What's Behind Door #3? [PARCC::Part II]

We've been reading (for example, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE, among other places, like HERE, HERE, and HERE) that a recommendation is pending from Commissioner Chester to the Board of ESE about how to move forward with statewide assessments in ELA and maths. He's been floating around his idea for a third way since October 19th's Board meeting, sharing his change of view and describing his process for how he will inform the Board of his recommendation. We assume said recommendation will be similar to what we've been reading and hearing about. Time will tell.

At October's meetings, the Board learned that tech upgrades to infrastructure were estimated to be $3.1 million; another $12.3 million estimated for additional technology in schools. Many schools may be ready for computer-based testing but very many more are not at all equipped with equitable, effective digital learning environments.

Acknowledging our tech deficit across the Commonwealth in this regard, I'm concerned that technology for learning is being driven with an eye to test-taking instead of blending future focused, student-centered, content-rich interactive curricula. What's the plan to align and effectively integrate those environments, while ensuring great teaching and learning?

• How are we supporting practitioner-led professional development that's framework-aligned and tech-integrated? 

• Are all educators in regular and frequent conversations with the rest of the team? Is the instructional technology team part of grade-, course- and/or department-level PLCs?

• How are school staff collaborating with families and community partners to connect students and families to expanded learning opportunities and community services in order to support achievement and civic participation? 

• Is the organization developed sufficiently with integrated tools and resources, including non-cognitive supports for all learners, no matter the language he speaks or where she lives?

• Do educators have what they need when they need it to support all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds?

To live in a media-rich, technology-driven environment, the entire educational enterprise must have command of the essential skills of collaboration, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and reflection through the integration and effective use of technology.

The point is this: no test ensures great teaching and learning. Teachers in the learning environment are the true catalysts for change. A more effective statewide assessment system in 2015 might be focused on seamless integration with its complementary parts, not on the sturm und drang over the standardized assessment tool.

Educators are skilled professionals - practitioners working to inform their practice so they can nimbly respond to a learner's needs, modify curriculum, and improve instruction. The urgency isn't about getting everyone in a 1:1 relationship with a device for test-taking. It's about remaining focused on great teaching and learning for our digital age, providing opportunities and time for reflection and collaboration, aligned with a vision that holds student-learning at the center of all decisions.

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Resources, quotes, tweets
See HERE, HERE, and HERE for the Department's vision and support for digital learning in MA K-12 schools.

Great read on the Obama administration's changing views on standardized testing.

Those bills in the Massachusetts Legislature calling for a moratorium on testing and on other accountability measures.

Read and heard elsewhere: recent references to "door number three thinking":

• An article about the Lawrence receivership that ran in CommonWealth Magazine on October 12, 2015

• The Secret History of Thoughts - Dark Thoughts that aired on The Invisibilia Podcast on January 9, 2015, rebroadcast on WGBH-FM, November 2, 2015, which is when I heard it

PARCC::Part I

Note: The Board will hold a final public comment session on PARCC -->Door #3 (?) Monday, November 16, 4:00-7:00 PM at Malden High School auditorium (in lieu of Public Comments at Tuesday morning's regular BESE meeting, 8:30 AM).

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
~ Albert Einstein

A great obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.
~ Daniel Boorstin

Our best measures of educational performance are cognitive because that's what's easiest to test. If the things that are harder to test matter more, that presents something of a conundrum for people trying to formulate educational policy.
~ Megan McArdle in Bloomberg View (Note that Ms. McArdle's article describes key takeaways of an experiment in parent engagement undertaken by Roland Fryer, Stephen Levitt, and John List; Roland Fryer is now a member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education).

Great ed leaders inspire others with vision and hope not pressure and fear.

— Pedro Noguera (@PedroANoguera) September 1, 2015

American schools are modeled after factories and treat students like widgets. Right? Wrong. http://t.co/A1FyhOL6Yl

— Jack Schneider (@Edu_Historian) October 10, 2015

NASBE Pre-Conference::Visit to Halstead Academy::Baltimore County Public Schools::Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Maryland is organized into 24 public school districts. Members of NASBE visited the Halstead Academy of Art and Science, a preK-5 magnet school in Towson MD, part of the Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS, @BaltCoPS). School data is HERE.

Recent 3rd grade study of Gustav Klimt...

...inspired artwork that beautifies the hallways

Halstead is also a district "lighthouse school" piloting the county's instructional digital conversion program known as Students and Teachers Accessing Tomorrow (S.T.A.T.). The name "stat" (proposed by a group of students) conveys the urgency of the work: learner-centered, not led by technology, and future-focused, not based on tradition.

Theory of Action - BCPS' North Star

Framework is based on Danielson & P21

As Massachusetts has been wrangling with its decision about how to assess students now that the state has aligned frameworks with common core state standards, something I've been asking in state board meetings is: What's our vision for 21st c learning? If we're saying that we need "next gen" assessments, what are we doing to ensure that our school and classroom environments, curriculum, professional development, instructional practice, and so on are also next gen? What do students need today to meet tomorrow's (unknown) demands?

Not only have they asked the questions and forwarded a vision, BCPS has a plan. The digital conversion is in its third year of a comprehensive five-year strategic plan that includes system-wide changes in everything from budgeting, physical facilities, policies, and communications to professional development, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Learning is changing with intention and buy-in from all stakeholders in BCPS schools, with everything from how classroom furniture is arranged, to what is being taught, to how the school day is structured. Ultimately, as the S.T.A.T. program progresses, all BCPS schools will have:

• digitally-enhanced curriculum supplemented with engaging, adaptive digital resources;

• digital devices for every student and teacher;

• educator, student, and parent access to information and resources through the BCPS One platform;

• wireless and broadband infrastructure.

District policy review process

Instruction-driven approach to tech

S.T.A.T. evaluation tool

During our site visit, we met first with the instructional technology team for short presentations on the above, then visited classrooms, talking with students and teachers. Fifth grade classes were on a field trip; I spoke with children and adults in their K, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms. I observed respectful learning environments, engaged students, small group instruction, collaborative and parallel learning, and student-directed learning:

Third grade parallel learning

Kindergarten whole group instruction

Second grade small group math (at whiteboard table) 

Third grade class expectations 

Third grade small group literacy

First grade collaborative learning

Second grade collaborative learning

Pro tip: Include FTE needs in the RFP for leased devices! BCPS included 89 FTEs as district-wide Instructional Coaches who support all educators. Coaches observe and offer feedback through the use of guiding questions focused on the teacher, the learning environment, and the student:

• Teacher: What teacher behaviors contribute to a learner-centered environment for all students?

• Space: How does the physical space reflect input from all students and facilitate a learner-centered environment?

• Student: How are all students (by race, gender, English language competency, or disability) acquiring, developing, using, or producing knowledge, information, and skills?

Learner-Centered Environments: Professional Learning Tool

Here's the take-away: The district developed a comprehensive plan to integrate technology SIDE-BY-SIDE with teachers, school administration, the local school board, families, and the public. Eight areas were identified for conversion: communications, budget, policy, infrastructure, organizational development, assessment, instruction, and curriculum. Budgets are realigned and reallocated to support the district's implementation of the BCPS THEORY OF ACTION - - $207 million over 5 years (for necessary infrastructure), then settling into the operating budget at $67 million each year thereafter. Substantial investment has been made in BCPS - and beginning returns on that investment expect to be evident this year, three-years into the plan.

See more in My Storify

Remembering Summer Learning

This year, and summer especially, will remain in my memory as one where I explored new methods of learning.

I had already discovered the power of twitter as a personal and professional learning tool, what with various twitter chats in which I began participating in 2011.

Last Spring, I signed up for my first MOOC with coursera. I logged in for the first few days, then, never again. Failure to continue the course was a combination of being somewhat disoriented there, not being as interested in the course as I thought I would be, and a general lack of time.

Undaunted, in July I signed up for an EDx course: The Future of Learning with Professor Richard Elmore. Happily, I found this one to be a topic in which I was not only interested, but engaged in right from the start.

Professor Richard Elmore,
June 2014 (Photo credit: mas)

I had been fortunate to attend an introduction to the MOOC on the Harvard campus with Prof Elmore in June. In the course we explored modes of individual and distributed learning and leading through exploration and understanding of our own theories of learning and leadership. This course provided me with tools to imagine and contribute to the future of learning. More on this to come in future posts!

So, I've experienced two MOOCs to date. Both were designed with participatory interaction occurring primarily through the course website, with expanded conversation happening on discussion platforms within the site (which I found to be extremely chaotic in both cases...), as well as through social media (a facebook page and twitter). Connections to others for both were based on platforms for writing and reading.

Another summer learning experience was reading "Beyond the Bake Sale" as a #PTcamp bookchat with over 100 educators and parents spanning 10 time zones. We used digital tools including Voxer, twitter (#ptcamp), ApprenNet, and blogs to discuss a couple of chapters each week.

Most striking about this experience were the visual (ApprenNet) and aural (Voxer) aspects of connecting and sharing. The group was certainly much smaller than a MOOC but much bigger than a typical book group. The digital tools enabled us to connect and challenge each other through voice and video.

Bake Sale was a stand out experience that continues to have ripples! Out of that bookchat experience came material for an MTA ED Talk to be given at their summer conference in Williamstown last August. Unfortunately, I was unable to give my ED Talk due to illness, but no good work is ever wasted! Themes and examples from my Talk have been used in various ways since, including on this blog. The bookchat had also enabled the ability to establish relationships - connecting through voice and video makes quick colleagues! I maintain a personal and professional learning network with members of the #ptcamp group who inspire me daily.

For those interested: Here's a Harvard Graduate School of Education video of Dr. Karen Mapp (one of the Bake Sale authors) describing her work on the Dual Capacity-Building Framework recently released by the US Department of Education: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/14/11/building-capacity-family-engagement