Hazen Union: Linking PLPs, Identity, and the Community

Our incredible team of Hazen Union 7th and 8th grade teachers have been working collaboratively and intentionally over the past year to create opportunities for all students to feel empowered in addressing the mission of our middle level.  "The middle level years are important in building students' social and emotional skills, as well as developing their abilities to communicate, work with others, be creative, and problem solve. By instilling these skills in our young students we give them the opportunities to express themselves and explore their interests in order to prepare them for the next stage of their lives."

Our team gathered last summer at the Middle Grades Institute with a tremendous task at hand: create a sequence of learning that blends a community-focussed interdisciplinary unit, negotiated learning, personalized learning plans (PLPs), digital citizenship, and the rollout of our 1:1 iPad initiative.  With the support of Susan Hennessey and the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, our middle level team developed dynamic curriculum and experiences to begin and sustain through the school year.  

In addition to this work, we have worked hard at sharing our story.  The middle level has created a blog to reflect on a variety of experiences, to which teachers and students contribute.  Our school has begun podcasting, interviewing students and faculty on numerous subjects.  And most recently, we created a video (to be shared at the Middle Grades Conference) documenting our journey:

Great things are happening here at Hazen and it is only the beginning.  Our students have built strong foundations for their PLPs, engaged in meaningful ways with their school and town communities, and developed a rich understanding of their digital footprints.  As educators, we are continually amazed by the learning and work produced by our thoughtful and skilled students.  We look forward to a great second semester and the opportunity to reflect, refine, and revise the work we have started.  

(If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at jcraig@ossu.org or on Twitter @OldManCraig.)

Using Labels In Blogger To Support Evidence and Reflection

Returning to school after the winter break, I always feel that I need to refocus my students on their evidence and goal reflections.. At this point in the year they have been working on their goals for enough time to do a larger self-assessment and think about adjusting their goals based on the evidence that they have been collecting.

One of the large challenges of doing this is trying to figure out what system to use with students that allows them one place to put all of their reflection and evidence. It also needs to be easy to use and easy to organize so they can find their evidence to put on the PLP.  At Peoples Academy Middle Level, all of our teams use Blogger. Paired with the use of labels, it has allows students the ability to reflect on their learning throughout the day in one organized place.

With the addition of labels on the blog, students can tag their posts so they will have easy access to evidence demonstrating  growth towards  their goals. Labels also allow students to put multiple labels on one post, allowing students to track goals and growth in all subject areas. Please see an example student blog on the PLP Pathways site.

http://paml7exampleblog.blogspot.com/

Maura Kelly is a 7th grade humanities teacher at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, Vermont. 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 challenges in our world today. When Maura is not teaching you can find her out skiing and biking around the state of Vermont.

Benefits of Continuous Professional Development

This weekend educators from across the state gathered at UVM's Davis Center to discuss their work implementing personalized learning and elements of Act 77 at the Middle Grades Collaborative's Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades Conference.

Many of the participants had attended the Middle Grades Institute in the summer of 2015 and reuniting, sharing stories, and receiving insights and teaching tips was an invaluable experience.

Perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to reconnect over the course of the school year allows for reflection and a return to the professional development goals set six months ago.

Often, educators get wrapped up in the speed and complexity of the school year. Goals, objectives, and initiatives identified during the relaxed days of summer are hard to keep going. By attending ongoing professional development, educators can be rejuvenated and re-introduced to the theories, ideas, and pedagogy that would perhaps be lost without these events.

Additionally, these events often build consensus around issues that need to be addressed in future professional development opportunities. At this weekend's conference, themes of scheduling, class structure, and time for implementation were at the top of the list.

Recent blog posts by the Tarrant Institute have addressed some of these concerns and more resources are in the pipeline. You can stay connected by visiting the Tarrant Institute, the Middle Grades Collaborative, or by following PLP Pathways.

Collaboration on Goals

This week, we've been collaborating on two fronts with regards to setting goals and how teachers can best implement the goal-setting process. Life Legeros of the Tarrant Institute has been working with Crossett Brook Middle School as they implement goal-setting with growth mindset. Check out their presentation here: Goal Setting Resources.

Additionally, a colleague requested some examples of student goals to show their staff and students. An example can be seen at left.

This ongoing collaboration has been particularly effective in keeping up to speed with personalization and elements of Act 77. You can check out more information, resources, and contributions from educators around the state at PLP Pathways.

PLP Pathways Year in Review

The PLP Pathways project was started as an effort to support the work being done on elements of Act 77 by teachers around the state of Vermont. With support from the Middle Grades Collaborative and the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, we have focused on the implementation of personal learning plans with an emphasis on the middle level.

The premise of the website and supporting social media is that by developing a collaborative and cooperative workspace for teachers, the transition and implementation to personal learning plans will be more efficient. In particular, we hope to provide "real world" examples of teachers around the state who are leading their students and colleagues in these new initiatives.

Moreover, instead of providing stand alone professional development, we are trying to provide a continuous arc of instruction and resources that will be relevant throughout the personal learning plan implementation process.

What have we learned thus far?

• There are teachers across the state doing amazing work  with personalized learning that demonstrates creativity, professionalism, and outstanding educational practice.

• Using Google Blogger as a reflection tool with students can be a tremendous asset for developing student understanding of personal learning activities.

• Time is extremely tight. Teachers are under a lot of pressure in the classroom and finding the time to participate in extra-curricular professional development can be tough.

• Despite the time crunch, engaging in these professional development activities can have immediate and positive impacts in the classroom. Over the course of the past few months, suggestions from professional development activities and conversations have had a direct impact on our teaching practice and philosophy regarding the personal learning plans.

• Google Hangouts and associated technologies, including Twitter and Google+ can be great ways of sharing, archiving, and curating excellent ideas for later classroom use.

• As teachers roll out personal learning plans, collecting data regarding student attitudes and dispositions (using Google Forms) is critical.

• Teachers should consider developing their own personal development plan. The practice of creating such a plan can provide invaluable insight into the student experience.

• Developing effective communication strategies for families and the community is essential.

If you would like to learn more about these efforts, or just want to keep up to speed with personalized learning, please consider following us at PLP Pathways on Google+, through Twitter, or by subscribing to this blog. We'd love to hear about your experiences.  

As we head into 2016, we are excited about the continued evolution of personalized learning in Vermont, the challenge of supporting teachers with effective professional development, and mastering new technologies to facilitate collaboration, collegiality, and innovation.

A special thank you to Maura Kelly of People's Academy for her role as the PLP Pathways webinar and television co-host. Additionally, thanks and appreciation to Kevin Hunt of the Williston Central School, Megan Gagne of Colchester High School, Life Legeros of the Tarrant Institute, and Dr. James Nagle of St. Michael's College for their willingness to join our monthly webinars and share their expertise and support.

Finally, without Adam Blair's editing and ORCA Media's support, none of our video production would be possible. Thank you everyone and have a wonderful holiday break. We will see you at the Personalized Learning  in the Middle Grades Conference on January 9, 2016!

Using Data to Inform the PLP Process

Introduction

With the ubiquity of easy-to-use data collection tools available online, educators implementing personal learning plan programs this fall may want to consider systematizing their data collection efforts. This nuts and bolts organization can help teachers and students evaluate the direction of the program, develop essential feedback loops, and help complete the communication loop created with parents and the community.

Tools and Techniques

In our program, we leverage the ease of Google Forms to gather regular feedback from students regarding the elements of their personal learning plans, effectiveness of the initiative, and student dispositions regarding the personalization of the learning experience.

Educators and teams should spend some time deciding what information they would like to capture and at what intervals they would like to collect data. By setting up regular, consistent calendar dates for collecting feedback, teachers can design a system that not only informs current practice, but provides feedback over time, thus guiding the overall direction of the program. Standardizing questions throughout this process can help teachers identify strengths and challenges in the program.

One note on collecting data (and perhaps an obvious one); make sure that you have an effective labeling system for your data collection. Once your data set becomes more robust, wading through similarly labeled files can create confusion and eat up large amounts of time. Additionally, if you are interested in studying specific cohorts over time, specific labels will help organize your work.

Feedback, Student Input and the Learning Community

A critical element of collecting data regarding implementation of personal learning programs is the discussion and analysis of that data with students. Sharing the collected data (scrubbed of confidential or personal information) can be a huge benefit to teachers and students.

First, it provides students with the broader classroom perspective of the initiative. This can help students understand their role in the classroom community and also how their opinion and input can help shape the direction of that community. Second, data analysis and reflection can be an excellent platform for utilizing and teaching the transferable skills, particularly in areas of communication, collaboration, and use of technology. Finally, communicating data and analysis back to community members and families (some of whom may have participated in data collection activities) can keep them informed about their student's progress and is an important piece of Act 77 and the personal learning plan initiative.

Reflection

Finally, and crucially, collecting data in an organized manner is an essential element of student and teacher reflection. Collectively analyzing data can provide students with the evidence upon which they can begin reflecting on the personalization of their education. By thoughtfully considering not only their own responses, but also those of the learning community, students can be encouraged to reflect on their role in that community, their goals as a student and learning community member, and how they can participate in a more personalized educational future.

For teachers, reflecting on the data from personalization initiatives can be the stepping stone to transformative teaching practices. Students are our most valuable, most important, and most responsive constituents. By utilizing their feedback in an organized way, reflective teachers can leverage that information into real classroom change that engages, motivates, and inspires children through an effective personal learning experience.

Core Values and the Personal Learning Framework

When looking at the Personal Learning Framework one of the key components to the Identity section is having students think about who they are and their core values. Ultimately, this can be a foundation to help students design goals.

For the past few years I have been trying to help my students think about their identity and develop a sense of self. However, I was finding that I always had a group of students who really struggled reflecting on themselves and communicating their values. Being an avid-skier, I had heard about something called the Flyin’ Ryan Hawks Foundation and felt it may fit this need in my classroom.

The Flyin Ryan Hawks Decision Program

Ryan Hawks was a well known freeskier out of Mad River Valley who went on to compete in the Freeride World Tour. Ryan passed away from injuries sustained at a Freeride World Tour event in Kirkwood, California. Shortly after Ryan’s passing, his family found a document on his computer where a few years before, Ryan had crafted his own core values.  The Flyin’ Ryan Hawks Foundation was established “with the idea of EXPOSING people to Ryan’s core principles, INSPIRING them to explore and compose their own set of core values, and ACTING on the core principles they have composed.”

Implementation at Peoples Academy Middle Level

Being personally inspired by the Flyin’ Ryan Hawks Foundation, I started to hear more and more about the Decisions Program the Foundation had started. This program brings Ryan’s Core Values into schools and organizations as a way for students to write their own core values.  I knew this would be a great fit for my students, especially those who had a hard time engaging in self reflective work.  I reached out to South Burlington High School teacher, John Painter, who had a Rowland Fellowship last year where part of his fellowship was to work with area school to implement the Decisions Program. After my meeting with Painter, I knew that the FRHF Decisions Program would be a great way to kick-off this year’s PLP roll out in September and I could not be more thrilled with how the project took off.

In the start of year year we introduced our students to the FRHF and Ryan’s core values through video on the Foundation's website. Students were instantly inspired by Ryan’s story. It is so important to give our students real life examples of things we ask them to do. Ryan not only thought about his core values, but also set goals and achieved many of them. This was a powerful way to engage our students to think critically about their own core values, which can be a very difficult exercise for 12 and 13 year olds.

Next, we had our students reflect on how others saw themselves. How would their family describe them? How would their friends describe the student? Finally, how would they want to be described?

This started our conversation with students about their core values; the qualities and characteristics they want to be have in their life that will guide them. As teachers, we also were crafting our own core values list and sharing them with the students. We asked students to come up with a minimum of four core values, but many went above and beyond those expectations.

Finally, we had students go into iMovie on their iPads and turn their core values into a movie that would become a part of their PLP. The iMovies included images and music of their choice as a way to highlight their personal core values.

Students were so engaged in this project, many of them worked on their videos at home and shared them with their parents and friends while they were still in the creation stage. Having students craft their core values in this way gave us great insight into what drives our students and who they hope to become. We used these core values to then launch into the PLP, looking at how their core values will guide them in their life and think about what goals can set to help stay on the right track.

Parents Reactions to Students Core Values iMovies

One of the most rewarding aspects of this project was the reaction parents had while viewing their students’ core values iMovies. We had students start their student led conference this year by showing their video which was placed on the About Me section of their PLP. You could see the joy on the parents’ faces while watching the videos. Many parents asked to watch the videos multiple times and asked thoughtful questions to their children about both the process and the values the students selected. We asked parents for feedback after the student led conference, and it was overwhelming how many parents commented on how nice it was to see their students’ core values iMovie.

For more information about bringing the Flyin’ Ryan Decisions Program to your school or classroom please contact John Painter at jpainter@sbschools.net.

Maura Kelly is a 7th grade humanities teacher at Peoples Academy Middle Level in Morrisville, Vermont. 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 challenges in our world today. When Maura is not teaching you can find her out skiing and biking around the state of Vermont.