Students Taking Charge Implementation Guide for Leaders

Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom

Nancy Sulla, Tanya Bosco, Julie Marks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351858298
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Lead your organization to implement innovative learning environments in which students take ownership so they can achieve at high levels and meet rigorous standards. Students Taking Charge Implementation Guide for Leaders shows you how to inspire, coach, and support teachers to create student-driven classrooms that empower learners through problem-based learning and differentiation, where students pose questions and actively seek answers. Technology is then used seamlessly throughout the day for information, communication, collaboration, and product generation.

You'll find out how to:

• 
  
  

• Inspire the adaptive change at the core of the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom, aimed at engaging students;

• 
  
  

• Understand the structures needed to support its implementation and empower teachers and students;

• 
  
  

• Employ leadership strategies that will move teachers and students from engagement to empowerment to efficacy.

This new implementation guide for school leaders offers a more detailed look into the key mindset shifts that are critical for leaders of a Learner-Active, Technology-Infused School. With the book's practical examples and step-by-step guidelines, you'll be able to help your teachers implement innovative classrooms immediately.

Mindset 1
From Transactional to Transformational

Scenario: Your teachers are in their second year of designing Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classrooms (LATIC). This year, you’ve also brought in professional development on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and you expected your teachers would see how LATIC is a natural SEL environment. You sit in on a team meeting and hear teachers talking about how hard it is to implement the SEL strategies when their students are engaged in LATIC all the time. You realize they are seeing LATIC as one strategy among many as opposed to a philosophy and framework under which everything else fits, and that SEL strategies woven into their LATIC learning environments would further enhance their implementation of LATIC. You want to figure out how to transform their belief systems.

Technical change involves learning a new skill or strategy; adaptive change requires a shift in beliefs and thinking (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002). Learning merely the structures and strategies of the Learner-Active Technology-Infused Classroom is a series of transactions that fall under technical changes; transforming one’s belief system to think differently about the classroom environment requires adaptive change.

Historically, in schools, learning has been viewed as transactional: the passing of information from one to another, with a goal of technical change. The learners take and apply what they want into their current way of thinking. Think of a time when learning something caused you to change your belief system and, perhaps, your life. Learning, whether for students in classrooms or for educators through professional development, is most powerful when it transforms one’s thinking and, thus, abilities, bringing about adaptive change.

You cannot mandate a transformation! A savvy leader acts in ways that transform the thinking of the educational community and produce learning environments that transform students. The Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom is a transformation: it requires thinking differently about learning, classrooms, schools, and education. It is a framework for putting students in charge of their own learning. It is the embodiment of a set of paradigms, or belief shifts. Leading teachers to implement LATIC with fidelity involves helping them embrace new paradigm shifts through your actions, words, and decisions.

As you read this chapter, consider the opening scenario and identify actions you could take as a leader to address it. What actions could you take in group meetings? What actions could you take individually with teachers? What procedures might you introduce or change? What words should others be hearing you say?

Ground Your Actions in the “Why”

In explaining her experiences as a learner in a Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom, a student stated, “since we’ve been doing so many real-world problems, I feel like even though I’m in fourth grade, I can change the world!” That succinctly sums up the “why” of the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom.

We live in an increasingly complex world, with the need to address issues of global economics, a shared environment, peaceful coexistence, hunger, clean water, governance, and more. Today’s world requires citizens who are problem-finders, innovators, and entrepreneurs (Sulla, 2015): those who, at minimum, can observe, analyze, empathize, envision, create, communicate, collaborate, appreciate, and reflect; those who are efficacious.

The goal of all schooling should be to build student efficacy so that students lead happy and productive lives. Efficacy, in its simplest form, is the ability to set a goal and achieve it (Bandura, 1997). Beyond efficacy, leadership is the ability to inspire and influence others. Whether you’re looking to help a family member or colleague, lead an organization or following, or serve as a world leader, the ability to inspire and influence is key. Efficacious school leaders illuminate a path and provide the why for every word and action taken by teachers and administrators in designing Learner-Active, Technology-Infused learning environments. In the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom, the why is to position students to be efficacious leaders who change the world for the better. As a leader of LATIC, your why is to position teachers to be efficacious leaders who change education for the better.

Simon Sinek (2009) introduced the idea of the “Golden Circle” in his book Start With The Why (p. 41). He proposes that the most successful organizations start with the “why” and keep that at the center of all actions. Following the “why” is the “how” and the “what.” For example, you might say that you want (your why) to ensure that all students have the academic and attitudinal skills to achieve their goals; doing that requires (how?) providing students with personalized opportunities to learn that fit their needs; this can be accomplished through (what?) differentiated instruction. Sometimes, however, following this line of thinking internally, school leaders purchase books, for example, on differentiation and provide teachers with resources and professional development on differentiation. School leaders do not always make their “why” transparent to the educational community. As Sinek (2009) points out, far too many organizations jump directly to the “what” and maybe the “how” rather than inspiring those inside and outside of the organization to act from the “why.”

Whether teachers only read the book, Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom (Sulla, 2019a, 2019b), or participate in more comprehensive professional development on the topic, they will most likely find the structures of the classroom the easiest component to embrace. For example, they will set up a resource area, create activity lists, post a help board and peer expert board, and so forth. In doing so, they are focusing on part of the “what.” Oftentimes, when they experience success in using a structure, they focus heavily on that structure, share it with others, and create a buzz around that structure. When they experience a moment where some aspect of the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom is not working for them or their students, they eliminate or modify the structure to fit their existing beliefs about teaching and learning, which can lead to undesirable results. Without first being grounded in the why of the structure, it is easy to unwittingly move away from the LATIC framework and lose the potential results it could produce for students. An important characteristic, then, of any leader in this transformational journey is to remain grounded in the why, and to be able to illuminate that for teachers, administrators, students, and parents.

For example, suppose you want teachers and parents to believe and act in ways that reflect the belief that students can and should take considerable responsibility for their own learning. Why? Your “why” might be that taking responsibility is an important life skill for achieving happiness and success. Share stories, images, videos of those who took responsibility for their goals and actions; ask teachers to reflect on the power of taking responsibility for one’s self. Share your belief that during your students’ time in school, they should build the skill of taking responsibility. Then, as you implement procedures or strategies to build student responsibility for learning, continually point back to why (preparing students for happiness and success in life) in your explanations.

As another example; if you decide to implement an open-seating lunch arrangement where students may sit with whomever and wherever they want during lunch, be sure to explain your “why,” which might be to reflect the student responsibility teachers are working to build in their Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classrooms by increasing student voice and choice (“how”) throughout the school.

Table 1.1 offers a sample set of why statements that play out every day in a Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom.

Table 1.1 Sample Why Statements of LATIC

Why?	How?	What?
Because we believe that learning is the result of constructing knowledge, which is best accomplished through active engagement, that is, learning by doing rather than learning by hearing . . .	. . . teachers, rather than merely presenting content lessons, create the conditions under which students learn, which means . . .	. . . teachers design learning activities that lead to content mastery; students tackle real-world problems that lead them to use those learning activities in order to solve the problems.
Because we believe that information enters long-term memory when it makes sense and has meaning (Sousa, 2017) . . .	. . . teachers introduce content through context, which means . . .	. . . teachers and students identify real-world problems to solve that provide context and rely on mastery of curricular content.
Because we believe people are driven by autonomy (Pink, 2011). . .	. . . teachers become “bridge builders” that create structures to allow students to take charge of their own learning while positioning them for success, which means . . .	. . . students schedule how they will use their time, including how, when, and with whom they will learn, based on a robust activity list designed by the teacher.
Because we believe learning requires grappling with content (Sulla, 2015) . . .	. . . the role of the teacher is to create situations in which students will be grappling with content, which means . . .	. . . teachers design benchmark lessonsthat trigger awareness of important content to be mastered, learning activities that drive students to engage with content, and facilitation questions to probe thinking and promote further grappling.
Because we believe learning is easiest when students are “in flow” with challenges being slightly above their ability level (Csikszentrnihalyi, 1990) . . .	. . . teachers provide for differentiation, allowing students to build success upon success, which means . . .	. . . teachers create a myriad of learning activities, offer small-group mini-lessons,and facilitate to ensure each student meets with success and is prompted to achieve at the next level.
Because we believe learning is social (Bandura, 1977) . . .	. . . teachers create a learning environment where students have opportunities to be social and collaborate in their pursuit of academic achievement, which means . . .	. . . students belong to a home group that collaboratively designs a solution to a real-world problem; they schedule how they will use their time in communication with their peers; they use peer experts to offer and solicit help; they engage in formal discussions and informal interactions with others through the day.

In the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom, every action on the part of the teacher should emanate from the set of beliefs outlined in Table 1.1.

Think Beyond Transactions to Transformation

If you have a skill or concept that can be passed on to another through a conversation or professional development session, it’s a transaction. For teachers looking to run Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classrooms, learning to develop a problem-based task statement, write an analytic rubric, design an activity list, create a help board, and so forth are all part of transactional learning. While that is an important part of the learning process, the key to this classroom model is transforming thinking about the roles and actions of teachers and students. When teachers and students do what they are taught, they’re complying, behaving in transactional ways; when they think differently to automatically take different actions, based on new beliefs, they’re engaging, behaving transformationally. When you are in a Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom run with fidelity, you feel an energy in the room, a productive intensity as students are taking deliberate and purposeful actions toward a bigger goal. Start watching students and teachers to determine if they are s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Meet the Authors
• eResources
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 From Transactional to Transformational
• 2 From Engagement to Empowerment to Efficacy
• 3 From Ferry to Bridge
• 4 From Mandating Change to Inspiring Change
• 5 From Nodes to Lines
• 6 From Surface Innovation to Deep Innovation
• 7 From Office-Based to Classroom-Based
• 8 From Dissemination to Conversations
• 9 From Silos to Teams
• 10 From Dutiful Administrator to Warrior and Advocate
• Appendix A Willing and Able ThinkSheet
• Appendix B CWTES Great Student Rubric K-2
• Appendix C Faculty Task: Changing the World at CWTES
• Appendix D Vetting Peer Experts and Those to Offer Small-Group, Mini-Lessons
• Appendix E LATIC School Candidate Individual Interview Sample Questions
• Appendix F ZPD ThinkSheet
• Appendix G Flow ThinkSheet
• Appendix H Co-Teaching ThinkSheet
• Appendix I Team Norms