What Can Curriculum Coordinators Do? Student Engagement: What Can Curriculum Coordinators Do? Bill Rich william_rich@ymail.com

Quotation to Frame Our Day If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and assign tasks, but rather teach them to long for the sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Why is engagement so important? “Faith without works is dead.” “Learning without engagement is dead.”

Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Needs

Curriculum and Cooking Precision & Romance

Today’s Agenda 1. Framing the Day: Social, Emotional Underpinnings of Engagement 2. Schechty on Student Engagement 3. Daniel Pink’s M.A.P. to Engagement 4. Cognitive Science and Student Engagement 5. Pre-Lunch Exit Card: How Can We Use this Knowledge to Cultivate More Engagement? 6. TBD 7. Wrap Up Exit Card Preview of One Question: What can I contribute to our wiki?

Schelchty on Student Engagement -Student sees activity as personally meaningful -Student interest strong enough to fuel persistence in the face of difficulty -Student’s emphasis is on optimum performance and on “getting it right.” Students who are engaged: -Learn at high levels and have a profound grasp of what they learn -Retain what they learn -Can transfer what they learn to new settings Strategic Compliance -The official reason for the work is not the reason the student does the work--she substitutes her own goals (grades, class rank, parent approval, college) for the goals of the work -If the task doesn’t met the extrinsic goal, the students will abandon it Students who are strategically complaint: -Learn at high levels, but have a superficial grasp of what they learned -Do not retain their learning -Usually cannot transfer their learning

Schelchty on Student Engagement Ritual Compliance: -The works has no meaning for the student, but the student avoids confrontation -The emphasis is on minimum requirements--what do I have to do to get this over with and get out of here? Students who are ritually compliant: -Learn only at low levels -Do not retain what they learn -Seldom can transfer their learning Retreatism: -The student disengages and withdraws -The students sees little to no relevance to the work, and at times doesn’t even understand what they’re being asked to do Students who are in retreat: -Do not participate, and therefore learn little or nothing from the task/assigned activity

Schelchty on Student Engagement Rebellion: -The student is disengaged from classroom activities/assignments -The student is actively engaged in another agenda -The student creates her own means and goals -The student’s rebellion is often seen as acting out--and often encouraging others to rebel Students who are in rebellion: -Learn little or nothing from the task/activity assigned -Sometimes learn a great deal from what they elect to do, though rarely that which is expected -Develop poor work habits and negative attitudes toward intellectual tasks and formal education

Daniel Pink’s M.A.P. Mastery Autonomy Purpose

Cognitive Science & Student Engagement

Team Task 1. Listen to these two stories. 2. What learning/teaching tactics could educators transfer from these two stories to their settings? 3. Have fun.

Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code Story #1 Clarissa & Her Clarinet: The Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Who Did a Month’s Practice in 6 Minutes What learning/teaching tactics could educators transfer from this story to their settings?

Discovering the Secret to Brazil’s Soccer Success Story #2 Clifford’s Quest: Discovering the Secret to Brazil’s Soccer Success Combine and prioritize your lists. Prepare to share.

Clarity dissolves resistance. -Heath & Heath

Dr. Chris Jernstedt Opinion-Based Pedagogy vs. Research-Based Pedagogy

Dr. Jernstedt & the Farmer

Three Key Findings from How People Learn 1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside of the classroom. Prompt: So how do we elicit students’ pre and emerging conceptions throughout their learning?

Fish is Fish Leo Lionni

Three Key Findings from How People Learn 2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. Prompt: What do we want students to know and understand? What should we ask students to do (retrieve and apply) with their new skills and knowledge?

Three Key Findings from How People Learn 3. A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. Prompt: How can we get students to monitor their progress in meeting essential outcomes?

Four Key Concepts 1. Mental Models (Absorb the whole thing.) 2. Targeted Practice (Compress the field.) 3. Rapid Feedback (Tighten the loop.) 4. Emotional Trigger (Find the feeling.)

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and assign tasks, but rather teach them to long for the sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Fixed Mindset Growth Mindset -Believes that intelligence is fixed; -Desires to look good so avoids mistakes; -Resists complex challenges. -Believes that intelligence is malleable; -Desires to grow so expects mistakes; -Embraces complex challenges.

Time and Learning In most public schools, In the best schools, time is the constant, learning is the variable. In the best schools, learning is the constant, time is the variable.

Grading and Assessing: Flawed Practices vs. Proven Principles

Which grading scale (0-100 or 0-4) is more reasonable and fair?

What grade would these two students earn? Teacher 1 Teacher 2 0 0 80 2 85 3 90 3 335 10

Grading Pilot in THEE Grading and averaging all the work students do causes students to focus on gaming the system rather than seeking and using teacher feedback that will improve their performance. Current grading practices in most secondary schools do not prepare students for the kind of grading practices that happen in most colleges/universities, where the majority of a student’s grade depends on the student’s performance on high stakes, end-of-semester assessments.

We will: Show students examples of competent and mastery performances so students can close the gap between where they are and where they need to be. Provide targeted and ongoing feedback that helps students improve their performance and begin to take charge of their learning. Determine a student’s grade a) primarily by assessing and reporting students’ current skills level in relation to explicit standards of performance; b) secondarily by assessing and reporting student’s learning habits and growth over time.

We will: Show students examples of competent and mastery performances so students can close the gap between where they are and where they need to be. Provide targeted and ongoing feedback that helps students improve their performance and begin to take charge of their learning. Determine a student’s grade a) primarily by assessing and reporting students’ current skills level in relation to explicit standards of performance; b) secondarily by assessing and reporting student’s learning habits and growth over time.

Grading Policy Summative Assessment (Big Game) = 60% Learning Habits = 20% Growth = 20%

Learning Habits Rubric Persisting Applying Feedback Organizing Listening Contributing

Evaluation Results Principle 1: People learn best when they are provided regular feedback that they use to improve their performance. Totally Agree/Somewhat Agree: 59 Somewhat Disagree/Totally Disagree: 5

Principle 2: People learn best when they practice over time to prepare for a performance; mistakes made during practice should not be cause for a significant penalty; and the success of students should largely depend on their final performance (Big Game). Totally Agree/Somewhat Agree: 56 Somewhat Disagree/Totally Disagree: 8

Principle 3: People learn best when they collect snapshots of their growth over time and consider how to become a more skilled learner. Totally Agree/Somewhat Agree: 49 Somewhat Disagree/Totally Disagree: 15

Principle 4: People learn best when provided models, check lists, and rubrics that make performance expectations clear. Totally Agree/Somewhat Agree: 59 Somewhat Disagree/Totally Disagree: 5

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? Continue in THEE: 40 Spread beyond THEE: 9 Reject and Return to Traditional Grading: 11 Don’t Know: 1

Principle 1: People learn best when they are provided regular feedback that they use to improve their performance. “This is the only class that allows me to focus on my growth of my work and the day-to-day stress a of grades isn’t there. In my other classes I finish my work just to get an A, but in THEE I don’t worry about that and I try to fix my work to the best of my ability.”

Principle 1: People learn best when they are provided regular feedback that they use to improve their performance. “In my opinion getting feedback on my work has greatly improved the quality of the piece of work I got feedback on as well as the quality of future pieces of work. I like getting a lot of feedback because it lets me know where I specifically need to improve. A grade doesn’t say too much.”

Principle 1: People learn best when they are provided regular feedback that they use to improve their performance. “The best part of this system is how the teachers give you feedback on what you need to improve rather than what another student needs to improve.”

Principle 1: People learn best when they are provided regular feedback that they use to improve their performance. “This years grading system sucked ass! Quit trying to be special and grade this crap like a normal class. This bs grading system might have been the most frustrating thing I have ever had to deal with, and I know everyone agrees with me!”

Principle 2: People learn best when they practice over time to prepare for a performance; mistakes made during practice should not be cause for a significant penalty; and the success of students should largely depend on their final performance (Big Game). “I loved how during this year we would practice so hard by writing a lot of papers. This process made it so when it came to quiz and test time, it was basically routine.”

Principle 3: People learn best when they collect snapshots of their growth over time and consider how to become a more skilled learner. “People need to see how they have done over a course. They need to see their mistakes, and learn from them. Cause if you don’t show people what they have done over time and they keep making the same mistakes, then how would they know to fix them?”

Principle 3: People learn best when they collect snapshots of their growth over time and consider how to become a more skilled learner. “I do fine in all of my other classes without keeping a record of all my work and referring to it at the end of every quarter. If anything I found this annoying.”

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? “I think it definitely should because this approach helped me focus on my growth rather than my grades, and that was what really helped me become a better student.”

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? “No. I feel we should stop changing things and just keep it the same. I did way better in my last English class. I feel its too unorganized and it didn’t help me one bit. It may have helped some but I really don’t like this change.”

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? “I think it definitely should because this approach helped me focus on my growth rather than my grades, and that was what really helped me become a better student.”

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? “I really like it and it should continue. I have had the most improvement in this class than any other class. This grading system is great and has helped me become a better writer and learner.”

Should these new grading practices be continued and maybe even spread beyond THEE, or do you think we should reject these new grading practices? “I think they should be kept and spread into more areas. At first I hated it but now I look back and see that it was really helpful and I learned a lot this year. These methods are great. Keep them!”

NECAP Writing Results 4 3 2 1 CMS 06 4% 24% 42% 30% CHS 09 11% 46% 38%

“They were aroused to their highest energies by the difficulties they were compelled to encounter.” --Vermont Historian Zadock Thompson 1842

Reciprocal Accountability “Accountability must be a reciprocal process. For every expectation I have of you to perform, I have an equal responsibility to provide you with the capacity to meet that expectation.” -Richard Elmore

engagementcc@pbworks.com

How People Learn VT

Engagement is like...

overloaded and fragmented. “The main problem with educational systems and corresponding innovation and policy making is that they are intrinsically, endemically, inevitably overloaded and fragmented. Therefore, the main solutions have to be ones that contribute to coherence making and connectedness.” --Michael Fullan

educere “to lead forth or draw out” midwife term meaning “to be present at the birth of”

Wisdom from Lao Tzu “Confront the difficult while it is easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.”

Exit Note: Dear Bill 1. What are 2-3 raised today are most important to you? 2. What are 2-3 important questions you are leaving with? 3. Do you have any suggestions/contributions for resources Bill can put on our wiki? If so, please describe and write down your email so Bill can be in touch (if you forget to send it to him). 4. Is there anything else you’d like to ask of/convey to Bill? william_rich@ymail.com