Learning Experiences
Click here for the Assignments (.doc) The resources provided to each group have been provided below.
MK: The conversations you were having seemed very lively. We’re going to go 7 through 12 and then 1 through 6.
Group 7 Inter- and intrapersonal
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Interpersonal & Intrapersonal Skills (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 knows that his/her success is dependent on the ability to establish and maintain positive, productive relationships with others. While he/she is a strong self-advocate, he/she is able to balance self-interest with the consideration of others.
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We have inter- and intrapersonal. We looked at activities that you would do as a classroom teacher. The original idea is from IDEO and the video is called the Deep Dive. We talked about the importance of collaboration and everybody getting to add their genius which is more important the elevation of the individual.
You just can’t assume collaborative learning and cooperative action is going to happen. You might have PLCs (personal learning communities) but you have to set up teams of teachers and we came up with a strategy of storm, norm and perform. You have to do this purposefully with the students as well. You need to set the stage.
What kind of professional development do we need to support these activities? It needs to be intentional. Relationships are key to these last year of building confidence in this area.
Here is a model that I created from an idea I stole from Cheryl that shows our learning plan and broken down into a daily lesson. This has a box for rigor level and we thought it might be cool to have a list of 21st century skills that we’re focused on today.
One of the things that Dr. Black suggested and we agreed with because he’s our boss (laughter) is to took at how to give teachers a collective toolkit and give them the skills that can support these efforts.
Group 8 – Work environment / Career Prep
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Work Environment (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 has an understanding of how to market his/her skills to potential employers. The successful graduate in 2020 understands and meets employer expectations and exhibits the behaviors and skills required for success in a work environment.
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The first thing we did was to change the title. Work environment had to do with preparing resumes and developing work ethics. The new title seems more encompassing. We looked at assessment as well.
We looked at what we’re doing now and what we could have. We’re doing some good things now that we would like to expand some of the programs to the sophomores. We want to help them create a professional portfolio and doing online virtual portfolio.
Writing skills are using their importance as well as penmanship. We’re currently doing career fairs and they rotate between the two high schools. We’d like to continue and expand that.
Job shadowing is something we’re not doing enough of and we want to have more of this. We want kids to be able to go out with professionals as well as have the experience in the school. We want to expand DEKA. The most important thing is having a very enthusiastic professional and we have that now. We want to expand vocational training and teaching. Not all kids are going into a trade school or college so we want to expand the opportunities for those students.
Virtual world is something we tried to think outside the box. There are a lot of different virtuals worlds out there and we should explore the various worlds out there. Maybe we could even create our own virtual plan and our entrepreneurs could play with the consequences of that.
We’re doing great with the rubrics that are set up but there is not enough pre-training. We got some nice thank you’s from the kids but I don’t think our community knows exactly what we’re doing here and what it means.
We need to help with definitions of the work place, such as business casual, professional dress, and casual Fridays. Not everyone knows what this means. We need to acknowledge the differences between the ages too. When a grade school teacher is on the floor with Play-doh with the kids is very different from the English teacher standing up in front of his or her students in flip flops. We have to know what’s appropriate and realize we’re role models.
We want to address all the things: employment, how do you dress, how do you work, etc. Most of these we’d like to see start tomorrow.
Perhaps we can get the students credit for having a job and get feedback from the employers on how they’re doing.
Q: Will job shadowing include skills assessment or training? This might not just be in offices.
A: Yes. This is why we want to expand the vocational training.
Q: How do you ratchet this down to the lower grades? This sounds geared to the high schools.
A: We talked about that a little bit. Parents are coming in and doing career days and we would like to continue that.
Comment: On the virtual world, there are some good ones out there and we’ve looked at that with our business toolbox. We’re on this path here. This biggest issue is that we’re losing kids. Our numbers are just not where they should be. It’s an elective so maybe they don’t take it because they don’t have to. If you know how to get kids into that let me know. We have a lot of good teachers there.
If you could involve that with other classes, such as English, that would work because we don’t have time otherwise.
Group 9 – Work Ethic, Legal & Personal Responsibility
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Work Ethic, Legal & Personal Responsibility (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 has an understanding of how to market his/her skills to potential employers. The successful graduate in 2020 understands and meets employer expectations and exhibits the behaviors and skills required for success in a work environment.
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The bottom line is how to integrate these things: appearance, attendance, personal management style, how you behave when no one is watching, being tardy, and confidentiality. Some students don’t understand that they have cell phones that take photos and they’re working in a medical office where there are records which are private and no photos could be taken or sent. 
The thought process has to come into everything we do. We talked a lot about clothing and appearance. I’m appalled to the way some of the kids are dressed. I get the translation when it shows up in the business place. Perhaps our classrooms should adopt a business philosophy. We could incorporate those thought processes into the classrooms. That could happen even at the elementary school level.
Modeling has to show up with the teacher. If you have your cell phone on and ask your students to have theirs off, there is a disconnect. You can have parents who are marvelous but have a questionable teacher or just the reverse and the student is influenced by both.
When the student is involved in extracurricular activities they’re more likely to get it. How do we reach the ones who are not involved? There is a consideration of time. Students want more freedom then they have to take on more responsibility. They need to show that either in teams or individually.
Homework needs to be on time. You’re expected to do work on time so this is a value that should be in classroom too. There is no discipline necessary because they understand the reasons for these requirements. Tardiness will be reduced and attendance will be up because students will be engaged with what they’re doing.
Comment: Parents have become so connected with their students’ lives. Students aren’t learning how to make choices on their own. How many parents do you know who are texting their kids all day? We know some parents who have the thumb on them all day long.
I appreciate looking at the business model but our American business model is being challenged too. We’d better make sure that is productive. We’re working with a different set of people and if we’re looking at school reform and we go back to American business models we’re going to end up in a rut. Maybe the schools need to be setting the direction.
I think we have to be careful about cell phones. Some of these are deep resources and we talked about how are we going to pay for it, but here we have students who have these already in their pockets. We should take advantage of that.
Q: What about uniforms?
A: We’ve heard about that before and I don’t know if that solves anything. The skirts of uniforms keep getting shorter.
There is a school that uses scrubs as a uniform. You get a different kind of student. Because they are already feeling like a professional.
Group 10 – Teamwork
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Teamwork (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 values and appreciates the team and is an active and responsible contributor to the team. He/she values the collaboration of multiple minds and talents working together to achieve a common purpose. He/she recognizes when collaboration is appropriate and uses collaboration to facilitate solutions.
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Teamwork works when it works well. Have you ever had a good experience with a team? About 60%. How many of you have had a great experience on a team? (most)
Setting some ground rules are important, as well as understanding group dynamics. People need to take different roles at different times. You need to practice, practice, practice.
Then you need to assess this. Demonstrations, presentation, journals, surveys are all powerful. You just need to make it relevant.
Group 11 – Leadership
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Leadership (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 values and appreciates both leading and following – and knows how to move smoothly between the two. He/she can demonstrate appropriate use of several different leadership styles.
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I was most surprised by the fact that everyone in our group had a different perspective. We all agreed that co-curricular activities are important. The bottom line is about how you teach your kids. The leadership component is just discussing with your students after a project about the leadership aspect of the project, even just for 2 minutes 4 times a year. Maybe that’s not enough. You work on peer feedback.
What became difficult is how to assess this and we came up with the apprentice idea. You could be judged on how you did on a project but the most important is peer feedback. Leadership is so difficult to define. We want to expose our children to being leaders as much as we can and hopefully by the end they’ve learned something.
We had a discussion whether leaders are born or made and we didn’t come to a conclusion but we can do our best to give them some tools for it.
Group 12 – Citizenship
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
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We think it is a skill that needs to be taught from pre-kindergarten. This can be done through any kind of service and needs to start very early. The skillsets get more complicated as you get older. We’re already doing a lot of things on this that we’d like to continue, including simulations and volunteer activity but we need to do it in a comprehensive way. 
Partnerships are very important and we need to utilize our community members who are already involved in service. Senator Gay has never been asked to speak at a school in Papillion- La Vista school district and we need to reach out to our folks who are in public service.
Every senior would be involved in a project where they would be assessed for leadership skills and how well they execute.
Team 1 - Communications
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Communication Skills
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In school we seem to be doing well evidenced by the students who are here today; they are all well-spoken. Writing in all content areas is a building goal. Getting ways to communicate pre-k through 12 as a show and share is a good way to build confidence. We also talked about different kinds of writing that students could do, not only fiction but non-fiction. 
Being able to give feedback is essential and we want to give them the right way to give constructive criticism. Research is also part of communication. When a student is in a class and wants to look something up they can use their cell phones.
We want to integrate technology in being a good communicator. Using visual aids might aid us as communicators. Blogging and podcasting could be ways we do our school announcements.
Starting them early with some broadcasting skills to enable them to be in front of a camera or recording voices would be valuable. We would want them to have some experience talking in front of small groups in classes or in front of a business person.
Skyping is probably going to become more prevalent. More offsite trips to local places in the community, academies, businesses, the zoo, theatre, could be helpful too; even going to a foreign county to use the foreign language skills.
The digital portfolio is essential. This will have their writing samples in one place would be very helpful. We would do project assessment including peer and self-assessment. We could have observation checklists for the teachers for the classroom.
Team 2 – Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Leadership (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 values and appreciates both leading and following – and knows how to move smoothly between the two. He/she can demonstrate appropriate use of several different leadership styles.
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This needs to occur in experiences across the board and be an ongoing opportunity. This can happen even with the young kids too, such as when Johnny wants the red truck but Bobby has the red truck and how does he get it.
Sometimes as a parent you have to take a step back and let our kids make decisions. We need to encourage students to jump in and not wait for someone to give them the answer. We need to encourage some risks and be comfortable with trial and error. If you want to start a recycling program in your class, hand that over to your class to solve.
Assessment was interesting and similar to other groups. It is hard to assign a grade to critical thinking. The rubrics would be flexible and change with each problem. We would include some concrete contextual information as well.
The electronic portfolio will be very helpful for this too.
Team 3 – Creativity/Innovation
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Creativity/Innovation (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 is continually considering better ways to do things as well as developing original concepts. S/he is a critical thinker who draws upon his/her unique insight, talents and background to offer new perspectives, innovative solutions and powerful ideas that lead to positive outcomes.
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Students can’t lose their creativity because that’s what is going to shape the future. We want to encourage them too to be comfortable with trial and error. We want the risk takers to be admired. We want the curriculum be more process oriented. If we had more project –based work then we could look at things from multiple perspectives.
It would be great to have more complex feedback than just a grade. We want to bring in community members into the curriculum so they could be mentors. Job shadowing would also be a helpful tool.
Discussions are very helpful instead of just having lectures. This way there is more learning involved. Students prefer to have information from their peers than to be lectured at.
Parents need to be involved in what’s happening and this goes back to having the PLP. Experimental education is good too. This puts people outside of their comfort zone and not always following one path.
We made a list of assessment methods. Creativity is hard to assess because there is not one right or wrong answer.
Team 4 – Technology
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Technology (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 uses technology to gather, organize, manage and analyze information as well as applies technology appropriately to communicate and share ideas, concepts and findings.
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The definition of technology tends to vary. Usually it is anything that was invented after I was born, but for others they look at that and it’s already old. Michael came over and handed us an iPad and walked away. Now what?
Technology needs to be seamless in everything we do. That can open the door for all the different teaching styles. We want to provide information literacy. We want to ask where do we want to go as opposed to going where the technology takes us. We want to use the technology as a tool.
Students gain more by interacting with each other. It’s impossible for a teacher to know everything there is to know. This should take the pressure off the teacher. The teacher needs to be the model of this. They need to be open to learning and growing and they’ll teach the students how to use the tool.
The assessment methods could be done in a variety of ways. We don’t want to be too narrow and we want to allow the most possible options for the student. We’re creating knowledge not just to validate what we know.
Team 5 – Intellectual Curiosity and Adaptability
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Intellectual Curiosity and Adaptability (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 is a lifelong learner, has a natural curiosity and adapts to change as new information or circumstances arise.
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We thought we could learn a lot from early child development. We want to look at development milestones. We want to stimulate curiosity. We need to adapt our systems in order to recognize that students and teachers are also individuals and don’t just follow a straight path.
We need to remove some barriers such as have pre-math and pre-english but some of those students could just test out of those classes and we need to stop making them having to sit through the classes they don’t need. We need to have more hands on and more exposure to other topic areas. We have a couple of programs that do this very well such as the outdoor education and the history programs.
When people are in kindergarten all the hands are up, but by the time kids are in fifth grade how many people have their hands up to say ‘pick me’? Not many. We tend to stifle kids’ curiosities. We need to find ways to stimulate it.
We want to engage the community and families. They probably know a lot about the learning styles as well.
Our assessment methods include PLP, Gallop tools, rubrics, and we have to adapt them. We can have advisory groups. We can do this with first graders; they can draw pictures of what they learned in science. Third graders today can already do PowerPoint presentations.
Team 6 – Global/ Awareness
Assignment For the skill that your team has selected:
Global/ Awareness (draft provided to the group as a resource. This list represents an idea of what the group discussed in the activity on creating the graduate profile of 2020.) The successful graduate in 2020 understands that he/she lives in a global marketplace and that cultural diversity and international interdependence are part of the fabric of today’s society and economy.
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We would have project based learning. We can look at the situation in the Gulf right now. We can use that in history, geography, geology, sociology, math, and other subjects. We can things like that to learn.
We can use local resources and look more broadly in our region. We want to have language instruction as early as possible and relevant languages and not just the Euro-centric ones we currently offer.
A lot of our kids come from military families and perhaps we don’t pull in as many resources as are available to us. We want to develop more broad thinking in our teachers. We have a very Amero-focus in our teachers.
We need to address our fears. There seemed to be a fear yesterday in the room about the English language and immigration. We need to bring that out and discuss it. There is not a lot of diversity in this room and this will be different in 2020. We need to capitalize on the diversity we have now and expand it.
We need to have critical reflections of the students themselves. We need to help teachers make their evaluations so we can make this work.
MK: We’re going to move into our next exercise and look at what we just did through the lens of pre-K through 16.
