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A Lifetime of Learning: How a Small School Helped One Child

Follow along as we look at the education of one girl named Amanda:

Amanda was the youngest in her family, and her parents, though not wealthy, chose to send all five of their children to a small, private school. By the time Amanda reached the classrooms of her school, her siblings had already won a family reputation of being involved in extracurricular events and getting excellent grades. The teachers expected much of the same from Amanda, and they challenged her and appreciated her achievements. Amanda rose to the challenges, and she too lived up to the family reputation.

However, Amanda struggled with shyness. She had difficulties making friends, and she often found herself alone during the students’ free times. To the teachers, Amanda’s quiet demeanor was just part of her charm. To her classmates, her quietness seemed either boring or snobby. How did Amanda deal with the pain of being excluded? She developed a passion for art. Drawing pictures gave Amanda an outlet to express her many thoughts (because quiet people are usually only quiet on the outside), and it kept her busy when she could have been sitting alone in the hallway. The art teacher respected Amanda’s dedication to her art and kept a small corner of the room reserved just for her.

As she grew in her skill, Amanda entered art contests and won them. She studied all the art books her teacher lent her, and she developed a side interest in the Renaissance. Her history essay about Renaissance art received the highest grade. Amanda realized she enjoyed writing nearly as well as she enjoyed drawing. Because her teachers were dedicated to Amanda’s success, they developed a new program just for her: an independent study in which she could combine her skills in art and writing. In this self-designed class, she wrote and illustrated a children’s book, a funny little book about a penguin who mistakenly ended up at a farm instead of a zoo.

Amanda loved her independent study, and she also loved the way her teachers helped and encouraged her just enough to keep her striving for new goals. When she was an adult, Amanda realized that being in a small school gave her opportunities to grow and self-direct her studies in ways that would have been impossible in a large school. Her teachers genuinely cared for her, and they wanted to give her a meaningful education, not just an average education.

Although Amanda’s funny little picture book never was accepted by a publisher (her teacher did help her submit), the experience of writing and drawing for publication left a lasting mark on her life. She was accepted at a good college, graduated with honors, and went on to earn an MFA in Creative Writing. Now Amanda is married, has three children, is the published author of a book of short stories centered around the life of an artist, and she continues to write. People ask her why she writes, and Amanda tells them, “I have to write. It’s what I love to do.” She is still a very quiet individual, and she still finds it hard to make friends, but her shyness has no bearing on her stories and poetry. Her words are full of imagination, beauty, and the love of truth. She has no problems incorporating history, science, or art into her writing because life is about learning, and all the subjects are intrinsically connected into life.

Even though Amanda is not wealthy, a CEO of a booming business, or fabulously famous, her quiet life of learning is a triumph. Her small school accepted her as an intelligent individual, and it recognized her talents and encouraged her along the path she was already heading. We at Tenney School believe in this kind of education. We value each of our students, and we want to develop a love of learning in each mind here. We recognize that learning is only beginning at this age. With the right cultivation and environment, it will grow for an entire lifetime and bear beautiful fruit.

Please contact us to learn more about the Tenney School education.

A Lifetime of Learning: How a Small School Helped One Child2018-05-30T11:44:04-05:00

Teachers: How to Avoid the Student Data Dump

Once, students attended school to acquire knowledge. The purpose of education began at the basic level of understanding and gaining exposure to concepts we otherwise had no way to access. But the world has changed. These days, we have more information at our fingertips than any previous generation. Any question can be answered. Any fact can be obtained. We hold the knowledge of the world in a device that fits in our back pockets. And as the accessibility of information has changed, so has the purpose of education and the way teachers teach.

It is no longer the primary responsibility of the teacher to share information

More and more the preferred role of the teacher is a facilitator role, as students are asked to apply and synthesize the information that is so readily available.

Bloom’s taxonomy, a popular model for classifying learning objectives, positions remembering and understanding at the bottom of the learning pyramid. They are the most basic tasks, but historically they have been focused on heavily. This is because the higher levels of the pyramid — applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating — could not be considered until the basic knowledge was attained. But now that the knowledge is readily available, and now that easy-to-understand resources are plentiful, this is no longer the case.

Instead of helping students remember and understand, the teacher is able to put students into the role of active participants in their learning. By asking students to reach for higher levels of the taxonomy, they are not only gaining a deeper understanding of the concepts but making it more applicable to their lives. No more is learning “accomplished” when a student can recite a rote memorization list. Instead, students are asked to provide thoughtful, original feedback, and expand upon the information available to them.

Higher level thinking requires a shift in the way teachers teach, and in the way students learn

Teachers should encourage a variety of activities that promote a deeper look into the topics at hand. For example, instead of memorizing a series of dates and events during a history unit, a modern teacher will ask students to make use of that information. They may ask students to roleplay specific events as if they were the participants, to write a short story about how the modern world would be different if a historical event did not take place, or to create and defend a new set of rules that build upon those presented in the unit.

Teachers are challenged to differentiate more

As students delve more deeply into topics, they’re more likely to be presented with opportunities to express their creativity. This means structuring lessons in a way that allows them to play to their strengths, while also challenging them. Teachers should encourage their students to develop a growth mindset, and view these challenges as learning opportunities rather than failures. No more is it about a simple “right or wrong” response.

Students are encouraged to express themselves more creatively

As teachers step into the role of facilitator, students are asked to be active participants in their learning in more creative ways. As a result, they are able to feel more invested in the material. Often, lessons that extend beyond simple knowledge acquisition ask students to apply the concepts to their world, meaning they can see an immediate connection between what they are learning and their day-to-day life.

As a facilitator, you no longer need to worry about standing up and delivering a lecture your students won’t listen to or absorb. Instead, your students become active participants in the conversation, allowing them to become more well-rounded learners and encouraging them to make higher-level thinking a daily, lifelong habit.

For more information, please contact us at The Tenney School.

Teachers: How to Avoid the Student Data Dump2018-05-14T10:51:48-05:00

2018 Spring Music Performance

In case you missed it, you can check out our 2018 Spring Music Performance on our YouTube Channel. We’re really proud of how much our music students have learned. Below are links to the performances.

2018 Spring Music Performance2018-05-14T09:25:01-05:00

Scaffolding: Examining the Metaphor for Individualized Instruction

Because of the structure of today’s society and the transformations to our economic, social, and labor systems that have already started to change in the face of rapidly evolving technology, educating today’s learners is a challenge. Standardized education is losing its decades-long hold on the status quo. For years, we’ve pushed toward more and more standardized assessment in an attempt to ensure uniform quality and outcomes across educational settings ranging from elementary to graduate school.

Today, though, those trends are reversing, and what’s left in their place is a much more individualized system of instruction that requires creative teaching to reach every student. Let’s start by examining the new trends and then move into an exploration of what this means for teachers who need to scaffold their delivery in order to make sure learners all have a chance to engage deeply with the material.

The Move Away from Standardization

Many schools are moving away from standardized testing, both as a practice of measuring their own students and as a measuring tool for admission. Instead of depending on test results, many colleges are now focusing on learning outcomes, a broader term that allows for a more flexible and nuanced assessment.

The move away from standardization does not mean a move away from standards. In fact, many are embracing more flexible assessment strategies for just the opposite reason: more flexible assessment leads to better teaching.

As Chrystian Tejedor explains, “Theorists from John Dewey to Paulo Freire have warned that instrumental education ultimately creates adults who lack the critical consciousness necessary for a vibrant democracy – such as empathy, compassion, and commitment to participatory public values.”

Fewer standardized elements simultaneously give a teacher more room to teach meaningfully and make their job more challenging. After all, individualized differentiation is just a matter of slowing down delivery or making sure to give instructions in audio and visual format when the content is all standardized. Once you move to project-based learning, student-led activities, and other more complex learning strategies, differentiation becomes trickier.

Scaffolding as Solution

Scaffolding is the key to differentiating complex, meaningful assignments. The term is a metaphor and calls upon the imagery of literal scaffolds, temporary structures that assist workers in reaching parts of a building while it is being erected or repaired. The structures can be moved to reach different parts of the building and eventually removed completely.

That’s where the metaphor comes from. Teachers who can scaffold their assignments give everyone the same goal, but they give different levels of assistance and guidance based on students’ individual needs. Teachers learn to introduce or remove supports at just the right moment, constantly challenging students to improve their own skills without throwing them into a challenge that is too big for them to handle.

Successful scaffolding requires careful attention to individual students, compassion for their needs, and creative thinking on the part of the teacher. It’s hard work, but it is worth it. Scaffolded assignments lead to independent thinkers who are confident in their own abilities and who have a fuller, more robust understanding of the content.

What Does Scaffolding Look Like?

One place where scaffolding is particularly useful is in project-based learning. Project-based learning refers to instruction that asks students to create something instead of simply answering questions about the content. It is a very popular teaching strategy because it increases student engagement, is more enjoyable for both teacher and student, and leads to a deeper understanding of the material rather than the superficial understanding required by standardized testing.

Project-based learning requires the teacher to hand over a lot of control and let the students take it on themselves. In order to ensure that students don’t get lost in the shuffle, scaffolding strategies allow the teacher to step in when needed without taking away the autonomy and independence that makes the project work. In practice, scaffolding can look like this:

  • Pairing students up into teams to discuss their progress, allowing them to learn from one another rather than just be given the instructions up front.
  • Modeling by thinking aloud, especially in the early stages of the project to help students come up with their own topics and approaches.
  • Handing out graphic organizers that encourage students to create organized timelines for completion of the project.
  • Walking around the room while students are working and asking probing questions when a student seems stuck or unmotivated.

The move away from standardization and into more holistic types of learning is an excellent sign for our future. As standardized tasks are largely being automated through technological advancements, our learners will need to be ready for a future where their creativity, flexible thinking, and problem-solving skills are called upon every day.

To learn more about how your learners can build these kinds of skills at The Tenney School, contact us today.

 

Scaffolding: Examining the Metaphor for Individualized Instruction2018-05-07T14:03:56-05:00
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