Is This For Marks?

We have been discussing assessment in our schools for decades. Some teachers have assessment fatigue, and will avoid attending professional development sessions on this crucial professional skill, because they believe they have "been there, done that".  To be fair, there are outstanding examples of integrated, progressive, thoughtful and professional assessment practices in every school. Teachers who use regular, formative feedback to help students understand their progress and to adjust their teaching; teachers who explicitly connect all learning activities with the Big Ideas, curricular content and competencies their students will be responsible for understanding, knowing and doing; teachers who regularly invite students to be self-regulating, reflective and metacognitive learners by engaging in structured self and peer assessments; teachers who include students in developing the criteria for major summative assignments; teachers who design their entire courses with learning maps shared with students; and teachers who meet one-on-one with students to discuss the best work from their portfolio, to determine summative marks.

At the same time, there are also teachers who use traditional and troubling assessment practices. Teachers who 'cover' material on a preset timeline, rather than 'teach' in response to student learning; teachers who use pop or surprise quizzes and homework in their summative evaluation. Teachers who are proud of their reputation as 'hard markers', who include test questions not covered in class, so that almost no student can achieve a perfect score; educators who argue that final marks of 85% or 49% are precise and objective. Teachers who deduct marks for all kinds of reasons, including wearing the wrong clothing in PE, submitting work late, and even those who penalize students for using the wrong colour ink, font, spacing or for not including their name or putting it on the wrong side of a title page. Just as insidious is the practice of using 'bonus marks' to encourage and reward student behaviours.  

Too often we use marks as the currency of value and compliance. When presented with an assignment, the first thing students will often ask is "is this for marks?" as over many years, they have determined from us that learning is only worth their time if they can collect marks to deposit into the marks bank. Indeed, at the end of a course, their parents and friends will ask, "what did you get?" rather than "what did you learn?". In most schools, a subtle ethos of competitiveness exists and while learning is not a competition, access to scholarships, awards, school recognition and coveted universities in our province and country are almost exclusively based on marks and, unfortunately, this drives many of our practices in secondary schools.

How many of these statements connect with your beliefs? Your practices?  

Agree?    Disagree?

• The purpose of assessment is to support student learning and offer hope to every student.
• Evaluations and grades are a source of stress and angst for students. Marks impact students' self-image and mental health.
• Ongoing and constructive formative assessment is intimately linked to good teaching. You cannot have one without the other.
• Multiple formative assessments with specific, descriptive feedback must occur before any summative assessment.
• Practice, homework, draft work and quizzes, like all formative assessment, should be for providing feedback on what students' know and what they still need to learn, rather than collecting marks.
• Summative assessments occur at the end of learning. The teacher should be confident that students have learned and are prepared to demonstrate their learning.
• The purpose of summative assessment is to allow students to show what they understand, know and can do. 
• People learn in different ways and students should be provided with different opportunities and ways of showing what they know, understand and can do (i.e. not just unit tests or essays)
• Summative work is important. If it is not completed by a student, it is incomplete, not zero. Late work is welcomed, not penalized.
• In the real world, we learn from experience and from our mistakes. Opportunities to rewrite and redo summative assignments and tests are great learning opportunities.
• To build a secondary school foundation that supports curiosity and learning, Grades 8 and 9 should be ungraded. All assignments should be about and for learning. Schools should adapt a version of the 4-point Proficiency Scale used by the Ministry of Education.  All middle years students are either EMERGING (1) -> DEVELOPING (2) -> PROFICIENT (3) -> EXTENDING (4), with specific, individual comments.
• Report Cards should be renamed Communicating Student Learning. Detailed, constructive comments about individual student's strengths and areas for growth are helpful.  The typical 72% - S - Satisfactory work this term is about efficiency, not communicating nor supporting learning.
• It is better to have a reputation as an inspiring teacher than a hard marker.
• While students who do not attend or engage may not be successful at first, whenever a student fails, it reflects directly on the effectiveness of our teaching and our schools.

p.s. assessment in compressed timelines and/or blended learning during the pandemic will be more challenging, but even more important for keeping students feeling connected and engaged. Do less. Do it thoughtfully. Know what is essential. Allow students time to work on drafts, with feedback from peers and the teacher. Allow students different and creative ways of engaging with the curriculum and to demonstrate what they know. Collaborate. Team teach. Work together. Hang in there - this is for now, not forever.

What Is Our Purpose?

This post describes some work done during 'normal times' in a secondary school. However, as we prepare for our 'new normal' - starting a school year during a global pandemic - it seems even more important that we are clear on what we are trying to accomplish with all of our students.

Secondary schools organize learning into discrete chunks of time where teachers work in departments and students are scheduled into eight distinct courses; they go to class, they do their best to pay attention, complete their work, and, every 75 minutes or so, they pack up and move to a different space and learn something else. Small innovations include combining social studies and English into “Humanities” and perhaps some combination of math and science, but usually only in the middle school years. A lot of schools offer different learning pathways such as enriched cohorts, AP, IB, apprenticeship and work experience programs and a range of unique elective courses; however, what are the common threads for all students? What connects us as educators? Are we clear on what we are trying to accomplish for every kid, regardless of their pathway? Perhaps many students struggle to answer the age old question of "what did you do in school today?” because they are not really sure.

In BC, the Ministry of Education’s Core Competencies are a deliberate attempt to connect learning for students, and more importantly, shift planning for teachers. The Core Competencies are meant to be cross-curricular, interconnected and foundational to all learning. Indeed, every teacher’s course outline should include connections to the curricular competencies and what students will know, understand and do in a particular course, as well as how this learning will strengthen their capacity as thinkers, as communicators, and as personally and socially aware and responsible young people. They are an attempt to unite schooling with a common purpose. 

In 5200 schools in more than 150 nations around the world, educators are helping every IB student from Kindergarten to Grade 12 develop the same ten attributes known as the IB Learner Profile. If the coherency in this Learner Profile is good for IB students, why not for all students? Why not develop a school Learner Profile so that we are clear on what we trying to accomplish for every kid, regardless of their interests, passions or future pathways? Common language used in all subject areas to align the work of teachers and enable students to frame their learning experiences, and help them understand and connect what they are doing in school with how they are developing as people. 

We began the process by meeting with a group of graduating IB Diploma students in June of 2017. We discussed the IB Learner Profile. What they thought about it, what it meant to them and whether it truly reflected their learning journey. As is always the case when you meet with students to talk about their school experiences, they provided incredibly insightful and thoughtful feedback. Themes included their recognition that learning was so much more than an accumulation of facts and knowledge and that IB had challenged their ability to think, inquire and communicate, as well as be open-minded and consider multiple perspectives. They clearly understood how these attributes would continue to serve them well throughout their lives. They also found humour in the fact that despite two intense years of study, they could not actually list all of the IB attributes. They also believed that some resonated more than others, that no list of attributes was exhaustive and finally, that perhaps ten was too many. 

At a retreat in Harrison Hot Springs the following fall, all staff engaged in thoughtful discussions on defining their “ideal school” and what our core purpose was as educators. The idea of a school-wide ‘learner profile’ was introduced and interested staff were invited to meet in the weeks and months ahead. We created a Learner Profile focus group that included staff and students. This group examined the Ministry of Education's definition of an 'educated citizen', our district’s new Vision, Mission and Values statements, the Core Competencies and the IB Learner Profile. Initially, our conversations with students were framed around these guiding questions: 

• What is the purpose of school? 
• What are the attributes of a successful student? 
• What attributes are the most important for your future? 

Over many meetings, our group identified and discussed a range of different attributes. They also noted that schools and classrooms are full of posters, and that they do not really mean anything to students. They wanted to know how this would be any different? In February of 2018, students from the focus group made a presentation to all teachers and staff on the morning of a professional development day and articulated their purpose:

• We acknowledge that students choose to learn different things, have different passions and interests and diverse plans for the future. 
• We acknowledge that the connections to what we do in school to life outside of school are not always clear.
• We acknowledge that having an RHS Learner Profile may be unifying and helpful – for students and for teachers and staff, to better understand what we are all trying to learn and accomplish. 

Over the next 18 months, the group continued to meet and share ideas. The conversations were rich - students are genuinely interested in talking about what they are learning and how school could be made better. We visited classes and students in the focus group facilitated discussions with their peers. We surveyed and solicited feedback from parents. We shared iterations with teachers and department heads. We shared drafts with parents at PAC meetings and in our digital newsletters. We came to the realization that to be most effective, the ‘Learner Profile’ needed to be directly connected to the Core Competencies and the IB Learner Profile that were already in place. Based on student feedback that images are more helpful than words, a creative teacher on the focus group designed a poster to visually represent our work. In the end, we carefully weaved in the language of the IB learner profile and the symbols of the Core Competencies within the definitions of six attributes we landed on for our school's Learner Profile. 

We then purposely used the language of these six attributes at staff and Educational Facilitators' meetings, at PAC meetings and at assemblies. Our Learner Profile was included in our student planners, on our website, in our hallways and many teachers have the poster displayed in their classrooms. Several have used the RHS Learner Profile in class discussions and in goal-setting and reflective activities. This work is also the core of the school’s Framework for Enhancing Student Learning school plan. In future years, this lens could shift to activities that strengthen any of the six attributes - in 2019-2020 our focus was on building resiliency in students and as a global pandemic hit our country in mid-March, this proved timely.

Moving forward, students will be invited to reflect on their personal growth using the language of the Core Competencies or our Learner Profile with specific examples in their culminating capstone projects. Will a 'learner profile' have any lasting impact on bringing coherency to what we do with all students? It is too soon to know. Like many good ideas, if it is not consistently used, discussed and even revised with students and staff, it may become just another poster on the wall. However, it was an honest attempt to answer the question - what is our purpose? 

In everything we do at Richmond Secondary School, our purpose is to develop students who are responsible, caring, reflective and resilient young people who can think and communicate effectively. 

Are you clear on your purpose? 

Explore the full RHS Learner Profile here.

                        

Go Be the Principal, Please

After serving seven years as a vice principal and 19 more as a principal in six secondary schools, I recently transitioned to a role as a ‘district administrator’. I have been reflecting on my experiences and captured some thoughts on the complex role of school administrator. For what it is worth, I have never liked the title “Administrator” or worse, “Administrative Officer” or “AO”. Good principals and vice principals are so much more than efficient administrators, managers and organizers; they must also be influential models, mentors and leaders. If any of what I have written resonates and you are currently a vice principal or principal, thank you for all you do. If you are a teacher, consider applying to become a vice principal - our schools will always need thoughtful, innovative and courageous leaders who are not afraid to take responsibility for positive change. 

It is not a coincidence that excellent public schools have exemplary principals and vice principals. After initially struggling in the role, and even considering resigning during my first year as a VP, I grew to love being on school admin teams. I also had a lot of fun as I embraced the joyful energy of interacting with over a thousand teenagers and the people who care deeply about them. If you are considering school administration as respite from working with students every day, you will not be effective. Indeed, our core purpose is to always be grounded in what is in the best interest of students and you can only know this by knowing them.  Serving as a vice principal or principal of a large public secondary school is important, complex and challenging work.  As a formal leader of the school, you are ultimately responsible for the learning and working experiences of every student and staff member and your effectiveness can impact the confidence that thousands of parents have in the school and in public education in general.  I believe that most school leaders never imagined they would become vice principals or principals when they first entered the profession as teachers.  Indeed, they laugh knowingly when the role is lampooned in television and movies, where the principal is often portrayed as an inflexible taskmaster or a buffoon that kids mock and teachers do not respect. Good principals were involved, dedicated and reflective teachers who were committed to refining their practice while also busy coaching and sponsoring kids, serving on committees and working collaboratively to build the professional learning community in their schools. They merely evolved from informal to formal leaders. Good school vice principals and principals do not define themselves by their title, take themselves too seriously nor believe that they are the boss.  They understand, value and respect the work of all the educators in the school, yet also take responsibility for asking difficult questions to help the school continuously grow and improve.  They also accept that if they are doing the job well, not everyone is always going to like them, so it really helps to have a clear vision, grounded self-awareness and a healthy sense of humour.

Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off with the dorky cool glasses flip - Image from GIPHY

It is important to understand the limitations of the ‘system’ we work in.  In many districts, principals are moved from school to school every five years or so, despite evidence that it takes longer for a leader to build trust and create positive change.  Various stakeholders - students, teachers, support staff, parents, district staff, trustees and the Ministry of Education - have different and, at times conflicting expectations of the school principal and this can pull you in many directions.  Secondary schools are very busy places. There are many long, eventful days filled with complex student and family crises, incidents requiring thorough investigation, as well as evening meetings and events, and these require energy and enthusiasm. Public education often faces funding challenges and schools are scrutinized and ‘ranked’ using incomplete and invalid criteria. Decades-long tensions exist between the provincial government and the teachers’ union and every few years this discord can leave lingering distrust that can detract from creating ideal learning and working environments.  Prescriptive and at times inflexible language entrenched in different collective agreements provides the principal with little latitude in staffing and hiring decisions.  The mandate of schools continues to grow. Curriculum learning standards focused on ‘knowing’ have shifted to an emphasis on ‘understanding’ and ‘doing’ while developing cross-curricular competencies in our students.  Schools are responsible for teaching digital literacy, personal finance, physical and emotional well being and both social and personal responsibility.  Societal trends such as increases in adolescent anxiety, depression, substance use and cyberbullying are added to the list of things we want our schools to solve.  I believe in the critical role that public schools play in sustaining a healthy, pluralistic democracy and I embrace the challenge of our expanding mandate, nonetheless, it would be easy to become overwhelmed. While remaining current on best practices and new initiatives, the principal must be clear on the school’s vision and core purpose, be able to differentiate between what is urgent and what is really important and, above all, maintain a positive perspective. 

Despite the complexity and challenges of the role, going to a modern, well equipped school every day with 1200 or more capable adolescents and scores of dedicated educators is exciting, engaging and rewarding work. To persistently lament roadblocks to improvement is not leadership.  Instead of focusing on what we cannot change, an effective leader looks for ways to build community, improve structures, processes and capacities with the people and capital the school has. The key to being an influential leader is to view all challenges through an appreciative lens by wondering, “what are we doing now, why are we doing it, and how can we make this better for students?” Together, we are the system, and any positive change we hope to see is in our hands.

The principal is responsible for understanding the professional work of all teaching and support staff.  Influential staff will have worked at the school for many years before you arrived and most know that they will be there long after you have departed and this can be an obstacle to change. With very little formal or line authority, the currency of influence for principals is effective communication and relationship building. To support meaningful growth, the principal needs to understand the context of the school and constantly look to develop the capacity of others.  Before they can influence innovation, principals must earn trust and credibility by managing the school effectively and the myriad and mushrooming list of organizational tasks can take enormous amounts of time and energy to do well.  However, our role is not merely to manage an efficient school and keep everyone happy, but to gently yet persistently move the organization forward by asking good questions and, when necessary, having crucial conversations about our practices. This can be challenging in a well-established place with a reputation for being a ‘good school’ and some will actively or passively resist. The principal needs to be cognizant of the level of professional engagement and quality of work of each staff member, yet also have realistic expectations. It may be true that the further removed principals are from the classroom the more innovative we think we were when we were teaching every day. We must be mindful of the incredible challenges involved in preparing for and teaching seven classes and 200 increasingly diverse learners, day after day, for ten months.  All educators are on a continuum of growth and the principal must be aware of what is going on in individual teachers’ lives. Some staff may need support to make it through each week while others need authentic opportunities to flourish as leading innovators in the school.  All staff need to know they will be cared for and supported through personal or family crises or illness and that their principal has integrity, is trustworthy and reliable.  At the same time, the principal must be willing to confront unacceptable practices and address those who are not meeting professional standards. Finding the right balance between kindness and directness, between caring and pushing, can create tension, but this is the very heart of the role and the art of effective leadership.

Serving as school leader can seem lonely at times.  Your relationships with some staff will change and the complexity and volume of student and staff issues can seem overwhelming. In smaller elementary schools, principals may not have vice principals and this makes leading even more isolating.  I have been fortunate to work with many very thoughtful admin team partners and together we shared ideas, strategies and the workload. Honest, daily conversations helped clarify our thinking and supported all three of us in our development as school leaders. Just the same, to gain new insights and perspectives, school-based administrators need to look beyond their immediate context for opportunities to connect with other educational leaders.  In our district, the secondary principals and the vice principals meet regularly, and these diverse and wise groups are a great resource and collective sounding board. Similarly, our district hosts monthly meetings that are open to all school-based and district administrators from all schools and sites.  The agenda at these monthly meetings balances professional conversations with management topics and the gatherings foster a sense of connected community, shared purpose and vision across the school district.  We have a local school administrators’ association that includes elementary and secondary leaders together.  The association represents the interests of all of us with the Board and hosts regular study groups, professional development dinner meetings and a biennial retreat.  Finally, technology has opened up an expanding source of professional learning for school leaders.  Every educator should consider connecting and engaging with a professional learning network on digital platforms to reflect on their practice with others around the province and the world. Our current global context has clearly shown that continuous improvement and integrating technology into our schools are important, and as leaders, we must model this in our own professional practice.

As school leaders, our role is to collaborate with others towards a common purpose and to build capacity - of individuals and of the professional culture of the organization - so that we plan for our own obsolescence.  I have always believed that the mark of a truly effective principal and leader is not that the school or organization struggled after their departure, but that it flourished. The work is important, challenging and complex and the conditions are rarely ideal, but this is the norm in every profession, and we are never alone. Ongoing dialogue and reflective work with our staffs, our admin team partners, as well as other principals and district leaders are keys to developing our capacity to lead.   I work in a community that places a high value on education and with remarkably capable students who are interested in learning and engaging in their own success.  Overwhelmingly, the colleagues I work with are dedicated, professional educators who care about students and are genuinely interested in being the best they can be. When viewed through this appreciative lens, serving as vice principal or principal and one of the school leaders is an honour and a privilege, every day.  

       The most important and influential people in education are those who spend their days interacting directly with our students. I have loved working with high school students and seeing them grow into responsible, caring, reflective and resilient young people who can think and communicate effectively.  I know I will miss being part of a school community and working with so many thoughtful and professional staff. I will also miss collaborating with and being a part of a close team.  Anita Kwon and John Blair were members of my last team and they have been outstanding partners and I know they will continue to thrive as very capable and caring leaders - congratulations Anita and all the best John. The school I am leaving is in a great place. As it has done since 1927, it will continue to transform and evolve in the years ahead, because the students deserve it.  

A Source of Hope in Difficult Times

Seemingly overnight, we find ourselves living in extraordinary times. While the world has faced pandemics before, people did not have the capacity to watch it unfold live via social media and television. Following the global spread of COVID-19 is simultaneously fascinating and frightening. For all of our technological advances in the past century, the human race seems as vulnerable as ever.   

Since parents handed them off at our schools at the delicate age of five, our social promise has been that if kids worked hard, believed in themselves, had a growth mindset and were resilient, they could learn and accomplish anything. As educators, our pledge was to include, care for, connect with, and teach each child to the best of our abilities. Suddenly, a novel virus has forced us to close our doors and society has directed children to stay away from school. For all of us to stay home. The world is on pause, yet our promise to children seems more important today than ever.

This global reset is also a time to reflect on our core purpose as educators. We are familiar and comfortable with students following set schedules and bells, with learning occurring in classrooms and in discrete blocks of time; starting in September and stopping again each June. It seems evident that this is not how the world actually works. Indeed, ‘going to school’ may not be how people learn best. In a time when kids are prohibited from going to class, we need to reimagine how we can connect our students to their communities and the world, to their teachers and to each other. We have the technology and we need to explore and learn new ways together. Perhaps this crisis will lead to lasting innovation in our schools.

We can start by reconnecting with our learners and checking in with how they are doing. This is an important first step. Later, we can look for ways to engage students in the process of exploring their questions and researching solutions. If Italy can waive final exams for 10,000 medical school students and put them to work in hospitals, what can we do differently?   Hopefully, more than assigning students pages to read and questions to answer.  In these unprecedented times, all student work should be about their questions and learning and not about grades. Indeed, less is more. One or two thoughtful, collaborative and multidisciplinary inquiry projects may best meet students needs in these troubled times.

As educators contemplate a different way of teaching during a global crisis, we need to be a source of calm and hope for our students. They need meaningful human connection with their peers and with their teachers. For school and district leaders, this is a time to connect and inspire with compassion. There are a lot of very capable and creative people in our schools and districts, and we need to support, help and care for one another. For years, we have encouraged students to be personally and socially responsible; to be kind and caring; and to be critical and creative thinkers - to think outside the box.  We have suggested that they needed to be leaders and innovators in a world that desperately needs to change.  Perhaps this time is now.  

How we connect with, teach and inspire each other in these remarkable times may be the defining moment of our professional lives. We need to move forward calmly and with hope, and with each other. We need to move forward with courage.