I will continue to add to this post as I read through my notes and synthesise things, but I will start with my two favourite quotes of the week which summed up many of the aims and achievements of HTH.
Student (when asked about how High Tech High compared to her state middle school):
"The teachers here care more about us than their subjects"
Teacher:
"We expect each other to be extraordinary, and we have systems in place to help each other do that"
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Accountability
Its funny how many times the point of accountability has come up over the last couple of days on my return to school.
I think I work in a great school which does a tremendous job in taking a comprehensive intake and helping them to be better and more independent thinkers and learners, yet I still perceive a shift in emphasis from the beginning of my short career.
It may be the "rose tinted glasses effect" but it seems that the locus of accountability in quality assurance has moved further from the student towards the teacher. Coursework (seems funny using that word in the new spec vista) was the responsibility of the student to hand in on time to a good standard, now it feels like it is the teachers' responsibility to get coursework from students. This is not a specific observation to my school but from conversations with colleagues in other schools also.
What is the determining factor here? I don't know is the honest answer. League tables maybe and pressure upon teachers to meet targets (self imposed or otherwise), and I'm sure that students recognise this. Kids are canny.
Anyway, what struck me about accountability in HTH was one instance where a girl had not completed her engineering project but was still expected to stand by her empty table in exhibition and of course every visiting member of community asked the same question: "Where is your project?"
What a powerful thing to have to describe the mistakes you made, a real learning experience and extremely formative!
I asked the question many times at HTH, "What would you do if you didn't have Carte Blanche?" and the first response was invariably "Get carte blanche".
A reframing of the question to "If you could change just one thing in the inherent system..." yielded similarly homogenous responses:
"Start with public exhibition."
Oh and DTPF!
I think I work in a great school which does a tremendous job in taking a comprehensive intake and helping them to be better and more independent thinkers and learners, yet I still perceive a shift in emphasis from the beginning of my short career.
It may be the "rose tinted glasses effect" but it seems that the locus of accountability in quality assurance has moved further from the student towards the teacher. Coursework (seems funny using that word in the new spec vista) was the responsibility of the student to hand in on time to a good standard, now it feels like it is the teachers' responsibility to get coursework from students. This is not a specific observation to my school but from conversations with colleagues in other schools also.
What is the determining factor here? I don't know is the honest answer. League tables maybe and pressure upon teachers to meet targets (self imposed or otherwise), and I'm sure that students recognise this. Kids are canny.
Anyway, what struck me about accountability in HTH was one instance where a girl had not completed her engineering project but was still expected to stand by her empty table in exhibition and of course every visiting member of community asked the same question: "Where is your project?"
What a powerful thing to have to describe the mistakes you made, a real learning experience and extremely formative!
I asked the question many times at HTH, "What would you do if you didn't have Carte Blanche?" and the first response was invariably "Get carte blanche".
A reframing of the question to "If you could change just one thing in the inherent system..." yielded similarly homogenous responses:
"Start with public exhibition."
Oh and DTPF!
Wednesday 16 March 2011
A consequence of teacher autonomy
I have noticed that some teachers seem to be very loose on the content even allowing some of them to be curriculum designers, while others do rely on set text books and having sessions dedicated to them. Book work then test. Both have stated that they therefore cover a wide curriculum.
Linear planning
The Biology relies upon BIo Rad practical kits and methodology including the questions suggested by the company.
The picture shows the linear nature of the planning. It was drawn and explained in response to how do you design for developing different types of knowldge. Facts, concpetual, Procedural, metacognitive.
How close to David Perkins Aboutitis is this model?
Planning Management Exhibit
Jeff Robin is a great advocate for PBL. Read more here and here
Jeff talked us through his approach for a mesmorising passionate hour. A couple of things struck me. Firstly that he believes that the real content learning that the students do comes not when the students are doing their projects but when they teach each other about their projects explaining the content behind their ideas. This seems to be benefited by the cross curricular nature of it. Much of the output from the students is art based- as the man says " Engineers draw plans that only communicate with other engineers. Artist communicate" How often do I act as an engineer in teaching.
I popped into his cuurent project the students route was
1. Identify a Physics principle then create a representative picture ( they ar eso much than this he has them choose a genre etc)
2. Then show it works in the real world in a building etc so he showed them Gaudi etc
3. Then find the principle in San Diego and again represent this as a movie or painting.
Jeff talked us through his approach for a mesmorising passionate hour. A couple of things struck me. Firstly that he believes that the real content learning that the students do comes not when the students are doing their projects but when they teach each other about their projects explaining the content behind their ideas. This seems to be benefited by the cross curricular nature of it. Much of the output from the students is art based- as the man says " Engineers draw plans that only communicate with other engineers. Artist communicate" How often do I act as an engineer in teaching.
I popped into his cuurent project the students route was
1. Identify a Physics principle then create a representative picture ( they ar eso much than this he has them choose a genre etc)
2. Then show it works in the real world in a building etc so he showed them Gaudi etc
3. Then find the principle in San Diego and again represent this as a movie or painting.
Time
Martin worked out last night that each project( semester) has the same amount of teaching time as a GCSE course.
Think this a useful concept for contemplating two things:
1. The High Quality Outcomes the students attain.- how big a factor is time?
2. The amount of learning that the students do- is the amount of learning sufficient? Is the balance of real, apllied, deep and connected learning more important than the coverage. HTH certainly belive so. So how do we amend this to our context?
Think this a useful concept for contemplating two things:
1. The High Quality Outcomes the students attain.- how big a factor is time?
2. The amount of learning that the students do- is the amount of learning sufficient? Is the balance of real, apllied, deep and connected learning more important than the coverage. HTH certainly belive so. So how do we amend this to our context?
Intellectual Rigour
A few snippets from conversations of students, just to try capture the intelectual challenge inherent in many of the tasks/ projects students. Completing a PMI on this may be interesting
"I didn't have enough emotion in my play....the main character didnt have enough about him....it wouldnt have been long enough"
"It was my first idea...we just went with it...im not sure what my teachers going to say when we get our one to one feedback"
" we could apply this to studying pollution, our hypothesis is right, we were able to collect some of the protein"
"i have a feeling you think theres something more" ( Its not that pure really, its all the hydrophobic proteins, is it not?)
" each of the practicals build on the previous one so they are all connected"
" when we research we read through the info, sometimes we print it out, and then make notes down the side, then we discuss it"
"I didn't have enough emotion in my play....the main character didnt have enough about him....it wouldnt have been long enough"
"It was my first idea...we just went with it...im not sure what my teachers going to say when we get our one to one feedback"
" we could apply this to studying pollution, our hypothesis is right, we were able to collect some of the protein"
"i have a feeling you think theres something more" ( Its not that pure really, its all the hydrophobic proteins, is it not?)
" each of the practicals build on the previous one so they are all connected"
" when we research we read through the info, sometimes we print it out, and then make notes down the side, then we discuss it"
When is education right?
A great (paraphrased) quote from Larry Rosenstock " When do we get education right? Kindergarden and Graduate School....the rest of the time we think theres an answer the students need to know. Take a dissertation, its research, fuzzy logic and what youre interested in"
This absolutely what you see in the problm based learning at HTH
This absolutely what you see in the problm based learning at HTH
Tuesday 15 March 2011
Potential Project Outline- Sustainibility week- Musical Upcycling
Here is an quickly drafted outline following on from the meeting with Jeff.
Monday 14 March 2011
Central Park East High School
Here is a nice news article on Central Park East High School in Harlem that Rob mentioned in HTH 101.
http://briandeer.com/social/harlem-schools.htm
http://www.deborahmeier.com/index.htm
http://briandeer.com/social/harlem-schools.htm
Deborah Meier - We All Know Why We're Here from Gary Stager on Vimeo.
http://www.deborahmeier.com/index.htm
Comparative quality in the high school
Jonathan from the visiting LF cohort (Villiers school) raised a great point and it was this; The learning and feel of the place, as well as the quality of work we see in the Middle schools is very much like what we see in our own schools back home. The question he then raised was how is it that what we see in the high tech high schools is so much better quality and when does this shift happen?
I actually think we need to reframe the question and first I will explain why. What struck me walking around the middle school was the Primary (or elementary) feel of the place, with ubiquitous wall display of kids' work and students who were without exception eager to show off their work and keen to please.
Upon entering the high schools, this culture was still present, and again to me apart from the maturity of the kids and their relationships with the teachers, it still felt primary. I think this is down in a large part to the continuation of the contact time teachers have with their students and their autonomy to design the curriculum rather than administer it. As a result the aspirational, risk taking and innovative culture endures from middle to high and this is crucial.
So I don't think the question is what happens between HTH middle and HTH high that makes them different to our schools in the UK, I think the question is what happens in our schools in the UK that "educates children out of creativity" as Sir Ken would put it.
I actually think we need to reframe the question and first I will explain why. What struck me walking around the middle school was the Primary (or elementary) feel of the place, with ubiquitous wall display of kids' work and students who were without exception eager to show off their work and keen to please.
Upon entering the high schools, this culture was still present, and again to me apart from the maturity of the kids and their relationships with the teachers, it still felt primary. I think this is down in a large part to the continuation of the contact time teachers have with their students and their autonomy to design the curriculum rather than administer it. As a result the aspirational, risk taking and innovative culture endures from middle to high and this is crucial.
So I don't think the question is what happens between HTH middle and HTH high that makes them different to our schools in the UK, I think the question is what happens in our schools in the UK that "educates children out of creativity" as Sir Ken would put it.
David Perkins "Generative" themes
From the book Making Learning Whole -are four criteria for scoping potential topics that will aid transfer facilitate teaching for understanding. I would also add in here motivate.
These are
1. Disciplinary significance- the topic as broad significance within or beyond their own discipline.
2. Societal significance - the topic speak of concerns of society at large.
3. Personal significance- Do the ideas allow learners, teachers, mentors or parents hopes desires curiosities to be reflected and explored.
4. Charisma- are the ideas magnetic, alluring
It is obvious that the projects at HTH meet many if not all of these criteria.
These are
1. Disciplinary significance- the topic as broad significance within or beyond their own discipline.
2. Societal significance - the topic speak of concerns of society at large.
3. Personal significance- Do the ideas allow learners, teachers, mentors or parents hopes desires curiosities to be reflected and explored.
4. Charisma- are the ideas magnetic, alluring
It is obvious that the projects at HTH meet many if not all of these criteria.
Pace and Blooms
An after thought- the pace of the lesson was not too fast, lots of time for students to process the information shared. The students were very good at utilising this, with mostly on topic conversations.
Interestingly the knowledge shared only hit two of Bloom knowledge dimensions. Those being Factual and Procedural missing metacognitive and conceptual.
The way the students interacted with the information was very much copying from the board and what the teacher said. Although many of the students could relate it too the context of this project.
So that the Blooms taxonomic level was always below apply.
Interestingly the knowledge shared only hit two of Bloom knowledge dimensions. Those being Factual and Procedural missing metacognitive and conceptual.
The way the students interacted with the information was very much copying from the board and what the teacher said. Although many of the students could relate it too the context of this project.
So that the Blooms taxonomic level was always below apply.
Lesson structure
During the debrief Tim mention that He was interested in how their monitored the quality if what was happening in lessons, which connects with what I saw in a taught lesson.
This was very much chalk and talk, with only a few students responding to teacher questions. This has got me too pondering about if lesson planning structures over manage the learning and remove space from the learners to make sense for themselves. Although the connections were mention only in passing on probing students were able to relate this knowledge to new wider implications.
I think Nuthalls insistence that lesson observation Should focus on the learning and not the teaching will be key to seeing how problem based learning works at HTH.
This was very much chalk and talk, with only a few students responding to teacher questions. This has got me too pondering about if lesson planning structures over manage the learning and remove space from the learners to make sense for themselves. Although the connections were mention only in passing on probing students were able to relate this knowledge to new wider implications.
I think Nuthalls insistence that lesson observation Should focus on the learning and not the teaching will be key to seeing how problem based learning works at HTH.
How choice is framed
When Modern Foreign Languages was mentioned, the main reason for not offering more than Spanish and Mandarin was that giving students more choice in the subjects that doing so would run counter to the schools policy of core cohorts i.e. groups of young people and adults who work together all of the time.
This seems to me to be one of the major enabling factors in the organisation of the school. Whilst students have comparatively less choice than those in our school, there are opportunities for personalisation within subjects and projects, and this personalised approach is accentuated by the close relationships which are immediately evident and seem to be a natural result in so much contact time.
This is where the pay off comes, despite what might seem on the surface to be a more prescribed and condensed curriculum. What I have observed so far today has been incredibly mature and real relationships between staff and students.
This seems to me to be one of the major enabling factors in the organisation of the school. Whilst students have comparatively less choice than those in our school, there are opportunities for personalisation within subjects and projects, and this personalised approach is accentuated by the close relationships which are immediately evident and seem to be a natural result in so much contact time.
This is where the pay off comes, despite what might seem on the surface to be a more prescribed and condensed curriculum. What I have observed so far today has been incredibly mature and real relationships between staff and students.
Rubics- probably the first of many posts
A couple of early thoughts about how rubrics are used.
The first one is how they are structured, they dont use and actually frown about the rarely, usually always approach. Instead they phrase this in a much more assertive fashion. This is reliant upon writing very clear precise standards. They then assess to Approaching, Meets and Exceeds.
I need to compile a few examples of this before I leave.
Next was a comment from a student and (seperately) from a teacher about that students are allowed to experience some failure. Although there is supportive action to remedy this. It is interesting that both student and shared the view on the fact that it was the students responsibilty to complete the tasks that are part of the bigger projects. The rubrics make clear the high standards and the expectations.
The first one is how they are structured, they dont use and actually frown about the rarely, usually always approach. Instead they phrase this in a much more assertive fashion. This is reliant upon writing very clear precise standards. They then assess to Approaching, Meets and Exceeds.
I need to compile a few examples of this before I leave.
Next was a comment from a student and (seperately) from a teacher about that students are allowed to experience some failure. Although there is supportive action to remedy this. It is interesting that both student and shared the view on the fact that it was the students responsibilty to complete the tasks that are part of the bigger projects. The rubrics make clear the high standards and the expectations.
Real world outcomes- a powerful driver.
It appears that nearly everything students do have a real world outcome and impact. Some of this is achieved through exhibitions known of "Presentations of learning", although the approach to this is more than a demonstration of content knowledge. It is also about the journey of how they got there incorporating the Habits of Minds and Hearts. Providing evidence of these and of the whether they are ready to move onto the next step. This seems to be key in generating ownership and encouraging high quality outcomes.
Interestingly other features that a student mentioned of improving the quality of the presentations made were regularity and struggling during the freshman year to meet the high standards expected. The attendence at public displays is extremely high too.
However there is much more I already have stumbled across a couple of examples of real world examples. A Bushmeat project, that culminated in a group of students travelling to Tanzania to teache Game Wardens how to perform DNA profile testing on bushmeat. So that they could identify the trade and consumption of endangered species. Even without the trip this is a good example of contextualising learning. The trip takes it to the stratosphere, as the beneficiaries of the student learning is actually global as it will have a direct impact on the preservation of biodiversity. Read more about it here http://www.africanbushmeat.org/
Another one is more on a local scale is a project to campaign and encourage local people to build gardens that locally sensitive to rain fall (in particular) and that encourage wildlife. Again even the context of this places the knowledge into a purposeful area, but the community aspects really adds value to this.
Interestingly other features that a student mentioned of improving the quality of the presentations made were regularity and struggling during the freshman year to meet the high standards expected. The attendence at public displays is extremely high too.
However there is much more I already have stumbled across a couple of examples of real world examples. A Bushmeat project, that culminated in a group of students travelling to Tanzania to teache Game Wardens how to perform DNA profile testing on bushmeat. So that they could identify the trade and consumption of endangered species. Even without the trip this is a good example of contextualising learning. The trip takes it to the stratosphere, as the beneficiaries of the student learning is actually global as it will have a direct impact on the preservation of biodiversity. Read more about it here http://www.africanbushmeat.org/
Another one is more on a local scale is a project to campaign and encourage local people to build gardens that locally sensitive to rain fall (in particular) and that encourage wildlife. Again even the context of this places the knowledge into a purposeful area, but the community aspects really adds value to this.
Friday 11 March 2011
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