Hitting the restart button at the start of the school year

There are so many things weighing us all down these days. Our brains are overloaded with negativity. For me, I need to refocus as I head into the new school year... and focus on the kids. That's what this is all about, and that's what gets me back on track and back into a positive mindset. And one of the cool things about the summer vacation is that it's like we get to hit the restart button every year for us and our students.

But that doesn't mean it will always be the best start it could be. In a recent issue of the Marshall Memo, Kim Marshall writes:

"In this article in AMLE Magazine, teacher/consultant/author Rick Wormeli bemoans the fact that students’ eager and receptive frame of mind at the beginning of each school year is often deflated by the endless succession of going-over-the-rules, filling out forms, and stale getting-to-know-you activities. “Students grow increasingly disillusioned,” says Wormeli. “We’ve missed a golden opportunity for them to dive into the subject material with neurons firing on all thrusters. It’s probably the most significant time of the year to hardwire students’ minds to embrace our subjects, and we don’t want to miss it.”

He recommends mixing mandatory stuff with lively activities, so students learn something new about your subject every day."

I love his idea of making sure we grab their interest at the start of school, but I would add a couple of other goals to my list of the three things I want my students to take away from the first few days of school:

1. Piqued interest - As Wormeli recommends, I want to hit the ground running the first day with high-interest, challenging and content-rich activities. Earlier this summer, as I was planning this year's Science Project Block I asked myself, "What are the most interesting topics in biology that can be tackled with a simple hands-on approach?" I want to make sure the first day they are diving right into that.
2. Success - When I ask myself what these kids need most, the answer is confidence. The students I work with are all in dire need of a feeling of competence and success. This is true for all of us. When we feel successful at something, we will not only be interested in it, we will tend to become more successful at it. And the opposite is also true, which is why school failure is a downward spiral.
3. An expectation of hard work - At the same time, I want them to be in the zone of proximal development--not overwhelmed, but challenged. Expectations are key, so I also want them to expect to work hard every day.

So what does this mean for the first day/first few days? It means I need to provide learning activities that are:

1. Inherently interesting.
2. Easy enough to ensure success.
3. Challenging enough to require help.

In the case of Project Block, this year we'll be trying to raise trees from seed and cuttings in order to help fight climate change. The first day, after introducing the idea of climate change and the "Trillion Tree Solution," we'll go right out into the woods to look for tree seeds that we can bring back inside for the next steps. We humans have a natural interest in living things, and while I am sure they will all be able to find seeds, I also think it will be challenging.

If I can infuse success into these kids, then I've succeeded. Success here could restart their whole lives, and that's what this job is about. It's not about all this other stuff that's going on in the world or in education these days. It's about these kids and their futures. It's about what we can do to help them.

Before Bloom's, Maslow's

Love this little meme posted by @MsUin302 yesterday on Twitter. It says, in a few words, what I tried to say in too many in my last post on lighting fires.

I may be reading it differently than Mr. beck meant it, but to me it helps answer the question of whether it's better to emphasize support, second chances, and sparking interest, or to emphasize challenge, rigor, high standards, and natural consequences?

The answer is, it depends. It depends on where the student is in their development. (It reminds me of the question of what's better, ambition or contentment.) And it may even depend on the day, because I don't really think it's a hierarchy: It's more like a wheel, where the spokes are all of our needs as humans. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are three of them, but there are more.

The challenge is, of course, that this requires individualized instruction. In fact, that's exactly why we need individualized instruction.

Making differentiation practical

I feel like differentiation is often viewed by teachers as pie-in-the-sky fantasy. Sure, it sounds great that we would tailor instruction to individual students based on pre-assessed readiness, interests, and motivation, but how does that really work when you're trying to get 20+ kids in one room through the common core in time for the SBAC?

But I feel like I've cracked the code in my biology class,or at least I'm close to it.

I call it a differentiated, mastery-based approach. In a previous post, I described the whole framework, but right now I just want to focus on the way I think this approach makes the goal of differentiation actually attainable by real people.

For every sub-unit the students choose among assignment options according to their readiness and interests and work individually or in small groups at their own pace. The assignment options are learning activities that require the students to read their text, watch posted videos, or do online research to answer the essential question. As they work, I am constantly circulating from student to student, group to group, asking questions, monitoring progress, and delivering individualized direct instruction as needed.

It's a sort of "divide and conquer" approach, I suppose, though there's no conquering involved. Set the students out to learn on their own and then walk around and deliver personalized instruction.

And by using student choice rather than teacher decision to differentiate, it saves a boatload of teacher time and effort while at the same time boosting student autonomy, which is a huge motivator.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose works

Today I started class by making some points about their Gattaca responses--most of them had some revision to do. I had thought about just giving them credit so they could move on to the next assignment without revision. Decided against it. I want all of their work to be quality work. Nothing just for credit.

Same thing went for their cancer prevention assignments. A few had been turned in, so I had seen that they need to go for more depth on their explanations and use of reliable references. So I touched on that as well in my daily de-briefing.

Then I introduced our new +Starr Sackstein-inspired system for setting goals and self-grading for the next assignment (the discovery of DNA). I told them they would grade themselves afterwards and I would only change it if I felt they had over or underscored themselves.

Then they got to work.

And they worked steadily for the entire first period... and most of the next. The first to drop off and disengage did so a full hour and a half into the two-hour period. That's 75% engagement. And that was the minimum. And that was 1.5 hours of fairly steady, largely self-directed work. Couldn't expect more form a room full of full-fledged adults like myself. No threats. Just autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

I moved from group to group, discussing cancer, their projects, people we knew who were affected, discussing what it means to explain how something prevents cancer, discussing nutrition, a mix of student-initiated and me-initiated conversations.

As he finished his project near the end of class, one student asked, "Do plants get cancer?"

"I don't know," I said, "maybe when they get those growths--burls on them. Maybe that's cancer, but I don't know."

He opened a chromebook to find out.

He reported back later, excited: "Yes, they can get cancer, but it doesn't spread like it does in humans, because their cells don't move."

And that... that is what it's all about. Why am I surprised this works?

Awesome job guys!

Depth of Engagement & Depth of Knowledge

I'm finding it's sometimes tough to balance engagement with rigor, but that's really just a reflection of poor planning on my part.

For example, my biology students always get choices of assignments for each topic. I usually include a poster option to help engage those with an artistic bent. Sometimes they will choose to paint a ceiling tile instead so that their work will make a permanent contribution to the classroom.

But these take a while, and if I'm not careful in planning, they're not always the most rigorous assignment. Making a poster or ceiling tile of mitosis is not particularly high in terms of Webb's Depth of Knowledge--it doesn't require the students to really understand deeply what they are describing.

It's funny, a student was looking up old Monte Carlos yesterday while he was supposed to be doing his assignment, and I said--"Hey, you could make a Monte Carlo mitosis poster--Monte Carlos getting duplicated and sorted out, like at a factory." Something like that would probably bring us up to DOK level 3. (Not sure how I could get to level 4 with mitosis--maybe studying cancer and that's what we're doing next.)

But I still just love to see them engaged. I see that as the biggest step. And the problem of not-high-enough-DOK is solvable. And asking them questions about their paintings is a great way way to assess, and teach. And not every activity needs to be high Depth of Knowledge. Maybe sometimes high Depth of Engagement can make up for it.

What collaboration is all about

Today I got to give a little presentation about our voluntary PLC that's been meeting once a month to work on differentiation and mastery-based instruction.

As I prepared for it, I was mainly thinking about how I might motivate other teachers to get on board.

Though I did originally have a slide about the meaning of a collaborative culture, my main intent was not to send that message.

But maybe that's what happened. For one thing, as I talked, that's how I felt. As I described what we do:

It’s not about showing off.

It’s about troubleshooting, sharing, experimenting and improving.

It’s about collaborating.

That's what I was feeling. And as I described what some teachers a have already shared at our meetings, and one teacher in particular who had run into serious challenges as he tried to implement the mastery model, I felt the need to reiterate:

That's what this is about. It's not about starting with the assumption our strategies will work. It's about facing the facts, whatever they are, and improving.

I needed to hear that.

And looking out at the crowd, I thought I sensed everything from resistance and fear to agreement and encouragement. And I guess all of those feelings are in me as well. The tendency toward isolation and every-man-for-himself educational survivalism in which we all have to pretend we all have it all together gets to me.

Afterwords, a colleague said, "Thanks for the pep talk."

I hadn't thought about it as a pep talk, though it turned out to be one for me. 

Time I got more serious about being vulnerable and open, facing brutal facts, and being fully committed to improvement, whatever the implications to me.

A framework for a mastery-based classroom

I've been working on building a mastery-based and student-centered high school science classroom system based on Pink's ideas on motivation. Here's what I've identified as 7 key elements:

1. Start with meaningful standards. Can't overemphasize this--this is how to tap into two of the three keys to motivation: mastery and purpose. We're all more likely to want to master clear, clearly meaningful/practical goals, especially when they tie into a purpose bigger than ourselves.
2. Class discussions regarding the objectives. Unpacking them together. 
3. Students set their own goals (#autonomy) regarding the objectives and plan their learning process. I'm interested in teaching deconstruction as a learning technique (a la Tim Ferriss).
4. Students choose among options for learning activities/products to better suit their interest and readiness. Autonomy, again.
5. Students get immediate feedback as they work (from me and peers and self-assessment).
6. Students get multiple attempts to master the material/skills. No zeros. No late penalties. Incentive to keep working is intrinsic, plus the realization that falling too far behind is a very real danger.
7. Students share their work with each other and the world. @Twitter is key here, but @YouTube, etc. are also great.

Already running #4, and #6, and we've done some work with #3 and #7. Bottle necks are at #1, #5, and, surprisingly, #7. Building a truly meaningful curriculum would be a lot of work, but it would be worth it. Quick, quality feedback is always a challenge, but working on enlisting students to do it themselves and also on using more informal feedback rather than always using the formal rubric. Many students aren't up to speed with sharing things online, or are not ready to show their friends that they are scholars, but we're working on it.

I feel like if I can build the right structure, one that is in line with human nature, and then build relationships on top of it, it will run itself.

Rough sketch of a delevelled high school science class

So here's my rough sketch of a tech-facilitated delevelled high school science classroom:

I envision a single chemistry course (not counting AP) offered for students regardless of previous "level" or readiness.

The basic structure is a menu of activities, projects, online videos, readings, and formative assessments in each unit, ranging from a basic to advanced level. For example, the atomic structure unit could include videos/readings on protons, neutrons and electrons on up to solving for the masses of isotopes and writing balanced equations for fission reactions. Students could progress through the material at their own pace, skipping sub-units if they already knew the material.

Performance tasks and adaptive online assessments would measure their level of mastery of each unit, with student performance rated on a 5 point scale something like this:

1. Developing (student has not yet mastered basic practical chemistry concepts)
2. Basic (student has mastered basic practical chemistry concepts)
3. Proficiency (student has mastered college prep-level chemistry content)
4. Mastery (student has mastered advanced college prep-level chemistry content)
5. Expertise (student has achieved extraordinary mastery at the advanced level))


I envision one classroom with this full range of students, all working on this menu of activities, projects, and online resources in small groups or individually, with guidance, help, assessment, and direct instruction from the teacher, as necessary. They could work at their own pace, but a schedule of units for the year would be provided to act as a pacing guide.

Technology as the hedgehog accelerator

According to Jim Collins, technology is never the cause of going from good to great. Instead, companies become great because of a the right people, a disciplined culture, level 5 leadership, and dogged devotion to a clear, simple, central crystallized purpose (a "hedgehog concept") and then ask which technology (if any) could help you facilitate that. Tech can accelerate change, but it doesn't cause it.

I see his point. No use having rockets if you don't know where you are going (or if you don't already have the right culture and people). And it is a good reminder not to rush into tech for tech's sake in the school and classroom. Instead, as I've written before, technology is not about new gadgets (or apps) for the sake of new gadgets or apps (as cool as they are). It's about making old things easier and new things possible.

But Collins' ideas adds another layer. Get your hedgehog concept right first.
Hedgehogs, after all, operate on one, excellent, effective principle. Danger=roll into a ball.

What's mine? Not quite sure yet. At this point, it's got something to do with every student succeeding. I'm hoping to avoid the trap of letting tech distract me from that.

Our jump into Moodle may have jumped the gun just a bit, but we started using it to bring online learning to E. O. Smith, and it turns out that's a great facilitator of differentiated instruction and a promising component of a system in which every student can succeed.

At this point, I think online tech will play a key role as an accelerator of change in education. But it's not about the apps, it's about the hedgehog.

Let's get rid of ability grouping

Came across this great post today by Susan Fitzell about the evidence against homogeneous grouping in schools, and it further convinced me that we need to get rid of levelling in schools.

(Among high school-level teachers, this kind of thing is liable to get me burned at the stake, but here it goes.)

I once made the argument that offering various levels of the same subject (general, college prep, and "honors") was a form of differentiation. I can still understand this argument to some degree: It's sort of like differentiating according to readiness and motivation, but with one BIG difference: The kids are not together.

The students with lower levels of readiness and motivation are grouped with kids with lower levels of readiness and motivation. The students with more are grouped with the students with more. While this may make it easier for teachers, for students, it's more like:

"For whoever has, to him more shall be given... but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him."

Could students struggling with motivation benefit from being around students with high motivation? Could students with low readiness benefit from being around students with higher readiness? Could students with poor social skills benefit from being around those with great social skills?

Seems obvious, and there is research to back up this heretical idea of delevelling.

And philosophically, I think we need to ask ourselves what we are all about. Are we here primarily to make sure the "best and brightest" are well served, or are we here for all students?

Not that the most advanced students are not well served by heterogeneous grouping. According to Marzano, any effect of heterogeneous grouping on advanced students is tiny. And that's assuming differentiation is being done well.

The needs of the many shouldn't be sacrificed for the needs of the few, and the needs of the few needn't be sacrificed either.

I may be a dreamer, but I think it can be done, and well, with every student appropriately challenged, together.

Motivating kids in the mastery model

One of the big concerns over the mastery-based and no-zero models is that students will have no motivation to work diligently or hand in their work in a timely manner if there are no hard due dates or penalties, or if they can always resubmit their work.

I understand the concern. Student motivation (or lack thereof) is one of the biggest challenges of teaching. The question is, how do we motivate them? What can we do so that they will be self-motivated? I don't really think the threat of punishment (a zero or grade penalty) is a very good motivator. If Daniel Pink is right, we're all motivated by 3 things: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

So today, I started with a pep talk. I asked my students, "What are the two purposes of these assignments that I give you?"

One student answered, "To give us something to do."

"Nope."

Another student: "So that we learn?"

"Right," I said, "I want you to learn biology by doing these projects--and what's the second?"

Silence.

Me: "I want you to learn to learn independently. I don't know if you've noticed, but you are doing a lot of independent learning in here. You learn by watching videos or reading or doing your projects--you are getting lots of practice at the learning process. In college you will have to do a lot of independent learning. In fact, no matter what you do in life, you'll need to learn. My goal is that you'll be ready for that."

Maybe I just imagined it, but I think some of them hit their work a bit harder today.

Though there were a few struggling to stay focused. They were having difficulties with the software they were using for one of the assignments, and it had become an excuse to chat.

I don't have hard deadlines, since I don't issue late penalties or zeros, so instead of threatening them with penalties, I simply said, "Maybe you should choose a different project option, because you are on Assignment #11 and we are staring #14. I don't want you to get bogged down here."

A few minutes later, I overheard one of them (the one who thought our assignments were just something to do) saying to another, "What assignment are you on, are you on 13?" Was that concern over falling behind? Sounded like it. Still not the best motivator, but I'm hopeful we're moving in the right direction.

There are still trouble spots, and they're different every day (sometimes I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole), but I really believe that backing off deadlines and pressure actually leads to greater engagement. Maybe it opens a door to a new kind of "school": No, this isn't some sick game. No, it's not about hoop-jumping for penalties and rewards. It's about mastery, autonomy, and purpose.

And it's really not like whack-a-mole. It's more like making lots of adjustments to something that I hope will turn out really beautifully for all of us.

The realm of possibility

Jim Collins, in Good to Great, tells the story of his wife's decision to win the Ironman:

"When Joanne set out to win the Ironman, she did not know if she would become the world's best triathlete. But she understood that she could, that it was in the realm of possibility, that she was not living in a delusion. And that distinction makes all the difference. It is a distinction that those who want to go from good to great must grasp, and one that those who fail to become great so often never do."

I believe that reaching every student is within the realm of possibility.

The dream of reaching every student

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us..."

-John Lennon

Maybe it's just a pipe dream.

Maybe some students are just unreachable.

Maybe there are some we just can't help.

Maybe our responsibility is the kids who want to learn.

Maybe the unmotivated, resistant ones don't count.

Maybe their failure is not our fault.

But I don't think so.

I think if they fail, we fail.

I think everyone of them counts.

I think their motivation is our responsibility.

I think everyone can be reached. Everyone can be helped.

Progress may be slow, and none of this will be easy, but it'll be worth it.

Why I'm excited about tech in education

I'm excited about tech in education for seven reasons: the power of tech in collaboration, communication, contribution, augmentation, facilitation, automation, and foundation.

Collaboration - With Google Docs, collaboration is amazing, and students LOVE it. The first time they see their classmates' colored cursors moving across the screen, they get excited, and for good reason. This kind of real-time, parallel-writing collaboration has never been possible before.

Communication - We live in amazing times. Since when can I send a quick message to my favorite author and get a reply? And since when can a teenager instantly publish her work to THE WHOLE WORLD? #awesome

Contribution - Did I mention making a global contribution with 140 characters and the click of a mouse? Link that Tweet to an original video, animation, or essay, and the stand back, because you may just start a #revolution.

Augmentation - We may not have robotic exoskeletons or neural implants yet, but the only thing between our brains and the internet's 4 zettabytes of information is a mouse and a screen. And for students with dysgraphia or short term memory problems, or who can't speak, technology levels the playing field.

Facilitation - Differentiation in a traditional classroom is hard. try delivering 4 different mini-lectures to 20 different students, all at the same time. But with online learning management systems like Moodle and Google Classroom, es muy facile. And have you used pivot tables yet? Data analysis is essential in our (finally) increasingly clinical discipline, and now we all have powerful tools at our fingertips.

Automation - One of my favorite things about Moodle is it's quizzing capabilities. There's nothing like giving students instant feedback after a formative assessment. And messaging an entire class? Easy. Checking for plagiarism? Easy with Google. Even easier with Turnitin.com.

Foundation - Here's where it gets really exciting, because every time we develop a new technology, it's like developing a new skill. Each new tech leads to more possibilities. It's like a tree, where each new development is like a bud, forming the foundation for more branches. Each new skill is a foundation for new skills. Just as there wasn't much need for civil engineers in primitive societies, there was no need for genetic engineers before the discovery of DNA, and there's no need for long division today, when many students are taking calculus in high school. Each new technology is a platform. And who knows what new abilities are being built on today's technologies?  Imagine what's being built on the internet as we speak?

Technology is not about new gadgets (or apps) for the sake of new gadgets or apps (as cool as they are). It's about making old things easier and new things possible. It's about the human drive to explore, to improve ourselves and our lives. It's about collaboration, communication, contribution, augmentation, facilitation, automation, and a foundation for whatever's next for us.

An experiment in collaboration

We started a new interdisciplinary PLC at E. O. Smith High School, and I feel like we're on the cusp of something big.

Several of us had been experimenting with tech-facilitated differentiation and mastery-based learning, so we started to get together regularly after school to share stories, challenges, and ideas. We use a show-and-tell format, with a different teacher presenting each month. They share what they've been doing. The rest of us listen, then ask questions.

It's been exciting, encouraging, and refreshing. The things these teachers are doing are bold and progressive. The effects of new strategies on students are always hard to predict. We've seen lots of promising results. We've also faced lots of challenges. That's why we need each other.

Thanks to the work of Andy Hargreaves and others, this kind of collaborative culture is growing in schools nationwide, and the power of collaboration is in this:

1) We get new perspectives. It's easy to walk around blinded to what's really going on by confirmation bias, etc. By opening yourself up to other, you get fresh, clearer perspectives on the situation.

2)  We get moral support and encouragement. Change is hard. Teaching is hard. Put them together, and you need moral support and encouragement.

3) We get synergy of ideas. It's what author Matt Ridley calls "when ideas have sex." The recombination of ideas that occurs through cooperation and collaboration is what Ridley says gave birth to civilization. Just imagine what's in store for education!

Towards more responsive rigor

The headmaster sat across the desk from me and listened as I explained my predicament. I was a new teacher, and my students hadn't done so well on their first honors chemistry test. Should I lower my standard?

"Absolutely not," he replied, "Make them come up to your level."

Then he told me a story.

An old headmaster was asked by a parent what would be a good course of study for her son. The old priest answered, "Any course of study is sufficient, as long as it is difficult and at least a little unpleasant."

I think most of my chemistry students would say that I listened to that old headmaster. I've always thought that the most important part of my job was to act as resistance training for their minds. But too often I've ended up with large test adjustments and students slipping through the cracks. So though it's still my mission to be like a demanding athletic coach in the classroom, I've been trying to make my rigor more responsive.

The most common modern educational meaning of rigor is "cognitive rigor," which involves Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) and/or Bloom's Taxonomy. Both of these basically say that it's harder to apply knowledge and evaluate alternatives than it is to memorize and describe, especially when applying and evaluating in different contexts. Solving equations in math class is one thing, applying them to solve a problem in chemistry is another. The high levels of Bloom's and Webb's have a lot in common with critical thinking, which is one of the "4 Cs" of 21st century learning, along with communication, collaboration, and creativity.

One cool thing about this definition of rigor is that ALL students can achieve a high DOK level. For some, this might mean using addition and subtraction to create a budget. For others, it may mean using statistics to design an experiment. Both are rigorous for that student.

And this is where I have significant room for improvement. It requires attention to the needs of individual students, the way a good coach monitors each runner, swimmer, or player to keep them continuously pushing the envelope of their individual ability with each new skill. Auto racing driver Danica Patrick expressed this well in Honda's excellent video, Failure: The Secret to Success:

"You're driving your car and you feel frightened a little bit. We bump up against that feeling as much as we can to try and push that limit further and get comfortable there and then push it again."

But this is difficult in a traditional high school classroom, so I've been working on differentiated alternatives: a project- and mastery-based geology class, and a differentiated biology class. My flipped chemistry class is a step in that direction as well. By allowing students choice and flexibility in pace, process, and product, you allow for differences in readiness and interest.

Then, by using a mastery model, which allows multiple attempts until the standard is met, and providing ample, personalized support, you enable every student to reach rigorous standards. Ideally, the outcome is twofold: 1) every student leaves the school as a competent critical thinker, communicator, collaborator, and creator, and 2) they learn perseverance (grit? a subject for a later post). In short, they are die-hard mental athletes, and you are their crazy coach.

And I think that was the message behind that old headmaster's advice. The content itself doesn't matter, "Any course of study is sufficient, as long as it is difficult and at least a little unpleasant." I'd just add one thing. It should be difficult because it teaches the student to think critically, collaborate, create, and communicate, because these are the skills they'll need to reach their potentials in the 21st century (and beyond). And it should be personalized, so that every student succeeds.

Content is not the point

Standing on a piece of Africa in CT

Controlled chaos is what it may look like (or worse). Or maybe sometimes it looks like laziness (God, I hate that word). Either way, it was my geology class. I call it differentiated, but really, it's an experiment--a dream, maybe. A new kind of school, maybe. A mistake, maybe, but I don't think so. And darn it, I'm proud of these kids.

They had lot's of choice, that's for sure. Every unit, an "assignment," with curriculum-dictated content-based objectives, but (and here's the key) open-ended products. Students can make presentations, write essays, build models, produce videos, posters, workout videos (more later). They make their own learning plans and set their own deadlines. (One got angry at me at first... about the no-deadlines part--wanted more structure. "That's fine, we can do that for you," I said.)

They need to get at least 60% on each assignment (graded by rubric). Otherwise, they are incomplete until they improve it (my attempt at the "mastery" model). I also tried to keep track of their progress on GLEAMS (social skills, goal-setting. etc.), but more on that in a later post.

But one day, earlier in the semester, I was doing some grading on a Saturday. I watched a video produced by a group of my students. They read from notes (*grits teeth*). At the end, they joked, laughed, swore... and forgot to edit it out. They learned nothing, I thought. What a disaster, I thought. My experiment is not going  well at all, I thought. I've failed, I thought. My ideas about learning are all wrong, I thought.

Then I thought... wait: but didn't plan it all by themselves? They may not have learned a ton, but then a again, didn't they? And do they learn more from the typical lecture? And they planned their own learning! They. Learned. By. Themselves. (With my guidance.) And what's more important? Filled-in-blanks-vocab or... this.

Since then, I went back and forth: Between...

• worrying that we were not covering enough content... and enjoying myself,
• worrying they are not working hard enough... and enjoying watching them learn,
• focusing on "failures" (the guy who sleeps and "youtubes" away half the time, the boys who snapchat each other, the chronic absences of a couple of students, the cut-and-pasting from the web, the gaming of my system :-l )... and focusing on successes (the Earth cake, the awesome volcano art, the "Earth goes to the doctor" story, the innovative mountain-building models, the final project that nailed the reason gems are found in only certain places, the self-imposed deadlines being met, self-created goals being achieved, and the fact that they are learning to learn, the fact that they sat there every day (at least some of the time) planning, researching, producing. 

And that's what's important.

Content? Yeah... I think they're getting that too (as a bonus), but content is not the point. How many people know what a subduction zone is or can tell a metamorphic rock from an igneous rock. And really, what difference does that make in an age when we can Google the answer in a second. But what difference does it make if you know how to ask a question, find the answer, and learn?What difference does it make if you can set a goal, plan, and produce? All the difference.

And they did. Ten units. Ten projects. All individually planned & executed. I'm not bragging on me. I'm bragging on them.

The choice effect

Choice works. Case-in-point: Nursing homes. They can be dismal, depressing places. And I don't think it's because old people are dismal. I think they have awesome potential, just like all of us. I think it's because of how the places are run. As Robert Sapolsky writes, many nursing homes are "a world in which you are often isolated from the social network of a lifetime and in which you have little control over your daily activities, your finances, often your own body. A world of few outlets for frustration, in which you are often treated like a child."

But psychologists have found an interesting way to improve life for nursing home patients: Instead of doing everything for them, just give them more choice and responsibility. Some studies have tried this--control group gets same old stale, passive, totally controlled environment and plant-like existence. Treatment group gets responsibility (and freedom) to choose meals, sign up for activities, care for their own plants, etc. Treatment group gets more active, happier, and healthier. Mortality rates go down.

As I listened to Sapolsky's book, driving home from work, it struck me how much this sounds like school. High school students are a lot like nursing home patients--allowed very little choice and responsibility--"infantilized," as Sapolsky puts it. They are told what to do and how to do it all day long, while at school. I'll never forget one former student who remarked how strange it was to be a manager at Dunkin Donuts and then come to school and have to ask to use the bathroom. For many students, it's demoralizing. Prison-like. Depressing. Stifling. Growth-inhibiting.

We want them to become independent learners, right? We want them to become responsible global citizens, right? Then we give them no independence and dictate how and what they will learn and do every minute of every day? Fortunately, I think the tide is finally turning. For example, in order to score at the highest level of Charlotte Danielson's influential Framework for Teaching Evaluation, a teacher must design lessons where "Activities permit student choice."

Student independence, choice, and self-direction are even more prominent in the CT Common Core of Teaching rubric. And this all makes sense. For one thing, everyone is different, with different learning styles and interests, backgrounds, and levels of motivation and readiness. One-size-fits-all education can't work as well as individualized instruction. And secondly, we all learn best by doing. Giving students independence and responsibility teaches them.. well, independence and responsibility.

And lastly, choice is a lot more fun than dictum. I ran my biology class like this last year, giving students options for every assignment, and I'm building a geology course like this this year. So far, so good. More fun. More interest. Less stress for them. Less stress for me. Next step: Self-created learning plans. (Hopefully, more on that later.)

I've been telling my students for a few years now: "Never ask me to go to the bathroom--just go." This is symbolic of my intention to treat them like young adult human beings, with dignity, choices, freedom and responsibility. With a a good dose of training and guidance, maybe soon I can say to them: "Don't ask me what to do next," because they will have planned it themselves, like Starr Sackstein's students.

I'm willing to bet, with each increment of increased choice, there will be increased interest and happiness. Imagine that: a school full of happier, healthier, motivated, self-directed teens. A dream? Maybe.

Less likely than a nursing home full of happy patients? I don't think so.

A more open classroom

Photo by David Niblack

It's more open in the sense that the students have more freedom to choose assignments and modes of learning. It's open in the sense that they don't have to ask me to use the bathroom. It's open in the sense that they're free to use their cell phones. It is open in the sense that it is open-ended: What they learn is up to them. Their grades are up to them. At least, that's the idea.


I started doing it as a classroom management technique. I knew I need to change something. Last year didn't go as I would have liked. I had a hard time controlling my standard-college-prep-level sophomores. Many of them simply didn't care about atoms, cellular respiration, and DNA, and trying to "teach" them was like force-feeding medicine to a baby. No, it was worse than that, because they were not babies, but young adults, and many of them simply wouldn't (or couldn't) swallow it.


And to tell you the truth, I didn't blame them. I'm not being forced to learn anything I'm not interested in, nor do I wish to be. Nor do I remember most of what I was forced to learn in my first twelve years of schooling. I learn best when I choose what to learn and how to learn. And so do they. So that's what I'm trying to do for them--give them more freedom of choice, more ownership of their learning. And I think it's working.

For most assignments, they have four choices: one is an artistic or writing approach, one is hands-on, one is online, and one is textbook reading with worksheets. And sometimes the classroom absolutely beautiful--everyone focused, asking thoughtful questions, and working hard on different activities. For example, for our ATP lesson, I started with a brief lecture about ATP to introduce the concept, then they got to choose between four options: make a poster about ATP, make a model of ATP, make an online animation of ATP, or read a section in their text and complete a worksheet packet. The results were amazing. The online animations were fantastic, and one group made a working model that blew me away.

In general, they all work diligently on the assignments. Though there is a fair amount of socializing at times, I don't worry too much about it. My philosophy is  if they are not getting their work done, it will show in their grades, and I tell them so. And they have responded well to this responsibility.

I have taken a similar approach with my cell phone policy. If they choose to text instead of work or listen, it will show in their grades. If they are able to learn the material well, then why does it matter if they text during class? On the other hand, if they choose to neglect their work, then they should bear the consequences. I will try to persuade them to work, and I will help them overcome whatever it is that is holding them back, but I will not coerce them. That would rob them of the chance to learn to control themselves.

At times, I admit, my classroom may appear as (barely) controlled chaos, but things are not always what they seem: It is never really under my control, and I don't want it to be. I often feel as if I am riding a wave that could crash around me at any moment, but it is, I hope, a wave made of students' freedom and growing sense of responsibility.

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