Summer Learnin', Had Me a Blast

I remember reaching the mid-point of the summer and thinking, there's still plenty of time left.  But, with the start of the school year just a few short days away, it certainly feels as if "all at once summer collapsed into fall."  It's the perfect time, then, to reflect on all the reading and learning I did over the summer and think about what impact this might have on the upcoming school year. 

CAST UDL Symposium

If you followed the #UDL4Justice hashtag at all over the summer, you may have seen some of the conversations and ideas being exchanged at CAST's 3rd annual symposium.  I was fortunate enough to attend and present again this year and it was a powerful experience all around. At the most basic level, it's just so energizing to be surrounded by such dedicated educators from all over the globe and from all roles within schools.  While I wish I could have bottled up the whole symposium to bring back to school, I will share just a few of points that have kept me thinking all summer.

In her Day 1 keynote speech, Katie Novak encouraged us to look closely at our curriculum and be honest about whether it offers both "mirrors and windows" for our students.  Mirrors, where they see themselves reflected in the curriculum, and windows that give them views of worlds different from their own.  Katie urged us also to look at ourselves and our own beliefs and attitude towards groups so we are more aware of how our beliefs are reflected in our actions toward our students.  Her whole speech was riveting, but what really connected with me was her distinction between "options & choice" in terms of UDL.  As a parent, I think about when I say things like, "You can clean your room before breakfast OR you can clean your room after breakfast." I have may have presented an option, but I definitely haven't given my kids the choice to not clean their room.  In the classroom if I say, you can "Write an essay about why cell phones should be allowed in school OR why they shouldn't be allowed in school," I've given my students an option but I haven't given them a choice to argue something that matters to them.   Katie's comment, "I can't make authentic choices for you. Students must and can make authentic choices for themselves." is one I will continue thinking about and working toward.

Kristina and I also had the opportunity to present some of the work SBA has done around UDL and as I think it usually happens, the best part of the presentation was in actually reflecting on our work in order to put the slides together.  We focus on how we, the SBA staff, have found ways to infuse student voice into our school and how this can positively impact engagement. Reflecting on the work we've done over the last 5 plus years really encouraged me to continue finding ways to bring student voice into the school and community. If you are interested in seeing what we shared at the symposium, here is a link to our presentation. 

 

   

Session Summaries in Quotes

• "The work is not about intentions. It's about the impact on the the lives of our students." ~Mirko Chardin (@MirkoMilk)
• "Stand up for what you believe in. Do what's right in the face of adversity." ~Elizabeth Stein (@ElizabethLStein)
• "When we make our thinking as expert learners explicit, our dialogue eventually becomes students' inner monologues." ~Lisa Beth Carey (@EquitableAccess)
• "Make one point of contact beyond "hi" each day and you invest in students' emotional bank accounts." ~Matt Bergman (@mattbergman14)
• "We know one size fits all doesn't work for our students so why would we expect it does for our adults?!" ~Liz Berquist (@Liz_Berquist)

MCIEA Cohort 2 

In late August, I joined the 7-Blue Team members at the Massachusetts Consortium of Innovative Education & Assessment (MCIEA) to "begin" the work of creating Quality Performance Assessments.  Although the PD itself definitely fell a bit short, the idea behind the MCIEA and QPAs is founded in the principles of UDL, so we've been moving in this direction for years!  The consortium's goal is to "reclaim the term assessment" and to bring it back into the hands' of teachers.  We were presented with some studies findings that show for all the focus on standardized assessments, we have done little to actually close the gaps we so often hear about.  

For me, the standout "new" idea of the two-day session was Accountability vs. Responsibility. MCAS and other such standardized tests were created in an effort to hold schools accountable for their students' performance and growth over time. This system made schools accountable to external forces.  I can't think of a single teacher I know who would say they didn't want their students to grow and improve after spending a year learning together.  We've also all had a student who we knew made great strides over the year, but for whom the standardized tests didn't offer the opportunity to convey that.  If we think about our responsibility to our students, we begin thinking about holding ourselves accountable.  However subtle this difference may seem, it feels empowering to me.  In "tested" subjects there is often that emotional struggle between what teachers "know is right" and what teachers "feel obligated to do because of testing."  Focusing on our responsibility to our students rather than our accountability to an external force, allows us to see our students as they are--individual and varied learners and not test scores.

It was energizing to be a small part of the team's brainstorming about what kind of Quality Performance Assessment they could create for their shared group of students. The UDL framework was everywhere in their discussion about embedding true choice, seeking authentic audiences, and offering multiple representation of student knowledge!