November Reflection

In what ways does WtS serve as a model that helps others think more creatively about how to design learning?

WtS invites students to use personal experiences to engage in the process of learning. Inquiry, reflection and experimentation provide WtS learners a framework to imagine and create.

How can our WtS team bring an even more creative approach to how we design, orchestrate, and report our students learning? 

Provide space for WtS learners to develop an understanding of what matters to them, in order to imagine a life focused on what's personally important. Purposefully create opportunities to practice math and science proficiencies as measures for student learning. Move students to embody the methods of WtS by "teaching" different audiences. 

November Reflection: Stronger Together

Problem solving--the kind we need to solve our nation's and our world's real problems--takes collaboration, compromise, and maybe most importantly, a powerful, irrepressible, deep care for something larger than ourselves. I saw all of these last weekend at the first What's the Story retreat. I listened to adolescents talk with passion (and nervousness) about things they cared so deeply about: migrant farm workers, gender inequality, educational opportunities, animal cruelty, the opioid crisis. Listening to them share their research and present their plans--such lofty and idealistic and abstract plans--made me hopeful for the future, but also reminded me of the importance of teaching students the transferable skills they will need to turn these abstract plans into actionable realities.

The structure of WtS encourages idealism, but grounds it in the practical skills necessary to achieve change. Students are asked to dream, to research, to ask questions, to find answers, to seek perspectives, to deepen their understanding, and to find their place as change-makers. And as they do this, they are provided structures to support them, space to mess up, a net to catch them if they really fall, sign posts to direct them, adult mentors and blog readers to ask questions, time to discover and think, and instruction to push their skills and help them communicate. These are all provisions that could be replicated in our schools. None of these parts is all that innovative, really. The innovation is in putting them all together and trusting that students have the agency and maturity to learn beyond the traditional boundaries we set for them.

As WtS continues, we'll get better at guiding our students to dream big, but act small; we'll improve how we support their long-distance collaboration, a key to the future of problem-solving; and we'll progress in our ability to communicate what creativity and innovation and personal growth looks like. What we're all doing here feels really important. These students will find new passions and stumble on new problems they want to solve in the future, and I am confident that they are leaving this course not only feeling like they can make change, but having the skills and understandings to know how to do so.

November Reflection: Discussing Issues That Matter

• In what ways does WtS serve as a model that helps others think more creatively about how to design learning?

For a variety of reasons, What's the Story is a functional and innovative approach to learning that serves as one positive model for how to design a pedagogical strategy that works. One reason is that it allows students to take agency in their education -- that is, students choose what they're interested in and explore topics of their own choosing. Another reason is that it then encourages students not only to consider different viewpoints about or approaches to that topic, but it requires collaboration with others who share similar interests. Moreover, WTS habitually offers students the time and space to reflect on their own learning: how do I learn, what are my struggles, what is working, and what do I need in order to be successful? Among MANY more examples of how WTS serves as one good model is that it gets students out into the community to examine real-world issues that won't just be forgotten at the end of a paper or an exam.

• How can our WtS team bring an even more creative approach to how we design, orchestrate, and report our students learning?

I would actually qualify the question and suggest that we need to blend more traditional approaches with our creative approaches to design, orchestrate and report on our students' learning. For instance, I think there should be required reading on the topics of our students' choosing, and they should be asked to synthesize, summarize, and make arguments and counterarguments about certain reading. And the blog posts are AWESOME, but I think they could be balanced with more traditional forms of writing that we would assess. This is all to say that what we are doing now is great and creative, but I do think we could strengthen our students' "school" skills a bit more.

November Reflection: "Getting Better All the Time"

In what ways does WtS serve as a model that helps others think more creatively about how to design learning?

For me, the greatest asset of WtS is the sheer amount of one-on-one time we get with our learners. We've all known for a long time that a huge key to educational success is that students need to feel valued and connected; however, fostering these relationships in the traditional classroom is not always easy.

With WtS, its quite literally easy to form great relationships with students because we, as mentors, are working along side our learners (as opposed to monitoring them from afar), and we therefore the moments we spend together go a very long way.

So how does this encourage me to think creatively as I design learning experiences for my students in my "traditional" classroom? Unfortunately, changing the number of students in my classes and the amount of time I get to spend with them isn't under my control. That said, WtS has encouraged me to think differently about how I interact with my students in all the other moments of the day -- in the hallways, in study hall, and in other precious times when I find the opportunity for good, unhurried conversation.  

As always, I continue to think about ways that I can balance both the standards and the values I hold dear with the cutting-edge and ever-changing ideas reflected through educational frameworks such as Universal Design or courses such as WtS. For example, I am currently working with my grade-level teaching partner at Middlebury Union Middle School to brainstorm ways in which students can respond in non-print formats to traditional print texts. (We're recruiting Tim's help in this endeavor).

Perhaps the most powerful message for teachers that WtS has to offer is the reminder that students are very motivated by choice. When provided with just the right -- and personalized -- mixture of structure, support, freedom and delicious food (and yes, it's a magical formula that requires time, space, expertise and adequate funding), students, as evidenced by WtS, flourish in ways that they never have before. 

How can our WtS team bring an even more creative approach to how we design, orchestrate, and report our students learning?

In my mind, reporting out is the trickiest aspect of WtS? My experience with teaching is that speedy and frequent feedback is crucial. With the weekly blogging phase of our course, students are getting timely and thorough responses to their thinking.

It would be tough to match the real-world skills -- especially around technology, digital storytelling and collaboration -- that students glean from WtS. However, last year, once we broke off into our separate groups, honest, effective, individualized and documented feedback seemed to wane. While I absolutely love that this course is about the learning and not the grade, we want to make sure that the rigor, quality and quantity of work matches that of the traditional classrooms from which some of these students are now absent. I don't have an immediate answer to this question, but I would like to continue to think about ways that we can separately report out on both students' progress with work habits (timelines, responsibility, active engagement, commitment, etc.) and their products. Ideally, we would do this in one comprehensive, effective document that is transparent, honest and collaborative. 

Much in the way that our new blog space streamlined students' work and brought all the personalized thinking into one dynamic yet cozy platform, it would be great if students could track their progress in one spot and if mentors had a way of contributing to this feedback.

Erik Remsen's Opening Volley

Hi all. My name is Erik Remsen. From 2008 to 2016, I taught social studies and helped to oversee the Global Studies concentration at Rutland High School. I am now a stay-at-home dad, but I have not completely left the field of education. I am part of the ACSU Community Partnership Council and, because I strongly believe in student voice and choice in learning, I was eager to sign on as a mentor with What's the Story VT. I am excited to watch how students shape their own learning as they design and carry out their projects this year.

The highlights of my summer include hiking and camping with my 3 1/2 and 2 year old daughters, Kaisa and Maëlle.

  

Brad Blanchette's Opening Volley

Several years ago, I retired from teaching English at Colchester High School. I taught for over thirty years, most of which were in the same room. You can imagine that leaving students was difficult, especially when I could barely remember who I was before I became a teacher.

How do I spend my time now? Well, for six months I live with my partner, Tim, on the Lake in North Hero, and the other six, in Hinesburg. I travel hardly at all. I read somewhat obsessively. I love my dog, Tadpole, more than I should. (So would you; just look at him!)

I will admit that I have never quite shaken the feeling that something is a little missing in my life since I stopped working with young people. To that end, I look forward to my role on the WtS team and to meeting students who have something to say about the world and how to make it better.

Why would my best summer memory be the time I fell asleep in my zero gravity chair while fifteen or so of my neighbors in North Hero were next to me practicing yoga? Instead of feeling ashamed of myself as I awoke around the same time they were emerging from their bliss state, I felt proud of myself. This can't reveal anything good about me, but there you have it.

Courtney Krahn's Opening Volley

• My name is Courtney Krahn, and I teach English at Middlebury Union Middle School.  I'm a mentor on our WtS? team.  I am most excited about working with students to develop meaningful relationships and pursue important issues. 
• Highlights from my summer included taking a yoga class, eating all the delicious Vermont summer foods, accomplishing projects such as pressure washing our decks, lots of reading, and spending lazy stretches of time with friends and family.  One of the best moments of summer was jumping off a colleague's sailboat into Lake Champlain on a hot July afternoon.