PLP Pathways Webinar 4: Proficiency Based Learning Follow-Up

Introduction

Our fourth PLP Pathways webinar was a discussion of proficiency-based learning, assessment, and building partnerships with students to create positive learning environments that focus on student growth and learning.

Prior to our webinar, we posted an interview with Maura Wieler, proficiency-based learning and technology coach at the Lamoille South Supervisory Union. This lead-in helped guide our discussion.

As usual, the conversation was loaded with important ideas, key considerations and problem solving ideas that can assist teachers looking to make connections between proficiencies, personalized learning, flexible pathways and the creation of positive relationships.

Our discussion started with a quote from former Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe. In an Op-Ed piece that ran last spring, she said of proficiency-based learning:

Proficiency-based approaches ensure that students who want to improve have the specific feedback they need to actually do better. As one student who was struggling told us, in traditional grading systems, “you’re never given much information besides you just got a lower grade, but if you do proficiencies and you get a lower proficiency score, it tells you exactly what parts you are lower on and what parts you did really well, and I really appreciate that.” Our students want to learn and thrive; we need to give them the means to do so. -- Rebecca Holcombe

Critical Components of Proficiency Based Learning

Our discussion continued with the identification of key elements of proficiency-based learning including making sure that teachers/students have:

Clear Expectations: learning targets or assessment objectives should be clear, communicated frequently, and checked for understanding. That is, make sure your students know the objectives!

Clear Assessment Targets: one of the key facets of proficiencies is the development of clearly understandable learning targets that can be communicated to students and families. Developing these clear learning targets, and creating consistency around how they can be achieved helps teachers design effective lessons supporting student proficiency.

Instructional Design: our conversation included participant discussions about how lessons, classes and units can be structured to support student achievement of proficiency. We discussed different methods that teachers use to make sure that not only are the expectations or learning targets communicated effectively, they are are also modeled in a manner that provides multiple opportunities for students to understand what proficiency looks like.

Using different formative assessment methods, and providing supports and appropriate interventions when students are not making strides to proficiency are also important considerations as teachers plan.

Feedback: feedback was a big part of our conversation and the panelists agreed that developing effective feedback systems that communicate student performance, and what is needed for students to reach proficiency is critical.

Feedback is not only a consideration when students complete assessments, it can also be used by teachers to get student voice and input regarding their understanding of tasks, how they will be assessed, and what they need to do to achieve proficiency.

Connection to Personalization and Engagement

The use of proficiencies is an integral part of creating personalized learning environments. When proficiencies are employed, students can create a variety of products that meet the assessment criteria. This allows students to choose the most effective pathway for the demonstration of their learning.

We also spoke to the importance of having a process for incorporating the personal learning plan into the learning environment. Specifically, our discussion focused on how student’s personal learning plans can be a repository for the evidence that students have achieved proficiency.

Challenges

Unquestionably, there are challenges presented by using proficiencies. Throughout the webinar, these challenges came up repeatedly. One of the primary challenges are barriers to equity. That is, are we ensuring that all students have the same opportunities to achieve proficiency? If not, what are the skills, experiences, and background knowledge that all students require to be successful?

Resources or Suggestions For Professional Development  

• PLP Pathways Blog Post
• Great Schools Partnership
• Mastery Collaborative http://www.masterycollaborative.org/
• Stories On The Road To Proficiency 

Coming Events

January 10th: Youth Voice and Youth-Adult Partnership Professional Development Sessions January 10 (Jan. 17 snow date); 8:30-9:00 registration, 9:00am-3:30pm session - River Valley Tech Center at the Springfield H.S. campus  - https://learningcollaborative.org/events/event/youth-voice-and-youth-adult-partnership-series/

January 12th: Middle Grades Conference at UVM - Davis Center

February 4th: Dr. Russell Quaglia: Understanding the Dynamics of Student Voice and Aspirations - CVEDC - Hampton Inn: https://www.cvedcvt.org/event/dr-russell-quaglia-understanding-the-dynamics-of-student-voice-and-aspirations/

February 5th: Youth Voice Youth-Adult Partnership PD Sessions - Hampton Inn - https://www.cvedcvt.org/download/flyers/fy18-19/UPforLearningflyer.pdf

March 13: VAMLE Beyond Bullying Conference  - Champlain College

April ⅔ - Standards Based Structures, Systems and Strategies for Transformation.

Proficiency Based Learning Revisited

This week, in the fourth installment of our PLP Pathways Webinar series, we will be reviewing and discussing proficiency based learning.

Three Pillars

As a classroom teacher, it can be a little daunting to wade through the accumulated resources, literature, and professional development related to proficiency-based learning and its implementation.

Proficiency based learning is one of the three pillars of Act 77 along with personalization and flexible pathways. To review some great ideas about the three pillars, check out this Tarrant Institute blog entry.

Click for Video

Another great overview from PLP Pathways contributor Maura Wieler can be found here.

Understanding proficiency based learning can be made more challenging by differences in language or locally based practices that can lead to confusion or additional questions.

Prior to our web-based conversation happening on Thursday afternoon, here are some definitions, resources and links that might assist your continuing journey with proficiency based learning.

What is proficiency based learning?

According to the Agency of Education’s proficiency based learning website,  “Proficiency-based education is a standards-based system of instruction, assessment, and reporting that requires learners to demonstrate competence in targeted knowledge, skills, and/or abilities before moving onto the next level or challenge. Proficiency-based education may also be referred to as mastery or competency-based education.”³

In such a system, it is critical that teachers have clear learning targets, provide a variety of task neutral assessments of  those learning targets and give students meaningful feedback on their progress towards proficiency.

This requires, again from the Agency of Education, “...clear expectations for what will be learned; a shared understanding of the depth of learning necessary to demonstrate proficiency; strategies for documenting and reporting learning over time; a transparent method of communicating with learners, parents, and guardians where learners are along a continuum; and opportunities, when necessary, for learners to retake assessments in order to progress towards proficiency.”⁴

Gets complicated quick, right? Last November, then Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe wrote an excellent opinion piece that put proficiency-based learning in layman’s terms. That article can be accessed here.

Additional Resources

In its fifth year of existence, Act 77 continues to unfold across the state of Vermont. To facilitate student growth and learning, it is imperative that educators continue to develop their professional knowledge regarding foundational concepts such as proficiency-based learning.

If you haven’t already, check out the Agency of Education’s Professional Learning Network’s Self Paced Courses on Proficiency Based Learning. You can also check out the Great Schools Partnership information on proficiency based learning here.

Resources

1. The Three Pillars of Personalized Learning - Innovation: Education. (2018). Innovation: Education. Retrieved 11 December 2018, from https://tiie.w3.uvm.edu/blog/three-pillars/#.XA8BkxNKhtN
2. Proficiency-Based Learning | Agency of Education. (2018). Education.vermont.gov. Retrieved 11 December 2018, from https://education.vermont.gov/student-learning/proficiency-based-learning
3. (2018). Education.vermont.gov. Retrieved 11 December 2018, from https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-proficiency-based-education-what-is-proficiency-based-learning.pdf
4. Ibid.
5. (2018). Education.vermont.gov. Retrieved 11 December 2018, from https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-op-ed-response-to-proficiency.pdf

PLP Pathways: Webinar 3 Recap -- Family Engagement and Student Led Conferences

On Thursday, November 15, PLP Pathways hosted the third webinar of our yearly professional development series. The topic of our webinar was building family engagement, positive relationships and the benefits of student-led conferences.

You can watch the recording of that webinar here.  Prior to the webinar, PLP Pathways published a short pre-webinar video on family engagement featuring PLP Pathways contributor Kevin Pioli-Hunt. That resource can be found here.

Our special guest was Vermont teacher and parent Melissa Akey. Melissa had three students go through the Swift House program at Williston Central School and provided dual perspectives as both an educator and parent.

Throughout the webinar, a primary theme that developed was the continuing importance of building relationships with both students and families.

It became clear that providing multiple opportunities for families to connect and engage with the school community and teachers was a critical element of creating a tight web of support for students.  

Additionally, a variety of innovative ways to engage students in the conference process were highlighted. These included "flipped conferences", multiple conferences across the year, providing childcare for families with younger siblings and even home visits.

Whatever the strategies being considered, building those connections with students and families is an important foundation for student success.

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Key Webinar Discussion Questions:

• What have been your experiences with communication and engagement with your children's’ teachers? What types of methods have been effective? Where do you see areas for growth?

• What activities/opportunities were there for parents to become engaged with the students and feel like they were part of the greater learning community?

• Your children were all on a middle school team that had student-led PLP conferences. How did these conferences impact your child’s engagement and ability to advocate for him/herself in high school? Did your children feel empowered by this?

Questions From the Field

• It’s so hard to find time for productive conferences. How do make the time for this?

• What should educators do about families that are disengaged? How can we get them more involved?

• What platforms are teachers using for personal learning plans or for  students to share their work at their conferences?

• How are students prepped for student-led conferences? How do they create their goals and show evidence of growth?

Professional Development

Don’t forget that if you choose to view the webinar, you can receive professional development credit for doing so. Here is the link for that professional development credit.

Thanks always for your work with Vermont’s students!

Announcements and Closing

• November 30: Building a Culture of Equity - Vermont Principals’ Association second equity summit, Champlain College, Burlington, VT.

• January 12th: Middle Grades Conference at UVM - Davis Center

• March 13: VAMLE Beyond Bullying Conference  - Champlain College

PLP Pathways: Notes From the Field

This PLP Pathways Note from the Field has been crafted by Kyle Chadburn and Andrea Gratton, middle level educators at Orleans Elementary School. You can follow them on Twitter @OEShumanities

The Importance of Reflecting on Identity

When working with adolescents, developing relationships and building the capacity for empathy is a must. Without those foundational relationships between staff and students, as well as students with each other, learning opportunities will not reach their greatest potential.

However, adolescence is a time when students are almost constantly changing. Their passions, interests, hobbies, strengths, challenges, and beliefs are in a state of flux that makes it difficult to build those powerful and necessary relationships. However, the more students are able to reflect on themselves as learners and as human beings, the better they can communicate their needs, strengthen bonds with those who are available to support them, and find the motivation they require to be successful inside and outside the school community.

Using PLPs to Explore Identity

The middle level of our K-8 school has been developing new ways for students to engage in guided reflection about their individual and group identities. Much of the progress on individual identity has come from our work on Personal Learning Plans (PLP). We have a designated PLP work time each Friday, and so far this year, we have focused that time solely on exploring the facets of our identities.

Setting the Stage: Surveys, Selfies, Strengths & Challenges

Our process began with a student interest survey. The survey asked questions ranging from curiosities to hobbies, and favorite things to future goals. Not only did this provide our middle school staff with a helpful tool so we might better understand the wide variety of interests our students have, but it also provided the students with a chance to realize interests or passions that they hadn’t really considered beforehand. I am often surprised by the number of students who, when prompted to answer the question “What are you interested in?” will respond with a simple, “Nothing.”  Yet, when you take the time to dig deeper and provide scaffolding for this type of self-inquiry, students suddenly realize that they have far more interests and curiosity than they thought. Often they simply have never been permitted or enabled to explore them in the past!

After students spent some time answering questions and learning about themselves, our next step is to reflect on personal strengths and challenges. We provided students with a list of critical, transferable skills that are valuable in academics and in other aspects of their lives. Students were also permitted to include additional skills that were not listed if they were able to explain the importance of the skill. When our list was complete, we asked students to choose the three skills that they believed were their greatest strengths and three that were their greatest challenges at this point in their lives. These lists were shared by students at their first student-led conference of the year in mid-September, and will be used, along with parents’ input from the conferences, to form PLP goals in the near future.

The final step, as we get this process started, is to allow students to provide a visual representation of themselves on their PLP website. This could be a sketch, a FlipGrid video, or the most popular choice, a selfie. Though it is easy to write off the selfie as a wasteful and indulgent activity, it is also important to remember that it is a significant part of the culture in which our students are living, and it can have far more significance in helping us understand our students than we might believe at first glance. How they choose to represent themselves in their selfies provides insight about how they hope to portray themselves to the world. Plus, it is a fun and engaging process, and a great chance for students to see teachers participating in an activity that belongs to their generation.

Digging Deeper: Core Values & Sketchnotes

We are now reaching the stage of our process where we ask students to dig even deeper into their identities by examining core values. Identifying strengths and challenges is an important first step, but it is when we ask students to think about what is most important to them that they truly start to broaden their abilities to be self-reflective. For some students, this may be the first time that they are asked specifically to assign value to non-material things and examine what it means for something to be intrinsically valuable. Similarly to our strengths and challenges activity, we provided student with an extensive list of values and attached definitions. We provided opportunities for students to challenge these definitions if they wished. We then asked them to apply a “zoom in” approach to defining their core values. They started with ten values that they appreciated in others, then reduced to seven, then to five. It was not an easy task for many students, and they needed a sounding board to make some of their decisions. Therefore, if students are comfortable doing so, this is a great opportunity for teachers to open conversations with students, or for students to open conversations with each other.

The second component to our core values work was asking each student to create a Sketchnote. In case you’re unfamiliar with Sketchnotes it is essentially a way to collect ideas creatively through drawn pictures, symbols, and limited words. Our students embraced this activity more than any other identity work up to this point. The process of translating their definitions and examples of these core values into a visual medium was incredibly powerful to watch, and the end products are sure to be as well!

Potential Drawbacks

Despite the many positives associated with taking the time to explore identity with adolescents, it is important to acknowledge the potential drawbacks as well. This is especially critical when trying to advocate for this time in your school’s schedule or space in your district’s curriculum. By acknowledging the limitations, and then clearly articulating ways that the benefits outweigh them, you will be able to make positive change more quickly.

One drawback, as is often the case, is the time commitment. In order to do these activities and get quality results, it will take some time. Our students have spent six, thirty-minute sessions on their PLPs so far this year, and we are part way through completing their core values Sketchnotes. However, we have found that it is time very well spent, and there are few other activities that will provide such profound insight into students.

Another potential drawback is the possibility of disengagement from some students. There are a number of reasons why students might disengage during this work. Some come from backgrounds where reflection vulnerability are frowned upon. Others may have suffered some form of trauma, and this type of introspection opens old wounds. Of course, there are always cases where some students just don’t seem to see or understand the value of these activities.

Regardless, we have found that the vast majority of students do engage in this work, and for those that do, the awareness they gain from the work makes it a worthwhile endeavor.

Growth, Goals, and Mindset

Deep into October, as our school year is maturing, many teachers and students are reviewing their initial growth and learning, developing goals for growth, and preparing for student-led conferences.

As part of the personal learning process, setting goals is a critical element and one which can be incredibly rewarding and somewhat vexing. To support Vermont educators implementing personalized learning in their learning communities, PLP Pathways hosted a webinar October 18 focused on the goal- setting process. You can watch the recording of that webinar here.

Our special guest was Vermont teacher and author Christine Hertz. She had some excellent perspectives and viewpoints with regards to goal setting and what we ask students to do in the process of setting goals.

Throughout the webinar, we discussed different formats for the creation of goals, the different strategies used to engage students with goal setting, and how we can use goal setting to create positive mindsets and better relationships with students.

Key discussion questions that were addressed included the following:

• When talking about goals setting in your book you talk about telling the “story” of a goal by identifying the what, how when or where. Can you walk us through how to use this process in our classrooms. How does Carol Dweck's research inform this practice?
• How can teachers and parents help co-construct goals?
• How do we avoid potential goal setting pitfalls when the child’s goal is different from the teacher's goal or the child has no goal in mind.
• When students have goals,  how do we help them remember it?
• How do you integrate literacy into the goal setting process? Do you have any favorite short stories or books that support goals setting?

Additionally, we took questions from practitioners and addressed those through our discussion. These included:

• How do you engage students in goal setting in your classroom?
• How are families included in the goal setting process?
• What ways do you incorporate intentional conversations and opportunities to talk about growth mindset and self-talk in your classroom?
• What happens if a student is struggling to set a goal?

What was particularly interesting about our conversation was how closely the development of goals and the goal setting process is tied to positive relationships and mindset in the classroom. The better the teacher-student relationship, the more effective and appropriate goal-setting can be.

If you have questions or what to review some resources, check out the PLP Pathways website and in particular, see this page for more examples.

Finally, don't forget that if you would like to earn professional development credit for time spent watching any of our webinars, you may do so by responding to questions based on that month's offerings.

Webinar 1: Identity and Building Relationships

Webinar 1 Professional Development Credit

Webinar 2: Goal Setting and Mindset

Webinar 2 Professional Development Credit

The Importance of Relationships

This blog post is from Kevin Pioli-Hunt, PLP Pathways contributor and teacher in Swift House,

Williston Central School.

This job is all about relationships. This was one of the first things I learned from my mentor teacher when I was student teaching and it has been a guiding force in my approach ever since. There will always be things that are out of the teacher’s control: new initiatives, changes in curriculum, changes in personnel. One thing that can remain constant, however, is the level of trust and rapport we build with our students year in and year out. Here are some tried and true methods we use to build relationships on Swift House:

Early Connections with Families

Summer Mailing

We are fortunate to be a 5th-8th grade team, so we have ample time to build strong, lasting relationships with students and families. Every summer, we send out a summer mailing to our new families and returning families. This letter consists of introductions, updates about the teachers’ professional growth over the summer (along with the fun!), core placements, student mentor/mentee pairs, and general logistics about the coming school year. For our new families, we also provide a student profile document for the upcoming Hopes and Dreams conference. Our hopes and dreams conferences occur a few days before school starts, and give us a chance to learn about our new core (homeroom/advisory) students. We also  begin the process of setting up some PLP goals before the school year even begins. It’s the first of many opportunities for our new students to not only feel connected with our team, but to also have a chance to advocate for themselves and their needs.

Mentor/Mentee Breakfast

The day before school starts, we have our 7th and 8th grade volunteer mentors come in for a mentor/mentee breakfast, which we host on Swift House. This, more times than not, is the mentor and mentees’ first interaction with one another, so we try to keep it as light and fun as possible. Mentors are given a questionnaire to fill out with their mentees, to get to know one another and help the conversation along, and then each of the four core classes do ten minute rotations where we play some fun and engaging team building games. We end the day by bringing all the mentors and mentees together in our Kiva space and play “signature squares” as one final getting-to-know-you activity before we leave.

Team Building

1st week of school

We embed team building activities (silent birthday line up, captain’s coming, shoe relay, play doh pictionary, etc) for the first 3-4 days of school. This happens in both small core (advisory) group settings within our morning meeting and large group as a whole team. We utilize our life studies and literacy blocks in our schedule  to make time for these team building activities. During our math classes, every teacher on Swift spends time focusing on growth mindset lessons(from youcubed.org) and establishing a classroom environment that values mistakes and learning from one another. We also make time early in the school year for students to complete some identity work that will go on their PLP. This year we used Chris Stevenson’s 5 Personal Efficacies as a foundation for our identity work. Students created a coat of arms in which they reflected on their competence, responsibility, awareness, affiliation, and sense of self.

Campout

An ongoing Swift tradition is our campout that happens on the second week of school. Every year, we bring students on an overnight camping trip to Grand Isle State Park. We begin planning for this on the first day back by delegating 8th grade campsite leaders. Once the campsite leaders are established, the leaders all meet with a teacher and begin making campsite groups. We begin with matching the mentors and mentees to help continue to build those relationships. After groups are made, they begin their campout planning. The students plan everything. They are in charge of collaborating and sorting out who is bringing what for dinner, campfires, tents, snacks, drinks, etc.

Once we arrive at camp, students work together to set up their tents and organize their sites and then we have a schedule of small group rotations and large group team building activities. There is of course freetime built in to swim in the lake or play and hang out with friends. The night ends with a Swift community dinner, where families and Swift alumni come to join us. This is an amazing opportunity to meet and socialize with the new families and have new parents meet returning parents and students. After dinner, we all have a bonfire and each of the campsite groups put on skits that they’ve been rehearsing. We end the night in a peaceful manner with candles and sharing what we are thankful for. This began in 2001. The Swift campout was the week after 9/11 and the facilitators held a candlelight vigil and had students and families share what they were thankful for in their lives. We have continued this ever since. For me, this moment at the campout when we are quiet with our faces illuminated by the flickering flame from the candles and sharing what we are thankful for, is when everybody feels what it means to be a member of this family.

Whether you are part of a team that has relationship building built into the culture, or brand new to the profession, it’s important to remember that making any effort to build relationships with your students will have a positive and lasting impact.