Intrepid, March 2020

Intrepid

March 2020

OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

Challenging and reimagining everything we do in the service of improving our students’ learning experiences.

The Case for Test-Optional Independent School Admissions

Page 15

By Patrick F. Bassett, President (retired), NAIS, and Sanje Ratnavale, President, OESIS Network Inside this Issue ...

Questions of the Soul: Caring for the Whole Student

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By The Rev. Tyler L. Montgomery, Chaplain and Assistant to the Headmaster for Student Wholeness, Woodberry Forest School (VA)

Jazz Up Your Tech and Engineering Courses to Generate Student Passion

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By Hubert Ham, Director of Innovation & IT, The Alexander Dawson School (NV) and The Esports EDU Š OESIS Network, Inc. Lab

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Editorial: Intrepid as Catalyst for Independent Schools, By Joel Backon, Vice President, OESIS Network......3 Enable Disruptive Thinking Instead of Shutting It Down, By Tedd Wakeman, Co-Founder and Director, Sycamore School (CA) In the name of keeping our students and the school safe, we often opt for shutting down disruptive thinking. A dose of creative problem solving will enable students to realize their dreams without compromising school safety standards.............................................................................................................. 5 Jazz Up Your Tech and Engineering Courses to Generate Student Passion, By Hubert Ham, Director of Innovation & IT, The Alexander Dawson School (NV) and The Esports EDU Lab Try offering courses in video games, app development, and esports. See how your students respond. The traditional coding and engineering curricula are popular with a narrow segment of your students. A fresh initiative will yield courses that spark student engagement and passion......................................................... 8 Questions of the Soul: Caring for the Whole Student, By The Rev. Tyler L. Montgomery, Chaplain and Assistant to the Headmaster for Student Wholeness, Woodberry Forest School (VA) In the spirit of distinguishing root causes from symptoms, how we meet the emotional needs of our students may be directly connected to spirituality, even in “secular” schools. Caring for the whole child includes helping to overcome spiritual despair, a search for meaning in one’s life.......................................................12 Feature Article: A Hard Look in the Mirror: The Case for Test-Optional Independent School Admissions,

By Patrick F. Bassett, was President of NAIS (2001-2013), , and Sanje Ratnavale is President of the OESIS Network There is a strong case to be made for making standardized admissions tests optional. In addition to overcoming the traditional problems with interpreting test scores and widespread coaching courses, there is a need to improve the student equity issue in the admissions process at schools...........................................15 The Evolution of an Innovative Middle School Teacher: From PBL to Competencies and Pathways, By Tara Quigley, Director of Miss Fine’s Center for Interdisciplinary Education and Humanities Teacher, Princeton Day School (NJ) and OESIS Network Leader Using PBL as a springboard, an innovative teacher sets in motion a series of deep questions about how students learn that ultimately lead to competencies and pathways. Here is the story of how this teacher with her PDS colleagues reinvented their student experience within the context of a demanding and competitive learning culture.................................................................................................................................................20 Discussion in An Age of Distraction: Helping Teachers Engage Students in Deep Conversation, By Katherine Burd, Chapin School (NY) & Liza Garonzik, R.E.A.L. Discussion In an era of heightened anxiety, restless distraction, and polarizing self-righteousness, we need to pivot and relearn how to manage student-led discussion in our classrooms. The skill of directing one’s attention to a single topic for more than a few minutes is a new learning challenge for today’s students........................... 24 A Tradition of Innovation: Ten Years of the Berwick Innovation Center, By Darcy Coffta, Director of Innovation and Upper School Librarian, Berwick Academy (ME) Innovative student-driven programs improve the odds that learning needs will be met. Community outreach adds a component of experiential learning that helps students understand why and how their ideas turn into solutions in the world outside their school...................................................................................................... 26 Matching Faculty Growth Cultures with Student Growth Expectations, By Joel Backon, Vice President, OESIS Network A culture of ongoing and individualized professional development for each faculty member will introduce a professional learning environment that is equivalent to the expectations we have of our students. There are several ways in which the professional growth of our faculty members makes the school mission much more powerful............................................................................................................................................................ 29

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Intrepid

The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

E D I T O R I A L

Intrepid as Catalyst for Independent Schools

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elcome to the premier issue of ​Intrepid. The USS Intrepid, a fearless aircraft carrier, provides the inspiration for our new magazine: a platform, wherever it sailed that provided force, depth, mobility, autonomy, flexibility, and opportunity, where none had existed before. And this, despite its cumbersome size, made it a tall order to shift direction on a dime, a similar characteristic of Independent Schools. Over its life, like our schools, the USS Intrepid reinvented and repurposed itself Joel Backon multiple times to extend its longevity, adapting to the contextual needs of the Vice President era. And like those who flew off its mobile runways, our students today have OESIS Network such an opportunity to soar from the trajectories we enable for them. As such, Independent Schools have the same unique opportunity in the education world. Sailing as we do in open regulatory waters, our schools have the ability to reinvent themselves regularly while maintaining or improving our high standards for students. The goal of this publication is to help our schools ​question and challenge everything we do​in the service of improving our students’ learning experience. Intrepid​, like its namesake, will be a provocative publication seeking strategic opportunity in the uncharted seas of learning.

Sound exciting? Our creative energy as a network of schools will move us beyond the fear of making mistakes to a place in which we thrive, even in the shadows of a contentious political climate and cultural transformation. The small sizes of our communities enable us to create our own cultures of learning, respect, empathy, and autonomy.

Intrepid asks you to move to the other side of fear, a world in which you can challenge what you do by questioning the basic assumptions; a world where failure is simply a misstep followed by learning and moving forward. Real innovative improvement is always the goal as you reflect on your day. Provocative questions move us beyond fear to a brand of education that strives for true excellence. www.oesisgroup.com

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In this premiere issue alone, our contributors ask the following: ● Why not test-optional independent school admissions? ● Why do we shut down behaviors we don’t fully understand? ● Why do we assume that all technology and engineering courses are exciting for some kids? ● When did we decide that a spiritual education (not necessarily religious) was not part of our school mission? ● When did we decide that innovation was limited to the privacy of our classrooms rather than as a form of outreach to the wider community? ● Why are autonomy and opportunity so important to learning, and how do those priorities make the case for pathways? ● Why should we embrace deep discussion instead of abandoning it due to student distraction and inability to formulate effective arguments?

Read and own this publication with the promise of true innovation in mind. Always at its center will be the interests and agency of students. It’s your voice as part of the leading network for innovation at independent schools. We aim to amplify it.

Over the next few issues, we will explore transformational school change, how faculty practice true innovation, why some schools are creating an integrated program of both academic and cocurricular experiences as requirements for success, and how specific immersive student experiences can have an enduring impact for the life of the student. Please send us articles that reflect what your school is doing to challenge the status quo and be innovative, and if you are not certain if your idea is provocative, think about the USS Intrepid for guidance and inspiration or contact me.

If you are not an OESIS Network member, we hope you enjoy the premiere issue with our compliments and consider joining or subscribing in the future.

Joel Backon Editor-in-Chief Intrepid

Intrepid is published quarterly by OESIS Network, Inc. Subscriptions are included in OESIS Silver, Gold and Platinum memberships.

Address submissions to: intrepid@oesisgroup.com

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The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

Enable Disruptive Thinking Instead of Shutting It Down

By Tedd Wakeman, C0-Founder and Director, the Sycamore School (CA)

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s trends continue toward “rigorous,” standardsbased educational practice, those of us on the front lines of reimagining education continue to explore the power and efficacy of developing competencies, mindsets, and essential skills. It’s a pursuit that requires a new process for decision-making that honors student engagement and agency while staying true to the educational outcomes you aim to achieve. It’s a pursuit that requires risk-taking and the belief that relevant experiences for students provide the most powerful learning opportunities.

Student-generated ideas and “fly by night fads” can be incredibly disruptive to an educational system. Kids can be bad at thinking about unintended consequences, taking multiple perspectives, and thinking deeply about the broader impact of their ideas. As for the school, these pursuits are traditionally viewed as non-essential and fall outside the walls built to protect prescribed learning time. “They can design that skate ramp on their own time. School is for serious learning!”

While it’s fair for educators and school leadership to take these challenges into consideration, the typical www.oesisgroup.com

solution for disruptive thinking is to simply shut things down, often without question. This has been the answer to wild and wooly student innovation for decades and usually goes without protest from educators and parents. Enthusiastic students, on the other hand, find disappointment and disillusionment as a result.

The issue seems to be that interest-inspired ideas from students involve some tricky navigation for adults. However, they also present incredible opportunities for relevant and engaged learning. They are the perfect arena for students to develop the essential competencies of communication, collaboration, observation, critical thinking, and problem solving.

Let’s look at an example: Realizing her fellow classmates had taken a real liking to “slime,” one young student recognized an opportunity. She’d been wanting to save money for an expensive iWatch and began making, packaging, and selling her own slime varieties at school. For a while, it went smoothly, and we heard nothing from educators, parents, or students except for how cool it was that this kid had shown such initiative. However, calm waters led to stormy seas and eventually the concerns began to rain down. “We want to have a business too!” said other students. “Why is my child asking me for money to take to school?” said the parents. © OESIS Network, Inc.

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And here’s where it happens; that moment when administration is faced with what appears to be a very easy decision to SHUT IT DOWN! We often become entangled in community concerns around activities we view as being outside the boundaries of “rigorous academic learning.” We then take the stance that these activities are becoming disruptive and we simply end them. We tell ourselves that this allows busy educators and administrators to continue to focus on the “serious” work of educating kids.

The problem with this approach lies in what’s being lost. Student interest, ownership, creativity, and initiative are all on the line in these moments. These are a part of the very competencies we value and wish to generate in our students. We cannot consistently sweep them under the table because they cause some disruption and force us to take on extra responsibility. This is especially true if we plan on asking students to go out into the world and use these competencies as strengths in forging a pathway forward for themselves and their communities… and we will definitely ask them to do that.

So, what did we do? First, we all sort of agreed to shut down any and all student-run businesses on campus. That’s the easy decision and was honestly our first instinct. But it didn’t sit right. It couldn’t be that easy. We began to check ourselves and started asking critical questions. “Is this good for kids?” Is this decision in line with our core values and

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philosophical beliefs about education? What message does this send to our community about these values?” The answers to these questions were troubling. It was getting harder for us to follow through on shutting things down.

We reflected upon examples where sticking to our instincts had served us well, like a few years ago, when fidget spinners took over the elementary world and schools across the country were banning them from their campuses. Rather than banning them, we decided to embrace them.

We bought a bunch of ball bearings, made acute observations about the essential aspects of fidget spinners, and allowed our students the chance to design and build them. We seized a valuable opportunity for students to engage. We refused to do the easy thing because the alternative, while more involved, was better for students and more laser-focused on the competencies we value.

We quickly realized that the right choice in this situation was to stand up for these businesses. We believed a wealth of positive outcomes would surface. So we shifted into problem-solving mode. If we weren’t going to eliminate businesses, how were we going to manage the parent concerns and potential disruptions while extracting the invaluable lessons waiting to be learned by our students?

After much discussion, we arrived at the idea of requiring all interested parties to apply for a business license. We laid down some ground rules. Students would need to write proposals and apply through the newly formed “Sycamore Business Licensing Office.” They would need

The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

to include the name of the business, employees and roles, salary descriptions, proof of a ledger, and a sample of their product. We determined that all products needed to be homemade, not merely resold. We typed it all up on official letterhead and made a presentation to the student body. It was met with an incredible amount of excitement.

We received five proposals the very next day.

After declining some proposals for insufficient information, the Shaggy Critter Co. was the first organization to receive a Sycamore School Business License and began its operation on campus. The response from parents was enthusiastic and validating. This bit of effort on our part to go beyond our initial instinct and open our minds to something potentially sticky — was paying off. Student discussion around the challenges of starting a business was rich and productive. Learning became evident as we received feedback from the groups.

The Shaggy Critter Co. reported, “We decided that everyone has to pay up front for their orders because of several orders being cancelled upon delivery, which cost us around 13 hours of work.”

Not sure a forced discussion about this concept would have had any impact. The authentic nature of its ascent is what made it powerful for kids. Down the road, more issues arose. How do we manage employee behavior, deal with dissatisfied customers, and navigate a small market with new product ideas? The learning seemed endless.

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The bottom line is that encouraging student engagement means betting on them from timeto-time. We understand that pursuing these moments can create extra work and possible stress, but the learning that arises is profound and well-worth the effort. “Managing” students and parents in a school setting is certainly a fulltime job. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and interesting. Find places to say “yes,” and create opportunities to validate those things in which students show interest.

These are the principles we embrace here at the Sycamore School. We are dedicated to leadership decision making that values student input and keeps us honest about our mission.

Our goal is to continue to have an impact on reimagining education through the development of growth mindsets and the pursuit of skills/ competencies for both students and educators. __________________________________

Tedd Wakeman, is C0-Founder and Director, the Sycamore School (CA)

© OESIS Network, Inc.

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Jazz Up Your Tech and Engineering Courses to Generate Student Passion

By Hubert Ham, Director of Innovation & IT, The Alexander Dawson School (NV) and The Esports EDU Lab

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s an administrator, when was the last time you considered the state of your technology and engineering classes?

Take a look at your course catalog. Your school probably offers computer science, a coding elective, an engineering-type course, and some kind of catch-all digital literacy class. Have you ever wondered why every school has courses similar to yours? Have you considered how to differentiate your electives from everyone else? Have you taken time within the last five years to evaluate whether or not they are what’s best for student learning? Are they even relevant anymore? There is a chance that they may not be. However, the lingering question remains, why do these classes remain the mainstay of many schools?

They’re Easy and Popular These programs are easy to launch with many curriculums already written, and there is a cohort of teachers out there who all teach them. As an organization, it’s easy to keep these classes churning over the years, even with turnover, since you can simply list a job opening, hire a 8

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competent teacher with previous experience, and keep the big machine that is your school running.

You may also argue that these are popular classes with students; your kids love them and enrollment is always high. However, if you really sit down with students and ask them why they pick these classes, they often imply it’s because they sound the most interesting out of all of the options, not because it is their passion.

Survey Says: It’s Time for a Change At Alexander Dawson School in Las Vegas, NV, we asked students what class options they wish they had and what kinds of things they wanted to create. For some teachers or parents, the results would look like a nightmare list of things they don’t understand or in which they don’t find educational value, such as music, streaming, and (the dreaded) video games. When we saw these results, however, all we thought about is the opportunity. We took this student feedback as a challenge to create rigorous courses that appeal to the passions of our students.

The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

Challenge #1: Video Games We dove headfirst into video games and when we dissected it, we saw several cross-curricular applications: • Writing and storytelling. There is extensive creative and narrative writing in video game storylines, as well as character design and development.

• Art and creativity. The amount of traditional art concepts that live in the creation of characters, animation, and immersive worlds is staggering.

• Coding and math. Coding actions in video games not only touch upon what we see as “coding”, but are steeped deeply in Boolean algebra.

• Business. All video games go through significant marketing analysis, and we haven’t even touched on the financial and business sides of the industry.

Action: We created a course that addresses all of these points, wrapped in the lens of a video game.

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© OESIS Network, Inc.

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Jazz Up Your Tech and Engineering Courses to Generate Student Passion

Challenge #2: Esports After working with some key constituents and partnering with Allied Esports and the HyperX Esports Arena at the Luxor, we learned that the esports industry is rooted in transferable skills: • AV production • Graphic design • Marketing • Business and financial operations • Shoutcasting (performing arts) • Directing/producing Action: We found a gold mine of opportunity and created a rigorous course that teaches all of these elements through the lens of esports.

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The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

When we introduced these new courses for the first time, our students were thrilled to have a class rooted in their actual passions. We saw students who had challenging experiences in other areas become leaders in this new course. We saw students who were so interested in the work that they didn’t want to leave when the bell rang. We saw frustration dissolve into pure excitement when they overcame a challenge after many failed attempts.

cross-curricular, and we most certainly didn’t know what was going to happen when we stepped off the cliff, but we’re glad we did. It pushed us as individuals to take on the challenge, pushed us ideologically, and pushed us as an educational organization to transform our courses for our students. In the end, listening and adjusting opened up our eyes to how education can look in the 21st century. __________________________________

In the end, we realized that all of the tech and engineering options we used to think were cutting edge and amazing were just the best of what was available at the time, not necessarily what was best for student learning. When we boiled it down to the core concepts and implementation of our old courses, we found they were very traditional and were just dressed up in a fancy tech tuxedo.

Hubert Ham, is Director of Innovation & Information Services, The Alexander Dawson School (NV) and The Esports EDU Lab. He has experience as a science teacher in grades 6-12, as a curriculum coordinator and as an instructional technologist. Hubert earned a master’s degree in STEM education at the University of Texas, and he brings a mix of technology experience and teaching experience to lead Dawson’s IT department and innovation initiatives.

Truthfully, we didn’t go into this initiative we were going to create a video game class that was

2020 OESIS Boston Wellness & SEL Conference

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Questions of the Soul: Caring for the Whole Student

By The Rev. Tyler L. Montgomery Chaplain and Assistant to the Headmaster for Student Wholeness Woodberry Forest School (VA)

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The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

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hen one of our students has anxiety or depression, the solutions that independent schools often provide are counseling/therapy, drugs, or a combination of the two. This is a reasonable response if our lead question is “How do we care for sick students?”

What would change if we shifted our central line of questioning to “Why are so many more children getting sick?” or perhaps more important, “Why do we get sick at all?”

“to get into a ‘good’ college.” And why do they want that? “To get a good job,” they might respond. Why is that important? “I don’t know,” they might vacillate, “So that we can make money and be happy.” Try this for yourself to see where you end up.

Material problems require material solutions. For example, the solution for strep throat is antibiotics. It is also true that immaterial problems require immaterial solutions. For example, the solution for loneliness is connection. The material and immaterial parts of our being are wrapped together in one dynamic bundle, so it would be foolhardy to separate them, however, there seems to be a universal human tendency to focus on material solutions to anxiety and depression at the expense of their immaterial components. In the common mind/body/spirit triptych of the independent school world, the spirit is often a distant third place.

The tragic majority of our students are materialists who have drunk fully from the only glass of existential purpose that our overtly materialist society has placed to their lips: he or she who dies with the most stuff wins. What does it mean to be happy? Our independent school students largely believe that it means working hard to get into a selective college to work hard to get a good job so that they can work hard to earn enough money to send their children to an elite school like the one that they are currently attending.

Welcome to the rat race. Be beautiful. Be powerful. Be rich. Be famous. That is the default religion of our society, and we are blind if we cannot see the power and ubiquity of that message radiating through the screens that are now attached to our students’ bodies. It is no wonder that our children are sick.

I am persuaded that the epidemic of anxiety and depression coursing through independent schools is primarily a crisis of the soul. When a student has anxiety or depression, we have become too reliant on drugs and therapy to “fix the problem,” and we have neglected the underlying and preponderant spiritual despair that is growing in our society. If you need evidence of this spiritual despair in secondary schools, try asking a group of students, “What are you looking for?” They will likely be stymied by the question, so press on with “Why are you here? Why are you at school?” An overwhelming body of data and anecdotal observations suggest that most students think that they are in school

At Woodberry Forest, our starting point for what we call the Wholeness Initiative has been connection. We believe that we are hardwired to connect, both to other people and to existential visions of meaning and purpose for the soul. We are trying to look critically at how to foster authentic connections between students and between students and teachers. We are introducing alternative learning experiences with the primary goal of building relationships around a campfire. At the same time, we are attempting to provide new avenues for students to engage with the big questions while strengthening the traditional sources of existential purpose like chapel and Bible class. We are investing a large

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Questions of the Soul: Caring for the Whole Student share of our professional development resources into “relational learning” with educational expert Michael Reichert because we believe that our students will learn best when they are connected to a meaningful relationship. We are trying to openly challenge materialism, using the chapel’s bully pulpit to expose the charade of college admissions and to offer an alternative in the example of Jesus. These are small steps, and we are far from perfect, but we hope that they will guide us back to a place that is grounded in spiritual health.

I attended a breakfast gathering a few years ago hosted by the provost of a “top-ten university” according to the great idol of U.S. News & World Report. He made the statement that, “X University is no longer in the business of teaching students what it means to live a good life, and, if we are being honest, neither are most universities. What we [i.e. selective universities] do is try to attract the best and the brightest students, give them almost unlimited resources, and let them figure it out for themselves.” If we accept this testimony, some of the great centers of learning in our republic have recused themselves from the most important questions of the human soul:

Who am I, and what is the purpose of my life?

Anxiety and depression abound when the human soul is starved of connection and a vision of existential purpose. What are we doing at independent schools to provide an alternative to the default materialism of our culture? Are we honest with ourselves about our own complicity in maintaining the narratives of elitism that benefit our institutions? Are we intentional about providing a counter-narrative to materialism that offers our students a vision of the good life that is not based on wealth, power, beauty, and fame? Do we make explicit, public claims as an institution about existential truths, or do we shy away from them for fear of those who might disagree with us? These are the kinds of questions that might lead schools towards a place that can feed a student’s soul. The questions that we ask determine the answers that we receive. It is time for independent schools to ask the big questions about our current anxiety and depression epidemic. Our souls are starving for them. __________________________________ The Rev. Tyler L. Montgomery, Chaplain and Assistant to the Headmaster for Student Wholeness, Woodberry Forest School (VA), shared his existential approach to student wellness at OESIS Los Angeles 2019 and will keynote at OESIS Boston 2020 in October. __________________________________

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Hot Cognition Teaser: SEL for Six Seconds Frameworks & Contexts Around EQ, SEL, & Student Wellness Brain Engagement Anabel Jensen, President, and Cherilyn Leet, Assistant Director of Cherilyn Leet, Assistant Director of Education, Six Seconds, Emotional Education, Six Seconds, Emotional Intelligence Network (CA) Intelligence Network (CA) 4.53-minute trailer

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Wellness, Achievement and Assessment Deborah Dowling Associate Head for Academic Affairs Chadwick School (CA) 4.54-minute trailer

4.47-minute trailer

The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

A HARD LOOK IN THE MIRROR:

The Case for Test-Optional Independent School Admissions

By Patrick F. Bassett, President (retired), NAIS, and Sanje Ratnavale, President, OESIS Network

Should independent schools make SSAT and ISEE admissions testing optional in their own admissions processes?

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he inevitable conflict between exclusivity and equity came to the fore in a recent movement of Northern California independent schools to adopt a “test-optional” policy in admitting students into middle and secondary school. The issue is in sharp focus at the college admissions level, led in a burgeoning movement by colleges such as the University of Chicago, an elite institution that dropped requiring the SAT or ACT score submissions, and with lawsuits filed against the University of California claiming that

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requiring standardized test scores is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

The Feb. 10 issue of Inside Higher Ed stated: Pressure has been mounting on the UC system to hop on the test-optional train, as more than 1,000 other institutions — including the University of Chicago and George Washington University — have done. A lawsuit against the system, alleging that the standardized tests are biased and exacerbate inequality, is pending.

Let us look at five reasons why the time might be right for schools to consider that option in the independent school sector: 1. Implicit Bias: The use of test scores by schools, specifically by teachers and admission officers, carries great dangers of implicit bias. Often, we have heard in our schools a teacher who makes some version of the following complaint to a principal or admission officer: “I don’t understand why this © OESIS Network, Inc.

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student was admitted ­— this kid is drowning in my Algebra I class.” The response usually goes something like this, “Let’s look at the student’s file. Ah, I see this student had weak math scores but was a… (fill in the blank: a student of color, an athletic admit, or a legacy).” That response should not necessarily have a “but” because those kids may have attributes that make them “high value” in other important ways, and whose low scores could be mitigated by high growth potential, good advising, after-class help, and strong motivation. Unfortunately, there is little understanding of how stanines should be used to analyze growth potential; in particular, the relationship of a Quantitative Reasoning score to a Math Assessment, or a Verbal Reasoning score to a Reading Comprehension score. The scores are basically simplified and analyzed like letter grades: a nine and an eight equal an A, or a one and a four equal a C. The relationship of reasoning scores to the other scores is important in that the reasoning scores are generally measures of IQ or ability, essentially problem-solving skills that are less content or curriculum dependent. If there is a stanine difference of two or more (which is statistically significant), the differential in scores shows overperformance or underperformance of the student. So, imagine a student with a seven in Quantitative Reasoning but a five in math: These scores indicate that the student is likely underperforming in math.

Compare that student with a Quantitative Reasoning of one and a math score of four, indicating that the student is significantly overperforming. Which kid would most independent schools prefer? Which kid is more likely to have growth potential? The correct response to the teacher complaint on or to an admissions office placement conundrum would be to ask whether or not anyone had analyzed the growth potential of that student in context rather than assumed a struggle in our highly sequenced curriculum.

Implicit bias related to poor analysis would have erroneously cast that student with lower scores as having less potential. Shouldn’t 16 Intrepid

we surely be admitting students exhibiting significant growth potential? With proper support, that student may eventually outperform many of the students with higher stanine scores who have not internalized a growth mindset or resilience to overcome their academic gaps and challenges.

2. Inequitable Standardized Testing and Inadequate Tutoring: Virtually all the SAT and ACT test prep companies provide SSAT and ISEE test prep. If one travels to Beijing, it is incredible to see the amount of money that is made by these test prep organizations: they are now almost ubiquitous in the U.S. as well. Unequal access to test prep tutoring is an unfair advantage. If those who can afford testprep perform better than those who do not, do those scores indicate they are likely to fare better in school? Many prior research studies on the ACT and SAT indicate a high correlation between standardized testing and socio-economic standing (and presumably more access to tutoring). Again, should we be embedding such inequity in our admissions systems?

More importantly, the most recent research has produced surprisingly important results that, contrariwise, indicate that grades, not ACT test scores, are overwhelmingly better predictors of graduation from college, so much so that one could posit that standardized testing results add little if any value to the admissions process.

A study released and published in the journal Educational Researcher shows high school grade point averages predict college graduation rates five times more accurately than ACT scores. The study examined 55,084 students who graduated from Chicago Public Schools between 2006 and 2009 and immediately attended a four-year college. The GPA correlation is consistent regardless of which school the student attended, according to the study. Conversely, there was no correlation between ACT score and college graduation rate at some schools, and researchers also found in some schools

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that higher ACT scores resulted in lower graduation rates. The study shows each incremental increase in GPA improved the odds of the high school student graduating from college. In a press release, the researchers said the results of the study run contrary to the assumption that standardized test scores are reliable, neutral indicators of success and that the findings suggest grades are powerful gauges in determining college readiness. (Source: Education Drive) This research should be a powerful incentive to favor, in the name of socio-economic justice, lower socio-economic applicants who evidence over-achievement since evidence of academic “grit” and success in overcoming socio-economic disadvantage augers well for candidates in school, college, and life.

3. Alternative Forms of Performance Evidence: The public schools in Tennessee were struggling with ways to capture growth and show, in their own words, “value-added,” and so they, along with many schools around the country, are going down the portfolio route of assessment: the adoption of 500,000 student portfolios allows teachers to take snapshots of student performance, evaluate those snapshots according to performance

criteria at intervals, and encourage or require their students to upload evidence. (See link to Portfolio Guidebook, below). The student portfolios capture not only academic performance but also co-curricular and extra-curricular excellence from internships to projects and badges. They enable a more holistic picture of the child including social and emotional learning contexts. Most importantly, student portfolios illustrate, literally, the shift from “knowing to doing,” as defined by the MacArthur Foundation (Chicago) in the foundation’s research on the changing landscape and imperatives for education. This particular shift in the education paradigm, “from knowing to doing,” incidentally confirms a wise and ancient Chinese saying: “I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.” (Attributed, probably misattributed, to Confucius.)

4. A Grading and Assessment Renaissance: There is a long-overdue focus on the transparency and accuracy of grades and how a refreshing educator perspective can lead to better teacher intervention, and thereby increased student opportunity for growth. Better K-8 transcripts have arrived: assessment and

Resources for #3:

● 2019-20 Tennessee public schools Portfolio Guidebook. ● “The Big Shifts” (e.g., Project-based learning in the context of “Schools of the Future” (in three formats): ○ i.) Videos: 30-minute and/or 90-minute versions - Email bassett@headsuped.com for a link to download; ○ ii.) PowerPoint: Email bassett@headsuped.com for the link to download; ○ iii.) Articles: Schools of Future: The Big Shifts; The Innovation Imperative. ● The Enrollment Management Association: Its publication on alternative assessments is an outstanding catalog of options to substitute for or supplement standardized admissions testing: Think Tank on the Future of Assessment: Special Report. www.oesisgroup.com

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transcripts are becoming more holistic and incorporating whole child indicators from social-emotional learning projects to the integration of experiences and activities that form a more comprehensive learner record. The PIVOT Transcript partnership of OESIS with IMS Global Learning Consortium is leading some of that work. CompetencyBased Education provides a proficiency framework that is increasingly crosscurricular and more student-driven, with a greater variety of student pathways towards demonstrated mastery. All this together makes surmising an admission candidate’s “match” by observing a couple of numbers on a test report look very scant. It is time for our schools to look deeper into the transcripts of their feeder schools and demand more. It may take greater training at the admissions officer level, and also transformational professional development for teachers in the new project-based, experiential, studentdirected curricula, but that time has come.

5. Diversity and Inclusivity Without Equity: Diversity itself doesn’t help children learn. Knowing that, how can we blame the colleges and universities for all the ills in curriculum and pedagogy without looking in the mirror ourselves? We ask for colleges to accept alternative forms of transcripts, to look deeper and to a more equitable range of acceptances, but are we holding ourselves equally accountable for shallow and unfairly stacked practices at our intake point? We hold conferences on diversity and inclusivity, and yet the topic of learning equity in the core curriculum seems curiously missing. For the authors of this article, equity means equal opportunity: for every student, a personalized context that embraces rather than pigeonholes the variability of student ability and starting points for learning. It offers students a choice of learning experiences and multiple pathways to success. Is it too much to see this subject of equity in the core curriculum addressed at enrollment management conferences or at diversity fairs and people of color conferences in the near future?

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Caveats: Here are four caveats to this article’s “call to arms” that our independent school practitioners might consider as counterweights to the findings articulated in this article: 1. In the shrinking market that most, if not all, independent schools face as a consequence of skyrocketing tuitions, we have been admitting less academically prepared candidates for some time, even at many of the wealthy and elite schools (except for the elite of elite with “need-blind” admissions based on exceptional financial aid resources). Test-optional admissions may accelerate that trend. With optional testing, we may end up accelerating the trend of more students needing additional help and at all family income levels. Is the price of equal opportunity too high? Should schools simply settle for the predicament created by an increasingly vulnerable business model?

2. Test-optional policies may also unconsciously bias those schools that choose the option, with a subconscious or conscious assumption in admissions offices that those who submit test scores do so because their scores are high, demonstrably so; contrariwise, for admissions offices evaluating applicants who don’t submit test scores, the assumption might be they do so because their test scores are low. Ironically, it’s not far-fetched to speculate within the non-test submitted pool there would be test scores that would meet the test scores of many in your accepted pool when standardized test results were required. Why? Because our secondary schools often post their senior class average SAT scores, and if one’s middle school child’s SSAT scores are lower than the secondary school’s average, some families would assume their child would not be admitted. In fact, that score may be at the top of the second quintile where a significant proportion of the class has been admitted in the past and flourished at the school.

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3. To be more objective, it may be useful to gather better data on your school’s graduates through longitudinal studies: compare their grade-point averages and other “success” variables over time in your school and in their successive schools and colleges. It’s possible the old (and in many ways insulting) school adage has some validity: “The A-students become teachers and preachers, and the B students work for the C students.” It was true for the authors of this piece.

4. The Enrollment Management Association and ERB, providers of the SSAT and ISEE, should be invited to counter these arguments with data and research that contradicts the premises here. The Enrollment Management Association’s Think Tank on the Future of Assessment: Special Report is an outstanding contribution to the literature on assessments for school admissions and for the emerging debate on required vs. optional testing in our sector, concluding that admissions standardized testing is useful while agreeing that such testing could and should be accompanied by other equally important assessments measuring a host of other factors that contribute to success in school and life.

The time is ripe for a test-optional movement in independent schools. In fact, it’s already moved in this direction in Northern California (although currently stalled). Independent school accreditation organizations have made

recommendations to their members about standardized testing, including dropping the requirement for grade-level standardized tests at various intervals. Is it not the time for their Boards to make a statement of their views on this question? We plan to ask and report back in the next issue. The authors of this article believe it is time for us to throw down the gauntlet nationally for more equitable admissions at the college-feeder level, independent schools. Over time if a substantial number of schools (100 or more would be the statistical minimum) compile group longitudinal research (such as the NAIS College Age Survey and the NAIS Survey of High School Engagement) we’ll start to see how testrequired vs. test-optional admissions compares in terms of maximizing appropriate numbers of candidates applying, being accepted, enrolling, and succeeding in our schools and thereafter in college and in their life pathways.

When it comes to considering admissions testing factors in the context of equitable access for a diverse pool of applicants, we might think, “Physician, heal thyself!”

Holy Bible, Luke 4:23 __________________________________ Patrick F. Bassett was President of NAIS (2001-2013), and Sanje Ratnavale, is President of the OESIS Network.

OESIS members may watch trailers and entire videos on OESIS-XP.

21st Century Skills A potpourri of innovative ideas: What is Mastery? Why is an experience different than a product or service? Why is it critical to hit the metacognitive level with our students on a regular basis?

Mastery Gradebooks and Rubrics Tara Quigley, Director, Miss Fine’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Princeton Day School (NJ) 4.52-minute trailer

www.oesisgroup.com

What is a 21st century experience?

OESIS President Sanje Ratnavale and OESIS Vice President Joel Backon 5.01-minute trailer

Future-Focused Learning Beyond the 3Rs AJ Webster, Christy Durham and Tedd Wakeman, The Founders, The Sycamore School (CA)

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The Evolution of an Innovative Middle School Teacher: From PBL to Competencies and Pathways

By Tara Quigley, Director of Miss Fine’s Center for Interdisciplinary Education and Humanities Teacher, Princeton Day School (NJ) and OESIS Network Leader

Sixth graders use the 4Cs Visible Thinking Strategy to compare and contrast cultures in preparation for a class-wide debate on the “fairness” of the Roman use of the term barbarian.

In 2014 it finally registered that I needed to change the way I approached teaching my students. Until then, my middle school Humanities classes had always conducted several research projects, increasing in complexity during the year. However, my colleagues and I began to notice that students were less on task and engaged in the steps involved with researching and writing a paper. At the same time, I became interested in both Project-Based Learning and Guided Inquiry Design, thinking an increased level of student autonomy and opportunity in my classes might help. Over the next five years, my colleagues and I found these approaches to be effective at promoting student agency and engagement, and have 20 Intrepid

slowly transitioned most of our content and instruction to this more student-centered model for our Social Studies curriculum. The more we stepped aside in the classroom, the more we allowed student autonomy and choice; however, the more frustrated we became with our grading system. With a traditional grade book focused on categories such as homework, reading, and writing, we couldn’t seem to recognize and provide feedback on the skills and competencies we were encouraging students to develop: collaboration, communication, and problemsolving. Here is the story of how we reinvented our student experience within the context of a demanding and competitive learning culture.

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key challenge we faced involved the effective management of a classroom full of students working at their own pace towards mastery of these skills and competencies. Some students needed several tries to take notes that reflected their critical thinking or creativity, while others raced through that portion, needing instead to repeatedly revise their “outlines” or graphic organizers for planning their essay. How could we provide formative feedback for all of these milestones with students progressing at different paces? One of the techniques we tried was the use of “playlists” created in our school’s LMS, Schoology. In Schoology, we were able to create playlists through which students progressed using “completion rules.” They would not be able to move to the next step until they had demonstrated proficiency in the previous one, thus avoiding the middle school student’s tendency to race to the finish line without stopping to reflect. These playlists allowed our students to progress at their own rates through the various steps of the process of a www.oesisgroup.com

scaffolded research PBL while ensuring that we were able to provide useful and timely feedback at each step along the way. If a student revised an initial topic exploration sheet to generate questions on three occasions, we provided specific guidance and feedback through our LMS. Students submitted multiple drafts and progressed through the system at their own rate. Rather than waiting for the entire class to complete a lesson, students could pass into the next one by achieving proficiency.

In much the same way, Portfolium, an integrated system designed to support the CBE philosophy, allows me to provide feedback and individualized progression for faculty involved in the OESIS XP Cohort Pathways: I validate competency and award badges of completion. Participants in the PBL (Project-Based Learning), CBE (CompetencyBased Education), and SEL (Social Emotional Learning) pathways are enrolled in a cohort in the OESIS XP Portal and also directed to create a portfolio on Portfolium. The content of the pathways is divided into a set of topical

requirements or Milestones, each with a selection of readings, videos, and activities to interact with asynchronously and requiring interactive exchanges with other members of their Cohort.

At the end of each Milestone, participants are asked to submit a demonstration of their competence (a “Requirement”) through Portfolium which I assess. In order to complete the Pathway successfully and to earn the badge that certifies that they have completed the Pathway, participants must receive a “proficient” rating on a requirement before they move on to the next Milestone and associated requirements.

This structure and progression allow me to provide feedback to the learner on their progress; if the reflection or submitted demonstration of competency does not meet the standards described either in the assignment or rubric, I can request that the learner revise the submission before they progress to the next requirement. In this way, the experience is personalized and targeted towards learners’ needs and growth. Once they © OESIS Network, Inc.

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have completed the entire “Pathway,” the progression is visible in their portfolio, including the submissions to each requirement and the associated competencies or skills that are tagged on each one. Through this process, learners are encouraged to keep tweaking and resubmitting if necessary, until they achieve proficiency in the topic. Rather than simply completing a requirement and progressing onto the next without reflecting or processing what has been learned, learners are compelled to engage with the Milestone as a whole and their interaction with it. Ultimately, progressing through the OESIS Pathways allows teachers to experience Competency-Based Education first-hand, helping them to understand the benefit of such an approach in their classes.

Portfolium OESIS pathway screenshot to come from Tara

My work with OESIS Pathway cohorts was a natural extension of my work teaching sixth-grade Humanities. In our sixth-grade classes, my colleagues and I built a culture of feedback and metacognition to promote growth. For each unit of study, we have a driving question that is related to the essential questions of the course. The projects that students complete are assessed using the learning objectives derived from our core competencies for the 5th and 6th-grade Humanities experience. Rather than giving students feedback on the content or a specific assignment, we provide guidance on the development of their capacities in the areas 22 Intrepid

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of communication (written and verbal), critical-thinking, creative-thinking, collaboration, inquiry and questioning, and habits of a learner. Throughout the year, students are provided with strategies and feedback to progress towards increased proficiency of these competencies. We ask students to reflect on their progress, set goals, and continually strive to improve their performance. The content is the vehicle for providing students an arena in which to improve their proficiency in these lifelong learner competences. In the same way, I have worked to provide feedback on the cohort Pathways to help learners think about the larger grain skills they are developing in each one. Asking questions,

making suggestions, and providing further guidance are all part of the feedback to increase metacognition and reflection. I ask learners to consider their participation as a tool in their larger growth as a teacher and a coach in the classroom. With a great deal of choice built into the system, allowing participants to select which readings and videos most resonate with them, a Pathway allows for a personalized, ondemand PD experience for teachers.

As teachers strive to best prepare our students for the lives they will lead, solely content-focused curricula are missing the opportunity to help students learn larger grain competencies and skills which

can be transferred throughout their lives. Competencies such as collaboration, critical thinking, and creative problemsolving are life-long abilities that help today’s students lead more productive and successful lives. Pathways provide an effective means by which educators can scaffold and guide learners to internalize and develop these capacities and skills. ______________________ Tara Quigley is Director of Miss Fine’s Center for Interdisciplinary Education and Humanities Teacher, Princeton Day School (NJ) and OESIS Network Leader

OESIS members may watch trailers and entire videos on OESIS-XP.

CompetencyBased Education

10 Elements of Mastery-Based Education Allison Powell, former Vice President of Research INACOL 5.3-minute trailer

PBL Playlist 2

Competency-Focused Collaborative Work in the PBL Classroom Tara Quigley, Director of Miss Fine’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Princeton Day School (NJ) 4.41-minute trailer

Cross-Curricular 21st Century Skills across K-12 Curriculum Dr. Deborah Dowling, Assistant Head for Academic Affairs, Chadwick School (CA) 6.26-minute trailer

PBL can be an effective tool in giving students ownership of their learning and can be crucial for increasing students’ sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

More Voice and Choice into Project-Based Learning Andrew Miller, National Faculty, Buck Institute, and Instructional Coach, Shanghai American School 4.43-minute trailer

www.oesisgroup.com

Sustainable Systems in Integrated Sciences Dr. Aidyl Gonzalez-Serricchio, Co-Chair Science Department and STEAM Director, The Buckley School (CA) 5.08-minute trailer

The Importance of Timing, Feedback & Whole-Group Discussion in PBL Jeff Robin, Founding Faculty Member, High Tech High and OESIS Network Leader (CA) 4.42-minute trailer

© OESIS Network, Inc.

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DISCUSSION IN AN AGE OF DISTRACTION:

Helping teachers engage today’s students in deep conversation

By Katherine Burd, English teacher, The Chapin School (NY); and Liza Garonzik, founder, R.E.A.L. Discussion, & a former English teacher, The Westminster Schools (GA)

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tudent-led discussions are harder than they used to be. Adults cite wellpublicized reasons for changes in student engagement. We blame video games and TikTok; lack of civil discourse in families and in government; fake news and news feeds. We bemoan age-old teenage tendencies toward extremes — belligerence and antipathy, sarcasm and generosity — but what really catches our attention are the newer behaviors: heightened anxiety, restless distraction, and polarizing self-righteousness. When faced with these new concerns, even experienced teachers struggle to facilitate classroom discussion that equitably engages all students in the essential task of

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forging new understandings from separate perspectives. Why? We argue that for the first time in generations, expecting a group of children to converse on a single subject, in-person and for a sustained period of time, means asking them to do something entirely new.

By now, the student-led discussion is old technology in independent schools. Even as they are incubators for best practices in education, independent schools, and especially Humanities departments, have employed student-led discussion and models like Harkness, Socratic seminars, and the Fishbowl for decades. The discussion itself is a tradition well-rooted in research: from Parker Palmer and Grant Wiggins

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to Angela Duckworth and Carol Dweck. These renowned educational theorists have linked impressive academic and socio-emotional outcomes to discussion-based teaching and learning. For this reason, schools and educators are right to continue to cherish student-led discussion as a best practice.

Yet, where teachers see the discussion as a familiar practice, today’s students, by contrast, find it to be as foreign as any new technology.

Although cognitively speaking, today’s students are certainly as capable of deep learning through in-person discussion, their starting point is different from students even 10 years ago. Gen-Z students are digital natives with well-honed instincts for navigating iPads, design labs, and STEAM spaces (resources into which schools rightfully invest significant time and money), yet they are at a loss when asked to engage in a sustained, in-person conversation with classmates. The solution? Schools can challenge their educators to re-calibrate their classroom discussion practices ­— with the same enthusiasm as for a teacher integrating 3D printing or coding into their curriculum. The reality is that no amount of classroom experience or earned wisdom could have prepared today’s teachers for the conundrums presented by Gen-Z students — and the stakes are high: the world needs independent school graduates to be ready to engage one another through empathy, evidence, and inquiry.

Today’s students deserve to be held accountable for developing robust discussion skills and can benefit from a scaffolded approach.

Instead of assuming that discussion is an inherent competency for Gen-Z students and something they see modeled daily on the news and around dinner tables, teachers must actively teach what it takes to have a “good” conversation.

They can use frameworks to approach the discussion as a discipline: a set of practices that structure students to share their own connections to classroom texts, attend with rigor to the specific elements of stories and sources, ask authentic questions, listen deeply to classmates, and reflect with a growth mindset. Schools can consider investing in and engaging with models and programs designed to enhance the use of www.oesisgroup.com

student-led discussion as an intentional teaching tool alongside flashier, trendier technologies. In so doing, teachers will explicitly equip students to counter the trend towards vague, contentious, and lazy discourse in the “real world.”

As any Design Thinking expert would remind us: we can begin this work with empathy, by investigating and listening with compassion to the reasons why students find sustained discourse challenging. Perhaps the students, their families, their communities, or their governments are to blame for this discomfort, but rendering teenagers victims of the age in which they live ignores our adult capacity for action.

Instead, acknowledging this odd “newness” of classroom discussion allows teachers to explicitly build a case for why discussion matters. It’s an opportunity for teachers to demonstrate how the work of the classroom is, in fact, real, organic, and as relevant as demonstrating the correct answer on a test. Students will quickly learn that discussion is not only a context for demonstrating knowledge but also a tool for building understanding in the community: a skillset and mindset that will stand them — and our society — in good stead for years to come. __________________________________ Katherine Burd teaches English at The Chapin School (NY) and writes about all things education. Liza Garonzik is the founder of R.E.A.L. Discussion (www.REALdiscussion. org) and a former English teacher at The Westminster Schools (GA).

Editor’s Note: A similar point made by the authors of In Search of Deeper Learning (Mehta & Fine) is the feeling of equity that empowers students rather than renders them defensive: The goal of the class was to wring everything there was out of a given piece of text, and this was something the group could do better than any individual, including the teacher. Mr. Fields saw this as part of his own growth as a person — realizing that his perspective was as colored by his background and experiences as anyone else’s — and thus trusting the wisdom of the crowd would lead to richer understandings of the text than he alone could provide. (pp. 318-19)

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10 Years Strong!

Berwick Innovation Center & Innovation Pursuit Program

By Darcy Coffta, Director of Innovation, Berwick Academy (ME)

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onceptualized and designed in 2008-09 as a program that would provide opportunities for students to customize a learning experience, Berwick’s Innovation Center and Innovation Pursuit (IP) program celebrated 10-years of accomplishments this past May. From the very beginning, what made Berwick’s IPs innovative were the qualities of being student-driven and student-designed. Students have a voice in their learning and eagerly follow passions to develop a body of work that, over the course of many months, represents a wealth of experience.

Back in 2009, I researched best practices in project design and built a framework for the program that included 21st century learning skills;

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such as collaboration, creativity, connecting with experts and networking, as well as solving problems in new and exciting ways. I also aligned with recognized national standards from ISTE (the International Society for Technology Education), ALA (American Library Association), and NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges). This is partly why the program has been so successful. Although topic selection can range the gamut, the consistent thread that ties all IPs together is the framework that provides structure and continuity.

All IPs are academically grounded, all include an element of originality, all are centered on collaboration with a mentor, all students interview practitioners in the field and many are connecting with regional or national experts, and all are publically presenting at the Innovation Celebration. Our annual event for 2020 is April 28th at 6 p.m. on the Berwick Academy campus and all are welcome to join.

What has also been a key to the success of the program is its agility and ability to change to meet higher student intellectual demands. Students maintain a web presence as a form of publishing their work, students have the opportunity to write grants for financial support, and many students job shadow as part of the enrichment within the IP program.

The growth of the program has been extraordinary. We now have many examples of how IP’s have distinguished our students and directly supported their college application process. Examples include a student with an audio engineering IP being accepted into the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music with NYU’s Tisch School. Another student that built a video game is now continuing his education at Stanford. A student that designed a concussion awareness IP is at Georgetown as a Human Science major. And a student that developed a four-year body of work around cancer research is graduating this year from Carnegie Mellon.

The momentum of the IP program has fueled a variety of curricular changes and supported many Project Based Learning initiatives on campus. IPs now differentiate the same way APs did and Innovation Pursuits are a key component in the newly offered Pathway programs. Berwick embraces a culture of innovation beginning in the Lower School and continues through to the Upper School.

Highlights over the years include a continued increase in the number of students that participate in the IP program. In our first year we had just four, in our 4th year the number of IPs jumped to 36, in our 6th year we had 44, in our 8th year we had 48, and now in our 10th year we have almost 70 Innovation Pursuits conducted on campus from grades 4-12.

www.oesisgroup.com

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Notable networking opportunities over the last couple of years include interviews with Dean Kamen of DEKA, Dr. Robert Cantu of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and work with the NFL, Chris Cassidy, NASA astronaut, Dr. Mark Drela, professor of aeronautics at MIT, and baseball greats Joe Torre, Alex Cora, Sam Fuld, and Alex Rodriquez.

Additional student success stories include one student presenting at national Maker Fairs in NY and CA on his autonomous kayak IP and one innovation team successfully applying and receiving a utility patent for a headphone/speaker design. Job shadowing opportunities have taken place at DEKA, Pratt & Whitney, Exeter Hospital, New Hampshire Fish and Game, Lucid Skis in Freeport, and Grain Surfboard in York, Maine. Thousands of dollars have been awarded in the form of student grants and supported through the Berwick Parent Community.

Other accolades include a $35K Follett Challenge Award in 2013, awards from the EE Ford Foundation, Berwick being honored as a “School that Shines” by News Center Maine’s channel 6 and as a “Forward Thinking” school

by WGME channel 13 out of Portland. I have presented on Berwick’s IP program all over the country, including at SXSWEDU in Austin, TX; NAIS annual conference in Boston; OESIS in Los Angeles and ISTE in Atlanta. I returned to

OESIS this past fall in LA to present research that connects Berwick’s IPs, including elements of student voice, choice and agency, with higher levels of engagement through the project-based learning experience.

Looking forward, I aspire to formalize the IP process, continue to closely work with students to develop significant PBL experiences, and host a regional Innovation and Creativity Conference or Symposium open to other students, grades 7-12, as a forum to bring young creative minds together to share ideas.

Berwick Innovation… Inspire, Ignite & Innovate!

For more information, please contact Darcy at dcoffta@berwickacademy.org or visit: www. berwickacademy.org __________________________________ Darcy Coffta is Director of Innovation and Upper School Librarian at Berwick Academy (ME), a PK12 independent day school in South Berwick, Maine. Darcy has guided hundreds of students through the Innovation Pursuit process, which includes brainstorming ideas, mentorpairing, program design and project management, as well as connecting with industry experts and public demonstration.

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Matching Faculty Growth Cultures with Student Growth Expectations

By Joel Backon, Vice President, OESIS Network

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ou are an innovative school that provides numerous opportunities for your students to learn in a variety of ways based on their strengths and interests. You create daily schedules that make it easy for those students to take advantage of the opportunities afforded them. You encourage them to travel abroad and explore summer experiences to enrich and enhance their collection of school year activities. There is absolutely no question regarding the priority of great student learning at your school.

Are you able to say the same of your faculty? What priority do you place on their learning experiences? Here is the story of one school.

Several years ago, Choate Rosemary Hall created a new office of the dean of faculty that included a director of faculty development. The first appointee was a colleague I had worked with for many years, designing and teaching history courses. Gratefully, he was also my son’s academic advisor and crew coach. Since I was responsible for technology integration, a process driven by pedagogy, I worked closely with Tom. He devised a number of faculty PD programs that reinforced the school’s recognition that supporting the professional skills of the faculty was critical to the future success of the school.

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1. New Faculty: While the school always had a weeklong orientation for new faculty just prior to the opening of school, it was clear that the short-term memories of these folks overflowed several times as they heard about “everything they needed to know in order to begin the school year.” A few years ago, the orientation was shortened and simplified, and a new program added that brought the rookie group together once a week. Each week, different members of the Choate leadership team worked with new faculty on specific topics such as report writing, grading, academic advising, balancing workload, innovative and design thinking, parents weekend, etc. Feedback was very positive and these new faculty members felt they were well supported and knew the people they might approach when they had questions.

2. Reflective Educators: Lest you might think second and third-year faculty were neglected, rest assured that they were ushered into the Reflective Educators cohort. What’s great about this group is that it is open to all faculty members of any experience level. The format is similar to the first-year format except that the group meets bi-weekly, and the topics are completely focused on teaching and learning. As an experienced member of that group, I recall sessions on formative assessment, grading, collaborative projects, and establishing course goals, to name a few. The most memorable activity was the simple request to bring a summative assessment to the session and exchange it with a partner in another department. The task was to identify the goals of the course from looking at the assessment. One of 30 faculty members in attendance was able to do so. That sent a clear message regarding the work we had to do with our students, who frequently did not know why they were learning material or skills. This PD cohort is the most popular at the school.

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3. Open Classroom Initiative: The program began as an informal mechanism for visiting a colleague’s classroom. Over time, it became more structured, and that led to higher participation. Each term, one was paired with a teacher in another department and each visited the other twice during a term. Each term, the pairings were changed. There was a mechanism to pose questions in advance to the host teacher and to provide friendly and constructive feedback after each visit. The focus was on pedagogies and skills since the visiting teacher often did not know the subject matter. My visit to a Spanish II class was challenging because I don’t speak the language. I did spend the class watching the faces of the 11 students and was able to talk with the teacher about each one after the class. The conversation was valuable to her because she had missed the disconnect for two kids, one of whom was distracted by a family tragedy. It was valuable to me because I became aware of the challenges of insisting that students participate in the target language. I learned language teachers have a “sixth sense,” allowing them to interpret the responses of kids who struggle speaking the target language but do understand the reading and some conversation. This was the quintessential practitioner’s program.

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4. Appy Hour: Imagine a one-hour gathering during dinner (after athletic practices) six times per year that includes pizza, beer, and wine. Approximately 20-25 teachers gather to relax and talk in a maker space about applications that are either effective or are not yielding the expected results. Somebody in attendance will inevitably pipe in and explain their experience with the same app or connect to the projector and show the group how they are using the app. Much conversation ensues and sometimes turns into a bona fide debate. Such was the case when we discussed an iPad app called Liquid Text that allows one to annotate readings by pulling out pieces of text onto a palette and organizing them for essay writing, textual analysis, or research. The teachers of advanced courses thought it was too elementary (visual) for their students while the teachers of freshman courses thought it was too complex (conceptually). The resulting conversation was a fascinating probe of the alignment of tools with student learning maturity. This PD idea is a home run because it appeals to so many principles of great PD in the independent school environment.

www.oesisgroup.com

5. Hot Tips at Faculty Meetings: PD presentations at faculty meetings are generally ineffective because they are out of context, too long, and often not handson. Additionally, getting on a faculty meeting agenda can be challenging — unless one asks for no more than five minutes at the end of the meeting, introduces something simple, but useful, to a majority of the audience. Hot Tips are very brief introductions to a tool that teachers can use immediately. Many have limited pedagogical value, but are certainly effective classroom tools. More importantly, they form the basis of a conversation with a PD colleague that often leads to pedagogical topics. In short, they are excellent ice breakers. If you watch the video of one such Tip, you’ll notice that humor is injected as well. The results of a faculty survey last year indicated that Hot Tips were the most popular and useful portion of faculty meetings.

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What do faculty need in order to fully invest themselves in regular professional development?

Let’s begin with a few ideas: ● Time carved out of the schedule for professional development of their choosing. ● An effective method of coverage for classes and other responsibilities that might be missed when there are PD opportunities. ● Enhanced budget resources to support and encourage faculty members to pursue PD opportunities. The corporate world allocates 1-2% of the operating budget for PD. ● Treat support as a proactive active verb. Go beyond providing opportunities and target specific colleagues who might be best aligned with specific PD topics. Help make the decision easier by assisting with coverage issues. ● Create a culture of learning for adults that expects a PD commitment from all faculty members, even if it is self-study. Ask colleagues to share their experiences at faculty and department meetings. Make these experiences part of the year-end review. ● Establish an incentive program for PD as you might for advanced degrees. Award digital badges for completion of programs or pathways. Provide grant money at multiple levels for improvement of courses or teaching skills (the largest grants would include release time). Connect professional development with career paths (course leader, department head, academic administrator).

In the face of external cultural shifts that focus on equity and inclusion, wellness, socialemotional learning, competency-based education, project-based learning, service and experiential learning, and integration of similar academic departments, professional development has never been more important. Subject matter experts need to expand their skill sets; young teachers need to increase confidence in handling the challenges of their students; mid-career faculty need to be reinspired. These shifts and needs

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dictate internal cultural pivots that address the priorities of faculty responsibilities: First, we learn to be better teachers; then we become the best practitioners we can be.

The new culture of professional learning requires money, creative problem-solving, commitment, and support from school leaders. There are schools in the OESIS Network, such as Choate, that do exactly what this culture demands. We can learn a great deal from their experiences. Those schools will tell you that if you start with commitment and support, and add a pinch of creative problem solving, the money will come. Your board, parents, and alumni will recognize the cultural shift that values learning in adults as much as in kids and they will reach out because they are committed to excellence. And if all else fails on the financial front, take some advice from Grant Lichtman about strategic thinking. If faculty PD is a strategic part of your program, then school initiatives of lower priority might be curtailed and the funds redirected.

We began by asking whether teachers are viewed as learners in the same way as students. We end with an answer to that question. As Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine explain in their recent book, In Search of Deeper Learning (2019): Much as significant learning for students comes through long trajectories in which students spiral through cycles of mastery, identity, and creativity, we need to create opportunities for teacher learning to do the same. (p. 395) Let’s make our faculty members lifetime learners, particularly when they interact with students, and put our schools in a position to thrive for the foreseeable future.

The OESIS Network Innovation Quarterly

March 2020

Getting the Most out of OESIS-XP

A

s you probably know, OESIS has been conducting thought-provoking conferences fostering innovation at prestigious independent schools since 2013. Founder and President Sanje Ratnavale decided to bring this content online within OESIS-XP in 2017. Organized on Canvas LMS, OESIS-XP enables academic faculty to easily access innovative practices on demand.

In addition to organizing conference presentations under Files in the Canvas menu, OESIS-XP indexes videos by subject areas, age levels, and innovation attributes addressed in each presentation. Most videos are recorded during live webinars, featuring all aspects of pedagogy and cultural change focused on student-centered learning driven by student agency with strategic oversight.

Navigating OESIS-XP We recently redesigned the OESIS-XP home page to give OESIS members easy access to: • OESIS CBE, PBL and SEL Faculty PD Pathways that can be completed individually, with oversight from a masterlevel practitioner at your school, or within a cohort with an OESIS Network Leader.

• OESIS-XP innovation matrix, which has links to our thumbnail indexes in our OESISXP Video Library. Each video has its own media page with comment links.

• Live Webinars and Released Playlists outline our program schedule and show our new five-minute trailers for busy faculty. After watching a trailer, members may access the full videos and additional resources on the video’s media page.

• Publications, which are shown at the bottom of the OESIS-XP home page.

OESIS members may click on the above image to log into their schools customized OESIS-XP portal using their school email address. If you need help accessing OESIS-XP, email oesisxadmin@oesisgroup.com.

Examples for using OESIS-XP resources to enhance faculty development Each Division selects a Groups or cohorts at your school complete an PD leaders share invideo of the month to OESIS Faculty PD pathway together. service topics with watch and discuss (similar Participate in live webinars or submit ideas for a OESIS staff and we to a book club). topic you’d like to discuss. recommend/create Please share your ideas with clips to complement Schedule an OESIS Lynn.Schramek@oesisgroup.com or existing PD initiatives.

Video Conference.

Joel.Backon@oesisgroup.com.