Red House Learning (aka Bill's Blog)

In December What’s the Story? , led by Tim O’Leary and yours truly, kicked off its Creative Conversations series, sixty-minute sessions devoted to educators connecting and crowd-sourcing resources for making school more student and learning centered. Each Creative Conversation focuses on one of the five learning laws described in Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to upgrade our educational OS . Last month we held our fourth Creative Conversation , so we explored Learning Law #4: Humans construct their own understanding of their world.  After a brief framing--a three-minute reminder of learning’s wild nature --we broke out into three-person groups and crowdsourced their replies to the questions:  What opportunities are opening around us for making learning more student centered? What resources/models do we know of that can help students regain & retain their agency? Amidst the enthusiastic sharing of stories and resources, several participants noted that the deep need

During our most recent Creative Conversations--hour-long explorations of the Laws of Learning described in Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to update our educational OS --we explored Learning Law #3: Why and how we assess learning, impacts learning. After a brief framing , participants reflected on their formal education, from kindergarten through their post-secondary courses. Why and how were you assessed, and what impact did that have on your learning? Next we moved into small breakout groups, giving everyone a chance to share their reflections and crowdsource resources re: assessing in ways that bring out the best in learners. We wrapped up our hour with a round of insights & wonders. One person asked, “If the systems and structures stay the same, how do we move forward? I’m wondering if this year is the year the ‘walls have come down’ and made it possible to change the way we offer things in the future.” Falling Walls? One of the human brain’s most remarkable

On January 6 What’s the Story? convened its second in a series of Creative Conversations, a monthly, hour-long exploration of the learning laws described in Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to update our educational OS . On the docket was Learning Learning Law #2: We learn best by performing badly at something we want to get good at. After a five-minute lesson re: Learning Law #2 (and some private think time), we moved into breakout groups, where participants discussed and documented resources ( organized here for you ) that can help educators transition to brain-based practices aligned with this learning law. Where We Go Wrong As soon as teachers proceed with a curriculum that is disconnected from their learners’ most pressing desires and questions, they’ve lost the vital force that propels long-lasting learning--intrinsic motivation. Complaining about disengaged learners while teaching a curriculum divorced from students’ curiosity is like complaining that a car doesn’

On December 2, Tim O’Leary and I kicked off Creative Conversations, a monthly, hour-long exploration of the laws of learning described in Trust the Science: Using brain-based learning to update our educational OS . Thanks in part to the Bay & Paul Foundations and Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, these monthly Creative Conversations provide educators a lightly-facilitated space to share and gather their collective wisdom. After a brief primer , participants joined breakout groups to share related resources and pressing questions , before regrouping for a whip around of insights & wonders. Design Dilemma As we wrapped up our hour together, we admired the dilemma, and perhaps at times the absurdity, of trying to personalize learning within the institutional setting of school. Is systematized personalization possible? Someone playfully shared a chicken-raising analogy. How might we create schools committed to a greater degree of free range learning? Our seven yea

A few years ago I visited my doctor for what I hoped would be a mid-life appraisal of my health. I should say “the doctors”, since several of them assessed different parts of me over the course of a couple months. A few weeks later, I got my grade in the mail: B-. Around that time I reached out to my financial advisor to check in on the plan we’d designed the year before. I wanted to learn how well my portfolio had been performing, so she sent me an average of the year’s performance: C+. These two anecdotes are true, except for the grade part, of course. When it comes to our health and our finances, we expect a whole lot more than a single letter to communicate what’s working and what needs work. And this is the purpose of proficiency-based grading: to convey to learners, their families, and others what a single grade cannot--the learners’ current level of performance with each of the specific performance criteria used to determine the grade. But the power of the single-lette

In his 2016 NYT editorial How Measurement Fails Doctors and Teachers , Robert M. Wachter describes how medicine and education (“our most human and sacred fields”) have taken measurement and data-based decision making too far too fast. Measuring health and learning, it turns out, is far more complex than calculating quarterly profits. “The focus on numbers has gone too far,” Wachter argues. “We’re hitting the targets, but missing the point.” What an apt description of many Vermont schools in the Age of Act 77 & Education Quality Standards (EQS), which require that all high school seniors, starting next school year, graduate from a proficiency-based school system, using their Personalized Learning Plans (PLP) to meet proficiencies set by their local school system. Next year’s deadline has many Vermont educators, especially in our high schools, scrambling to comply with these connected mandates. Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements? Check. PLP for all? Check. New grading syste

Today I’m kicking off Teachable Moments: Timely Mini-lessons & Practical Resources for the Time-Starved Teacher . Each Teachable Moments blogpost will include a short slide show / voice over to frame the topic, along with suggestions for how to use a few practical resources (included below) to apply. The Cover Page This is what the original cover page looked liked when my Bread Loaf professor, John Warnock, first asked me / my peers to complete one. Here’s a modified cover page that you can adapt to any product students are working on. Please make a copy and adapt this for you and your students’ needs. Simple Google Survey Consider regularly inviting your learners to share with you what’s working, what needs work, and what can be done about it. So simple. So effective. When Students Track Their Progress Short piece by Robert Marzano that describes the powerful impact of having students join us in tracking their learning. Such a simple way to get students mor