​by Julie Brock

I do not protest to understand the stock market. Even though Bloomberg runs in the background while my partner in this life checks Robinhood, I am happily ill equipped to invest your money. However, I do like metaphors. Lately I have found myself saying two phrases ad nauseum as they pertain to education:

1. We must account for the University of Youtube, TikTok, and other social media platforms in credit for prior learning, and
2. Education does not hold the corner market on knowledge and information

Is there an actual YouTube University? No. There is a channel named YouTube University, but no, there is not an actual YouTube University. However, think about how many times you have used YouTube to figure out how to change a headlight, remove a stripped screw, or build a retaining wall.

There is valuable information on social media platforms that people are using and gaining knowledge for free and it isn’t just for hobbies. As a college first-year, my son found his way into a physics class that was harder than any class he had previously experienced. He went to office hours, met with the graduate assistants, asked for resources, and at the end of the day, he found an educator on YouTube that explained the material in a way that worked with his learning style. In addition, he learned how to build a chicken coop to code, how to replace his graphics card, and numerous other helpful learnings that he continues to build up in his learning portfolio.
 
And I ask my higher ed colleagues:

• How are we accounting for this learning?
• How are we helping students figure out exactly what they know?
• How do we know if their learning it is up to standard and give them credit for it?​

This matters because students are opting out of higher education. According to the Minnesota Student Longitudinal Data Set (SLEDS), roughly 70% of Minnesota high school graduates who enroll in college settings persist in earning a Bachelor’s degree. The number drops for 2017 high school graduates, which makes sense: their 3rd year is the 2019-2020 academic year.

A disruption as large as a global pandemic will have serious consequences on college persistence, however, the trend was holding prior to COVID-19.
 
There are many variables playing into this scenario that were barriers to higher education well before COVID-19:

• The rising cost of tuition versus low wages in early careers
• The inability to find positions in degree fields
• The ability to learn information through online platforms at no cost

 
Internet learning is disrupting traditional education, and unless higher education institutions find a way to compete, their relevance is waning for rising generations. According to NPR, more students are opting to stay out of higher education because of rising costs of tuition and life. Without a clear return on investment, it is hard for people to see the value of attending college when, perhaps, they can learn the skills on the job or online. 

Offering credit for prior learning is one way higher education can stay relevant in this ever-changing education market, in addition to helping students understand the importance of accredited programs as a solid investment of time and money. And both these are good return on investment arguments. Thinking that higher education has the corner market on knowledge and information is no longer relevant or real.

Crowdsourcing is not just for restaurant recommendations. People have eye witnesses across the globe at their fingertips. There is no need to rely on an educational institution for information or knowledge. Operating as such only perpetuates an antiquated system of learning. What higher education institutions do have to offer, if accredited, is the verification of learning for employers. However, with a 3% unemployment rate and more employers offering livable wages, it is tough to compete with going straight into the workforce.
 
Instead, how can higher education institutions create experiences that pull in the technological advances that students cannot get elsewhere? How about simulators, AI, and accredited degrees that can transfer and pay-off over time? How do we transform higher education as a conduit of information and knowledge that accentuates and builds on the skills students are learning elsewhere?

• Shift educators as partners in an individual’s education journey versus deliverers of education
• Remember that we are preparing people for their career path, not ours
• Partner with business and the community to understand the current and future needs

 
Overall, if higher education promotes themselves as a collaborative partner in the success and growth of individuals and the community, then higher education can find their place in this open and free education market. 

by Heather M. F. Lyke

— first published in October 2016 ​by RPS Secondary Curriculum & Instruction  |  ​updated in February 2022 — 

As we help students develop skills that will suit them well in the world beyond our classrooms, many of us find ourselves moving to more and more partner work, group tasks, and full class discussions and debates. This is especially true as we return to in-person learning now that we're finishing the second year of the pandemic: more and more we set aside the technology we depended on in recent years--embracing opportunities to have students discuss face to face.

Discussion opportunities help our students develop collaboration skills and illustrate teamwork, develop communication skills and think critically—all skills which today’s students need to thrive in the 21st century workforce that awaits them in their not-to-distant futures.
 
The struggle, however, is in ensuring that all students still walk away with deep levels of understanding. Far too often in partnerships, in small groups, and in full-class activities only a few students are actively engaged--some students choose passivity. When this happens, does it mean only those few students who participate walk away with the learning? It can, so it becomes our jobs as teachers to ensure all students engage in the learning we offer them.

As we return to more collaborative and in-person learning environments, here are some strategies to help ensure all learners are still learning at high levels

​What to do:

1. Have students partner up and assign one as ‘A’ and one as ‘B’.
2. Give ‘A’ a specific question to answer while ‘B’ only listens.
3. Then, provide ‘B’ with a different question to respond t0 while ‘A’ only listens.

​Variations:

• Ask ‘A’ to complete a task, summarize a part of a lesson, or answer a question while ‘B’ observes/listens; afterward, ‘B’ shares what she noticed, captures any missed details, or provides an example pertaining to the what ‘A’ did/discussed.
• Ask ‘A’ to describe the next step (in say a math problem or science lab) while person ‘B’ then does exactly what student ‘A’ described.

Why this Works:
This ensures that there are equal voices, encouraging shy students to speak up while preventing naturally talkative students from taking over. It also teaches students balance, which is not a skill that many students develop naturally.

​What to Do:

1. In groups of three, have students number off.
2. Then, begin by asking ‘student 1’ a question.  This student is the first of the triad.  
3. After ‘student 1’ responds, keep your reaction to the student’s response silent.  Instead, redirect the response of ‘student 1’ to ‘student 2’ by saying, “Student 2, please give evidence to support or refute what student 1 said.”  
4. After ‘student 2’ responds, call on ‘student 3’ to evaluate the merits of the response that ‘student 2’ provided.  
5. Finally, return to the ‘student 1’ and ask him/her to make a final rebuttal or comment on what the classmates had said.  

​Variations:

• Have students do this with a multi-step process where ‘student 1’ does step 1, ‘2’ does step 2, and ‘3’ does step 3.
• When analyzing a reading, have ‘student 1’ paraphrase the text, have ‘2’ identify the main idea or theme, and have ‘3’ identify 3-4 text excerpts that support the main idea or theme. Finally, return to ‘1’ and have him/her identify what a reader might infer from the text.
• In math, have ‘student 1’ read the word problem, ‘2’ draw a sketch of the problem, and then ‘3’ writes the equation.

​Why this Works:
Just like with Partners A & B, Triads ensures balanced voices and balanced participation within a small group; the addition of a third student, however, allows for more versatility and creativity within the structure of the activity. Additionally, the ‘additive’ element in almost all variations of Triads forces students to see and to work with how other students think. Often, there are multiple routes to the same answer, or various correct answers, and should ‘student 1’ opt to take a route different than what ‘2’/‘3’ were expecting, then the thinking of ‘student 1’ must broaden and thereby deeper learning will occur.   

What to Do:

1. Have students count off: if you have groups of six students, students count off 1-6 (they may do this in whatever order they choose). If there is a group with only five students in it, one student will have two numbers.
2. Then, pose a question or problem to the class and tell the groups that they have a specific amount of time to come to consensus on an answer (the amount of time allotted depends on how open-ended the question is).
3. Have the students put their heads together and make sure that everyone in the group has the answer(s).
4. Then, call a number from 1-6 (try using Virtual Dice Roll so students can’t accuse you of “picking on them”). All the students with that number then stand.
5. Call on all (or just a few) of the students standing to give their groups’ answer(s).

​Variations:

• Ask all students with the called number to go to the board to simultaneously record their group’s answer.
• If the question has multiple answers, allow each standing student to report just one of their answers. Use the rule, “be additive, not repetitive.”
• Instead of questions, provide all students with a graphic organizer or similar task: have them work through it in their small group. Then, only collect one from the group—the one whose number is selected. (Added bonus: this equates to less work for you to provide feedback on.)

​Why this Works:
When students are assigned to work in groups, particularity groups larger than four or more, it’s common to assign roles. Where roles certainly have their merit, they can also backfire. When one student is assigned to be “recorder” others in that group might hear, I guess I don’t have to write any of this down, and thereby may disengage. Likewise, when one student is assigned to be a “reporter” others may hear, I guess I don’t need to really know this if I won’t have to share out later—again, potentially encouraging some disengagement. However, when students know you use Numbered Heads to determine whose work is turned in and/or who shares out, then all must stay engaged for the entire activity.

What to Do:

1. Establish a method for calling on all students at random. (Tip: my favorite low-tech way is to have each student’s name on a note card and to then to shuffle those note cards prior to each class to ensure they're always in a different order; whereas, my favorite high-tech way is to use Wheel of Names.)
2. Use whatever method you chose to call on students at random as you facilitate the discussion. 

Variations:

• Both with the cards and with ​Wheel of Names, you can opt to remove the names of the already-called-on-students or to keep them in the mix: removing names helps ensure balanced voices, whereas keeping all names in the mix ensures engagement throughout because students are aware that their name may come up again.
• Have a student act as the ‘picker’, choosing the next card in the pile or hitting the button on the iPad to pick the next student. It’s a great way for students to show leadership.

​Why this Works:
When facilitating a whole group discussion, students who blurt answers aloud or constantly raise their hands tend to take over, giving other students perceived permission to tune out and disengage. However, establishing that all students will be called on at some point encourages students to stay engaged throughout. This strategy ensures that both shy students and students who prefer to be passive learners stay more active in their learning.

What to Do:

1. Round up some poker chips or something similar; you’ll need enough chips for each student in the discussion group to have four each.
2. Give each student four chips—explain that all students are expected to use at least three chips, but that no one is to use more than four.
3. Sitting in a full-class circle, provide the class with their topic for discussion and/or focus questions (I also like to give them some prep time, which is really key for more introverted students to feel comfortable in such situations), and then have them get started. Do your best to keep your own contributions at a minimum: only interject when absolutely necessary.
4. Each time a student talks, the student must toss a chip into the center of the circle. (Tip: if your room is not carpeted, set a blanket down on the floor to cushion each chip’s fall, otherwise the chips can make a lot of noise.)

Variations:

• Playing cards work well in place of chips, as do colored strips of paper.
• Use this with groups of roughly 8-12 students in a Fishbowl discussion format.
• Give each student two blue chips and two red chips: have blue mean “I only added slightly to what someone else said or reworded someone else’s idea” and red mean “I added a new idea, text support, or a ‘real-world’ example.” This helps ensure the conversation delves deeper. (Should a student miss-identify the question-type used, feel free to hand back the chip.)
• Divide the class in half and host a debate: when using the chips, one color can be for new ideas and the other for rebuttals.
• Give students who have anxiety about group discussions fewer chips to use.

​Why it Works:
Again, as was noted with Random Selection, large group discussions tend to foster environments where some students naturally dominate, either pushing quieter students aside or giving students who wish to disengage permission to do so. However, a strategy like this helps combat that by making students aware of the discussion's balance—helping those likely to over-contribute keep themselves in check while simultaneously motivating those likely to under-contribute to add their voices into the conversation.

If you are looking for more ideas on increasing student voice and engagement, or would like to dig deeper into the value of such strategies, consider starting with these four resources: 

• "Giving Students a Voice in the Classroom" by the Search Institute, 2016
• "How to Open Class Participation to Everyone" by Edutopia, 2022 
• "Including Voice in Education: Addressing Equity Through Student and Family Voice in the Classroom" by the Institute of Education Sciences, 2021
• "Maximizing Student Voice to Achieve Equity in Classroom Participation" by Edutopia, 2021

by Nick Truxal

​Recently, I took a break from my years as an educator to get new training on better leading and applying evidence: specifically, data driven evidence.  The focus of my program is the corporate world, and as such, I am having a number of revelations. 
 
The one that I want to focus on today is that the corporate world is transforming in many of the same ways that we have been doing in education.  There is an enormous focus on skills: building new skills in employees, breaking jobs down by associated skills, understanding the skills needed to perform well in teams, as well as assessing and reporting based on skills.
 
Since our inception, Third Eye Education has been speaking about skill-based reporting. Just a few examples: 

• This podcast episode with Myron Dueck:  "Airport Stories: Piloting Students Beyond Silos" (February 2021)
• This article inspired by the work of Dessa: "Inspiration for Transdisciplinarity Innovation and Application" (March 2021)
• These podcast episodes "A Hip Hop Education" with Ian P. Levy (May 2021) and "A Rich Process of Creation" with Lazerbeak and Ilan (August 2021)
• This article inspired by the work of Sarah Zerwin: "Focusing on Feedback: Reassessing Letter Grades" (June 2021)

I personally love feedback only, skill-based instruction and reporting.  The remarkable thing is that the entire world seems to be making a pivot in this direction as well. There are a few key reasons driving this transformation, and a few key takeaways for educators.  ​

These reasons may sound familiar, but the slant on them I find unique:

• There seems to be universal agreement that employee evaluations have been poor
• There has increasingly been a need to make assessments and evaluations more valuable
• The options most organizations explored were (and I love these):
  • Become skill-based in their assessments
  • Create an algorithm that takes into account the performance of those surrounding the person being evaluated, the culture they are a part of, the audience they are working with, etc.
  • There was an understanding that staying with the current system was simply not an option (though, of course, not everyone has the resources to pivot)

​I see these as being parallel to the conversations we’ve been having in education.  Of course, each can be applied to how we, as teachers, are assessed as well as how we assess our students.  I do wish that I had considered the third bullet point above, which is offering options to better our practices, before jumping into the work, myself. 

​Ultimately, this means a few things for educators:

1. The concern that we are shifting the conversation to skills when colleges and workplaces are not is a misplaced concern.  Colleges are, again, as I can attest by being in a masters program at the moment.  Moreover, those programs that are not will certainly be under pressure to become more skill focused as resumes become more skill focused (again, as I can attest - I had to update my resume for my internship, and was advised to move from work experience to skill based).  As employers hire based on skills demonstrated through the resume, the employee portfolio (again, becoming more important), and the placement assessments being taken.
2. These efforts can teach us how to better implement skill based feedback in our educator evaluation systems as well as in classrooms.  We can learn from efforts to break down discrete skills and competencies.  We can see new technologies that can help us to do so, to track skills, and to help students understand the root skills needed for employment they may ultimately find attractive.
3. As we are making a shift as a society towards skills rather than experiences, this should be something we see at all ages, not simply the end of high school.  When kindergartners are on a nature hike, the experience is fantastic.  What skill are we hoping they take from that experience?  There are certainly a plethora of options, from critical observation skills to rudimentary understanding of biological systems.  Knowing our purpose before planning our experiences can help ground our practices.

A small disclaimer as I conclude:  I’ve always hated the idea that education should take anything from business.  We are not a business.  We are here to help young people to grow.  I’ve often found it difficult to accept the best practices emerging in the workplace.  I think I found it easier this time because it so closely mimics what we’ve been working on for a long while. 

Further, it does show a fundamental shift in the way our society is thinking, and having advanced knowledge of such a shift can indeed help us better prepare our young people to grow.  

by Nick Truxal

The move to teaching online, even if it may be over for you, dear reader, does seem to have pushed some new practices into place that prove dangerous for teachers and students in the long-term.  In particular, I’d like to focus on the new modes of communication and collaboration that have been implemented in the wake of Zooming to class.
 
Being more accessible to our colleagues, students, and parents certainly has its advantages.  We can instantly help a student with a question, quickly let a parent know the status of the classroom, or have a great professional learning community with colleagues across the district, city, state, or nation.  Of course, that student may want an answer at 11:00 pm, that parent may be trying to send an instant message during class and wonder why they don’t hear back, and “just one quick ten-minute meeting with administration over Zoom” may happen twice an hour.  

Rob Cross, Adam Grant, and Reb Rebele wrote a fascinating piece on “Collaboration Overload” in 2016 (which Rob Cross continued into the book Beyond Collaboration Overload).  In the article, they cite some interesting (pre-pandemic) trends.  Trends such as:

• the number of meetings employees are expected to attend have ballooned dramatically over the last ten years 
• “3% to 5% of employees” make up “20%-35% of the value-add” of meetings
• the more “in-demand” an individual employee was as a collaborator, the more damaging the situation became for that employee, and in-turn for those they were trying to help

 
Of course, in a school, the most in-demand employees are teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists…all of whom are finding that the world of instant communication has opened up certain flood-gates.  

Interestingly, Adam Grant offered a solution to this issue three years before he helped to identify it.  He spoke of a certain Fortune 500 company that implemented “Quiet time.”  Three mornings a week, employees would not be exposed to superfluous e-mails (or any e-mails), “Just one quick thing” situations, “stand-up meetings,” nor anything else.  The interesting part of this: when the company successfully implemented these quiet times, productivity increased an enormous 65%.  However, even having employees self-impose (to the extent they were able) a similar policy, resulted in a 47% increase in productivity. ​

To me, this led to an interesting tension.
 
In my own practice, and in my own data, I can tell you that communication is important (I am sure you’re shocked).  I have long been in the habit of sending FERPA safe emails to every parent with updates every Friday via a mail-merge setup.  When communication was personalized and consistent, I found a 20% positive change in the grades and skill attainment that my students had in my classes.  Just from communicating with their parents.  I did a similar experiment in sending e-mails to my students, and found similar results. 
 
So, communication is vital—and detrimental—to the surprise of no-one.  

FOR EDUCATORS

Hold some time as sacred.

• This can be the time you are teaching, so you don’t have to constantly be worried about missing a communication that just popped in
• This can be during your preparation time
• As an administrator, this can be something that is purposefully managed for the benefit of all

Communicate with parents and students at a rate they are also comfortable with.

• Asking parents or students what that rate of communication might be is always a great place to start
• Finding out what you can safely communicate, and making sure that parents and students want that communication, is also a great idea
• Personalization of communication is one way that we can make sure that our parents and students feel that they are being seen and heard as a human and by a human

FOR CLASSROOMS

Giving students uninterrupted time to work: increase productivity.

• Uninterrupted doesn’t mean that you can’t rotate around, offer rapid feedback, or spur imagination
• Uninterrupted also doesn’t mean a quiet, claustrophobic room
• Uninterrupted means that no new demands for time or attention are placed upon the student during that time, which may be a luxury not afforded at home

 


​I am sure there are many implications to these studies that I haven’t had time to parse, yet.  If you have further insights, please feel free to share them with us.

​by Julie Brock

Shrouded in blame and punishment, accountability has been twisted into a punitive action versus the rich conversation it actually is intended to spur. To account is to reconcile, balance, see the full picture so future decisions are better informed.
 
In his Fast Company article, Four Ways You’re Getting Accountability Wrong, Mark Lukens explains why a culture of accountability is vital to the success of any organization. The principles Luken presents ask leaders to:

1. focus on the goal
2. look at what is working well
3. create a culture in which progress includes failing forward.

Depending on how many classes of students move through a classroom in a day, it is possible to have three to six ‘micro-organizations’ that look to an educator as the ‘CEO’ responsible for setting the tone and expectations of their collective work.
 
How, then, do we function as a leader cultivating a collective culture of accountability as well as one of individual progress?

Mark Friedman, author of Trying Hard isn’t Good Enough, created a data framework that helps communities work toward big, shared goals. The crux of his argument is that no one organization can own the results of an entire community. It takes many organizations contributing to get sustainable solutions. Within each contributing organization are departments or programs that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the organization. For example, a large school district may think that they do own the graduation rate for their community, but they do not—they do not have every student who lives in their boundaries attending their school, so they share that result with other education settings.

Each educational setting can contribute to the overall graduation rate; yet, it does not have to look exactly the same. It is why school choice exists. Imagine each of those settings creating a culture of accountability in which students understand the systems serving them and also understand their role within the overall culture. It creates collaboration, cooperation, and communication. 

The conversation that data inspires what leads to actionable change. Our educational systems are limping along. The last blow of COVID damaged our barge and we cannot bail the water out faster than it is coming in [1]. And it is all levels. No educational setting is immune. We are a fleet of zero—grad school education settings taking on water and pivoting to figure out if the bucket brigade will work from a different angle.
 
That’s the thing with pivoting. I think about basketball. Once that pivot foot is set, it cannot move before a dribble. Players are stuck in one place until a pass or a path opens up for them to move. It is stationary, but all the while we keep spinning…thinking something will change.

But it doesn’t.
 
Instead, I ask…

• How long will we stay in place on the sinking barge?
• How long will we wish away a pandemic that will not abide by our will?
• How long will we, as a community, admire those on the barge trying to bail themselves out while throwing pithy advice across the bay? Or worse yet, gaslighting their circumstances:
  • “It’s hard for all of us.”
  • “You signed up for this.”
  • “It can’t be that bad.”

All the while, people are screaming at school board members, students are throwing things at teachers, and we comment safely from the shore.
 
The state of education can be overwhelming, stifling, and feel futile. But a classroom’s contribution matters. A department’s contribution matters. A building’s contribution matters. An afterschool program’s contribution matters. They matter when we hold ourselves accountable to a shared result. Students want to learn. According to the 2019 Minnesota Student survey, 97.8% of Olmsted County 9th graders (current 11th graders) said “if something interests me, I’ll learn more about it.” In that same survey, 99.2% of 11th graders said they will learn more about something that interests them.

Maybe we need to co-design around standards with students. Ask them how they want to learn the standards, what will resonate, and what will ultimately spur them to learn more within the content area [2]. Results Based Accountability™ (RBA), Friedman’s framework, asks for a community of people to solve community problems together. It isn’t a framework that leaves people behind. If we adopt this framework within communities, new partnerships start to blossom. Youth who move between organizations are more likely to be supported when there is a framework holding us together around the success of youth. Pair RBA and the co-design process with students, and now we have created partnership, collaboration, and ownership for youth over their own education, potentially fueling that 97-99% curiosity students reported in 2019. ​

The nice thing about RBA is that we can start right now, today, using it in classrooms. We don’t have to wait for the community to get on board: it can start a ripple effect. In fact, we may already live in a community that is using RBA to effect systemic change. Strive Together is a national nonprofit that has seventy communities across the nation doing this kind of work. If you live in Minnesota, there are seven cradle-to-career communities and two promise neighborhoods working for systemic change.
 
Accountability isn’t about shame and blame. It has to be reclaimed and untwisted from its negative connotation to create space for creativity, for innovation, and a way to get those on the shore to help get those on the sinking barge off and together—find our way into the next wave of education.
 
Interested in learning more about RBA and using it in your classroom / department / building / feeder system / district? Let me know and we’ll collaborate!

by Sweta Patel

I’m a teacher and also serve as a “Seniors Transitions Advisor” at a local alternative high school. This involves meeting with seniors one-on-one and talking about their plans for after high school and how to best support them. Often, I help our seniors with college and scholarship applications. There is one question that always makes them pause:

Now, when I see that question, I think about my 9 year old and 5 year old. Regularly, I find myself in the position of a taxi driver, stopping in front of art and dance studios, soccer fields, tennis courts, piano lessons…and the list goes on.
 
But for our seniors? They usually name classes or activities they participated in at some point during their time at our school:

• I volunteered with the Foods class at Channel One and helped stock and organize food items.
• I took the music class with Mrs. B. Does that count?
• I played in the staff versus student basketball game.
• Remember that Service Day we did last year? I volunteered at the Senior Care Center.
• ​I took the Youth Build class and we went to ReStore to volunteer.

 
I believe there is a population within all of our schools that doesn’t have access to these types of ‘extracurricular activities’ due to any number of factors, including financial constraints, transportation barriers, or needing to work after school.
 
And yet time spent in these activities often leads to feeling a sense of community and teamwork, learning a skill that may become a lifelong hobby, or even developing a sense of what career path we’d like to pursue. 

At our school, as a staff, we agreed that this list of benefits is equally as important as our academic standards. They are not “extra” to us… They warrant being a part of our school curriculum and culture. We want our students to be exposed to a variety of new experiences so that they can identify new strengths and interests and carry them beyond graduation. 
​

To that end, we completely overhauled how Wednesdays look at our school. On these days, we go by a different bell schedule and master schedule. Each teacher teaches 5 sections - advisory, academic help, and 3 seminars (single or a double block).
 
During advisory time, students spend an hour deepening their relationship with each other and their advisor. Advisors also use a part of this time to have one-on-one conversations with each advisee, following a set of weekly questions created by our social workers. Past topics include: goal-setting, healthy relationships, coping with stress, and self-talk.
 
During academic help time, we give students a built-in pause during the school week and use this time to re-teach concepts and help students one-on-one with assignments. This helps to prevent the end-of-the-quarter mad rush that often happens to catch up on the past 8 weeks’ worth of learning.

And during seminar time, teachers choose engaging experiences to offer students, such as:

• Batik Pillows and Paper Making
• Cooking Competitions
• Social Justice Leadership Team
• Archery
• Rock Climbing
• Introduction to 3D Printing
• Guitar Lessons
• Chess
• The Art of Henna​

At our school, we are on a 9-week quarterly system. We broke each quarter up into two rotations, consisting of 4 Wednesdays each. We call these our “Student-Centered Wednesdays” because the students get to self-select what their schedule looks like for each rotation. Some rotations, students might be heavy on academic help hours; and during others where they’re feeling academically strong, they might have one advisory period with 4 seminar experiences. Their schedules are centered around their learning needs.

• Teachers decide what seminars they’ll offer during the upcoming rotation (for the duration of four Wednesdays).

• We update the course guide (via Google Slides). ​

• During advisory, students use the course guide to complete a paper schedule. (Our students meet in advisory for 15 minutes each day and for 1 hour on Wednesdays.)

• Advisors officially register students on the registration document (via a Google Sheet) by class year (this rotates - sometimes seniors are first, then juniors, and so on). 

• Students follow their Wednesday schedule for the next four Wednesdays. And the process repeats. 

While it’s definitely more work to be on this type of rotation system, we feel it’s necessary for the following reasons: Students can try out many different types of experiences throughout the year. Also, if they don’t end up liking an experience, they only have to make it through three more Wednesdays (same goes for the teachers!). But most importantly, it allows teachers to more easily partner with community organizations.
 
For example, for our Chess Seminar, we’re partnering with the Rochester Chess Club. One of their chess instructors comes out to teach our students, and they only have to commit to four Wednesdays at a time.

As we continue to reflect and revise what these Wednesdays look like, our hope is that we’ll eventually be able to take students to off-site trips (for example, hiking at Quarry Hill or volunteering at a care center). Right now, our experiences are all on-site.
​

​Some may argue that these types of experiences don’t belong within the school day, but at our school, we argue back: We all agree that extracurricular activities have value, but it’s a matter of access to these opportunities. Because our students can’t participate in after school activities, we’re trying to integrate these activities into their school day.

If you’re interested in doing something similar at school but can’t on this larger scale, one idea is to replicate it for the last week of each quarter or even a few days each quarter. You’ll be surprised by how many students as seniors will remember these experiences when it’s time to complete that “extracurricular activities” box on an application.
 
But there’s even a greater reason for more schools to jump in: 
 
When I was younger, I took piano lessons, and this led me to introducing music into my daughter’s life. My husband played cricket and badminton, and he continues to play now as an adult as part of his fitness routine. My 9-year old daughter takes art and dance lessons, and through these, has developed dreams of selling her art one day and making it on the high school dance team. So many of us have these stories.
 
We’re hoping that through our Student-Centered Wednesdays, our students will generate similar stories of their own. A particular seminar just might change the trajectory of their life.