The Power of Us Part 2: Finding A Focus Through The Power of Us
Finding A Focus Through The Power of Us
March 6, 2020
Agency: A New Tech Network School Wide Learning Outcome
Ah, the elusive “Agency.” My story with Agency began in 2012 when asked by my team during year two of CCNTH to give up teaching World and American Studies in order to create and facilitate a freshman elective that became known as Research and Communications (R&C). It would be understood that Agency needed to be explicitly ‘taught’ to the freshmen. To cite NTN agency is:
“When we think of the skills students need to be successful in school and in life, the word “agency” doesn’t usually pop into mind. But maybe it’s time…
Through the tenets of “agency,” we help students see effort and practice in a new light and associate both as growth paths and, ultimately, success. We can provide students with the skills to rebound from setbacks and build confidence as they welcome new challenges. Instilling the principles of “agency” helps students find personal relevance in their work and motivates them to participate actively, build relationships and understand how they impact themselves and their communities.
These rubrics identify the ability to develop and reflect on growth mindset and demonstrate ownership over one’s learning-Agency.
Learn more about our services or join us for a tour and hear firsthand how we are changing education now.”
Download PDF’s
I took this challenge seriously as I saw the value in designing this new course and the projects within it to specifically build strong Agency skills in my students. So, I began to search and found such great literature about growth mindset, drive, grit, project and task management, organization, determination, curiosity, creativity and the art of meaningful critique. These traits are important to note that no one will ever be perfect in, but that are so necessary to allow us to live satisfying and purposeful lives. So, I dug in… really dug in and learned as much as I could about each domain, and I quickly realized that the study of agency and the skills and mindsets it encompasses are so much more than readings, workshops or discussions I could plan into my projects. It would truly be a lifelong journey that needed to start with me.
Overtime, I discovered that I needed the help of my team to continue exploring Agency and all of its implications for teaching and learning. I also realized that every New Tech facilitator is a facilitator of agency, explicitly teaching, yet within the context of their own project, in their own field. Agency isn’t something that only I could teach in R&C, but it is an outcome that needs my whole team to learn, think, and discuss around. So, Agency starts with us and the idea of Adult Agency has guided a lot of the adult learning we’ve designed for the entire staff of CCNTH. I was so excited after talking to Stephanie, Rachel, and Brian on the phone that they wanted to make Agency the focus of the Instructional Rounds during our March visit. Perfect!
The Visit to LEAD@LG
The whole day was strategically designed by the LEAD@LG team to build off of our first collaboration day together. The learning goals for the day included:
CONNECT Build relationships within the group
LEARN Focused Instructional Round
GROW Build on skills: observing teaching and learning, describing what we see
REFLECT Understanding the structure of a debrief
The visit was so rich and full of formal and informal opportunities to connect and share with other like-minded people. After getting a brisk tour of the Los Gatos High School campus, we headed to the LEAD building to have some delicious breakfast (shout out to their food services staff!) and start prepping for rounds.
Power of “Us” Gave “Us” All A Focus: Agency
It was brilliant how the LEAD@LG team has taken their district-wide goal of supporting social-emotional learning and blended it with our New Tech Network School-Wide Learning Outcomes. They are using Agency to discover how rigor and social-emotional learning intersect. Thus, this became the focus of our second stab at cross-school instructional rounds. We went through a powerful pre-rounds meeting that built upon what we started to learn during our first collaboration day at CCNTH. The LG team led us through reminders of norms for rounds, briefed us on what classes we would visit, and guided us in creating a set of questions brainstormed from the Agency rubric that we could ask students when doing rounds.
Because of the deep and meaningful conversations we had with the LEAD@LG team some specific next steps were decided on by CCNTH. One, we are going to use Agency as the focus for our continued work with instructional rounds. Two, we are going to create a menu of tools that staff can choose to use based off of their own needs and desired learning goals for doing rounds. For example, if a teacher has the focus of Agency for their rounds practice then they could use the tool that the LEAD@LG team made for us all. If their focus is to better understand a component of Deeper Learning, then they could use the tool that NTN created. Anyway, provided voice and choice for our teachers is just as much a priority for our adult learners as it is for our teens. Three, we will definitely keep the positive post its where as we leave a classroom we drop off 1 positive comment on a post it note for that teacher whose room we completed rounds in. Doing rounds and being in the classrooms with an Agency focus was full of listening to rich conversations, seeing students doing real work, and it was full of meta-moment opportunities to observe and reflect on one's own practice.
Now This Is Looking At Data!
One of my favorite takeaways from the collaboration day was that looking at data, other than standardized test data and scores, is where the magic of teacher growth and the desire to improve really lies.
Hopes Exceeded
We all felt like we grew and built on skills, especially in observing teaching and learning, describing what we see, and our ability to facilitate Agency. Each of the four goals of the day was met and valuable deep learning was felt by all of the adults who participated. We shared stories and laughs all day over breakfast, prepping for rounds, doing rounds, lunch, analysis, and reflections. What better way to feel connected and build relationships? We learned so much about Agency! I for sure improved my skills in observations, note taking, and non-judgemental data collection. This all has helped build my own confidence in being an active participant in collaborative learning. Sounds like exercising adult agency to me!
My favorite part of the day was continually being pushed to reflect on the process, reflect on my assumptions, and share these reflections so as to “translate experience into meaning.”
What the other CCNTH staff now knows as a result of our visit:
“I know that we need to continue looking at Agency and find ways to authentically assess students on Agency. I also have a better idea of what Agency looks like.”
“That there is definitely a much more quantitative method for assessing agency than the methods that I have been using.”
“How do we sustain the collaboration and grow this collaboration to really tackle building culture through the use of Agency and Collaboration?”
“The muddiness of the Agency rubric - how difficult to evaluate. The parallels of LEAD and CCNTH. More common than not. How authenticity is a struggle no matter the location - urban or rural.”
“Agency ideas moving forward. Importance of specifically teaching Agency to students. Metacognition.”
“Agency can be taught by giving students time to reflect. Some agency items are harder to observe than others and my need to be assessed by student reflection only. I also understand better how instructional rounds focuses on student observations.”
“Instructional Rounds is a process, it can be done and it is best to focus the observations on the students.”
“I now have a much better understanding of the Agency rubric, but more importantly, how Agency looks in the classroom. I feel like I have more tools to teach and assess agency in my classes.”
Some need to knows we want to further explore:
“How do we authentically assess Agency?”
“Could we take some cues from LGHS to help solve some of our scheduling challenges (district pending of course)?”
“How can I support students in Agency? Where can we go from here?”
“How to effectively target agency school-wide?”
“How to facilitate student reflection with the agency rubrics? I wonder if the rubrics need examples or translating for the students to better understand. I had thought I understood the rubrics but I developed a much better understanding by the end of the day. I am sure the students may be the same way.”
“How to build in a system or structure of supporting student agency?”
Special Stories
“Brainstorming different questions before going through the observations really helped to reinforce the idea that we were observing and engaging the students. However, I found myself hesitant to talk to the students in the 9th grade classroom as the group I was observing was working together on research and I didn't want to distract them.”
“That by assessing student's understanding instead of observing teachers we can formulate a better plan to improve content delivery.”
“The ah ah moment of how I can use this in my own classroom!”
“Speaking with a student that really reinforced my teaching techniques by positively commenting on the similar strategies of another teacher.”
“While in instructional rounds I found it difficult to have genuine conversations with students while at the same time taking notes. In one moment during the day I noticed that Kristi was taking notes on a conversation I was having with a student. We realized we had more powerful student reflections and notes when we partnered together.”
“With the questions that we had brainstormed as a group before the instructional rounds, I felt that I had a specific way to measure the different domains within the agency rubric. It allowed me to tailor my interactions with the students based on the activity that they were doing. Some questions were a little broad, but other questions generated what seemed to be an authentic and engaged response by the students.”
Learning More
To view the Slide Deck that guided our days, Click Here! We plan to continue to build onto this slide deck in order to simplify digital navigation, document our collaborative learning journey, and reminisce and reflect on the amazing work educators at CCNTH and LEAD@LG are doing.
We invite you to continue to follow our journey as we commit to collaborating in the years to come. Also, check out the work from some of my favorite thinkers to learn more about Agency and the power of reflection.
.png)
.png)
Comments
Post a Comment