Blog Posts

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

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equity through pedagogy - part 5: pedagogical considerations for Teaching mathematics

2/10/2019

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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 fifth (and final) post in this series 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...

MAC PL 2019, March 13-15, Atlantic City

help students to seeing “...themselves as powerful mathematics [learners]” (Anthony & Walshaw, 2009a); and
grow teachers’ and leaders’ confidence that a better prescription for student success in mathematics is one that’s grounded in occasioning students’ thinking.

In this post, the characteristics of The Pedagogical System for Teaching Mathematics (SIM K-12, 2017) are explained and questions are asked to engage you, your colleagues and students in thinking about how this system might better frame the teaching and learning that goes on in your class and school each and every day.

I’d also like to draw your attention to the following: You’ll not only find the framework described in this post as being effective in supporting mathematics teaching and learning, but also as having the potential to influence teaching and learning in other subject areas and aspects of school life.

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 this framework--alongside many educators, students occasioning thinking, and complexed with other pedagogies--has
been transformational for my own teaching and student
learning, as well as that of my colleagues."

2. Background
The Pedagogical System is a framework that provokes us to consider how teaching and learning needs to be...less about telling...less about prescriptive moves and responses. Really, it calls us to shift our mindset about teaching, leading, and learning to one that gives more value to student thinking. This philosophy, grown out of mathematical, educational research, is mirrored through several references and resources. Some suggested reading and resources are included in the references section to this post.

This stance is one that depends on each and every one of us. Students, teachers and leaders all have a role to play in improving the conditions for student engagement, achievement and well-being.

Consolidated and adapted from the work of Anthony & Walshaw (2009a), System Implementation & Monitoring-K to 12 in Ontario (2017) has produced summary graphics and tools to help inform and guide educators as they inquire towards improving teaching and student learning.

The system (or framework) consists of four, interrelated components. This is so important to recognize and identify: none of the parts work in isolation of the others. These components include the following:

1-Worthwhile Mathematical Tasks
2-Tools & Representations
3-A Non-Threatening Classroom Environment
4-Classroom Discourse

The Pedagogical System for Teaching Mathematics

Let’s consider descriptions for each of these components in the form of reflective questions.

Worthwhile Mathematical Tasks
- Do the tasks students engage in support how mathematics is viewed; how it can be understood through thinking and reasoning; and how it can be used?
Tools & Representations
- How are students making their thinking visible? Are tools being used to organize thinking? Are multiple representations used, and are they connected for building a deepened understanding of mathematical concepts?
A Non-Threatening Classroom Environment
- Does the classroom community encourage each of its members to think and reason, communicate ideas, and receive, provide, and take action on feedback?
Classroom Discourse
- Do students value mistakes? Does the classroom community look forward to and honor the explanations of all students? What are the characteristics of productive, accountable discourse?

Already you can get a sense of some criteria that you could use for monitoring inquiries into building communities of learners and a coherent school culture, where students see themselves and others as empowered learners of mathematics.

Let’s take a moment to look more closely at the first component.

What defines a task as being rich or worthwhile?

3. Worthwhile Mathematical Tasks
Let's start with considering problem-based teaching in mathematics.

The premise to problem-based teaching in mathematics is that students are able to meaningfully construct their knowledge by engaging in a variety of problem solving strategies. Coincident with developing their understanding, students also build procedural fluency since many of the concepts provide opportunities for students to work with numbers and expressions.

Ultimately, basing one’s approach to teaching and learning, in this way, moves us away from seeing mathematics as being about the right answer and/or getting to an answer TO seeing mathematics as valuable and connected to the real world.

According to Anthony & Walshaw (2009a), some of the characteristics of problems and tasks that are rich (or worthwhile) include the following:

They tend to...

Have a focus on original thinking;
Provide opportunities for productive struggle;
Be designed and presented at an appropriate level
- E.g., Low-floor for entry and a high ceiling for extending (Boaler, 2016);
Be open-ended;
Include contextually-based problems that invite students to make sense of mathematics; and
Provide opportunities for students to develop procedural fluency in meaningful ways.

4. Leading Through The Pedagogical System
Previously mentioned, you might have made some connections to criteria that you could use for monitoring inquiries into building communities of learners and a coherent school culture.

Linked to a tab called "Connections" (here), you’ll find a leadership-related tool with a variety of criteria for effective mathematics teaching. All of them are related to The Pedagogical System and are connected through formative assessment--both assessment FOR and AS learning (Anthony & Walshaw, 2009b).

Whether you’re conducting classroom walk-throughs, facilitating collaborative team learning, or observing and providing feedback to lessons, you might find these criteria essential to guiding discussions around effective practice and having discussions with students about their learning.

In your conversations and inquiries, consider how these criteria could allow you to better uncover and understand the hidden skills and talents of the educators in your school and your students.

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?

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

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

6. References
Anthony, G., & Walshaw, M. (2009a). Characteristics of Effective Teaching of Mathematics: A View from the West. Journal of Mathematics Education, 2(2), 147-164.

Anthony, G. and Walshaw, M. (2009b). Effective Pedagogy in Mathematics. http://www.iaoed.org/downloads/EdPractices_19.pdf

Anthony, G. and Walshaw, M. (2009b). Characteristics of Effective Teaching of Mathematics: A View from the West. http://www.educationforatoz.org/images/_9734_12_Glenda_Anthony.pdf

Boaler, J. (2016). Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages, and Innovative Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass & Pfeiffer Imprints.

System Implementation & Monitoring K - 12. (2017, February 23). The Pedagogical System with Reflective Questions. Retrieved from https://sim.thelearningexchange.ca/tag/the-pedagogical-system/

7. Suggested Reading
EduGAINS. (n.d.). Guides to Effective Instruction. Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/math/guides_effective_instruction.html

EduGAINS. (n.d.). Targeted Implementation and Planning Supports for Mathematics (TIPS4M). Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/newsite/math/tips.html

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2018). Focusing on the Fundamentals of Math: A Teacher's Guide. Retrieved from https://math.thelearningexchange.ca/

Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. (2014). Reston, VA: NCTM, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

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Equity through pedagogy - part 4: Formative assessment

1/31/2019

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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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equity through pedagogy - Part 3: Flipped Learning

1/28/2019

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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 third 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. The engagement in these environments results from relevant, meaningful, and applicable learning (Sheninger & Murray, p66) being moved into a student’s time and space.

In this post, Flipped Learning is defined, its characteristics explained, and suggestions are made for how you and your students can experience success with this pedagogical approach.

As you continue with the 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 Flipped Classroom, as a part of my pedagogical
practice, transformed both my teaching and student learning."

2. Flipped Classrooms - An Introduction

What is a Flipped Classroom?

As I began my own journey with students into “Flipped 101” (Bergmann & Sams, 2014), I created video lessons--sometimes with ‘checks for understanding’ integrated--for consumption outside of our typical classroom space and time.

Upon returning to the group learning space, with thinking activated, students would work alongside their peers solving problems and engaging in rich tasks. Often times, students would leverage their autonomy to check-in with others, and through facilitated discussions around intentionally-selected and -sequenced artefacts, students’ voices were honored and a collective responsibility to building understanding for oneself and on behalf of others was cultured.

As more content was created for student consumption, this opened up a new opportunity: student agency could be increased; teacher-pacing, decreased. With on-demand access to content and coaching in active learning strategies, students were in a far-better position to manage portions of the subject matter independently and creatively--working towards mastery of learning goals and demonstrating evidence of course expectations.

Four students looking at a laptop computer

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

This is but one example of many, where educators have flipped their classrooms to empower students to becoming leaders of their own learning.

3. What is Flipped Learning?
To clarify, it’s not what it is; rather, it’s how you and your students are intentionally building conceptual understanding and procedural fluency, while going towards a more, personalized learning model. Bergmann & Sams (2014) sum this up with the expression: “What’s the best use of face-to-face time in class?”

“...it’s not what it is; rather, it’s how…”

As an approach, Flipped Learning lies along one end of a continuum of evolving, pedagogical practice--one that is shared by educators and their students. As mentioned in the introduction, this approach serves to move direct instruction, typically occurring in a grouped learning space, into the individual, student’s learning space. As a result, the group space can then be transformed by teachers and their students to becoming more interactive.

Through increased opportunities for collaboration, teachers are then putting themselves in a position to better differentiate learning. It is not uncommon, in these learning environments, to see and hear students actively involved in knowledge-building, applying concepts, and engaging creatively and authentically in their learning (Flipped Learning Network, 2014).

Let’s take a closer look at Flipped Learning as a continuum of evolving, pedagogical practice. Consider viewing the Prezi (embedded, below), as you read through the accompanying explanations.

In the introduction, I described a typical starting point--similar to my own experience--with the Flipped Classroom. In the beginning, you’re creating and/or curating an archive of video content for students’, on-demand use.

Moving towards ‘Step 2’, you’re providing opportunities for students to move through the curriculum at their own pace...students accessing content when required.

As you continue along the continuum--coaching students and increasing their opportunities for agency--projects and rich tasks become the vehicles for developing understanding and building and transferring key competencies.

Once you and your students are experiencing Flipped Learning, learning is more asynchronous...more student-paced. At this stage, you’ll find students creating projects and crafting their own problems.

As students work through these challenges, teachers are continuing to provide support (e.g., guiding to content when it’s required), but the teaching-learning relationship has now evolved to one where “...[students] and [their] teacher [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).

4. 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?

How might you FLIP LEARNING in your pedagogical practice?

CONTACT

BOOK CHRIS

5. References
Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2014). Flipped learning: Gateway to Student Engagement (1st ed., pp. 21-38). Eugene: ISTE

Flipped Learning Network. (2014, March 12). Definition of Flipped Learning. Retrieved from https://flippedlearning.org/definition-of-flipped-learning/

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

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

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

equity through pedagogy - part 5: pedagogical considerations for Teaching mathematics

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