Category: Rola Tibshirani

Connect 2 Learn: Episode 47 of "the Missing Link"

2/11/2019

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

1. Introduction
Recently, I had the awesome privilege to take part in a voicEdcanada Radiothon--a space that brought together many educators in the spirit of sharing their thoughts on the future of Education.

I’d like to express my deepest thanks to Rola Tibshirani (@rolat, Ottawa Catholic School Board) and Stephen Hurley and the team at voicEdcanada for the recent opportunity to share my learning journey with others across Canada.

We engaged in a discussion of the confluence of thinking, assessment, connected learning (globalized competencies) and flipped learning practices upon student learning, as well as what learning we need to do, as educators and leaders, for continuously improving the conditions for teaching and learning.

tweet for episode 47 of the podcast, the missing link

Click on the image to access the podcast

These are timely, relevant and important considerations for Education.

With respect to the last five posts, here on Flipping the Focus, listeners can experience the essence of each of them--i.e., a confluence of the themes--through the podcast.

The podcast can be accessed at: https://soundcloud.com/rola-tibshirani/rt-chris

Each of the contributing posts, from the "Equity Through Pedagogy" Series, are linked below for further, deep reflection.

2. Series: Equity Through Pedagogy
Post 1: Thinking Classrooms

Post 2: Global Competencies

Post 3: Flipped Learning

Post 4: Formative Assessment

Post 5: Pedagogical System for Teaching Mathematics

3. Provocation
Once you've had an opportunity to listen to the podcast and/or read any one of the posts, consider sharing your perspectives to this blog and/or with your colleagues in response to the following provocation.

What affirmations, wonderings and/or challenges are you
and your teams experiencing?

Final Remarks
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 through the "Contact" button (below).

Sincerely,

Chris Stewart
Education Leader, Flipping the Focus

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

Reference
The Missing Link: Episode 47 - Chris Stewart [Audio blog interview]. (2019, February 11). Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/rola-tibshirani/rt-chris

0 Comments

equity through pedagogy-Part 2: Global competencies

1/26/2019

0 Comments

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 second 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. What if those ways led to empowering students to becoming leaders of their own learning--becoming, over time, better able to contribute to their communities?

In this post, Global Competencies (Government of Ontario, 2016) are defined, characteristics explained, and suggestions are made for how you and your students can experience success through an active exploration and incorporation of these skills--sometimes referred to as Transferable Skills (People for Education, 2017) or the 6C’s of Deep Learning (Fullan & Langworthy, 2013).

Having consulted with several educators, exploring Global Competencies in their own practices, it is clear that the leadership imparted to students is transforming both teaching and learning.

"Having consulted with several educators, exploring Global Competencies
in their own practices, it is clear that the leadership imparted to students is
transforming both teaching and learning."

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

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

2. The Ontario Context: Growing Success
Ontario educators are continuously working alongside their students to helping them develop Learning Skills. These skills, based on research, are integral to helping them become effective learners and to succeed in both school and in life (Growing Success, 2010).

These skills include Responsibility, Organization, Independent Work, Collaboration, Initiative and Self-Regulation. Growing Success also provides several descriptors of sample behaviours that teachers can use when discussing the Learning Skills with their students and assessing their development of these skills.

3. The Ontario Context: Transferable Skills
To better understand the current context for skills that underpin successful, future-oriented learning--learning that provides opportunities for student-centred leadership and developing citizenship, we need to consider Equity.

What about Transferable Skills?

According to Ontario’s Equity Action Plan (2017), we might describe equity as a state where “[a]ll students...have every opportunity to reach their full potential and succeed personally and academically, with access to rich learning experiences that provide a strong foundation of confidence that continues throughout their lives.”

Understanding that there are many considerations to addressing inequity in Education, of profound significance and hope, is captured by what Michael Fullan calls the Equity Hypothesis (in Thiers, 2017).

The hypothesis, essentially, is this: students who see themselves (and their learning) in the world--connected to the world; that is, relevant, meaningful and applicable learning (Sheninger, 2017 )--learn more deeply and are, themselves, transformed along with the people they have served. In fact, Fullan explains through his own examples, that students most disaffected by a more traditional form of learning are quickest to adopt and move the furthest when we frame learning through globalized competencies (in Thiers, 2017).

This hypothesis, if educators are keen to take on its exploration, can work. But it is important to remember that our pedagogical practices must also be redressed, alongside our students and colleagues, if we are to generate solutions and sustain long-term growth to bringing Equity to student learning.

4. Transferable Skills
To make better connections to the world, a different set of skills are required for success: these are called Transferable Skills.

These skills include: Critical Thinking, Innovation & Creativity, Self-Directed Learning, Collaboration, Communication and Citizenship (Fig 1 and Fig 2, below).

Upon closer examination, these might be considered ‘meta’ skills: the previously-mentioned Learning Skills can be mapped under the Transferable Skills. Take, for instance, Critical Thinking. From the Learning Skills, Organization, Collaboration and Self-Regulation could all play key roles in students developing and enacting Critical Thinking. Similar connections can be made between the remaining Learning Skills and Transferable Skills.

Again, it’s important to make this distinction: Global Competencies connect students to the real-world. And it is through these connections that students will experience greater success.

“...connected to the world; that is, relevant, meaningful and applicable learning…”

Fig 1. Global Competencies

Fig 2. Global Competencies

5. Connected Learning: An Interview with Rola Tibshirani
Up to this point in time, you might be wondering: This is great, but what kinds of learning experiences are going to help the students in my school build the success that comes through identifying and recognizing these skills?

In a recent interview with Rola Tibshirani (@rolat, All Saints HS, Ottawa Catholic School Board), I had the privilege of asking a number of questions about Global Competencies and her pedagogical practice. I am excited to be able to share Rola's perspectives in this space with readers.

Interview: Q & A
Question 1: What is learning like for students who are beginning to work with developing and expressing Global Competencies?

Answer:
Generally, students are not as inclined to taking risks with their learning.

Our discussions usually point to how they've participated in their education up this point--i.e., they have not had enough leadership roles to understand that they can have both agency and autonomy.
- Over time, we co-construct criteria for learning and negotiate 'grades'--all of this based on feedback.
- When students continuously focus on the 6C's, they are much better positioned to developing better self-regulation skills.

Question 2: Currently, we are assessing, providing feedback and reporting on Learning Skills. What do you see as the difference between Learning Skills and Transferable Skills?

Answer:
Our engagement with the 6C's connects students to the real-world...learning through real-world experiences.

For my students and I, Global Competencies make sense. They are more realistic.
When it does come time to be reporting out, students' reflections--reflections based on the 6C's--form the basis of their comments.

Question 3: According to Michael Fullan, I've read that some students are more likely to engage in learning that is guided by the 6C's. What has your experience been like with students?

Answer:

This is a bit of a 'yes/no' experience for me.
- For me, it comes down to getting to know your learners and planning with them to being successful. For example, students are challenged, from the outset of our time together, to be thinking about the 6C's.
- Often times, they're engaging these competencies through complex and/or controversial issues...topics that have meaning for students and can connect them to others beyond the classroom.
- Successful implementation requires that teachers are unpacking the 6C's with their students--usually exploring one dimension at a time.
  - Creating tasks that focus on the 6C's, highlighting through consolidation, and providing feedback on their progression are key factors for educators to consider.
  - With respect to consolidation and feedback, it's important that students are provided time to think independently (for building autonomy) and before sharing with others. The sharing is also an opportunity where students have a chance to integrate their thinking and that of others.

Question 4: What kinds of experiences can teachers create to support students transitioning from their current state to one where they are incorporating the 6C's?

Answer:

I've found it quite helpful for educators to study and plan with a team of teachers within and/or between schools.
- As a starting point, your team might choose to work on an inquiry related to collaboration.
- From a team-based perspective, co-planning, co-teaching and unpacking shared, teaching experiences are important to the success of your inquiry.

Question 5: How are teachers assessing students' proficiency with transferable skills?

Answer:

It's important to remember a key aspect...source of assessment: teachers need to anchor into students’ reflections
- And the first step is for students to provide one another descriptive feedback. Assessment AS learning is key.
- Formatively, teachers are observing...documenting and helping to plan and facilitate conversations about the global competencies that students will be working with.

"How do we '...build the success that comes through identifying and
recognizing these skills?'”

6. Final Remarks
Flat out, let’s recognize that there isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’. In fact, and as you may have experienced (or are experiencing), this is exceedingly tough work, but it is and can be the most gratifying work and experience you and your school can have.

Systematically, you will need to collaborate with your leadership and fellow educators through cycles of inquiry, where you are simultaneously seeking out and honoring students’ voices. Based on the needs you identify, you might explore a confluence of factors--technology, pedagogical practices, connections to community, and learning spaces within your school and beyond the traditional classroom.

As an assurance, over time, it will get easier because you will be establishing a culture of learning that embraces these types of skills. And you’ll have the excellence as a marker of your school’s success--in achievement, well-being, and overall...student feedback that speaks of empowerment to being leaders of their own learning.

7. Conclusion
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?

How are you incorporating Global Competencies into your pedagogical practice?

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

8. References
Fullan, M., & Langworthy, M. (2013, June). The New Pedagogy: Students and Teachers as Learning Partners. Retrieved from https://michaelfullan.ca/articles/

Global Competencies: An Interview with Rola Tibshirani [Online interview]. (2019, January 21).

Government of Ontario. (2016). EduGAINS: About Innovation in Learning in Ontario. Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/21stCenturyLearning/about_learning_in_ontario.html

Government of Ontario. (2017, October). Ensuring Equity in Ontario's Education System. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/action_plan.html

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

People for Education. (2017, September 9). Competencies and transferable skills part of Ontario's move to modernize the school system. Retrieved from https://peopleforeducation.ca/research/competencies-and-transferable-skills/

Sheninger, E. C., & Murray, T. C. (2017). Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Thiers, N. (2017). Making Progress Possible: A Conversation with Michael Fullan. Educational Leadership, 74(9), 8-14.

0 Comments

equity through pedagogy-Part 1: the thinking classroom

1/23/2019

0 Comments

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 first 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
Imagine a learning environment where students are engaged to interact in profound and meaningful ways. This state of engagement, resulting from the dynamic relationship between challenge and skill development, is called flow (Liljedahl, 2016).

In this post, the Thinking Classroom is defined, its characteristics explained, and suggestions are made for how you and your students can experience success in this type of learning environment.

Having explored a Thinking Classroom, as a part of my own pedagogical practice, transformed both my teaching and student learning.

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

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

"Having explored a Thinking Classroom, as a part of my own pedagogical
practice, transformed both my teaching and student learning."

2. Thinking Classrooms - Background
This is an active area of research for Dr. Peter Liljedahl (Simon Fraser University, British Columbia).

Thinking classrooms are defined as spaces“...not [only] conducive to thinking but [that] also [occasion] thinking...a space inhabited by thinking individuals as well as individuals thinking collectively, learning together, and constructing knowledge and understanding through activity and discussion” (Liljedahl, 2017).

These types of spaces exhibit 14, important elements. The elements can be thought of as pedagogical strategies--strategies contributing to the ongoing development of teacher and student mindsets of how to navigate guided inquiry in the mathematics classroom.

As teachers and students engage the elements, while negotiating and building mathematical meaning, they are building relationships with one another and a classroom community that honours student voice and empowers students to being agents (or leaders) of their own learning.

3. Thinking Classrooms - The Stages of Elements
The elements are typically spread across 4 stages. Ultimately, teachers will find themselves continuously deepening their practice by flexibly moving within and across the stages over time. Typical day-to-day practice will involve worthwhile tasks, structuring the classroom environment, and formative assessment--that is assessment for learning and assessment as learning.

These activities comprise the first, three stages. The final, fourth stage is characterized by practices that bring both teacher and students closer to an assessment of learning.

Let’s take a closer look at the 4 stages and the elements within them (Fig. 1; right).

Stage 1 implementation typically involves the use of worthwhile/rich mathematical tasks, vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS; vertical whiteboards), and visibly random groups (VRG).

Stage 2 is comprised of giving verbal instructions, de-fronting of the classroom, answering students only with keep-thinking questions, students creating meaningful notes, and building student autonomy.

Building autonomy encourages students to build their understanding by consulting with other groups in the space.
- By consulting with others and contributing to a facilitated consolidation of students’ thinking, along with highlighting and summarizing, students are encouraged to create notes from various groups’ work and discussion (see more on "meaningful notes" in #5; interview, below).

Stage 3 involves the use of hints and extensions to manage flow (or state of optimal learning), leveling to the bottom, and students completing check your understanding questions.

Fig. 1. Dr. Liljedahl's 14 Thinking Classroom Elements

Hints and extensions are provided to maintain students’ engagement to continue thinking.
Leveling to the bottom represents the selection and sequencing of VNPS work and students’ discussions that are to be featured and collaboratively threaded together by a teacher-facilitated consolidation (or lesson). In this case, the “bottom” is the threshold example at which all students were able to engage in solving the task.
Following consolidation, students are assigned a few tasks that they can use for self-assessment purposes. During this time, students work independently or in groups--either at VNPSs or on other surfaces (e.g., desks).

Lastly, Stage 4 involves the teacher communicating where students are in relation to learning goals, evaluating what is being valued, and reporting out on data (as opposed to points).

Note that evaluating brings us closer to giving an assessment of a student’s learning.
- When it comes to value, thinking classrooms focus more on process over product and combine both group and individual work.
As per reporting out on data, the philosophy is to holistically analyze a student’s data--that is, in a dis-aggregated manner. Doing so, as opposed to counting points (or aggregating marks), gives both the student and teacher a better, valid assessment of what the student has learned and next steps for improvement.

4. Promising Practices - Thinking Classrooms & Global Competencies
In Eastern Ontario, there are a number of educators journeying into building Thinking Classrooms. If we consider a continuum of implementation, some teachers might periodically have students working on tasks in vertical spaces; in others, students might be frequently working and requesting to work in these spaces on a near-daily basis.

Pedagogically-speaking, there is no one way to solve student empowerment challenges; rather, a confluence of approaches and reflection on these approaches with students is required. In a recent conversation I had with educator, Rola Tibshirani (@rolat; Ottawa Catholic School Board, OCSB), providing experiences for and encouraging students into leadership opportunities is related to how well students are able to self-regulate--a Global Competency. Based on the experiences like Erin Doak (@MrsDoaksClass, OCSB) and Jaime Depippo (@MrsDepippo, OCSB), a Thinking Classroom is a vehicle for helping students develop some of these competencies. This requires careful attention to reflecting the competencies through learning goals, co-creating and unpacking success criteria with students, all while managing the elements of this type of learning environment. Ultimately, "[communicating] where a student is and where they are going" (graphic, above), alongside #assessment AS learning, moves student learning forward.

As per more, fully-scaled implementations of a Thinking Classroom, you might consider checking out the work of these three, Ottawa Region educators: Alex Overwijk (@AlexOverwijk; Ottawa-Carleton DSB, OCDSB), Jimmy Pai (@PaiMath; OCDSB) and Jaime Depippo (mentioned, above). In addition to managing the elements of a Thinking Classroom, these educators are also spiralling through their curricula with their students--in Mathematics, and in Jaime's practice, high school English.

5. Thinking Classrooms & High School English: An Interview with Jaime Depippo

In a recent interview with Jaime Depippo, I had the privilege of asking a number of questions about her Thinking Classroom and pedagogical practice. I am excited to be able to share Jaime's perspectives in this space with readers.

Interview: Q & A
Question 1: How does a thinking classroom in English vary (if it does) relative to one in Mathematics? (I.e., Youʼre currently teaching both subjects in secondary school.)

Answer:

There is only one difference and that difference is what defines the rich task being put in front of students.
- In Math, we typically assign ‘problems’; whereas in English, we might be more inclined to assign ‘tasks’.
  - The essential difference is that rich tasks can touch upon a variety of strands in English and can be completed/stretched over longer periods of time.
  - Generally, the task is controversial so that there is no one answer...leaving lots of room for disagreement and defending one’s point of view.
  - As per resources of rich tasks, it’s recommended that teachers look to some online communities, like Twitter, to see what’s possible.
    - A place to start would be to consider how you’re currently using your resources. If you were to take, for example, a novel study, consider how a shift in your teaching would help you redress your approach to novel study.

Question 2: In our discussion, we've confirmed that this practice moves us away from more teacher-centric models of learning--i.e., instead of setting a goal, modeling and giving criteria, providing problem(s), and checking for understanding, we modify our practice to change ‘where’ modeling (or explicit teaching is done). The process might look like sharing a goal and activating knowledge, providing a problem, modeling through students’ thinking to create conditions for learning, then checking for understanding.

How are students responding to this type of learning environment at your school? What have you been noticing over time?

Answer:

At St Mother Teresa HS, I've had the opportunity to follow a cohort of students from Grade 8 to Grade 10.
- In this time, I've seen the culture of student learning, through Thinking Classrooms, change. Largely, I've seen students developing and expressing Global Competencies, as well as successfully demonstrating more autonomy in their learning. In part, their autonomy is being expressed through the meaningful notes and conversations we're having.

Question 3: You mentioned students developing Global Competencies. How do students feel about this--that their learning isn't just Mathematics or English?

Answer:

I tie in global competencies through our lessons (e.g., as a part of our learning goals and discussions)
Students are aware; it’s not the content that's of primary importance, but students will have the habits to help them navigate lifeʼs challenges.

Question 4: You explained earlier that students are building and showing autonomy through their "meaningful notes". What does this look like in practice? What are you and your students doing?

Answer:

I use a gradual release model with my students in Applied English and Mathematics.
- A template, that provides some constraints--largely, the space provided for creating notes (i.e., not taking notes)--is shared with students towards the end of a period of learning.
- Students are encouraged to take notes when they need to.
- On a day-to-day basis, exit tickets are used to provide students with feedback.
  - Using exit tickets allows me to provide suggestions for next steps. Students can map the next steps into the ‘what’ that they could be writing down in their notes.
- Students are not bound to making meaningful notes only at specific times in their learning.
  - I accomplish this by spiralling the curriculum. Through interleaving the content, students have multiple opportunities to revisit and bring greater depth and meaning to their notes.

"Might you consider incorporating a Thinking Classroom into
your pedagogical practice?"

6. 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?

Might you consider incorporating a Thinking Classroom into your pedagogical practice?

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

7. References
Global Competencies: An Interview with Rola Tibshirani [Online interview]. (2019, January 21).

Government of Ontario. (2016). EduGAINS: About Innovation in Learning in Ontario. Retrieved
from http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/21stCenturyLearning/about_learning_in_ontario.html

Liljedahl, P. (2017, October 17). Building a Thinking Classroom in Math. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-thinking-classroom-math

Liljedahl, P. (2016). Flow: A Framework for Discussing Teaching. Proceedings of the 40th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 203-210). Retrieved from http://www.peterliljedahl.com/wp-content/uploads/PME-2016-Flow-and-Teaching-1.pdf

Thinking Classrooms: An Interview with Jaime Depippo [Online interview]. (2019, January 23).

0 Comments

blog

Connect 2 Learn: Episode 47 of "the Missing Link"

equity through pedagogy-Part 2: Global competencies

equity through pedagogy-Part 1: the thinking classroom

Author

Archives

Categories

Contact