We recently asked a group of educators which qualities in leadership facilitate educator growth and empowerment in support of student learning. Many of the responses are not that surprising. Words like supportive, present, trustworthy, respectful, empathetic, understanding, realistic, solution-oriented, and flexible consistently showed up across responses. These leadership qualities transcend most professions and are necessary for productive leadership.

Being a great educational leader, however, in many ways requires an additional unique set of qualities and skills. Educational leaders’ work is exceptionally complicated given that it revolves around the productive growth and development of children, from a variety of backgrounds, with a diverse set of needs, all of which are constantly evolving. The mission of their work regularly changes at the whims of the district, state, or federal legislators, bureaucrats, researchers, and pundits, and maintaining consistency despite shifting variables and goals is especially challenging. And the stakes for their success or failure are considerably high as individual trajectories and a community’s collective well-being depend on their vision and their ability to carry it out. It is the specifics of how these educators describe manifesting the general qualities that make their insights so important for educators at-large.

As our educators delved deeper into their reflections and experiences, the import of the particular characteristics to productively lead within this demanding and, at times, perplexing, context became apparent. A synthesis of qualities including the capability to take a systems approach to assess challenges and developing a plan forward; to be able to inspire a movement for long-term growth; to a need for bravery and courage to tackle hard decisions emerged as fundamental for an exceptional educational leader.

Shared Vision

Over and over again, this group of educators described the need for leaders to clearly articulate a vision for a school or district and an effort to bring stakeholders in as partners in realizing that vision. First and foremost, an effective educational leader must truly get to know their community–its specific history, needs, challenges, opportunities, and aspirations that make it unique–in order to develop a plan that speaks to where a community wants and needs to go and the most productive ways to get there. This vision cannot be generic. In short, a good leader must know the unique needs of their district or school in order to be successful.

Beyond understanding the dynamics of a particular community, many respondents spoke of the need for a leader to share that vision with others, in both word and practice. Donna Kouri, Library Media Center Director at Longwood Elementary, Indian Prairie School District (IL) explained that a great educational leader is, “someone who has a vision and is able to share that vision with others and work collaboratively. They need to know when to push people to move forward but also when to sit back and let what is already working continue to work without interference.” Stacey Skoning, Chair, Department of Special & Early Childhood Education, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh took this further to note that, “They also must be able to model what they expect from others on their team.”  

Many respondents also noted that it is important to celebrate a community’s diversity and be inclusive of varying perspectives in order for the community to share the ownership of that vision. Skoning noted that a good educational leader, “listens to all constituents, brings people with diverse opinions and perspectives together, and helps the group move forward with a high level of buy-in from all of the constituents.”

A common theme on all the topics we surveyed was that students should be at the center. This was particularly noteworthy when describing productive educational leadership and vision. As Kouri put it succinctly: “[Educational leaders] must always put students first.” An educational leader’s vision should be guiding all work within a community. Therefore, if the overarching blueprint for a district is constructed around what is best for student learning and growth, a student-centered approach to decision-making remains at the core. This is especially important, too, when changes arise from personnel turnover, new federal or state legislation, or acute circumstances, as a student-centered vision should transcend any of these disruptions.

Bravery and Courage

Though thinking aspirationally and positively is good for a community, many respondents noted how fundamental it is for a leader to have and encourage hard, difficult conversations. And, at times, they give voice to the silenced people and perspectives by addressing challenging truths. This bravery of voice provides a necessary contribution for any educational community to grow and productively move forward. The willingness to shine a spotlight on underlying tensions, historical inequities, and contemporary concerns is essential for the health of a community as these issues often impede real lasting progress. Daryl Diamond, Director of Innovative Learning, Broward County (FL) Public Schools described that we must be willing to engage in “continued courageous conversations about present conditions and changes in processes that must be done in order to obtain desired goals.” Skoning reflected on her experience:

We have to be able to move past having a polite conversation and move to being able to engage in more challenging discourse. I once had a principal who used to push us to ‘lean into discomfort’ and talk about things that were difficult for us to talk about with our peers. This level of conversation does not happen as the result of a one-time professional development opportunity. It must be cultivated over time and be part of the fabric of the educational institution. Only then can we come to meaningful conclusions that will result in important outcomes for staff and students alike.

Building upon the creation of this culture of candor coupled with productive problem-solving and supportive, team-based approach, many educators noted the need for educational leaders to be willing to challenge the status quo in order to facilitate professional and student growth and development. This is especially true if a community has hit a point of stagnation. Additionally, rapid changes in technology, the global economy, and our understanding of human development means the purpose and structure of schooling is evolving, therefore requiring shifts in teaching and learning.

But, change at both the organizational and individual level can be hard and uncomfortable and, therefore, requires courage to make and lead changes as an organizational head. Tracey Ratner, Principal, Longwood Elementary, Indian Prairie Public Schools expanded on this, “An educational leader must have the ability to think creatively and outside the box. Most importantly, an educational leader must be in tune with the needs of the students and staff, and be able to help others challenge the status quo.” Creating a culture where professionals feel comfortable taking risks in order to refine a practice or create new pathways for learning allows for this kind of change to be both organic and iterative. As Diamond described, we must provide, “safety nets for those individuals who are willing to take risks to make the change they want to see.”

Part of this willingness to change policy and practice must be a reflective cycle in order to ensure that such changes are effective and productive. Respondents noted that educational leaders must partner such reflection with an openness to adapt when something is not working. Diamond shared that, “In today’s educational environment, leaders need to be extremely aware of what is working and what is not, and then flexible enough to make the corrective changes based on that knowledge.” And these changes must be measured by holistic student growth and development in line with the overall vision.

The Best Leaders Are Learners, Too

All too often, we expect our educational leaders to be the all-knowing problem solver in a building or district. They are assumed to have the answer to every question; they are expected to have an immediate plan in a crisis, and school communities rarely give them room to admit the unknown when confronted with a challenge. A theme that emerged from our respondents, however, is that leaders must be learners, too. They must see themselves as such, and their communities must embrace their leader as someone who is still striving for growth and improvement. And like all learners, each leader’s learning community needs to provide encouragement, that includes both the expectation to strive for improvement, support when efforts fall short and acknowledgment along the way.

Dr. Nicole Mancini, Director, Elementary Learning, Broward County Public Schools explained, “A successful educational leader creates an environment where all stakeholders have opportunities to grow and learn from experiences and interactions within the system.” Just as we must plan for student learning, we must also work to support the professional development of all leaders, teachers, and assistants. When leaders embrace continuous learning, they can shape a school community’s vision to support students, have the tools and character to prioritize the collective good over the easy path, all of which work to elevate the community of learning.

For more, see:

• Part 1: Voices from the Field: Best Practices 
• Empowering Students Through Choice, Voice, and Action 

This piece is part two of a three-part series on educational perspectives from a variety of stakeholders in the educational ecosystem. We surveyed a wide array of educators, from classroom practitioners to school and district level administrators, to academic professors and researchers. These educators serve students spanning from early childhood to secondary grades and represent a broad swath of specialties. In this piece, we compiled and analyzed their responses pertaining to productive and exemplary educational leadership.  

Stay in-the-know with innovations in learning by signing up for the weekly Smart Update.

The post Voices from the Field: Educational Leadership appeared first on Getting Smart.

Civics education is often cited as a foundational intent of the public education system across the United States. Educational reform for generations has included the goal of producing a more engaged citizenry. Popular sentiments center around the opinion that a well-informed voter is an integral piece to having a healthy, active, informed democracy. But clarity on what our communities—whether defined as national, state or school district communities—expect students and teachers to do is lacking. With the growth of testing-based accountability systems, focused on reading and math, civics education has not received the time, resources, or outcome reporting to support the declarations of importance. Specifically, classroom teachers are given very little, if any, civics-related curricular resources or support that connects civics with contemporary events.

With the 2020 Presidential election on the horizon, educators have an opportunity to utilize current events as an onramp for discussion and engagement. Students are listening to a myriad of ads, news stories, and interviews dissecting the candidates, policies, and implications of the process and issues in the 2020 presidential race. And they are being informally taught whether to be engaged or apathetic based on how their immediate community of family and school is responding. Many students are interested in understanding all that they are hearing because of the style of the ads; others are interested because of the issues being addressed. Some are interested because they hear conflicting statements. Schools and families should commit to helping them navigate what they are hearing and provide models for how to be an active, engaged voter and citizen.

Conversations by Age: Preschool

Preschoolers are not too young to engage in conversations about elections or the electoral process. They hear those around them talking about it. They see and hear political advertisements on streaming services, radio or television. And it is natural for them to be curious about what they are seeing and hearing. At times they spontaneously assert perspectives they have heard from family or media. The challenge is finding developmentally- and age-appropriate ways to teach the concepts involved.

Preschoolers have opinions and can understand the basics of the voting process. There are choices, each adult gets to express what they want with a vote, and the option with the most votes wins. Giving preschoolers an opportunity to experience the voting process firsthand facilitates a much deeper understanding of the electoral process, but must be done in a way that is personally meaningful to them. And to a three or four-year-old, what they have for their snack, or who gets to be line-leader, is very meaningful! Teachers can set up an election in their classroom between snack choices, including rounds of primaries if time allows, letting students explain why they prefer a particular choice, and then inviting them to cast their ballot. Students then actually eat the winning choice. Experiencing the voting process in such a tangible way allows for an understanding that voting can make a difference in one’s own life and provides a springboard for additional conversations at home.

Resources:

• Brightly has curated this book list to guide conversations with young children about voting and elections.
• These videos from Sesame Street discuss what the word “vote” means and what happens on an election day.

Conversations by Age: Elementary School

In elementary school, students are ready to learn more about how our government works generally and the voting process specifically. They can begin to understand the unique roles of federal, state, and local governments, the roles of political parties and the primary election process, and the culmination of the general election. Examining campaign material leads to conversations on a candidate’s background—whether it be their political experience, business acumen, or other ways they have contributed to their local, state, national or global community—as well as their proposed policies. This process helps students understand the realities of limited choices and the relationships between issues, parties, and candidates.

Most importantly, elementary students can work to build the necessary skills of an informed voter, useful even outside of an election. They can work to develop research skills, to consider multiple viewpoints, and ultimately, develop their own voice through debate and other constructive conversations within the classroom. Teachers might select a topic that allows for competing and valid arguments. Have students individually or in groups investigate the background information on the topic, use evidence to create an argument, and ultimately carry out a verbal dialogue or debate on the topic. Part of the lesson is in having students learn to clearly articulate their opinions, listening to others with respect and an open mind, and thoughtfully responding in a civil manner. Embedded in this process, teachers can guide students to listen to contrary opinions and respond with “Tell me more.” or “Why do you think that?” in an effort to encourage openness even in disagreement. Seeking to understand, rather than judge, reflects a significant social-emotional maturity.

Resources:

• For grades 4-6, Scholastic has compiled these resources to teach kids about how the government works.
• Scholastic has created this preK-8 book list that works to teach readers about elections.

Conversations by Age: Middle and High School

At the very youngest, middle and high school students are only 6 years away from being active voters themselves. They are ready to dive much more deeply into the specifics and complexities of the election. They are developmentally ready and able to read and watch contemporary news stories about the election; to research the nuances of policies and understand the connection to both global and personal impacts; and to explore their own belief systems and how they align with different candidates alongside the adults around them.

In middle and high school, conversations and learning experiences should facilitate students’ ability to assess and understand whether stories and reports they are hearing reflect facts or subjective opinions. We must prepare them to be active and engaged citizens.

The potential for learning experiences is expansive at this age band. Questions around the electoral college, campaign finance, polling information, and specific policy issues can play out through research projects, debates, and even mock elections. Students at this age should be able to draw on historical precedent and make applications to contemporary questions of public policy. A key piece of these lessons is ensuring that students develop skills to have these courageous conversations through thoughtful analysis and debate, while still ensuring a dynamic that is respectful of all involved.

Resources:

• This website from C-SPAN Classroom includes resources explaining different aspects of the presidential election process including information on the candidates, political parties, the process, and key issues.
• This Ted Talk, created by Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer explains the electoral college to students.
• This website from PBS Education provides a broad swath of resources and tools for teachers and students on the electoral process, ways to encourage civic engagement, and guidance on ways to explore these issues in the classroom.
• PocketPolls, a free App by TSH, LLC, tracks the latest polls for the 2020 presidential primaries, general election, and presidential approval ratings.

Supporting Civics Education at Home

Parents have the opportunity to be role models for civic engagement as well. Encourage families to model respectful dialogue about political issues in the home and share relevant resources for them to learn more about policy issues and ways to talk about them with their children. Remind families that their children are their own individuals with thoughts and opinions and should have the space to share their thoughts. And, on Election Day, having parents take their children with them to the polls can be one of the most powerful lessons of being an engaged citizen.

Resources:

• The League of Women Voters supports a VOTE411 to provide information on the voting process and ballots in communities across the United States
• This website from Scholastic provides tips for families to talk about the election and electoral process.

The Stakes are High

Given the contentious nature of our current social political context, exploring political issues and processes with classroom students from a variety of backgrounds can seem daunting. But, though it may sound hyperbolic, the future of our democracy really does depend on us doing this important work. The 2020 presidential election does not just provide an opportunity for exploring these concepts. This election year can engage students in deeper learning about multi-dimensional, multi-perspective issues. It is this experience that is a requisite component of the public education our students should be receiving in civics. Teaching our students the importance of voting, how to really evaluate the policy implications of a particular stance, and how to work and collaborate with others who might disagree with them to find a common ground is how we ensure the health of our political institutions in the future. A presidential election only occurs every four years. What we do during this cycle of civic practice will set the tone for these future voters for years to come.

For more, see:

• Engaging Students with the Values of Democracy
• Civic Education: Can Games Make the Grade?
• The “Great Game” of Teaching History

Stay in-the-know with innovations in learning by signing up for the weekly Smart Update.

This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures, please see our Partner page.

The post Civics for 2020: This Is How to Engage Future Voters appeared first on Getting Smart.

From year to year and generation to generation, shifts in culture, shared historical experiences and advances in technology change our individual and collective perspectives. Small changes accrue, resulting in an evolution of our social and economic environment. Issues and challenges with a national or even a global impact arise. Some issues unite, some divide and some redefine communities.

A generational identity is forged for youth emerging into adulthood from the cultural cauldron of significant events. Some young people become leaders by framing issues with an honesty unburdened by the excuses that previous generations have accumulated through fear and equivocation. These emerging leaders act with a passion that inspires people across cultures and generations to unite.

The last several years and even just the past few weeks have provided us with incredible examples of youth advocacy for a wide variety of issues. From Greta Thunberg’s plea for environmental action to Malala Yousafzai’s advocacy for girls’ education to Parkland, Florida teenagers leading thousands in a march to demand action on gun control, these young people have proven that kids are capable of promoting big ideas and driving substantial change.

These examples need not be exceptions. Adults must recognize that children can and should participate and contribute to our social and civic dialogue. It’s time to acknowledge that kids, even those just learning to read and write, have valuable insights. We must create space for them to develop their thoughts, share their opinions and take action where they see a need.

Any adult who works alongside young people can help them develop into thinkers, problem-solvers, and doers. We must offer choice so that children have agency in their lives. We must encourage voice so that they can share and advocate for their needs and the needs of others. And we must seed, nurture, and follow our kids’ desire to make a difference in the world. Both home and school can be fertile ground for this kind of growth and development.

Choice

From a young age, we can empower children by teaching them that they have the ability to shape their lives. Subtle shifts in offering options to kids can create a dynamic in which children are taught that their feelings, thoughts, and opinions are valued. Having choice promotes feelings of control in their lives and in their interactions with the world. When children are able to act with self-determination in influencing the timing and sequence of required tasks or choosing to complete work individually or collaboratively, they feel empowered. These seemingly insignificant differences may seem subtle to adults, but to kids, they are powerful.

At School: At a basic level, teachers may offer a choice between sitting on a chair or sitting on the carpet to complete a task. They may let students decide when a particular task gets completed, including the order and sequence of their work. Older students may be given the authority to choose whether to present the information they have learned in a PowerPoint presentation, written report or creative diorama. These types of choices allow for multiple pathways to the same learning objectives.

At Home: Parents may let their kids choose which vegetable they would like with dinner or if they brush their teeth before or after they read a story. When older children are faced with decisions about electives, parents may let them dig into their own feelings to make that choice, even if it falls outside of the parent’s expectation. Letting children make choices and then seeing the results of those choices at a young age prepares them to anticipate potential consequences as they get older and face more substantial choices.

Voice

Gone are the days of the old adage that children should be seen and not heard. In order to prepare our kids to be productive members of society, we must teach them that their thoughts and opinions matter and should be constructively shared with those around them. Inviting young children into conversations allows them to develop their voice. And listening to what they have to say bolsters the power of that voice.

As children grow older, a strong voice is a productive channel for self-development. Allowing kids to speak their thoughts and opinions and have those words heard, respected and validated allows them to figure out who they are, what they believe in, and to embrace their identity.

At School: Facilitating learning experiences that encourage students to talk with one another provides opportunities for kids to practice using their voice. Within these experiences, educators can teach students words and phrases to accurately convey their thoughts and opinions. Teachers may model active listening, explain how to express a connection to what another has shared, or give examples on how to clearly articulate an opinion. To further the development of voice, educators may choose to include students in individual planning meetings or learning conferences. Students often have unique insights about their own learning preferences and tools that lead to greater success.

Writing can also be an effective tool for students to develop and practice using their voice. Young children may be encouraged to write notes to their families with reminders of upcoming school celebrations or pajama days. This type of task sets the precedent for kids that they hold important information and can share it.

At Home: While reading at home, ask children their thoughts and opinions on the subject matter. When they want to tell you about their amazing Minecraft creation for the fifth time, give them space to share. As children get older, ask them about their thoughts on global issues or current news stories. Letting kids into conversations on these real-world dynamics establishes them as part of the dialogue and as contributors to solutions.

Action

Children do not have to wait until they are grown adults to make the world a better place. Kids have many skills and capabilities to meaningfully effect change. And sometimes they see the issues and the path to change more clearly than the adults. They are not intimidated by the size of the problem or frustrated by historical inertia. When adults say things cannot change, a child often responds, “Why not?” We must recognize their capabilities and desire to make change so that we empower, rather than dismiss, their advocacy with refrains to “wait until they’re older.”

At School: Do not be afraid to introduce young students to big issues in an age-appropriate manner. Answer questions, provide information and share models through books and other multimedia of people who have used their lives to make a difference in the world. When students rally around a cause, invite them to brainstorm actions they could take now to move the cause forward. And when there is a global movement for a change they believe in, work with students to find an accessible way for them to participate. This might include a small protest march during the school day or a letter-writing campaign.

At Home: When children come to you with a concern or an issue they believe needs to be changed, listen. Rather than brushing off what can sometimes seem insignificant, brainstorm with them a path forward. Give children opportunities to research causes and issues, and provide them with access to expertise by visiting a local library or museum for resources or allowing them to email an expert who lives outside of the local area. Facilitate connections with peers who share similar passions and values and encourage them to find ways to volunteer their time and energy to make an impact.

Building a Better World

When a toddler excitedly opts for carrots over peas to have with dinner or a preschooler feels triumphant when offered a choice of what to do first before bedtime—brushing their teeth or reading—we can see the empowerment that comes from having agency over outcomes. When we watch our children and students’ faces light up as they talk about something they are passionate about, we should be reminded that our children have unique perspectives and can enrich the content of conversations and thinking by articulating those thoughts and opinions. And when we give young people the opportunity to transform these opinions or concerns into action, we teach them that they can affect change.

These pathways for growth benefit the individual development of a child. They nurture social-emotional health and development, encourage critical thinking and problem solving, and help fortify a student’s sense of self. They also can serve to benefit the broader social, school, and civic community in which students participate. Having an engaged citizenry who seeks productive dialogue and feels empowered to make positive change when a concern manifests makes our world a better place—both today and in the future.

For more, see:

• In Broward County, Student Voice Impacts the Classroom and Beyond
• 5 Ways To Include Student Voice In School Change
• Choice But Also Rigor: Four Tips For Student Engagement

Stay in-the-know with innovations in learning by signing up for the weekly Smart Update.

Photo credit: Erin Gohl

The post Empowering Students Through Choice, Voice and Action appeared first on Getting Smart.

Bob Moses has spent his life advocating, organizing, and teaching in pursuit of equality and access for all. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that all people receive sufficient preparation and opportunity to fully participate as active citizens. At the root of his work is the assertion that a healthy society requires both the equal right to vote in a representative democracy and access to a quality education to allow participants to exercise that vote with knowledge, wisdom, and experience.

Over the last forty years, he has fought to establish that education is a foundational right for all children in the United States. To this end, he worked as a Civil Rights leader who helped guide the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to successfully organize people in local communities, and their allies across geographic, ethnic and income differences, to change policy and practice. He was an architect of the Freedom Summer project in Mississippi, a campaign to register African American voters during the summer of 1964. He was beaten and jailed in the fight for equality.

Over the last several decades, he has continued that fight for equal opportunity and access, with a similar urgency and fervor. This time, however, the goal is to ensure sufficient access and support for math preparation for minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. For Moses, math literacy is a fundamental civil right. It is a necessary component to the equal educational opportunity he fought for earlier in his life. And he has brought his past experience motivating communities and sustaining engagement to the challenge of empowering students through the successful progression from arithmetic to algebra and beyond calculus.

Why Math?

It is well known by those within school walls, in the halls of higher education, and the human resources offices of companies in the growing knowledge economy that mathematical fluency is a gateway competency that many students in the United States are not able get through. And there has emerged a particular sequence and timeframe of mathematical sophistication that is requisite for admission to post-secondary options and later career success. Without a sufficient fluency in the language and concepts of mathematical representation and methods, post-secondary options are closed off or capped. And the decisions that determine this preparedness, or lack thereof, are often made while a student is in middle school, years before he or she is likely even considering post-secondary life.  

Beyond just being a gatekeeper to post-secondary options, mathematical concepts and logical reasoning underpin many components of day-to-day life, economic access, and civic engagement. Understanding a base level of mathematical concepts is necessary for life readiness–for following a public policy debate; detecting errors in an argument; or fully grasping the terms of a loan or a work contract. A lack of mathematical fluency compromises economic self-determination.  Fluency in a native language is more than being able to speak it; fluency is the ability to read it, to write it, and to create with it. Fluency is more than basic literacy. Educators and policy makers have raised community expectations for what all students should be expected to do with the English language in the United States; but there is not the same expectation or investment in ensuring achievement in mathematics for all students.

Certain demographic subgroups of students–those from underserved districts and students of color–disproportionately suffer from persistent lower achievement on math assessments, as evidenced by the most recent NAEP results. And the performance of the United States, both at an absolute level compared to other countries, and the gaps within our country, are average to below average, compared to the 85 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Math performance was the lowest domain for the US. For a country that has made significant rhetorical and financial investments in STEM fields, this realization is deeply troubling. Manifesting equity and excellence in mathematical fluency, within and across communities, will require a significant change in how mathematics is understood, defined, and taught in communities.  Mathematics needs to be done with, and to to, students.

This realization fuels Bob Moses’s effort. Moses recognized that this lack of preparation limits a person’s overall college-, career-, and life-readiness. And it is the gravity of this issue that inspired him to found The Algebra Project in 1982 with seed funding coming from a MacArthur Foundation Grant.

The Algebra Project

The Algebra Project’s stated mission is to use “mathematics literacy as an organizing tool to guarantee quality public school education for all children in the United States of America.” Algebra Project local and regional initiatives have sprouted up in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Florida, New York and other locations. In Moses’s vision, math is a prerequisite to be a literate citizen and the access and support for that preparation must be provided through public schools. However, as evidenced by a range of metrics, that preparation is not happening adequately for our lowest performing students.

At The Algebra Project’s core is an inclusive approach to math: Math is for everyone, even those who have struggled or who have gaps in their math skills. To that end, The Algebra Project has focused its work on the lowest performing quartile of students, with the effort being to provide support to have participating students complete Algebra I by eighth grade. The common efforts in diverse communities have formed a national alliance We the People: Math Literacy for All.  Supported by National Science Foundation funding to scale up the implementations, local and national leaders convened in St. Louis in February of 2017.  This gathering focused on addressing the challenge of supporting mathematical mastery for students in the lowest performing quartile.

Making Math Collaborative & Accessible

A foundational component of this support is organizing students in learning cohorts to provide collaboration, reinforcement, and peer-to-peer encouragement. These teams of students support each other and are also supported by the teacher. This concept grew out of the community organizing principles Moses used in his fight for civil rights. The Algebra Project empowers parents, students, and teachers to claim their right to mathematical fluency. Relationships are paramount. Time to reach standards mastery is flexible. Remediation is “Just In Time”–mastering what is needed to successfully accomplish the engaging group activity. Individual assessment occurs to gauge readiness for post-secondary opportunities. And students develop confidence for those assessments through the collaborative dynamics with peers.  

Making Math Approachable & Engaging

The Algebra Project seeks to make math engaging and accessible. One method has been to “gamify” math by adding game-based elements to learning. Through a collaboration with the Young People’s Project, the Algebra Project has developed Flagway, a game that requires cooperation within a team and competition between teams based on solving mathematically inspired problems and physical movement. This game, accessible to students at all levels, encourages participants to develop mathematical intuition. Seeded by Algebra Project math classes in schools, the game has grown in communities to create Flagway leagues where teams compete against each other. Since its inception in 1995 the game, and the leagues, have grown to compete in local, regional, and national competitions. Held alongside the National Math Festival in Washington, DC the 3rd annual National Flagway Tournament will be held on May 4, 2019.

Changing the Culture to Ensure Readiness

When the current high school seniors of the Class of 2019 were in Kindergarten, the nation rallied around the National Academies report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”. In short, the storm has arrived and we have not risen. Efforts to fuel the rise through national standards have not sufficiently elevated our performance, new curriculum has not closed the gaps, new instructional materials have not helped us gain altitude, and the data gained from standardized tests has reinforced the need for action without enlightening the appropriate path toward equal achievement.  

These efforts fell short because they focused on materials rather than the relational dynamics that exist within the classroom walls. By shifting our attention to the classroom culture that surrounds learning, by empowering students and teachers to take ownership in learning, progress can be made. Culture change precedes achievement change. This has been made manifest in the empowering learner cohort design of the Algebra Project.

Education is a civil right, nay a human right. So this fight for math literacy for all makes sense on Bob Moses’s path–an obvious extension of his past work. It is not just about having the right to vote or the right to enter the school door. The Algebra Project, the Young People’s Project, and The National Alliance are working to ensure that once students enter the school doors, they are engaged with the content and skills necessary to fully exercise the rights and privileges that await them upon graduation. It is the life course of many individual students–and our national aspirations–that Bob Moses believes can be improved by supporting and joining this work.

For more, see:

• Redefining Readiness
• Boosting Career Readiness in Dallas

Stay in-the-know with innovations in learning by signing up for the weekly Smart Update.

The post Ensuring Readiness for All Through Math Literacy appeared first on Getting Smart.

For more than a century, educators have iteratively tried to improve the structures of schooling by refining the environment design, adopting new resources, and adjusting the requirements for high school graduation in a quest to shape and yield the most prepared graduates. Historically, students have been treated as the variable that must adapt to each particular community’s mold of learning and educational success. Students have been expected to adjust to the structures and expectations formed by the set of policies, procedures, and implementations that educational experts have designed.

In recent years, administrators, teachers, and researchers have begun to reframe this conception of education, noting that students each have a unique learning profile and that educational design should take those differences into account. Concomitantly, as research has improved the understanding of the variety of ways that students learn, innovations in education and technology have allowed for schools and districts to begin to more efficiently create student-centered, personalized learning opportunities to meet the unique needs and strengths of individual students.

Strides have been made in accomplishing this task, and schools and districts are designing more flexible learning environments, creating a range of pedagogical practices teachers can use, and seeking to engage students in ways that are based on their personal history, attributes, and path to preparation for lifelong success. However, educators are still the drivers of decision-making about that learning. In order to truly personalize learning, we must invite students into the conversation with their insights and preferences about their own strengths and challenges. Student voice and agency must be at the center of planning and implementation. In response to this challenge, The Friday Institute has rolled out a suite of resources for students, educators, and now parents, to help make student input a key piece of student-centered learning design and engagement.

Students LEAD & Teachers Understand

Earlier this year, The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation launched a student-centered course, Students LEAD (Learn, Explore, & Advocate Differently), aimed at equipping students with in-depth information about their own learning strengths and challenges. At the completion of the interactive, online course, students receive an Advocacy Plan that outlines their personal learning profile with recommendations and resources for leveraging strengths and managing challenges. Over 600 students have completed the course to date, and their experiences demonstrate increased engagement and achievement as a result of increased student empowerment and agency. A major piece of the advocacy plan includes coaching and strategies for having students communicate with their teachers to advocate for ways to leverage their strengths within classroom settings.

A related course for teachers, Learning Differences MOOC-­Ed, expands teachers’ understanding and skill sets to work with students with a variety of strengths and challenges. The course, which is free of charge and open to any educator from around the world, helps educators to better understand the broad array of learning differences their students may have and provides strategies to positively and proactively respond to the distinct needs of each student. This course expands teachers’ understanding and skill sets to work with students with a variety of strengths and challenges. Though each course benefits participants on their own, done in conjunction, they allow for a shared understanding as students and teachers collaborate as partners in finding ways to maximize student success.

Parents Guide

With the success of both the Learning Differences MOOC-Ed for educators and the Students LEAD course, The Friday Institute recognized the value of bringing parents and families into the conversations and support around student learning. Earlier this month, The Friday Institute launched Letting Students LEAD, a parent-directed companion resource to further support maximizing student learning.

The parent guide includes ways for adults to learn alongside their children enrolled in the course. The guide walks parents and families through each of the key components of the student course: focusing on strengths, exploring strategies at home, and advocating at school. It also provides conversation starters, actionable strategies, and resources that help families understand and support their child’s unique learning profile.

This coordinated approach extends the system of support and deepens the understanding around a student’s unique set of needs and strengths as well as the resources to support student learning. As students embrace the feeling of being in the driver’s seat with their own learning through the interactive course, parents now have a resource designed to help them skillfully sit in the passenger seat, guiding and supporting their child’s learning experience.

The parent guide provides:

• Common Language: The parent guide, in conjunction with the courses for students and educators, helps participants to develop a common language and understanding around learning strengths, challenges, and needs. To be trite, it puts everyone on the same page. The courses and guide all articulate and use common definitions for various executive functioning skills (attention, memory, expressing ideas, organization, and time management) and educate participants on how these skills relate to student learning. When students, supported by their families, can articulate what they need to learn, they are able to shape their learning environment to reflect their unique needs. Dr. Mary Ann Wolf, Director of Digital Learning Programs at The Friday Institute explained the benefit of a common vernacular, “Parents want to be effective advocates for their child’s needs and success. Providing parents with an opportunity to learn more[a]–and a shared language with teachers and the student–results in better communication, higher achievement, and a happier community.”

• Growth Mindset Approach: A main theme that runs throughout the triad of resources is that ALL students can learn. The student course, specifically, meets students where they are and helps them to identify their strengths and challenges. The approach of the courses and guide teaches students to leverage their strengths as a strategy. And, rather than seeing learning challenges as deficits or disabilities, it defines them as simply, and non-judgmentally, as learning differences. This helps parents to reframe their understanding of their children’s needs and that, with the right strategies and understanding, their child’s abilities can be developed over time.

• Practical Strategies & Resources: The student course and parent guide provide a vetted set of resources, strategies, and support tools for students and parents to leverage the student’s strengths to mitigate the challenges to learning. The strategies–such as emailing teachers or setting calendar reminders–are practical, low-burden, and yield a high impact. The wide-applicability of these strategies means that students and parents can utilize them beyond a specific course or grade level. And students and families can use this information to communicate a child’s strengths and needs to each new teacher or learning experience. Further, as noted by Alex Dreier, Instructional Design Lead at The Friday Institute, “The course teaches students the function and purpose of each resource so that students and families can continue to add to their toolbox as a student grows and changes.” By understanding the kinds of resources that facilitate learning for each student, there is a pathway for long-term success.

Empowering Students, Teachers, & Parents

Successful educational policy and practice should be responsive to the learner, rather than the student adapting to the generic mold defined by the practices and systems of school districts across the country. Equipping students with information about how they learn best along with tools and personalized action plans for navigating their learning, empowers students to have agency in their own learning.

When students share their experience and advocacy plans, teachers have a fuller understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each individual student. When the teacher and student engage in dialogue to have this information result in mutual understanding, teachers can then develop learning experiences and environments that are customized for engagement and effectiveness. And, when parents are part of the conversation, students’ learning becomes increasingly more personalized and relevant at school and at home. Lauren Acree, Research Associate at The Friday Institute, summed up the goal of these efforts: “The hope is that students are able to be successful as they are. By building the capacity of students themselves, and the parents and teachers in their life, students are able to be their best selves academically as well as outside of school.”

For more, see:

• Empowering Students and Teachers for the 21st Century
• 4 Tips to Building a Bridge Between Parents and Teachers
• Partnering with Parents on Social-Emotional Learning

Stay in-the-know with all things edtech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive our weekly newsletter, Smart Update.

The post New Guide Helps Parents Support Students in LEADing in Their Learning appeared first on Getting Smart.

SEL in the Classroom

In an effort to accomplish these goals, districts are prioritizing social and emotional learning throughout the school day. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) explains that social-emotional learning can happen within schools and classrooms in a variety of ways. SEL skills can be taught explicitly by the teacher through direct instruction and role-playing. Instructional strategies, such as cooperative learning, can be used within the classroom to promote the development of social-emotional skills. SEL can be integrated with the existing academic curricula in literacy, math, and social studies. Finally, schools can work to create a climate and culture focused on social-emotional learning as a wrap-around support of all that is happening within classrooms.

SEL instruction, at its best, is a live, dynamic curriculum, growing and changing in response to students’ needs. While there is value in the explicit teaching of SEL skills, for SEL instruction to be most successful, it must also be embedded within a school day in a way that feels natural and purposeful. Students, for example, might discuss and role play active participation during group work immediately before they begin working in collaborative groups.

SEL in the Home

Though the addition of social-emotional learning to the standard set of curricula offerings has marked benefits for developing the whole child, social-emotional skills cannot be learned in the vacuum of school alone. In schools, students are usually grouped with peers of the same age and similar ability levels. There is a baseline expectation of a common set of school rules. There is often a safety net of teacher intervention that creates artificial constraints on social interactions. Overall, there are a limited set of experiences that the school can use to anchor social-emotional instruction.

Extending this kind of learning into the home broadens the array of real-world experiences for students to learn and practice social-emotional skills. Engaging families as partners in that learning can also add greater meaning and relevance to the lessons happening at school. Social-emotional learning outside of school can be dynamic and responsive, growing and changing depending on what EACH child needs. Furthermore, extending SEL conversations into the home allows for instruction that is mutually reinforcing with what is happening in the classroom.

SEL in the home means that families can use moments that happen organically to grow students’ SEL skills. Trips to the grocery store, playing a board game, responding to a family experience, opportunities to meet new and different people while out and about, and other experiences that happen every day add breadth and depth to social-emotional learning instruction and practice. In short, homes and their surrounding communities are ripe with opportunities for social-emotional learning growth. This type of highly personalized learning allows families to utilize students’ strengths as SEL superpowers and fill in gaps that emerge in everyday life, empowering students to independently apply these lessons as needed.

To extend social-emotional learning into the home, families can:

Create avenues for learning. Use family experiences as springboards for conversations. When visiting a park with your family, watch and observe your child. How does your child meet new friends? How do they respond when they’re frustrated? How do they share or take turns? Notice what your child does well, and find something they need to refine. Make a mental note of specific moments and even take a few pictures. Use these to help your child reflect on their own social-emotional skills and growth over time.

Books are another platform for conversations around social-emotional learning. While there are a plethora of books about specific SEL topics, the books you already have in your home contain examples of friendship, conflict, and dialogue. These books can serve as visual models for social experiences. Talk about the characters and what is happening in the story to give your child access to the words and language used to describe different feelings.

Anticipate and preview experiences. Talk aloud about what a particular experience might be like to build your child’s ability to recognize their own feelings and develop their own methods to prepare for a situation.

Listen. When your child has a tough moment, create a space to listen. Listening is a simple and easy way to validate the feelings that kids experience, regardless of the size of the problem.

Reflect. As things happen in the world around you—whether it be a relatively insignificant moment at a sports game or something that makes national headlines—engage your child in conversations that help them identify problems and design solutions. When kids work through the problem-solving process with you, they grow their ability to think critically on their own.

Self-talk. When you’re feeling frustrated in the grocery store checkout line and take a deep breath to keep your cool, invite your child into your world by using self-talk. Say, “We are in a hurry, and this line is not moving very fast. I am feeling frustrated, so I’m going to take a deep breath.” This quick exchange teaches your child words to associate with their feelings as well as strategies like taking deep breaths. SEL does not need to be complex to be effective. The words you use will become your child’s inner monologue when they’re faced with similar situations.

Personalize your conversations. Your family’s background and experiences will inform how you talk with your child about their world. The more you personalize conversations about social-emotional learning, the more relevant that learning becomes.

Build up your child. Social-emotional learning is about helping your child learn and apply the skills and understanding needed to manage their feelings. When your child is struggling with something new, remind them of a time they worked hard to overcome obstacles. By shining a light on your child’s past successes, their path forward is a bit clearer.

Join forces. Connect with others, and don’t hesitate to access tools available to you. There is no right or wrong way to partner with your child as they develop social and emotional skills. Add to your parenting toolkit with resources such as:

• Parachute: a user-friendly, research-backed parenting app that provides easy access to solutions for common parenting challenges
• Mind Yeti: a mindfulness app with guided sessions that help kids destress, focus, get along with others, and relax
• Confident Parents, Confident Kids: a site with parent and child resources that support social-emotional development
• Parent Toolkit: a site with information and articles about all aspects of child development

Empowering Families

Bringing social-emotional learning into the home adds personalization and relevance for children. It gives students real-world opportunities to plan, problem-solve, and reflect as they grow their social-emotional skills. It strengthens relationships among family members, encouraging regular and ongoing conversations between parent and child. Bringing social-emotional learning into the home empowers families to use life’s moments, both good and bad, as ways to help their child grow. With that in mind, parents can reframe the messiness of everyday life as a series of opportunities for real-life, in-the-moment, social-emotional dialogue with their child.

For more, see:

• Social Emotional Learning and the Future of Education
• How To Get Students Talking About Their Own Social-Emotional Learning
• Getting Classroom Culture Right with Practical SEL

Stay in-the-know with all things edtech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive our weekly newsletter, Smart Update.

The post Extending Social Emotional Learning into the Home appeared first on Getting Smart.

If you walk into most classrooms this time of year, the frenetic, pent-up energy of the students is palpable. Nearly every student seems prone to distraction. Kids are chattier and wiggling more vigorously. Having spent so much time together on a daily basis, students interact more like rival siblings than cohort peers. The classroom environment seems a little ill-fitting, as though they’ve outgrown their current grade’s lessons and routines.

As the testing season comes to an end, final projects are evaluated, and end of year concerts and showcases fill the calendars, students, teachers, and parents eagerly commence a countdown towards the anticipated relief of summer. Many teachers, students, and even parents feel exhausted from a year filled with challenges, hard work, and growth, and yearn for a different routine. For most stakeholders involved in the day-to-day of school operations, the tradition of summer break represents a time to pause, to recharge–a reprieve from the intensity of the school year.

The leitmotif of these common conceptions of summer is one of a break, pause, and respite. This sentiment lacks a sense of opportunity or expectation for student development and growth. This stasis is borne out in the academic research about student learning in the summer. You are likely familiar with the dreaded “summer slide,” where the break in structure and continuity from the lessons and routines of the classroom cause a regression in student skills measured in schools. And, as noted by the National Summer Learning Association, this decline in academic performance is exacerbated for students in high-poverty environments.

Teachers often end the school year with efforts to provide learning resources for summer use. These well-intentioned actions aim to give families vetted activities to prevent that summer learning drift. All too often, though, those resources go unused or ignored until the last few days of summer. Then, for some parents, the frenzied concern about their child’s readiness kicks in and they feverishly try to fill many weeks worth of educational resources into a matter of hours. For most of the summer, students and families feel disconnected from a particular class and lack accountability or clarity on specific expectations.

What if, with only a little added effort, summer could be a time of growth for students?

By reframing the potential of summer, from “ten weeks of academic wilderness between school years” to “the start of the next learning opportunity,” summer has the possibility to serve as a smooth, engaging, and uninterrupted continuation from one school year to the next. It can even be a catalyst to propel students on a path of growing and learning. This can be accomplished with small shifts in how teachers and schools communicate to families at the end of the school year. These shifts will provide guidance for families on how students can find greater success through meaningful learning experiences during the summer.

Communicating to Families How to Propel Learning During the Summer

As mentioned, many teachers already provide a list of suggested resources for their students to utilize over the summer. These lists often include links to websites, community partnerships, and summer reading suggestions. They are usually created by the student’s current teacher and centered around reinforcing the skills and activities from the grade level a student is completing. In shifting how we approach summer, consider instead using these communications to give families a preview of what is to come in the following grade level and guidance on how families can help students build new skills over the summer break.

As educators put together lists of resources for summer, they might consider framing these summer materials as a low-pressure, but fruitful time to build and focus on by considering the following approaches.

Family Engagement: For many families, the transition from intense connectedness to the school community during the school year to the solitude of summer break can feel jarring. Relationships and habits that are developed and fostered over the course of the school year are put on hold. By receiving a letter from the new team of teachers that will work with a given student, families feel like they have a contact point as they say goodbye to their current teacher. Beyond the summer email or letter, the school might also set up a Remind account to send out periodic messages and tips for families to continue learning.

Social-Emotional Skills: Summer is also a great time for developing social-emotional skills. There are many natural opportunities for play, and since kids often spend more time with family, the ratio of adult (or older sibling) to child is perfect for modeling and talking through experiences. Building social-emotional skills can be fun and easily incorporated into common activities. Summer focused communication can explain to families that as their children play games in the backyard or interact with friends they can help them to reflect on their experience. What did they see or hear from others that was kind? What did they do to be helpful? What makes a good friend? As families play board games on summer nights, talk about taking turns and being a good sport. When children go to the grocery store or doctor’s office, talk about ways to practice patience. Can you sing a song? Tell a story? Play I Spy? By processing through these activities outside of school, students are more prepared to succeed in similar activities in school.  Suggest utilizing the resources on Confident Parents, Confident Kids, a site that provides games, stories, and resources for kids and adults, with the explicit intention of helping families promote social-emotional skill development at home.

Familiarity with Upcoming Content and Curriculum: Simply by letting parents know the major themes that will be taught throughout the year, they can use opportunities throughout the summer to build background knowledge and familiarity. Will students be studying about life cycles of frogs? Encourage parents to take an extra moment to notice the frogs in a nearby lake on a walk around the neighborhood during the break. Will there be learning about fractions? Families might talk about fractions during a pizza night or while baking with measuring cups. By giving families tools to introduce students to these topics as they vacation or visit the zoo or simply walk around their neighborhood, students will have more to share and classroom conversations will increase in depth. Communications may suggest students explore news stories about these given topics on Newsela, a site that adapts news articles to varying reading levels. Or, families can be prompted to search for given topics on a custom search engine like kidtopia, that returns results from sources vetted be teachers, librarians, and educational organizations.

How to make it happen

Before teachers pack up their classrooms and put away their last lesson plans, setting aside some time to collaborate with grade-level colleagues to draft a note to next year’s students could accomplish a great deal.  Some tips to maximize the effectiveness of this process:

• Send the letter out as a grade-level or grade-band team to all students rising to your grade-level.
• In this letter, include information about reimagining summer, and then invite families to use the freedom and energy of this time to get a jumpstart on the next school year.
• Work with school administrators to coordinate sending out or emailing this letter a week or two after the last day of school to ensure that this important information does not get lost in the overstuffed backpack filled with every book, handout, and leftover snack from the school year.
• As teachers construct this letter, they can talk as a team with previous grade level team to identify some general areas of weakness for the particular cohort. Use these suggestions, along with ideas to engage families, build independence, practice social-emotional skills, preview content, and enhance academic learning, to draft your letter.

Put Me in Summer and I’ll Be a Happy Snowman

Summer and academic gains might seem as realistic a combination as a summer-loving snowman. But, teachers, parents, and students need to channel their inner Olaf and see beyond traditional conceptions of this time of year. Reaching out to families and communicating tangible, low-pressure ways to build student skills over the summer can have far-reaching benefits for students, teachers, families, and the overall school community. The transition from the leisurely pace of summer to the structures and routines of the school year will be filled with much less anxiety if parents have a sense of what readiness looks like and can work on those lessons beforehand. Students will meet the school door with more confidence having remained engaged in learning. Teachers will be able to jump into high-quality instruction much more quickly. And all this can be accomplished in ways that are easily integrated into common summer plans and activities.

For more, see:

• 7 Resources to Help Avoid Summer Brain Drain
• Avoid Summer Brain Drain with Project-Based Learning
• Beat the Summer Slide with Project-Based Learning
• Summer Brain Dump Prevention: Opportunities for Students, Teachers and Parents

Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update.

The post A Beginning Rather Than an End: Reframing Summer as the Start of Next School Year appeared first on Getting Smart.

To build a culture of collaborative family engagement, the following are useful practices.

Develop and support two-way communication between teachers and parents. Developing effective two-way communication requires several layers. First, consider the best method(s) to reach families. Email, text message, or app-based communication, through a platform like SeeSaw, can create an efficient and low-pressure pathway for communicating back and forth. Then, consider ways to encourage parents and families to engage and respond to your communication. If you share a video of Guided Reading, for example, invite parents to send questions or celebrations. Many parents only hear from teachers or schools in the event of a problem or concern. Try to initiate positive or neutral communication with families. Engaging in non-judgemental forms of communication lays the foundation for strong, collaborative relationships between teachers and parents. The more connected parents feel to the teacher and school, the more likely they are to actively engage in learning with their children. Furthermore, parents are experts on their own children. When they feel comfortable communicating, teachers can gain insights into students’ strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, or worries. Lastly, assess your system of communication regularly throughout the school year. Ask: Is this form of communication working for all of my families? Have I had an exchange with everyone at some point this year? Make modifications as needed.

Encourage communication among parents. While not directly “family engagement,” engaging families with one another helps to strengthen a school community. As new families enter the school, parents can serve as mentors in bringing them into the fold of the collaborative culture. Consider ways to encourage families to connect with one another. Use Edmodo or a closed Facebook group to give parents an easy way to share information or connect. As a teacher, invite parents to join you at a parent-teacher association meeting early in the year and make a special effort to introduce families to one another. At an after-school event, work to introduce families new to the area. Encourage parents with experience at the school to reach out to new families.

Consider parents’ perspectives. In an effort to promote inclusion of all families, and with a special consideration to the families whose children need support the most, regularly assess the impact of whole-school systems and processes on any and all families. For example, consider the cost of field trips and other school initiatives on families. How can schools ensure that all children can participate and that all families feel comfortable and welcome with the decision? Consider how to make school events available to all parents and families. Consider streaming meetings using Zoom. Utilize translators for any and all events, even PTA events not directly organized by the school. Every effort toward inclusiveness of all families creates a ripple that results in a much larger movement within the community.

Move beyond event-based engagement. Unquestionably, there is value in opening the school doors and welcoming families to participate in school events like Open House, Curriculum Night, or an Arts Showcase. These events can prove much more meaningful, however, when they are reframed as being part of broader conversations and connections between the school and families. Think about each parent-facing event as a catalyst for the development of true family engagement. When planning these events, brainstorm with other teachers about how to use this time with families to start a conversation about learning that continues after the culmination of the event. Use an event early in the year, for example, to model how families can support learning at home. Discuss how to enrich the experience of reading with your child by discussing pictures and making connections to the outside world. Utilize tools like PowerMyLearning’s Playlists to connect families to the standards students are learning in your classroom. Building these skills can have positive lifelong implications that reach far greater than the impact of a special event.

Encourage families to engage with their children in ways that are integrated with the overall curriculum. Engagement tied to instruction is more impactful for student success. Utilize multimodal communication to tell families about what students are learning, and give them ideas about how to extend and enrich that learning at home. These kinds of activities can even replace traditional homework. Students learning about fractions might spend a weekend baking in the kitchen. Students learning about sorting might help organize toys or laundry. Students learning about trees might lead their family on a nature hike. By giving families ideas about how to connect home conversations and activities to the curriculum, students’ instruction is enriched.

Find ways to build parents’ knowledge and confidence. Take time to develop the skills of parents and families in your classroom and in your school. Teach parents by sharing ideas and modeling instruction through photographs or short video clips. Consider using a private channel on Instagram to share best practice instruction and creative ways to extend learning. Sometimes, a simple image of students practicing letters with shaving cream or searching for 90 degree angles on a walk around the school can give parents new ideas to continue learning at home. Remind parents that they are partners in their child’s education and thank them for all of the ways they build up their child. Emphasize that activities like playing I Spy while running errands, pointing out the number sequence of mailboxes at the post office, and taking turns during Game Night at home all promote school readiness behaviors and encourage creativity and critical thinking. Taking time to build parents’ confidence and expertise supports the effort of teachers.

Most parents want to do what is best for their children. They want their kids to succeed in school. They want to provide a supportive and enriching environment at home. Many parents, however, are uncertain how to best do this and rely on schools to take the lead in their children’s educational endeavors. When schools reach out to parents as collaborators in educating students, all stakeholders benefit: Parents are empowered to take an active role and are given tools to make time at home, in the car, and anywhere else productive and meaningful. Teachers are supported, with active and committed partners working toward common educational goals, at school and at home. And students learn and grow in mutually supportive and complementary home and school environments. Though it takes effort and intention to create a systemic culture of family engagement, the results can have a tremendous impact on school communities.

For more, see:

• Family Playlists: A New Approach to Family Engagement
• The Results Are In On Student Engagement
• How to Reduce Barriers to Family Engagement

Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive our weekly newsletter, Smart Update.

The post Creating a Culture of Collaborative Family Engagement appeared first on Getting Smart.

Computational Thinking is the prerequisite skill for understanding the technologies of the future. It is a thought process, rather than a specific body of knowledge about a device or language. Computational thinking is often associated with computers and coding, but it is important to note that it can be taught without a device.

For that reason, computational thinking can be a part of any classroom, including the classrooms of our youngest learners in the primary grades. And, I would argue, it is quickly becoming a necessary foundational skill for students. By explicitly teaching, and allowing space for the development of, computational thinking, teachers can ensure that their young students are learning to think in a way that will allow them to access and understand their digital world. Teaching computational thinking, in short, primes students for future success. Furthermore, it can be integrated into existing routines and curricula.

Core Components of Computational Thinking

BBC outlines four cornerstones of computational thinking: decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithms. Decomposition invites students to break down complex problems into smaller, simpler problems. Pattern recognition guides students to make connections between similar problems and experience. Abstraction invites students to identify important information while ignoring unrelated or irrelevant details. Lastly, students use algorithms when they design simple steps to solve problems.

At first read, it’s challenging to imagine kindergartners solving algorithms. However, each of these cornerstones, at their core, dovetails nicely into the active learning and thinking that happens in grades K-2. Children in the primary grades want to play. They aren’t afraid to take risks. By utilizing the natural inclinations of young children to explore and play, and by encouraging problem-solving skills, we can move students’ thinking forward. Computational thinking encourages playful thinking, but gives it structure so that the skills students are learning can be transferred to more complex tasks later on.

And it’s probably even easier than you might think to invite your youngest learners to join you as inventors and problem-solvers and jump into the world of computational thinking! Here are some ideas for getting started.

Strategies for Incorporating Computational Thinking in Early Learning Classrooms

Teaching Decomposition

Teaching decomposition to young learners means that students are invited into problem-solving scenarios. Teachers share the complex, multi-step problem and facilitate conversations that help students to break it down. While students at these ages are not always developmentally ready for multi-step directions or problems, they are ready to be exposed to models of adult thinking. In doing this, students begin to develop a framework of strategic, computational thinking.

Ideas to Try: Teachers might describe a scenario, such as planning a birthday party, that involves multiple steps. This type of task can quickly become overwhelming without an organized to-do list of smaller, more approachable challenges. Students can help to break down the larger task, and the teacher can help to draw or write a visual representation of their thinking, giving students a mental map of how to solve similar problems in the future.

Teaching Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition, as a cornerstone of computational thinking, begins with the basic ABAB pattern creation that is taught in the primary grades and extends to more complex layers of thinking. Pattern recognition invites students to analyze similar objects or experiences and identify commonalities. By finding what the objects or experiences have in common, young students can begin to develop an understanding of trends and are therefore able to make predictions.

Ideas to Try: To teach students to recognize patterns, you might begin by investigating trees. What do all trees have in common? They all have a trunk. They all have roots. They all have branches. While there are many differences between types of trees, these components are present in all trees.

Next, work with your students to create a collage of trees. Notice how they all have trunks, roots, and branches. Then, talk about how the trunks differ from one another. Some are thick, while others are thin. Some are brown, while others are white. Talk about how the roots and branches differ.

To extend this thinking, invite your students to draw a picture of a tree, labeling the trunk, roots, and branches. Emphasize that while your class’ trees might look different from one another, they are alike in their core components.

Finding patterns simplifies tasks because you can use what you already know. By teaching students to recognize patterns, their awareness of the world around them expands. This helps them to use the patterns they have identified to solve future problems and make predictions about the world.

Teaching Abstraction

Abstraction is focusing on the information that is relevant and important. It involves separating core information from extraneous details.

Ideas to Try: In primary classrooms, teachers naturally teach kids the concept of abstraction with literature as they identify the main idea and key details. To take this one step further, teachers can encourage students to hunt for information, clues, or treasures by giving them a goal as they approach a book or even an experience. As students listen to a speaker during a school presentation about dental hygiene, a kindergarten class might be hunting for details about brushing your teeth. By teaching students abstraction, they are able to sort through all of the information available to identify the specific information they need. This is an invaluable skill as students read larger texts and are presented with more and more complex information.

Teaching Algorithms

Algorithmic thinking involves developing solutions to a problem. Specifically, it creates sequential rules to follow in order to solve a problem. In the early grades, kids can learn that the order of how something is done can have an effect.

Ideas to Try: To present this idea to students, you might ask them to think about making a sandwich. What should we do first? Second? What if I put the cheese and lettuce on my sandwich before I add the mayonnaise? Conversations about sequence and order develop the foundations of algorithmic thinking.

To get students thinking in algorithms, invite them to design the path from their classroom to the gym by detailing a series of steps. Then, let them try it out! Additionally, invite students to think about their morning routine. What steps do they take to get ready for school each morning? How would the order impact the outcome? Asking students to consider how inputs change the outcome encourages them to be reflective in their thinking and to make changes to their plan to achieve the desired result.

Linking our Youngest Minds to the Thinking of the Future

Teaching young students computational thinking strategies goes far beyond increasing their comfort level with computers. It’s much deeper and more profound. We live in a world with Smartphones and Smarthomes, and understanding how devices work allows us to approach technology as a partner to help us solve problems. Computational thinking allows students to be active, rather than passive, users of technology. The manner in which we understand the technology that surrounds us, and the way we ask questions about these devices, will become a significant differentiator in the 21st-century workforce. Those who can do it successfully and efficiently will be better placed for both professional and long-term life success. Preparation for this can and should start with our youngest learners.

For more, see:

• Integrating Computational Thinking into Your Elementary Classroom
• Maker Space Promotes Problem Solving & Computational Thinking
• Advancing Computational Thinking Across K-12 Education

Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive our weekly newsletter, Smart Update.

The post Early Learning Strategies for Developing Computational Thinking Skills appeared first on Getting Smart.

This is part two of a two-part series. See part one here.

Homework Could Be: A Way for Schools to Communicate with Families

Homework is a window into the student’s day in the classroom. It reveals what teachers feel is most important for students to understand. Sending home worksheets (or assigning digital versions) night after night that ask students to solve problems using rote skills without an opportunity to extend and apply that learning reveals a focus on product over process. In contrast, asking students to work with a family partner to write a television commercial about a machine that solves that same type of math problem, with a requirement that the problem is solved and explained within the commercial, reveals a focus on the learning process and family engagement.

Family engaged homework is also a way for the school to share its vision and expectations with families. Schools that send home activities inviting families into the learning process convey that they see value in collaborating with each student’s entire team of support, both at school and at home. Parents and caregivers oftentimes bring a different expertise in motivating and engaging their own children. Welcoming this expertise into the learning process on a regular basis provides additional information and observations on what issues might be creating challenges, and what supports might help the student succeed. This invitation results in the development of positive, trusting relationships between schools and families.

As families complete their family engaged homework, students bring stories and examples from home into the classroom allowing this type of homework to begin a cycle of positive and purposeful communication. This cycle strengthens the foundation for meaningful school-home relationships.

Homework Could Be: A Way to Connect Parents and Students

Encouraging parents and caregivers to actively engage with their children in the learning process–rather than simply overseeing completion–puts parents in the driver’s seat of their child’s educational development. Instead of providing ancillary support for completion, parents play an active and primary role in these kinds of activities.

This kind of homework allows lessons from school to be adapted to a student’s home life and background. It values the culture and experiences that each family can contribute to a child’s education. When students are learning about the point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature, teachers can invite families to share stories from their childhood. This type of learning allows children to see value in their families’ particular backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets.

Family engaged homework can also provide a model for parents on how to work with students at different ages. When teachers send home conversation starters connected to one book, parents can borrow that same language and adapt it for books they have at home. This is especially helpful for older students as parents can sometimes feel unsure about how to approach learning at home. Teacher guidance on how to engage in talking about and sharing an assigned text with independent readers can give parents tools for how to do so beyond a particular homework lesson.

What Does Family-Engaged Homework Look Like?

There are a number of different shapes that family-engaged homework can take, and they often vary across grade leves.

Primary teachers, when students are working on comparing and contrasting texts on the same topic, can send a quick email to their students’ parents, and ask them to embark on a treasure hunt with their child in search of things that are similar, but not the same, and give them some sentence starters so they know where to begin the learning conversation. The next day, students can share about the items they found. Use the language from their conversations as a foundation for comparing and contrasting texts.

Intermediate teachers, when students are working with decimals, can have them work with a family partner to write about something that happened that week. (My mom had $20.00. She went to the store to purchase milk and bread. Her total bill was $3.62. How much money is left?) Then, students can solve each other’s math problems the next day.

For middle school teachers, when students are analyzing interactions between people and ideas in an informational text is an opportunity to encourage them to interview a family partner about a memorable life event and the various factors that influenced that event. They might brainstorm questions with peers in class before heading home. Then, students can use their families’ stories to better understand their reading.

High school teachers, when students are writing argumentative essays and working on developing claims and counterclaims, can have students choose a topic on which they disagree with someone in their family (e.g., their curfew, rules about cell phone use), then have them debate the issue with the person at home. Then, when they come to school, have them write an essay explaining their claims and the counterclaims for their argument.

Moving Forward

As parents, we all want to help our children to be successful. We want to encourage a love of learning. We want our time with them to be worthwhile, constructive, and enjoyable. Unfortunately, though well-intended, traditional homework all too often has the opposite effect.

Family engaged homework, on the other hand, has the potential to create meaningful experiences, conversations, and memories for the entire family. Students benefit from active learning experiences, and engaging families is a powerful way to communicate the importance of ongoing, lifelong learning. This collaborative approach to homework values families and the powerful part they play in their child’s education. It empowers families to play a leading role in student learning. The family engaged homework approach is beneficial for all students, and it serves a special purpose for those whom traditional homework does not reach.

Each learning experience that engages families works to positively impact student success. Family engaged homework has the rigor and relevance of learning made continuous between home and school, while allowing each environment to support the student in a manner that best fits them. By reimagining homework, teachers have the potential to design purposeful experiences that transcend the walls of a classroom and build a solid foundation for learning. Hopefully, with these shifts, homework can feel like an opportunity for students and families rather than a nightly sentence of tension and struggle. This alternative response to the homework dilemma might just end up changing the question.

For more, see:

• Success in Rural, High-Poverty Public High Schools: Path to Equity?
• Why True Equity in Learning Depends in Proactive, not Reactive, Design
• What Policies and Practices Can Make Learning Personal for All?

Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive our weekly newsletter, Smart Update.

The post Homework or No Homework? Maybe We’re Asking the Wrong Question (Part 2) appeared first on Getting Smart.