Concluding Post: A Line of Classroom and School Improvement

Dear Superintendent T. and Principal M.,

            I am writing you this letter to propose a change to our school day that will not only benefit our students but allow our schools to succeed as well. The reason I am writing both of you is because I feel like this change will first take place in the classroom, but has the possibility to take place district wide and I would not only love your support but I would also love to collaborate with you on how we can successfully implement this plan.

            The idea for this plan began when I was reflecting on an activity that happens in our schools called “Watch Dogs”. I love the idea of having our parents get involved in our schools but I feel like the problem is that we are not involving them in meaningful ways that will benefit our students. I would like to change this providing equal access to our parent helpers by allowing all of our students to be involved in real-life, meaningful and authentic contexts that require them to produce a product or service with the help of a parent or community member. By doing this we will not only foster equality, and student learning but we will promote growth within our community. It is often overlooked, “but the fundamental organization is that of the school itself as a community of individuals, in its relations to other forms of social life” (Dewey, p. 78) is extremely important.  

            In short I propose that, at the classroom level first, I pilot an enrichment program called Enrichment Clusters. Enrichment Clusters will allow our students to be placed not by ability but by interest, therefore increasing their engagement and motivation in a project-based, real-world setting. This proposal will also allow our students a real-world context in which to situate their classroom learning, while providing them with access to community members, businesses, and each other as valuable resources. These clusters will not only promote student learning through hands on, minds on experiences but it will also allow students to form their own identity that focuses on their talents and skills.

            Enrichment Clusters are a research based activity that was originally formed by Dr. Joseph Renzulli of the University of Connecticut. Community members, parents, teachers and administrators offer cluster ideas in which they are an expert in or would like to know more about. Students then get to choose which cluster they would like to be in and meet in that cluster once a week for an hour over a six week time frame. Each week, the activities inside each cluster are focused around what the students want to do to create a product or service that solves a problem in the real world. At the end of the six week period, the students present their product or service to an authentic audience. To me, Enrichment Clusters are based around three principles which include, occupational/project-based learning, small group learning, and interest based grouping. I will explain these in further detail, situating these theories into our current “Watch Dog” practice and how they would look in the “Enrichment Cluster” model.

            One of the biggest problems I have with the “Watch Dog” practice is how the parents used in this are used for hanging pictures or for practicing math facts or spelling words. When parents and practicing these facts with students, “there is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning” (Dewey, p. 29) and therefore students are bored and get nothing out of it. It is my belief that the parents who volunteer for this duty could be used in a more meaningful and authentic way as enrichment cluster leaders.

            To accommodate for the above mentioned problem, Enrichment Clusters provide the students with occupational/project based learning. While I understand that practicing multiplication facts and spelling words is important it is “somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the training of attention and judgment that is acquired in having to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead” (Dewey, p. 25). Because Enrichment Clusters are so closely linked to occupation learning and project based learning this motive that children will have will be “a genuine motive by giving them experience at first hand and bring them into contact with realities” (Dewey, p. 37). By situating the rote-learning of facts into project based learning and Enrichment Clusters, “the result will be that students get indefinitely more acquainted with the facts of school, than they get where information is the professed end and object, where they are simply set to learning facts in fixed lessons” (Dewey, p. 64). Project based learning also provides students with the opportunity to act and learn from those actions instead of being passive learners by sitting in rows and taking notes. This is important because “the moment children act, they individualize themselves” and that is something that needs to be valued more in school.

            The other problem I have with how Watch Dogs is currently set up is that only a select few students benefit from this program. Yet, they do have small groups; these small groups are entirely based on academic ability. With Enrichment Clusters, each child gets access to the learning opportunity through the use or small groups that are formed based on interests instead of ability. By having small learning groups, Enrichment Clusters creates a “place where the children bring the experiences, the problems, the questions, the facts which they have found and discuss them so that new light may be thrown upon them, particularly new light from the experience of others and the accumulated wisdom of the world” (Dewey, p. 100). In these small groups, the parents or community members who lead them are thought of as facilitators and help transform these groups into student centered laboratories with the focus of solving real world problems by working together.  

            These theories that support Enrichment Clusters are meaningless if they are not backed up by research and evidence. There is a lot of evidence that supports the formation of small groups that are based on interests and that are student centered. Enrichment Clusters promotes both theories small group size, student selection of cluster, and student led projects. In a research report conducted by PEARSON, they found that “there is a wealth of empirical evidence that connects interest with performance achievement” (Lai, p. 11). However, not only does interest promote greater performance achievement it also “leads to persistence at a task over long periods of time, closer attention, ability to focus and increased learning and enjoyment. In that same study performed by PEARSON it was also argued that “when teachers allow students to make decisions about their own work, students are more likely to be interested in the work. Students who are given choices tend to exhibit more persistence, goal-setting, and other self-regulated learning behaviors” (Lai, p.25). Enrichment Clusters provide the opportunity for students to hone in on their identity through interest and control of what is being learned. This not only increases their performance achievement but it also teaches them valuable learning skills.

            There is also a lot of evidence and research that supports the use of occupational/project based learning in the classroom. In an article in Edutopia that reported on the use of project based learning in schools around the country, there were some common themes that were reported. These common themes were that students “retain what they learn rather than forget it as soon as they disgorge it for a test. They make connections and apply their learning to other problems. They learn how to collaborate, and their social skills improve. They are more confident talking to groups of people, including adults. And, as a number of research reports suggest, project-based learning correlates positively with improved test scores, reduced absenteeism, and fewer disciplinary problems” (Curtis, 2001). These benefits to project based learning can be seen with the implementation of Enrichment Clusters.

            All of this evidence supports the use of Enrichment Clusters in the classroom and hopefully someday at the district level. I also believe that this evidence is increasingly strengthened with the inclusion of parent and community facilitators that can further close the gap between what is being taught in school to the real-world.

            To get started with implementing this plan I have included the steps necessary to get started at the classroom level. Please keep in mind, that these steps can be used to implement Enrichment Clusters across grade levels, and even between schools. These steps were modified from Dr. Joseph Renzulli’s site on Enrichment Clusters (http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart01.html)

Step 1: Send out an interest survey to the students who will be participating. Students choose from topics that interest them. This will better serve the volunteers for picking the topics of which to center their cluster around.

Step 2: Ask for volunteers to be cluster leaders. Cluster leaders can be teachers, principals, administrators, parents, older siblings, aunts/uncles, or community members. It is important to get a number of volunteers in order to determine the size of each group.

Step 3: Hold a cluster leader meeting. This is important to educate the cluster leaders on what their role will be throughout the process of Enrichment Clusters. This is a good time to answer questions, and help with any planning necessary.

Step 4: Once we have a number of clusters and their topics, we will have an assembly where the all the students involved will be invited. Here the cluster leaders will introduce themselves and share a short description of their cluster. After the assembly, students will go back to their room and choose their top 3 cluster choices.

Step 5: Place students into clusters. Students will be able to receive one of their top three choices.

Step 6: Students meet with cluster leaders once a week for an hour. Students and cluster leaders will be working on their product or service and after 6 weeks be ready to present.

Step 7: Students present their product or service at gallery walk. Members of the community, parents, and other students are invited to learn about each cluster.

            It is important after this cycle is complete to evaluate the successfulness of Enrichment Clusters. This can be done through student, parent, administrator, cluster leader, and community member surveys, the gallery walk presentation and any other feedback. It will also be important to note any changes in classroom exams, and attendance because as suggested these should be influenced by the implementation of Enrichment Clusters.

            However, the purpose of this letter is to not only convince you of the benefits of such a program could have on our schools, but to also make you aware that this cannot be accomplished without your help. First and foremost, I believe that for this to be successful, I would love to have your support in going forward with this plan. There would also need to be discussions on where in the school/district our cluster leaders could hold their sessions, whether it’s in the gym, resources rooms, cafeterias, etc. I also think it would be very meaningful and awesome for the students if you would volunteer to lead a cluster. Finally, and probably the most important way that you can help with this implementation is the raising of funds. Each product or service will cost money to make or complete. Whether these funds are through grants, school funds, or fundraisers, your input and influence will be greatly appreciated.

            This plan was not conceived under naïve notions that there will be bumps along the way. However, I believe that with the support of our teachers, administrators, parents and community, Enrichment Clusters can be a great success for our school and district. I hope that this letter outlines the benefits and steps necessary to help inform you completely on your decision to whether or not adopt Enrichment Clusters. Please feel free to contact me to clear any questions up. I appreciate your time and all that you do for our school and district.

Best Wishes,

Andrew Ley

3^rd Grade Teacher

Marshall Elementary School

Byron Center, Michigan

Resources:

Curtis, Diane. Project-Based Learning: Real-World Issues Motivate Students. November 2001 Edutopia. http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-student-motivation

Dewey, John. The School and Society. Forgotten Books 2012. Originally published by John Dewey  in 1900.

Lai, Emily R. Motivation: A Literature Review. PEARSON, April 2011. http://www.pearsonassessments.com/hai/images/tmrs/motivation_review_final.pdf

Renzulli, Joseph Dr. How to Develop an Authentic Enrichment Cluster. University of Connecticut. http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart01.html

Cycle Three: Embryonic Communities

With this week’s idea of “embryonic communities” being so engrained into the work of John Dewey, I find it necessary to mention that my older brother teaches at the University Lab School (http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/schools/lower-school/index.aspx) at the University of Chicago and he teaches 4^th grade. I have been fortunate enough to observe him in his classroom and it further links this week’s reading, especially the Dewey text, to what I have seen and what he does. There seems to be a deeper connection to his methods and understanding to why he sets up his classroom the way he does. This idea of community is ever present in his classroom and has always been a major goal of mine as a teacher.

            To take John Dewey’s term “embryonic community” I add my own interpretation of that meaning. To me, this means that the school, home, community and all the people at these places communicate and experience meaningful and authentic learning opportunities with each other. However, I firmly believe that this idea of community is not being fostered by the education world we live in today. There are certain policies that are preventing this and it is troubling to me. With that being said, I do believe that as teachers we have the opportunity to create this community and allow our students to experience meaningful and authentic learning.

            There are many reasons for this failure of community in the school system of today. To start, in opposition to Norway where “teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around” (Hancock, p. 1), it seems more and more the teachers are being relieved of their control in the classroom. They are replaced with mandated district curriculums and materials that do not connect to the students’ lives and do not provide them with a meaningful entry to the learning. Also, teachers, including myself, are made to feel bad for making the extra effort to build this community. Through home-visits, morning meeting, and student-led conferences, I am made to defend these choices and at times forced to stop.

            Another policy that is preventing communities within the school from thriving is the high stakes standardize tests. This is for a couple of reasons. First, these programs such as “Race to the Top” promote competition between schools and within classrooms. While in the business world competition is a necessary, in the education world this competition prevents collaboration. Teachers need to feel like they can collaborate with other professionals through PLCs and other forms. “If one method fails, teachers must consult with colleagues to try something else” (Hancock, p.1) to keep finding ways to connect material to the students’ lives and the real world. This directly relates to community because “as teachers learn from one another, they begin to see the ways that group members can contribute to and enrich one another’s development and growth” (Lieberman and Miller, p. 14). This collaboration not only dies with standardized tests amongst teachers, but the newly enforced performance pay will only splinter that gap even farther. These tests also prevent students from learning from students to the point where if “one child is to help another in his task it has become a school crime” (Dewey, p. 29). This collaboration is important because “the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons” (Dewey, p. 27)

            As mentioned earlier, I engage my students in different ways such as home-visits, morning meetings and student-led conferences in order to build my community. This past year I struggled and felt like I was missing a part of that community and that was the parents of my students and businesses within my community. To help with this I piloted a program called Enrichment Clusters (http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart01.html). This idea originated from Dr. Joseph Renzulli of the University of Connecticut and was also something I observed in my brother’s classroom. This idea behind this is that students are split into small learning communities based on their interests where they work with an adult to create a product or service. The adult was usually a teacher or parent, but we had some business leaders take on a cluster as well. These clusters were small in only 5-6 students and was focused around the idea that “both students and teachers are constantly engaged both in learning about core content and in how to understand and communicate with one another” (Felner, p. 3). At the end of the 7 week period, students would share their product or service with the entire school. During these clusters, adult-leaders were more facilitators and also were able to set up meaningful field trips to help the students with their products or services. These field trips allowed students to see how what they were doing in the school is being applied in the real world. The focus of each cluster was very much similar to those listed by Kyle in his intro to this cycle. They included, stop motion photography, cars of the future, food drives, school wide compost (http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/04/22/shadow-valley-students-turn-lunch-leftovers-compost), theatre, and outdoor survival to name a few (http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/clusters/). These “occupations in the school were not meant to be mere practical devices, but centers of scientific insight into natural materials and processes” (Dewey, p. 33). Students were driven by their inquiry and their own natural curiosities. They worked cross class and even cross grades. In my opinion, this built classroom community, school-wide community, and community with surrounding areas.

            While there are policies in today’s educational world that can limit community there are many things we can do to promote and champion this idea. As teachers, we should strive “to make each one of schools an embryonic community life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society, and permeate throughout with the spirit or art, history and science” (Dewey, p. 44).   

Cycle 2: The effect tracking has on building an effective classroom community.

            The idea of tracking and differentiation are hot topics in the education community. It seems like they are always hot topics, with a lot of different viewpoints, experiences, and data to support either side. I only used “tracking” in my title because there are many different forms of tracking. There is ability tracking, or tracking students based on academic ability. There is also interest tracking, where you track and group students based on their interests. I have had experience in both with math unit grouping and the idea of Authentic Enrichment Clusters (http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart01.html). I have formed the conclusion that when implemented correctly, these can be not only a positive influence on my students’ academic progress but also on my progress on building an effective classroom community.

            In math at my school for the last two years we have implemented a math tracking system within our third grade classes. Every unit, the whole third grade takes a unit pre-test. Based on those scores we split up our students into three groups based on how well they did on that pre-test. The three groups are pacing groups, a fast, medium, and slow. We never use those terms, and the same material is taught, but at different paces. At the end of each unit, we all take the same post-test. This has been a controversial topic but I think that it all depends on how you look at it.

            Those who are opposed to ability level grouping state that there is “no group of students has been found to benefit consistently from being in a homogenous group” (Oakes, p. 5).  There has also been studies that “show that struggling students fall further behind when segregated. Teachers lower their expectations and the gulf separating the children from their peers widens” (Schumer, p. 2). These are both good points and the main things that I want to address in both of these statements are “homogenous” and “lowered expectations”.

            The one area where I think ability grouping gets a bad rap is the idea that when you group a certain group of students, they stay that way for a long time. In our math groupings, students were changing groups every four to five weeks. These groups were not homogenous but were every changing. “The purpose of grouping and regrouping is not only to give children of different skills a chance to shine but also to expose them to different ways of learning and to one another” (Schumer, p. 1). I realize that there are arguments that grouping students does not allow them to shine or do better (Oakes). But these groups did allow students who needed more time on a concept the support and help needed to achieve success. At the same time it also provided the student who knew the material already to be challenged with a quicker pace and extensions, rather than being bored with material he already knows. Throughout the year we learned that “some students would learn better if they had more time to master a skill or achieve an understanding and some students might learn better if they spent less time on a particular skill or understanding” (Tomlinson and McTighe, p. 90).This directly applies to the Multiple Intelligence Theory (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/ed_mi_overview.html) that students are smart in different areas.

************* Analogy that supports flexible grouping and multiple intellengeces***********

            Tiger Woods is an excellent putter of the golf ball. It’s been said that putting is his greater strength. Therefore when Tiger Woods goes to practice he does not spend a lot of time practicing putting because he is the best in the world. However, Tiger Woods is a notorious poor driver of the golf ball. Therefore, when he goes to practice he spends more time hitting his driver. When he practices like this, he is able to become a more complete and better golfer.

cool Tiger Woods commercial just for fun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAf0kVFNqrI)

            Just like the student who does not need a lot of time with multiplication facts, but needs more time with fractions. Flexible grouping allows the specific types of instruction and learning needed to make that student a more complete and better student.

******************************************************************************

            The other area that I would like to address is lowered expectations. The reason that these groups were so successful was that the expectations from the teacher were high regardless of the pacing group. It does not matter which group you have as a teacher, you still expect great things from your students. Just because students are tracked and grouped does not mean inequality learning. There are still high expectations from teachers, meaningful learning opportunities for students and equal exposure to the content. The only different or unequal is the pace. And just like we should differentiate and create a classroom community that meets the diverse personalities or our classrooms, we should also create a learning environment that meets the diverse learning abilities and styles of our students.

            Flexible grouping based on ability and interest should not be seen as something that takes away from an effective classroom community. When students are able to experience success and share that success with their peers, the learning community is further strengthened (http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/progressive.htm). When students are able to share interests and ideas with each other, the learning community is further strengthened. When this is accomplished in a classroom, students are able invest in not only their own learning but invest and care about the learning of the other students in the classroom. “If classrooms are to be places where students care about each other and are committed to each other’s academic success, a cooperative structure must exist” (Johnson and Johnson, p. 169).

Cycle one: Interpretations of the meaning and causes of failure

The guiding term this week is failure (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYECIjmnQs). Failure is something that is greatly ingrained in our society as Americans and one that can be found in everyone and everywhere. I have experienced failure on many different levels both personally and professionally. In my life, as a senior in high school, I was cut from the varsity basketball team after making it the year before. This was clearly very hard to swallow and the idea of failure was very much present in my mind. I have failed in my learning, receiving low grades in high school and bombing a mid-term in college just to name a few. I have also experienced failure in teaching, with lessons that did not go well, dealing with parents, and dealing with students who struggle with their behavior. To me, the question of whether or not I will fail is not a question that I grapple with. I fully understand that my life will be full of failures both personally and professionally. My life experiences up until now have led me to that idea. I am ok with that. What I have learned is how to turn those failures into successes. I believe that throughout my experiences and the readings for this week the underlying factor in dealing with failure is the idea of persistence (http://www.successconsciousness.com/blog/inner-strength/achieving-success-requires-patience-and-persistence/). Whether you have it or not, whether you know how to use it or not, will determine the aftermaths of failures.

I fully understand that failure is an idea that is very complex and gets even more complex in schools. In the business world, if you fail, you lose your business and money and then are left to choices after that. However, in schools, students come to the table with many different factors that lead them to different outcomes after their failures. I fully agree that there needs to be an integration of teaching character traits into our schools and academic study (Tought, 2011, September 14 NYT). I am curious though how to balance this idea of teaching persistence to our students through experience of failure while also fostering the idea of creating successes in our students that instill the love of learning? This paradox is complex to me because in a class we have 26 different students with different backgrounds and different experiences with failure in their lives. While you might be instilling the idea of persistence after failure in one student, you might be further supplanting the idea that failure is common and there is no way around it in another student. This idea of overcoming a students’ history (whether of personal experience or racial identity experience) and how this affects their ability to persistent and succeed (Ogbu, 1992) is an idea that I think schools and the school system in general struggles with overcoming.

I think that to start to answer these questions and paradoxes with failure in education and in our students, we first have to not run away from this idea but to meet in head on and confront it (McDermott, 1987). I think as teachers we need to start integrating lessons such as how to be persistent into our daily lessons and expect our students to learn these traits and display these traits. Students who show persistence are students who” were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class” (Tough, p.2) When looking back on my failures, one huge thing that allowed me to be persistent and turn my failures into successes was the support that I had from friends, family and teachers (http://www.livestrong.com/article/14702-overcoming-perfectionism/). We need to instill in our students that they are not alone in their failures but when they work together and seek support they will turn those failures into successes. This idea of working together coupled with the idea giving choice and control after a failure will lead to success as Sugata Mitra pointed out in his experiments in India with poverty stricken students. Even though these kids have experienced failure in some way or another, they were able to learn complex concepts with choice, control and cooperation. Overall, I think the one way that we can resolve the idea of failure in the classroom is to situate our students in an environment that is safe and allows our students to explore freely. This is not to say to be ignorant of the idea of failure, but to accept it and learn how to turn it into a success. When students are able to work together and feel supported, they will not fear failure, they will be able to overcome it and become risk takers and explorers. To me, this is what our schools need more of.

A Little About Me!

Hello All! My name is Andrew Ley and I am about to start my 4th year of teaching elementary. I started by doing my student-teaching in a 4/5 split in Lansing at Attwood Elementary. After student-teaching I moved out the Utah and taught 2nd grade and then 4th grade for two years in the city of Ogden, Utah at Shadow Valley Elementary. This was a cool school that focused on Environmental Studies. Last year I moved back to Grand Rapids, Michigan to teach 3rd grade at Marshall Elementary in Byron Center. It's been a great experience to get so many different ideas about teaching from so many different places.

I majored in Social Studies, so I love teaching social studies. I love finding ways to relate social studies topics to my students' lives and getting them actively involved in "doing" social studies. My experience at the environmental studies school also instilled a love for teaching science. Hands on, Minds on experiments are an awesome way to get students excited about science. I also love how there are so many ways to integrate the other content areas into social studies and science.

When I'm not teaching I love being outdoors. I love hiking and camping and getting out on my mountain bike. If I'm lucky I will also get the chance to get my fly fishing rod and do some stream fishing. Utah and the west side of Michigan are awesome spots for that. I also enjoy traveling and taking pictures of all the awesome places out there! I am also a die hard MSU fan, as i grew up just 10 minutes from campus and have been going to football and basketball games ever since I was old enough to walk.

I look forward to working with all of you in this class and can't wait to dive into the material!