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Who currently decides what students will know and be able to do (learning objectives/ standards) when exiting the K-12 system?

To what degree have you as educator or parent, your students, your community, your local school had input?

Once we have identified who is currently participating...who else should participate and why?

If we determine clear objectives, with who you feel are appropriate contributors, should all learning objectives/standards be formally assessed? What exactly do you think of when you hear the term assessed? Do you feel there are ways that schools could measure (assess) student learning that are or are not being deployed effectively?

And then once we have decided what students should know and be able to do before leaving the system....should all kids know and be able to do all identified learning objectives/standards? How much is enough? Is there a minimum to be expected by all?

I will look forward to your responses and will be posting my own thoughts within the next two weeks.
]]> Reflection http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=5 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:30:37 -0400 http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=4 George Lucas Education Foundation). This site does an excellent job pulling together recent articles, best practice, and innovative technology applications in education. While I was looking around I found the Spiral Notebook blog and came across a blog post titled "Any-Century Skills: Basic Abilities Are Building Blocks," By Jim Moulton. "Any Century Skills" grabbed my attention right away, I really wish I had thought of that myself.

At RISC we often speak of the importance of deliberately teaching students 21st Century Skills (Check out Partnership for 21st Century Skills for some excellent resources and examples of 21st Century Skills). In addition, we recommend that local standards be developed by local stakeholders. With great consistency, the stakeholder generated standards tend to reflect this notion of "Any Century Skills." We strongly encourage schools and districts to take this input and create and then assess a continuum of skills (standards) tightly aligned with stakeholder input. This new list of standards then becomes a vital part of the curricula holding as much weight towards graduation as Reading, Writing or Math.

Jim Moulton as this to say about "Any Century Skills":
Yes, these twenty-first-century skills are a big deal, and we need to make sure our kids, our teachers, and even our schools work towards their mastery. But I suggest that we not forget about, and that we even take time to champion, what I am beginning to call "any-century skills" and their integration with the now oh-so-popular concept of twenty-first-century skills.

Some examples of what I consider any-century skills are thinking, caring about oneself, caring for others, perseverance, making careful choices, listening for understanding, and being able to understand human potential and frailty.

I also consider the following to be any-century skills: the ability to dig a hole with a shovel, to dance without undue inhibition, to draw or paint what you see, to ride a bicycle (perhaps even with no hands), to make music (even if only by clapping of hands or tapping toes), to care for an animal, to talk one's way out of a tough situation, to plant a seed and nurture it until it grows, and to use one's imagination and whatever materials are available to build a fort and then make that rough-hewn space into a personally relevant place where memories are made.

You see, I think some skills and experiences are timeless, so fundamental to the human experience, that all kids should have a chance to master them.

Someone once asked me to decide....an either or kind of decision...Teach my kids Reading, Writing, and Math OR teach them, what I would now classify as "Any Century Skills". Obviously Reading, Writing and Math are critical to success BUT for my kids... I would choose "Any Century Skills." "Any Century Skills" can allow the majority of the learning to take place, they make it possible to show up on time, be considerate, have patience, bite your tongue, speak your mind and not offend, trust, follow through, task completion, resiliency, respect, and responsibility. With these tools in their tool box, I feel confident that my own children could be successful participants and contributors to 21st Century Community. What would you choose? How would you feel about your students or your children being intentionally taught then assessed on their ability to deploy "Any Century Skills?"]]> General http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=4 Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:53:12 -0400 http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=3
So why share this with you? Many of have heard and some may have been known to claim that the process of formalizing and publishing plans greatly increases success. So here is a chance to find out. I will be submitting a formal plan to RISC and will make that plan available here before the end of the week. For now I will use the S.M.A.R.T. acronym to layout the general idea.

Simple: Create 2 blog posts a month and post them to the RISC blog
Measurable: Two per month between Oct. 07 and July 08
Attainable: I have laid out specific strategies as part of Personal Growth Plan and it is reasonable to set aside 30 minutes twice a month to write and post.
Realistic: I am both willing and able to do this work. I am interested and committed to building the blog as a valuable resource, I have the necessary skills, and I have set aside time for the task.
Timely or Tangible: This task has a specific time line and will generate a tangible product.

The first post "Any Century Skills" will appear next week... I will look forward to your comments.

Cheers,

Rick H.]]> Reflection http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=3 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:04:52 -0400 http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=2
Having recently joined RISC from the Bering Strait School District I often find myself reflecting upon those things that went well in BSSD and what the next steps might be. There is something truly unique about being authentically engaged in a process or occupation, often it can appear to be a fit or match between the individual, the organization and a specific set of circumstances that make it all possible. But, I don't really adhere to the notion that things magically happen when the stars align. I believe that it is possible to create environments that not only allow participants to be authentically engaged but that the environment itself facilitates authentic engagement. So along those lines the following is an email I sent to some co-workers whom I find to be exceptional when it comes to reflecting and imagining the possibilities.

Feel free to read on and comment.Hey guys,

I hope you are all doing well and not working too hard. Although I imagine that is quite impossible for all of you.

OK here is the deal I want to run by a possible next step kind of thing...So I want you to stretch and think NEXT steps not NEXT DAY....are you with me?

I am sending this to the four of you because I consider you the leaders in the movement to get students engaged in their classrooms.

So here is my thinking...We have to find a way to dramatically ramp up student involvement/engagement in the classroom. No brainer... So the way we pulled it off at a District level with teachers was to:

1. Introduce tools and processes for establishing and sharing our direction (vision)

2. Collect feedback on our progress and to check that all were still aware of the vision and willing to continue.

3. Providing support (I said willing before, now that we all agree we have to check on the able to do, that’s the support. Support could be training, additional tools, basically resources aligned to the feedback and aimed at moving forward towards the vision, often suggested and created/refined by the users, in this case the teachers.

4. Measure the impact of the support (mostly anecdotal in the past, some surveying, but think also student achievement, graduation rates, teacher retention, I think it would be great to add teacher/admin/para job satisfaction surveys (sooner the better) and student satisfaction surveys (now is not soon enough)). Basically, measuring the specific aspect of the system we are trying to impact.

5. Based on support feedback continue or refine as needed, Repeat....Repeat...Repeat....

OK... So how about the kids? When do we get them involved in this cycle?...this is what the Langford training is really about, although it appears to be somewhat stuck at the building level instead of the classroom....

Well, we have advisory time and are seeing the development of supporting tools. What about a few more tools/processes that could be aligned to the district goals and vision? ( You are likely headed in this direction already) What about tools for student goal setting (should be the same process the adults in the system are using), for personalized vision/mission statements, for immediate class and school feedback, a perfect opportunity to really ramp up a quality ILP planning/implementation piece.

I believe we were able to greatly increase teacher retention and student achievement in BSSD by increasing the average level of teacher engagement. And I believe that increase in teacher engagement was due largely to the increase in teacher participation, both in providing feedback and creating solutions to challenges, that moved us ever closer to our agreed vision. Why not then, initiate a similar process to impact student retention/achievement. Why not???.... How can we afford not to get kids authentically engaged? It appears that the journey that lead us to teacher engagement was not a random series of events but, in fact, a process that could/can be documented and replicated.

I would think that we need to deploy some specific simple strategies that allow teachers to engage the students in the Improvement process a once a week, or even a once a month plus/delta chart would go a long way. What about some specific training for teachers and students to go through together to learn why, how and which tools to use to make their classroom/school a better learning environment?

Consider the students, the users of the system...in an open source world the users contribute to the growth and refinement of the system, use it make it better, use it make it better, use it make it better, the traditional school system cuts the students out of the “make it better” portion. But the new system begs for their help, it is build for change based on input, it is founded upon the notion that we wanted to, we intentionally wanted a system that allowed, even requires students to play an active not passive role in their education. We must take advantage of the system that has been created to make this happen.

So...

1. Do we have teachers and students on board with the vision that students can/should/would be willing to help make the schools better? (Get a group of folks together and use the 5 Why's: Why would Teachers/students/schools engage in the process of collecting and using student data to improve the system they work in?)

2. Do we have moral purpose and people willing to try to demonstrate effort to make it happen? (Consesogram)

3. IF yes to #2 then we ramp up the able to do part with support, training tools and processes. (Possibly envision an inservice training with Student-Teacher teams focused on creating solutions, tools and processes to address their own feedback. Potential tools and processes: most of Langford Quality Tools, Scoring Guides, Lesson planning for teachers and students. The goal here would be to create systems of school-wide improvement initiated by students.

4. Deploy and collect data, how has the system been impacted? Was there a decrease in achievement because we took instructional time away to work with students? Did we increase engagement? (Widely understood to make learning more “sticky” and decrease the actual amount of instructional time required) Did we impact the area of student focus? Are schools safer? Change in vandalism? Change in attendance? Have students review, revise/refine and continue the journey.

5. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...

Your thoughts are greatly appreciates as you have no doubt tried many strategies to have students involved in your own class rooms I am thinking bigger, how do we make it systemic, tied to the district strategic plan, and reflective of the same strategies that we are using at multiple levels in the district already.

With the four of you on it should be a piece of cake ;-)

All my best,

Rick]]> General http://reinventingschools.org/riscblog/index.php?itemid=2 Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:30:00 -0400