discussion4-2

Chapter 4

Deepening Learning

Develop Clarity of Learning Goals

The first step in building precision and consistent practices is to be clear about the learning goals. For the last quarter-century, education has been giving superficial lip service to 21st-century skills without much-concerted action or impact. The energy has been invested in describing sets of skills without much robust implementation or effective ways to measure them. If we want to mobilize concerted action and a profound shift in practice, then governments, districts, and schools need to develop clarity of outcomes and build a shared understanding of these by educators, students, and parents. The CCSS is a step in the direction of more in-depth learning.

NPDL is developing clarity of learning goals for what it calls deep learning. Deep learning involves using new knowledge to solve real-life problems and incorporates a range of skills and attributes. The global partnership is working to define with specificity six deep learning competencies (the 6Cs), describe what the learning would look like for each of these, identify the pedagogies that foster those competencies and design new measures to assess student progress in developing them. Their deep learning competency framework and initial descriptors of each competency and its dimensions are displayed in Figure 4.

Citizenship		Communication
Character	6Cs	Critical Thinking
Creativity		Collaboration

Communication:

• Coherent communication using a range of modes

• Communication designed for different audiences

• Substantive, multimodal communication

• Reflection on and use of the process of learning to improve communication

Critical Thinking

• Evaluating information and arguments

• Making connections and identifying patterns

• Problem-solving

• Meaningful knowledge construction • Experimenting, reflecting, and taking action on ideas in the real-world

Collaboration

• Working interdependently as a team

• Interpersonal and team-related skills

• Social, emotional, and intercultural skills

• Management of team dynamics and challenges

Creativity

• Economic and social entrepreneurialism

• Asking the right inquiry questions

• Considering and pursuing novel ideas and solutions

• Leadership for action

Character

• Learning to learn

• Grit, tenacity, perseverance, and resilience

• Self-regulation and responsibility

• Empathy for and contributing to the safety and benefit of others

Citizenship

• A global perspective

• Understanding of diverse values and worldviews

• A genuine interest in human and environmental sustainability

• Solving ambiguous, complex, and authentic problems

The overall purpose of the 6Cs is the well-being of the whole student but also the well-being of the group and society as a whole. Learning becomes the development of competencies for the successful negotiation of an uncertain world. Learning is about developing the personal and interpersonal and cognitive capabilities that allow one to diagnose what is going on in the complex, constantly shifting human and technical context of real-world practice and then match an appropriate response (Fullan & Scott, 2014).

In this context, Fullan and Scott (2014) suggest that well-being and success in life incorporate two big Es: entrepreneurialism and ethics. Increasingly in what we might call the citizen of the future and indeed the present, there should be no distinction between being able to work with your hands and your mind. Entrepreneurialism is being able to resolve complex personal and societal challenges locally and globally. Entrepreneurialism does not just pertain to business endeavors. Every time a group tries to solve a social problem (youth crime, homelessness, bullying, and so on), they require the entrepreneurial skills of critical thinking, problem-solving, innovative ideas, collaboration and communication, and the qualities of character.

The mark of an educated person is that of a doer (a doing-thinker; a thinker-doer)—they learn to do and do to learn. They are impatient with lack of action. Doing is not something they decide to do—daily life is doing, as natural as breathing the air. Along with doing is an exquisite awareness of the ethics of life. Small-scale ethics is how they treat others; large-scale ethics concern humankind and the evolution of the planet. When we change our education system and when hordes of people are acting individually and collectively in entrepreneurial and ethical ways, the world changes and keeps on changing with built-in adaptation. sIn strong critical thinking skills such as interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students will be not only able to think deeply and independently but also be able to articulate the “why” behind their learning. Students are stretched to use concepts rather than memorize them. Further, these strategies are based on the belief that if students are to flourish in the 21st century, they must take an active role in their education (Hamilton, personal communication, November 2014).

Build Precision in Pedagogy

Schools and districts that make sustained improvement in learning for all students develop explicit frameworks or models to guide the learn- ing process. This instructional guidance system (Bryk, Bender Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010) is crucial because it represents the “black box” of implementation. The history of education is heavily weighted toward lofty goals and outcomes (usually poorly assessed) but weak on pedagogy. Our Coherence Framework makes pedagogical precision a priority and a driving force.

Instructional or pedagogical (we use the terms interchangeably) systems must include the development of at least the following four components:

• Build a common language and knowledge base. Cultivate system-wide engagement by involving all levels of the system to capture and create a model for learning and teaching. Identify the learning goals and principles that underlie the learning process. This collaborative approach builds language to promote meaningful conversations about practice.

• Identify proven pedagogical methods. The process typically begins with an analysis of best practices currently used in the district and an examination of the research to validate the model. Ownership and commitment emerge at all levels of the system study, work, and learn together.

• Build capacity. Provide consistent and sustained capacity building based on research-proven practices to build precision in pedagogy. Teachers need “a deep multidimensional knowledge that allows them both to assess situations quickly and to draw upon a variety of repertoires for intervention. Individual teachers possess such knowledge but it is largely invisible to the field as a whole. There are few ways for it to be gathered, codified and shared” (Mehta, Schwartz, & Hess, 2012). Collective capacity building and the collaborative work processes in previous chapters make the knowledge and skills accessible and visible to all.

• Provide clear causal links to impact. Pedagogies should specify the two-way street between learning and assessment. Such a process serves to strengthen the specificity of instructional practice and its causal efficacy in making a difference to learning. This is what Hattie (2012) is getting at with his mantra “know thy impact.” Knowing your impact is not just a matter of being responsible for outcomes but it also reverberates back to clarify how teaching and learning can be strengthened.

In the NPDL work, we have identified three strands of expertise that teachers need to weave together if they are to support deeper learning. These are precision in pedagogical partnerships that engage students in codesigning authentic, relevant learning, learning environments that foster risk-taking and 24/7 connections, and leveraging digital, so it accelerates learning.

We examine each of the three strands of the NPDL depicted in Figure 4.3 and then

Pedagogical Partnerships

The first strand recognizes that teachers must possess deep expertise in instructional and assessment practices if they are to maximize the impact and use of digital to accelerate learning. These new pedagogies build on the foundation of proven pedagogical practices but fuse them with emerging innovative practices that foster the creation and application of new ideas and knowledge in real life. Educators must hone a deep understanding of the learning process and a repertoire of strategies if they are to use digital as an accelerator. The magic is not in the device but the scaffolding of experiences and challenges finely tuned to the needs and interests of students and maximized through relevance, authenticity, and real-world connections.

with a culture that fosters learning for all. If the adults are not thinking at high levels, it is unlikely the students will be either. Districts and schools that get results have clarity about the elements of their instructional system. They build knowledge from the research combined with best practices in their context and then ensure that everyone has the skills and resources to apply them appropriately.

Schools and districts who want to build a common language and knowledge base and identify proven pedagogical practices may want to consider the work of John Hattie in Visible Learning (2009). He reviews the impact of instructional strategies and concludes that what is needed to raise the bar and close the gap is consensus and skill development by all teachers engaged with groups of students around the most impactful strategies. He differentiates the role of teachers as facilitators that has a .17 impact on learning with the role of teachers as an activator at .87. The role of teachers as activators is far more powerful as it is more active in engaging student learning and challenging the next practice.

No learning-teaching process is complete without addressing the black box of assessment. In our NPDL work, we are not only identifying the pedagogies that affect learning but also creating new tools and measures for student success. We are shifting from measuring what is easy to measure what matters. If we want students to develop the 6Cs of communication, critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, character, and citizenship, we need to be able to define and measure those competencies. To that end, we have created learning progressions that describe the pathway many students would follow in developing a competency. These tools become the anchor for meaningful discussion as groups of teachers design more meaningful learning based on the competencies; students and teachers develop success criteria, monitor progress, and evaluate growth. Teams of teachers then collaboratively examine student work and processes to analyze the quality of both the learning design and student progress. They use these data to identify the next appropriate learning challenge.

The new pedagogies go deeper than changing pedagogy between students and teachers; they explore more deeply new roles for students. One of the most distinctive differences between traditional learning and the new pedagogies is the role students play and “the new learning partnerships” that emerge student to student, student to teacher, and student to the external world. New learning goals require changes in how relationships between students, teachers, families, and communities are structured. The shift toward active learning partnerships requires students to take greater charge of their own and each other’s learning inside and outside the classroom. The new learning partnerships have the potential to create more authentic and meaningful learning locally, nationally, and globally. This more active role increases student engagement. The shift to a new balance in decision making is inevitable because students are no longer willing to be passive recipients of learning defined by someone else, are digitally connected to massive amounts of new ideas and information, and respond to traditional academic approaches with passivity once they have foundational skills.

Schools and districts that embrace the new learning partnership are seeing exponential growth in student engagement and success. We filmed recently in W. G. Davis Middle School in Ontario, wherein 2009 students were disengaged, disruptive behaviors were on the rise, and achievement was dropping. The principal and staff collaborated over several months to find a solution. They eventually determined that their students needed better role models and the kind of digital engagement they valued outside the school. They realized that they were the ones who had to become role models for their students. This began a process of implementing more authentic learning using problem-based units that crossed traditional content boundaries and implementing a new bring your device (BYOD) policy. The shift to cross-disciplinary planning and increased technology use caused teachers to move outside of their comfort zone. They began using new strategies for co-planning and using digital resources supporting one another and feeling supported to take risks and even fail at first. Almost immediately, they noticed their roles with students were changing dramatically. Students were more engaged and teacher time in the classroom was spent on giving feedback and challenging the next step in learning rather than in delivering content. As they focused on meaningful, relevant learning using what we are calling the new pedagogies, they also saw more than a 20 percent leap in reading and writing scores over three years on the provincial testing (Video: W. G. Davis, www.michaelfullan.ca).

The new learning partnerships we saw at W. G. Davis take time and expertise to develop. Meaningful learning partnerships with students can be accelerated when teachers understand the three elements of the student learning model, depicted in Figure 4.4.

This model goes beyond the notions of student voice and agency to combine both internal development and external connections to the world. We are not talking here about student forums or interest surveys (although they may be part of the approach) but about a deeper engagement of students as codesigners and co-learners. The three elements of the model all contribute to the development of students as active, engaged learners who are prepared to learn for life and experience teaching as life. Educators need to be aware of these critical elements to design learning and environments that maximize student potential to thrive. Moreover—and this is crucial—none of these three components are fixed variables. They can be altered through intervention. This domain represents a vastly underutilized set of factors that would be very high yield (low cost, high impact). The student learning model then focuses on the three elements of student development and the ways they become active participants in my learning, my belonging, and my aspirations.

My Learning

The first element refers to the need for students to take responsibility for their learning and to understand the process of learning if it is to be maximized. This requires students to develop skills in learning to learn, giving and receiving feedback, and enacting student agency. • Learning to learn requires that students build metacognition about their learning. They begin to define their own learning goals and success criteria, monitor their learning and critically examine their work, and incorporate feedback from peers, teachers, and others to deepen their awareness of how they function in the learning process. • Feedback is essential to improving performance. As students make progress in mastering the learning process, the role of the teacher gradually shifts from explicitly structuring the learning task, toward providing feedback, activating the next learning challenge, and continuously developing the learning environment. • Student agency emerges as students take a more active role in co-developing learning tasks and assessing results. It is more than participation; it is engaging students in real decision making and a willingness to learn together.

My Belonging

The second element of belonging is a crucial foundation for all human beings who are social by nature and crave purpose, meaning, and connectedness to others.

• Caring environments help students to flourish and meet the basic need of all humans to feel they are respected and belong. • Relationships are integral to preparing for authentic learning. As students develop both interpersonal connections and intrapersonal insight, they are able to move to successively more complex tasks in groups and independently. Managing collaborative relationships and being self-monitoring are skills for life. My Aspirations Student results can be dramatically affected by the expectations they hold of themselves and the perceptions they believe others have for them .

• Expectations are a key determinant of success, as noted in Hattie’s research. Students must believe they can achieve and also feel that others believe that. They must codetermine success criteria and be engaged in measuring their growth. Families, students, and teachers can together foster higher expectations through deliberate means— sometimes simply by discussing current and ideal expectations and what might make them possible to achieve. • Needs and interests are a powerful accelerator for motivation and engagement. Teachers who tap into the natural curiosity and interest of students are able to use that as a springboard to deeply engage students in tasks that are relevant, authentic, and examine concepts and problems in depth.

Learning Environments

The second strand that fosters the transformation to deep learning is a shift in the learning environment. Quality learning environments that use the pedagogical practices and build the learning partnerships described previously need to meet four criteria: be irresistibly engaging for students and teachers, allows 24/7 access to learning, cultivate social learning, and foster risk-taking and innovation. Students thrive in this type of learning environment and so do teachers.

How, then, do we transform today’s classrooms from the traditional status quo to places of energy, curiosity, imagination, and deep learning? A recent video by the inventor of the Rubik’s cube, Erno Rubik, sheds light on the dilemma when he asks, “How do we get teachers to stop teaching answers but instead to help students generate questions that are waiting for answers?” There is no one recipe for creating classrooms that provoke deep learning, but as we look across the early innovators, we see a few common characteristics. In schools on the pathway to deepening knowledge, we see the following:

• Studentsaskingthequestions.Theyhaveskillsandlanguagetopur- sue inquiry and are not passively taking in the answers from teachers. • Questions valued above solutions. The process of learning, discovering, and conveying is as essential as a result. • Varied models for learning. The selection of approaches is matched to student needs and interests. Students are supported to reach for the

next challenge. • Explicitconnectionstoreal-world application.Learningdesignsare

not left to chance but scaffolded and built on relevance and meaning. • Collaboration. Students possess skills to collaborate within the

classroom and beyond.

• The assessment of learning is embedded, transparent, and authentic. Students define personal goals, monitor progress toward success criteria, and engage in feedback with peers and others.

Leveraging Digital

The third strand of the deep learning trio is leveraging digital. We have purposely moved away from the term technology to signal that this discussion is not about devices but about learning that can be amplified, accelerated, and facilitated by interaction with the digital world. This demands a rethinking of the ways we use technology. It’s not about putting a device in front of every student and leaving them to learn independently. That will only result in students who are digital isolates. It is about bringing the digital world inside the process of learning and building collaboration, within and outside the classroom, in ways that are authentic and relevant. Alan November (2012), a pioneer in the meaningful use of technology for over three decades, describes this new view of the digital world as “transforming learning beyond the $1000 pencil.” Just adding devices is not enough; mindsets and behaviors need to change for both students and teachers. He emphasizes that students must be taught how to use technology appropriately, safely, and ethically to gain understanding at the highest levels (Bloom’s taxonomy or depth of knowledge). Teachers then “guide students in the complex tasks of innovation and problem solving, and in doing work that makes a contribution to the learning processes of others” (November 2012, p. 18).

The challenge for leaders is to help educators move from uses of technology as a substitution to methods of digital that provide value. If I’m a student studying a unit on poverty and I use technology to create a PowerPoint instead of handwriting a report, there may be little value-added. In contrast, if I interview people in four global communities who are living in poverty, synthesize that information, and create my report, there has been tremendous value-added through the layers of critical thinking, communication, character, and global citizenship.

Making the New Pedagogies “gel”

Building capacity in all three strands of the new pedagogies takes persistence and commitment. We find an excellent example of sustained focus that gets new and better results in our work with Napa Valley Unified School District. The district is making progress in building on powerful pedagogical practices—particularly problem-based learning and leveraging digital. Napa has developed a clear instructional focus on what they term their 4Cs and combines that with the growing use of digital. The approach began more than a decade ago at New Tech High but has evolved to engage the entire district. Napa intentionally built the capacity of teachers in every school, over time, to use the new pedagogy and then used the addition of digital devices to enrich the thinking and learning. They have taken an approach to innovation by starting with some schools but using that learning in rapid cycles of reflection and doing to diffuse the learning to all schools. Each year they host an “Educators Exchange” to share the knowledge they are gaining with their schools but also laterally with other school districts. Schools and districts need to foster collaborative inquiry into the three strands of the new pedagogies: pedagogical partnerships, learn- ing environments, and leveraging digital. There is no simple recipe; this is a job for professional educators who must develop the expertise and knowledge base that is a foundation for fostering deeper learning. The simplexity is knowing the elements and integrating them so that every child has the learning experience that challenges and supports them. The challenge for schools and districts is to build momentum across all classrooms.

Once districts and schools have clarified the learning goals and developed precision in pedagogical practices, they must focus on the “how” of shifting practice. They need to identify the processes that will support a shift in practice for all educators. We will highlight the key attributes and then illustrate with examples in action. As we look at districts that are making the shift to support deep learning, we see that several conditions are in place. Superintendents strategies noted in Chapter 3. • The model being lead learners. They don’t send people to capacity building sessions but learn alongside them. • They shape a culture that fosters an expectation of learning for everyone, taking risks and making mistakes but learning from them. • They build capacity vertically and horizontally in the organization with persistence and single-mindedness until it affects learning. How do schools and districts tackle the shift to deep learning? The first step in making a change is to assess the starting point. We offer a few questions for reflection about your capacity to shift the practices in your school, district, or state.

Assessing Capacity

Teachers: 1. Do teachers possess knowledge and skills in pedagogical practices? 2. Do teachers have knowledge and skills to develop new learning partnerships? 3. Do teachers have the knowledge and skills to create learning environments that move beyond the traditional classroom? 4. Do teachers have the knowledge and skills to use digital resources to accelerate learning?

Schools:

1. Do school leaders have the knowledge and skills to create a culture of learning for teachers and students? 2. Do schools have collaborative learning structures and process? 3. Do schools have access to models of effective practice and opportunities to share laterally and vertically?

2. Districts:

3. 1. Does the district have clarity of learning goals? 2. Have high-yield pedagogical practices been identified and shared? 3. Does the district create a culture of learning for all educators? 4. Does the district provide resources for collaborative learning structures and processes to thrive?

We use examples to illustrate how schools and districts can use the elements of the Coherence Framework to assess their starting point and then either focus on continuous improvement of the basic literacies or sustain those basics while innovating with deeper learning. The first school example is Cochrane Collegiate Academy in North Carolina that in 2008 lacked clarity of goals, had little precision or consistency in pedagogy, and had weak capacity and culture to support change. They needed to focus relentlessly on continuous improvement of the basics. The second school example is Park Manor Senior Public School in Ontario, which had some clarity of goals, good pedagogy, and teacher capacity but was underperforming. They combined continuous improvement with innovating with deep learning and digital and saw their writing scores soar.

Cochrane Collegiate Academy

We look first to a school that was able to engage an underperforming student population with dramatic results using pedagogical precision and capacity building. In 2007, Cochrane Collegiate Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, was listed as one of the 30 lowest-performing schools in North Carolina. By 2011, the number of students performing at grade level had doubled and the achievement gap had been reduced by 35 per- cent in reading and math. Most notable was that their growth was 3.5 times that of North Carolina in mathematics and twice the rate of growth in reading. Cochrane serves a population of 640 students in grades 6 through 8. Eighty-seven percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, 60 percent are African American, and 30 percent are Latino. In a recent Edutopia (n.d.) video, teachers described the situation in 2008 as out of control with students running and screaming in the halls, weak performance at 20 percent in reading and math, and good teachers choosing to leave the profession. Staff attributes their success to their principal who brought out their potential using five key components: 1. Use quality professional development that is research-based, consistent, convenient, relevant, and differentiated. 2. Use time wisely by flipping faculty meeting time to focus on learning, not administration. 3. Trust your teachers to determine the professional learning they need next. 4. Facilitate, don’t dictate by providing teachers with what they need and allowing them to make decisions. 5. Expect the best by holding everyone to high standards. Guided by research, they identified their top 10 teaching practices and engaged weekly in professional learning to help them implement the practices more effectively. Their non-negotiable list of strategies included the following: essential questions, activating strategy, relevant vocabulary, limited lecture, graphic organizer, the student movement, higher-order thinking questions, summarize, rigorous, and student-centered.

What differentiates this school is not which top 10 instructional strategies they selected but the fact that they built a common language, knowledge base, and set of practices about quality learning and teaching. They instituted pr.actices and processes such as weekly professional learning targeted to this instructional guidance system. Strong professional relationships, collaborative work, and learning partnerships with their students are making the difference. They have work still to be done but are on a trajectory for success.

Park Manor Senior Public School

The second school example is Park Manor, which serves grades 6, 7, and 8 students just outside of Toronto. It is a normal school with the same standard resources of all schools in that district. In Stratosphere (2013c), Fullan profiled the innovations at Park Manor for two reasons. First, they increased scores on the Ontario assessment, which measures higher-order skills, from 42 percent to 83 percent in just four years. Second, they applied what we are calling the three strands of the new pedagogies to shift practice across the entire school. Park Manor’s stated mission is to develop “global critical thinkers collaborating to change the world.” The goal is clear and concise, and everyone shares it. Many schools have inspiring goals, but Park Manor was an early innovator in developing a clear strategy for moving forward. Their approach was to build a collaborative culture that was learning together how to do this work. James Bond, the principal, and Liz Anderson, the learning coordinator, facilitated a process where they and the teachers developed clarity about what learning needed to be like to serve their students. They developed as a staff what they call an accelerated learning framework to guide the transition from goals to action (see Figure 4.5). Over two years, they developed several versions of the framework and still see it as a work in progress. Teachers explained the following:

We begin with the student and then embed the 6Cs into everything. From there, we develop the learning goals, success criteria, productive learning tasks and then make decisions about the most appropriate pedagogy. Only then do we consider the digital tools and resources that will accelerate the learning? (Video at www.michaelfullan.ca) While they are committed to incorporating digital, they learned early on that pedagogy had to be the driver with digital acting as an accelerator. Visitors to the school are always impressed that every student can articulate their learning goals and success criteria, the reasons for the digital or pedagogical strategy they may be using, and how the tools are meeting their learning needs.

Three indicators of success have evolved: first, gains in student achievement have been significant; second, the school uses success criteria and evidence to determine the effectiveness of the framework as it relates to student learning; and third, the notion of developing a learn- ing framework has been taken up by other schools across North America. Schools and districts are seeing the development of a learning framework as a powerful process to build shared language, knowledge, and expertise. The framework serves to clarify the small number of goals, identify the pedagogical practices that need to be in every teacher’s repertoire, and provide a focus for capacity building that gets results.

deep learning

pedacogical parternships

leveraging digital

learning environments