Round 6: Managing Change, Challenging Orthodoxies & Mining Ideas (Reports)
Teams various areas including designing a change process; inspiring staff, board members and students; challenging assumptions; redefining the idea of "school"; removing limitations to innovation, and more.
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Team 1 Rosemary Andrews, Kathy Glodowski, Lisa Janke, Duane Lechtenberg, Eric Miller, Marla Prusa, Betsy Rall , Bob Uhing, Debra Welsh
We had to come with a process that would show a way to implement change. We didn’t reinvent the wheel. We have to do the research and come up with a plan. We don’t celebrate enough. When you do this you have some reflection time. You have to have student participation as much as possible. We started something called DSat.
It’s hit or miss; some teachers are great at filling out all the forms, others aren’t. For some schools it works great because they can see the continuous feedback on the web. Our school improvement program has been focused on reading comprehension. It’s important to take small steps to change instead of biting off too big a chunk. How do you deal with people wanting to do pilot programs? We just don’t have a lot of extra time.
Team 2: Darrell Barnes, Brad Best, Jeffrey Edwards, Mark Hanson, Harold Nelson, David Perkins, Joe Sajevic, Jim Scheer, Michelle Willamson
We implemented some change and we stole our model from the NCA accreditation process. We’re going to get a committee together and get staff input. We’ll implement and have an ongoing implementation. There may need to be some tweaks along the way. The biggest point is that we need to have continuing education.
Team 3: Jill Bates, Nancy Becker, Darin Hahne, Beth Kabes, Jill Krienke, Vickie Scow, Summer Stephens, Jennifer Trenhaile, Bill Trenhaile, Russ Wissing
We looked at assumptions about teachers’ professional development. We could honor staff strengths and teacher leaders. We like the idea of onsite professional development. There was an assumption that teachers work in isolation behind closed doors and we’d like to open those. We’d consider creating some time and space for teachers to work together. Most schools have done a lot with articulated curriculum. There is something called Lessons Study where they collaborate and meet together to plan a lesson and some of the teachers watch one teacher teach it, so they can critique it and improve it. We don’t have VA and Home Ec any more and we’ve lost some of the vocational schools, so maybe we can get more creative about how to offer these subjects.
Team 4: Gary Bolton, Steve Borer, Shannon Collin, Dean Folkers, David Green, Stephanie Hames, Casey Hurner, Carol Jessen, Dan Schnoes
We also considered getting rid of things, like the school board. We looked at alternative grading portfolios, maybe simple pass or fail. We also considered no grade levels at the high school and flexible graduations or completions. We looked at different course options and a continuous learning calendar, such as a 45 day school session with 15 days off. This would go through a cycle with a 6-week summer break.There is an elementary school that does this now and they seem to be on par with other elementary schools.
We would implement flexible school days for both the students and teachers. Some kids function really well at 7am and some better at 10am. One of the kids I talked to does some of his best work at 3am. At some schools, they even have night classes.
We considered a scenario where there would be no textbooks. We could do a work around with eBooks. There would be teacher-based lessons that are driven by the students, not necessarily by what’s in the next chapter.
Team 6: Barb Black, Steven Borer, Gregory Conroy, Jason Craig, Tom Gannon, Robin Groene, Jamie Isom, Barbara Roth, Mike Schleicher
Our topic was administration and I was the only principal in a group of teachers. We tried to look at a system without administration. We decided not to take attendance. We considered online courses. We built an idea called E=MC2. Education = Mall Central.
We created a space like the mall that has courses over satellite. There would be student leadership and hopefully they would have enough discipline to carry it through.
We looked at outside groups and the assumptions of schools. We decided to take away the idea that four years equals graduation. We decided that you could graduate after two years if you were ready.
We didn’t have any concrete timelines, but we would figure out a basis for how to move on to the next level. We talked about apprenticeships and partnerships with businesses. We looked at the options that might be necessary for the kids who finish high school early.
Team 8: Brent Cudly, Brendan Dittmer, Carol Eischeid, Carol Hilker, Dan Publow, Thomas Reeser, Amy Romshek, Norm Ronell, Michael Sorensen, Ed Stansberry
Out focus was key improvement in the high school. We kept coming back to the personal educational plan. We need resources, such as time, to see this through. There are a lot of options.
We need to determine which mandates need to be skirted or flexible. We need community involvement in order to pull this off. Fourteen year olds cannot make a plan for 4 years.
Team 9: Dan Cox, Brad Hansen, Troy Holmberg, Beth Johnsen, Stephen Morton, Pat Nauroth, Vanessa Tanderup, Daniel Tietjen, Marlene Uhing, Kim Zach
We talked about the word radical. It is a challenging word and we had a bit of a hard time coming up with radical things. After reading some science fiction, we thought about having virtual classrooms. (laughter) We noted that the students want to have more social time and tried to build that in. We also talked about teacher tenure. We started talking about the idea where the students pick the teachers. We had a value-added assessment.
Team 10: Robert Arp, Christine Good, Rhonda Jindra, Cindy Johnson, Rich Katt, Michael Moody, Mike Ough, Dave Sellon, Justin Wagner
We had fun with this. We had a blank slate to work with. Everything we have on this board will be implemented on Monday. (laughter) We talked about traveling since some people say that’s the best learning experience. We want to have standardized and personalized learning through the computer where kids can go online at midnight and take classes online.
We have capstone projects where you can keep building on that can even extend beyond high school. We went with the concentric model and argued about what goes in the middle. Is it the learning? The learner? Otherwise we have parents and advisory groups and others in the outer circles.
We want to have more loci of control for each constituent. We talked about grants available for students and reimbursing partnerships with practical applications. Also about how to meet the need of every single student. One student said if I could play basketball everyday then I would come to school. We thought about putting a dorm on campus for the at-risk students.
We lost control and got out of our sphere and tried to think so far out there is no box. We brought up the mall concept too. You can buy anything and everything you want online and yet the malls are not closing down. And some people are really happy they can buy everything on line and never have to step foot in a mall again. So it needs to be an inpidual choice.
Discussion
Michael Kaufman: Is there anything here that rubs you the wrong way?
Group: I’m willing to give my students a lot of credit and I do think there needs to be a mentoring aspect and strong outside influence. Scary school is small class about 20-30 kids with a couple of teachers. It’s self-contained. You get a lot of flexibility and see what they could explore and learn. They would get to do more self-exploration.
MK: I firmly believe in choice as an intrinsic motivation. Even in corporations, it takes a long time for people to understand that they can take responsibility for their own work and learning. I knew an educator who wanted to engage a class to take charge of their learning. It took them two weeks before a student asked what they were going to do.
Group: The kid gets all the information. We need to tap into the parents and incentivize their ownership of the education. There’s always those parents who are always involved and some who are never involved. We need to get the parents in the middle.
MK: Let’s move onto the next phase of work. I have a question for you: Are you ready to do whatever it takes to make this change? Instead of just talking about it. The governor is coming tomorrow and we have some passion around this. Let’s make it happen. I feel that each of you personally need to decide if you’re willing to try something. The answers will make a difference in what we actually do.
Group: This is a wonderful opportunity for us to talk about it in a supportive environment. If we’re out there ahead of the curve, it’s likely that we’re going to be facing some opposition. We have to be willing to do that. If you believe in something strongly enough, then you’ll take the risk. It’s like being the drop in the pond. A small action will ripple out and we don’t know where our influence will go.
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