Deeper Learning 2019

This workshop will present some of the most innovative courses at Beaver Country Day School. Interdisciplinary and student-driven, these courses are a springboard for students to problem-solve and design creative solutions to authentic problems. This interactive workshop will showcase some of the curriculum and end-products designed by students, and will offer participants the opportunity to brainstorm ideas and experience a design challenge.

"What do I have to do to get an A?" "Is there any extra work I can do to get 5 more points?" "Why did I get an 87 instead of an 88?" These questions -- which every teacher has had a thousand times -- are never fun. After all, educators want to talk to kids about learning and growth, not how many extra credit worksheets make up the difference between an A- and an A+.

In this session, we will explore the question of how to move away from an assessment model focused on points and letters and toward a model focused on growth and learning. First, we will take a deep dive into the Portfolio Assessment model being piloted by the three facilitators at their school site, High Tech High North County. This model, currently being used in 10th grade Chemistry, 10th grade Humanities, and 9th grade Engineering, utilizes an ongoing portfolio of student work to track growth in specific skills and facilitate authentic student-teacher conversations about the students’ learning.

Next, participants will reflect on the assessment systems they use in their own classrooms or school settings and brainstorm ideas for both small- and large- scale changes that could create a positive and impactful culture of learning.

Measuring deeper learner is a sticky problem of practice, and in this highly interactive session, school and district leaders will have an opportunity to check out the PBL Evidence Framework, a new tool designed by the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) that districts and schools can use to track and assess progress and achievement of deeper learning initiatives, like Project Based Learning (PBL). BIE is currently pilot-testing the Framework in partner districts/complex areas and is eager to share this with other district and school leaders to gauge their interest in the tool and gather feedback.

Looking for ways to teach and assess students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills? Building on assessment for learning principles and visible thinking routines, Two Rivers Public Charter School has developed a system to collect data on students’ development and transference of the cognitive skills embedded in project-based learning to other settings. Come learn how we developed discrete performance assessments centered on different aspects of critical thinking, and how we use the data to inform instruction and to help students integrate cognitive skills into their lives. Our session will leave participants with practical considerations for teaching and assessing critical thinking skills to all students.

We know that the most common forms of assessment today — the unit test, midterm, final exam — are not necessarily the best way to determine what a student has learned deeply. We also know that visuals can bring clarity, support thinking, and make the abstract more concrete. Using a visual approach, this session will highlight recent research in assessment and allow participants to see beyond the test to more effective and equitable ways to measure student understanding.

The session will be facilitated by Dr. Denise Pope, Senior Lecturer from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Co-Founder of Challenge Success, and Kawai Lai, Co-Founder and Executive Director of VizLit and former VP of Innovation for National Association of Independent Schools. Dr. Pope and Ms. Lai are frequent speakers at education conferences and lead interactive, high energy sessions that offer research-based content with a visual lens towards practical applications in the classroom for all learners.

As a way to relate the research to practice, we start by asking participants to visualize the challenges and successes related to assessment that they’ve faced in their own classrooms. We will discuss and conceptualize the differences between traditional assessment and performance assessment, and review a backwards design process that can help participants better align enduring understandings, essential questions, and multiple forms of assessments. We will provide models of innovative approaches to make assessment more authentic and accurate, and we will ask participants to work together to practice assessment skills that can be incorporated into their current curricula.

Participants will leave with a deeper understanding about the role of assessment and a visual toolkit of practical strategies and innovative approaches to re-think how they might more equitably engage and evaluate students to support deep learning for all learners.

We encounter the contemporary world via screens and sophisticated evaluation skills are required to navigate the tidal wave of information available online. For every social or political issue, there are scores of groups seeking to persuade us. If students are unable to identify the interests behind the information they consume, they are easy marks for dubious causes of all kinds. Students must be able to sort through digital sources, find trustworthy information, and develop claims using evidence. Students need help learning how to do this.

Based on research examining how fact checkers evaluate online content, the Stanford History Education Group has developed new curriculum and assessments that prepare students to efficiently analyze digital sources. During this session, participants will review lesson plans, watch classroom videos, examine student work samples, and collaborate to figure out how these materials can be integrated into their own classrooms.

Session objectives:

• Participants will explore the Stanford History Education Group’s new digital literacy lessons.
• Participants will examine sample student responses to tasks embedded within the lesson.
• By engaging in a model lesson and examining sample student responses, participants will become familiar with lesson structures and common student misconceptions.
• Participants will consider ways to integrate these lesson plans into classroom instruction to help students to become more discerning consumers of online information.

Culture is the root of continuous improvement. Various strategies come and go, but culture keeps us coming and going. Many classes spend significant time defining habits of heart and mind. But not as many define what it means to “work.” How do we cultivate a culture that supports quality work in the various assignments that come and go? A culture that inspires excellence in everything we do? I will share a process to teach students what it means to work, and how excellence is built on the foundation of details.

In this session we will look at the why and how of going gradeless in a system that requires grades. Going gradeless redirects the focus to actual learning, reduces student stress, promotes reflection and self-assessment, gives students ownership of learning, and promotes a culture of risk taking and learning from mistakes. But, how do we do it in a school that still requires grades? What does assessment look like in this environment? Come dive into going gradeless!

In this session, participants will develop a deeper understanding of the 'why' of student reflection and goal setting and how it impacts both teaching and learning. Through video, text and small group discussion, we will unpack the systems, structures, and language that support the development of reflection and goal setting as a culture and as a routine. Participants will highlight existing practices and elevate these to create a tool box of strategies that can be implemented in their practice.

In this session, participants will develop a Graduate Profile for their students and then use design thinking to create a portfolio system that assesses all students’ attainment of the essential components of the Graduate Profile. We will look at the “why” and “how” of meaningful reflection, and consider models from schools that have found success in using a portfolio system aligned to their Graduate Profile. After these considerations of their own context and successful models elsewhere, participants will exhibit prototypes of their own designs.

Should you judge a person by their picture?  Does it tell their whole story?  What’s missing?  The same can be asked of our students.  Are we truly measuring what counts? Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”  How can we better understand fully, what our students know and can do? In this session, you will analyze your current performance expectations, prototype a graduate profile, and create a plan for engaging stakeholders in this work.  You will journey across campus with students from High Tech High to view a project they have curated and have the unique opportunity to ask questions about what skills they developed to complete this work, informing the design of your own graduate profile. Hear how one rural school district has maximized the development of a graduate profile to transform the learning experiences for all K-12 students.  

We will address three main issues as you develop your graduate profile:
- What do all students need to know and be able to do?
- What experiences do students need to master these skills?
- How will we know if these experiences provided equitable outcomes for all students?

We know that social-emotional learning (SEL) plays a key role in supporting students’ engagement with rigorous academic content and their development of lifelong learning habits and dispositions - i.e., deeper learning! Do students have opportunities in your school’s program to develop SEL competencies? If so, right on! How do you know that your program is working - that students are developing the SEL competencies you value? Come hear about a Stanford University research project (“Measures of Social-Emotional Learning”) that has been innovating on meaningful SEL measures that are integrated with authentic, student-centered learning experiences. In this workshop, you will experience a couple of the SEL measures developed by our partner schools; hear from a panel of practitioners, students, and assessment developers about their experiences developing, piloting, and learning from these SEL measures; learn about a research-tested design framework and a step-by-step process for developing meaningful and actionable measures of SEL competencies that go beyond traditional survey measures; and take a first step on that journey in your own school.