Craft Category: Artifacts

Monterey Peninsula: Brainstorming Ideas for Flexibility, Personalization, and Student Sense of Belonging

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) sought to address a key problem in their district: “How might we increase flexibility and personalization to build a sense of belonging and connection within the context of our labor and policy constraints?”

In brainstorming solutions, the team identified six categories of solutions:

Engage students and teachers to design new systems. This set of solutions highlights the fact that equity requires those most impacted by teaching and learning – students and teachers – be involved in developing new systems. It also challenges the district to be resilient so as to adapt and flex to enable the new systems that students and teachers develop.
Revise policies. This set of solutions recognizes that sometimes, district policies are major barriers to equity in a district; certain policies like counts on seat time or grading expectations can limit flexibility and personalization. These solutions also demonstrate the district’s willingness to dramatically reinvent itself – even rewriting policy – so as to improve teaching and learning with equity in mind.
Focus on staff members’ sense of belonging. This set of solutions recognizes that in order for teachers to be able to foster students’ sense of belonging, teachers must feel that they belong and are supported.
Revise grading to be mastery-based. This set of solutions elevates the fact that traditional methods for grading are often not flexible or personalized (instead, grades are based on rigid scales, include non-academic behavioral measures, and are assigned at one point in time). A mastery-based approach to grading allows teachers to give more personalized feedback to students and gives students multiple chances to prove mastery.
Regroup students by academic need and/or interest. This set of solutions recognizes that each student has different needs, academically and beyond. It explores opportunities to revisit traditional structures (e.g., age-based grouping) and to instead develop systems that group students by targeted academic need and/or type of learning the student is interested in.
Build social-emotional activities into academic courses and set aside time for intentional community building. This set of solutions honors the fact that students’ sense of belonging and connection is an important precursor to academic learning. It also highlights the fact that building students’ sense of belonging cannot just be a “check-the-box” activity – it must be integrated throughout the approach to teaching and learning.

February 4, 2021

Mastery Charter Schools: Brainstorming Ideas for Blended Learning that Foster Independence

Mastery Charter Schools sought to address a key problem in their district: “How might we build a blended learning model that fosters achievement and independence in our high school students?”

In brainstorming solutions, the team identified three categories of solutions:

Adopt practices that focus on teacher moves. This set of solutions honors the critical role that teachers play in the classroom and focuses on how to equip teachers with the support and materials needed to engage students via blended learning.
Adopt practices that focus on systems and processes. This set of solutions recognizes that a move to a blended learning model is a significant change across a network, and thus explores the ways that network-provided resources (e.g., sample lesson plans, new software/tools) may be important foundations for the change.
Adopt practices that focus on students. This set of solutions anticipates challenges high schoolers might face in moving from a traditional to a blended learning model, and suggests concrete ways to scaffold the student independence needed for success in a blended learning model (e.g., pairing students together, enabling student voice and choice in their learning, and promoting student goal-setting).

February 4, 2021

Cedar Rapids: Brainstorming Ideas for Student Goal-Setting and Feedback

Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) sought to address a key problem in their district: “How might we provide relevant, standards-aligned feedback to students so that every student reaches mastery?”

In brainstorming solutions, the team identified four categories of solutions:

Connecting student feedback and grades more explicitly to the district’s profile of a graduate. This set of solutions would make learning more relevant for students (by connecting it to their future goals) and more individualized (as it would deliver more personalized feedback to students on their learning).
Get the community involved in assessing students’ progress toward the goals outlined in the district’s profile of a graduate. This set of solutions makes learning more relevant and individualized, as in the set of solutions above. However, it more deeply enhances the relevancy of learning by connecting students to members of their community – people with whom they share community culture and people who can speak to how learning will show up in a student’s future career.
Building space and structures for students to reflect on their own learning. This set of solutions would more deeply engage students in their learning by promoting self-reflection (versus just having a teacher assign a grade).
Explore other (non-grade-related) ways to gauge student progress. This set of solutions would give students more choice and flexibility in how they demonstrate their learning, especially as compared to traditional assessments, which sometimes cannot accurately assess learning and/or can have inequities baked in such that some student groups consistently outperform others.

February 4, 2021

Monterey Peninsula: Problem of Practice on Belonging and Connection

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) interviewed a range of teachers and students to identify opportunities to improve teaching and learning. From those conversations, they identified the need to increase students’ sense of belonging at school and personalized support for students’ academic development. After reviewing themes from the interviews, the team summarized a key problem of practice: “How might we increase flexibility and personalization to build a sense of belonging and connection within the context of our labor and policy constraints?”

This problem statement challenged the team to find solutions that met the academic and social-emotional needs of each student. The problem statement also required the team to think about those things it could adapt and change, even amid constraints.

February 4, 2021

Mastery Charter Schools: Problem of Practice on a Culturally Relevant Blended Learning Model

Mastery Charter Schools interviewed a range of teachers and students to identify opportunities to improve teaching and learning. From those conversations, they identified: the need for students to more actively own their learning (versus relying on a standard teacher-centric classroom), for newly procured technology to be used in a way that would broaden students’ experiences, and for the approach to teaching and learning to more deeply embed their network commitment to anti-racism. After reviewing themes from the interviews, the team summarized a key problem of practice: “How might we build a blended learning model that fosters achievement and independence in our high school students?”

This problem statement challenged the team to find solutions that empower each student and support their development in academics and beyond (including cognitive and social-emotional skills); importantly, it did this with an explicit focus on cultural relevance and anti-racism. This problem statement also required the team to think about how technology – an inherently adaptable tool – could be used to individualize the learning experience.

February 4, 2021

Cedar Rapids: Problem of Practice on Standards-Aligned Feedback

Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) interviewed a range of teachers and students to identify opportunities to improve teaching and learning. The team heard a clear and consistent theme that stakeholders felt many students are not engaged in their learning and don’t see the purpose or how it connects to their dreams for life beyond school. After reviewing themes from the interviews, the team summarized a key problem of practice: “How might we provide relevant, standards-aligned feedback to students so that every student reaches mastery?”

This problem statement challenged the team to find solutions that help each and every student deepen their learning through opportunities for ownership and personalized feedback (including feedback relevant to the student’s goals and aspirations). This problem statement also required the team to think about more individualized and flexible systems than traditional grading structures that apply a “one-size-fits-all” approach to assessing student learning at a single point in time; such traditional systems do not always include personalized feedback or give students additional opportunity to improve their mastery.

February 4, 2021

Stanford d.School: “How Might We” Questions

When designing change in a district, it is essential that leaders hear directly from students, families, teachers, and classified staff (i.e., those most impacted by teaching and learning). This guide from Stanford d.school will help you translate feedback into a clear problem your design team will address by framing problems as “How Might We?” questions.

February 4, 2021

Monterey Peninsula: Connecting Empathy Interviews and School Culture

Themes from Monterey Peninsula Unified School District’s empathy interviews fall into multiple categories: developing stronger connections between and amongst students and teachers, and personalizing support for students’ academic development. The team’s discussion connected the themes from interviews to broader efforts across the district to increase flexibility and personalization while strengthening students’ sense of belonging.

February 4, 2021

Mastery Charter Schools: Connecting Empathy Interviews and Blended Learning

Themes from Mastery Charter Schools’ empathy interviews fell into several categories: supporting students and teachers with technology, fostering digital access, and creating independent learners. The team’s discussion connected the themes from interviews to broader efforts across the district to move toward blended learning, prepare students for the future, and standardize expectations for teaching and learning with technology.

February 4, 2021

Cedar Rapids: Connecting Empathy Interviews and Standards-Based Learning

When designing change in a district, it is essential that leaders hear directly from students, families, teachers, and classified staff (i.e., those most impacted by teaching and learning); this is often done via empathy interviews. As they reviewed their notes from their empathy interviews, the Cedar Rapids Community School District design team surfaced themes about opportunities to build relationships, to create more personalized and authentic learning experiences, and to reconsider effective feedback for students. The team’s discussion connected the themes from interviews to broader efforts across the district to engage students authentically, enable more personalized education, hold high expectations for all students, and facilitate standards-based learning that could help meet students’ needs.

February 4, 2021