New Blog Site

Abeo has been working to make it easy as possible to follow our work. To that end, we have migrated all our previous work here on blogger to our main website. Please continue to follow our work on twitter and at our new and improved blog. Please let us know how we can help your work for school change!

Rethinking Professional Development

In order to effectively change schools, to engage in true reform, and to put students first, the learning of educators must model this process and go through some changes. Education for children has gone through some serious structural changes, from competency based learning and online learning, to emphasis on 21^st century skills like collaboration and problem solving. Adult learning can and should mirror these structural changes, but in order for this to happen, there must be power given up by administrators to empower the teachers around them. John Stewart in a conversation with Melody Barnes spoke of this empowerment to change:

“Do you think ultimately we will find ourselves changing our entire model of education? I have always found with education that individuals are the ones that make the enormous difference, and the more that you're able to empower a great teacher, a great principal, a great superintendent, can make enormous differences. How do we empower the individual to have the authority and the responsibility to make those changes, and not tie them to arbitrary objective realities or goals?”

The big question is how can we use Professional Development to empower educators to better themselves? There are tools out there in professional development that can help with it. The key is protocols, structures, and inquiry. Instead of “workshops” on a regular basis, where it is mostly driven by the speaker, let’s allow for different structures. Workshops must still happen, but only when timely and needed. Not everything has to be workshop. If we want the instruction to be diverse in structure and discourse, then the same must be made for teachers so that they can internalize the practice, and most importantly be empowered to learn. 

We should be allowing time for teachers to collaborate on specific objectives, problems and issues. Teachers can be held accountable through a variety of products, from presentations to plans and briefings. If we are allowing for voice and choice in the way students present their learning, we should do the same for teaching. Teachers need to be allowed to delve into in depth inquiry of learning within the framework of the administration, but also related heavily to the practice. Instead of a workshop on culturally responsive teaching, have teachers create driving questions and investigations to explore and apply to their practice around the topic of culturally responsive teaching. When we start to broaden our scope of what professional development is, we can start to differentiate professional development for teachers, from whole school PD, to PLCs, to individual coaching. Allowing teachers to come to the table with their concerns, and then allowing them to explore solutions, we can empower teachers to be reflective and continue their growth.

When we talk about developing the practice of teachers, let’s stop using the word “training” and use the word “empower.” I know Abeo is committed to this model of PD, and all schools should embrace it in order to improve teacher and student achievement.

From Andrew Miller, Abeo New Media Innovations

Use Wordle to Unpack Standards

Sometimes standards can be a little cumbersome to look through. Complex in language and phrasing, standards take a lot of time to unpack. It is crucial that teachers take the time to unpack these standards, so that they understand what students really need to be able to do to meet standard and pass not only standardized assessments, but district and class assessments. Unpacking standards allow teachers to create aligned, rigorous assessments that show this learning.

Teachers need scaffolding in their professional learning just as much as students do in their learning. In our growing world of technology, Wordle is a great tool to create word clouds. I can help summarize articles, showing the most frequently used words, and more. I have seen many teachers use Worldle in their classrooms to help scaffold learning and create engagement, so why do the same for teachers?

Above, you will see a wordle, for a 5th grade common core standard. As per the normal setup of standards, the "main" or "power" standard is listed and then many sub standards are located beneath to help show all components of the power standard. From this wordle, we can see the variety of concepts that students need to understand, from being able to "interpret" to understanding "fractions." This can help teachers not only see connections in the concepts needed, but also unpack into specific targets. Just this simple tool can help teachers unpack standards, providing them with scafolding analyze the standard. Try using it with you staff!

From Andrew Miller, Abeo New Media Innovations

College Prepared Project

Want to learn more about the College Prepared Project and Abeo? Enjoy this Prezi!

The College Prepared Project on Prezi

From Chris Hoyos, Abeo School Change Partner

The Alignment of AIW and PBL

Last week’s blog from Chris and Harriette reminded me of the work I have done as a teacher as a both a practitioner of PBL and of AIW. Both AIW and PBL aim for the same goals and can align quite well. The four components of AIW were explained in the previous blog, although elaborated communication is explained a little more explicitly here. So how do the elements of AIW explained in the previous blog align to PBL?

Construction of Knowledge - When students create products for a PBL projects, they should not simply be regurgitation of knowledge in a new genre. PBL products are not low level performance assessments. Instead, PBL products demand that students innovate with the content being assessed. Instead of a podcast on World Religions, students would create a podcast to debunks myths and stereotypes of a specific world religion. They must grapple with the content to create something new with it.

Disciplined Inquiry - PBL is inquiry. Students are given the project up front, as well as a driving question to help focus and engage students in the inquiry. An entry event is utilized to spark the inquiry and get students excited. Students research, ask questions, interpret the information found for their project and critique. This in turn demands this process of inquiry continue until the project is completed. Students delve deep in the content by being a complex and engaging project to address.

Elaborated Communication - In PBL, both presentation and written communication on demanded as part of the assessments. Related to the last component of "Value Beyond School," PBL also demands presentation to an authentic audience. This might be in the form of pitch or defense, or could even be expository in nature. PBL leverages communication as critical  whether it is verbal or written.

Value Beyond School - This component is the crux to any good PBL project. The work that students do must have value. It must mean something beyond the classroom. When I visited High Tech High, a PBL school, one of the teachers told me that they never ask students to make something or do something that they would great rid of. They demand that their PBL projects have students created products that will be valued now and into the future. 

If you do want to learn more about AIW, go to AIWs website. There are links to literature, resources and more. It remains one of Abeo's areas of expertise and is utilized in our school coaching frequently.

From Andrew Miller, New Media Innovations