Enduring Approaches to Student-Led Learning

In my teaching career, I was fortunate to spend time in lower, middle, and upper school classrooms. I guess I’m drawn to change, young adult novels, and loud bus rides because most of those years were with sixth through eighth graders. I appreciated the opportunity to observe agency across students, often the same students, as they navigated growth from elementary to high school. And I took note: a lot shifted in content and curriculum, but the foundations for student agency stayed constant.

Given all the world has thrown at us in the last four years, and all the ways (much admired) teaching communities have flexed and adapted, I’m reflecting deeply on what endures in our middle school classrooms. I’m observing the systemic approaches–regardless of changing technologies, grade levels, and initiatives–that ensure our students grow as agents of their own learning. 

Prioritizing Belonging

The only starting point in students leading learning is establishing the conditions for belonging. “Students’ sense of belonging matters. It matters in promoting deeper learning and equity. It matters every day, in every classroom, in every school.” (Equity and Voice: How a Sense of Belonging Promotes Students’ Agency by Alison Lee and Meg Riordan) Cultivating belonging sets the conditions for students to feel safe enough to make choices, to take risks, and to drive next steps. And when students are taking those actions, belonging becomes self-sustaining; students themselves partner in fueling belonging-rich spaces. As educators, this means invitational spaces and intentional design: From participation, discussion, and collaboration norms to modeling vulnerability, building trust, and deepening self-reflection.

Moving Beyond ChoiceChoice boards and student selected topics are pedagogical moves with merit. And without the scaffolding of enduring systems, they become mere choices and not developed agency. In “Part 1: What Do You Mean When You Say ‘Student Agency?’”,

Jennifer Davis Poon shares three lastling components that shift students into the role of learning co-designers and not just choice-makers: Agency-empowered students set learning goals, initiate action towards those goals, and reflect on progress towards goals. Agency begins with students knowing their learning targets deeply and in having an active role in how they achieve them. As educators, we’re called to articulate meaningful skills with clarity, to plan for personalized learning pathways, and to develop valuable feedback ecosystems that invite students to tell their learning stories.

Embracing the Complexity

When we’re clear on what student-led learning is, we gain clarity on what it’s not. And it’s not tidy. It’s not one-size-fits-all. It doesn’t follow a linear trajectory. And it’s definitely not a checklist. It’s ongoing opportunities to converse, to seek student perspectives, to design, and to reflect. “[Agency] is a multi-faceted skill and disposition—invoking past, present, and future. It is students’ abilities to set advantageous goals, initiate action toward those goals, and reflect and redirect based on feedback, all the while internalizing the belief they can have agency” (Davis Poon).  Designing for agency is perhaps the most important work we do in our middle schools. It is disruption and change resistant. It is a lens to leverage and respond to innovations–like AI–for what really matters. It is complex work, and it is valuable work. 

Dr. Anindya Kundu defines agency as “a person’s capacity to leverage resources to create positive change in their lives.” Intentional, foundational moves to design for belonging, cultivate enduring systems, and embrace the complexity of human-centered approaches support our middle school students in growing as changemakers in an ever shifting world. And for middle school educators, wise people already used to being consistent in the midst of change (and keeping our senses of humor in the midst of loud bus rides), there’s no better time to nurture agency rich environments that ensure our students thrive.

Becky Green loves that she gets to learn from students and educators around the world as the Associate Director of Professional Learning with the Global Online Academy (GOA). Since 2016 she has coached, facilitated, designed, and led across their professional learning and student programs. But first and foremost, Becky is a middle school teacher having spent two decades in international and public school classrooms. 

She cares deeply about ensuring students thrive beyond school walls, and whether it’s supporting transitions to competency-based learning, partnering purposefully with AI, facilitating portrait of a graduate processes, or reimagining learning design, Becky prioritizes joyful, relational, student-centered experiences. 

Introduction: Getting on the MBE Pathway

What makes a teacher adjust or transform their instructional design and work with students when introduced to the most promising research and strategies in the science of how the brain learns? 

Since our founding in 2011, The CTTL has been pondering this question with 100% of our Preschool through 12th-grade colleagues at St. Andrew’s, as well as teachers and school leaders from around the world. From my own experience as a history teacher, I can point to many teaching and learning strategies that I am using today that I was not using in 1991 when I began my career in Spokane, Washington.

Back then, I used to think that I teach…  and the students learn. That was my educational philosophy. My job was to teach topics such as the colonization of the already populated New World, the causes of wars and revolutions, and the expansion of Enlightenment ideas across national borders. I certainly did not understand the complexity of the organ of learning – the brain – that each student undoubtedly has with them each day. Nor did I understand the connection between emotion and cognition or how identity – mine and theirs – impacts teaching and learning. 

What changed for me was learning about how the brain learns, which began when St. Andrew’s decided to train every one of its teachers in Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) science, starting in 2007. Along our journey we have been helped by many great friends from academia. The late, great Kurt Fischer, and others, including Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, David Daniel, Mariale Hardiman, Rob Coe, Pooja Agarwal, Dan Willingham, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, Mark McDaniel, Pedro De Bruyckere, Pamela Cantor, Dylan Wiliam, and Christina Hinton, and many more, have helped us understand this transdisciplinary field that includes neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, and education research. Our work to make research principles come to life in classrooms and schools has been supported by giants, and we are forever grateful for their friendship and support.

But let’s go back to 2008 – before The CTTL was even an idea. At a Learning and the Brain Conference in Boston, I sat in the audience, confused and a bit angry: “Why have I never been taught the promising principles, research, and strategies that are being shared here?” To be the most effective teacher for all of my students, I need to know my history content well, but I also need to know how to set the right conditions for learning, use the right memory strategies to make learning stick, and how best to assess, provide high-quality feedback, set purposeful homework, and foster student agency and independence. There seemed to be so many places in my daily work with students that could be made better – if only I could find ways to get this Learning, Brain, Research “stuff” to work for me. The chasm between research and everyday practice seemed wide and difficult to cross.

In the ten-year history of The CTTL, we have had the privilege to work with individual teachers, schools, and districts who also recognized the research in the science of teaching and learning as one of the most important solutions to elevate student achievement, close student learning gaps, and support student well-being. This has become even more true after COVID – and elevating teacher practice through the highest quality professional development is the best solution we have. But we teachers can be stubborn and hold fast to what we think is working or what feels comfortable. Change is hard. Change at scale? Harder still. But surely every child deserves a teacher who has an accurate understanding of how learning happens?

The mission of St. Andrew’s is “To know and inspire each student in an inclusive community dedicated to exceptional teaching, learning, and service.” From our school’s founding in 1978, we have held fast to the research-supported idea that great teachers really matter. In the words of David Steiner, head of the Institute of Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University, “The strongest education research finding in the last twenty years is that the quality of a teacher is the single greatest in-school determinate of student outcomes.” The CTTL is a driver for great teaching.

We have invested a lot of time collectively growing our teacher’s knowledge and research-to-classroom translation skills. We have developed many tools to support their MBE journey, like the MBE Placemats and Roadmap, Neuroteach Global, and our Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy. We help teachers build a broad MBE knowledge and skillset, but also give them autonomy to choose their own adventure – deepening their practice with those MBE principles that may have the greatest impact with the classes they teach, the departments they are in, and the students they work with in classrooms, clubs, studios, and on the stages and sports fields.

But where does the MBE journey start? As the CTTL team presents around the world, we often use this graph from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child. It tells a story of what might be the most important concept from neuroscience that we can use to transform teaching and learning: neuroplasticity. Schools and their teachers have the unique privilege to be working with students when their brains are experiencing some of the greatest change. The good news about neuroplasticity is that it also means the teacher-brain can change. The idea that the brain is “set” at roughly eighteen years of age is a neuromyth. 

I am 54 years old as I write this, and the vertical line provides some indication of the effort I will need to change my brain. It is more effort than for my students—but I can change my brain. This is one reason why most one-and-done professional learning experiences lead to little change in how teachers teach and how their students learn. What ultimately got teachers like me to change our practice was finding promising insights from research that could: (1) enhance our effectiveness with all the learners we work with; (2) enhance student academic, social, and emotional outcomes; and (3) enhance our efficiency. It also helps that we use research on how to change teachers’ practice, like Thomas Guskey’s model for teacher change, and the work of David Weston’s work at the Teacher Development Trust. The CTTL’s work with educators around the world uses the science of teaching and learning to teach the science of teaching and learning.

Meg Lee, the Director of Organizational Development in Frederick County Public Schools, Maryland (FCPS) and a contributor to this volume of Think Differently and Deeply, proclaimed about MBE, “Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.” The role of The CTTL for 100% of our St. Andrew’s preschool through 12th-grade teachers and school leaders, our colleagues, is to get them to see MBE. To see how it can touch every aspect of what they do at school, and to help make it so “everyday-useful” that they never think to unsee it. Whether they are early in their career or elevating their already excellent practice, the CTTL provides our colleagues a pathway of sustained professional growth – all focused on making our classrooms, hallways, stages, and sports fields an even better experience for our students. The importance of having the whole community of teachers and leaders in a school understand the science of how the brain (both student and adult) learns, works, changes, and thrives cannot be emphasized enough. The brain is the organ of learning and will remain so, whatever future technologies, including AI and those we have yet to imagine, bring.

My pathway to becoming MBE research-informed will not be yours; my school’s journey will not be yours. But many threads of this journey will be the same. The translation of research into everyday practice, and the extent to which it works or doesn’t, is very context-dependent. This is the joy and the challenge of the work – committed educators playing with the art and science of educating, making it work for them, with their students, in their community. Mind, Brain, and Education science offers many different paths, and we can choose these to align with a teacher, division, department, school, or district’s strategic priorities. What will be your first step, or next step, on your MBE pathway?


Glenn Whitman (gwhitman@saes.org) is the Executive Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew’s where he also teaches history.

Motivation is the Key to Lifelong Learning

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said. How true! 

We are quick to identify the teacher as the single most important factor in learning, and this makes sense (and is backed by research), but how good can a teacher be, or be expected to be, if the student is not motivated to learn in the first place? Of course, a truly remarkable teacher will be able to turn a student around completely, taking them from disinterested to engaged, bored to curious, and apathetic to passionate, but these are rare cases and require exceptional circumstances and specific chemistry between the learner and the teacher. 

If examination results are bad, or grade averages are low, if attainment falls by the wayside, will administrators get away by telling their boards that the students didn’t do any work, that they didn’t study hard enough? Probably not. And wanting to blame students, or teachers for that matter, for underperformance is not a very productive way of going about the analysis of achievement. 

And yet, a truism remains and sometimes we need to be reminded of it. If you are genuinely motivated to learn something, you will learn it. When we want to find out something or appropriate some new skill, learn how to cook a meal or repair a bicycle tyre, we go online and learn about it through a tutorial. That’s how most people learn low-level procedural knowledge today. If there’s a real appetite to know something, all that is necessary is the source material to access the knowledge. 

The point is important when we turn inwards and ask what motivates us, what we want to achieve, where we really want to go and why. This is where inner resources, lifelong learning, and motivation become the most important drivers. It is also why education is not just the transmission of knowledge but the activation of the necessary self-awareness and intrinsic motivation to learn, and to carry on learning after school. 

Students at University of the People choose to learn online with us because they are lifelong learners—because they want to break out of their present situations to new planes of thought and opportunity through education. This is an extremely powerful vector that propels learning to great heights. 

So next time you find yourself bored by someone or not engaged, reflect on the part you must play in that exchange, that it cannot just come from the emission of knowledge or skills but has a lot to do with your own readiness to learn, your own attitude, your own motivation. 

Conrad Hughes (PhD, EdD) is the Director General of the International School of Geneva (Ecolint). He is also a Senior Fellow at UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, a member of the advisory board for the University of the People and research assistant at the University of Geneva’s department of psychology and education. 

Conrad’s most recent books are Education and Elitism: Challenges and Opportunities (2021, Routledge), Understanding Prejudice and Education: The Challenge for Future Generations (2017, Routledge) and Educating for the 21st Century: Seven Global Challenges (2018, Brill). 

You can learn more about Conrad’s work at his website, Conrad-Hughes.com

Just Emotion, or a Mental Health Issue?

We’ve Done Awareness – The Future of the Mental Health Conversation is Greater Specificity

When working with pupils aged ten to fourteen, one of the first questions I ask them is how they would know if a friend had good mental health. This question tends to give them pause. They’ve generally had lessons, by this stage, about mental illness. They have a range of vocabulary to describe various states of poor mental health and know about symptom spotting. But positive mental health? Generally, they’ve had fewer occasions to think about that.

What invariably happens is that eventually one of the class raises their hand and gives the answer: ‘They’d be smiling and/or happy’. 

This is a great opportunity for me to explain two things. The first is that it is a mistake to conflate good mental health with constant happiness. As human beings, we experience a range of emotions and not all of them are pleasant. Sadness, anger, nervousness, stress, guilt, shame – they’re all part of life’s tapestry and entirely normal. 

The second is that, counter-intuitive as it may sound, a person appearing to be happy all the time is potentially a symptom of mental health struggles. Some people put on a mask to avoid confronting the reality of anxiety, depression or suicidal ideation with their friends and colleagues. 

For me, a person can be described as being in a state of good mental health if they have the ability to do the following four things:

  1. Sit with emotion

We live in a world where there are hundreds of things we can use to distract ourselves. We’ve trained our brains to chase the temporary highs we get from junk like caffeine, sugar and likes on social media. All of these can be a distraction from what we’re really feeling and, in the moment, preferable to confronting our pain.

But negative emotions like the ones listed above don’t simply go away if you ignore them. They demand to be worked through. By distracting ourselves, we ensure that they will come out at another time, probably when it’s less appropriate (for example, shouting at someone who doesn’t deserve it, or having a panic attack out of the blue). 

  1. Recognise when the emotion has become ‘too big’ to handle alone

Sometimes, we need help in order to work through a life event or a complex response. Recognising when we are at that stage and when we need to reach out for help is key. 

  1. Learn from the Experience

Ultimately, the reason we have emotions that don’t feel pleasant is because it’s our body’s attempt to teach us a lesson. Sometimes, this isn’t possible – the reasons we feel sad or angry are completely outside of our control. A bereavement, for example. Other times, though – and this is particularly true where guilt and shame are concerned – there is a learning opportunity. We can ask ourselves ‘how will I amend my attitude or behaviour so I can avoid feeling this way again?’ 

  1. Move on in a Timely Fashion 

Learning from the unpleasant experience is part of processing, which ultimately allows us to move forward and prevent dwelling. 

I see my job – which involves visiting schools and colleges throughout the world delivering workshops and conducting research on issues related to mental wellbeing – as giving young people the tools they need to achieve these four things, where possible. I also hope the interactions we have allow them to make vital distinctions between difficult or challenging emotions and mental health issues that require professional support. 

Here in the UK, the years 2010 to 2020 were ones of intense awareness-raising around mental health by charities and in media. Successive governments promised (but ultimately failed to deliver) ‘parity of esteem’ between physical and mental health – i.e. mental health issues should be treated with the same urgency and be given the same resources as their physical counterparts. 

Unfortunately, this period coincided with the decision to impose austerity measures which meant mental health services were stripped back in most communities. This ultimately led to a ‘bottle necking’ effect, whereby everyone was talking about their mental health more but, unless they had the necessary wealth to access private care, they were unable to get support. 

It also led to an unhelpful conflation of different phenomena. After all, mental health is an enormous umbrella term which can cover a huge range of issues – just as ‘physical health’ can apply to anything from a stubbed toe to cancer. Teachers began reporting that their pupils were refusing to do homework or exams because, they said, it negatively impacted their mental health. What they meant, usually, was that the prospect made them anxious. Without help from a qualified professional, however, there was no real way to tell whether this was symptomatic of an anxiety disorder or just the normal, everyday stress, which most people experience. 

That is not to say that the latter doesn’t require attention. It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to start wanging on about ‘resilience’ at this point and to label young people a generation of ‘snowflakes’ (which was, irritatingly, the path chosen by several prominent figures in our media). Children and teenagers need help to navigate so many unfamiliar experiences; whether that be advice, access to a creative or physical hobby which helps them work through gnarly emotions, or a community of people who share common interests. It is simply that not every challenge requires clinical intervention. 

The future of the mental health conversation, I have believed for some time now, is one of greater specificity. After all, if I said I was having ‘problems with my physical health’ it would be ludicrous for me to expect the person on the receiving end to understand precisely what I meant by that, or how they could help. The same principle applies, here. 

As educators or those with responsibility for young people, we can begin by seeing mental health disclosures as an opportunity for further investigation: As the beginning of a journey, rather than its end. 

Natasha Devon MBE is a writer, activist and broadcaster. She tours schools and events throughout the UK and beyond, delivering talks and conducting research on mental health, body image, gender & equality. She presents on LBC (one of Britain’s most popular speech radio stations) every Saturday and writes regularly for newspapers and magazines, as well as appearing on television. She has a monthly column in Teach Secondary magazine.

Natasha is a Fellow of The University of Wales: Aberystwyth. She is an ambassador for charities Glitch UK and The Reading Agency, as well as a patron for No Panic. She is a certified instructor for Mental Health First Aid England and eating disorder charity Beat.

She has written non-fiction titles ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z’ for adults and ‘Yes You Can: Ace School Without Losing Your Mind’ and ‘Clicks: How to Be Your Best Self Online’ for young people aged 12+. Her debut YA novel ‘Toxic’ was published in July 2022 and is about coercive control in friendship. The sequel ‘Babushka’ was published on 5th October 2023.

Find out more at www.natashadevon.com.

Empower Families: Three Digital Wellness Talking Points

Patrick Green

In the theatrical production of a child’s life, teachers play multiple roles. Sometimes they are orchestrating from their classroom stages, but most often, they are in the wings: savvy coaches, expert facilitators, and wise counsel. At home, parents and caregivers look to teachers not just for academic guidance but for support on the broader journey of nurturing thriving individuals. 

Parent-teacher conferences are one helpful occasion where teachers can extend their role beyond the classroom, offering concrete strategies for support and relationship building. While teachers have the privilege of engaging with a hundred students (or more!) in a year, parents are focused on the most important one in their lives. In the modern era, digital technology adds a layer of complexity to parenting that educators and parents are navigating together. Just as there isn’t a comprehensive manual for parenting, there isn’t one for the ever-evolving landscape of digital devices either. 

These three talking points offer teachers pathways for empowering families to take control of their digital wellness. And in turn, they offer teachers prompts for in-class conversation that reinforce healthy habits from home:

1. Keep Bedrooms Device Free

In the realm of digital wellness, the sanctity of sleep takes center stage. Teachers and caregivers alike understand that adequate sleep forms the foundation of a child’s well-being and academic performance. Quality of sleep impacts mental health, physical health, and brain function (UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent, 2023).

  • Remove Devices from Bedrooms: Just having a screen nearby can be a disruptor for needed rest. One out of three teens wakes up and checks their phone at least once a night (Common Sense Media, 2019). Switching to an alarm clock is a simple move for deeper sleep and greater health.
  • Set a Device Curfew: At least an hour before sleep, impose a family-wide device curfew. This practice fosters relaxation and signals the brain that it’s time to wind down.
  • Create a Family Charging Station: In a public location in the home, create a centralized charging station to avoid the temptation of late-night scrolling.

2. Bring on the Boundaries

Screen time often means learning time, creating time, and much-needed relaxation time. And, like all activities, it requires a balanced approach. A few boundaries can go a long way in nurturing human connection and healthy development (The US Surgeon General’s Advisory, 2023).

  • Keep Mealtimes Device Free: When all family members set their devices at the charging station during dinner, a doorway is open for connection and community. Replace scrolling with simple check-in routines: What was your win today? Frustration? Learning? 
  • Choose Eye Contact Over Screens: Model setting your screens down to listen, respond, and look people in the eye. It’s all too easy to keep reading the news when asked a question, but every interaction with our children is a bid to connect. Practice connecting eye to eye.
  • Decide Your Family’s When and Wheres: Where are screen-free zones in your home? During movies? Family games? Afternoon snack? Make it clear when phones will be put away. And the why for these boundaries is strong. Adolescents often feel social pressure to be constantly connected (Weinstein & James, 2022, Chapter 3). Boundaries for availability lead to healthier digital device habits and healthier young people. 

3. Look at the Data

In a world where data shapes decisions, screen time tracking emerges as a valuable tool. It’s not just about accountability; it’s about inviting informed conversations that generate reflection, conversation, and healthy shifts.

  • Activate Screen Time Tracking: Involve all family members in using a screen time tracking app. Both iPhones and Android phones have this functionality built-in (look for Screentime on iOS or Digital Wellbeing and parental controls on Android).
  • Foster Collaborative Conversations: Once everyone is tracking their screen time usage, you have fodder for open discussions on how everyone in a home is using their phones. Guess where you think you’re spending the most time and reveal what the numbers say. 
  • Set Goals Together: What story is the data telling you? Where would you like to spend less time or shift time? What do you notice are your biggest time wasters? Tracking apps are inspiration for goals, next steps, and family challenges. They ensure everyone (parents too!) is working on boundaries and is empowered to actively participate in managing their screen time.

Teachers don’t just educate; they guide, support, and coach. In the realm of digital wellness, teachers can play a pivotal role in offering concrete strategies. Parent-teacher conferences are one opportunity for educators to step out of the classroom and into the larger landscape of a child’s life. By addressing the essential talking points of device-free bedrooms, balanced screen habits, and data-driven discussions, caregivers can be equipped with the tools they need to foster a digitally mindful and balanced family environment. 

References

Robb, M. B. (2019). The New Normal: Parents, Teens, Screens, and Sleep in the United States. Common Sense Media. Retrieved August 31, 2023, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2019-new-normal-parents-teens-screens-and-sleep-united-states-report.pdf

Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The US Surgeon General’s Advisory. (2023, May 23). HHS.gov. Retrieved August 31, 2023, from https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf

Weinstein, E., & James, C. (2022). Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing (and Adults Are Missing). MIT Press.

What the Science Tells Us About Adolescent Sleep | Center for the Developing Adolescent. (n.d.). UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent. Retrieved August 31, 2023, from https://developingadolescent.semel.ucla.edu/topics/item/science-of-adolescent-sleep

About the Author: Patrick Green is the author of “50 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom” and co-author of  “Classroom Management in the Digital Age.” As a  technology leader in schools for over 15 years, Patrick supports countless parents and teachers as they navigate the questions and challenges that come along with digital technologies in school and the home. Patrick regularly speaks with parents about strategies to help their children thrive in our complex digitally-connected world and develop a healthy relationship with technology.  A YouTube Star Teacher, Google Certified Innovator, and Apple Distinguished Educator, you can follow how work, school, parenting, and play blend for Patrick at @pgreensoup on Twitter and Instagram and can visit his website at WinningScreentime.com

There is an “I” in Team 

Jennifer Abrams

Over the last decade my focus in my consulting work has been around adult to adult communication in schools. How do we stretch ourselves at our learning edges to become our best adult selves at school? How do we communicate well with one another in service of our students?  This article series will focus on how we can stretch ourselves around five essential areas of professional behavior: knowing ourselves, suspending certainty, taking responsibility for our interactions, engaging in reciprocity, and building resiliency.

One may notice that stretching ourselves is what we have been doing now for months and actually years. Educators worldwide have dealt with COVID, wars in many different regions and a variety of climate change crises. We fear asking anymore of anyone. It is at this most challenging time that building our adult to adult communication skills is even more critical. Yes, the demands are ever increasing. We still have within ourselves an ability to act in ways that align with the goal of having our schools be humane and respectful places to work.  

Our ability to collaborate and our willingness to engage respectfully with one another matters for the health of the school and the collective well-being of all within it. We can and must intentionally ask ourselves how to live respectfully even in the midst of the challenges we are facing.

Cambridge Dictionary says ‘Reciprocity’ is “behavior in which two people or groups of people give each other help and advantages; a situation in which two groups agree to help each other by behaving in the same way or by giving each other similar advantages.”  We need to think about our work in schools including this type of behavior with the other adults as part of one’s everyday work responsibility. It isn’t just doing one’s tasks or role; it isn’t just doing “one’s job” or going into one’s classroom and working with students; it is also to be a value add to the other adults in the school.
 
Engaging In Reciprocity

WHAT IS IT?WHY DOES IT MATTER?WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
Willingly moving oneself from isolation and separateness to a connection to and concern for community.Honoring individual team members and valuing each person’s gifts and contributions to the community is critical for a workplace that is grounded in a shared future.Demonstrating a belief in the worth and dignity of all individuals with whom one works by modeling supportive and productive team behaviors: active listening, thoughtful questioning, offering supportive suggestions, using verbal and nonverbal behaviors that exhibit respect, and more.

Adapted from Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work – Jennifer Abrams, 2021, MiraVia Publishing (www.miravia.education).
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Things you can consider as you work to engage more effectively as a collaborative team member:

Do Inner Work To Contribute To The Whole
Being an effective team member requires us to be mindful of our body language and non-verbals, build our skills to do active listening, asking questions that others want to answer, learning how to apologize, and allow space for all voices to be heard. We all must do the inner work and manage emotions and energy and do the outer work of being mindful of our body language and choosing respectful wording.

Learn To Effectively Work With Cognitive Conflict
When we are stressed, we often don’t engage in challenging conversations in the best of ways. As Timothy J. Clark states in The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation (2020), a team needs to work with more intellectual friction and less social friction. Building your ability to discuss issues rather than individuals is key to staying cognitive in your conversations.

Be 100% Responsible For Your Responses
You are 100% responsible for how you respond to others and that includes how you ask questions, how you share disappointments, and how you share concerns. Asking, “How might I communicate my perspective humanely in a kind, supportive, and non-aggressive manner?” is a question we all need to be asking ourselves.

Understand “We Influence I” And “I Influences We”
The old adage often repeated in schools is that there is no “I” in team. That’s a myth. Individuals matter. When recognized and valued, individual points of views and diverse ways of seeing the world contribute greatly to the fabric of the collective and the shared future of a school. And the group as a collective also needs to be seen as a value-add to each team member’s work.

Honor Others’ Dignity
Mutual respect is something we live out loud. Engaging in reciprocity means we show others that we believe in their worth as human beings and we honor one another and what we each bring to the table. We need to create environments in which everyone is acknowledged, feels a sense of belonging, and is treated justly.

As we work on engaging as our best adult selves, we need to consistently focus not just on the content of our meetings with others but also on how we are doing in our interactions. We can ask:

  • Do I know where my strengths and weaknesses as a group member are and do I work to address my weaknesses?
  • Do I monitor my behavior in a team meeting so I am a value add to the meeting and not contributing to any social friction?
  • Recognizing that cognitive conflict and intellectual friction can help a group move forward, do I monitor my behavior so I am not contributing to any unnecessary social friction?
  • Do I understand that group structures, norms, and protocols which support cognitive and psychologically safe discussions, and do I willingly participate in those protocols with awareness and skill?

Our students look to us to see what being an adult looks like. Let’s model for them being our best adult selves.

References
Abrams, Jennifer. Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work. (2021).
Clark, Timothy J. The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation. (2020)

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Formerly a high school English teacher and a new teacher coach, Jennifer Abrams is currently a communications consultant who focuses on adult to adult communication in schools. Her publications include Having Hard Conversations, The Multigenerational Workplace: Communicate, Collaborate and Create Community and Hard Conversations Unpacked – the Whos, Whens and What Ifs and Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives. Her newest book is, Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work.

Internationally, Jennifer presented at PTC, TTC, EARCOS, NESA, ECIS, AISA, AMISA, CEESA and Tri-Association conferences, and at schools across Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and North America. More about Jennifer’s work can be found at her website, www.jenniferabrams.com. Twitter: @jenniferabrams

This article was previously published on the The International Educator (TIE) website February 2, 2022.

All the World’s a Stage: Using Theater Techniques in the Classroom

Richard M. Cash, Ed.D.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, William Shakespeare) 

I was one of those students who wasn’t a top performer in reading or math. Physically, I wasn’t built for sports. So, my trajectory through junior and senior high school was to pursue the arts (music and theater). Going beyond high school, my options were limited to the arts. I am proud to say I achieved a bachelor’s degree in theater, with honors!

After years of suffering for my art, I decided I needed to change directions. I went back to school and earned a post-baccalaureate degree in education. I figured, where else was I going to get a captive audience!

Little did I know I would be relying heavily on my theater training. Theater teaches you how to be focused, solve problems, think critically and creatively, work as a team, and self-regulate to achieve a goal—many of the skills and attitudes we expect our students to develop in today’s classroom.

Using the techniques of theater in your classroom gives kids a safe place to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from others. Along with developing creativity, theatrical tools teach problem-solving, critical reasoning, and collaboration. Kids also learn risk-taking skills, affective resilience, nonverbal responsiveness, and social mindfulness.

Theater activities encourage students to think on their feet without the fear of being wrong, because the number one rule is “there are no mistakes, only opportunities.” Through using movement, pantomime, improvisation, role playing, and group discussion, students develop greater communication skills, social awareness, confidence, problem-solving abilities, and self-concept. The goal is to guide children to a greater sense of self-fulfillment and personal and social acceptance.

Actors have five tools they use to communicate: voice, body, imagination, concentration, and collaboration. Teaching students how to build their own toolbox of strategies can benefit them in learning and communication processes.

Voice: The ability to use your voice to be heard and understood
Articulation is critical in being heard and understood. All actors routinely go through diction practice. Our students must be articulate to project ideas and communicate effectively with others.

Start with simple practices such as: Sally sells seashells south of the seashore or Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Move on to more complex sound reproductions such as tongue twisters (repeated numerous times as fast as possible):

  • Unique New York
  • Red leather, yellow leather
  • She says she shall sew a sheet

And then move to more difficult and longer statements: She stood on the balcony, inexplicably mimicking him hiccuping, and amicably welcoming him home.

While working through these diction activities, have students concentrate on their breathing, being sure to breathe from their diaphragms. Focus on breathing deeply. Also pay attention to lip and tongue movement—really work those muscles.

For more diction strategies, click here.

Body: The ability to use your body to communicate messages
Actors use their bodies to project characters, emotions, and ideas. The use of the body in communication is extremely important—it’s called body language. Poor body language can communicate the wrong messages, whether in verbal or nonverbal interactions. To help students develop this language, start with basic physical stretches. Not only will stretching help your students loosen up, it can also release stress.

If you are into yoga, teach your students the poses. Or ask your physical education teacher to share with you stretches students do in gym class. You can also use the “shake and stretch” method. Starting at the top of the head:

  • Shake and stretch each body part individually.
  • Shake and stretch body parts in pairs (head and arms, shoulders and feet).
  • Shake and stretch up high and down low.
  • Shake and stretch wide and thin.
  • Shake and stretch fast and slow.
  • Shake and stretch without bending your knees or elbows.

Another fun way to warm up your body is to draw the alphabet with different body parts. Ask the students to use their nose to draw the letter B. Now, ask them to use their ear to draw the letter Z. And so on.

For more movement activities, click here.

Imagination: The ability to come up with different ideas
The best ideas are formed through an expansive imagination. Imagination is the ability to come up with novel and unique ideas through different ways of thinking. Creative thinking is one of the most powerful tools of imagination. The strategies of fluency and flexibility are a great place to begin.

Fluency is the ability to come up with a lot of ideas. To develop students’ fluency, start with simple steps such as asking them to list everything they can think of that is green within one minute (you can use any color you wish). Have them share their lists with a partner and compare and contrast the lists. Do it again with another color or shape. Routinely asking kids to do this simple activity can open up their minds to thinking more expansively. Wait for unique ideas to pop up—for example, the kid who writes envy when asked to list things that are green.

You can expand this idea to your content by asking kids to list things that are “independent,” or any other concept you are working on. You can also have your students draw pictures of what the concept looks like. Seeing what kids list or draw gives you an idea of how well they understand the concept.

Flexibility is the ability to think of things in a new way. I used to have a “junk bag” in my classroom full of strange and common objects (like a wooden spoon, an electrical outlet cover, an extension cord). Look around your house or school for those odd-looking objects to put in your junk bag. Using one of the objects, ask kids to think of the item as something that it’s NOT. So, for the wooden spoon, kids may say it’s a microphone, a baton, a sword, a magic wand, and so on. Being a flexible thinker helps in finding unconventional ways to solve problems by using what is available.

For more ideas on building imagination, click here. I also have many more ideas for developing creative thinking in my book Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century.

Concentration: The ability to stay focused
Our students are being raised in a very concentration-challenged environment. With technology, everything is at their fingertips immediately—there is no need to persevere or wait. While technology has made our lives more efficient, its downside is that it has made us want instant gratification and has decreased our ability to concentrate for long periods of time.

Concentration is a learned skill, and you can teach kids to stay focused through engaging activities. To build concentration, find a time during your day for kids to go “off the grid”—no gadgets, tablets, phones, or computers. During this time, go old-school: Use thinking or memory games or crossword or jigsaw puzzles, or have students put a list of words into alphabetical order (use similar words such as adjustments and adjusting so that kids alphabetize beyond the first few letters).

Also have your kids put their heads down on their desks. Tell them to sit up when they think one minute has passed. Monitor your kids, listing when kids sat up and how close they came to one minute. Practice this activity over time to see how close kids can come to the one-minute time.

For more ideas for building concentration, click here.

Collaboration: The ability to work with others to get things done
We are all in this together. The best ideas come when people work together. No actor does it alone—even in a one-person show. Many people contribute to the production. Each person has a role to play in making the show a success. So, too, in the classroom. When students work together with purpose, great things can happen. Working collaboratively takes practice. Just like in a Broadway musical, everyone has a role to play to make the production a success.

One activity that can build collaboration and teamwork is having small groups of students go on a scavenger hunt. Have your students look for things hidden around the classroom or school. Use a list of clues that lead to more clues and ultimately to hidden objects. Consider using information students learned during lessons to help them find the items. (For example, your clue might be, “The date of the Boston Tea Party.” The answer to this is 12/16/1773, which can lead kids to room 1216 or 1773, where the next clue is located.) Group the students based on each having a special talent or a different area of knowledge—so that collectively they can find the objects. Another idea is to give each member of the team a specific job to do—so that collectively they can find the object.

For more ideas on building collaboration and teamwork, click here.

Knowing how actors learn, practice, and apply their skills can be an exceptional way to help students be more confident, self-aware, and productive. Who knows, maybe you will spark the next Viola Davis, Dame Maggie Smith, Sidney Poitier, or Sir Lawrence Olivier!

Dr. Richard M. Cash is an award-winning educator and author best known for his work in differentiation and advanced learners. Over his 3-plus decades in education, his experiences include teaching, curriculum coordination, and program administration. Prior to his education career, Richard was an actor and children’s theater director. Currently, he is a widely respected education consultant with nRich Educational Consulting, Inc. (www.nrichconsulting.com). His consulting work has taken him throughout the United States, and internationally.

His areas of expertise are educational programming, rigorous and challenging curriculum design, differentiated instruction, 21st century skills, brain-compatible classrooms, gifted & talented education, and self-regulated learning. Dr. Cash has authored books on differentiation, gifted learners, and self-regulation for learning.


Dr. Cash may be reached at: www.nrichconsulting.comC:\Users\Dr.RichardM\Desktop\nRich-logo-print.tifrichard@nrichconsulting.com

1-612-670-0278

The Magic of Co-Written Intercultural School Musicals and 10 Tips to make them Impactful

Estelle Baroung Hughes

I have co-written three intercultural plays that were performed by elementary, middle and high school students, teachers, parents, school leaders and board members. Once I started writing the first of these musicals for the connection of a whole school community and the development of intercultural understanding, I had  to continue year after year.

Here is how it happened.

My first international education job was in India. I landed in Mumbai during the Monsoon. Before that, I had only known Cameroon, Congo and France. I saw the Maharashtrian Ghats exploding with green and waterfalls, I became immersed in the then recent Bollywood musicals Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai (yes, it was a while ago!). Serenading my senses with a thousand colorful saris and expertly mixed spices, India entered my life with a bang. A lot of us know how a first visit to India can shake and shape you.

Not too much later into that school year, as I was still feeling mesmerized by the newness of India to me, September 11th happened. The world stood still and contrasted voices of compassion and blame rose from the ashes of the fallen towers. The world was commencing a journey of division. How was I going to speak to that? How was I going to nurture beauty and foster Peace?

One part of me must have remained suspended in 2001, stuck between the magnificence of India and the unshakeable shock of the twin towers downfall. I left India in 2003 and have not yet returned; the India that I carry within me, no longer exists. Only the lessons learned there and the love for the place are still incontestably true. This is  what I have shared in  Ahimsa, a musical, inspired by the story of political non-violence in India and the plight of the exiled Kashmiri Pandits. 

Ahimsa is a co-writing adventure. The play was brought to life together with my husband Conrad and one of our former students Nandita Dinesh , playwright and Peace activist. It is difficult to describe the power of such a pilgrimage into the past, that brings you back to your youth in India through music and dance, that reconnects you with a former student who then becomes your co-creator. In this journey we recognise that art can foster peace, joy and critical thinking.

Ubuntu Letters, the very first play I wrote, is a musical exploring South African History and the concept of third culture kids. We follow Tumi, a South African student attending a European international school. His parents are diplomats whose current mission is ending. So the family will go home soon. Tumi is so anxious at the prospect of leaving Europe that one of his uncles starts writing to him about South Africa, its people, nature and history. Ubuntu Letters is a journey towards self-acceptance and cultural literacy. 

After the first draft of Ubuntu Letters, I allowed students to review my text to make it more relevant to their context, particularly the inside jokes.The play was performed three or four times. I could not get enough of seeing children from all over the globe singing anti-apartheid songs, toyi-toying (dancing defiantly against police brutality) and learning to Perform gumboot dance  under the guidance of a gifted South African artist. In my view, there is no better way to spark curiosity and develop cultural  literacy than to do it through body and movement. 

Return to Gaia, my third musical on America and Africa  explores the consequences of the enslavement of Africans in America, including the identity crisis of the main character Gaia who loses and finds herself again during her post high-school gap year trip in the Americas. For this musical, students helped put together simple but expressive choreographies that made the dances accessible to younger grades. From the energy of ‘Oye como va’ to the calm intensity of classic blues or old spirituals sung a-capella, students were often exploring unfamiliar music in Return to Gaia. This hopefully developed an appreciation for the cultures they were exploring.

I warmly recommend co-writing musicals and performing them as a community, focusing on intercultural themes to allow students to engage with new cultures playfully and lastingly. By intercultural learning I refer to the exploration of the space between cultures that is bridged by our common humanity. Memorising lines, embracing the emotion in the songs and repeating choreographies create new neural pathways where new cultural literacy (knowledge and understanding of other cultures) and intercultural skills can circulate. If well-conceived, intercultural musicals can become portals towards a stronger grasp of world history, world politics and multicultural art.

To conclude, here are 10 ways to work with musicals to support learning and connection in the school community. When you embark on the co-writing of an intercultural musical:

  1. Base your story on powerful personal, cultural and historical experiences that can help unveil the beauty of diversity, the  interconnectedness of humanity and our common human responsibilities.
  2. Integrate stories and perspectives that are relatable to your students and also to other stakeholders of the community. Empathy and relatability can contribute to intercultural understanding. 
  3. Open editing to students or co-write with them from the start. Centering student creativity, humor and register increases engagement and develops literacy and collaborative skills.
  4. Make it a community endeavor: have numerous characters of diverse backgrounds and generations; or work with a big choir and a band. This willnlead to including a bigger range of stakeholders. The audition process, for singing, dancing,  acting, stage crew work and co-directing should be open to students,  teachers, board members,  school leadership, maintanance… This is an opportunity to get the whole community together. This also means that the director needs to be supported by teachers and parents and organise the schedule intelligently.
  5. Turn your musical into an interdisciplinary project integrated in the curriculum. Visual Arts can do the props and backdrops, the music teachers can teach some of the songs (which warrants great moments of community singing during the performances), the PHE department can participate in the dance element. It is beautiful to work separately on a project then come together to see it performed in its entirety like a finished puzzle.
  6. Center the members of the community whose cultures are being featured in the play. Their input will help you avoid cultural blunders and essentialization. Cultural vetting and collaboration allow for safer and deeper incursions into new cultures and diverse mother tongues.
  7. Co-written intercultural plays can also evoke culturally sensitive topics. That is why it is important to be culturally sensitive and flexible enough to modify parts of the script in case of constructive feedback.
  1. Let there be space in the show for professional singers, artists and dancers from the celebrated cultures to show the pure cultural expression that the musical is evoking.The musical will therefore provide students with inspiration and rigorous artistic exemplars. However the professionals should not steal the students’ thunder; and anyone from the outside community working close to students should obviously be vetted and screened for child-protection.
  2. I recommend choosing existing music or musical styles that are representative of the places and times depicted in the musical as opposed to trying to write totally original songs. This is because one of the aims of intercultural musicals could be to discover and honor the musical cannon of the  featured cultures.
  3. An intercultural play can use language to extend the community’s cultural literacy. No need to limit the text to a single language. Involve translators if necessary to allow your performers to speak and sing in multiple relevant languages in the same play.

I am grateful to the International School of Geneva for featuring all my musicals and for giving them a powerful life of their own, in my presence or in absentia. Thank you also to students for their reflections on The Ubuntu Letters, on Ahimsa, may it be before the play or thereafter. For me, co-writing intercultural musicals has been a thing of beauty and a joy forever (John Keates).

A 3 Step Process to Foster Resilience & Empathy (6 minute read)

How does a disagreement that young people inevitably have with their friends relate to losing a basketball game or other sports match? Can they notice a connection from those two situations to a difficult assignment in one of their classes?

Is it too much of a stretch to connect all of those personal experiences to characters in their favorite TV series or literature? How does all of this relate to the lyrics in their favorite songs? Or living things in nature?

A common thread across these situations could be ‘resilience’ in the face of ‘setbacks.’ Imagine if more of our middle school students could independently draw out the lessons of each circumstance and apply those lessons to new situations.

For instance, a disagreement with friends could demonstrate that strong emotions are temporary. Unpleasant feelings will eventually fade. That idea could be comforting after a sports match loss.

And after both making up with their friends and winning a match, they could learn that struggles can make positive moments feel even better. And that the best things in life are worth putting in effort.

Those lessons can be applied to a challenging school assignment. They could then notice these principles in others such as characters in film and other stories. Imagine a young person making this connection while watching squirrels prepare for winter!

The best thing we can do for our students is teach them to become pattern seekers, especially in the area of self-management.

The rapid pace of change in our world today means that our young people will have to continue to learn and adapt long after they’ve left our schools (McGowen, n.d.). They need to be able to see patterns across different situations. They can’t give up easily. And they need to be able to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

We can use an empowering three step process to teach our young people how to become pattern seekers.

Step 1: Acquire understanding of transferable concepts.

Concepts are organizing ideas with distinct attributes that are shared across multiple examples. Put simply, they are words we use to organize and categorize our world. They are like mental file folders. They help our brains organize examples into meaningful groups based on shared attributes.

The beauty of concepts, as shown in the example of resilience and setbacks above, is that they point students and teachers alike to look past the superficial features of a situation and into the deeper structural features.

Step 2: Connect concepts in relationships.

Concepts alone, though, do not suffice to transfer our learning to new situations. The real driver of transfer is the ability to see the patterns of interaction among concepts. For instance, a resilient person must do more than just recognize a setback or a difficulty in a situation. They need to use their understanding of how setbacks make success taste sweeter in order to persevere and not give up. The mental “file folders” — concepts like setbacks and perseverance — need to be organized in relation to one another to create a conceptual framework in the expert’s mind (Donovan & Bransford, 2005).

Every field, hobby, or complex skill can be viewed through the lens of fundamental elements, called concepts, and the predictable ways those elements interact. Concepts and their connections are a critical link between prior learning and new situations.

See Figure 1 for the three simple steps to think about social-emotional learning.

Figure 1: The Learning Transfer Model-Stern, et. al, 2021

The most straightforward way to help students construct webs of meaning is to ask questions that prompt student attention to conceptual relationships. We can plug concepts into the following conceptual question stems to achieve that:

  • How are and _ connected?
  • What is the relationship between _ and _? 
  • How does impact/affect/influence ? 
  • What effect do and have on ? 
  • How do and interact? 
  • What is the role/purpose of  in ? 

We can use a cycle with two main components as a broad way to think about instructional design:

  • Teachers pose abstract questions about how concepts relate in order to call attention to the deeper structures of a situation.
  • Students explore a specific context – e.g. a personal difficult moment, witnessing a difficult moment that others experience, hearing about an injustice in the community, etc. – in which the concepts play a major role.

After students have a chance to explore a specific context and answer the conceptual question, the cycle should continue, allowing students to apply their understanding to increasingly dissimilar contexts. See Figure 2 for a visual of this cycle.

Figure 2: The Learning Transfer Cycle –Stern, Ferraro, & Mohnkern, 2017

Step 3:  Transfer learning to new situations.  

Consider the example in Figure 3 for social-emotional learning. Students are exploring the concepts of empathy and conflict. To begin, of course, teachers help students understand each concept on its own. They give students a quick definition of each concept and have students categorize a series of scenarios and images as representing either empathy or a lack of empathy. Students brainstorm as many types of conflict as they can and create a non-linguistic representation of what conflict means to them. These activities help direct students’ mental effort to the shared characteristics of empathy in new situations, which is essential for learning (McTighe & Willis, 2019).

Once students understand the meaning of each concept, the teacher poses a simple question about the relationship between them: How are empathy and conflict related? Then, students work through the learning transfer cycle to deepen their understanding of the concepts and understand how the concepts relate to each other.

How are empathy and conflict related?

Abstract conceptual questionContext for investigation
How can a lack of empathy lead to conflict?Students read a short story about a younger brother who always feels left out by his older siblings. Then they discuss the role a lack of empathy played in this sibling conflict.
How can conflict make it difficult to empathize with someone else?Students brainstorm instances in which they have had a conflict with someone else and write a journal entry about how the conflict made them feel. Then they discuss how the feelings associated with conflict – anger, frustration, resentment, sadness – can make it difficult to put yourself in another person’s shoes to practice empathy.
How can empathy help resolve a conflict?Students watch a video in which a girl overcomes a feeling of anger during a fight with her best friend by imagining things from her friend’s point of view.
How are empathy and conflict related?Students reflect on their learning through the previous three contexts and respond to the overall question of how empathy and conflict are related.

Notice that with each new book, video, or exercise, students are not only looking beyond the unfamiliar, superficial features to recognize the familiar, organizing concepts, they are using the unique features of the situation to explore the deeper patterns involved in the relationship between empathy and conflict in order to build a complex web of connections between the two ideas in their minds. This aids in both memory retention and in transfer of learning, as strong patterns in relationships allow predictions when confronting a new situation (McTighe & Willis, 2019).

The beauty of this cycle is that each new context also helps students strengthen their understanding of each concept individually. After investigating the relationship between empathy and conflict in these various iterations, students will have many examples of each concept in their respective mental file folders and can draw upon those examples when investigating the relationship between, say, conflict and peace, or empathy and resilience, down the road. And, just as important, each new context provides fertile ground to practice learning transfer.  

When we transfer, we must revisit our existing understanding and interrogate what we believe to be true. This means that we have to practice intellectual humility and admit when our prior understanding was partial or erroneous. Imagine a world where everyone practiced intellectual humility! This simple three-step process is a powerful force in our quest for more resilient and equitable schools and communities.

For further learning on this model, see Julie’s website and online courses. 

www.edtochangetheworld.com 

www.conceptualtransfer.com 

References: 

Donovan, S., & Bransford, J. (2005). How students learn. National Academies Press. 

McGowan, H. (n.d.). Sample frameworks. Heather E McGowan. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://heathermcgowan.com/sample-frameworks 

McTighe, J., & Willis, J. (2019). Upgrade your teaching: Understanding by design meets neuroscience. ASCD. 

Stern, J. H., Ferraro, K. F., Duncan, K., Aleo, T.,  (2021). Learning that transfers: Designing curriculum for a changing world. Corwin. 

Stern, J. H., Ferraro, K. F., Mohnkern, J. (2017). Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding: Designing lessons & assessments for deeper learning. Corwin. 

Julie Stern has two decades experience facilitating adult learning, and feels lucky to partner with educators to take their practice to the next level. She is passionate about synthesizing the best of education research into practical tools that support educators in breaking free of the industrial model of schooling and moving toward teaching and learning that promotes sustainability, equity, and well-being. She is a four-time, best-selling author of Learning that Transfers, Visible Learning for Social Studies, The On-Your-Feet-Guide to Learning Transfer and Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Elementary and Secondary. She is a certified trainer in Visible Learning Plus and Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction. She is a James Madison Constitutional Fellow and taught social studies for many years before serving as Director of Curriculum Innovation for a network of schools. Julie moves internationally every few years with her husband, a US diplomat, and her two children.

What it Really Takes to Be a Successful Middle School (3 min)

Support, connect, balance. When the ELMLE team selected these words as the theme of the 2023 conference, they certainly had no idea they would also so accurately summarize what we’ve learned from AMLE’s Successful Middle School programming during the 2021-2022 school year.

We’ve facilitated studies of The Successful Middle School: This We Believe to help schools understand middle grade best practices, conducted the Successful Middle School Assessment to help schools gauge their implementation of those practices, supported schools and districts through ongoing coaching and professional development, and recognized twelve schools as our inaugural Schools of Distinction for their robust implementation of those very practices. Although we already knew what makes a middle school “good,” we’ve learned a lot about what it actually takes to get there.

We’ve learned that successful middle schools foster a symbiotic relationship of support, empowerment, and collaboration among staff, students, and the community. When the upper administration trusts a school leader to do their job well, the school leader feels supported and empowered. If that school leader feels supported and empowered, they can trust their staff to do their jobs well, and the staff feel supported and empowered. If school staff feel supported and empowered, they can trust their students to do their job well, and students feel supported and empowered. If students feel supported and empowered, they take the success of a school far beyond the school’s walls, fostering trust and positive relationships between the school and their families and community. When families and the community feel connected to the school, they trust upper administration to do their job well. Support, connection, balance.

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We’ve learned that successful middle schools develop these relationships intentionally and meticulously. Although the following list is by no means exhaustive, it provides a few tangible practices and mindsets that we’ve seen them utilize to create favorable conditions for these relationships to grow.

  • Staff understand and appreciate their students, including a strong foundation of young adolescent development.
  • A clear vision unifies staff and guides every decision.
  • Policies and practices are developed collaboratively and are evaluated transparently to ensure they are unbiased, student-centered, and fairly implemented. Staff and students know they have a voice in the decisions that are made for their school and believe they are listened to.
  • Structures foster meaningful relationships for students and staff, such as small learning communities through interdisciplinary teaming and advocacy for each student through advisory.
  • The empowerment of staff extends beyond administrative and teaching staff to include support staff and those in other roles.
  • Professional development honors the existing expertise of each staff member while working toward goals in line with the school’s vision.
  • Students believe they have a voice–in their academic experiences, in how their school operates, and in their larger community–and they know adults will listen.
  • The school engages with the community so that students’ learning experiences have both real-world relevance and impact.
  • The school views families as equal partners with the school in the best interest of the students and ensures families have authentic opportunities to not just spectate but actually influence the life and work of the school.

We’ve learned that when staff, students, and families feel trusted and empowered as part of a collaborative school community, the vision and mission of The Successful Middle School truly comes to life. We look forward to sharing more of what we’ve learned with you at ELMLE in January!