Leading Innovation to Advance Teaching and Learning

Presenters
Ash Vasudeva, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Research)
Glen Harvey, WestEd (Policy)
Candice McQueen, Tennessee Commissioner of Education (Practice)
Robert Hull, NASBE (moderator)

Hull:
How do you think creatively to solve a problem? This session brings together leading experts in reasearch, policy, and practice to consider how state board members can pursue and support innovation. How can improvement science foster a more user- and problem-centered approach to improving teaching and learning? We will explore ways to build state capacity to identify, adapt, and scale up promising innovations.

Vasudeva:
Collectively, we expand decades of research, practice, and policy-making.
Wisdom in this room, and classrooms -- education systems continue to face extraordinary challenges.
Many times, "what gives" is a rich and rewarding educational experience.
[Missed the name of the person referenced in his example here]: Addressing families at large community forums: first thing is stating/admitting that "they don't have it all figured out".
Just giving voice to that moved the dynamic from confrontation to communication.
Expertise alone is not enough - need to work with others to accomplish goals.
Form new relationships.
Admitting we don't have all of the answers doesn't mean there's nothing we can do.
(Introduces concept of "Discipline Inquiry" - create teams to test solutions and commit to make meaningful progress).
Disciplined inquiry bridges the organizational journey from compliance to continuous improvement by attending to and focusing on learning.
References the book: Learning to Improve
ESSA represents the opportunity to make this shift (^ from enacting policy from "compliance" to "continuous improvement" by attending to and focusing on learning).
Three questions for consideration:

1. What is the relationship between research and practice?
2. What constitutes evidence?
3. What is the role for policy?

Researchers are expected to innovate; practitioners are expected to implement.

Need to connect research to practice.

ESSA plans for making progress.

Use discipline inquiry in service to innovation and improvement:

Evidence - Disciplined Inquiry = Compliance Modes of Thinking

Evidence + Disciplined Inquiry = Improvement Mindset

As SBEs, how do you use your policy superpowers? (Power to Convene; Power of the Question; Power of Policy)

McQueen: 

Reality on the ground when you try to put research to practice.

It's messy.

TN articulated a Vision: for all students to have knowledge and skills to successfully embark upon their chosen path in life.

Comprised five priorities - 4 of them very policy driven; they are:

• Early Foundations & Literacy;
• High School & Bridge to Postsecondary;
• All Means All;
• Educator Support.

The last one, District Empowerment would use research for solving problems in practice through newly created Network Improvement Communities (NIC, in 7 districts).

Utilizing NICs:

• Foster a new kind of working relationship between the state and districts
• Leverage collective expertise to solve a statewide challenge
• Identify scalable solutions to common implementation challenges that hold the state back from achieveing its goals
• Learn at all levels how to "get better at getting better": and develop a collective sense of ownership for the work to sustain progress

Learning to date:

• Improving literacy outcomes
• communication between teachers and interventionists is important for success
• Empowering district innovation
• culture of learning and sharing is critical to making progress
• Engaging educators in continuous impovement efforts
• educators must want to learn from one another through a community approach

What's next?

• Scale and spread the NIC approach
• Spring 2016: Cohort 1 = 7 districts in 2 CORE regions
• Fall 2017: Cohort 2 = 21 districts in all 8 CORE regions

People sometimes don't want the process, they want the pill.

Reality is, when they know the outcome they will work to embed in practice.

Go slow at first; once familiar, then can go fast.

Harvey:
Learned so much from [NASBE sessions] yesterday.

Thank you for the TN story - grew up in KY, not a leader in education reform; it's empowering to see how much can be accomplished over time.

State policy role in supporting innovation...

What is innovation anyway:

"A process that creates something that addresses a specific need effectively in a new and different way with better outcomes creating value"

Emphasis on "different" and "better"

Problem is, if it is "new and different", it probably doesn't have a lot of evidence.

Need to balance tried-and-true practices with something new.

What's your capacity for innovation?

To take risks?

What's the pulse in your state?

SBEs: Champion of children and their right to an equitable, quality education:

• Convenor, giving voice to others -- stakeholder engagement through listening tours, town halls, and focus groups
• good ideas can come from anyone and anywhere
• model openness to new ideas and different perspectives
• create a process for exploring promising new ideas
• communicate back what you have heard and will do
• keep the dialogue going
• Visionary and catalyst for change, keeping the public's collective eye on what matters most
• use the power of the bully pulpit
• be the state's storyteller
• keep everyone's eye on the state's North Star (the big idea)
• focus on big ideas, enduring problems, and solutions
• use the power of persuasion, vision, staying power
• Enabler and empowerer, removing barriers to innovation (removing policy so people can move forward):
• NH: flexibility to achieve a big idea (i.e., competency-based learning)
• CA: flexibility focused on state and local indicators (i.e., a local control funding formula; school safety and climate)
• CO: flexibility to spark innovation for learning (CO Innovations Schools Act -- ask for waivers from SBE to move forward)

Create opportunity.

Need to do better by those children who are not doing well right now (especially to consider homeless, foster, trauma, i.e.).

Before establishing a new policy based on local innovation, ask:

• Is this new approach addressing a specific need?
• Is there sufficient evidence that it addresses the need effectively?
• Is there a solid research base?
• Is the solution economically viable?
• Is it scalable and sustainable?
• Do we have the capacity to implement, scale, and sustain across the state?
• Is there stakeholder buy-in?
• What unintended consequences might there be?

Q&A:

Ohio asks about Trauma-informed education; says, under ESSA, Title II funds available for this.

Massachusetts asks TN about importance of aligning standards with work in the NICs.

-- End of Session --

Rethinking Teaching and Learning

Presenters: Linda Darling-Hammond, Learning Policy Institute; Donna Johnson, Delaware State Board of Education

Session takes a deep dive into a rethinking of teaching and learning with leading researcher; covering recent research on professional learning and a systems approach to retooling curriculum and instruction. "Only well-prepared, culturally skilled, committed techers can ensure that all students graduate ready for college and careers".

Darling-Hammond is live-streaming with us online.

D-H: What kind of learning are we talking about?
Demand for skills is changing.
Top skills for Fortune 500 companies in 1970 were Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic; today, they are teamwork, problem-solving, communication skills.
Knowledge is expanding and exponentially.
Working with technology that hasn't been invented yet.
Need to transfer knowledge to new problems.

Teaching for learning ability, the abilities to:

• Transfer and apply knowledge
• Analyze, evaluate, weigh, and balance
• Communicate and collaborate
• Take initiative
• Find and use resources
• Plan and implement
• Learn to learn

Includes social emotional learning:

• Know and manage self and emotions, including stress
• Have empathy and interpersonal skills
• Engage in positive relationships
• Collaborate well
• Make good decisions
• Behave ethically and responsibly
• Have a growth mindset
• Be resourceful, perservering, and resilient

Teaching SEL skills has been found to foster personal, social, and academic success and reduce opportunity gaps

Teaching these skills -- to what end? 

• Resolving conflict
• Sustaining the earth
• Sustaining people
• Employment
• Food and shelter
• Clean water
• Nurturing peaceful collaboration
• Developing new products, solutions, strategies for living and learning

And Authentic Learning:

• Problem-based and Project-based learning
• Performance assessment
• Rubrics  for self-, peer-, and teacher-evaluation
• A pedagogy of revision and mastery

How well are we teaching higher order skills refers to trends on PISA 2000-2012. (Answer: not very well)

What kinds of schools can create these abilities?

• Schools designed for effective caring
• Small Learning Communities
• Looping
• Long-term Relationships
• Advisory systems
• Close parental contact

Some states and many nations are transforming assessments. High achievers use:

• Open-ended essays and problems to be solved and explained
• Performance tasks that require students to design and conduct investigations, collect data analyze and present findings in writing, orally, and with technology

Effective teachers:

• Engage students in active learnning
• Build on children's experiences and prior knowledge
• Create intellectually ambitious tasks that apply knowledge to real world problems
• Develop and effectively manage a culturally responsive, collaborative classroom in which all students have membership
• Use a variety of teaching strategies
• Assess learning to adapt teaching to student needs
• Create effective scaffolds for language and content learning
• Provide clear standards strong models, constant feedback, and opportunities for revising work
• Reinforce students' competence and confidence

Recommends book: A Pedagogy of Confidence (on amazon and short video clip HERE) by Yvette Jackson:

• Focus on strengths
• Teach cognitive strategies
• Build confidence and motivation
• Build educator capacity

Topic moves into teachers and professional collaboration and learning:

• Shared planning time
• Teaching reams
• Regular professional development
• Inquiry about student learning
• Problem solving around students
• Leadership focused on instruction

There are schools where this is happening.

However, United States teachers spend the most time on instruction and the least amount of time on planning than other leading nations.

Curriculum and teaching access matters for learning: Holding SES constant, students of color and white students who have equally well-qualified teachers and comparable curriculum, perform comparably in reading and mathematics.

Teacher shortages: demand for teachers is high and increasing, but the supply is rapidly decreasing.

LPI Study on Effective Professional Development reviewed 35 studies that:

• Are methodologically rigorus
• Demonstrate positive link between teacher PD and student outcomes
• Identified common features

Policy implications:

• Adopt standards for PD
• Redesign schedules to support collaboration
• Conduct assessments of teachers' needs
• Develop expert teachers as mentors and coaches

Today, the kind of education we need, must be available for all; quoting John Dewey: What the best and wisest parent wants for his or her child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other goal is narrow and unlovely. Acted upon, it destroys our democracy.

Johnson: In Delaware -- with thanks to NASBE -- the systems grants looking at a Standards-Based System; comprehensive approach; how one initiative complements another. Areas of focus on efforts to rethink teaching and learning: 

• Educator preparation
• Professional learning
• Roles for educators
• Standards and assessment

State Boards utilize:

• Power of Policy
• Power of the Question
• Power to Convene

That's a wrap