Homework at York Middle School

One of the most common misconceptions around proficiency-based learning is that teachers are expected to assign less homework or no homework at all.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Although the way we think about homework may change, working at home will remain an integral part of our students educational experience.

Once teachers have identified learning targets, any work they assign should be intended to help students hit those targets.  In some classrooms, the notion of "homework" may change.  It's just work. Some of the work will be done at school and some will be done at home.  The reality is that if students are off task in school, they will likely have more work to do at home.

Likewise, if students are struggling to meet a learning target, they may have alternative or additional assignments that they need to complete to help them get there.  Again, some of this work will be done at school, and some will be done at home.  Students who are working towards exceeding standards will also likely have a significant amount of work to complete at home.

The key is the quality and purpose of the assignments.  The value of homework should never be measured by volume.  Just like any other assignment, work done at home must be directly connected to desired learning outcomes.  Students should know exactly what they are expected to learn and the criteria for success should be clear to them.  Homework should never be busy work.  At York Middle School, teachers working in teams meet regularly to discuss and plan assignments and to ensure that students are not overwhelmed with their work.

In the following short article, Rick Wormeli writes about various ways teachers can make homework more meaningful for students.  It's a great little article and he is spot on.  The practices he presents are universal, and they ring true in any classroom: proficiency-based or traditional.

It's interesting to note;  I've observed teachers use many of these strategies in their classrooms. In the classrooms in which teachers use them most frequently, we always see high rates of homework completion.  In classrooms where these types of practices are absent, we find relatively lower rates of homework completion.  It's no accident.

Click below to read the article:

13 Ways to Make Homework More Meaningful

Americans Who Tell the Truth

Interdisciplinary teaching is one of the cornerstones of middle level education.  At York Middle School, our teachers do a great job developing learning opportunities that are meaningful, rigorous, and student-centered.  One of the most challenging aspects of planning an interdisciplinary unit is ensuring that the connections between subjects are natural and authentic. Contrived connections can often lead to disjointed assignments that are only loosely tied to a central theme.

Some of our seventh graders have recently begun an outstanding interdisciplinary unit centered on the artwork of Robert Shetterly.  Mr. Shetterly is a self-taught portrait artist who highlights people who foster change in our culture through his program,  “Americans Who Tell the Truth”.  On Thursday, January 8th, our seventh graders had the opportunity to participate in small group discussions with Mr. Shetterly. We are thrilled that Mr. Shetterly has offered to display some of his works here in our school.

After spending a day with Mr. Shetterly, students will be “hired” as one of his interns to convince him which of his portraits are the most important. The experience allows students to demonstrate mastery of Language Arts, Social Studies, and Art standards in a way that is engaging and meaningful.

I would like to thank Mr. Shetterly and the teachers that worked to create this experience for our students.

Learning Through Reflection

We don't learn from experience.  We learn from reflecting on experience.

- John Dewey

We know that teaching students to reflect on learning is one of the most powerful things we can do to improve learning outcomes and to instill habits that will help students become critical and evaluative thinkers in all aspects of their lives.

At York Middle School, our student-led conferences provide an opportunity for students to share the reflective process with their parents.  The conference itself, is a culmination of months of reflective work.  Our student-led conferences immerse students in the process of goal setting and reflection as an integral part of their school experience.  

The conferences provide students with the opportunity to talk with adults about their
progress. Student-led conferences reflect the belief that students should be actively involved in their learning and assume responsibility for the learning process.   The conferences are facilitated by students and follow an agenda that has been developed prior to the meeting.  During the meeting, students share examples of evidence that show their strengths and weaknesses for the purpose of goal setting and continuous improvement.  This process helps students to become more motivated, reflective, and evaluative learners.  They also become more critical in their approach to learning and self-diagnostic. Research strongly supports the connection between these practices and improved learning outcomes.

At York Middle School, we have shifted our focus from merely covering curriculum to ensuring that students have learned it. Reflection is no longer optional - it's an essential component of a student-centered environment in which students are empowered to take ownership over their own learning.

The following link is an except from Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick's Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind. The authors write about the importance of learning through meaningful and active reflection (for both teachers and students).

Enjoy the article!

Learning Through Reflection

Seven Practices for Effective Learning

In this week's post, we are sharing an article that was originally published in Educational Leadership in 2005.  It's an excellent article that describes many of the practices that are now common place at York Middle School.

With the release of our new reporting system, the collective conversation has shifted to the way we are grading students and how their new scores can be interpreted.  These conversations are important. Reporting on proficiency levels in disaggregated standards is radically different than using a composite grade based on an average.  There will be a learning curve and it will take time for all of us to adjust.

With all the conversation surrounding grades, I don't want to lose sight of the effective and powerful strategies that teachers are implementing at the classroom level.  This is where the real impact of Proficiency-Based Learning is felt.  When all is said and done, the end goal is to improve our instructional and assessment practices so that all students achieve to their potential.

This article details many of the practices that teachers must execute at high levels in order to be successful in a proficiency-based learning model.  These are some of the things we have been working on as we prepared for this transition.

We hope you enjoy the article.

Seven Practices for Effective Learning

The Importance of Good Learning Targets

At YMS, we have been spending a great deal of time talking about learning targets.  Teachers use them in the form of "I can" statements on a daily basis.  A teacher's ability to write good learning targets is far more complex than it may appear on the surface.  It's more than just posting  daily objectives on the board.  Good learning targets should describe what students are expected to learn, why the learning expectation is important, and what the work will look like when the target has been met.

Writing good learning targets is a critical skill that teachers must practice in order to master.  In the following article, Susan Brookhart and Connie Moss write about the importance of good learning targets.  Brookhart and Moss assert that components of effective learning targets will:

• Describe exactly what students will learn by the end of a day’s lesson.
• Use language students can understand.
• Be stated from the point of view of a student who has yet to master the knowledge or skill being taught.
• Contain a performance of understanding that translates the description into action – what students will do, make, say, or write during the lesson.
• Include student look-fors or criteria for success in terms that describe mastery of the learning target, not a score or grade.

  Please take the time to read their article that was published in the Educational Leadership journal, October, 2014.  I hope you enjoy the article.  

Learning Targets on Parade

Red Bandana Run & Student Leadership Retreat

This week's blog post tells the story of a great collaborative unit taught by our 8th grade Kodkod team.  It's this kind of work that really exemplifies sound, student-centered, middle-level practice.  It was an inspirational unit that will have a lasting impact on our eighth graders.  The following description was written by members of the Kodkod team.  

Red Bandana Run & Leadership Retreat

Kodkod Team

Great learning happens when students, teachers, and parents share their ideas and collaborate.  As eighth graders begin the school year, they learn about the events of 9/11.  Most of our students were just infants at that time.  An understanding of the events that occurred and our nations’ response to them is essential to understanding America’s current role in the world. 

Our study of this era includes an exploration of who we are as a people, who we are as individuals and who we are as Americans. What are the values we hold dear? How do we act on those values on a personal, domestic, and foreign policy level? Who were our leaders during 9/11 and how did they lead? 

While we were studying this era, a few students mentioned the story of “The Man in the Red Bandana,” the inspiring  ESPN documentary about Welles Crowther.  Crowther was a Boston College graduate who was at work in the towers on 9/11 and spent the last hours of his life aiding and rescuing others. It is an amazing story, but we were not sure how best to bring this to our students until Open House.  That evening, Todd and Jane Adams stayed late and chatted with our team’s teachers. During this conversation, the idea of conducting and participating in a run with our students was proposed and an offer to provide Red Bandanas to all our students was promised. 

From there, we located an amazing curriculum at the Welles Crowther’s Foundation and decided to use portions of that curriculum to hold advisory discussions and study qualities of leadership. 

On October 14th we held a Remembrance Run which began at 9:11 and had students moving nonstop for 102 minutes. They went through stations where the entire advisory worked together for a run/walk, carried 40 pounds of potatoes up and down a relay ramp and more. The highlight was a visit from the York Fire Department where each student had the opportunity to suit up, walk to a cone and return wearing the weight of a firefighter. Students worked cooperatively to help one another in and out of the equipment and even assisted the team teachers as they competed to get the equipment on.

At the end of the day, students participated in a leadership retreat session. In advisory groups, they reflected and wrote about how the actions of Welles Crowther inspired them, how they serve others, and what leadership qualities they would like to develop in themselves. Each student has a Red Bandana as a tangible reminder of the capacity each of us has to make decisions to follow our passions, to serve others, and to live our lives to the fullest.  

Thank you to Dr. & Mrs. Adams for their generous support and to Sue Bruno and the York Fire Department for making this such a special experience for our students.  

We've included the documentary about Welles Crowther below.

- 8th grade Kodkod Team  

Teacher Mindset and Student Success

If you've been following the transition that is taking place at York Middle School, you would have heard reference to the impact this transition is having on the work of teachers.  One piece that is often overlooked is the shift in mindset that many teachers must undergo in order to be successful in a proficiency-based learning model.  Identifying standards, posting learning targets, and reporting out on a 4-point scale certainly aren't enough to improve student achievement.

The impact on teachers is significant and multi-faceted.  For me, one of the most profound implications is the shift in emphasis from covering material to making sure students have actually learned it.  In the world we all grew up in, it was common for a teacher to assign work from a chapter in a textbook, deliver instruction from the front of the room (often in the form of notes), assign classwork and homework, and give a test or quiz.  Then it was time to move on: whether students learned the material or not.  Feedback was minimal and often in the form of brief affirmations of performance, "Great Job!", "Excellent!", "Needs Improvement!".  The quality of feedback was poor and sporadic.  If students did poorly they were often encouraged to study harder next time.  Sometimes extra-help was offered in the form of re-teaching the material in the same way it was taught in class.

The emphasis was on the coverage of material and the grades students earned.  Not learning.  This is powerful because it was just as true for students as it was for teachers.  Students were much more concerned with getting good grades than they were with the actual learning that was taking place.

Now, the emphasis is placed squarely on student learning rather than the grade or the coverage of material.  This concept is central to the philosophy of proficiency-based instruction.  Students know exactly what they are expected to learn, how they are going to get there, and what success will look like.  Assessments are both formative and diagnostic.  Students are given opportunities to reflect on their progress, and they know where they are in relation to a learning target.  

It's the work and the mindset of teachers that makes this possible.  I've included a short video that highlights the eight mind frames that researcher John Hattie believes all teachers must hold.  I couldn't agree more.  I truly believe that these belief structures are essential to both teacher and student success.  I hope you enjoy the video.