Meeting the needs of 21 st century learners

1. Meeting the needs of 21st century learners Collaborative Conference on Student Achievement

2. Opening Activity: Awareness • Think of the most difficult task you would ask your students to complete this year. • On the activity sheet, write down five students you believe would easily succeed in the task and five students you believe would struggle.

3. Today’s Agenda • Introduction • High Expectations • Awareness • Student Needs • Reflection

4. Today’s Objectives • Understand the core beliefs of high expectations for all students • Gain an awareness of possible disparities and biases • Learn about student needs for the 21st Century

5. Participant Expectations Be Responsible Return promptly from breaks Be an active participant Use electronic devices appropriately Be Respectful Maintain cell phone etiquette Listen attentively to others Limit sidebars and stay on topic Be Kind Enter discussions with an open mind Respond appropriately to others’ ideas Honor confidentiality

6. Attention Signal Please make note of time limits and watch your clocks! • Trainer will raise his/her hand. • Finish your thought/comment. • Participants will raise a hand and wait quietly.

7. Safety Assumptions • You are all high-quality educators. • We want all students to succeed. • All ideas will be heard without judgment. • Confidentiality will be honored. • We are not here to fix you. • Others?

8. Meeting the needs of 21st century learners High Expectations for All Students

9. Basketball Activity • Break into pairs and choose one person to be the “teacher” and the other will be the “student.” • Teachers instruct students on throwing the ball into a basket. All of the students will stand behind the same line to throw. • Follow the instructions on the activity sheet when modifying the task. • Collaborate with fellow teachers as needed. • If time allows, switch roles.

10. High Expectations Definition The belief that any student, regardless of characteristics or circumstances, can and will succeed in a rigorous learning environment.

11. Meeting the needs of 21st century learners Core Beliefs Poll

12. Core Beliefs Poll • Walk around the room, reading the core belief statements on the chart paper around the room. • Select an answer that best describes your opinion. • Put a dot next to that answer.

13. Core Belief: We have the tools to close the achievement gap. • Standard Course Of Study • Collaboration • Formative Assessments • High-yield teaching strategies • Remediation • Enrichment • Student/Teacher Interactions

14. Core Belief: Quality teachers outweigh student barriers “…the fundamental finding from the Education Trust studies is that however important demographic variables may appear in their association with student achievement, teaching quality is the most dominant factor in determining student success.” (Reeves, 2000)

15. Core Belief: District and school leadership create the climate that supports high expectations • Research has consistently shown that principals are the key to an effective school (Seyfarth, 1999; Sergiovanni, 2001) • Principals who focus on developing a culture of adult learning, positive relationships among teachers, and a relentless focus on instruction were shown to play a key role in increasing achievement in difficult circumstances (Newmann, 2000)

16. Core Belief: It is the responsibility of everyone in our school to remove barriers to learning. “It is important to make the necessary adjustments in the school environment to neutralize predictable problems for these young people. To do that, educators have to be cognizant of how they arrived at the school door and do whatever is necessary to minimize the obstacles that their worlds or the school places in their path” Dr. Mary Montle Bacon, Working with Students from a Culture of Poverty

17. Core Belief: It is the responsibility of everyone in our school to remove barriers to learning. • Achievement is influenced by four factors. • Educators have the ability to influence three of the four factors. • We spend the most time trying to change the one on which we have the least influence. -Dave Tilly, Keynote Address NC Leadership Forum, November 2008

18. Core Belief: We can move beyond personal biases towards groups or individuals • The most effective teachers are those who know themselves, are willing to reflect inward to determine causes of problems in classroom, and ultimately change behavior/practice/lessons after reflection. (Farr, 2010) • It is entirely possible to change behavior towards students so that students-regardless of the teacher’s level of expectation for them-receive the same behavior in terms of affective tone and quality of interactions. (Marzano, 2007)

19. Core Belief: High Expectations are conveyed not only through words but through actions • Student performance is linked to teacher/student interactions. • We all have biases that result in subtle differences in the way we behave towards certain students. • Expectations are conveyed through body language and voice tone without self-awareness. • These behaviors influence student performance, and result in our beliefs being realized.

20. Core Belief: Student success is the responsibility of the teacher • The quality of a teacher in the classroom is the single most important factor in determining how well a child learns. (Vandervoot, et al., 2004) • Quantitative analysis indicate that measures of teacher preparation and certification are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics before and after controlling for student poverty and language studies. (Hammond, 2000)

21. Core Belief: A student’s life circumstances and/or characteristics do not predict his/her ability to learn • “…schools that are highly effective produce results that almost entirely overcome the effects of student backgrounds.” (Marzano What Works in Schools, 2003, page 7) • “While environmental factors can alter rate of learning they do not affect the ability to learn.” (Susan Levine, Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

22. Core Beliefs Reflection Activity • Using the activity sheet, take a moment to consider your feelings and thoughts about each of the core beliefs. • After you’ve completed the reflection sheet, if you are comfortable doing so, talk with the person next to you and share some of your thoughts.

23. Meeting the needs of 21st century learners Awareness

24. Awareness Activity On your own: • Refer to the list of students you created at the beginning of this session. • Identify characteristic of each student (e.g. race, sex, socio-economic, etc.). In small groups: • Discuss common characteristics of the perceived high achievers and perceived low achievers. • Do you have similar groupings to others or different ones?

25. Awareness: Honesty • People may not always say what is on their minds when it comes to sensitive topics. • Some people are either unwilling or unable to honestly express their thoughts. • Unwilling people deceive others, while unable people deceive themselves. • This deception is attributed to the types of associations sensitive topics have.

26. Awareness: Honesty • Our experiences either indirectly or directly impact how we think about certain groups. • We are unaware of how indirect or implicit associations can impact our behavior toward certain groups. • The Implicit Association Test (IAT) helps us recognize how indirect associations have impacted our thinking.

27. Awareness: How do expectations affect learning? Communication consists of: • Text: • Tone: • BodyLanguage: Which of these do you think is the largest component of communication? 7% 38% 55%

28. Expectations are confirmed Beliefs about an individual shape expectations Individual responds to cues and modifies actions (Output/Feedback) Expectations expressed through words and actions (Input/Feedback) Expectations/Performance Cycle climate

29. Awareness: Breaking the Cycle • Identify your expectation levels for students. • Accept that you are interacting differently with students who you perceive as low performing. • Focus on changing your behaviors through specific instructional strategies. • Collect data to ensure that your interactions are changing. Does my differential treatment suggest that I am a terrible teacher? The answer is ‘no’ if, once I recognize my differential treatment, I take corrective measures.” The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Robert T. Tauber

30. Meeting the needs of 21st century learners What do modern students need for the future?

31. Thoughts about 21st Century Learning • “Oh, sure, I’d love for my kids to have a class set of Ipod Touches.” • “Our students may not have computers at home.” • “I’m not comfortable letting them handle the equipment.” • My school doesn’t have the money to buy paper, let alone computers.”

32. What do students really need? The Five Cs

33. Collaboration: What is it and why is it important? • Think of all the times during the day that your job requires you to work with other adults. • Think about other jobs that require the workers to collaborate. • Can you think of any job that does not require collaboration? • Find a partner and discuss how people collaborate in a social network.

34. Collaboration: What does it look like in a 21st Century Classroom? • Reciprocal teaching (teachers enabling students to learn and use self-learning) • Feedback accepted from all (specific response to student work) • Student self-verbalization or self-questioning • Use of meta-cognition strategies • Problem-based learning

35. Activity: • What are we already doing to encourage collaboration? • What could we do better?

36. School Example • Brentwood Elementary School, Raleigh, NC • Lake Myra Elementary School, Wendell, NC • Fred A. Smith Elementary School, Raleigh, NC • Wilburn Elementary School, Raleigh, NC

37. Communication: What is it and why is it important? • In order to collaborate, students need to be able to communicate ideas coherently and diplomatically. • At the very least, a person needs to be able to communicate with a boss or superior in order to be successful. • Communication is through oral, written, drawn, and can be conveyed through tone and body language. • Find a new partner and talk about what helps you present your ideas to others effectively.

38. Communication: What does it look like in a 21st Century Classroom? • Using video production to assess learning • Translating material into text messages • Creating graphic novels about lessons • Hand-draw story boards about concepts learned • Climate that encourages everyone to give and receive feedback • Learning to address a global audience “There’s a fallacy that kids aren’t reading and writing anymore,” says Bruce. “They are, but they just are reading and writing differently than what we’ve traditionally done in schools. . . . A 21st-century approach [doesn’t] say that print writing is bad. It’s not competing literacies; it’s complementary literacy.”

39. Activity: • What are we already doing ? • What could we do better?

40. School Example • Brentwood Elementary School, Raleigh, NC • Lake Myra Elementary School, Wendell, NC “Book Club” • Old Providence Elementary School, Charlotte, NC

41. Critical Thinking: What is it and why is it important? • This is also called “problem solving.” • While we can’t predict what type of job the students of today will have, we can prepare them by teaching critical thinking and problem solving. • A boss gives a work team a new machine or software or program or project and tells the team to figure out how to use it or complete it. Is this a realistic scenario? • Turn to the person next to you and talk about how you use critical thinking in your job.

42. Critical Thinking: What does it look like in a 21st Century Classroom? • Problem-solving in conventional and innovative ways • Identifying and asking significant questions which lead to better solutions  • Use of various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) • Analysis of the interaction of parts of a whole to produce overall outcomes in complex systems • Effective evaluation of evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs •  Synthesized connections between information and arguments • Solid interpretation of information and conclusions drawn on the best analysis • Critical reflection on learning experiences and processes

43. Activity: • What are we already doing ? • What could we do better?

44. School Example • Brentwood Elementary School, Raleigh, NC • Centennial Campus Middle School, Raleigh, NC • Lake Myra Elementary School, Wendell, NC • Old Providence Elementary School, Charlotte, NC

45. Creativity: What is it and why is it important? • Most people assume that creativity has something to do with the fine arts. • In order to build new systems or programs or products, thinking must be done outside the box. • Think of a teacher you had who encouraged this type of creativity. • Find a partner and tell what that teacher did to encourage creativity.

46. Creativity: What does it look like in a 21st Century Classroom? • Originality and inventiveness in work • Developing, implementing and communicating new ideas to others • Openness and responsiveness to new and diverse perspectives • Acting on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution • Understanding and application of Gardner’s Learning Styles

47. Activity: • What are we already doing ? • What could we do better?

48. School Example • Brentwood Elementary School, Raleigh, NC • Lake Myra Elementary, Wendell, NC • Old Providence Elementary, Charlotte, NC • Wilburn Elementary School, Raleigh, NC

49. Caring: What is it and why is it important? • People work best in environments in which they feel safe. • Safety ensures that risks can be taken. • Classrooms should have a climate of democracy, in which all people feel valued. • Most students do not necessarily remember every lesson taught, but they will remember the relationships between the people at the school. • Take a minute to write about a teacher that you had who you felt truly cared about the students. What did that teacher do to convey regard?

50. Caring: What does it look like in a 21st Century Classroom? • Equitable • Organized • Nurturing • Cultural responsiveness • Clearly defined expectations that are taught directly • System in place to recognize positive behavior • Instructive, not punitive, classroom management • Student-driven and teacher facilitated