DEEPER LEARNING The What Why and How OVEC

DEEPER LEARNING The What, Why and How OVEC 2016

Just for fun

“Every two days, we now create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization until 2003. ” Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO

What about schools?

consider • 1 in 5 people in their 20 s are neither in school nor employed • Of students who enroll in college, only about half complete a degree • College debt has exceeded credit card debt – over $1 trillion • Completion rate at community colleges is less than 30 percent • Combined unemployment and underemployment of recent college graduates is 53 percent

and Employers say they cannot fill available positions for highly skilled workers.

a case for deeper learning “Our schools are not failing , as many claim; rather, they are obsolete. What the world cares about is what our students can do with what they know. ” Tony Wagner, 2015

3 questions

the driver

GETTING A FOOTHOLD Rapid Cycle: Try, Fail Fast, Revise, Try Again • • • Daily Spanish, K-5 PBL Pilot Celebration of Learning, P-12 Presentations of Learning Intersession Experience Danville STEAM

THE DANVILLE DIPLOMA

project-based learning

CONTENT SKILLS APPLICATION

authentic accountability: public presentations of learning

pbl: defined a teaching approach, a mindset, and a framework for teaching skills and content. Looking inside. . .

“Education means making creators. ” Jean Piaget

“…the fullest assessment of students’ understanding is through the exhibition of created products or performances. ” Wiggins and Mc. Tighe, 1998

and what it isn’t. • • • An end in itself. Exciting and engaging from start to finish. A project at the end of a unit. Just hands on activities. All or nothing. Even in schools where pbl is the primary approach, it co-exists with other, more traditional forms of learning.

what it isn’t, continued… • Required to take a certain length of time. • Something that always involves a community partner. • An opportunity to stop holding kids accountable. • An unstructured free-for-all

so what does it take? • The culture has to support kids and grownups. • Structures. • Protocols. • Exhibitions. • Performance-assessment. • Responses for the skeptics. • A defined end: the graduate profile

one critical structure Project tuning

culture: underlying beliefs Ability is not fixed. Failure is essential to learning. Revision is the route to mastery. Knowledge expands and deepens through inquiry. Teaching is coaching. Caring is essential to accomplishment. Learning can and should be fun.

simple starts for teachers • Change the order: Pose the challenge first • Start with a question, i. e prescriptive lab for designing the strongest bridge versus “What is the best structural design to produce the strongest bridge? ” • End with the creation of something rather than a test

for leaders A vision for success: What will it look like when we are there? Graduate profile One deeper learning experience goal One structural change

one blueprint • Establish a vision for your graduates expressed in the form of a graduate profile, and • a culminating portfolio and defense that challenges students to live up to the school’s graduate profile, then • a handful of performance assessments that synthesizes the school’s curricular goals, incorporating applicable standards as well as 21 st Century skills to which you have committed.