Deeper Learning Project: Presentation to Sturgis Charter School

Jal Mehta, Maren Oberman, and Sarah Fine

Harvard Graduate School of Education

May 14th, 2014

Who Are We?

Jal: Associate professor at HGSE Research focuses on attempts to professionalize teaching

Maren:

HGSE doctoral graduate Heading to University of Michigan in the fall

Sarah: Advanced doctoral student at HGSE Background in teaching & instructional coaching

360-degree anthropological study looking across the landscape of 30 ambitious high schools.

Intentional plurality of school types and instructional models (“no excuses”, project based, large comprehensive, traditional, charter, exam, etc.)

Goal: identify facilitating factors and tradeoffs in different approaches to enacting deeper learning.

Our Study: Overview

Our Study: Key Perspectives

When it comes to studying learning, we focus in part on the cognitive rigor of the tasks that students are asked to do in classrooms…

Our Study: Key Perspectives

…but we also take into account a more holistic picture of what deeper learning means for the learner.

Identity

CreativityMastery

DEEPER LEARNING

Our Study: Key Perspectives

Similarly, we study schools using an ecological perspective – how do the parts fit together?

Sturgis has taught us a lot about this. Thank you for being so welcoming and generous with your time!

Our Work at Sturgis

This presentation is based on: 43 classroom observations (at both schools) 25 interviews with faculty and admin 4 focus groups with students Artifact collection and document analysis

That’s enough to get a sense of the culture, ethos, and dominant patterns of instruction at Sturgis, but it’s still a snapshot!

Sturgis Asset #1: The Faculty

Teachers and staff both bring an astonishing array of experiences to the table. The students love this!

Strong sense of willingness to “explore the gray.”

Deep repository of knowledge both about discipline-specific content and about the IB itself.

Highly selective hiring process; good retention

Sturgis Asset #1: The Faculty

“Almost every one of them [the teachers] has gone international [[she mentions the diversity of their experiences and seems impressed]].

“TOK is where we open our minds and think about the world, but the teachers are already on that level anyway”

Faculty: Next Level of Work

Sensible induction for new faculty

Question: How can faculty keep growing over time? Summer money and time Interdisciplinary work Renewing themselves in their fields

Sturgis Asset #2: The Culture

Both campuses have a strong sense of warmth, engagement, and belonging. Given what we encounter in many other places, we don’t take this for granted.

The ethos is deeply rooted in inclusiveness and, above all, in reciprocal and relational trust.

Sturgis Asset #2: The Culture

Strong hiring leads to trust in faculty autonomy

Symmetry – The way that administrators relate to faculty mirrors the way faculty treat students

Based in positive expectations and trust

Sturgis Asset #2: the Culture

The culture is not only general…

“Students here feel safe, they’re going to be accepted for who they are and what they believe, they’re going to thrive, we promote a safe learning environment.”

“[The teachers and staff] treat you like peers and not like someone who’s beneath you.”

Sturgis Asset #2: the Culture

…but also instructional:

“[In classes] you had to do so much by yourself, it was kind of shocking; it was a new experience; you create everything.”

“I think the teacher needs to be there as a guide… I really believe in students discovering mathematics for themselves.”

“[[Class starts on time here. There’s no real formal beginning for most of the courses I’ve seen. Teachers walk in and it’s almost like they’re just picking up in the middle of a conversation.]]

Culture: Next Level of Work

School has remarkably strong ethos of warmth and inclusion among faculty and with students

Question: How could students take more responsibility for shaping culture, climate, and instruction of the school?

Students as part of instructional rounds

Students nominating topics which are ranked and voted upon for potential electives?

Students and governance

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

IB provides a handle or anchor for the instructional vision at the school

Puts teachers and students on the same side – teacher as coach and working towards mastery

Some disagreement among you about whether IB is a necessary component of your success

What is not in dispute is that Sturgis is much more able to realize its vision for all than a number of other schools we visited

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

Instruction seeks to realize visions which are disciplinary and epistemological

Also efforts to connect across fields, particularly in TOK

Less explicit emphasis on project-based learning, or interdisciplinary learning.

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

The best versions of disciplinary instruction invite students to “play the whole game at a junior level.”

Students grasp the process and structure of knowledge creation by engaging in tasks that mirror professional work in the disciplines.

Requires moving away from a “knowledge as manna from heaven” paradigm – treats students as producers.

Often involves cognitive apprenticeship.

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

At the same time, the best instruction, regardless of the paradigm, does not feel like a “game” at all…

High school work is no longer an elaborate charade.

Opportunities for practice and consolidation (mastery) coexist with opportunities for inquiry that is deeply absorbing and intrinsically rewarding.

Students are able to connect themselves to the content (identity).

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

The best instruction at Sturgis enacts these qualities

Preparing for the interactive orals in English…

Choosing topics of personal interest for math IAs…

Multi-modal presentations…

There are many more examples than we can name here

Sturgis Asset #3: Instruction

These strengths are reflected in the way teachers and students talk about and go about the work:

Your ideas are extremely important and valid. The IB will reward you for being passionate about something you really like, but explain why.”

“[[I note how many kids refer to each other’s comments, agreeing or disagreeing, in their own [comments)… they often go back several comments prior – they’re really listening to one another and seem to have practiced building off each other’s ideas.]]

Instruction: Next Level of Work

We think that more classrooms at Sturgis could harness the power of this paradigm, more of the time.

Many classes were heavily teacher led, most students were in their seats looking at the front of the room; in some classes teacher talk far outweighed student talk.

“[I wish we had] more hands-on activities; we’re usually sitting down and [the teacher] is presenting something and we’re reading out of our textbooks. That’s not the way I learn – I learn better by doing.”

“I think the [IB/Sturgis] model for education is a little old-fashioned. We forgot how to train students to be a human – solve conflicts, express yourself, how to handle a difficult meeting… That would be helpful, and it doesn’t happen here.”

Student-centered learning is not necessarily deeper learning

Superficial instruction

Deeper learning

Teacher-centered A B

Student-centered C D

Instruction: Next Level of Work

Grant Wiggins’ surveys – Activities students found least useful to their learning (lectures, powerpoints) were the ones used most commonly

Question 1a: How could we teach regular disciplinary content in a more complex, open-ended way?

Question 1b: In particular, how could we do this for our less skilled students?

Question 2: How might you connect students more frequently to external opportunities in the disciplines?

Enacting Deeper Learning:Three Dimensions

Student Teacher

TaskTask

• Challenging and open-ended

• Multiple answers possible

• Matters to students because linked to real questions

• Ideas connected to broader frames (disciplinary, historical)

• Mirrors activity of adults working in the field

• Students creating knowledge rather than receiving knowledge

Enacting Deeper Learning:Three Dimensions

Student Teacher

TaskStudent

• Students actually analyze, synthesize and create as opposed to recall and apply

• Grappling with uncertainty

• Failure a real possibility

• Doing most of the mental work

• Play

• Taking increasing responsibility for structuring the work

• Self-efficacy and meta-cognition critical

Enacting Deeper Learning:Three Dimensions

Student Teacher

TaskTeacher

• Pose tasks that are appropriately challenging

• Refrain from giving answers

• Ask questions which push understanding

• Create environment for intellectual play

• Scaffold when necessary, but only when necessary

• Changes role of teacher from expert to intellectual guide

Deeper Learning Assessment Tool (for lessons, units, and observations)

• If we think in terms of the instructional triangle (student, teacher, task), is the nature of the task in the top half of Bloom’s revised taxonomy?

• Is there an authentic framing question or task that connects to a real issue (personal, disciplinary, historical)?

• What kinds of questions are being asked? (Closed or open-ended, factual/recall or analysis/synthesis?)

• Does the task draw upon, and extend, a real knowledge base? Are there opportunities to integrate ideas from different domains?

• Are students grappling with the material? Is there real uncertainty?

• Is there a space for play, ambiguity, open-ended puzzling, or is everything moving towards a pre-determined end?

• Does the work engage in or closely simulate real work that happens in this discipline or field, or is a pale imitation thereof?

Thank you!