantic Conference for Professional Learning, March 13-15, in Atlantic City, this marks the fourth in a series of posts devoted to pedagogical practices and frameworks that educators can leverage in their collaborative efforts to respectfully and equitably honour student voice.

1. Introduction
Envision learning environments where students and their teachers are engaged to interact in profound and meaningful ways--ways that demonstrate an evolution of the teaching-learning relationship to one where “...[students] and [teachers are learning] together in a collaborative relationship, each playing an active role in setting learning goals, developing success criteria, giving and receiving feedback, monitoring progress, and adjusting learning strategies” (Growing Success, p30).

Ad for Mid-Atlantic Conference for Professional Learning

MACPL 2019, March 13-15, Atlantic City

In this post, formative assessment is defined, its characteristics explained, and suggestions are made for how you and your students can experience success by framing teaching and learning through its principles.

As you continue with the post, consider framing your thinking against these, sample goals:

(Teacher Focus) To deepen your understanding of practices that engage students with differences in backgrounds, learning strengths, needs and interests.
(Leadership Focus) To inform your next best moves to supporting the growth of individual and collective teacher learning and practice.

"Having explored these principles, alongside many educators, has
been transformational for my own teaching and student learning,
as well as that of my colleagues."

2. Formative Assessment - An Introduction
According to Ontario’s Assessment & Evaluation framework, Growing Success, the “...primary purpose of assessment...is to improve student learning” (p6). The improvement of student learning, from a formative perspective, involves two practices: assessment FOR learning and assessment AS learning.

Let’s consider these practices in the context of an example. Throughout the example, consider visualizing formative assessment through the graphic provided in Figure 1 (below): The Assessment Loop (Causarano & Coulombe, @HarnessingA, 2018).

Growing Success, 2010

Figure 1. The Assessment Loop

Printed with permission (Causarano & Coulombe, 2018)

As we plan learning experiences for our students, we take into account learning goals and success criteria. Learning goals, or targets, are set according to one or more of the following: curriculum objectives, global competencies, learning processes, and/or the big ideas of the subject matter students are learning. These goals represent the What of learning.

The How of learning is defined by success criteria. These criteria describe the actions that students are taking to successfully attain learning goals. Prior to engaging students in the learning experience designed, it’s critical that we anticipate success criteria.

Identifying potential success criteria mentally prepares us for recognizing them, as students work on problems and tasks. In the context of questioning, inquiry or project-based learning, it’s also important that we remain 'open’ to variable paths towards a solution or completion of a task. Altogether, being able to recognize these criteria, as well as being open to student thinking, supports educators in helping students consolidate their thinking towards conceptual understanding and procedural fluency.

"You might be wondering, how do I ‘open’ myself to identifying
and recognizing how students will be going and are going
towards these goals?"

This is a great, if not perfect, question to be asking ourselves. But still...why?

Well, to be open means that we’re in a position, ourselves, to do some learning. That learning might be related to content, pedagogy or a combination of the two. From a content perspective, we might be at a place where we’re figuring out how students will interact with a problem or task. Pedagogically, we might also be considering those aspects that will respectfully and equitably address where students are in their own learning. And there are plenty of aspects that come into play. Take for example the following: prior knowledge, background, strengths, needs, interests, and the learning environment.

Whatever combination of factors you’re considering, they all have one thing in common--that is, what defines the problem or task that’s being assigned to students.

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

3. Formative Assessment-Moving Beyond the Task
Let’s take a look at moving beyond the task. Earlier, I mentioned that success criteria represent the actions that students are taking towards attaining goals. That means we’re now in a space where students are ‘working on it’--either independently or collaboratively thinking about the assigned problem or task.

Formatively, we, as educators, now go on ‘high alert’...monitoring the ‘how’, listening to interpret, and looking for learning progressions that can be used to facilitate conversations around criteria important for attaining the goal(s). Over the time that students are engaged with the problem or task, we’re naming and noticing key moves that students are making and providing timely, descriptive feedback to all students.

As you discuss students’ thinking with them and the group, you’ll be well-positioned to co-create success criteria, and over time, with each opportunity to revisit concepts, students can reflect for themselves and/or with their peers about refinements that can be made to the existing criteria.

Providing opportunities and encouraging students to engage in this type of reflection--be it self- or peer-assessment--is referred to as assessment AS learning. The beauty of this form of assessment is that it imparts leadership to your students: it helps them to recognize agency in their own learning, and it helps them to build autonomy--i.e., independence to influencing their own learning, as well as taking it upon themselves to learning on behalf of and supporting others.

Each time that we, alongside our students, reflect and discuss the ‘how’ of ‘what’ is being learned models metacognition--the act of thinking about one’s thinking. In essence, as students develop their metacognitive skills, they are becoming better monitors of their own learning--setting goals and making plans for how they can achieve them.

4. It’s Not That Straight-Forward
As we come to know our students better, we recognize the following:

Each individual develops proficiency in their own time;
Learning progressions aren’t linear; and
Students will become more adept at monitoring and personalizing goals.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

As a result, learning doesn’t look so straight-forward after all. In fact, each aspect of The Assessment Loop (Causarano & Coulombe, 2018), in Figure 1 (above), is connected and dependent upon the others.

Truly, this loop--or framework--represents the complex nature of the thinking and decision-making that occurs for both teachers and their students. It is a ‘space’ that we find ourselves in each and every day. As educators, the more we come to know our students, the curriculum, and what learning and student learning looks like, the better we can communicate where students are in their learning and next steps. By this point--having waded into the complexity of thinking and decision-making with students--we’re providing them with a communication of or an assessment OF their learning.

5. Final Remarks
As you reflect, how are you seeking to co-create conditions that can give life to equity in the teaching and learning you do with students and your colleagues each and every day?

When thinking about your assessment practice, consider the following:

“...student assessment IS the beginning point for instruction, not simply the end” (Volante et al., 2018).

In closing, I can't help but to think of the conversations that can be inspired when we take collective action to improving student learning. As this blog is a means for readers to network and gradually change the context for how they teach and learn, we all benefit by drawing nearer to the perspectives shared here and shared beyond with our professional learning networks.

I am more than happy to collaborate with you and make our learning visible, here, in this blog and across Flipping the Focus' social media platforms, as well as your own. If at any time, you have questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me at Flipping the Focus.

Sincerely,

Chris Stewart
Education Leader, Flipping the Focus (c) 2019

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

6. References
Causarano, J., & Coulombe, H. (2018, September 14). The Assessment Loop: Merging Assessment and Instruction. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://harnessassessment.com/2018/09/04/the-assessment-loop-merging-assessment-and-instruction/

Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools. (2010). Toronto: Ministry of Education.

Volante, L., et al. (2019, January 24). Culturally-Responsive Teaching in a Globalized World. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/culturally-responsive-teaching-in-a-globalized-world-109881

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When It Comes to Learning, What Does Success Mean?

1/10/2019

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Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post, I posed a number of questions for our consideration--some of them pertaining to student voice (below).

How do we come to know our students? What lessons do they bring?

Today, we continue to surface examples where change--real change--can be inspired and driven by student voice.

A) Introduction
In recent years, we’ve been hearing about and espousing the importance of having and enacting a growth mindset. A growth mindset, according to Dweck (2006) is based on the belief that intelligence is not fixed...that each person can move beyond their current level of skill through hard work and determination. Developing this mindset goes beyond belief: it manifests in how we respond to challenges and setbacks.

Generally, those with a growth mindset are curious to stretch themselves by learning something new: success is borne of their efforts to confronting challenges and making progress. Feelings of success are drawn just as much--if not more--from the process of learning than its results.

Getting ‘there’...towards success...requires that students have a clear understanding of the criteria for success; contribute to their construction; and have opportunities to putting them into action. Equally- important and coincident with their use is the opportunity to receive descriptive feedback from teachers and peers and to engage in self-assessment against these criteria. With ongoing, descriptive feedback, students are better able to monitor their progress towards learning goals--making adjustments, accordingly, and subsequently, are positioning themselves to setting new goals (Growing Success, 2010).

The very nature of “Getting ‘there’” is derived from Formative Assessment and ”...requires a culture in which student and teacher learn together in a collaborative relationship” (Growing Success, p30). The reciprocal relationship, as described through the example of co-constructing criteria (above) can also be grown, in part, by encouraging students to persevere through their own learning processes (some of these, experimental) and talking about challenges as they arise (Student Voice, 2013).

Paul Tough (2012) shares that teaching and mentorship can help students achieve a shift in their mindset through the use of skills like critical thinking and problem solving. For example, metacognition--the process of thinking about how one learns--can be empowering to students, helping them to increase their engagement for continuous learning.

The experimental nature of collaboratively setting, working towards and reflecting upon goals is a common means by which districts, schools and classrooms are making gains in achievement, increasing student engagement and supporting student well-being across Ontario. Modeling this process, on a smaller scale--i.e., at the student-level--can prove to have the same impact on a student’s learning; set an example for a student’s peers; and inform school-level improvement planning (Flipping the Focus 2018a, 2018b). Drawn from Ontario’s Well-Being Strategy (2016), engaging in collaborative inquiry can equitably and respectfully support the cognitive and emotional domains of all students--each student presenting different backgrounds, strengths, needs and interests.

B) A Collaborative Inquiry into Developing a Growth Mindset
In early December (2018), Chris Harrison (@MrCHarrison) and I engaged the #MTBoS (MathTwitterBlogosphere; image, below) in ideating strategies that would support one of his students. This student--very high-achieving in Mathematics--was struggling with responding to performance setbacks.

Beyond the #MTBoS, as colleagues both from the Upper Canada DSB, we began to generate ideas of how we could leverage collaborative problem solving to supporting the development of his student’s non-cognitive skills--in particular, resiliency. The anticipated result is to support the student in being better equipped to responding to performance setbacks. As mentioned in the introduction, this type of work is grounded in inquiry and is best framed using a monitoring process known as a Cycle of Inquiry (Ideas into Action, 2013). Cycles of Inquiry are broken down into four, key phases: Plan, Act, Assess, and Reflect.

Through these phases, documentation of student learning is used to guide conversations about how the inquiry is progressing and if adjustments need to be made moving forward. And through the involvement of a variety of collaborators, the learning from such an inquiry is not only a benefit to the student but can be far-reaching--i.e., supporting the learning of the student's peers, school-level teaching practices and both teaching and learning abroad.

C) Resources to Supporting Your Inquiry

In the next part of this post, you'll have access to some resources that you can adapt to empowering students to using their voice in school improvement practices. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact Flipping the Focus (see right).

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

Each conversation, along with the in-between work of such an inquiry, is framed in the context of student improvement. Coincident with recognizing a student’s learning needs is that our own: the process also helps you to determine how to best provide support while honoring student voice.

Resource: Appendix A-Student Success Inquiry

DOWNLOAD-APPENDIX A

Resource: Appendix B-Student Monitoring Template

DOWNLOAD-APPENDIX B

D) Final Thoughts

In closing, I hope that you find the shared resources helpful and, in advance, I would like to thank you for sharing your insights. I can't help but to think of the conversations that can be inspired when we take collective action to improving student learning.

As this blog is a means for readers to network and gradually change the context for how they teach and learn, we all benefit by drawing nearer to the perspectives shared here and shared beyond with our professional learning networks.

I am more than happy to collaborate with you and make our learning visible, here, in this blog and across Flipping the Focus' social media platforms, as well as your own.

Contact Flipping the Focus to see how we can work together towards achieving your goals.

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Education Lead, Flipping the Focus, (c) 2018

E) References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books.

Tough, P. (2012). How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character. London: Arrow Books.

Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario’s Schools: Grades 1 to 12. (2010). Toronto: Ministry of Education.

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2013). Ideas Into Action: For School and System Leaders (Bulletin #5 - Using Data: Transforming Potential into Practice). Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/leadership/ideasintoactionbulletin5.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016, May). Ontario's Well-Being Strategy: Discussion Paper. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/WBDiscussionDocument.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education, Literacy & Numeracy Secretariat. (2013). Student Voice: Transforming Relationships (34th ed., Capacity Building Series, pp. 1-8).

Stewart, C. (2018a, February 13). Students as Researchers [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://flippingthefocus.weebly.com/blog/category/students-as-researchers

Stewart, C. (2018b, March 2). Creating Conditions for Occasioning Thinking & Supporting Student Well-Being in Mathematics Classrooms [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://flippingthefocus.weebly.com/blog/creating-conditions-for-occasioning-thinking-supporting-student-well-being-in-mathematics-classrooms

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getting to & enacting our 'How': collaborative spaces for occasioning thinking about school improvement

2/13/2018

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A) Introduction

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post, you encountered a thinking framework or theory of action that not only identified a deep sense of purpose and passion, but also highlighted how to deliver on its values and sample tools to do so. Today's post builds upon the last, providing individual practitioners, schools and districts another framework that can be leveraged for continuous improvement to student achievement, well-being and equity.

To begin, let's review a concept from the world of business and marketing that can be re-purposed to implementation and monitoring for system-wide improvement: the "Golden Circle."

B) Knowing & Understanding Your 'Why'

The "Golden Circle" by Simon Sinek

Now that you've viewed the video, it's time to make some connections with others to practice. Using the Comments Section here at Flipping the Focus (below), share your perspectives and discuss what resonates with you.

Here are a couple of prompts to get the discussion going:

i-What are your takeaways (affirmations, learning)? What's important for you to carry forward?

ii-What are you wondering?

Seth Godin, author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, writes that it's important for leaders to have and convey their vision/passion for growing their organization (their 'Why') and that it's also important they are committed and authentic to connecting with the members of their team...their 'tribe.'

In education, school and district goals constitute a larger, grand sense of purpose for improving achievement, well-being and equity (our 'Why'), but the real opportunity for improvement comes through our work to addressing the 'How.'

For example, if a district goal is to have most classes engaging in making their thinking visible (i.e., strategy for getting to improvement), then there must be a plan and process developed and addressed in an ongoing manner for addressing 'How.'

C) Getting to & Enacting Your 'How'

As a leader, it's critical that we connect with our team members, by doing the work <=> learn by doing and that we help by connecting members of the team. In essence, we are culturing a learning community and a community of learners for school improvement.

Using frameworks for collaborative study and action-based/classroom-embedded activities is a means (i.e., 'What') by which we can occasion thinking about our plans and actions--i.e., assessing our moves and reflecting to inform next steps to meeting goals. Collaboratively planning, acting, assessing and reflecting, in a cyclical manner, are key components to the 'How' of school improvement (diagrammed, below).

D) Tools & Resources to Supporting Your 'What'

To help frame and lead conversations concerning the various aspects of your 'How' (i.e., getting to reflection of cyclical improvement process), we require 1) research-informed information that we can relate to practice ('Act' of cyclical improvement process), 2) collaborative learning activities for professional practice ('Act'), and 3) actions and tools to help monitor our progress (i.e., we need to have data to lead conversations about student learning and well-being; 'Assess' of cyclical improvement process).

For example, there is a plethora of research-informed resources that can be used to help facilitate group and individual, professional learning in Mathematics. Below, you'll see and have access to an interactive infographic that highlights current, key researchers and resources to pay attention to during your collaborative study. To access these sources, hover over the various areas of the graphic and click to access the embedded links.

1-Summary of "Achieving Excellence in Teaching & Learning Mathematics: A Synthesis of Approaches to Supporting Student Achievement, Equity & Well-Being Through Mathematics K to 12" (Interactive Graphic)

In short, I would recommend that you begin by examining the resources connected to the "Pedagogical System." From here, you have several choices dependent upon your team's chosen area of study (Caveat 1: Much like you'll uncover with the Pedagogical System, there is interdependency for these areas of study).

With "Visible Learning," you have the opportunity to review practices that have the most impact upon teaching & learning--classroom discourse, self-assessment, and teacher clarity are examples of strategies that have higher effect sizes. Professor John Hattie (below) speaks extensively about learning goals (i.e., intentions, targets) and success criteria. He explains that learning goals are not about 'the task' and that success is not what happens at the end of a learning period. In fact, students need to create success criteria, as supported by their teacher. Further to this need, Hattie also identifies that it is important for students to develop conceptual understanding in math, then to apply strategies for efficiency. As a means of developing understanding, teachers are more likely to name-and-notice strategies for/with their students--i.e., strategies that can be applied for efficiency. As far as pedagogical practice is concerned, pre-tasks are key to understanding students' prior knowledge so that you can start anticipating what success can look like for students. Student success can be made visible early on, and you'll find that you'll need to vary your strategies to determine if students authentically understand and can demonstrate their learning.

For "Classroom Discourse," take a close look at the work and resources of Lucy West (Metamorphosis Learning Communities). There is a significant interdependence of accountable talk, learning goals/success criteria, and the pedagogical system (mentioned, above).

In mathematical communities of practice (Caveat 2: You will find that much of the pedagogical knowledge and practical 'moves' in, and in extension to, this post apply to all communities of practice), "Thinking Classroom" frameworks are growing, not only in popularity, but in their effect/impact upon the teaching and learning of Mathematics. I would highly recommend that you explore the possibility of beginning with some of Dr. Peter Liljedahl's 1st Year/Stage elements of thinking classroom design in your school(s)/district.

To help facilitate meaning-making in your thinking classrooms, take a look at the "5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions." Within this resource, you'll not only find good reason(s) for facilitating problem-based learning, but you'll also have access to some examples from teacher practice (Caveat 3: Embed the "5 Practices," "Thinking Classrooms," and "Classroom Discourse" into your improvement practices such that you're better able to address the interdependent attributes of the Pedagogical System).

Lastly, as a 'glue' that binds all things pedagogical, and I would argue as also helping us to maintain 'flow' in our own learning, are our formative assessment practices. To inform your formative assessment practices, take a close look at pages 33 to 36 of Ontario's Growing Success document, as well as the visual graphic provided from the #ucdsbmath "Assessment Loop", as you study the document. And in your leadership practices related to keeping the various aspects of your engagement of the Pedagogical System 'in play,' the following SIM K to 12 graphic (below; pdf for download) lends itself well to inviting reflection to formative assessment practices.

the_pedagogical_system_leadership_tool.pdf
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2-Collaborative Learning Activities for Professional Practice

Up to now, your school/district is well under way having identified an improvement goal, reflected upon data (including perceptual data), and is beginning/continuing to enact a cyclical plan to studying together. With the information provided in the previous section, what methods/activities are available to you and your teams for facilitating collaborative forms of study?

The document, below (pdf; available for download), is a synthesis of a #ucdsbmath document used during system-wide RMS (Renewed Math Strategy) study and Collaborative Professionalism
(Ministry of Education-Ontario PPM-159; further expounded by Dr. Lyn Sharatt). Exemplifying collaborative professionalism through leadership means that we are knowledgeable/know how learning happens, are able to mobilize knowledge/learning, and work to sustain growth incurred by collective efforts. There are a variety of activities that we can use to engage one another in collaborative learning, but I would put forth that we need to lean more into working with those that can sustain growth in our schools/districts. By examining the document, you'll notice that I've labeled the last two options--Leadership for Monitoring Team Learning & Leadership for Learning Team Practices--as being Growing-Sustaining factors.

sample_collaborative_learning_activities.pdf
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3-Enacting Collaborative Learning Activities: Occasioning Thinking & Taking Action to Exploring Pedagogical Practice

As you embark on exploring pedagogical practice, it's important that we do so with others. As mentioned in the section, above, collective development and sustaining growth as a team/school/district occurs when we can collaboratively monitor our progress. At the classroom level, this would look like documenting student thinking and re-purposing that documentation to helping students move their learning forward. At the school level, this process might involve a group (or groups) of practitioners cultivating and re-purposing student thinking, as elicited by exploring an agreed-upon pedagogical strategy, to planning next steps in the team's approach to helping students improve learning outcomes and minimizing variation within the school. Further along--i.e., in consideration of scale--districts can also follow the same process by engaging their schools in exploring and documenting efforts to solving a challenge to practice, co-facilitating data-lead conversations of school-level processes, and encouraging reflection and mobilizing findings to their district for helping to inform next steps at the school-level.

Despite challenges of scale, there is a great deal of congruence in the patterns and processes to improving teaching & learning. As far as collaborative activities are concerned, what you'll notice as being a unifying construct for moving any and all groups forward can be those practices that I've highlighted as being Growing-Sustaining--i.e., Leadership for Monitoring & Leadership for Team Practices.

Engaging the Pedagogical System Through Occasioning Thinking: The Thinking Classroom

As your team(s) begin(s) to explore challenges to practice with one another, students, and other teams (networked learning), a framework that can engage the interdependent attributes of the Pedagogical System and guide year(+)-long collaborative inquiries into improving student learning is that of a Thinking Classroom.

The document (pdf, below; available for download) I am providing represents a synthesis of both Pedagogical System and Thinking Classroom (Dr. Peter Liljedahl, Simon Fraser University) attributes. The thinking classroom elements serve the Pedagogical System, and although this tool has been organized as a 'checklist,' this list needs to be occasioned as criteria for success. That is, there is ample room for practitioners, teams, and districts to incorporate a variety of strategies to meeting these criteria.

By enacting a cycle of inquiry, with strategies (the 'What') aimed at students' occasioning thinking, you'll be engaging the Pedagogical System. And by documenting your process and assessing in relation to these criteria for success, your data-lead reflections will point to next steps for moving improvement efforts forward.

school_improvement_through_a_thinking_classroom_–_professional_learning_template_for_learning_teams__mathematics_.pdf
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Key Element to Building a Thinking Classroom for School Improvement: Classroom Discourse

If you examine John Hattie's list of effect sizes, you'll see that classroom discourse is reported to have an effect size of 0.82. In short, any strategy with effect size 0.40 is expected to occur with respect to maturation (i.e., with one year of learning). Thus, culturing a safe, discursive environment (albeit not the only teaching strategy being used, as the interdependency of high-yield strategies better serves students) has the potential for closing gaps in learning (e.g., the equivalent of two years of learning).

You'll also notice that both the thinking classroom framework and pedagogical system have significant and important reliance upon student discourse. To further help your team in addressing the 'What' of their improvement practices, I would encourage you to consider exploring developing accountable discourse with your students. Below, I've provided a synthesis of resources (Lucy West, "5 Practices to...," NCTM) into the form of a tool that I've also tried (implemented and assessed with students) within my own teaching practice (pdf; available for download).

srg_math_talk_observation_checklist.pdf
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As with the thinking classroom elements, the elements for culturing a classroom of discourse have been organized into a 'rating' system. This system needs to be occasioned as criteria for success. That is, there is ample room for practitioners, teams, and districts to incorporate a variety of strategies to meeting these criteria.

E) Some Final Thoughts: Growing Your Leadership & Networking at Flipping the Focus

An Emergent Leader: Growing Your Leadership

Throughout this post, I've use the word leadership. Typically, in an educational context, our minds might tend to think about our school-level leaders (principals and vice-principals). Not all that long ago, my system-level principal explained that you can lead no matter your position in the 'line-up'. If you're reading this post, and find yourself not in a leadership role, think again: you are, by informal nature, an emergent leader (ASCD) and you have lots of room to engage the pedagogical system in your own/team's/school's improvement practices--collectively setting goals and disciplining ourselves to occasioning collaborative work on an ongoing basis.

According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD),...
-If you are more concerned about the journey towards a goal, rather than the goal itself, you are emerging in leadership.
-If you carve out your own path, inquiring as you go, you are an emerging leader.
-If you desire to work with others with varied backgrounds...each of you passionate and driven to improving achievement, equity and well-being for students in your school/district/province, you are an emerging leader.
-And if desire to serve others for the public good, you are an emerging leader. I hope that you are finding the information in this post helpful and that you will return to it, as you are looking to carve out a place in your school/district to lead as a collaborative professional. Remember: We need you to lead us (Seth Godin, Tribes).

Building & Supporting Your Professional Network: Getting Connected

As emerging leaders, remember that there are practitioners in various locations and in various roles who have a strong desire to frame their work through school improvement processes. What they have uncovered is that learning on behalf of others (Steven Katz & Lisa Ain Dack, Intentional Interruption: Breaking Down Learning Barriers to Transform Professional Practice) is a powerful means to growing collective capacity--i.e., growing both the confidence and efficacy to enact their collaborative professionalism to, as Seth Godin might say, motivate, connect and leverage the team members of their 'tribe.'

In conjunction to what you're doing individually and/or at the school level, getting connected to others of this 'tribe' might be as simple as following a particular hashtag (#) on Twitter and/or participating in on-line discussions (e.g., Twitterchats, commenting through this blog). You might also consider creating a backchannel to discussions you’re having in your own district. And if you're looking to connect with a smaller group of practitioners within and beyond your current location and/or role, I would invite you to consider registering with the Professional Learning Network (PLN) Finder (link/button, below; Form Results link to connect with other registrants).

If you'd like to start out by considering a more personalized interaction with Flipping the Focus, you can also connect via email (see the contact form, end of page). NEW to Flipping the Focus is a booking tool (Flipped PL) for professional learning experiences. Click on the link/button, below ("Book Now") to be re-directed to registering for your next professional learning event/experience.

Networking Option:
Flipped PLN Finder

PLN Finder - Register

Finder - Form Results

Professional Learning Option:
Booking with Flipped PL

F) Looking Ahead

In closing, I hope that you have not only found this post informative but supportive towards how you can better address your face-to-face time with students, colleagues, and/or network partners, as you engage in exploring school improvement practices that can be potential 'game-changers' for student achievement, equity and well-being.

Be sure to check the blog and/or website, periodically, for an advisory regarding a depository of the several tools & resources mentioned here (AND for a series of new tools) to help you in your instructional leadership journey with and towards school improvement.

Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Learning Partner, Upper Canada District School Board
Founder & Educational Consultant, Flipping the Focus (copyright, 2018)

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Learning to Lead, leading to Learn (Part 3 of 3): Exploring the role of student voice in school improvement practices

1/3/2018

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A) Introduction

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

If you're new to the Flipping the Focus community or have been following since the beginning, I've been sharing my inquiries, reflections, and growth concerning school-level leadership--certainly, a form of leadership that I would describe as relational, engendering transformation, grounded as instructional, and seeking to be distributed.

In the previous two posts of this three-part series, I described my position and learning regarding effective leadership (Part 1; read more) and reported on cycles of inquiry, co-leading a professional learning community (Part 2; read more).

In the this third post, I am contemplating the future of/for school-level leadership as being next-level, student-driven--that is, with an emphasis on school improvement through culturing student voice. Through my role as a system-level Learning Partner (Upper Canada DSB), some of the inspiration for this writing is being drawn from the self-monitoring and reflection I've engaged in since September 2017. As Professor John Hattie (2013) espouses, it is important that we consider our impact as teachers and leaders on student learning. By extension, I am applying a plan-act-assess-reflect process to the collaborative work I am privileged to co-facilitate with school-level, numeracy and literacy learning teams this year.

Leaders of Their Own Learning

Recently, I came across an article on Education Week (an opinion-based, EdTech Research blog) titled "2018 - The Year of Agency, Take 2." In this article, author Beth Holland writes “...agency can only develop when students exist in an environment of collective capacity.”

Agency, Holland explicates, means that students "assume control over their learning". And to assume control, "classrooms need to embrace a culture of shared intellectual growth and a deep respect of the individual voices that contribute to the development of the group."

I agree with Holland's perspective. The success we all experience is borne out of students becoming leaders of their own learning. And across Ontario, we're recognizing the importance of students' voices when it comes to improving student achievement, engagement, and well-being (Student Voice, 2013). 2018 can very well be a "Year of Agency," and getting there will require that we move forward from expression and consultation to building and leveraging collective capacity--that is, growing participation and establishing partnerships that will move student voice to action.

In this post, I offer up an example of a collaborative inquiry that could be enacted at the school level for the cultural growth of such environments, where the collective of lead learners includes administration, teachers, and students. Also, you'll find some resources I've constructed that might be worthy of testing for guiding your journey and survey tools for gathering perceptual data to inform your teams' improvement planning processes.

B) Getting Started

Activate
As you continue with today's post, I'd like to point back to a summary (Capacity Building Series monograph, below) on student voice and other resources. I think that you'll find these works powerful in that they can help us to connect to/reflect upon practice and frame our thinking for new considerations/learning.

Protocol: As you read through the monograph, consider what 1) affirms your thinking, 2) challenges your thinking/leaves you wondering, and/or 3) is new learning/you'd like to take action on.

cbs_studentvoice.pdf
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Discuss
Based on the reading protocol provided for this monograph, feel free to take some time to post a comment for others. Through sharing, we can support one another to think more deeply, spur further reflection, and/or grow our professional learning network for future collaboration.

C) Further Reading & Considerations

If your interest is piqued concerning the role of student voice in your classroom, at the school level, or at the district level, you might find visiting the Ministry of Education's (Ontario) Student Voice webpage beneficial. Check out the video (below) as an introduction for ways through which you can work further alongside your students in improving their educational experience.

Consider This

After reviewing the information provided on the Student Voice webpage, I was drawn quite quickly to both the MSAC (Minister's Student Advisory Council) and StaR (Students as Researchers) sections, as I had explored incorporating a student research component into culturing discourse in a Mathematics classroom (2015-17...read more). Perhaps, the following questions might lend themselves as guiding questions or provocations for what could be explored collaboratively:

Question 1: With regards to MSAC, what might it take for schools to have their own SAC--specifically, one (or several) that focus upon improvement practices in educational programming (see image, below)?

Question 2: In relation to Question 1, what might it take for schools to cultivate "Students as Researchers" as an integral component to continuous school improvement? And how might this intersect with our own teacher-researcher/practitioner, learning teams approach to school improvement?

Question 3: (Post to comments for others.)

As you continue to explore the information provided on the Student Voice webpage(s), you'll come across the "Nine Student Voice Indicators", as well as an annotated list of all of the MSAC-based inquiries that have been documented since the "Nine...Indicators." The contributions (indicators) brought forth by the first MSAC (and subsequent contributions) represent what students from across Ontario deem as being important to improving student engagement and learning.

Below, you'll see a list of the nine indicators, along with an indicator that I'm proposing ("New"; expanded upon in the next section, below) for a school-level, collective capacity building team--a team, made up of both teachers and students, that is charged with collaboratively inquiring into improving educational programming.

D) Growing Collective Capacity for Improving Educational Programming

I) Vision
For the remainder of this post, and with respect to the proposition (above), I would like to share a vision for a collaborative inquiry that could be enacted in any classroom or school and across any subject and/or an integration of subject areas.

Like all schools across Ontario, you are likely in a leadership position and/or a member of a school-based learning team in Literacy, Numeracy, and/or involved in another aspect of school improvement planning. What is being presented is not a new idea; rather, it is an extension, as it draws upon the characteristics of the StaR role for students (mentioned, above).

Ultimately, I believe this to be an innovation for shifting how improvement planning (with a focus on educational programming) is perceived and done.

It is important to note, as outlined for StaR projects,...

"...[t]his effort to involve students in research is not meant to exclude an adult presence. The goal is to combine the experiences and efforts of both adults and students for mutual benefit...By making students and adults equal partners in collaborative inquiry we can support active engagement of students in questions of interest to them...Students and teachers develop a sense of shared responsibility for the quality and conditions of teaching and learning, both within particular classrooms and more generally within the school community."

II) Goal Setting: Process for School Improvement Planning for Student Achievement, Engagement & Well-Being

Prior to embarking on the improvement planning process, it is of paramount importance to collect, review, and interpret different sources data to setting an overall, year-long goal. Below, I've included a screenshot and attachment for the Improvement Planning and Assessment Tool (available on the Virtual Fall 2017-RMS/SIM K-12 website).

With respect to growing a shared responsibility through actualization of Student Voice, you'll notice that "Perceptual Data" has been highlighted.

IPAT Document (attached, below)

handout_e-one_ipat_10-02-2017.pdf
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III) Collecting Perceptual Data: Setting the Stage for Culturing Student Voice

Below, you'll find a MS-Form (open for duplication; link provided) that can be used to gather students' perspective on teaching and learning. The form has been designed with the Pedagogical System for Mathematics in mind, but I think you'll find that many of the prompts can be modified for other opportunities to collect information concerning students' perspectives on teaching and learning.

This form could be suitable for collecting and determining changes in students' perspectives at key points throughout the course of working towards attaining classroom and/or school goals. If you do not happen to have access to Office 365 tools, I have attached a Word doc of the prompts used in designing the survey.

If you do happen to use the form (or an adaptation), please share some of your observations by commenting to this post or by using the contact form (bottom of this page) to communicate with me directly.

Below, you'll also notice that I've included a teacher-version of this form (open for duplication and Word doc comparison of both teacher and student prompts included; reading levels accounted for in the student version). As explained by Richard Elmore (2009), "[l]ike other skills, learning to see and hear the particulars of teaching practice requires practice. Like a muscle, it gets stronger with repetition and practice. The best way to strengthen the observation muscle is to observe lots of classrooms." Although this reference might relate more to observations school leaders could make during walkthroughs, I believe that teacher learning groups can leverage this form (and practice) to aligning and monitoring their own moves, in a mutual manner, with the outcomes of the student survey (and subsequent, shared/collaborative planning that is borne out of the analysis and interpretation of this data).

MS-Form (Sample Student Survey): Leading Learning Together Through the Pedagogical System for Mathematics

-Survey Link (to duplicate): https://goo.gl/QqgHWg

Word Doc (Student Version; attached): Leading Learning Together Through the Pedagogical System for Mathematics

student survey prompts-leading learning together through the pedagogical system.docx
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MS-Form (Sample Teacher Observation/Survey Tool): Leading Learning Through the Pedagogical System for Mathematics

-Survey Link (to duplicate): https://goo.gl/hMr8zF

Word Doc (Teacher-Student Version; attached): Leading Learning Through the Pedagogical System for Mathematics

teacher-student survey prompts-pedagogical system for teaching and learning.docx
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IV) PLAN: Process for School Improvement Planning for Student Achievement, Engagement & Well-Being

Going back to part II (above), the time in between the setting and attainment of the overall goal is punctuated by iterations of a plan-act-assess-reflect process. This process maintains flexibility for adjustments to problems of practice (i.e., each iteration begins with a Plan or "if-then" statement), as well as to processes (e.g., Act: intentional moves made, observations and feedback from students and teachers, monitoring student learning, engagement, and/or well-being).

Before planning the first iteration of cycles of inquiry (and setting an if-then statement), I would suggest analyzing the data with students (i.e., StaR) in a learning team setting to identify trends in students' perspectives (i.e., conveying strengths, needs, and uncertainties). In addition to this, try to explore what research currently suggests regarding responsive pedagogy to these areas of strength and need.

With an if-then statement prepared for your first cycle, work together to implement the remaining act, assess, and reflect stages--diligently monitoring the process, and re-iterating with reflection informing next steps. As you continue to move through the process, do be sure to continue training StaR students in collaborative inquiry and sharing the responsibility of working through the stages of the school improvement process.

V) ACT: Process for School Improvement Planning for Student Achievement, Engagement & Well-Being

Implementing the plan and responding to students can be done in a variety of manners--from applying a new strategy to implementing initatives of greater scale. Recently, a pedagogical framework for addressing improvement in teaching and learning mathematics is that of a Thinking Classroom (Liljedahl, 2016).

Liljedahl describes a Thinking Classroom as "...a classroom that is not only conducive to thinking but also occasions thinking, a space that is inhabited by thinking individuals as well as individuals thinking collectively, learning together, and constructing knowledge and understanding through activity and discussion. It is a space wherein the teacher not only fosters thinking but also expects it, both implicitly and explicitly." More information concerning research on a Thinking Classroom can be found here.

Upon closer examination, you'll find that the elements of a Thinking Classroom intersect with much ongoing research and application of research to practice in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Below, a tweet of the elements (and stages of their application) has been included for your perusal. The tweet recounts using the elements as an anchor for discussion--honoring student voice in assessing the impact of intentional moves--in the classroom of Ottawa-based educator, Alex Overwijk.

Pedagogical System Meets a Thinking Classroom

Above, you'll recall how the Pedagogical System had been used to design both student and teacher surveys (i.e., for collecting perceptual data and serving as an assessment tool, respectively).

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the systems-level thinking that our district (and others in Ontario) are occasioning through their planning and monitoring of their Renewed Math Strategy (RMS) initiatives.

Elements of a Thinking Classroom

One of the frameworks being used (Systems Implementation & Monitoring-SIM) is that of the Pedagogical System (Worthwhile tasks, Classroom Discourse, Tools & Representations, and Non-threatening Classroom Environment).

Given the growth in implementation of thinking classroom models and its potential intersection with other aspects of mathematics teaching and learning, I felt that a ‘lens’ through which professionals could further inquire into their practice would be to engage this system through building thinking classrooms.

To help guide your learning team's work, I have built and included a tool that you might consider using to monitor the application and development of each of the Thinking Classroom elements (i.e., as they relate to the various domains of the Pedagogical System). These elements could help form the basis of your if-then; serve as pedagogical moves in practice; and comprise success criteria you could monitor for impact upon student learning (Note: A sample form for monitoring student learning (Upper Canada DSB) has been included in next section).

If you do happen to use the tool, please share some of your observations by commenting to this post or by using the contact form (bottom of this page) to communicate with me directly.

School Improvement Through a Thinking Classroom - Professional Learning Template for Learning Teams (Mathematics)

PDF (School Improvement Through a Thinking Classroom; attached)

school_improvement_through_a_thinking_classroom_–_professional_learning_template_for_learning_teams__mathematics_.pdf
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Vi) ASSESS-REFLECT: Process for School Improvement Planning for Student Achievement, Engagement & Well-Being

Assessment is an ongoing process and critical to informing next steps in school improvement planning. Over the course of each iteration of your team's plan, take time to convene teachers and StaR students to share what (and how) they've been monitoring for impact. Everyone should be prepared to have data (qualitative and/or quantitative)--data are required to lead your team's conversations. Below, you'll find a sample form that can be used as a tool to help organize your team's ongoing work and group discussions.

Word Doc (Sample Monitoring Form)

monitoring_plan_template.docx
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Now that you've reached the end of an iteration with your StaR students, it's time to take time to reflect on how the inquiry has gone and how the team's work could be directed.

You might choose to anchor your team's reflection to the following prompts (Upper Canada DSB Principal, Teresa Polite, 2016-17 RMS)

Was the goal achieved?
- Why? What, specifically, made a difference?
How do you know? What does your assessment data tell you?
What other assessment data did you gather?
Did all of your students show progress?

Following this, set your sights on next steps--i.e., connecting your assess-reflect to determining an if-then statement for your next cycle of student inquiry with StaR students.

Where do you think teaching and learning needs to go next?
What do you think might help students?
- What do you think we should learn more about or try out in the classroom to foster growth in students' learning and your learning?

E) Concluding Thoughts

In closing, I'm wondering, how might you relate to what is proposed?

If you're working on or are considering incorporating student voice into your school's inquiry-based, improvement planning processes, please feel free to share your thoughts and/or learning here (i.e., either as a comment or share using the contact form, below).

All the best to you and your learning teams in making 2018 a "Year of Student Agency," growing participation and establishing partnerships that will move student voice to action.

Professionally Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Learning Partner, Upper Canada DSB
Founder & Educational Consultant, Flipping the Focus

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