Category Archives: Student-driven Learning

Presenters’ Choice Award Winning Project:Hero Elementary

Science, STEM, Student-driven Learning, Video Showcase

By Angie Kalthoff

When I saw that Joan Freese was the lead presenter for Hero Elementary, I knew I had to check it out! I have long followed her work at TPT Twin Cities with SciGirls, a separate project. The project I’ve been most interested in is SciGirls Code: A National Connected Learning Model to Integrate Computing in STEM Learning with Middle School Girls, supported by the National Science Foundation’s STEM + Computing Partnerships Program. You may have read my post from last year on the STEM For ALL Video Showcase Featuring SciGirls Code. I knew I wanted to review this Presenters’ Choice award winning project called Hero Elementary.

Overview of the program
The video gives an introduction to Hero Elementary. Go watch it if you haven’t. Hero Elementary is described as an equity driven educational media initiative focused on improving school readiness on science and literacy in grades K-2. The design of the program includes aspects on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and equity strategies. Kids engage in activities to promote a growth mindset and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in a blended approach. They have real world hands-on learning plus digital and multimedia learning. It has 25 science-themed educational media collections, called “playlists,” which are ”aligned to NGSS. Resources provided to educators include:

  • Animated stories
  • Digital and analog games
  • Non-fiction ebooks
  • Hands-on science activities
  • Digital Science Power Notebook

Hero Elementary has a target audience of kids in Latinx communities, English Language Learners, children with disabilities, and children from low-income households.The program “ignites children’s natural curiosity, broadens their understanding of how the world works, and empowers them to make a positive difference in their communities.” Their approach is child centered, equity focused, and asset based. As a constructivist inspired program, kids build their knowledge through active learning and reflection, which helps them make sense of their new learning experiences.

The goal of the program
Using formative research to aid in development, the project is working to transform learning and track progress with embedded learning analytics. Hero Elementary’s resources integrate science and literacy. The team identified similarities in the following English and science standards strands:

  • Science and Engineering Practices: Utilize the skills, thinking, and language of Scientific Inquiry and Engineering Design.
  • Literacy & English Language arts: Produce and receive communication in a variety of forms.

Through playful characters, kids learn about the “Superpowers of Science” by engaging in activities that encourage them to investigate, collect information, look for patterns, name the problem, make sense, explain, ask questions, compare, show what they know, and figure out a solution. Science educators will recognize these superpowers as the Science and Engineering practices, part of the NGSS. The program has a focus on literacy as well that appeals to many of the educators who have been involved in the development of this program. The program will debut for all this coming summer.

Educators involved with this program receive professional development training and free resources. Hero Elementary uses a train-the-trainer model with support from child-serving partners across the country, all of whom have a strong commitment to equity, interest in science education, and experience working with targeted student groups.

Using in practice
If you work in elementary education, you have probably experienced that the school day is full and planned out to the minute. I think the approach Hero School has taken – alignment to standards that schools are already implementing – is great.
Hero Elementary is broken into playlists. A playlist is a collection of content about a topic to inspire, empower, and deepen children’s science learning. Each playlist consists of the following resources: ebooks, hands on-activities, notebooks, videos, and digital games. While there are 25 playlists, educators can pick what works best in their classroom.

Through the research done on this project, the Hero Elementary team has found that kids are paying attention to the extent to which a character is relatable. CIRCL Educators feel that this topic deserves its own blog post. Watch for an upcoming post to read more about how kids are paying attention to character relatableness and why this matters for learning. In the meantime, check out how Hero Elementary can help bring fun science content and NGSS into your classroom.

Learning Something New

Learning, Student-driven Learning, Uncategorized, Written by: Judi Fusco

By Judi Fusco

TLDR: When you really don’t want to do something, having a friend help you learn can make all the difference. Emotions and learning drive the learning process.

Today’s post, is a reflection piece. I usually ground everything I write in research, but I have so much swirling in my head based on a lot of reading, and on an experience I had while learning something new.

Have you ever said something like, “Nope, no way am I ever going to do _______.”?

I said it repeatedly, and over the course of many months, to a person. She was persistent and kept asking me to learn this new thing for at least 6 months. I said no a lot, however, wait for it…. now I am doing it.

Why am I doing it?  Because the person who asked me (repeatedly) to do it means a lot to me. She wanted me to learn something new–that new something was out of my usual area of interest and something I never saw myself doing. Two strikes against her and the new thing, but somehow she got me to try it, helped me until I felt comfortable on my own, and now, almost 6 months later she is still my mentor and helps me understand more. She comes and talks to me about it and we work on it together so that I can learn more. We also have a lot of fun doing it. This post is a reflection on how this person got me to do _______. (I will discuss what I learned a little later in this post. First, I want to discuss the learning process.)

I see similarities in what my “coach” did and what instructional coaches do to motivate teachers to incorporate new technologies and pedagogies into their classrooms. When I talk with teachers who are being coached as they integrate technology or some new teaching method into their classroom, I hear many things about relationships between them and their coaches. Where we see coaches having success in getting teachers to try new things and make changes in their classroom, we usually also see strong relationships between the coach and the teacher with trust, respect, and sometimes friendships (not required). We see the coach supporting the person until their own interest develops and their identity changes. This is similar to what I experienced. Honestly, my relationship is the only reason why I was willing to even think about learning the new thing. My coach was patient and persistent when I was resistant. She encouraged and motivated me.

Relationships and emotions are an important part of learning, and for the past couple of years, I’ve been thinking about them more. I recently read the new brief on how emotions and relationships drive learning by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Linda Darling-Hammond. While the brief is written about children, emotions and relationships are very important in the learning process for adults, too.

Relationships bring so many things to the learning process. A relationship that helps support the learning process includes at least trust, respect, and motivation. For me, I definitely needed that motivational piece as I learned. Trust and respect are essential, but not enough when learning something new takes a lot of time and effort. A trusted coach helping with every step of the journey and giving that motivation can really make a difference. (Note, the journey can be longer or shorter depending on the person being helped, their interest, and the new thing being learned.)

I imagine that most people don’t really invest in learning something that they don’t like at all. For me, I didn’t want to do _______.  What is ___________ you may ask? It’s Pokémon GO. There’s a lot to learn as you play. There are strategies involved. There are lots of rules and tricks. Also, remember, I didn’t want to play it at all. I didn’t know anything about it and I wanted to keep it that way. I thought it was a useless waste of time. But I liked the person who asked me and she took the time to show me what I needed to know.  “She” was my 12 (now 13) year old daughter. She was asking me to hang out, and if a tweenager wants to hang, you should do it! However, despite the fact that I wanted the opportunity to spend time with her, I still didn’t want to learn the game.

As I mentioned before, playing this game was big identity change for me. Part of my identity is that I don’t play games. I imagine that teachers who aren’t interested in using technology in their classes or don’t see themselves as technology people also go through a similar identity change as they start using technology. (I’ll explore more about interest, identity, and learning in the near future, in another post.) Here, I really want to stress that without my relationship, I wouldn’t have learned. My coach took the time to show me what I needed to know. She answered all my questions and she never made me feel bad for my questions. I wouldn’t have ever been interested, much less chosen to learn on my own. I needed her to provide external motivation for me. In fact, in the beginning, I needed so much that she was kind of dragging me along in the learning process.

As teachers, we try to help students with this kind of support, but we may not get it ourselves. With a coach, the odds increase for this kind of support. Making changes in a teaching practice is difficult because a teaching practice affects other people, students and future students. Most teachers are cautious about wanting to make a change to something that generally works in practice because of all of the people who depend on it. That’s where a colleague or a coach can really help. There are times when a teacher is so interested in making the change that they can do it on their own, but most of the time, it’s so much easier to make a change with the help of someone else.

In this post, I’ve been thinking a lot about teachers and changes in practices, but I think we could insert any age learner in a scenario of making a change that they aren’t interested in making. Relationships strengthen the learning process at any age and are something we should think more about in the learning process. What do you think about the importance of relationships in learning? I’d also love to hear about changes you’ve made to your practice. How’d you do it? Did you have support or did you do it on your own? Have you ever had an instructional coach? Would you want an instructional coach?  Are you an instructional coach? We’d love to hear from you — Tweet to @CIRCLEducators or use #CIRCLEdu.

Perspective on learning from an administrator

Constructivism, School Administrators, Student-driven Learning, Written by: Judi Fusco
By Judi Fusco

Today, for something completely different, I include snippets from conversations with Katie Hong, an administrator in a large school district in a school-wide Title 1 middle school. Katie is also a doctoral student pursuing her Ed.D. in the Pepperdine EDLT program.  

One of the first things Katie told me was how Keith Sawyer got it right when he said, “Many teachers spend their entire careers mastering the skills required to manage an instructionist classroom, and they understandably have trouble envisioning a different kind of school” (Sawyer, 2014 p. 3). Teachers are told to implement Common Core Standards with student-driven learning, emphasizing collaboration, but they have not been equipped to implement or facilitate constructivist methods in their classroom. Another issue compounding the problem is administrators. Administrators often evaluate teachers based on the instructionist view. As they evaluate, they convey to the teacher how they want to see traditional classroom practices. When Katie was a young teacher, she did student-driven, collaborative lessons; she had one on Mesopotamia where the students were working together exploring the role of irrigation and how it impacted the growth of civilization. Her principal walked in to evaluate her and was a little miffed because the class wasn’t quiet. He told her he’d come back when she was “teaching,” as he couldn’t do an evaluation on her with her students so off-task.  

Administrators have huge power over teachers, and teachers often continue to focus on the traditional classroom practices because they want to please their administrator, receive an effective evaluation, and be viewed as an effective teacher by their colleagues. Administrators aren’t completely to blame. as there aren’t good evaluation instruments or tools to help them evaluate constructivist methods or classes doing cooperative learning. Also, many administrators lack sufficient knowledge about student-driven methods and collaboration.

As Katie and I have continued talking, she has made many observations that have stayed with me. She spoke about how an ideal teacher evaluation should involve much more time than it’s given. Often there’s only time for one classroom visit with a pre- and post- meeting, but it would be better to have visits on a continuous basis throughout the year. She told me that she, as an administrator, would like to observe teachers facilitating student-driven lessons, but teachers often don’t use student-driven lessons on days she’s evaluating them unless she specifically asks them to in their pre-meeting. She also wishes she could have tools to help her understand what is happening more quickly when she walks into a classroom where students are collaborating. When there are a lot of groups, it can be hard to understand and evaluate what is occurring. And the forms she has to use for evaluation often involve a lot of answering of questions that may not capture the most important details. For her own research, she’s interested in thinking about how to help administrators evaluate a constructivist classroom effectively. She said, “I want to see the interaction with the students and teacher and how the teacher facilitates–that would be my ideal observation. I learn so much more when I talk to the students. I want to see if they can synthesize material and apply it. I know the teacher knows the material. I don’t need to see them lecture. I want to observe what the students have learned and understand.”

Thanks for the important perspective, Katie. We’ll have more of your thoughts on student-driven learning in another post, soon. Administrators and teachers, what are your thoughts about teacher evaluations and student-driven learning? What do you need to be successful? If you teach teachers, do you talk with them about the topics covered in this blog post? Cyberlearning researchers, can we help Katie with some new tools for evaluation of student-driven collaboration?  

Sawyer, R.K. (2014) Introduction: The new science of learning. In: Sawyer R. K. (ed.) Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, New York: 1-18.

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