PiE Meeting Minutes
1-19-17
Proficiency Based Learning (PBL)
Proficiency Based Learning (PBL)
Location: Flex
Space
Attending: 19
parents
Presenters: Suzan
Locke (HCS Co-Principal), Monica Carter (CVU math teacher and PBL coach) and
Jeff Evans (Director of Learning & Innovation for CVSD)
All materials shared during the presentation will be
available on the HCS PiE Page. A slide show of the presentation will be available
on the HCS PiE page
Jeff Evans led the group in an activity to examine the way
the job world is changing and will likely be different for our children
·
One of the biggest takeaways is that education
needs to be flexible
·
Right now, the biggest companies are innovators
– Uber doesn’t own cars, Air B&B doesn’t own real estate, Facebook doesn’t
develop content
·
Students don’t need teachers to teach them
facts, they are readily available on the internet
·
Many jobs our kids will get haven’t even been
invented yet
This is the first year that all students in the district are
having their achievement communicated in terms of PBL
·
A lot of new learning for teachers, which is
happening on Tuesday afternoons at HCS
o
Teachers practice being the student in some
exercises and then apply the information to their own classrooms and receive
coaching
·
For grades 5-12 across CVSD, JumpRope is the
technology platform
Parents participated in a learning exercise with an “energy
stick” to demonstrate and drive discussion about learning targets
·
An energy stick is an enclosed tube which is used
at school for learning about circuits
·
Parents had to draw conclusions about how it
works and create a model of how electricity flows through and electrical
circuit
o
Some parents were wondering why terms were not
defined before the exercise
§
Some teachers may use as a strategy to see what
kids already know
§
Children are being asked “how to you know…” and
“explain your thinking”
§
Students may compare work they did before with
what they know now
§
Important to develop the culture of the
classroom to be able to provide PBL
·
Questions spurred by the exercise were:
o
Why are we trying to just “meet” targets?
§
Targets are the learning goal, and students can
meet or exceed
o
Is the framework of the classroom changing now?
Are there still AP classes offered?
§
AP classes still exist, and PBL is used in those
as well
·
Is there criteria to evaluate educators on how
well they are teaching using PBL?
o
Yes, teachers are evaluated on implementing PBL
o
Teachers are working together to form learning
targets for grades/content area; there is
a lot of peer learning and support
o
PBL coaches are regularly in the classroom to
support teachers
o
In the teacher hiring process, there’s an
emphasis on PBL across the SU
o
For teachers one of the biggest shifts and
challenge, is being able to differentiate learning in the classroom
Why PBL?
·
Monica shared that the way she used to teach
math was by the book, and only when the test came back was it obvious that a
child was struggling
o
Number at the top of the test was not very informative
o
Looking at standards (the term that preceded the
today’s use of the term “proficiency”) helped to design instruction that was
more relevant and tailored to individual student needs
o
Using PBL, she would know how each student was progressing
well before test time and the areas where students needed extra attention
Transferable Skills
Transferable
Skills for Creative & Practical Problem Solving (see presentation for all
skill targets)
·
A parent asked how Common Core fits in with PBL
o
Content comes from Common Core standards (see
page 10 of presentation for all Content Area Standards)
o
While the Common Core could change (and has
changed in the past), the PBL approach to learning and teaching would remain in
place
·
Parent questioned if curriculum would have to
change since students are not “downloading” information/content anymore
o
The curriculum or content is not changing; what has changed is that learning is not
about teachers delivering content only but teaching students how to be learners
·
Parent questioned if students not covering as much content with the PBL
teaching approach
o
PBL may not lead as deeply into the textbook at
times, but the skills kids are learning are transferrable to learning new
content
·
Learning targets are transferrable across
content areas
·
The example was a science learning target about
systems
·
The idea of a system is not unique to science
but could be applied to social studies as political movements are also
considered a system
·
In younger grades where students may not yet
read/are learning to read, learning targets may be expressed visually through
pictures
JumpRope
All parents will be getting a JumpRope report
·
Middle school gets this for all content areas
·
K-4 will get a JumpRope report for Unified Arts
and Physical Education
·
The report is a look at progress to date
o
Since it’s just a snapshot of where the child is
at any given time, they would not penalized if they had a bad first semester
o
That first semester might have some low scores
since students are just being introduced to content and are just starting to
learn
·
In the upper right of the Jumprope report is a
link with definitions of terms on the report
o
These terms were handed out at the meeting and
will be available on the HCS PiE Page
·
Questions asked included:
·
Why is the .5 used?
o
E.g., if kids are doing both 3 and 4 work and
fall somewhere in the middle a .5 is used
·
What can you do if your kid is unsure about how
to ask what they need to do to move from a 2 to a 3?
o
Can meet with teacher and child together
o
Questions kids can ask:
§
Is there additional practice I can do?
§
Will I get another opportunity to demonstrate
this skill?
·
Can kids be reassessed on the same task or will
conversation with the teacher be more about how to do better next time?
o
It will be some combination of the two,
depending on what the task was and what practice is needed
·
Parent shared her concern that her child told
her that a 2.5 is the best anyone could do on a particular assessment; others
echoed similarly that their kids say a 4 isn’t possible
o
Presenters encouraged those parents to
communicate with the teacher; could be that the child just misunderstood that
the teacher was saying it’s natural not to get a 4 right away when starting a
unit or something like that
§
By the end of the unit any score should be
possible
o
Another parent shared that it’s confusing that
her child got a 1.5, but on the report it wasn’t clear that a new unit had just
been started, so the 1.5 wasn’t a bad thing. Talking with the teacher will help
parents to understand; teachers can also
comments in JumpRope reports to provide more context
o
So much learning takes place through failure –
important to communicate to kids that it’s ok to fail in the process, and
that’s part of the scoring for PBL
o
Parent shared that child got one wrong on a test
but got the same score as a fellow student who got lots wrong; the student was
very discouraged and upset
§
In that case, talking with the teacher would be
helpful; teachers are also in a learning process, so Monica wants to hear about
times when things don’t seem to be working and parents still have questions
after talking with the teacher
o
Kids get to talk about PBL just like parents
were doing tonight
§
District coaches are interviewing students to
see what they are thinking about changes in the classroom
·
Parent wanted to know, how often are teachers
tracking evidence that goes into that report?
o
Teachers are documenting work
o
In the near future, with the JumpRope parent
portal parents will be able to see number of assessments/assignments and how their student is progressing
Other questions
How does differentiated instruction work?
·
When just two students in a whole class are
struggling are all the kids held back?
o
Teachers use flexible groups, based on
assessments, and kids who need extra help can work with teacher
o
If you walk into a classroom often kids not all
doing the same thing
o
Teacher are doing less lesson from the front of
the room because they need to
differentiate instruction based on student progress and target areas that need
support
What’s the HCS homework policy?
·
If we’re delving deeper into subjects and not
covering as much, why isn’t homework assigned to cover what might be missed?
o
Teachers still covering the content that’s
required, according to common core standards, but they may be combining units
across subjects to do it
o
If anything is sent home it should be practice
and not new learning, as research has proved homework to be less effective than
people previously thought
o
Reading should happen every night
Please email co-principals with any other questions!
Upcoming Activities:
·
Feb. 2 – Spring Teacher Grants due
·
Feb. 16 – PiE Planning Meeting @ 6:30 in the
Flex Space
o
Agenda will include Spring PiE Grant
distribution discussion
·
Feb. 20 – Box Tops Due
o
The class that brings in the most will win a
pizza party!
·
Mar. 16 – Family Dance
o
Theme is “Fun in the Sun,” and there will be a
live DJ, dancing photo booth, basket raffle, activities and bake sale. We’re
looking for volunteers to make it all happen!
