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The ‘E’ in E-Learning is for Empathy

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The buzzwords we use don’t always meet the values to which we aspire

Those immersed in the educational milieu of our time are well acquainted with the buzzwords that surround our practice. We hear these words in professional development seminars and workshops, at conferences, and in educational publications. Words like ‘agency’, ‘self-directed’, ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘risk-taking’ are part and parcel of most graduate profiles. However, I believe we need to be careful what we wish for, because a quick glance at the daily news reveals certain spray-tanned world leaders having exactly these qualities!

The results of this are plain to see — ego run amok, ‘othering’ on a grand scale, division and disharmony, exclusion and exponential ignorance. The problem, of course, occurs when those competencies we so often champion, become radically divorced from the values that underlie our humanity. Empathy, compassion, manaakitanga, kotahitanga, and whanaungatanga. In a word, LOVE. THIS is where digital technology can REALLY be harnessed — not for dehumanising the Other, but for RE-humanising. Yet, how often do we use the word ‘love’ in our practice, and see it in our graduate profiles?

We are lucky here in Aotearoa New Zealand, as our own curriculum gives us license to develop these essential values:

  • diversity, as found in our different cultures, languages, and heritages
  • equity, through fairness and social justice
  • community and participation for the common good.

Inspiration from a past student

A ‘Wow’ moment for me occurred in 2016. In the local paper I saw a profile of an ex-student of mine. She had been year 8 when I taught her in 2009. In the article, she described how she experienced a fundamental pivot in life direction, which she attributed to learning about child labour in our class that year. This sparked her interest in global issues and development, and she was about to set off to Vietnam to participate in a water project. Hearing about this kind of thing is what teachers live for!

Inspired by this, I revisited the issue of child labour with my class at the time. We learned that through World Vision we could repay a family’s debt and set a child labourer free for only $150! So, we came up with a plan. Our syndicate (about 100 children) divided into teams, each armed with a bucket, a 150-link metal chain, and some bolt-cutters. Each team headed off to a different part of Tauranga Moana — some in Papamoa, some at the Mount, some in Red Square, and elsewhere. Using graphic design posters made in class, we took this issue to the streets, inviting members of the public to contribute a gold coin, and to break one link of the metal chain. That morning we raised over $2000 — enough to set free 14 child labourers!

This was the inspiration for my 2017 eFellowship project, which looked at how global connection can increase children’s sense of agency around making a positive difference. I had seen it happen before. Could we do this again and identify what it was about the experience that really changed children’s hearts and minds. The context this time was around water justice.

eFellowship project around preparing students for a
meaningful future

Having spent time at school learning about the issues, I watched as the children articulated their learning passionately with members of the public all around Tauranga Moana, and we raised over $1300. And we knew exactly who would benefit — a small rural community in Kimilili, Kenya, and the school at the heart of it, the HIP Academy. This was a school I had connected with two years prior during another global project. This is how our learning was expressed in an authentic context of genuine need. The money went towards providing Bucket Filters, providing drinkable water for a community that previously relied on a single tap from a pretty muddy puddle.

class collecting for cause

For our learners, the very next day, to get back pictures from the HIP Academy, addressed to our school, thanking our learners for their help, really brought home to all of us that our actions can have a real and lasting effect on the lives of others.

HIP Academy students

The concepts of ‘Droplets’ became important to us. Yes, we may feel small, if we imagine ourselves as a single drop. In the face of the world and its problems, children really can feel quite small and powerless. But, who of us really doubts the power of those droplets when combined together, to create a tsunami of action and compassion?

What I hoped to highlight in my eFellowship project was that by making connections beyond ourselves, we make connections within ourselves and to our place in our world. These connections, combined with the values in our own curriculum, can be an incredible driver of change.

Agency and future-focused learning built on solid values

Agency is definitely one of the buzzwords we hear a lot, and I agree this one is super important. But, what does it really mean? Is it just a matter of a learner choosing when they would like to do maths, and where to sit? If it is, we are selling ourselves short, because student agency, when built on a rock-solid base in values, can have far reaching effects.

I often feel cynical during presentations about ‘21st century learning’, or ‘future focused education’. Who are we trying to create? Yes, the world is changing! The old model of education did seem to be on a trajectory towards university professorship, as though that were the ultimate outcome in the future of our learners. But nowadays, I wonder if the goal has become the creation of Silicon Valley start-up entrepreneurs. Are we really in the business of turning our learners into the next Tim Ferriss or Elon Musk? Is this any better than the old model?

Future-focused learning, if we must use the term, primarily needs to be based on values!
The future of the world we live in depends fundamentally not on whether our learners can code, app smash, and launch companies, but on being able to look at the world and imagine it better, and have not only the skills, but the values to make it happen: manaakitanga, kotahitanga, empathy, compassion and, yes, let’s say it — love.

The power we have as educators

How easily we underestimate the power we have as teachers. Our classrooms are the seedpods of the future, like dandelion seeds on a stalk. To plant a seed is an act of hope. It is a truly future-focused act. I believe that in teaching we do the same — we don’t know where the seeds will land, but we must carry this hope into our everyday practice.

We must remember that amongst the buzzwords, bells and whistles, our mission is so much greater than this. I’ve long thought the ‘E’ in ‘e-learning’ should stand for empathy — the recognition that there is no “Other”, just sister and brother. As teachers we have the power to redefine, reconnect, and rehumanise the future. It is a noble calling, and we should rise to it!

Craig McDonald-Brown discusses his eFellowship scholarship project

eFellow research – student awareness of global issues from EDtalks.

 

Learn more about CORE’s Dr Vince Ham eFellowship

 

Image Credits:

Street collection: by the author
Nigerian children: by Livingstone Kegode
Blowing dandelion: by Pero 1 on Wikimedia under CC 3.0

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welcome to texas

Student agency and inclusivity: 4 Texan schools

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“In a world where young people exercise
personal choice over matters as trivial as the
ring tones of their cellphone, or as far
reaching as the learning pathways they
pursue, denying them opportunities for active
involvement in important learning and
assessment decisions is likely to promote
Disengagement”

Absolum et al., 2009, page 8

In October 2017, I was Austin bound to peek in the doors of four schools with reputations for offering ‘disruptive’ education, inclusive education, or high academic achievement. In my introductory blog, I summarised the schools I was to visit: two private schools offering an alternative entrepreneurial approach KoSchool (Middle and High School) and Acton Academy (Elementary, Middle and High School); along with Magnolia Montessori for All , a public Elementary School created to address the achievement inequities experienced by some children; and LASA East Austin, a selective public magnet high school for liberal arts, science, and mathematics.

Four key themes emerged from my visits — how schools viewed:

  • inclusivity
  • learner agency (assessment and reporting)
  • the role of $ money — private versus public
  • physical environments and the connection to teaching pedagogy.

Interpretations of inclusivity

I really wanted to see how the schools I visited viewed inclusivity, particularly in a city that had obvious racial tensions. I wanted to know how these schools addressed the needs of their priority learners and strove to improve outcomes for them. Magnolia Montessori for All was the most explicit in promoting inclusivity of students. They openly state in their school name and vision that their school was created to serve all members of society and, as a result, their student ethnicity is more diverse than in most schools in Austin (40% Hispanic, 30% white, 20% African American). To support their purpose, Magnolia Montessori for All use Panarama, a set of social and emotional competencies to focus on the development of their students’ self-regulation (Conscious Discipline), and they see this as a key reason that they outperform other public schools academically. The emotional and social well-being of students was promoted in various ways, such as the careful organisation of students’ learning to ensure consistent and calm routines. Pets were also housed in every classroom, and these provided students with emotional comfort and a sense of responsibility.

In contrast to Magnolia Montessori for All was LASA, a public Magnet school whose school population is dominated by white gifted and talented students (White 52.48%, Latino 19.56%, African American 2.02%, Asian 19.48% and Native American .08%). Their focus of inclusivity was interpreted as a need to support the wellbeing of individual students because they recognised the strain put on them through high academic expectations. All students were required to study at a grade level higher than their age level, and the students had no choice in the subjects studied. They offered support in the form of three different counsellors — Academic counsellors (initial concerns; time management, scheduling etc), and Wellness Counsellors, who are licensed professional therapists (for more serious issues), or students are referred outside of the school for support.

Interpretations of learner agency

Learner agency was a term used by all of the Austin schools we visited. Their interpretations of what that looked like varied considerably.

KoSchool students lived and breathed learner agency through individual goal setting, which moved far beyond a tokenistic attempt. They focused on the use of the Socratic method of dialogue in their Socratic Humanities class. Students led their own investigations, dialogue, and evaluation of the dialogue without teacher facilitation. The high level of engagement of the students was astounding to say the least. Watching 30 students fully engaged in discussing Confucius, redefined my expectations of ‘perceptive understanding’ for Level 3 English assessments back in New Zealand. While teacher facilitation occurred in the junior class, by the time the students were in the senior school, they were autonomous in their ability to lead themselves.

KoSchool student brainstorming
A student at KoSchool brainstorming ideas with her group about issues which concern them.

LASA offered a varied approach to teaching pedagogy. Some classes were chalk and talk with the teacher as the expert. The rationale for this was that students would experience this style of learning at college. They also offered Inquiry-based learning to support learner agency. Initially, all students completed Signature courses, a 90-minute semester long engineering/physics class, where they were supported to work collaboratively to complete an impossible task. The focus was on learner agency and making social and emotional connections with their peers.

Technology classroom at LASA
Technology classroom at LASA

Acton Academy, like KoSchool, reinforced learner agency through individualised goal setting, which drove their curriculum. Students would take complete responsibility for the completion of learning activities. There were very high expectations of what needed to be achieved for each stage of the ‘Hero’s journey’, but the students decided how often and when they worked through these expectations (using programmes such as Khan Academy, Spelling City, DuoLingo, etc.,).

At Magnolia Montessori for All, learner agency was interpreted as giving students choice in the activity trays they selected for completion of tasks. Each classroom had its own garden, which the students were responsible for tending. In years 1–3, there was an individual learning focus to build an understanding of fundamentals (literacy and numeracy) and in years 3–6 learning occurred collaboratively.

KoSchool, LASA and Acton Academy all made strong connections with community to engage the students in their areas of interest. Business contacts were utilised, particularly for STEM interests. This was also reflected in the choice of teachers at LASA who were often highly successful in their STEM or Humanities fields, then retrained as teachers. Their expertise was used to connect the students with ‘real life application’. Acton Academy, in its entrepreneurial approach to learning, culminated with market days where students had designed, created, and marketed products, which were then sold to the school community. Learning celebrations were also an important milestone in their curriculum. The leadership and teachers at Acton Academy also believe that learning is to be shared with others; led by the students themselves. It made traditional parent-teacher interviews look archaic and irrelevant.

Both Acton Academy and KoSchool offered multi-leveled classrooms for their students. This provided the opportunity for growing leadership, socialisation of methods of working (e.g., Socratic dialogue) on a daily basis. In both of these schools, there was a clear message that learning was neither linear nor hierarchical. Their programmes supported the notion that there are not certain knowledge or skills sets for each age level. Learning was viewed as an evolving concept that occurred at different rates, in different areas, for each student. Each child was treated as an individual and could work at their own pace.

Connections with whānau (family) were highly valued at Acton Academy and KoSchool. Parents were encouraged to read and reflect on a number of titles before applying for a place for their child at Acton Academy. Once their child won a place at the Academy, parenting sessions were held regularly to support parent learning and to support the learner agency approach to education that their children were experiencing. This was a true community approach to learner agency. All stakeholders, students, whānau, business community, and teachers were genuinely unified in their pursuit of students leading their learning.

Assessment and reporting

One of the things I was curious about was what these approaches to learner agency meant for reporting on students’ achievement. While parents sent their children to school to experience a ‘different’ way of learning, and with an expectation that their child’s individual needs and interests would be nurtured, I wanted to know how this was balanced by reporting on assessments. As a secondary teacher I was keen to understand how these ideals sat with the expectations that their children were ‘learning’ and that this learning was measured accurately, especially if they had expectations that their children would go on to college.

Magnolia Montessori for All, who were proud to demonstrate that their students achieved higher than most public schools, used traditional assessment methods for reporting to parents. As noted, LASA supported inquiry learning for part of their students’ learning but Stacia Crescenzi (principal) noted that “Some parents really struggle with the reporting of the inquiry learning, therefore grades are what are reported”. KoSchool is not currently accredited and they view other disruptive education schools as losing their level of innovation by becoming accredited as they are then compelled to adhere to state requirements. Michael Ko (principal) is confident in that “Colleges don’t care where the students come from. [KoSchool does] SATs (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and ACTs (American College Test), which is what the colleges want. Our students do well on these”. They satisfied their parents’ interest in academic rigour by such means as the types of texts the students were studying (Confucius). Acton Academy reported on their students’ achievement on their ‘Hero’s journey’ and how well they had met their own goals, as well as the Academy’s expectations and their scores on various programmes (such as Khan Academy). Celebrations of learning occurred regularly to demonstrate to parents and the community what they had been working on in the semester (as well as other community events such as market days).

The report from staff at ‘disruptive’ schools and some parents I spoke to personally, was that parents were nervous, especially initially, whether their children would achieve at a school that viewed education differently. These concerns were usually alleviated by seeing their children enjoy learning through a sense of belonging at the school. They could see their child’s progress academically, even if it was not reported in a traditional manner with test scores. Perhaps not surprising, many of these parents were entrepreneurial themselves and, therefore, valued a ‘disruptive’ approach to education.

The role of $ money — does it make a difference?

So, is it all about the money? Both KoSchool ($17k per year) and Acton Academy ($10K per year) are private schools. From my vantage point, I’m not convinced the $ was the key differential for the experiences of these students. The view of what education should look like and who should drive a student’s learning were far more powerful determinants of inclusivity and student agency. Public schools, such as Magnolia Montessori for Al,l achieved success through a focus on the social and emotional needs of their students, much like the private school, KoSchool. By focusing on the building blocks of independence, and the capabilities these students need for their futures, these schools have made the students the focus rather than traditional subject-based learning.

Physical Environments and teaching pedagogy

One of my initial foci for visiting these schools was to note how their physical environments shaped their pedagogical approach. I reside in Christchurch and innovative learning spaces are a hot topic of discussion for any school approaching a rebuild/renewal.

Schools like Acton Academy looked and felt different from traditional schools. Their physical environments were open spaces with various multi-purpose spaces. Despite being the most expensive school to attend, KoSchool did not offer the most modern buildings. The classrooms were relatively small, devoid of any fancy furniture or breakout spaces like those being designed in New Zealand innovative learning environments. It was the view of what education looked like that shaped their pedagogy, not the furniture.

Classroom at KoSchool
Classroom at KoSchool

In fact, the public school, Magnolia Montessori for All , offered the most novel approach to their classroom buildings. The school was designed by an urban architect who created a series of buildings that looked like warm, inviting houses, rather than sterile classrooms. This was a deliberate act to further their purpose of providing an environment that supported the social and emotional needs of their students.

Magnolia house-type classrooms
Magnolia classrooms

While I found it fascinating to see these key themes played out in each of these schools, I was always thinking about how these ideas could support improved practice in New Zealand. In my next blog, Texan approaches to learning — NZ applications, I draw on my experiences in Austin to make recommendations for a New Zealand context for both primary and secondary sectors.

Image Credits:
Map USA from Pixabay by DGJ under CC0
All other images are by the author.

 

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LMS or LRS

LMS or LRS – It takes two to tango

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What should be the vehicle for our online programmes? Do we want a Learning Management System (LMS), or a Learning Record Store (LRS), or both, or neither? Ten years ago, this would have been a simple question to answer. Today there are several layers to it.

Unpacking the LMS

Let’s unpack learning management systems and try to align the needs of the organisation with the needs of the learner.

The organisation’s needs are real:

  • authentication
  • access control, and
  • reporting.

They have to create a walled garden in which their materials are secure, and they need to record the learner’s presence and actions. In certain cases, they need to be able to levy a charge for this access.

The learner’s needs are real, too:

  • authentication
  • access, and
  • recognition of effort.

They are required to learn certain things, the materials they find in the LMS presumably help them to do that. And, they need the results of their activity, and the results of any quizzes or submitted assignments to be recorded.

Moodle, as the most common example of an LMS, meets these needs by providing a user account, enrolment in a course or courses, and a grade book. If the school or organisation doesn’t want to go so far as assigning grades to submitted work, then they can simply track progress and completion if it occurs.

What we’ve just described is the digital version of the old industrial model. It’s got wheels, and it’s got momentum.

Course design patterns

There are some definite design patterns to the courses you see inside learning management systems.

The LMS itself might be seen as a kind of zoological park. The area is ring-fenced, and people have to pay to get in. Once inside, they can go to the enclosures that interest them most and interact with the animals and habitats. This metaphor invites a question about who are the animals and who are the people, and that’s where the metaphor starts to break down.

Courses as habitats, however, is a powerful metaphor and one you may wish to explore in more depth. As an inquiry-based teacher, you may cast yourself in the role of a zoologist: observing behaviours, collecting data, forming and testing your hypotheses.

The Eco-Sanctuary course design pattern
The Eco-Sanctuary course design pattern

In the Library pattern, the course designer creates a curated collection of readings and videos that they think the learner should or may want to ingest. Ben Betts, CEO at HT2 Labs calls this “self-directed”. The LMS is just like a filing system now, but with the difference that the course facilitator can see who has read or viewed what.

An extension of the Library pattern is the Book Club. Now, the course designer adds a forum and invites students to discuss what they have seen or read, either with the author or with a recognised expert in the field. Betts calls this “expert guidance”.

Book Club course design pattern
Book Club course design pattern

Then there’s the Caves Tour pattern. A facilitator is assigned to a cohort, much in the way a guide is assigned to a group of tourists. The facilitator walks the cohort through the collection of materials and activities pointing out things of interest, answering questions, and sharing wonderment.

The Caves Tour course design pattern
The Caves Tour course design pattern

Then, again, there’s the Campus Map pattern. “You are here”, the map says. Then it provides pathways to all kinds of other places you can go from “here” to learn this or that. Another way of looking at the Campus Map pattern is as a curated collection of internal and external resources.

Pitfalls

Course designers who have not considered these and other patterns, who themselves have little experience as students using online programmes, may create very messy hybrids of these models. A great number of online courses seem to lack any coherent structure at all as they try to be all things to all people.

Often, course designers create an online resource where there is no interaction with a facilitator. They may think that there is money to be made or saved from e-learning; that e-learning can remove the cost of the teacher, instructor, or facilitator. Perhaps they dream of a kind of dollar mine that will churn away unmanned and untended providing a rich vein of income. In two decades of e-learning that has not been my experience.

You have to work at e-learning, ever watchful over your cohort, encouraging, cajoling, and generally massaging them along to completion and a successful outcome. You need to be constantly updating and improving your courses to keep them relevant and current.

Designing courses for success

For a very short course covering just one topic, the Book Club is a good model. For a course that goes into more depth, I think the Caves Tour pattern generally works best. Still, I think the tour wants to be kept short. Up to about four weeks seems to work well; much longer and students start to drop off. With highly motivated groups — say, masters students — they will possibly endure eight weeks. User data we have collected indicates that anything more is simply too long. Of course, I’m making generalisations here; there will be cases that refute my assertion.

Do not expect a good classroom teacher or instructor to necessarily be a naturally good online facilitator. School teachers like to play to a live audience on the stage their classroom presents; they can find the LMS a hard space to command. Trainers within commercial industries like to work nine-to-five, but a good online facilitator will pop into the forums for ten minutes at nine o’clock at night.

The LMS provides a rabbit-proof fence and, like Zealandia, an eco-sanctuary can exist within its boundary. You can charge people to get in if you want, you can control their movements once they are inside, and you can monitor their progress. If that’s what you want to do there is no better tool. But, do not expect everyone to want to come.

Unpacking the LRS

There is another way, so let us now unpack the alternative, the Learning Record Store.

The Learning Record Store is one component of a system that might be called a next-generation learning solution. It is a database of fine-grained actions and experiences by the learner and it is always accompanied by or partnered with an analytics engine of some sort.

Evidence-based

The LRS gathers, analyses, and presents evidence of student activity and experience. It is all about evidence-based learning. Not the self-serving manicured evidence of the type that a student collates in an e-portfolio. Rather, the hard evidence observed by the systems with which a student interacts. This is a particularly good fit with the needs of modern employers.

An LRS gathers evidence about a person’s learning journey
An LRS gathers evidence about a person’s learning journey

In the future, fine-grained data will exist that tracks the learning journey from primary school, through secondary and tertiary, into employment and promotion. Almost anything can be wired to return a record to the record store. The LRS can listen for messages from an LMS, a blog, social media, an event registration system, a just-about-anything system, or with the software interface of a mechanical device. If you think the 70-20-10 model holds some measure of truth, then you will immediately grasp the potential of the LRS when combined with analytics and visual reporting.

Simply connected

The system uses a protocol and language called xAPI to send a simple sentence back to the store.

So, lines in the store might read:

John completed Automation in fish factories 101
John read article Greenlip mussel industry
John watched video Pristine waters
John published blogpost Richmond Bay nutrient levels

And, xAPI works with the Internet of Things:

John Smith registered for symposium Aquaculture 2020
John Smith operated a Simms auto-grader at Aquaculture 2020

xAPI’s syntax is both simple and powerful:

subject — verb — object — context

The context element enables a richer picture of the development path:

John completed Automation in fish factories 101 in 8 days with an overall grade of 93%.
John published blogpost Richmond Bay nutrient levels which was upvoted 57 times.

LRS and Machine Learning

If you want to geek out for a moment, consider the power of machine learning applied to the large datasets that an LRS will accrue. These are datasets pertaining to the individual, to study groups, to cohorts, and to wider student populations. An LRS could be owned and operated by an individual teacher as a personal instrument for analysing their own performance and that of their students, by an organisation, by a nation, or by a world organsiation. Unsupervised learning algorithms can uncover hidden patterns of behaviour in populations of learners that provide actionable insights for marketing, sales, programme designers, course designers, and teachers. For example, in the school sector, the predictive abilities of machine learning could inform curriculum development and guide education policy makers.

Conclusion

So, do we want an LMS, or an LRS, or both, or neither?

The answer is probably both.

If a school was starting from scratch, I’d say:

  • set up Moodle
  • build courses using a definable pattern on which the various departments are agreed, and
  • consider the LMS’s role as an activity provider to an LRS from the very start.

Moodle supports xAPI. You don’t have to implement that straight away — walk before you try to run — but don’t omit it from the design. Moodle 3.4 has some much better built-in analytics and reporting tools than ever it did in the past; that may be a good starting place.

CORE Education’s interest in xAPI combined with analytics and visual reporting lies in the area of professional development. Where xAPI transforms the old SCORM standard from which it was spawned is in its ability to not only track learning, but to link that to job performance. That creates a closed loop that is the quest of every learning designer. Not a closure created by an assertion or a presentation, but by factual evidence.

xAPI disrupts, but not to such an extent that it challenges the very existence of the LMS. The LMS continues to serve a useful purpose, connected to the learning network in its role as a curated activity provider.

Suggested further reading

  • moodle.org Although it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant, here’s everything you need to establish a new Moodle site or improve your existing one.
  • What is the Experience API? This article and the associated diagram is from Rustici Software, the people who were commisioned by ADL to develop the xAPI protocol. So you can be sure that their explanation is correct.
  • HT2Labs This is the company that has developed the most popular and open source Learning Record Store called Learning Locker. CEO Dr Ben Betts is an important voice in the LRS/xAPI/Social Learning domain and the site has a lot of valuable and free information explaining the what, why, and how.
  • HT2Labs Resources Short courses, recorded webinars, and free guides from this award-winning company.

 

Image Credits:

  • Feature image: CORE Education
  • Zoo image: by fotogoocom on Wikimedia Commons under CC 3.0 unported (modified)
  • Bookclub image: screenshot (modified) from MOOC (CORE Education acknowledges with gratitude HT2Labs)
  • Cave image: by Daniel Schwen on Wikimedia Commons under CC 4.0 share and share alike (modified)
  • Engineers LRS composite image: includes Welding photo by Bradley Wentzel on Unsplash; Gas Blending Analyser from Wikimedia (in Public Domain); Airbase open day from Air Defense (in public domain). All images have been modified.
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trip to USA schools

Destination Texas: Disruptive education as a means for student agency and inclusivity?

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Students have a sense of agency when they feel in control of things that happen around them; when they feel that they can influence events. This is an important sense for learners to develop. They need to be active participants in their learning.
 The New Zealand Curriculum Online

Like many teachers, I believed I worked hard to be innovative in my teaching and to connect with my students as individuals. As an English teacher, I used engaging texts and created impressive resources for novel ways of learning. I reassured myself that I was meeting their individual needs through differentiated learning activities and by giving them choice in what they were learning. But then there were the NCEA assessments — internal and external — I knew they were driving most of what we did. Isn’t that the definition of senior secondary school? Twenty years of teaching experience had led me to believe so. My students achieved really well in NCEA so did anything really need to change?

I took a number of years to complete my MEd while teaching full-time and the more I read, the more I felt disillusioned by traditional forms of teaching. I kept looking for ways to meet individual student needs, engage my priority learners, and put students at the centre of their learning. However, I felt like there were limits in what I could change as a teacher — even as the head of a large English department. Where would I start with more systemic changes; what could it look like anyway?

During a period of maternity leave, I took the opportunity to teach at a small primary/intermediate school for a year, and I experienced a less traditional approach to learning. This was a school where they had the freedom to design their own curriculum. They designed a way of learning, which truly put students at the centre, and individualised students’ learning programmes. I met many students who had not fitted into traditional school structures. They had felt largely ignored because they did not fit the mould. At this school, I was able to experience a pedagogical design that valued children as individuals who learn in different ways and at different paces.

An opportunity to explore

With an MEd under my belt in leadership and mentoring, I exited full-time teaching and took a position at CORE Education as an Accredited Facilitator, uChoose Mentor, and Expert Partner. Here, I found myself working alongside many other educators in various contexts, who were grappling with the same issues. This new role at CORE Education afforded me the opportunity to explore further alternatives to traditional education by travelling to Austin, Texas in October 2017. I planned to visit schools who advertised themselves as offering ‘disruptive’ education, individualised learning, or high academic achievement. I wanted to know what they were doing and how. More importantly, what could we learn from their experiences for a bicultural New Zealand? What could the ‘ordinary’ teacher in a traditional school do differently?

What I wanted to find out

I had a few aims for my visits. I wanted to investigate how these schools:

  • viewed and actioned inclusivity of students (to meet the students’ cultural, learning, physical needs)
  • balanced parental expectations of what learning/assessment looks like alongside student-driven inquiry learning
  • designed their physical environments to suit their approach to pedagogy and learning.

I had watched the film, Most Likely to Succeed, so I was hoping to be inspired by a High Tech High disruptive model for learning. I knew what token attempts at student-centred learning looked like, but what does it look like when it’s more than tokenism? I had high hopes.

The schools

So, where was I planning to go? Four schools welcomed my visit. Two can be grouped under the ‘disruptive’ education label: KoSchool (Middle and High School) and Acton Academy (Elementary, Middle and High School).* They are both private schools offering an alternative entrepreneurial approach to education through the use of Socratic discussions. Magnolia Montessori for All differs in that it is a public Elementary School created to address the achievement inequities experienced by some children. The last school is a selective public magnet high school for liberal arts, science, and mathematics — LASA East Austin, which boasts outstanding academic results.

These four schools describe themselves in the following ways:

KoSchool
KoSchoolKoSchool is a private middle and high school of approximately 60 students who are taught in multi-level groups. This school is described as providing education for the next generation of thinkers, creators, leaders.

This following video gives a good overview of their pedagogy — Ko School Incubator video (7 minutes).

They describe themselves as:

“From the beginning, KoSchool seeks to empower its student body with our core disciplinary focus on Authentic Leadership and Personal Development, Socratic and Writing, and Math and Problem Solving. Through these courses, we are supporting students in becoming innovators, disrupters, leaders, and fulfilled human beings. Using our core classes as a lens, students are guided towards finding and exploring their own passion to learn and lead in an ever-changing world.”

Acton Academy
Acton AcademyActon Academy in Austin is one of several, internationally. Like KoSchool, Acton Academy is a private school, but for approximately 90 elementary, middle, and high school students. They also teach in multi-level classes and describe themselves as offering a revolutionary learning experience. Their mission is to inspire each child and parent who enters their doors to find a calling that will change the world.

The following video discusses the origins of Acton Academy and the premise of their pedagogy — Rethinking Education: Geniuses and Heroes (19 minutes).

They state that students at Acton Academy will:

  • begin a Hero’s Journey
  • learn to be a curious, independent, lifelong learner
  • develop a deep respect for economic, political, and religious freedoms
  • cherish the arts, wonders of the physical world, and the mysteries of life on Earth
  • discover his or her most precious gifts and learn to use them to solve difficult problems.

Montessori for All
Magnolia MontissoriThe Magnolia Montessori For All, which serves approximately 380 pre-kindergarten and elementary students is one of the few public (charter) Montessori schools in America.

This video — Start Up! (2 minutes) — shows the beginnings of the school in pictures.

This video — Austin’s First Public Montessori Opening in East Austin (2 minutes) — shows the launch of the school in East Austin. It opened in 2014 and its mission is to cultivate tomorrow’s leaders through inclusive practice.

Montessori For All endeavours to open and lead free, high-performing, authentic Montessori schools that partner with families to help children in diverse communities reach their extraordinary potential intellectually, emotionally, socially, creatively, and physically, so that they can pursue lives full of meaning and joy.

Their programme offers:

  • hands-on materials to tap into the strong connection between the hand and the brain
  • multi-age classrooms, which give all children both the chance to have mentors and the chance to be mentors
  • a 100% differentiated curriculum, which means that every child works at their own level in every subject.

LASA – East Austin
[IMAGE LSA-East Austin] The Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA) is a four-year public advanced academic magnet high school of 1,191 students. It was launched in 2002 as an amalgamation of The LBJ Science Academy and The Liberal Arts Academy at Johnston High School. It boasts exceptionally high student achievement, ranking in the top 10% of schools in America by recruiting, “the most academically advanced students from public and private middle schools in Austin”. Their goal is to nurture innovation and curiosity.

This video — The LASA video (6 minutes) — summarises the LASA experience from students’ perspectives.

LASA’s aims are described further in their mission and vision descriptors:

Mission

  • The Liberal Arts and Science Academy cultivates responsible leaders, problem solvers, and thinkers by offering a nationally recognized, rigorous, innovative, evolving curriculum.
  • The School stands at the forefront of the nationwide effort to produce graduates with exceptional knowledge and skills in English, other languages, mathematics, science, social studies and technology.
  • An outstanding high school education at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy of Austin (LASA) prepares students for higher education and at the same time encourages them to make a significant contribution to community, state and nation.

Vision

  • RIGOR: The curriculum for every course — Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and Art- is written to go above and beyond state and district standards.
  • COMMUNITY: Students take courses with teachers who are experts in their field and attend classes with students who enjoy the challenge provided by those teachers.
  • INQUIRY: Many of our courses rely heavily on discussion and seminar style delivery of the course information. Other courses rely heavily on the use, interpretation, and delivery of research.
  • EXCELLENCE: Teachers, students, and parents recognize that these four years are extremely important. Discussions of college selection, admissions, scholarships, letters of recommendation, and financial aid enter into conversations in the classroom beginning the freshman year.

Next steps

With research into each school complete and my bags packed, I set off with great expectation and anticipation. With each of the contacts I established with the four schools, New Zealand’s reputation for having one of the top education systems in the world proceeded me. As a practitioner within our system, I could see room for improvement and I hoped that I might find a few answers.

I was planning to look for these answers in a fascinating place — Austin, Texas. It certainly is an interesting place to visit. The racial tensions of the ‘past’ are palatable in the present. Suburbs seem clearly delineated for different cultural groups, and religion plays a strong role in regulating society. I was keen to see how some schools attempted to address these tensions.

In my next blog post, Student agency and inclusivity: 4 Texan schools, I look at what I discovered at each of these schools, and I explore the key themes which emerged. This second blog is followed by a third, Texan approaches to learning — NZ applications, where I look at New Zealand applications from the learnings I took away from my experiences. Look out for my next blogpost soon.

* Elementary school is kindergarten through 5th grade (ages 5-10), middle school is grades 6-8 (ages 11-13), and high school is grades 9-12 (ages 14-18).

Image Credits:
Feature image: map USA on Pixabay by DGJ under CC0
All other images by the author.

 

 

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