Personalization, Proficiencies and Flexible Pathways: Through the Lens of Education for Sustainability (EFS)

This post is from PLP Pathways contributor Lindsey Halman, teacher and founder of The Edge Academy, Essex Middle School.

What if it was possible to unite Vermont schools around the mission of creating sustainable futures for its youth, its community, the global population beyond our local and national borders, and the planet? Envision a community engaged in learning beyond conventional school hours and walls, committed to creating a socially and economically just and sustainable society.

Education for sustainability (EFS), along with the tenets of Act 77,  lends itself to learning with deep meaning embedded in it so that youth, and their adult partners, care about making change for the better. A sustainable future depends on humans figuring out how to live with one another, themselves, and the planet in a more sustainable way. Youth need access to a practice with these ideas from a very young age. What better way to practice and to develop a sense of meaning or purpose in schools than working toward answers to local and global issues, while expanding the network of youth working toward solutions toward these issue and concerns.

On September 21, 2016, partners from around the state gathered at the Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms to begin formulating questions together that will guide a year of exploration. Together, the hope is to cultivate authentic youth-adult partnerships engaged in learning toward a sustainable future. The vision for this work is for it to continue as ongoing, annually so that schools can work beyond their walls and youth can practice proficiencies in multiple settings, with diverse audiences, with real world problems driving their learning. Now is the time to leverage the excitement and focus on the opportunities personalized learning and flexible pathways provide in our communities.

This is how Cultivating Pathways to Sustainability came about and the following blog post captures the essence of this work:

Shelburne Farms Blog Post

Change Is In The Air

Maura Kelly is a humanities teacher at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, Vermont and co-director of PLP Pathways. She has a passion for working with young adolescents and believes in the power of a strong middle level program in developing students to be ready to face the challenges in our world today. When Maura is not teaching you can find her out skiing and biking around the state of Vermont.

Here at Peoples Academy Middle Level, as the air is becoming more cool and crisp, leaves are not the only changes that we are noticing around our school. This year the theme of our work is “practice and play” within the context of personalized learning and a proficiency based system.

We have undergone major systematic changes within our school since last year to shift towards a model we hope will allow us to reflect the three pillars of personalized learning. PAML has moved from being configured with four straight grade teams to multi-age teams where teachers will loop with students to developing stronger relationships with our students and families. We also now have Teacher Advisory everyday using the Developmental Designs Circle of Power and Respect to start out day followed by a 25 minute Academic Time every morning. This Academic Time or AT is where students can be scheduled to meet with teachers across the building based on individual needs. We are also using a web based scheduling program called Enriching Students, where we can schedule students for extra support or expansion within a content area to help our show mastery within a proficiency based learning context.

Another exciting change is the development of what we are calling Opportunity Time at the end of the every day. This is a 40 minute block where students collaborate with academic advisors to work on personal goals and projects based around our negotiated curriculum theme. The hope is this time develops into true personalized learning for all students in grades 5-8. Despite all of these changes, some things have remained the same, the importance of building a strong team identity, fostering a positive school culture and building relationships with our students. I want to highlight a few things that we have done with our students at the start of the year that help to build these youth adult partnerships.

It Begins Day One

We knew going into the start of this school year we wanted one of our key focuses to be students forming relationships within our house and developing a strong culture. This started the very first day of school starting our morning with the Circle of Power and Respect or C.P.R. building relationships, sharing, and having fun with our students. In the afternoon on the first day of school we took all of our students out onto our expansive nature tail and asked each student to find a rock that spoke to them. One that made them stop and think and one that they could carry with them.

Once back in the classroom we had all students come up with a brainstorm list of characteristics and scholarly habits that would help them to be successful this year. We then gave students the prompt: “This year I want to (be)...” and think about one characteristic or trait that they could have as a focus this school year and write it on their rock.

Finally we went around the circle in our TA and had every student share out that characteristic or trait they wanted to work on and have the collection of rocks in our classroom. It is a nice reminder to have students go back and take their rock out of our collection and carry it with them for the day as a reminder of what they are working on.

Every Team Needs a Name: Our is Apollo!

As we have restructured it gave us the unique opportunity to partner with students to create name our new teams. As a school we had thoughts that it could have been much easier for the office, families and the teachers if we had simply assigned names to the teams over the summer and crossed that item off the list. However, we recognized that for many of our students, after their grade being split between houses and possibly looping with some of the teachers from the previous year, they needed to feel some ownership and belonging to this newly assigned team so we gave the important task of naming the teams to the students. To have a small amount of continuity across the school we decided that names should fall under the theme of adventure and travel.  

Within our team we had students individually brainstorm a list of names that they liked that they felt fit under this theme. Next, we had students work in groups and negotiate with each other on what theme they felt would best represent the culture of our team with the understanding that these names will stay in the school even after they have moved on from PAML. Once student groups settled on a name, we had them create a logo for their name and create a pitch for the other students on team.

In order to make a final selection each TA had their students give their pitches and vote on the name that they felt best identified the culture of our team. Finally, during one of our weekly team town meetings with all of the students on our team, we had the names from the three TAs give their pitches to the whole team, explaining to students why we should choose their team name idea and how it helped to define our team culture.

On our team we had many really strong name ideas, however in the end the students selected Apollo to be our new team name.

Looking Ahead to Personalization

Looking back over the past month of school there are so many changes that as a school we have been trying to navigate with our students. I feel that we have worked hard to incorporate voice and choice into the decisions that we can make with our students and have been partnering with them as we are all on this journey together.

We have rolled out our PLP for the year starting with our identity work. We have has students working on a personal expression project and a bio poem that will be showcased on their “Who Am I?” page of their portfolio. I have really been making an effort to talk with students and get feedback on what they felt went well last year and changes that they would like to make with their PLPs.

Looking ahead we have also started our work using the Negotiated Curriculum Framework that is also used at the Edge Academy. Last year, after being inspired by the work at The Edge, we used this framework for the first time and found it to be the best part of the year for both teachers and students. When talking with students about their PLPs, our theme work from last year kept  coming up again and again regarding what students want their portfolios to be about. I am excited to partner with students in the development of our negotiated curriculum theme over the next few weeks and watch the changes of this year unfold.

PLPs in the 9th Grade

This week we will be featuring a post authored by Alison Gauthier, a PLP Pathways contributing author, participating PLP Pathways webinar moderator,  and Science teacher at U-32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier.

Here at U-32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier, I feel that I started this new academic year as an extension from last year. In the spring of 2015, the Administrative Team asked for volunteers to form a Ninth Grade Team of Teachers (Social Studies, Math, Science and English) who would model Proficiency-Based Learning (PBL) as our incoming Class of 2020-ers graduate from 8th grade. As a team, we met several times in the summer to discuss consistencies across the core subjects as well as wrap our minds around PBL. I feel that we hold a responsibility as a team for rolling-out PBL effectively and being flexible to shifting mindsets in education. For Science, the two of us worked EXTENSIVELY to put our best foot forward in terms of what PBL should look like for Science and how we can differentiate process and product for our learners.

Three weeks into the academic year, I will honestly admit that personalization has not been on the forefront. There is a high level of anxiety (among teachers, learners and parents alike) related to PBL, and I feel that we need to put out PBL “fires” before being able to personalize instruction. That seems contrary, I admit, to the mission of PLP Pathways and personalization taking the forefront from which PBL can be achieved. But this is where we are as a school and community. As of Thursday, September 15th, our ninth grade learners have the PLP/SLO Portfolio site on their chromebooks. This site is a place to hold their Personalized Learning Plans as well as the artifacts they collect related to the Student Learning Outcomes (Content Standards and Transferable Skills they will need to demonstrate proficiency in in order to earn their HS diploma). The mission for the next few weeks is to work as a team to help learners document their IDENTITY through their interests, needs, strengths, learning styles, and values.  

Personalization, proficiencies, flexible pathways - the Three Pillars!

This week we will be featuring a post authored by Lindsey Halman, a PLP Pathways contributing author, participating PLP Pathways webinar moderator,  teacher, and founder of The Edge Academy, Essex Middle School.

Personalization, proficiencies, flexible pathways - the Three Pillars!  

As another school year launches, I am reminded of how truly fortunate we are to be educators in VT. I am also reminded that in order to create a learning environment that supports the Three Pillars, we must spend time intentionally creating community, building relationships and creating the norms that will allow all learners to thrive in this world of Act 77.  

Creating Community. What is place?  

This was the question that launched our year together on the Edge Academy Team at Essex Middle School.  As our 7th and 8th grade learners worked to define this word, they came to realize that place is much more than the physical space.  It’s mostly about our relationships - with one another, with ourself and with the space itself.  Learners identified that when they think of place, they feel safe, supported and respected for their individuality.  We wanted to ensure that the learners on our team understood that “school” is not a physical space, but rather, learning can occur anywhere as long as one feels supported to ask questions and take creative risks.  With this in mind, we spent a large portion of our first day back at Essex Middle School outdoors and unplugged.  In small groups, we explored the ideas of diversity and perspective using a hula hoop outside on a field.  Careful observations were taken of everything found within the hula hoop.  We also asked learners to imagine what they would see if they dug one foot down and how their observations would change.  These observations were shared around a fire, as we discussed the ideas of diversity and perspective.  Marshmallows were roasted as we reflected on what kind of community we wanted to create this year.  Further activities on observation, perspective and diversity connected us to the book Zoom by Istvan Banyai.  This is a fantastic book to use for a variety of lessons on perspective!

Building Relationships.

Each morning, we meet as an advisory in our Circle of Power and Respect (CPR).  This is a given, every day you will walk into your advisory and the circle will always be there to start your day.  We use our (CPR) as a way to connect with one another, share, learn and strengthen our community.   Each learner found an object in nature that had some qualities that represented who they are as an individual.  

“There are three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and the truth.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This object and the qualities were shared during our circle and a mobile, or centerpiece for our circle, was created with all of our individual objects.  The mobile is an important part of our CPR. It represents everyone in the circle as individuals and together, the power of our community.  It also serves as a place for focus for students when conversations become tough.   

Sharing Stories, Sharing Pancakes?

During the first month of school we focus intensely on exploring our identity.  We began our exploration of self by watching a TEDTalk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on how she “found her authentic cultural voice. [She] warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding”.  This important message was enjoyed while eating homemade pancakes and our very own Edge Team maple syrup that we produced last spring in our sugarhouse.  This is one way to highlight past projects and the dynamics of our project-based learning model on our team.  

There are so many layers to our identities and in stories, we see ourselves, learn about our world and learn how to make our way in it.  Learners crafted the story of their names, as well as created identity maps.   We also have begun to explore the art of interviewing and listening.  Learners have been conducting interviews to capture the stories of September 11, 2001, from a trusted adult.  Through these experiences, they are developing the critical skills that will be necessary for their project work this year.  

Pushing Personalization Further.

This year the students on the Edge Team, as well as other students at Essex Middle School will pilot Protean as our platform for their PLP.  We are excited to explore the potential of this dynamic platform.  Learners will use Protean to share who they are, what their goals are, and demonstrate proficiency with the Transferrable Skills in a truly personalized manner.  Within both traditional groups (classes) and non-traditional groups, learners will track their progress toward proficiency, document their learning and reflect on it.  We will share more as the year unfolds, but currently, learners have created their avatars and have started to create their bios and tag their passions.  

Flexible Pathways: Start with the questions!   We are always excited to try something new to push our work with our young adolescents further.  But, one thing that always remains at the heart of our team is our Negotiated Curriculum process.  Learners have been working on developing questions/concerns they have about themselves and the world.  In small groups, they are seeking commonalities and from there, extracting a possible theme for the year.  This year we will add a further dimension to our project work and challenge our learners to link their theme and their projects to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  

Getting the Ball Rolling with Personalization and Proficiencies

This week we will be featuring a post authored by Kevin Hunt, a PLP Pathways contributing author, participating PLP Pathways webinar moderator,  and teacher in the Swift House, Williston Central School.

The school year is officially under way and we are in full swing! As in previous years, Swift House has front loaded the beginning of the school year with team building and identity work for our PLPs. Our new 5th grade students on our 5th-8th grade team have already done some great thinking about who they are as learners. We established five transferable skill goals with each of our new students and they had an opportunity to ask questions and receive some insider tips from their 7th and 8th grade mentors during our annual mentor/mentee breakfast before the start of the school year. It always strikes me how poised and articulate 7th and 8th graders can be when I hear them explain some of the finer nuances of our various systems on Swift House.

Identity work

The first few school days are loaded with cooperative games, ice breakers, and personal reflection. Between all of the chaos of seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and figuring out where the next class will be, we ask our students to take some time and reflect on who they are. We try to create a new activity for this every year to help engage all of our students. This year, we decided to create “Swiftagram” pages, since so many of our students are familiar--and somewhat obsessed-- with Instagram. We like to keep this first activity light and enjoyable. This is an opportunity for our students to think about the things that make them special and unique and also start exploring what they are most excited about for the coming school year.

We do our best to make sure all of our work has meaning, is relevant, and can help inform future decisions. The Swiftagram pages act as an informal gateway for our students to begin their identity work in our PLP framework. What may seem like a fun and somewhat trivial assignment of drawing pictures of things you like and commenting on what excites you about school, is actually an assignment that carries a great deal of weight; these middle school students begin to recognize and think about who they are as unique individuals and as learners. This work typically excites students and we harness this excitement for personalization as we move forward in the school year.

There is a seamless transition from the informal identity work of  Swiftagram pages to the work that ultimately is uploaded to the identity section of the PLP. We ask that students create a brief autobiography for their identity page. We present this work as a core (our lingo for homeroom) journal. We are intentional in instructing students to present this information in a format of their choosing. We’ve found that limiting students to a specific medium such as writing has a detrimental impact on their ability to produce a meaningful autobiography. There are so many tools and resources with technology that allow all students to let their voices be heard. We try to access and utilize these to create personalized opportunities whenever we can.

Communication

Communication and transparency are key ingredients for a good start to any school year. As educators, we commit hours over the summer and during professional development days to learn about and gain mastery in the newest initiatives that our state and districts have to offer. Now that ACT 77 is in full swing, the focus in our district has centered around proficiency based learning (PBL) and the nuts and bolts that come with it: assessment, reporting, and implementation. The teachers have gained insight and tools to ready themselves for the start of the school year. The next piece of this puzzle is to communicate this learning--and in some cases, paradigm shift--with parents and community members.

Swift House is in an interesting situation as it has been using a version of proficiency-based learning for some twenty-five years. We  started our school year with a similar approach to what we have done in the past: summer mailing  to new 5th grade families and returning 6th-8th grade families, hopes and dreams conferences, mentor/mentee breakfast, team building, and identity work for our PLPs. Since our returning students have already been exposed to our system with proficiencies and PLPs, we utilize this time before the start of the school year to not only make our new 5th grade students feel welcome, but also inform them and their families about our process.

During our hopes and dreams conferences, parents and students are asked to bring in a student profile sheet that we sent out in our summer mailing. This profile sheet outlines the student’s strengths and challenges within various transferable skills categories and most importantly, provides insight about the student’s likes, dislikes, hobbies, and interests. This is an important part of our process as the student is given a voice and opportunity to advocate for him or herself from the very first conference, which helps later on in the year with our student-led conferences. We use this opportunity to learn about the whole student and also engage them with the goal setting process, while introducing them to the transferable skills. We work together as a PLP team (student, teacher, guardian) to create meaningful goals for each of the transferable skill categories. This is often the time when parents will ask about our grading policies as well. We’ve found that taking the time in this first conference to talk face-to-face and explain our philosophy around proficiency-based learning has had a profound impact on how the rest of the year (and subsequent years) will go. Once parents and students are introduced to our system from that first meeting and understand our expectation and teaching philosophy, there are seldom any questions or complaints to follow.

Since our entire district has completely moved to PBL, there has been a greater volume of information going home to all parents about the shift, which in turn has brought up more questions about PBL than we have had in the past. Though we haven’t had to make any philosophical changes to our practice on Swift House, it has provided an opportunity for us to take a step back and reflect on not only how we are using PBL, but why we do it. On a professional level, this has also become inspiring work to both share with other educators and learn what others think about PBL and how they are implementing it. Just recently, we adopted a ‘crash course to PBL’ document that was created by a group of progressive teachers in Shelburne Community School. As the Swift House teachers revised the original document to fit our team, it sparked thoughtful and productive conversation amongst us, especially regarding communication and transparency with parents.

As the state continues to shift towards proficiency based grade requirements, it is so important that we are being as open with communication as we can with parents. Though there can be a sense of dissonance between this work and the traditional system that so many are used to, it’s important to keep in mind that payoff that this has for student learning and investment.

Building a Learning Community

Over the next few weeks, we'll be featuring teachers throughout Vermont as they implement personal learning in their classrooms. Today's post is by Don Taylor of Main Street Middle School in Montpelier.

Across the state, teachers and students have spent the first few days of school establishing norms, getting to know their new students and creating positive learning communities. Working with the guidelines provided by Act 77, educators are venturing into new territory on three fronts: personalized learning, proficiency-based learning, and flexible pathways. The Middle Grades Collaborative and Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education have created a model for understanding these pillars of personalized learning in support of educators and students (see graphic).

Courtesy of the Middle Grades Collaborative

Team Summit at Main Street Middle School in Montpelier has focused the first few days of school developing scaffolded instruction aligned with the Personal Learning Framework. Students entering the Team Summit learning environment spent time framing their identity as individuals, students, and citizens (in real time and in the digital world) of the Team Summit community. This initial brainstorming will serve as the basis for the Identity section of student personal learning plans.

In a new development, Summit students were then asked to translate Vermont’s transferable skills into student-friendly language. Students ranked the skills in order of importance and in small groups, identified the ten most important behaviors reflected in those standards. Subsequently, students will vote on the top ten transferable skills and dispositions required for success on Team Summit. Those student-selected dispositions will then become our Team Summit Constitution.

As students continue to work through the Identity stage of the Personal Learning Framework, their understanding of the transferable skills will help them to develop initial goals. This scaffolding will allow us to begin the Growth and Reflection phase earlier than in years past. Additionally, working with the transferable skills in kid-friendly language facilitates the use of common language that can be used across personal and proficiency-based learning.

Student translation of transferable skills

Furthermore, by incorporating elements of personal learning and the PLP into the development of the learning community, teachers and students can begin building relationships based on student strengths, challenges, and goals. Building these relationships early can be a key factor in student and team success.

The Journey Begins

Educators across the state are preparing to meet their new students and embarking on the long educational journey that spans September to June. Anticipation, excitement, and expectation are percolating and it’s a great time of year.

Many of us will implement new learning, engage and motivate students, and challenge ourselves with new strategies, topics, and ideas.

There are lots of questions too. How will your year shake out? What strengths and challenges will our students bring to the classroom? How will our classroom community operate and to what end will we build community, support the growth of our students, and prepare them for the future they desire?

As we move towards a more personalized, engaging learning experience, it is critical that we take the time to remember the importance of giving each student a fresh start, of letting our students share their strengths and challenges, and supporting all of our students in a just, equitable manner that honors their passion, creativity, and interests.

It is also important that educators sustain this initial momentum across the school year. To assist teachers implementing personalized learning, integrating proficiency-based education, and exploring extended learning opportunities, PLP Pathways will continue to provide resources, forums, and information regarding the great work of Vermont’s students and educators. Please follow us on Twitter @PLPpathways and Google +.

Good luck and have a great start to the 2016-2017 school year.