The Project School Visit

Recently, a group of educators from the Burlington School District visited The Project School in Bloomington, Indiana. This was part of an ongoing partnership with Daniel Baron, one of the school’s founders.

We had three amazing days of quality time with students in classes and meetings with the school staff.

Some takeaways:

School climate matters. When the staff is happy, it shows. Everyone knows it, especially the students, and it creates a healthy, happy, productive learning environment.

Decision-making based on student needs rather than adult needs feels very different. Adults at The Project School have shared core values that guide their decisions. They are flexible, positive, and student-centered. They shift schedules, resources, groups, and plans throughout the year as needs change.

Multi-age classes have many benefits. Observers noticed all students seeming to rise to the level of the oldest students in the class.  We saw a high level of peer support for learning, greater acceptance of differences, and increased self-sufficiency and student leadership.

Having a really great mission and vision matters. Here is theirs. You can read more on their website.

The mission of The Project School is to uncover, recover and discover the unique gifts and talents that each child brings to school every day. Our school works collaboratively with families, community members and social service agencies to solve real problems, as well as to create art for public spaces. Students graduate from The Project School as stewards of the environment with the will, skill, capacity, and knowledge to contribute to the greater good.

The vision of the Project School is to eliminate the predictive value of race, class, gender and special abilities on student success in our school and in our communities, by working together with families and community to ensure each child’s success.

Student voice and choice is critical. A 1st through 8th grade multi-age daily class called Passions helped us see how school can be more enjoyable for everyone.

Themes and big questions are powerful. This year they are focusing on Struggle and Progress.

Problems, Projects, and Place make up the P3 framework used by The Project School. Students do integrated, relevant, compelling projects throughout the year.

Wow! The trip gave me a lot to think about. Our group will continue to meet relative to this experience and our work in Burlington.

Thanks to Daniel and the rest of The Project School staff for helping us see some different ways of thinking about and doing education.

Redefining Math (still)

I find myself thinking a lot about redefining math, and posting things on this blog about that topic. Here, again, is a quote from a brilliant mathematician that forces us to rethink our idea of what “math” means.

I must include a paragraph from this article verbatim. Terry Tao, math prodigy.

That spring day in his office, reflecting on his career so far, Tao told me that his view of mathematics has utterly changed since childhood. “When I was growing up, I knew I wanted to be a mathematician, but I had no idea what that entailed,” he said in a lilting Australian accent. “I sort of imagined a committee would hand me problems to solve or something.” But it turned out that the work of real mathematicians bears little resemblance to the manipulations and memorization of the math student. Even those who experience great success through their college years may turn out not to have what it takes. The ancient art of mathematics, Tao has discovered, does not reward speed so much as patience, cunning and, perhaps most surprising of all, the sort of gift for collaboration and improvisation that characterizes the best jazz musicians. Tao now believes that his younger self, the prodigy who wowed the math world, wasn’t truly doing math at all. “It’s as if your only experience with music were practicing scales or learning music theory,” he said, looking into light pouring from his window. “I didn’t learn the deeper meaning of the subject until much later.” (p. 46, 7.26.15 NYTMag)

Read more here, and add this to the “How do we redefine mathematics in school?” pile.

NCSM Boston, 2015. Monday

A room full of math coaches! 

NCSM Boston. Some of my Monday notes.

Jo Boaler’s Keynote

On teacher attitudes

We urgently need to shift teachers, parents, and students ideas about who can achieve in mathematics.

Students of color and girls show the sharpest increase in achievement with mindset interventions.

On achievement

The lowest achievers in the world are the "memorizers".

The highest achievers in the world are those who think about big ideas and connections.

On mistakes

Every time you make a mistake in math a synapse fires. When you get a question correct, there is no brain growth.

Teachers should encourage mistakes.

Students need open and challenging work so they will make mistakes.

Teachers need to change classroom culture to openly value mistakes.

Jo has a new version of her book, called What’s Math Got To Do With It

Jo is working on a Week of Inspirational Math, a series of free lessons designed to be used for the first week of school.

Susan Jo Russell

How "Lingering" on Ideas about the Meaning of the Operations Can Include All Students in Significant Learning

Access and equity

Engaging students with challenging tasks, discourse, and open-ended problem solving has the potential to raise the mathematics achievement of all students, including poor and low income students.

"Productive lingering" is essential to engaging in mathematical argument for all.

Amy Lucenta, Grace Kelemanik, Susan Creighton

Engaging ALL Learners in Mathematical Practices through Instructional Routines

All students must be able to…

Interpret and chunk complicated objects,

connect representations

change the form of the numbers, expressions, space, etc. to create and leverage equivalences,

recall and use properties, rules of operations and geometric relationships,

and find the right distance from a problem...i.e. shift perspective.

The math practices open doors for struggling students.

Problems were presented and the audience was asked what we noticed. We were encouraged to find “shortcuts”. However, the shortcuts are based on mathematical reasoning, and are one way to facilitate productive math classes.

If we don't seal the deal with a meta-reflection, we are just talking about strategies.

Students generate “Ask Myself” questions.

Next time I will ....before I calculate because....

Paying attention to ....is helpful because....

Deborah Ball, et al

How can explicitness about mathematical practices support equitable instruction?

Deborah Ball teaching video

Task: Make as many 3 digit numbers as possible using the digits 4, 5, and 6.

I would like someone to give a wrong answer to this problem.

Do others agree this is wrong?

Can someone share one reason why it is not one of the answers?

Explicit teaching…

… unpacks practices or knowledge to make it open to learners, not doing it for them.

...is not about the teacher demonstrating.

...seeks to maintain complexity but make complex practice accessible to all students.

Students do the work, teacher highlights what they just did. Makes elements visible, provides language and supports.

I have opinions about the idea that “mathematicians are lazy” and the term “shortcuts”. I won’t share those now, nor will I write about more speakers I saw on Monday, or all the other questions and thoughts I have, because I am tired and have to get to sleep. Another time.

From Lani Guinier

I am reading the New York Times on a Sunday, sitting next to the woodstove to keep warm. In an interview entitled Redefining Diversity, Re-evaluating Merit, by Tamar Lewin, Lani Guinier has some important things to say.

The score on your SATs or other exams is a better predictor of your parents’ income and the car they drive than of your performance in college. The credentials of our testocracy legitimize a new elite, and give them an inflated sense of their worth.

Diversity is not simply a matter of having people who look different sitting next to each other but learning in the same way.

Studies show that groups made up of the highest-performing individuals are not as good at solving complex multidimensional problems - like designing environmental policies, cracking codes or creating social welfare systems - as groups with a mix of skills, backgrounds and ways of thinking, even if the individuals in the group are not all high performers.

Guinier’s new book is called The Tyrrany of Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America.

Educon 2015

I can see why many Educon attendees remarked that they’d spent their own money to be there. The conference, held at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia is that good. It was an eclectic group of out-of-the-box thinkers, innovators, and activists. I knew I wanted to go when I saw Chris Lehmann, founding principal of the SLA, speak in Killington last year.

I was a first-timer. Day one was spent at the school - a public high school that is an inquiry-driven, project school - in partnership with the Franklin Institute. I and a few of my colleagues found a student to guide us. She patiently walked us to different classes where we watched, listened, and sat with students to chat. Students in one class passionately explained a project in which they protested the closing of a huge number of Philadelphia public schools. Students in Doug Herman’s photography class told me what they’d learned about composition and layering and why they were in the photography room even though it was actually their lunchtime. In Algebra II they had designed a catapult to hit a target and were typing a reflection about their group process. I was hooked.

Then, of course, there were many great workshops, Ignite talks, and side conversations on Saturday and Sunday. Here are some of the people I met and learned from, along with some quotes and resources.

A highlight of the conference for me and many others, I’m sure, was Raghava KK, the effervescent, charming presenter and self-proclaimed TED whore. Here’s a 4 minute TED on bias and perspectives in history. He helped me remember what it means to be truly creative. You don’t matter, he said to all the educators in the room. Art should be the medium by which stem is taught... Art is how you teach everything... Incorporate visual literacy in everything you do.

Every disagreement is a chance to learn about a different perspective.

Raghava’s co-presenter, Meenoo Rami, an SLA teacher, hosted this session in her classroom. After meeting her, I was sorry I hadn’t made it to her class on Friday.

Diana Laufenberg, of SLA, led a workshop on school transformation and Joni and I sat with a Eric Dale from the Dwight School in NYC and Andrew Gallagher of the NYC Department of Education. We enjoyed hearing about Eric and Andrew's work, marveling over the vastness of the NYC school system. Diana recommended the book Immunity to Change.

Deterritorialize departments. Get away from content and move to skills.

Jamie Gravell shared a collection of articles on Inequity in Education.

The one thing I wish I'd known about was this idea of transformational resistance.

Is the student trying to transform the environment in some way instead of doing something wrong?

Math and Social Justice, was a session I didn’t attend, but wanted to. Thank you for posting these resources.

Burlington High School (Massachusetts) has a course called Help Desk. See their great website here, which was presented by female STEM enthusiasts on their way to becoming engineers.

There was a really cool panel I was late for. I liked the conversation that was happening when I arrived, which included comments from Otis Hackney, Principal of South Philadelphia High School.

When people say ‘they don't have the background knowledge’, I say, it is your job to give them the background knowledge they need! If they walked in already knowing everything, they don't need us. As an educator you have a job to do.

What if you had a school with mostly white students and all black teachers, what would that be like?

David Jakes, Imagining Digital Spaces for Learning. In groups, we designed a digital learning space, but we were not allowed to discuss any specific tools. Anyone who is working in or redesigning a school should read Toolkit for Designing a Digital Atelier.

Have you intentionally designed a space that intentionally supports your vision of learning?

How do you design a physical space for an increasingly virtual education?

Last but not least, I was in a wonderful session called Shifting the Focus: Elevating Student Voices led by students and their teachers, Josh Block and Amal Giknis. First, the students shared their projects and then we were asked to create an “education manifesto” in 30 minutes that could be posted to twitter with hashtag #focusonvoice. The students were so open and passionate in their presentations and then were so effective as they came around to help us with our assignment...this session is one that has really stuck with me. I was fortunate enough to sit with Renee Hawkins, a very thoughtful educator from a school in Baltimore.

I don’t know how I’ll stay away from Educon next year. I had my mind blown by great thinkers, got to spend time with beloved colleagues, and had my first taste of a grapefruit brulee doughnut from Federal Donuts. As Raghava said, Don’t mess with passion.

Geodesic Dome Building, Part I

Ada Leaphart, Integrated Arts Academy Art Teacher Extraordinaire, and I have embarked on an adventure. We’ve got all the fourth graders at IAA building geodesic domes out of newspaper.

I really don’t know how this is going to end up, so that is why I have named this Part I. I hope to report back with more news as the project progresses.

Ada and I decided to keep things loose. We didn’t want to figure everything out for the students by creating our own dome first, learning all the lessons, and then presenting a tidy scenario.

Instead, we have never attempted to create a geodesic dome out of newspaper or anything else, for that matter. Sometimes STEM+Art (I, unlike others, am not wanting to call that STEAM) should be messy and students should have the fun of making mistakes and doing all the figuring.

Before the students got started building, Ada showed a photo of a geodesic dome and asked students what they noticed. We got some math+art conversation going from that, as students noticed many geometric shapes, like triangles, pentagons, hexagons, and trapezoids. Then we talked about old Bucky Fuller (every class asked if he was still living) and how he really wanted to make the world a better place for everyone by using an efficient structure like a dome for shelter.

Kids couldn’t wait to get started. Here are the instructions we are using from PBS.

It turns out, you can roll newspaper in a loose, floppy, weak way or you can roll it in a very tight, very strong roll. Students shared successful and unsuccessful techniques. Among the successful techniques invented by students are 1) Asking someone else to help you tape the roll, 2) asking someone else for help, period, 3) twisting the roll when it is finished to make it even tighter, and 4) using a pencil to act as the center of the roll, then shaking it loose once the roll is finished.

We ended up with enough rolls to make one or two domes. 65 usable rolls are needed. Next time we will need to establish a Quality Control group to assess, select, and count the rolls we’ve got. Ada and I aren’t sure how the whole thing is going to go. At the end of it all I would like to set the dome on fire in the playground. I am not sure we will get permission for that. Oh well, we’re going to roll with it.

Stanford University: How to Learn Math

Image from Geometry Daily.

I can’t say enough about how fantastic Jo Boaler’s online math class was. I finished it yesterday.

Jo is a Stanford University professor, and she created a free, online class for teachers and parents called How to Learn Math. Students (there were approximately 35,000 people registered) watched videos, wrote responses to prompts, and completed other tasks at their own pace. Some are still finishing; the course ends September 28.

Jo is working on a course for young people now. She has published a book called What’s Math Got To Do With It. I’m convinced that whatever Jo does in the future, it will be great. Keep an eye on her.

In a nutshell, Jo is all about dispelling myths about who is good at math and who isn’t, evangelizing about the growth mindset work of Carol Dweck, and giving teachers ideas about effective math education. She advocates for math as an inquiry activity, and really seeing it in a totally different way than most of us were taught in school and continue to teach today.

In Jo’s words:

Mathematics classrooms should be places where students believe:

• Everyone can do well in math.
• Mathematics problems can be solved with many different insights and methods.
• Mistakes are valuable, they encourage brain growth and learning.
• Mathematics will help them in their lives, not because they will see the same types of problems in the real world but because they are learning to think quantitatively and abstractly and developing an inquiry relationship with math.

St. Louis STEM Reader

I attended the NSTA STEM Conference in St. Louis last week with several colleagues. It was a very worthwhile trip.

Top Quotes

“Engineering naturally integrates mathematics, science, social studies and language literacy.” - Tamara Moore

“Tell kids they are doing engineering. Use that word. Students, especially girls, tend to go to medical school or major in science in college if they enjoy STEM. Very few choose engineering because they don't know what that means.” - Liz Parry

“If you are not iterating, it is not engineering.” - Ann McMahon

“Is it really STEM or is it just John Dewey?” - Tara Bell

Top Takeaways

1. High-quality STEM education is more about the how than the what. We can’t teach students everything they will need to know. We can help them learn how to learn.

2. The habits of mind related to engineering can be a thread running through all content areas. Empathy, collaboration, failure, iteration, perseverance, social justice, activism, leadership.

3. STEM has the potential to make a real difference for equity and diversity. It has been shown to be an effective way to engage struggling or at risk students. Currently, success in STEM subjects in school and in careers is very skewed toward certain demographic groups, and something needs to be done to change that.

Favorite Presenters

Tara Bell, STEM coach at Washington STEM Academy in Champaign, IL

Bob Goodman (New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning: Ridgewood, NJ) Demystifying Science with the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI) Equity requires that all high school students learn physics, chemistry, and biology. PSI is a free open-source program that is helping schools achieve that goal.

Liz Parry, Coordinator, STEM Partnership Development, The Engineering Place, College of Engineering, NC State University

Ann P. McMahon Ex-Aerospace engineer. Strategies for integrating STEM with social and emotional learning. Ann recently gave a TEDx talked titled Engineering Empathy (use password tedxgladstone).

Beth Bender, Principal of Gateway STEM High School, St. Louis. A public magnet school, 85% FRL, 55% African american, increasing ELL. There is a lack of awareness about engineering, and it is mostly male. Engineering students give demonstrations for other students during lunch; recruiting for the high school is done with hands-on tasks, live puppies.

Tamara Moore, University of Minnesota. STEM Education Center. Said she would soon be running a pilot program of K-6 STEM integrated units that include a heavy children’s literature component.

Resources

Family Engineering (book and website recommended by Liz Parry)

TeachEngineering

Ideo and the Design Thinking for Educators toolkit

New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning

eGFI

Gateway STEM High School

The Deep Dive

EnLIST Entrepreneurial Leadership in STEM Teaching and Learning

University of Minnesota STEM Education Center

TryEngineering

National Center for Universal Design on Learning