The Orchard View

In common understanding, an orchard is a place where fruit is cultivated. Planting typically happens in the fall, and the fruit starts to blossom and ripen in the spring. All along the way, the trees need water, sun, good soil, and pruning in order to produce healthy fruit, and no two pieces, even from the same tree, are the same.

Cultivating fruit is hard work, and it does not always go as planned. Sometimes weather becomes unpredictable, or other dangers arise. The farmers do all they can to protect the fruit from the likes of frost, high winds, drought, or insects. The fruit may end up being a different shape or color than originally thought, but the good farmer knows that it is what is on the inside that counts.

For the last four and a half months, I have had the privilege of being at Orchard View Elementary School as a principal intern. I’ve seen the cultivation up close, and lent a helping hand when I could. I’ve seen teachers cry with joy when a student did something beyond anything imagined, and also cry with a hurting heart because a student is suffering. I’ve regularly seen teachers come in at 6:15 in the morning when school doesn’t start until 8:40; likewise, I’ve regularly seen teachers here until 6 or later in the evening. I’ve watched a principal dialogue with students who have made bad choices, simultaneously doling out love and high expectations. I’ve cried along with parents who are facing tough situations and choices with their kids. I’ve watched interventionists, office staff, media staff, special ed aides, cafeteria personnel, and custodial staff day in and day out till the soil that helps our kids grow.

Although I was a mid-season transplant in this orchard, both the “farmers” and the “fruit” immediately accepted and cared for me. As a result, I was able to grow exponentially, and this orchard captured my heart. When I think of all that I am taking back with me to the Instruction Office, I picture them as seeds that will I continue to cultivate as I continue my learning journey.

One (M-) Step at a Time

Our state is in its second week of the administration of new, online assessments. For our district, with over 10,000 students spread over 17 different schools, it is the first time we have done wholesale online testing. Perhaps I should knock on wood, but so far, so good.

While I can only report what I have seen at Orchard View, our students have embraced this new venture without much anxiety or fear. I attribute that in large measure to all of the behind-the-scenes work done by our Technology Office, and certainly to the positive, encouraging, and relaxed attitude of our teachers and administrators. We know that kids and parents will take their cue from us, and again, so far, so good.

The over-the-shoulder glances at the assessment items as kids asked a question or requested to  pause to take a break reveal the critical thinking skills we know will be essential to success as our students grow into adulthood. While these current assessments are just one snapshot of information in the year-long evidence of learning album we gather on our students, it is rewarding to see that our approach to implementation of  the Michigan Content Standards within our Instructional Framework is on target.

Just as state assessments will continue to be refined to provide us with one form of check-in as to the level of student learning, we will continue to refine our efforts to positively impact the instructional core of our K-12 classrooms, that being the relationship between teachers, students, and content. We will also continue to refine our daily monitoring of learning, both through formative assessment processes and summative assessments we employ in our classrooms, schools, and district. Our analysis and use of this data to inform our daily instruction is key to student learning and growth.

Many on social media and in news outlets continue to debate the legitimacy of state-mandated assessments. In our district, we have largely set that aside, and have continued day-in and day-out to take care of our students in the best way possible given what we have been asked to accomplish. There is not a day I have ever dread coming to serve in this district because of the people and kids I have the good fortune to be around. Kudos to all of you.

T-ee It Up?

I spent Monday evening and all day Tuesday at the T -Summit 2015 on Michigan State's campus.The conference, in its second year, was co-hosted by MSU and IBM and focused on experiences and best practices surrounding the development of T-shaped abilities. Using this graphic jointly developed by MSU and IBM, the "T" looks like this:

Another way to think of it is "confidence" or "soft skills" across the top, and "purpose" or "passion" as the vertical.

As I interacted with a variety of business people and academics from all across the country, I began to see how this may fit with some of the work we are doing right here in Forest Hills, especially as we take time to evaluate our secondary model. It is an approach that pairs up well with the Instructional Framework, specifically the Design Questions within Domain 1. Through serendipity, Dr. Donald Heller, Dean of MSU's School of Education sat at my lunch table, and we spoke about how the T fits within instructional best practices.As an aside, he is also very interested in some of the innovative pieces we are currently doing or getting ready to launch, such as the STEM Academy.

MSU is already making multiple small-to-medium bets on the T. One of the leading researchers in this emerging field, Dr. Phil Gardner, is making great strides. Elsewhere on campus, with the support of President Simon, MSU is designing a four-year leadership program for undergrads that embraces the T. The current thinking is that in addition to their degree, students would receive a leadership certificate endorsed by the corporate, non-profit, and entrepreneurial partners of MSU. Another "bet" placed by MSU is already in action. Any student, regardless of major or program, may now declare a minor in entrepreneurship, and an "entrepreneurial ecosystem" is being cultivated at the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Broad College of Business (go check out "the Hive."). Other colleges and universities are also engaged in similar projects: Rose-Hulman, Boise State, San Jose State, and the University of Maryland, just to name a few.

Various corporations are also embracing the T, notably IBM. I was fortunate to spend a few hours at the end of the day with Dr. Jim Spohrer, Director of IBM's Global University Programs and leader of IBM's Cognitive Systems Institute.  Dr. Spohrer is working to align IBM and universities globally for innovation, amplification, and T-shaped skills. Joining us was Dr. Karen Sedatole, Professor in MSU's Broad College of Business and chair of the Broad Integrative Fellows program (BIF). The BIF program seeks to develop integrative thinking across business disciplines among Broad College early-career faculty as a means of enhancing the college's teaching and learning culture. Our discussion centered around how to "fit" T skills into an already busy secondary and post-secondary curriculum, and what remains the professional responsibility of businesses as they hire. Like any great discussion, we seemed to pose more questions than answers, but we agreed to stay in touch and keep the conversation going.

If asked to speculate, I would guess that a good number of our teachers are already incorporating the T into the great teaching and learning that is happening across our district, but we just don't call it that.But I also wonder if embracing the T in the ways in which it fits within the Instructional Framework may help propel us even further forward. For example, how might it help us organize students for cognitively complex tasks (element 21) or understanding students' interests and background (element 36)? Or how might the BIF program be a model for us to bring teachers together through Destination: Innovation? Again, I have no answers - I just want to T-ee it up and start the conversation. So, what say you?

Our Kennedy Moment

This has been an interesting week of professional learning and growth. We welcomed Dr. Robert Marzano to join us on Monday to dialogue on our continued implementation of the Instructional Framework and our trajectory toward becoming high reliability schools. From the Twitter posts and reactions from colleagues, the response was overwhelmingly positive.

Similarly, I had an opportunity on Wednesday to spend part of the day with two amazing educational pioneers - Nancy Conrad and Kim Day. Nancy is a former high school English teacher who now heads the Conrad Foundation, and Kim is the Science Chief for the Department of Defense Education division. Both are passionate about transforming education, with our students at the center. Kim had an interesting question for us – if Michigan was the leader in the industrial age due to the automotive industry, why can’t Michigan be the leader of the new knowledge age? I’ll come back to this in a bit.

Nancy’s late husband, Pete Conrad, is one of the few people to ever have walked on the moon. Nancy reminded us that when President Kennedy announced America’s plan to send a man to the moon, the science community was basically starting from zero. In a collaborative effort that brought approximately 400,000 people from government, industry, and academia together, the goal was achieved in July of 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission. During the years between President Kennedy’s audacious vision statement and its realization, there were many failures, including the loss of life, but the team did not abandon the goal.  They took those failures as opportunities to learn and re-design. Nancy told a great story of a reporter coming to Houston and wanting to interview astronauts; she met a man on site who told her he was part of the team that was sending a man to the moon. He spent about an hour telling her all about the space program and what went into the effort. At the end of the conversation, the reporter asked the man for his job title so she could insert it into the news story -- he responded: “janitor.”

Using the moonshot as a metaphor, Nancy spoke about recruiting new crew members for an education moonshot. This is remarkably similar to what Superintendent Dan Behm has envisioned for our own Destination: Innovation program. Through the generosity of our community, coordinated via the Forest Hills Public Schools Foundation, we are designing our own “Kennedy moment,” our own audacious version of the moonshot, and we need all team members to take part. Taking Kim’s question of why not Michigan as an educational leader, let’s take it a step further – why not Forest Hills as the leader in Michigan and the country? Why not Forest Hills as a “thinkubator” for innovation, and designer of a new educational ecosystem? Together, we can be the agents of transformation, and we’ve already started. Great examples include the anticipated launch of a STEM Academy in the fall of 2015, Gone Boarding classes, and blended learning opportunities.

Fifteen years into this century, our only limit is our imagination. Using structures like the Instructional Framework, and not just thinking about the perspective of our students but actually inviting them into plotting their own educational journey, we have a unique opportunity to lead.  As President Kennedy stated, “we choose these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” 

Every. Single. Student.

This morning at Orchard View I participated in two different grade-level data meetings. The meetings are conducted quarterly, and teacher teams bring three or more sources of recent, common data on each individual student’s reading and writing proficiency. The data discussion is facilitated by the school principal, and the counselor and an interventionist are also present to provide additional information as needed.

Wow! Let me say that again – wow! Each individual student’s name was mentioned at least once, and our students were carefully placed into specific groups to improve and enrich their reading and writing power. After the groups are formed, each teacher takes one group, and others, depending on need, are placed into an interventionist-led or specialized educator group for which the teacher provides guided instruction. Beginning next week, each of the groups meets Monday through Thursday for 30 minutes each day during “Target Team Time.” Every single student in each grade will be receiving targeted instruction during this time, in addition to all of the other intentional instruction they receive throughout the course of a school day. That is powerful!

The care with which students were discussed and placed into need-based groups was inspirational (but not surprising). The way in which teachers discussed data, and more importantly, their observations about our students, so that each student was a person rather than a score, was impressive. Each meeting lasted 90 minutes, and through deft facilitation by the principal, the planning was completed. In twelve years of education, I have never been a part of something quite like this, and I am glad I had the chance to see it in action.

For our students needing the most help, we use the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI). It is specifically targeted at small group instruction and helps teachers provide those impactful, daily learning pieces to bring students to grade level in reading. Students who are currently at grade level or higher are also in smaller groups with intentionally planned instruction to enhance their capacity as well.

Like any implemented strategy, two vital pieces are monitoring of adult implementation of the plan, and monitoring of student growth through the plan. In fact, the LLI program, as part of OV’s School Improvement Plan, is the chosen program for evaluation through the Michigan Department of Education’s newly-required Program Evaluation Tool. As we move through the second half of the school year, it will be important and interesting to continually evaluate our efforts to live out our district vision of “all learners achieving individual potential.”

-          J. Walton

P.S. Check out the Principal Intern Video Blog: http://pointofviewsquared.blogspot.com/

Anchors Aweigh

Well, the news that the Michigan Department of Education was awarding its testing contract to the College Board and the SAT took everyone by surprise. Many reactions were quite visceral, and I found myself trying to explain it to someone who was taking a balcony view of what might be best for kids.

Once upon a time, students taking the ACT in high school was voluntary. Only those students who were college-bound to schools that required the ACT tended to take it. After the introduction of the Michigan Merit Curriculum, the ACT became mandatory for all juniors. In that first year, our high schools, like others around the state, saw their average ACT score dip by a significant amount. ELA teachers, among others, took up the challenge to revisit how they supported readers and writers. No one wanted to be teaching simply to a test, but to the extent that the test was now serving two separate purposes (individually by students to apply to college and by the state to "score" high schools), it was important for all students to be prepared to perform at their best. After many years of hard work, our district average on the ACT finally met and exceeded the average we had before mandatory testing. More importantly, it meant that more of our kids had improved their reading and writing skills.

Having worked so diligently with and for kids, and feeling successful, it is no wonder that teachers (and administrators) felt punched in the gut last week. It does not mean that the SAT is a "bad" test, or that the skills we have been cultivating in our students are wasted. In fact, I know I don't know enough about the revamped SAT to make an objective evaluation of whether it is in the best interests of our kids. All I am trying to do is explain why the news hurt.

For me, some wisdom from Peter Senge helps. In Breaking the Code of Change, he writes about people and groups being anchored in established thinking (2000). It causes me to look at the "heaviness" of my "anchor," or in other words, is the "weight of [my] established thinking...too great to overcome?" (Senge, p. 69). Even when presented with logic and clarity for meaningful change, it is extraordinarily difficult to let go of our core, entrenched strategy because we are personally invested in the success of the strategy. Ironically, the very attributes that made us successful in that strategy may now be holding us back; our commitment to the strategy has positioned us to reflect the commitment.The new proposal, which seems radical to many, creates tremendous emotional and cognitive processing demands, and might exceed our capacity to honestly reflect upon it, even if we have more information and time to process (Senge).

The phrase "anchors aweigh" comes from the U.S. Navy, and it is used to signify that the ship's hoisted anchor has just cleared the sea bottom. In other words, the voyage is underway. I know that I have to re-establish my thinking, but it will be difficult. So, how might we learn together to hoist this testing anchor, even if just a little, to begin the voyage of sailing toward the SAT?

-- J. Walton

The Student Chair

It's been an interesting four months. Instruction Office by day, Michigan State student by night (and Saturday mornings). Going back to school in your early fifties (emphasis on the early) highlights the idea of being a lifelong learner, and perhaps a glutton for punishment. At any given time, I have two classes: one a year-long, online class and the others change in a trimester fashion, meeting on Saturdays for four hours. So far, I have been exposed to three different professors, all with very different backgrounds and teaching styles.

Aside from the actual content of the classes, sitting in the proverbial student chair has taught me a lot, and hopefully makes me a better teacher and coach. In no particular order, here is what I have gleaned:

• As readings are assigned, it is extraordinarily helpful to have a prior explanation of the author's background, our purpose in reading it, and some look-fors.
• Going to class when the rest of the campus is tailgating before a home football game is an odd experience, but the MSU fans are very friendly and have offered coffee on more than one occasion (except the day of the Michigan-Michigan State game when I was wearing my Michigan sweatshirt - understandable).
• At the beginning of each class session, the overview of where we are going and how it connects to our last meeting helps. It's even better when it is written or projected on the board so that I can read it and hear it. When it's not provided, I spend time in my head wondering "why" instead of focusing all of my thoughts on the subject at hand. Inevitably I miss something.
• It is a challenge to sit on a hard chair and pay attention for any stretch of time. I appreciate it when we get up to move into different learning groups. I love the classroom with the swivel office chairs; not only are they more comfortable, but I can easily turn and focus on whomever is speaking.
• Online Zoom discussion sessions (think Skype) get unwieldy when the group gets any bigger than eight or nine.
• Our online professor had us form small (three to four people) learning groups within our cohort, and it is an excellent resource. I have two partners to touch base with for questions, peer review, brainstorming, etc. when we're not in class.
• I love it when our professor stops and asks us if his/her choice of instructional strategy for a chunk of information is working, or if we need to change it up.
• The official title of a class really tells you nothing about the learning journey you are embarking upon. The learning needs to be put into perspective every time the class meets.
• Learners need multiple opportunities to dialogue with each other during the learning process. It helps clarify and solidify the content.
• You cannot disguise "busy" work. It's about compliance, not learning.
• Time leading up to a deadline goes more quickly than say, a minute running on a treadmill or waiting for something to come out of the microwave. It is important to plan enough time to revise your writing so that the professor is not grading your first draft. The perception of time between turning a paper in and receiving a grade is also skewed. Corollary: online drop boxes to turn in work and receive feedback are wonderful.
• The same people are always late.

(If you are interested in learning more about the educational leadership program at MSU, click here. Applications for the Fall 2015 Cohort are being considered through the end of January)

Any readers out there currently taking classes? I wonder how your experience compares. What have you learned about the student perspective? If you are also teaching at the same time, how has it impacted teaching and learning with your students?

Happy New Year, and as always, thanks for reading.

- J. Walton