What's Your Zone?

By: Sara Derdiger

Imagine this: You had a big fight with a family member, significant other, or friend yesterday. You then, in your anger and frustration, fail to set your alarm and didn’t wake up on time this morning. You’re late. You’re angry. You’re probably also tired and even hungry because you had to rush this morning and didn’t wake up fully before bolting out the door without having breakfast. You get to work and a student isn’t listening...again...and you’ve just been asked to take on an additional task for the day. You’re about to explode, and the only one who knows it is you.

We’ve all been there. Part of being a person is dealing with the personal stuff, and sometimes we do this rationally, calmly, and maturely. Other times all of our coping skills vanish in a plume of smoke from the fire that is coming out of our ears Looney-Toons style. Imagine, though, being a teenager who is still learning coping strategies, might not have anyone to talk to, and probably has way bigger problems than those featured in my example above. That teenager walks into our school or classroom and before we know it, a power struggle ensues or a fight occurs. What if we could find out that our student is “in the red” before that interaction even occurs?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I watch our students interact with teachers and with each other. Last year I attended a number of PD sessions on Zones of Regulation, but I struggled with applying the Zones to high school students until now. What Zones do, as far as I’ve been able to decipher, is give students the language to talk about their feelings without having to spill all the details, and then teach them strategies to help cope with those feelings and re-regulate. It’s broken down into only four categories (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green) and each category is associated with certain moods, feelings, or situations, as well as levels of self control, none of which is “bad” or “good,” but rather just where a student is in that moment.

What I’ve seen in our classes is that students often don’t have the skills, language, comfort, or awareness to tell an adult what “zone” they’re in, nor do they have the strategies to ask for help or to self-regulate. If they’re not regulated (in the red, yellow, or blue), then they’re not ready to learn.

I wanted to create a quick and easy way for a check-in to take place, allowing students a method to provide us with that information in order to avoid or reduce conflict in our classes. This tool had to be accessible, easy to manage, simple to use, and provide language and strategies students may not be able to come up with themselves. It needed to show a level of support, but also put some of the responsibility on the students. The simplest solution I came up with was a Google Form. Students record the date and their name, then identify their zone using the included graphic. They are then presented with a checklist of things they need that teachers can help provide and a list of things they can do to help themselves. There is also now (at the suggestions of Ray Galarza and Kristen Lesniak) a space for students to set a goal for a new zone and to tell us anything else they want us to know.

One of the reasons I love this in a Google Form format is that it is easy to view the results of the survey and collect data by class, student, or date. Students can take a few minutes at the start of class to fill it out and submit and while they are doing a bellringer, working in groups, reading, etc. the teacher can quickly scan the results in Forms or an associated Google Sheet. It also gives the students suggestions for how to be proactive in getting what they need before the teacher even looks at it. You need to go see your social worker? Ask the teacher. You need to move away from distractions? Ask the teacher or move yourself. You need to step out for a second for a breather? Go get some water. For the teachers, it lets them know any students who might be in the red and lacking self-control. It gives information about regulation strategies that the student thinks will be helpful to him or her. 

This isn’t a perfect system, nor is it a one-click-and-your-done approach. The teacher needs to buy in and craft the survey to meet the needs of his/her students. There needs to be trust that the students are being honest in completing it and that the teacher will follow through on the options given to students for self-regulation. It will take a few minutes out of your class period, but it doesn’t need to be an everyday thing.

Here’s how this looks in our class: On Mondays and Fridays our students come into the room and scan a QR code that links to the survey or they find the link in Schoology. They check in. I shoulder-tap specific students who haven’t been filling it out or who do so inconsistently. I also take care to let specific students know that I really want them to fill it out regularly because we want to know if they’re doing ok. These two strategies have worked so far in increasing participation among the students we feel need it most. Then, when students begin working, I scan over the results (I’ve found this easiest to do in the linked Google Sheet). I make a mental note of our class’ general state, as well as any students who report needing specific things or make notes about things they want us to know. Any student who is “in the red” gets a subtle 1:1 chat with me once class gets going. It can be anything from, “Hey, I saw that you said you were in the red today. If you need to get some water or go to the bathroom for a break, go ahead, ok? Let me know if you need anything else, and I’ll check in again later” to “I saw that you said you wanted to talk to someone (a counselor, social worker, or teacher) today. Who do you want to talk to? I’ll write you a pass.” The follow through here is key. It lets students know we’re not collecting meaningless data and that we actually care about what they’re putting down.

The goal is to provide language and strategies for students and to hopefully reduce conflict in class. If we can teach these skills with just a few minutes in class, then the ideal would be for them to translate to students’ interactions with others out of class as well. My hope is that students will complete the check-in on their own without prompting whenever they feel they need it, and that eventually they will use the language in it to advocate for themselves without needing a survey at all. Having the tools and skills to advocate for themselves is a big step in decreasing conflict and increasing autonomy for our students. For us, it’s another way to interact and develop positive relationships with students and to build a classroom culture of respect, communication and understanding.

We asked our students for feedback on this survey and their responses were a mixed bag of, “It hasn’t helped at all” to, “It helps me think about how I’m feeling and let the teacher know if I need help.” Their feedback led to a follow up question: How do we make it better or more useful for them? Many of them didn’t know, but we did get some ideas that we intend to implement, like asking what classes they need help in or having 1:1 conversations with students in the hall, where they might feel more comfortable talking. Everything we do is a work in progress, and this form and its uses are no different.

If you’d like to try this in your classroom, you can find a copy of the form here. Feel free to make a copy of your own, edit it to fit the needs of your students and your classroom, and give it a try.

It's Easy to Create Curriculum

By Mark Heintz

It’s easy for teachers and schools to create a curriculum.  This comment was made in a recent Modern Learners book chat on Timeless Learning.  It’s easy, really?  I’ve spent a lot of time creating curriculum and codifying objectives.  Literally, I’ve spent years creating, reflecting, and fine-tuning. It’s difficult to figure out how the learning will take place and find a logical plan for content to be explored. It was hard to create it. So, that comment made me pause. And, I know many of you would argue with that point, too.

But, if I am being honest with myself, they were right.  By creating a curriculum, teachers plan all of the learning that will take place.  We create tasks, write tests, and develop daily lesson plans ahead of time.  In doing so, we put a limit on what we teach; therefore, we put a limit on what students learn.  It gives us an out.  When a student asks why they need to learn this, we can come back with authority, “It’s part of the curriculum.”  Or, if a student is curious about a topic, we can tell them that topic will be covered later or next year or in a more specific course.  We essentially take most of the thinking and student voice out of the learning. A curriculum that is planned out asks kids to be compliant instead of curious.  In the end, that’s easy.

So, what’s an alternative? 

We come up with questions that will lead to inquiry. We create conditions to tap into what they are curious about and show them how the content is present in what they already want to learn.  We push their thinking through different lines of questioning and give them resources that will challenge them. We get them to research.  We force them to make their thinking visible. We ask them to collaborate with others and share their learning.  We get them to reflect on what they learned, how they learned, and what they should do next.

I know what you’re thinking. What about standardized tests? Who are these magical kids that are self-directed?  Students who are learning for themselves will read, write, explore, and think more than those who are forced into learning. If they do the four things, they will excel on standardized exams because they will be learning for themselves. As for the magical kids, all students are curious.  They might not be curious about what we are teaching, but they are curious because all people are curious.  So, the “magical kids” are all kids. The barrier is the learning conditions. If you allow kids to learn the way they learn best, they will.

What does that mean for your class?

Start with a question. One that is open-ended and allows for multiple paths and potential answers. I quit concerning myself with the summative assessment and how it will go in the grade book.   Quit concerning yourself with summative assessments and how it will go in the grade book.  Let students learn. Let them debate the question and come up with the way to present their new understandings.  Let the assessment be created by the students, monitored by the students, and for the students to make sense of the questions they asked and the content they explored.  It’s hard to let go and be that free. But, try it for a few days, reflect on it, then try it again.

It’s not our fault.  We have been trained to do this.  I’m not throwing anyone under the bus.  Teacher training, our own experiences, and professional development are largely geared towards the traditional model of school.  Even American culture wants more accountability in schools, which would continue to favor the traditional model.

The American values put pressure of what the traditional, rigorous classroom looks like.  Imagine a guardian of a student walking into two different classrooms.  One where students have a book out, filling in a packet, taking diligent notes with a clear content objective to cover a particular topic by the end of the period. Or another, where students are talking about individual projects and are at all different places with the teacher bouncing around the room to engage with as many of the students as possible.  We have to overcome the historical legacy of the traditional classroom and the easier metrics of learning. It’s easier to collect learning data on students for content acquisition, rather than the more difficult task of collecting data on engagement, questioning, writing, reading, and critical thinking.

Now I get why they said it was easy.

It’s easier to create the final assessment that allows you to ignore the students’ interests along the way.  It gives you an out and a reason to shut down the things kids want to explore when they want because it’s not in the curriculum. It becomes the students’ fault for not learning the things you wanted them to learn at the pace you predicted they would learn. You told the students explicitly what you wanted them to know and some still couldn’t get it.  Furthermore, a teacher can be blamed for not having the right curriculum. If only the teacher would find the elusive right book, right scope and sequence, or the right material, they could be better.  Finally, a school can be blamed that their kids are not being as successful as others.  They can be fixed by having someone with THE MAGIC CURRICULUM that is PROVEN to work.

In the end, that’s a lot easier than learning together with your students, tapping into what they are interested in, being flexible in the learning environment that allows for choice and agency.  That is an art.  It takes immense skill to give the freedom to learn in a classroom.  There isn’t a silver bullet.  It takes a lifetime to continually work at because each year new kids with different interests and ideas come into your learning network.  That. Is. Hard.


A huge thank you to Kim Miklusak for editing this post and her constant willingness to debate me on pretty much everything.  

Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part I: Trauma)

In case you missed our book chat this morning, feel free to read through the notes below!

How does trauma manifest itself in the brain?   

How is this shown in our students’ behavior in the classroom?

Introduction Video:  Hand Model of the Brain

• Nearly 35 million U.S. children have experienced at least one type of childhood trauma. (National Survey of Children’s Health, 2011/2012)

• One study of young children ages 2-5 found that 52% had experiences a severe stressor in their lifetime. (Egger & Angold, 2006)

• A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds. (ChildHelp, 2013)

• In 2010, suicide was the second leading cause of death among children ages 12-17. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011)

Correlation Between Number of ACEs and Struggles with School and Health

	Attendance	Behavior	Coursework	Health
3+ ACEs	4.9	6.1	2.9	3.9
2 ACEs	2.6	4.3	2.5	2.4
1 ACE	2.2	2.4	1.5	2.3
No known ACEs	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0

The more ACEs a student experience, the more likely he or she was to experience serious school and health issues.

• 45% of students had at least one ACE
• 22% of students had multiple ACEs
• 1 in 16 students had an ACE score of 4+

What Fight, Flight, or Freeze Looks Like in the Classroom

Flight	Fight	Freeze
Withdrawing Fleeing the classroom Skipping class Daydreaming Seeming to sleep Avoiding others Hiding or wandering Becoming disengaged	Acting out Behaving aggressively Acting silly Exhibiting defiance Being hyperactive Arguing Screaming/yelling Drugs/Alcohol	Exhibiting numbness Refusing to answer Refusing to get needs met Giving a blank look Feeling unable to move or act

Upstairs Brain vs. Downstairs Brain

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Dual Credit College Composition Part 2

By Emily Mikuzis, Madison Reed, Jake Mizialko, Alexandra Glinski, and Mark Heintz


This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 


In this second visit to Emily Mikuzis's class, Emily and her students reflected to see if what they had hoped for in my first visit came true.  We are attempting to build a reflective culture, where teachers and students come together to create the school they hope for.  The teacher and student are honest and collaborative.  We are fostering a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality.

Emily Mikuzis 

What do you hope to do for the next time?

Through the comparison of three engaging texts with very different structures and purposes, I hope to give students options for attacking their first writing assignment, Narrative as Argument. My hope is that students will begin to build confidence to make their own stylistic and structural choices in writing assignments. I hope to, throughout the semester, continue to create opportunities for students to work together to build understanding and hopefully begin to develop their own writer's voice through greater investment in our writing tasks.

What aspects of your hopes came true? This is a work in progress, but I think we are getting there. In each unit, I am trying to scaffold experiences that will allow students to dig into the real work of writing - the ruminating, the thinking, and the connecting that happen away from the computer. In each unit, we are working through choices, rather than prescribing them. Currently, we are working on evidence awareness to determine which kinds of support work best for which kinds of claims. As we build our argumentative essays, students are challenged to argue (almost) any claim. I want them to have a real investment in getting a reader to accept their claim and in choosing the evidence that is most effective, compelling, and convincing.

Madison Reed

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

I hope to learn more about the other types of writings that are out there. Writing is one of my favorite things to do in school. I love the freedom of ideas and creativity it allows us as students to have most times. Also, I hope to learn how to better my writing abilities. So far in my senior year here at EGHS, College Composition has been one of my favorite classes and generally my favorite English class I've taken.

What aspects of your hopes came true? 

My hopes completely came true. We are on our third writing style/essay now and I have definitely learned more about the writing styles we have covered. I have also learned some tips and strategies to really rock writing in such styles.



Jake Mizialko

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

For the next lesson, I hope to learn how you can you words, phrases, and sentences to help you learn more about the message that the author was trying to get across to his readers. I hope that students will be able to branch off of those three things and be able to incorporate it into their own writing. By practicing this task, this will allow students to strengthen their writing abilities and easily identify key parts to a story.

What aspects of your hopes came true? 

Students were able to use what they wrote in the planner in order to make a strong argument when the class was split.

Alexandra Glinski

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

In the next lesson, I would hope to find a style of writing/narrative the best suits me. Trying and testing different essay structures will be a big part of finding out what I like. I want to be able to write an effective essay that not only has a good narrative but also gets my argument across. Hopefully, in our next few writing assignments, my best style of writing will become more clear to me.


What aspects of your hopes came true? 

Since we have been able to pick out topics for this next essay, I think it will be easy to experiment and find what really is the best style of writing for me and many others.

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Dual Credit College Composition Part 2 - Defining Learning

By Emily Mikuzis, Madison Reed, Jake Mizialko, Alexandra Glinski, and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 

In this second visit, I asked the teacher and the student two questions: how do they define learning? Under what conditions do people learn best?  In an attempt to have all stakeholders have a similar definition of learning, the teacher and the students answered them, publish them, and then have conversations surrounding their beliefs on learning. This is what they came up with:

Learning is:

• for everyone.

• transferable.

• thinking deeply.

• growing.

Learning occurs best when people are:

• invested.

• around others that want to learn. 

• comfortable.

 

How do you define learning? 

Emily Mikuzis (Teacher):  Learning has happened when new information or skill is transferable. For example, in my own writing instruction, I have often focused on practicing the skills needed to perform a particular writing task. In the past, I might have given students an outline or sentence stems or templates for embedding quotes. I have noticed that these supports can help students succeed on a product, but do not support the transfer of skills. When I instructed this way, students were in danger of becoming overly reliant on prescriptive assignments. They may ask things like how many paragraphs do I need? How many citations are required?  By reflecting on rhetorical choices along the way, thinking deeply about purpose and audience, my hope is that students are better prepared to make these choices about writing in writing situations across disciplines.

Madison Reed (Student): I believe that learning could be a few things on a few different levels. Learning is discovering or being taught a new topic or thing. Learning is also finding out more about something you may have already known or learned everything about something.  Learning defines so many different things. Learning could be gaining knowledge of something physical, or just an idea. Learning can also be positive or negative. Learning involves the future, present, and past. It involves everything on the planet. It’s amazing all the different things that are learnable. And, the best thing is that it’s for everyone. Learning is power.

Jake Mizialko (Student): I define learning as anyone, doesn't matter the age, that gains a better understanding of a certain subject. These subjects can be actual school subjects, lessons about how to improve your job, or even social skills. Learning occurs on an everyday basis multiple times a day and is the biggest factor in personal growth. Learning can be seen in all different aspects of life and it will benefit you greatly if you learn something new every day.

Alexandra Glinski (Student): I would define learning as acquiring knowledge about certain things that you experience. This could range from your everyday things to the curriculum that you learn at school. Everyone learns and processes new information from the second that they're born and continue to learn for the rest of their lives. Learning involves expanding the mind and adding additional information and strengthening what the mind already has. One of the most important things that come with learning is allowing yourself to not only explained your knowledge but actually grow as a person too. How do you believe people learn best?

How do you believe people learn best?

Emily Mikuzis (Teacher):  I believe people learn best when they have invested in the process and the outcome. Students learn best when they know exactly what they are supposed to do and how doing that will help them. If the usefulness of the targets are in question, even if those targets are clear, it can be difficult for students to be invested enough to truly learn.

Madison Reed (Student): I think that everyone learns in different ways. For example, some people are more visual learners, while some are physical or verbal, etc. as well as people’s learning styles that way, everyone also learns best in different environments. For example, some people learn best one on one and some people learn best being with other students. Personally, I do not think that there is the best way to learn.

Jake Mizialko (Student):  I believe that people learn best when they are surrounded by the environment that will be the most beneficial to them. If everyone around you wants to learn and improve on a topic that will subconsciously drive you to do the same. Motivation and determination are two key factors when someone is deciding how much of a certain subject they want to learn and how much of that they will use later in life.

Alexandra Glinski (Student): I believe people learn best when they're in an environment they're most comfortable in. I think this plays a huge role in learning because being at ease and somewhere where you aren't under stress can completely change your mindset and how you perceive everything that you're taking in.

School Chat - S1E1: Dan Saken "How to celebrate learning"

By Mark Heintz

This is the first, of what hopes to be a more frequent podcast series entitled School Chat.  This episode is a conversation with Dan Saken.  Dan talks about the relationships he builds with his students, uses psychological principles to focus on learning, and how he implements learning celebrations.    

Referenced in the podcast is a video of a student talking about learning celebrations.  After Dan and I talked, he went to the library and a student was talking about the use of learning celebrations in the classroom.  

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Intro to Engineering Part 2

By Alexander Danan, Margi Patel, Ryan Libiano and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 


In this second visit to Patrick McGing's class, Patrick and his students reflected to see if what they had hoped for in my first visit came true.  It had been eight weeks since my first and it was great to see if they are living what they believe.  Even though it was only eight weeks ago, it's hard to stay vigilant on the goal. Read what each of them has to say.  The first entry in italics was what the teacher and student wanted to happen by this point, and the next questions get to what came true.

Patrick McGing

What do you hope to do for the next time?

At Elk Grove, the majority of teachers, including myself in Technology Education has adopted Standards Based Grading as the majority of the learning in our classrooms revolves around learning and developing essential skills (“Standards”). These essential skills sometimes get lost in “day to day school.” Therefore, part of my reasoning for having students create a resume and document their skills is so they know where they are starting the year off. As we continue the school year and cover more essential skills I would like to have students add to their resume; along with anything else that applies from school, extracurriculars, or other.

Students can then begin to see growth, even if they started with a very bare resume, personal growth will be documented.

On top of this, as one of District 214’s goals is career ready and we fall in a Career and Technical Educational course, developing resume building skills will further help students as they begin looking for careers that require the same skills they have developed in their CTE courses and others.


What aspects of your hopes came true?

It comes back to documentation. At this point in the year, we have now covered two essential skills that are the foundation of a lot of what we do in Introduction to Engineering Design. My goal with the resume building is for students to document their growth and learning and designating time to do that can be difficult. The aspect of emphasizing skill building has come true, but the documentation is an area that I will need to work on with students.

Alex Danan 

What do you hope to learn for the next time?

What I'm interested in is going through the design process to create some different but amazing things. I also want to learn more about how to use all the machines to make 2D into 3D. One of the biggest things that I hope I learn next time or later in the year is all the small things in that I'm able to do while designing program so I can make whatI'vee already made and make it better to the best of my potential.

What aspects of your hopes came true?

 One of the things that I was finally able to do in class was creating a different object while drawing, both in paper and on a creation software. We have also started to learn the different ways to draw out our ideas with different styles for different reasons. For some portion of time, everyone chose a career to learn about and make slides on, this way people could start choosing what they want to do in the future. but lastly in class after finishing our work I was able to make whatever my mind desired in a creation software, letting my mind be free.

Margi Patel

What do you hope to learn for the next time?

I hope to learn how to use the 3D printer and the new technology. By end of the semester, I would love to know what I should put it in my resume and cover letter. I'm a senior so I'm glad I took this class because I'm sure it's going to help me figure what I want to do after high school, specifically in engineering. I'm excited to learn more about the topics that we talked about. I'm also excited to see what interests me the most.

What aspects of your hopes came true? 

One of my favorite things we started doing is different types of designs and sketches. I also learned how to use the inventor after all the struggle.

Ryan Libiano

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

Although we did not cover any engineering related topic in this lesson, I am still very excited to learn more about how to write a resume and cover letter and prepare myself for the future. Along with that, I am still very excited to dive deep into the engineering process and design my first object/thing (I don’t know what it is yet). Another huge hope is to finally use machinery such as the shop bot, CNC mill, Laser cutter, etc.

What aspects of your hopes came true?

We finally broke into the class and have learned important aspects of design: utilizing Inventor, understanding basic sketching types and using line conventions in our sketches. Another desire that was fulfilled was understanding how to prepare myself for the future and how to start a career.

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Intro to Engineering Part 2 - Defining Learning

By Alexander Danan, Margi Patel, Ryan Libiano and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 

In this second visit, I asked the teacher and the student two questions: how do they define learning? Under what conditions do people learn best?  In an attempt to have all stakeholders have a similar definition of learning, the teacher and the students answered them, publish them, and then have conversations surrounding their beliefs on learning. This is what they came up with:

Learning is...

• personal. 

• not just obtaining new knowledge.

• not easy.

• rebuilding after failure.

People learn best when...

• they are actively doing the work.

• they learn from their mistakes.

• you are interested in something.

• want to learn. 

How do you define learning? 

Patrick McGing (teacher): Personal growth through a change or development. Learning is not just obtaining new knowledge but must also be a continual development and challenge of that knowledge. The knowledge must continually grow and impact the individual and their experiences.  

Alex Danan (student): Learning to me is when you take a topic that you have an interest in and get to know something new about it. Also, learning can’t be easy. Learning has to have a struggle or mistake in the process, so if you make a mistake then learn from it and do better the next time.

Margi Patel (student): I define learning by accepting my mistakes, trying, understanding the concepts, experience, being taught, knowledge, and learning from the results. 

Ryan Libiano (student): Learning through failure and accepting faults, if this could be achieved then the ability for one to rebuild themselves and improve will ultimately help accelerate future success and open up new opportunities.

How do you believe people learn best?

Patrick McGing (teacher): Doing, failing, adjusting, doing, failing, adjusting, doing. 

I don’t mean repetition and drill is the way to learn, rather people must recognize failure and develop adjustments to change the process. Personal growth through a change or development. 

Alex Danan (student): In my opinion, I believe that people learn best by getting taught or researching what they to. If the mistake is in the process of doing a project that they want to do then they can do better the next time or they can learn from their mistakes.

Margi Patel (student): People learn best when they learn from their mistakes and don’t do the same mistakes again. Also when they don’t give up in tough situations. 

Ryan Libiano (student): As mentioned before, people learn the best when they accept their faults and build themselves through failure and proper guidance.

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Psychology - Part I

By Melissa Curtis, Devin Peterson, Brien Art, Paige Hermann, and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments.  You can read all of the previous posts here. 

Psychology might be the epitome of learner agency in a school.  I've yet to meet a student who didn't want to take the course or isn't interested in taking it.  In Melissa Curtis's psychology class, the kids are engaged.  They want to learn.  It isn't a required class nor does it give the student college credit, or a certificate.  They want to be there.  It's pretty amazing and the conditions that Melissa sets up in her class continue to allow for the students to explore their passion and their interests.

Melissa Curtis 

What did learning look like in the lesson? 

Students were using an interactive tutorial called Psych Sim.  These are lessons presented as slides that students read, click and answer questions as they move through the program.  There was also a worksheet for them to fill out on their iPads while using the desktop computers to complete the simulation.  This lesson was about how psychologists use statistics in their analysis of data.  Specifically, topics like frequency charts, histograms, measures of central tendency and measures of variance.  As I circulated around the computer lab, I was pleased to see students on task with their assignment.  Several students asked questions throughout the period and I offered clarification or instructions as needed.  This was a little risky because even though they were supposed to have read their textbook outside of class regarding these topics, they had received no classroom instruction on them.  Then, I checked the assignment the next day in class for a homework grade.  Most students completed the assignment.

What do you hope to do for the next time? 


I’d like to follow up with examples of experiments and how the data is used in real-life Psychology research.

Why do you love teaching psychology? 

 It’s practical to everyday life and students seem genuinely interested in the content.  Understanding the causes of human behavior can lead to a better reflection of ourselves and our personal/work relationships

Devin Peterson

What did you learn in this lesson? 

Right now we are learning about how psychologists analyze data through different types of experiments. The graphs and data tables they create based on the experiments are analyzed to prove if their hypothesis is correct or incorrect. Afterward, they use this data and find out why this might be the case based on the experiments.

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

I want to learn about how different experiments have changed our lives. This means I would want to know what a certain idea was like in the past and the experiments were done on that idea. Then analyze why this idea has changed.

Why did you want to take psychology? 

I wanted to take psychology for my own career. I want to go to college to become a neuroscientist. To achieve this I decided I wanted to take Psychology 1 and 2 during my junior year. When I’m a senior I want to take AP Biology and AP Psychology.

Brien Art

What did you learn in this lesson?

In this lesson, we learned different methods used in experiments done by researchers such as twin studies with identical and fraternal twins and how similar they are to one another.

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

For next time I hope to learn how the mind works and functions under different circumstances. I also want to learn more about experiments were done in the past about how the mind works.

Why did you want to take psychology?

I wanted to take psychology because I thought that it would be cool to learn about the mind, behavior, and to learn more about myself.

Paige Hermann

What did you learn in this lesson?

In this lesson we learned a little about twins but mostly focused on how scientists take data and different types of methods and charts.

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

In our next lesson, I hope that we learn more about the brain and how it actually works in different situations.

Why did you want to take psychology?

I wanted to take psychology because I'm still not sure if I want to be a psychologist or not so taking this class can help me decided if I'm interested in it.

See children for who they are

By Mark Heintz

It sounds like an easy question to answer: What's the purpose of school? Yet, it might be one of the hardest questions to answer.  I started reading Timeless Learning and the brief history of schools is fascinating.  Even when you look at the origins of public education, there were very different reasons for it to exist.  Fast forward 150 years, it's purpose is still being debated.

So, what is the purpose of school? Are schools institutions of learning? Just academic learning? Are they solely there to prepare kids for the workforce, college, or the military?  Are they there to socialize or norm behaviors?  Are they there to inspire or open kids minds to possibilities? Are they there for self-actualization?  Are they all of those things?  Even if you can answer the question, do you live it? Are all of your actions aligned with what you believe about schools?

This post isn't going to answer the question directly or get to my beliefs.  But, rather bring up one point that might be missing from most of the questions above. It's simple. Clear. And very difficult to do on a daily basis. See children for who they are.

See...

the different, not the deficit knowledge.

their interests, not mine that I hope they find interesting.

their passions, not mine that I impress upon them.

their hopes, not mine for them.

their pathways, not the ones I wish they would take.

their journeys, not the ones I push on them because it worked for me.

Children are unique, incredible individuals that add so much to the already amazing world.  Yet, in a school setting, it can be difficult to always value what they want and allow them to pursue their interests.  Like I said, it's hard.  I'm fortunate to work in a district that offers so many opportunities and teachers are willing to make changes to allow children to be themselves.  It's hard to make changes.  Still, the district and the schools in the district continue to make conditions that serve children and see them for who they are.