In a recent Getting Smart article, Bonnie Lathram and Tyler Nakatsu explore how educators can get started with Deeper Learning.
They suggest six entry points:
- Be a maker
As an educator, what artifacts are there that can showcase the “makers” that you and your students are? Bring your own talents to the work you are already doing with students. Set a goal with students to demonstrate their work in exhibitions or student-led conferences.
- Try out small moves for big change.
IDEO and the Stanford d. (Design) School have partnered for Hacking for School Wide Change. The leaders in this work suggest educators try a hack mindset and use levers for change to take first steps towards change at the school level. Sally Madsen has a great post on this: The “Hack” Mindset for School Change.
- Exercise empathy.
What ways could you put yourselves in the shoes of students? For inspiration, read this reflection from BIE’s blog on principal Rigo Palacio’s experiences shadowing a student. Lisa Abel-Palmieri from Holy Family Academy said:
Design school-wide themes and tackle them through interdisciplinary project-based learning. Change the bell schedule, create spaces for building empathy and getting out into the field. Our students work one day a week to really get real-world skills, and their learning is personalized, highly collaborative and focused on social justice…Teachers must think about how assessment changes, their role in the classrooms as a mentor, and how to build rich and trusting relationships with kids.
- Be bold, brave and big.
The issues that students face outside the classroom are real and impact how they approach class work. Develop projects that connect local and global issues, with reflections and applied perspectives. If you note an injustice, or a student does, don’t skirt or shy away from it. Inch in to the discomfort, allow the conversations and learning to “go there.”
- Know your students.
With students, this can look like what student keynote speakers Lewie and Carlie from High School for Recording Arts described as caring about the students, giving them enough freedom to trust and respect the students’ choices and holding them to high expectations. It’s a tall order AND it can be done/is being done/is happening in schools such as those present at the Deeper Learning conference and beyond.
Jennifer Morrison of High Tech High Graduate School said:
Know your students, period. Accessibility happens when there is an emotional and meaningful connection between student and teacher. As a leader, providing ample opportunity for teachers to collaborate is critical in order to design projects that are accessible for all students, no matter what their needs may be.
- Identify and reflect on meaningful learning experiences.
Sarah Bertucci from Eagle Rock Professional Development Center said:
Getting to know oneself within our inequitable world, commit to courageous conversations, be uncompromising in your belief that all students have genius and excellence within.
Jamie Baker from Pomfret Schools said:
Question all aspects of our beliefs about learning, how it happens, why, and our desired results.
Sache Crouch of Shelby County Public Schools said:
Great questions create self-reflection. Let’s start with, how do we spread deeper learning to schools and districts?
Andrew Frishman of Big Picture Learning provided this quote from Alan Cohen:
Don’t wait until conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes conditions perfect.
For more information, see http://gettingsmart.com/2016/03/6-entry-points-deeper-learning/.
