GVSU Learning NetworkSupporting Student Learning Needs

January 21 & 22, 2015

Today’s Objectives• To share results of learning styles discussions within

your schools.• To identify shifts of instruction necessary to bring these

ideas alive in your schools.• To better understand certain socio-emotional needs and

how more responsive classrooms can address these needs.

• Experience and reflect upon American Grit• To identify any next steps in the your school’s efforts to

better meet the needs of your students.

AgendaTime Task/Topic

9:00-9:15 Community Announcements, Agenda, Norms

9:15-10:30 Identifying and Guiding Instructional Shifts• Reflecting on action since last meeting• Video observation• Shifting instructional practice

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-12:00 Socio-Emotional Needs (Noncognitive)• A few key needs• Responsive classroom

12:00-12:45 Lunch

12:45-1:30 Team workshop

1:30-1:45 Break

1:45-3:00 American Grit• Performance• Discussions

Learning Network -Norms

• Silence mobile phones and other devices

• Be present and engaged• Listen actively• Make this relevant to your

work and your school• Call the baby ugly (call it

like you see it)—try to not be defensive; take care with people, also.

• Reduce side conversations• Come prepared

• Speak honestly• Vegas rule—share ideas,

but protect people, schools, sensitive issues

• Share speaking opportunities—watch talk time

• Avoid negativity and complaining

• Arrive on time, start on time, end on time

How Will You Share This Information With Your Faculty?

Taking Stock: What Did We Do? What Did We Learn?

Classrooms: What do you see?

• Describe what you see? – Be descriptive? Avoid judgments and

evaluation.– Be specific? Avoid vagaries and generalities.

Learning and Teaching in the Classroom

Teacher

ContentStudent

Task

The Status Quo• Teachers doing preponderance of intellectual

work• Students are not challenged intellectually by the

work in front of them.• Students learning discrete facts and skills with

little opportunity to draw connections and apply knowledge.

• Students passive and compliant . . . to a fault.• Classroom cultures, even when exceptionally

organized and structured, do not foster intellectual accountability or academic press.

Key Instructional Shifts

• Getting students to do the intellectual work of classrooms.• Getting students engaged in more rigorous reasoning

through powerful and intentional academic tasks.• Getting students engaged in more complex and real-world

problem solving.• Getting students to self regulate their current learning and

improvement toward explicit and well-defined learning outcomes.

• Getting classrooms to accomplish the above by fostering strong normative and nurturing learning cultures.

Intellectual Heavy Lifting

All too often it is the teachers breaking the sweat, making the connections, drawing the inferences, answering their own questions, and solving the problems. That is hard work. Yet the harder working is designing the classroom such that this is the work of students.

Rigorous Tasks

For over a decade dozens of thought leaders have called for more rigorous classrooms. At the end of the day, rigor shows up in the tasks that teachers are designing for students and whether students are deeply engaged in those tasks. If rigor cannot be seen there, it isn’t there.

Complex, Real-World Problem Solving

Classrooms must prepare students for when they are outside the schoolhouse, where one’s mind and knowledge obtained are only as useful as they are used. We must help students apply knowledge in practical and relevant ways.

Self-Regulation

Students learn more effectively when they are driving the learning process. When students have learning goals, monitor their own progress toward those goals, experiment with strategies and track the results of those strategies, they are more likely to be successful.

Intellectual AccountabilityThat is an interesting position, Roberto. First of all, it is hard to fully understand your thinking because you did not explain why. So, I’ll focus more on my argument. I disagree with your position because the narrator provides multiple glimpses into what she is thinking about herself. We see this in the second and third chapters, when the narrator shifts from talking about the protagonist to revealing how she feels about herself.

Lisa, 4th grade

Effective classrooms promote intellectual work. Expectations are high, and systems and structures are put into place to help students reach those expectations. These are cultures of effort, grit and perseverance. These are also cultures where if you get lazy, it gets uncomfortable.

Discussion

• Select one of these instructional shifts, and identify specific pedagogical moves teachers could make to leverage learning styles to one of these ends.

Noncognitive Skills

1. Academic Behaviors

Academic BehaviorsGoing to Class

Doing HomeworkOrganizing Materials

Participating, Studying

Academic Performance

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

2. Academic Perseverance

Academic PerseveranceGrit, Tenacity

Delayed GratificationSelf-DisciplineSelf-Control

Academic Performance

Academic Behaviors

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

3. Academic Mindsets

Academic MindsetsI belong in this academic community.

My ability and competence grow with my effort.I can succeed at this.

This work has value for me.

Academic Performance

Academic Behaviors

Academic Perseverance

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

4. Learning Strategies

Academic Performance

Academic Behaviors

Academic Perseverance

Learning StrategiesStudy Skills

Metacognitive StrategiesSelf-Regulated Learning

Goal-Setting

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

5. Social Skills

Academic Performance

Academic BehaviorsSocial Skills

Interpersonal Skills, Empathy, Cooperation, Assertion, and

Responsibility

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

Full Model

Source: Farrington, C. (2012): Teaching Adolescents to be Learners. UChicago CCSR.

Responsive Classroom: Text-Based Discussion

• Roles: Facilitator, Theme-Capturer• What are the most important ideas from

this article? What are the implications of these ideas for your classrooms and schools?

• What ideas from the article could be applied to help realize the instructional shifts discussed earlier? What would this look like in a classroom?