A New Definition of Rigor: A growing awareness of the power of integrated technology, project based learning, and collaborative student performance has begun to change the way independent schools think about instruction and assessment.

In the 20^th century, rigor in school was typically defined by the sheer volume of content that a student needed to master. Academic success was most often measured using traditional paper-and pencil exams, many of which were quickly and inexpensively scored by machines. 

 

In the 21st century, independent schools are implementing a new rigor; one that is not defined exclusively by workload and is not easily measured using traditional assessments. The new rigor is a response to dramatic changes, made possible by technology, in how people live and work and learn. 

 

 

Historically, the central purpose of schooling was to impart the “3r’s – reading, writing and ‘rithmetic”. This was an “information- accumulation” education; all other skills learned in school were considered to be secondary.  However, Patrick Bassett, President of NAIS (the National Association of Independent Schools) suggests that a new century requires a new definition of purpose; one that recognizes the “six c’s”: creativity, character, critical thinking, communication, cosmopolitanism, and collaboration. 

 

What does rigor look like in an independent school that is informed by the “six c’s?”   

 

Scratch, Diigo, Scoop.it, and VoiceThread may be totally unfamiliar terms to most parents, but a visit to a Connecticut independent school would illustrate these and other integrated technologies that captivate students of all ages in dynamic and creative, individual and group assignments. These are tools used by classroom teachers to expand and enhance the learning of traditional academic subjects. They are less about convenience and more about increasing motivation and advancing innovation. Best of all, these digital devices offer students an opportunity to demonstrate learning in ways that replicate real world capacities and often have real world audiences. Written work that students formerly offered for one teacher’s review and response can now be posted on a personal blog or school website. Access can be password protected or open to the whole world (including grandparents!)

 

Understanding that the work of the world in the 21^st century is increasingly done in teams, collaborative learning and project based learning now complement traditional learning in independent schools. On your visit, you can expect to see robust evidence of this: a writing workshop where students are critiquing each other’s drafts using Smartboard technology, a pre-school class collectively transforming a room full of cardboard boxes into a dragon for their Chinese New Year celebration, a group of perplexed 6^th grade students who have been given an odd assortment of household supplies and assigned the task of constructing an effective water filter, a high school student with a passion for Chemistry Skyping with a professor at Duke University. 

 

These are all examples of engaged students; students taking some measure of ownership of their learning. These are also examples of  i-generation behaviors. The first generation to grow up surrounded by digital technology, the children and teens in school today are accustomed to learning on their own and learning from each other. Their shared learning experiences teach them how to be critical of other people’s ideas without being critical personally. Of Bassett’s six  “c s, collaboration is the one that most actively advances the remaining 5.

 

 

Student engagement takes many forms, but it requires students to do more than merely listen and take notes. A project based program offers a liberated role for the teacher, allowing the teacher to serve as a resource and guide, steering the class toward essential questions that require students to think deeply, originally and creatively. 

 

 

There is a new, emerging rigor in independent schools focused on preparing students for 21^st century careers and citizenship. It is replacing correct answer education with an education for deeper understanding; requiring students to question their assumptions about the world, and learn new ways to demonstrate their knowledge. Students are assigned meaningful tasks and assured that their hard work will be meaningfully and critically assessed. 

 

Rigor in today’s independent schools remains true to the classical (Oxford) definition of the term “the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive or accurate,” but it also contains the modern expectation that it will demonstrate evidence of creativity, character, critical thinking, communication, cosmopolitanism, and collaboration.

 

 

Third Graders Discover New Haven

Last week I had the opportunity to join the third graders as they began their quest to take over the New Haven tour business. As the capstone of their study on the city, they headed into a few of our most historic neigborhoods with their teachers Mrs. Aceto and Mrs. Schroeder, Academic Technology Coordinator Mrs. Ludwig, and Wooster Square expert (and new resident) Mr. Gonnelly. Armed with digital cameras and recorders, the students took a walking tour of the Wooster Square neighborhood, snapping

photos and taking notes as they prepared to create their own class digital walking tour on google maps. The students gathered information on key landmarks and collaborated with classmates on the very best information to include on their section of the map. The students were wholly engaged, and the energy was palpable.  They then moved on from Wooster Square to the historic homes and oyster piles of Fair Haven. Each spot providing a hands-on history lesson and an opportunity to dig deeper into their study.

The students are now back in the lab, embedding photos and entering information as they prepare to publish their tour so that all of us can join them on their tour of New Haven’s history.

The Last Few Days of School

We are entering our last few days of school and the energy on campus is bubbling over. We’re certainly not coasting to the finish, as we have two more spectacular art openings to come in the Lower School Art Gallery, two year-end concerts, our third annual Lower School day at the fields, an author’s tea, a poetry and prose reading, a book publishing party, a camping trip, and a sixth grade graduation – just to name a few. The next 10 days will be a flurry of celebration, creativity, and productivity. We’re savoring every moment!

Is the iPad a game changer? Or is it just me?

My iPad changed my life two years ago. I have all my notes, current books, research, magazines, newspapers, TED talks, emails, pictures, and movies in one space and searchable. That’s a fair stretch better than the bookshelf full of moleskin notebooks now standing in my study in which I couldn’t find a specific note with a magnifying glass and a few hours to kill. I know there are still iPad naysayers, but I’m certainly not one of them. It’s been a game changer for the way I do my work and organize my day.

Recently my school took its first step toward exploring the iPad impact on our own campus by giving faculty members, through an application process, a $250 grant toward purchasing an iPad or working further with a currently owned iPad to explore and imagine the impact a slew of them might have on the teaching and learning here. Over the next year more than 20 teachers will spend time sharing, formally and informally, online and face to face, their frustrations, successes, and big plans. I’m positively thrilled to dive in.

I’m going to start now with one of the most ubiquitous blog topics of recent history – must-have apps.

Here’s my essential app list – work and life – keep in mind that I’m a little nuts. Most of these are free or very cheap
• Open Table – restaurants
• Epicurious – cooking
• NYTimes crosswords
• JamBase – who’s playing in town – anywhere
• Pandora – internet radio
• NPR
• WSJ
• NYT – we have a weekend home subscription which gives me access online and on the ipad all the time
• Kindle
• Zite – personalized e-magazine pulled from your inputted interests
• Zinio – access to tons of online versions of magazines
• Apple Works Suite – pages, keynote, numbers
• flipboard – turns facebook, twitter, and blogs into a magazine format – really slick and nice
• skype
• ESPN
• Windfinder – good for tides and winds if you need to know them
• runner’s world smart coach – the free version does the trick for training plans
• TED – videos
• Rover – a browser that, for the moment, will let you view flash
• Diigo – stores webpages – connect to other groups
• dropbox – never carry a flashdrive again
• good reader and notability (both let you mark up pdfs and talk with evernote) GR is free, but I like notability better
• Khan Academy
• IA Writer – very cool word processing app that I like for writing – produces txt files and syncs with dropbox
• dragon dictation – I haven’t played with it enough yet, but I hear it’s magic
• wordpress – for managing a blog – which I don’t do very well at all – trying to get a rhythm going now!

Celebrating 100 days in our 100th year

Parades, beads, collections, cake, singing, and writing all found their special place on campus this Tuesday. In our centennial, it seems fitting that the celebration of our hundredth day was especially diverse, energetic, and comprehensive. Every grade level in the Lower School joined in the activities, and much of the division joined together in the courtyard at 1:00 to sing “Happy Birthday” to Hamden Hall.

There’s something right about getting excited around the 100th day of school. It’s a celebration of the time we’ve spent together on campus, the learning that has gone on in and out of the classrooms, and the friendships and connections that make a school special.

We certainly did our part to show our celebratory spirit on this Mardi Gras/Hundredth Day. The PK and third grade started things off with 100-cheerio necklaces, the preschool picked it up with a Mardi Gras parade, the kindergarten snacked their way to 100 (and then worked it off with 100 jumping jacks!), the first and second grades shared artistic collections, the fourth and fifth grades created a bulletin of 100 fascinating facts, and our sixth graders researched and presentated the differences between life now and in 1912, collaborated on an 100-line story, and explored the geometric possibilities of 100 tennis balls.

In whatever way the meaning of 100 found its way into our Tuesday, it was a day that brought our centennial home for many of our youngest students. It’s a lot of fun to watch a

What Learning Looks Like

The end of any school year does not go without a flurry of celebration – particularly one at Hamden Hall and even more so in the Lower School. This year was no exception as our Lower Schoolers masterfully took to the stage for the Spring Concerts, enthusiastically participated in our day at the fields, and lovingly wished each other and their teachers a happy summer on the last day of school. All of these will remain fond and fitting memories of the last days of school for me, but my most telling image of the end of this school year didn’t take place on campus.

Every year our sixth grade takes an overnight camping trip, and every year it is an overwhelmingly positive experience that leaves the class that much closer, albeit a little sleepy. After dinner on the first night the faculty chaperones and I got a chance to sit back and watch as the counselors at Camp Sloane led our sixth graders through a series of “new games” designed to stretch comfort zones and get the laughter flowing. The mission was accomplished and then some.

There is a terrific trust game in which a group gets in a very tight circle and then sits. The idea is that the group will collectively support the weight and everyone will be comfortably and securely seated. This is good challenge to make a point and really good for a few laughs. This game was one that was introduced to our sixth graders that evening, and, as expected, the first attempt was a complete failure resulting in a heap of laughing sixth graders. (please see our LS News video gallery for evidence of this first attempt)

It was this laughter that showed me what the group was made of, and made me proud of our division. Learning takes place with risk taking, and risk only takes place when there is a challenge and comfort in the learning process. This comfort comes through years of teachers and coaches setting the bar high and then giving the students the support to reach just beyond. This comfort comes from years of falling, laughing, and getting up with good spirits and a strong determination to try again. These sixth graders had this, and it showed. One by one they picked themselves and each other off the grass and, with smiles, got back in the circle to give it another try.

This is a love of learning. It is what the learning process demands and what a Lower School must engender in its students. Thank you, sixth grade for showing me what it looks like.

How do we assess?

Schools are looking for a new way to test what we think is truly important (those 21st century skills) with something a touch more quantitative than one’s gut. Well, the folks at the Council for Aid to Education are giving it a shot and have some early adopters, notably at the Lawrenceville School in NJ. While the presentation I attended at the NAIS conference was really nothing more than a conversation starter, it was framed around some intriguing questions and a topic that could really change things about the way schools go about assessing.

What are we saying is important in independent school education?
The not-so-recent call for 21st century learning has further pushed words like collaboration, critical thinking, authentic, task-based instruction and assessment, and multidisciplinary into the thinking of all of us. So, as we strive to find ways to include this pedagogy in our daily thinking and learning, we also must ask ourselves – how do we assess this? How do we know that the students are learning? Where is the benchmark?

Are we testing what we say is important?
If we’re talking about the daily formal and informal assessing that goes on in good classrooms, the answer is probably yes. If we’re thinking about our standardized testing, the answer is likely no with regard to the 21st century skills. This could be changing as the AP rethinks its curriculum and assessment and as alternative assessments like the College and Work Readiness Assessment change the game.

How do we have a valid gauge of what’s important? This is a judgement call that good schools across the country at all levels are making. The push now is toward the “21st Century” skills, and that’s calling into question our current manner of assessment as a way of telling what is important as a predictor of later success.

Are we testing what colleges say is important? Most colleges say they want “21st Century” students, but still hold AP and SAT as important factors to admissions. As a consequence, independent schools are taking a risk if they step away from these documents.
Are colleges looking at what they say is important? More and more of them are. According to the presenters at the conference, 200+ schools are using the CWRA and it’s undergraduate counterpart, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, as an assessment of 21st Century skills. More and more are also taking the SAT out of the admissions equation.

Where do 21st cent skills of problem solving and critical thinking fit into all this? The CLA (given to college freshmen) and it’s Grade 9 through 12 counterpart, the CWRA, may provide an alternative. The tests give students an authentic (though fictional) problem and then challenge them with documents such as emails, studies, newspaper articles and the like to synthesize and return with a solution/proposal. The problems are designed to be 21st Century skills friendly, multidisciplinary, and quantifiable. The tests can be given online and compared not just to those other students in the room, but against a national picture, and, over time, against one’s prior scores providing a national and school benchmark to the 21st Century learning. It may a way to see if we as schools are teaching what we say we’re teaching.

The CWRA model is one that begs a few more questions.
– can this model be expanded to the rest of the curriculum?
– will it catch on?
– if a school loves and adopts it, can it be brought down to the Middle and Lower Schools?

I’m intrigued and will be headed to a day-long session next month. It may not be the answer to what ails standardized testing, but it seems to be helping to kick the conversation in the right direction.

More information on the CLA and the CWRA can be found at http://www.collegiatelearningassessment.org.