The Sound of Future-Ready Learning Spaces

From the Edutopia post "Visualizing 21st Century Classroom Design"

As I mentioned in my post last week, the physical learning spaces our students enjoy today are transforming as we embrace the shifts in the education our children need to be successful.  In Mr. Glimco's blog post this week, he talks more about the future of our learning spaces as discussed and envisioned by our District 107 Future Planning Committee.  Articles like "Why The 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of a Starbucks" and "21st Century Education for a 21st Century Economy" helped shape the vision for what we want our future classrooms to look like.  Flexible learning spaces with room for collaboration and innovative technology are at the forefront of this vision.  But in addition to what a classroom looks like, to me it is equally important to think about what a future-ready classroom sounds like.

What will our future-ready classrooms sound like?

Loud!
Students should be collaborating, tinkering, and actively "doing" on a regular basis.  This requires oral communication between students, as well as regular guidance from the teacher.  This doesn't mean the teacher is telling students what to do; rather the teacher is asking strategic questions to get students thinking at higher levels and is providing specific feedback when students veer off-track.  Students should also be engaging in similar types of discourse with one another as they analyze and critique the reasoning of their peers during problem-solving processes.  When students are building, creating, and experimenting, it is important to hear the sound of materials being assembled and disassembled, the sounds of videos being recorded and revised, and the sounds of hard work.

Inquisitive!
As educators, it is our goal to promote autonomous problem-solvers and critical thinkers.  To do this,  teachers must encourage students to question their own thinking and the thinking of others to help them understand how to applying their learning to novel situations.  Teachers should not be the only ones asking the question; students should be asking questions too!  Asking good, thoughtful questions forces cognitive dissonance, which leads to the acquisition of new information or a new way of thinking.  A blog post I wrote back in October, 2015, discusses how students can use technology meaningfully to engage in higher level thinking tasks, which can include investigating the answers to their own juicy questions.

Reflective!
Reflection is another important component of a future-ready classroom.  While teachers certainly coach, question, and support students through specific feedback, it is important that students are also thinking critically about their experiences themselves.  Asking themselves questions like "What was successful and why?" and "What didn't work, and what do I think went wrong?" will help students learn from their experiences to improve their thinking in the future.  Thomas Edison epitomized this reflective nature when he said, "I have not failed.  I've just discovered ten thousand ways that don't work."

Supportive!
In a future-ready classroom, risk-taking is embraced and encouraged.  We know from Carol Dweck's research on the Growth Mindset that failure provides great learning opportunities.  Synapses fire in the brain when mistakes are made, which leads to learning.  The goal in a future-ready classroom is to provide students with a safe, supportive environment where failure is accepted and even encouraged since teachers know this is when the richest learning opportunities occur.  There are an abundance of books about failures detailing how such experiences have led to learning and great success.  It is important to remember that encouraging perseverance and patience throughout this process is what leads to the greatest growth after failure so learning can truly occur.

The Evolution of Our Learning Spaces

I graduated from middle school in 1998, and while that year is before our Pleasantdale Middle School students were even born, I know I am still pretty young.  One would think that my educational experience would be pretty similar to that of our current students...but in actuality, that is not the case.  Clearly, the evolution of technology has dramatically changed the landscape of education today.  However, what may not be as glaringly obvious is the fact that the learning spaces, the physical environments in which the students learn, have transformed over the years as well.

Students work in pairs
in Mrs. Bubulka's class.

When I was in school, I always sat in an individual desk which was always arranged neatly in a row.  I remember vividly students getting in trouble for kicking the basket on the desk in front of them.  Nowadays, there are still occasions when students sit in rows (independent work is certainly still valued!), but more often than not, students are sitting with a partner or a small group in order to compare and contrast ideas and work collaboratively with one another.  This means students are seated around tables or at desks clustered into groups.

Students work at tables
in Mrs. Triggs's class.

Many of us remember the movie clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off where the Ben Stein plays the epically boring economics teacher lecturing on the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act.  Luckily for our students, lectures like these are a rarity nowadays.  Our students are encouraged to construct their own learning, and teachers take on the role of facilitators who ask strategic questions, probe deeper thinking, and provide students with opportunities to engage in critical thinking tasks.  Because much of the learning nowadays is student-centered, there is rarely a "front" of the classroom.  Sometimes students are facing the side of the room where content is projected on the Promethean board, while other times students do not have the need to "face" any direction in particular since the teacher as "sage on the stage" does not have a central role in lesson delivery.  This allows for more flexibility when teachers set up their classrooms since every nook and cranny has the potential to become a learning space.  In fact, the District 107 Future Planning Committee spent a significant amount of time discussing the future of learning spaces in our schools, and we are excited to share some of that work with you in the upcoming weeks.

A student works on his art
in the hallway at PMS.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we know that students learn best when they are comfortable in their environment.  This means providing students as many opportunities as possible to have a voice in how the room is arranged and providing them with some ownership in the classroom environment.  When I was in school, student work was hung on bulletin boards outside the classroom, but often times the classroom walls themselves were for store-bought posters.  While these posters may provide useful information, they did not give students a sense of ownership in their learning or in the classroom.  Now when we take a look in our classrooms, we see student work all around the room.  Often times the student work serve as anchors for future classroom discussions and points of reference.  Teachers may ask students, "Remember when..." while pointing to a student-created poster hanging on the wall.  This validates the students' learning and reinforces the classroom culture where high expectations for all students are valued.

As our world changes, so much education, and along with that the physical space our in which our children learn.  Stay tuned...next week we will be sharing the District 107 Future Planning Committee's vision for the continued evolution of learning spaces in our district!

Displaying student work in classrooms has become the norm.

New Devices = New Learning Opportunities This Holiday Season

As the holidays approach, most of us look forward to spending quality time with our loved ones, a break from school/work, and time to reflect and celebrate another year gone by.  For many, gifts are exchanged in conjunction with the holiday season, which may mean new electronic devices for some.

I vividly remember the Christmas following my sixteenth birthday.  After turning sixteen a few months prior in September, I received a hot pink Nokia cell phone for my Christmas gift.  I was thrilled!  I set my ringtone to the "Mexican Hat Dance" and quickly learned how to play "Snake", the one game that came on my cell phone, that same day.  My parents were very quick to remind me that the cell phone came with a very limited package of air time, which meant that making calls from my cell phone was to be restricted to driving emergencies only (hence the reason the gift was given after my sixteenth birthday).  No warnings had to be given about texting or appropriate social media use since these things did not yet exist.

Today, parents gifting devices to their children have many more considerations to deliberate than my parents did years ago.  Smartphones and tablets provide immediate access to the internet, and a plethora of downloadable apps allow users to access, create, and share information instantly with others.  Plus, children nowadays are receiving these devices at younger ages, which means their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for decision making, is less developed.  (Read this quick article from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology for a brief overview of teen brain development.)  While these devices are extremely useful and provide many positive learning opportunities, it is also important to provide children with guidance as they learn to appropriately navigate the freedom these devices afford them.

In attempts to support parents as they navigate conversations with their children related to the responsible use of devices and social media, we have created an Internet Safety web page on our school website.  For future reference, this web page can be found on the Pleasantdale Middle School website under the "Information" tab.  Posted resources provide parents with information and conversation starters related to topics like safe cell phone usage, cyberbullying, and posting appropriately on social media.  Pleasantdale District 107 actively works to create good digital citizens, and in order to do so, we need the help of our parents, too.

In addition to providing children with guidance on internet safety, it is important to have conversations with children related to the amount of screentime spent in front of a device.  A recent article from T.H.E. Journal titled "Parents Admit to Social Media Spying on their Tweens" provides key findings from a study conducted by Common Sense Media and The Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University related to the impact of screen time for children ages 8 - 18 years old.  One of the most shocking statistics is that parents say their tweens spend approximately nine hours a day on social media.  This makes having conversations related to social media usage, as well as taking the time to monitor social media usage, that much more critical when some spend so much time on such apps and websites.  In addition, a recently published article by Healthy Day titled "Smartphones, Tablets, and Weight gain in Teens"  highlights the health dangers of too much screen time.

So this holiday season, take the time to give the gift of conversation along with that new device.  Take the time to talk with children about responsible device usage, and set reasonable boundaries related to screen time.  This will make for a more pleasant, safe holiday season which will inevitably lead to a more pleasant, safe year ahead in 2017.

Wising everyone a very happy, safe and healthy holiday season!

Teaching Empathy

As we return from the Thanksgiving holiday and look forward to many other holidays in the month ahead, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude.  Pleasantdale is a school community with an abundance of dedicated staff members, kind and hard-working students, and invested parents and community members.  However, along with this gratitude comes the obligation to continually be sensitive to the fact that we only see a portion of each other's lives.  We must constantly consider how we can support our Pleasantdale family through thick and thin, through life's ups and downs.  This week Mr. Glimco blogs about some of the ways we do this specifically around the holidays at the middle school, and Mr. Vandercar explains how this is done at the elementary school.

But what do we do the rest of the year, when the holidays are not upon us?  At Pleasantdale Middle School, our Social Emotional Learning committee, which is comprised of teachers and administrators and is spearheaded by our social worker Carrie Castaldo, has been working hard to ensure students are receiving regular opportunities to engage in social-emotional learning opportunities throughout the school year.

One of the Illinois Social-Emotional Learning Standards that enables students to support others is Standard 2A: Recognize the feelings and perspectives of others.  A key component of successfully doing this is teaching empathy.  The benefits of teaching empathy are clear.  It strengthens a classroom culture, builds community, and prepares students to be leaders in the community outside of school.  Teaching empathy can also help students with academics since it can help students to understand their audience when presenting and speaking, to interpret a character's motives in a text, and to have a better understanding of the solution a problem necessitates.  Behaviorally, empathetic students are able to better understand how their words and actions impact others, which provides for a richer learning experience when mistakes are made.  Our staff strives to embed lessons in empathy into the curriculum by reading and discussing a variety of texts, taking on historical personas during social studies class, and role playing during health class.

With each conversation we have with students, our goal is to increase their capacity to empathize with others.  By teaching our students empathy, it is our hope that we will create a more supportive school culture throughout the school year, not just during the holiday season.

Making the Most of Parent-Teacher Conferences

With the Thanksgiving holiday break just around the corner, we cannot overlook the valuable opportunities for dialogue that next week's parent-teacher conferences provide.  There is a significant body of research that shows a strong partnership between parents and teachers has a positive impact on children.  Among other benefits, students whose parents are involved in their education are more likely to attend school on a regular basis, earn higher grades, have better social skills, show improved behavior, and are more likely to graduate and go onto higher education.  According to the book Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions by Agnes Bain, Dan Rothstein, and Luz Santana (2016), strong parent-teacher partnerships emerge when parents effectively support their child's education at home, monitor their child's progress, and advocate for the child when necessary.  Parent-teacher conferences provide the perfect opportunity to strengthen this partnership as both parties come together to reflect on the child's progress thus far and establish a plan which will maximize opportunities for student success.

It is important to remember going into parent teacher conferences that both teachers and parents are on the same team; everyone wants what is best for the child.  While the teachers are always prepared to debrief parents on their child's performance, it is important for parents to actively engage in the conversation as well.  One of the best ways for parents to do this is through asking probing questions.  By asking questions, parents are able to gain better insight into their child's thoughts, habits, and social and academic skills.

Here is a sampling of good questions to ask at a parent-teacher conference:

• How would you describe my child's work habits?
• What are my child's biggest areas of strength?  Target areas for improvement?
• How can I support my child's learning at home?
• Does my child listen well?
• How would you describe my child's interactions with his/her peers?
• Does my child persevere through difficult tasks?
• Does my child ask thoughtful questions?
• Does my child advocate for him/herself when clarification or help is needed?
• How can I encourage my child to take ownership of his/her learning?

The goal is to walk away from a parent-teacher conference with a plan for the future, with an understanding of how both parents and teachers can support the child in his/her learning and improvement.

Finally, please remember if you are unable to attend parent-teacher conferences, there are many other opportunities to have a similar dialogue with your child's teacher.  Please do not hesitate to reach out via email, telephone, or Schoology message to initiate conversations with your child's teacher.  The dialogue is never restricted to parent-teacher conference time.

"Together we may give our children the roots to grow and the wings to fly."

A Work in Progress

"An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it." -Paul Valéry

This past Wednesday night, we held our second District 107 Future Planning Committee meeting.  The focus of this meeting was on setting priorities as we develop a guiding plan for our district that will sustain us the next several years.  In order to do this, we had to contemplate what we hope our "portrait of an eighth grader" would look like, meaning our picture-perfect eighth-grade Pleasantdale graduate.  This, as you can imagine, was a daunting task!

There were so many components to consider as we tried to paint the picture of our ideal graduate.  Do we consider the specific academic skills learned and the experiences that should be had by all students along their journey from kindergarten through eighth grade?  Do we articulate what we hope the students will be able to do upon entering into high school due to our thoughtful efforts and preparations?  Ultimately, groups within the committee came up with a list of 7-10 adjectives to describe the characteristics we would like our eighth-grade students to possess upon graduation.

The group of parents and community members I observed prioritized the following:

8th Graders "Voting" in Our Mock Election

• Accountable
• Fulfilled
• Responsible
• Compassionate
• Resilient (see Mr. Glimco's post)
• Proactive
• Articulate
• Driven
• Curious

In reflecting on this one group's list, what strikes me most is that these are characteristics that I (and many other adults) continue to strive to exhibit on a regular basis.  Although we may cultivate these characteristics in our students as they travel through our school district, living a life where these attributes define who the student is as a person will require diligence and mindfulness.  It will take commitment and vigilance.

As French poet and philosopher Paul Valery said, "An artist never really finishes his work; he merely abandons it."  District 107 hopes to not only cultivate these characteristics in our students as they grown from kindergarten through eighth grade but also inspire our students to continue their quest to fill the great canvas of their lives with the colors and images of their efforts as they grow into happy, successful adults.

Lessons Learned Outside the Classroom

Team Tigers Gaga Ball

As I sit in my office, now a middle school assistant principal, and reflect on my own years as a middle school student, many memories flood into my mind.  Of course I have memories of certain teachers who made a lasting impact on me, but what I remember the most are vivid memories of the time I spent outside the classroom involved in extracurricular activities.  I remember the time I had a leading role in the school musical "The Gigo Effect", the excitement and energy of cheering on the sidelines at school basketball games, dancing and singing with my friends at the "Lighted School House" (like Pdale's "Friday Night Live"), and the lasting impact of participating in Operation Snowflake.

There are so many benefits for children who engage in extracurricular activities.  Sports, clubs, and arts programs allow students to explore their interests, while also providing them with opportunities to hone other skills:

Student Council hard at work!

• Social-emotional development
• Time management and prioritizing
• Problem solving
• Collaboration and communication
• Ability to apply academic skills in a real-life context

These learning opportunities foster a heightened sense of belonging to the school's community, and research has shown this leads to improved attendance rates for students.  Improved attendance rates, coupled with higher levels of self-esteem and the chance to apply academic concepts through the participation in extracurricular activities, tend to result in higher academic achievement.  It is equally important to realize participation in extracurricular activities builds character as students learn the importance of honoring commitments and appreciating the differences of others who are united by a common interest.

Gamer's Club

At Pleasantdale Middle School, our students are fortunate to have a variety of activities and athletics from which to choose.  Jen Driscoll, our activities director, works tirelessly to ensure each week there are many drop-in activity options that will appeal to a variety of students.  The "Activities" page of the Pleasantdale Middle School website provides information on over 25 activities students are able to attend and the calendar of when these activities occur.  Mark Dreher, our athletic director, maintains the athletics calendar on the "Athletics" page of the middle school's website where information on sports tryouts and game dates can be found.

Thank you to Mrs. Driscoll, Mr. Dreher, and all our coaches and club sponsors who make these wonderful opportunities available to our students.  We know the lessons students learn outside the classroom by participating in extracurricular activities will impact our students for years to come!

PMS Girls Basketball

Cheerleading Practice