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Equity is not a Spectator Sport

Equity is not a Spectator Sport

stressed high school studentThese past 18 months have provided me with the opportunity to learn several important life lessons. Many of these have been around the issues of systemic racism. I deepened my understanding of how the narratives I was raised on were false and did not paint a true picture of the foundations of this country and how white people have leveraged institutional racism and white supremacy policies to retain and grow their power.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, I immersed myself in reading books like How to Be an Anti-Racist, The Color of Law, and I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. At the same time, I was learning about the pain and anguish of what it is like to be Black in America through my colleagues at LINC. The messages they shared about their experiences were excruciating and really woke me up to their pain.

stressed high school studentAt LINC, we are deeply invested in our values, including trust and equity, and we spend time creating safe spaces to grow and learn. Recently, I volunteered to join LINC’s Equity Planning and Communications Committee as the next stage in our ongoing equity work. Part of our work is to redraft LINC’s statement on racial equity, one in which we affirm our strong focus on racial equity to support the most marginalized students. After a lengthy discussion of what we wanted to include, based on our fundamental belief in targeted universalism, to lift up every student, a question was posed about who wanted to take the first stab at creating the draft statement. I felt hesitant, uncomfortable, and believed that as a white woman it was not my place to write our racial equity statement. It was then when a colleague, who is a Black woman, pushed me out of my comfort zone and suggested that I take the first stab at it. I felt my heart race and my insides get knotted up in anxiety. There’s this uncomfortable space where white people feel confused about when to speak up for fear of not allowing voices from people of color. But then she said, “People of color don’t have the playbook on this work,” and I realized that often as white people engaged in equity work, we sit on the sidelines and expect our colleagues of color to lead us. She also said, “equity is not a spectator sport,” which inspired the title of this piece. At that moment, I realized how faulty that paradigm is and that we all need to engage in equity work and take risks to build a more equitable educational system and society where every person can flourish and have the support and opportunities to reach their full potential.

stressed high school studentSo, several days later, I sat down and researched the concept of targeted universalism. This approach makes so much sense:

Targeted universalism means setting universal goals pursued by targeted processes to achieve those goals. Within a targeted universalism framework, universal goals are established for all groups concerned. The strategies developed to achieve those goals are targeted, based upon how different groups are situated within structures, culture, and across geographies to obtain the universal goal. Targeted universalism is goal-oriented, and the processes are directed in service of the explicit, universal goal.

Then I set out to draft our updated LINC Racial Equity statement. It was a challenge, I felt scared to mess up, but I am so glad I was pushed to grow and learn from this experience. With some reluctance, I shared my draft. And to my relief, it was greeted with support and enthusiasm as well as constructive feedback. We are working on our final draft as a committee now, and I think we all learned how to break unhelpful norms and push each other as part of this process. It was a truly generative LINC experience and my understanding of why we must prioritize racial equity grew exponentially. I look forward to unveiling our new statement for you soon. I encourage all of you to get off the sidelines in your own organization or school’s equity work and take a risk. As white people, we need to be in this work side by side with our colleagues of color to make the change we all strive for.

What Our Students Learned (NOT LOST!) During the Pandemic

student working through remote learningAs a mom of three kids and a professional working in the education innovation field, this has been an intensely challenging year. While we engage in many conversations about what we lost during this pandemic, and we cannot understate the loss in terms of life, I’d like to focus on what our students learned during the pandemic.

We saw an unparalleled leap forward in innovation that enabled more student voice, choice, and autonomy. For the past decade, I’ve worked on transforming American classrooms into more student-centered and personalized learning environments. This has often been an uphill battle, fighting against many entrenched practices and resistance to change. The silver lining of the pandemic is that many of these desired shifts were forced upon our educational system by the need for remote and hybrid learning.

As school systems worked diligently to shift rapidly to virtual teaching, educators and leaders offered students more voice in decision making. Students gained flexibility with a move away from seat-time requirements into asynchronous models where they had a choice over when, where, and how they completed work. With this move away from in-class seat time, we developed an understanding that learning can take place in all types of environments and that by offering these different learning opportunities, some students flourished in ways they were not able to in traditional classrooms. We saw that when students drive their own learning, they can do amazing things. Students thrive when teachers respect their choices and understand their needs. Students could demonstrate their mastery through invention, projects, and alternative assessment methods in a move away from standardized testing.

We saw teachers engage students who were normally quiet or in the shadows by using collaborative tools such as Google Docs or Jamboard. These tools enable teachers to engage all students, sometimes allowing for anonymous posting, rather than asking for volunteers which often engaged the same group of students who felt comfortable sharing in a large group. This is just one example of alternative engagement opportunities facilitated by ed-tech tools that worked for a broader set of students.

Students gained independence over their schedules and loved it. My own daughter flourished with the additional freedom remote learning offered. As a result, we should rethink our bathroom, break, food, and other policies which honor students’ ability to make good choices and create a more flexible learning environment. We also saw families gain more tools to support their students. We’ve seen families, particularly of students of color, who recognized how poorly our education systems have served their children in the past with substandard instruction and more aggressive discipline. They have discovered other educational options for their children to learn which better met their needs. These families were able to take back some control and choice, and they won’t go back to the old “normal.” We need to continue pushing for equity in our classrooms!

This collection of experiences helped us to imagine a new education paradigm. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a bold change and leave behind the old normal, replacing it with an improved system that offers students more voice, choice, and autonomy in their learning, preparing them for the world they will face as they enter the workforce. I hope we don’t turn back but move forward boldly. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what students learned in the pandemic.

Reach out to me on Twitter @jenniferawolfe or via email jenniferwolfe@linclearning.com.

Introducing the From Pandemic to Progress Series

From Pandemic to ProgressOur team at LINC is working with educators across the globe on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine education, enabling all learners to meet their full potential. This collaborative team effort has resulted in a “Pandemic to Progress” professional development strategy based on six key actions to support post-pandemic teaching and learning:

  1. Build a culture and mindset focused on equity that recognizes and builds on student assets
  2. Address the trauma that students and staff have experienced by intentionally building community and addressing SEL upon re-entry, and in an ongoing, integrated way
  3. Plan for acceleration, not retention, with high expectations and targeted instruction for all students
  4. Address the individual needs of all students through a renewed focus on personalized learning- leveraging the innovation, devices, curriculum and skills that were acquired during the pandemic
  5. Upgrade assessment practices for equity and student ownership, with increased opportunities for feedback and revision
  6. Create leaders who understand next-generation learning and who empower teacher agency, innovation, and risk-taking to create future-forward classrooms

Starting next week, we will share a 6-week series where we will focus on one of the action steps, introducing resources and strategies for implementing it. Throughout the summer, we will launch new LINCspring cycles, LINCstream Live workshops, blogs, and additional resources to support you in getting ready for a post-pandemic school environment. 

As a starting point, I invite you to take this Assessment to determine your readiness for implementing these six steps. Upon completion, you will receive personalized recommendations to accelerate learning in summer school, intervention programs, and during the instructional day. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what other supports you need as we strive towards creating student-centered, equitable, and personalized post-pandemic classrooms. You can email me at jenniferwolfe@linclearning.com or find me on Twitter at @jenniferawolfe. And check back here for some great, upcoming blogs and resources!

Using ESSER Funds to Support PD Focused on Student Acceleration

Using ESSER Funds for PDOver the last year, there have been several major pieces of legislation passed that provide funding to the nation’s K-12 schools. Congress has provided financial support through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. (Click on chart to enlarge the graphic.) Funds are allocated to each state in the same proportion as their Title I, Part A grants. In March 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act included $13 billion in ESSER funds. In December 2020, an additional $54 billion for ESSER II was allocated through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act. And most recently in March 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) authorized another $122 billion for ESSER III (also called “ARP ESSER”).

Congress is offering districts quite a bit of flexibility in how they can use ESSER Funds. They can use them on any “activity authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.” Additionally, ESSER II and III legislation specifies that funds can be used to address “learning loss.” Your ESSER funds can be used for a variety of purposes including professional development, summer learning, and identifying and addressing unfinished learning.

At LINC, our team of experts designed a “Pandemic to Progress” personalized professional development package which is aligned with allowable uses of ESSER Funds. This strategy is based on six key actions to support post-pandemic teaching and learning:

  1. Build a culture and mindset focused on equity that recognizes and builds on student assets
  2. Address the trauma that students and staff have experienced by intentionally building community and addressing SEL upon re-entry, and in an ongoing, integrated way
  3. Plan for acceleration, not retention, with high expectations and targeted instruction for all students
  4. Address the individual needs of all students through a renewed focus on personalized learning- leveraging the innovation, devices, curriculum and skills that were acquired during the pandemic
  5. Upgrade assessment practices for equity and student ownership, with increased opportunities for feedback and revision
  6. Create leaders who understand next-generation learning and who empower teacher agency, innovation, and risk-taking to create future-forward classrooms

I invite you to take this Assessment to determine your readiness for implementing these six steps. Following the Assessment, you will receive personalized recommendations your organization can take to accelerate learning in summer school, intervention programs, and during the instructional day.

Through our Pandemic to Progress Professional Learning, your team will have:

  • the support of a LINCspring coach,
  • access to live workshops, and
  • a library of modules and other resources within the award-winning LINCspring coaching and professional learning platform.

By using your ESSER funds towards professional development, you will be making a valuable investment in your educators to support them in creating student-centered, equitable and engaging classrooms as we head back to school next year.

Building Student-Agency in Hybrid and Remote Classrooms

“I want my students to be more independent” and “I want my students to develop more intrinsic motivation.” These are comments I’m hearing from teachers across the country regardless of the model of instruction they are working in.  Most teachers I work with initially believe that the first step to developing student agency is to offer classroom structures like more student choice or “early finisher work”. And yet even with those structures in place, we still have students, including high-performing students, who come to us and say “Ms. Schuster, tell me what to do next?” For teachers who have been trying to develop student agency, a comment like this is always a blow to the gut. But why does it keep it happening? I believe the key to solving this challenge is to focus on classroom culture, not just structures.

When I talk to teachers about this dilemma, one that has become a more urgent need during remote and hybrid instruction, I ask them about what culture they have developed around student self-efficacy and collaboration. Are they explicitly having conversations with their students about why self-efficacy as a student is important? Are they explaining to students how they can practice those skills? And, are they highlighting best practices when students are taking more ownership in their classrooms?  This is where I see a lightbulb go off and they say “Hmm, I don’t know if I’ve done that.”

Peter Drucker, a business author and consultant, once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – meaning that if your culture is not in place, whatever strategy you are trying to implement in your organization, group or classroom, will not be successful. If our hope is to further develop student agency, to truly have self-directed, collaborative learners (our strategy), we can’t just think about systems and routines, we need to develop the culture in our classrooms first. 

At LINC, we define classroom culture as “the way of thinking, behaving, and working that exists in a classroom” or more simply put, student mindset

 

Introducing LINC’s Racial Equity Professional Development Library

Learning Inclusivity Catalyst

Over the last several months, the team at LINC partnered with a smart group of experienced racial equity scholars and facilitators to create a compelling set of resources to help educators in the pursuit of a more just and equal society. We are pleased to announce the launch of the Learning Inclusivity Catalyst, our new Racial Equity Professional Development Library. Leveraging over 15 years of adult learning science and foundational research like Critical Race Theory, LINC developed a scalable, practical, and affordable approach to fostering racial equity in classrooms. 

As we expressed in our company statement earlier this year, Our Commitment to Reflection, Action, and Discomfort, we understand that racism runs deep in the United States and is inextricably tied to the entire history and making of this country. We also believe that there is no neutral position on racism. Now more than ever, we need everyone to be part of the solution, not just people of color. The roots of racism are embedded in the fabric of this country and we must be honest, be willing to be uncomfortable, and move beyond empathy to action if we expect to see change. 

The Racial Equity Library grows from our belief that we must confront racism directly. LINC wants to create learning opportunities for educators to reflect deeply and do the hard work of examining their beliefs, values, and attitudes to better understand how they have shaped our culture and institutions. We each have a personal responsibility to become better than we have been.  The Library in LINCspring is a series of eight professional development experiences for teachers and leaders which can be self-paced or completed in facilitated cohorts. These learning modules, supported by our expert team, will strengthen awareness of implicit bias and harmful policies, while helping to increase student voice, representation, and agency. Topics include:

  • Implicit Bias in the Classroom
  • Examining Educational Institutional Racism
  • Problem-Solving Racial Inequity in Education
  • Reflecting on Behavioral Norms & Consequences in Schools
  • Counter-Narratives and Reflection Toward Action and Change
  • Leveraging Blended Practices to Foster Equity
  • Organizational Leadership & Culture: Analyzing Problems of Practice
  • Self-Reflection: Seeing Equity Through the Lens of a White Female

As educators, as education leaders, as coaches, as teachers– our next responses and actions are absolutely critical. We must act. In order to create truly equitable classrooms for all of our students, especially students of color, we invite you to engage in this hard work, beginning with ourselves. Engaging in these cycles will be uncomfortable and empowering. This is your opportunity to support racial equity system-wide. 

As we share this premium Racial Equity Library, we’d love to hear from you about what actions you are taking to make a difference in your classrooms, schools, and districts. We also welcome your feedback on what we have created and what else you would like to see in our Library. Let us know by emailing me at jenniferwolfe@linclearning.com or on Twitter @LINC_PD.

Tiffany Allen

Tiffany Allen

District: New York City Department of Education
School:P.S. 10 Fort Hill, Staten Island, New York
Role:STEAM Cluster Teacher, Grades K-5
Demographics: Comprehensive public school serving approximately 167 students. 87% of students come from low-income households. Half of the student body is Latinx and 29% of the student body is African American.

Tiffany Allen

Fun Fact:

I am a Disney fanatic! I love everything Disney and am so sad that it is closed right now. I usually travel there up to five times per year.

My Innovation in Action Helped Me:

  • Foster more personalized learning across our school. This year, we shifted our weekly professional development sessions to be more personalized for teachers. This built up our confidence in using playlists for students to personalize their learning experiences. By building our confidence with technology, we are able to better leverage it to meet the needs of all of our students and we can enable small group and 1:1 instruction through stations.
  • Enable more student agency. I can see student independence growing starting in younger grades. It is exciting to see students taking charge of their own learning.

The Most Important Lesson I Learned:

Be willing to be a risk-taker! In order to move the needle in education, we need to be willing to take risks. As the ed tech model teacher, I need to model that it is okay to take risks and fail. This demonstrates to other teachers in my building that we need to iterate and test out new strategies to improve our teaching. We used a Golden Pineapple (a version of the Golden Plunger) award in classrooms to recognize that innovation can be messy, but that in that messiness lies the potential for growth. In the end, it is always all about the kids and trying new things to help them.

My Coach Reflects:

Tiffany is a teacher who goes above and beyond to meet the needs of all of her students. She is a lifelong learner who embraces every opportunity to grow professionally. Whether it is leading PLCs at her school, working through LINCspring cycles, or attending LINCspring LIVE! sessions, Tiffany continues to search for opportunities to be innovative and showcase all the amazing work the students and staff at Fort Hill are doing. She constantly welcomes feedback from coaches, colleagues, and students and also creates several collaborative moments that helps build a strong culture and community at her school. I remember the first time walking into “Mrs. Allen’s’ classroom to observe and thinking, “wow, if I was a student I would LOVE learning in this classroom”. Tiffany brings a smile to all that she does and loves to see her students smiling while they learn and take agency of their learning. At the start of remote learning, and through all the challenges that came with COVID-19, Tiff continued to carry a “whatever it takes” mentality and persevere in order to ensure her students felt safe, supported and encouraged in their learning. It has been such a pleasure coaching Tiffany and I look forward to all that she will continue to accomplish on this journey to transform education. Tiffany’s Transformation Agent is Jen Bernier.

Resource to Share:

P.S. 10’s Digital Tool Box
Tech Badges

Becca Harris

Becca Harris

District: Baltimore County Public Schools
School: New Town High School, Owings Mills, MD
Grade: 9-12 science with a speciality in special education
Demographics: Comprehensive public school serving approximately 1100 students. 47% of students come from low-income households and 91% of the student body is African American.

Becca Harris

Fun Fact:

I do Pilates almost everyday to decompress. You cannot pour from an empty cup to students.

My Innovation in Action Helped Me:

  • Imagine how I could offer the traditional activities I had used with students in a different way. I asked myself how I could use digital tools or integrate soft skill development at the same time as fostering content knowledge and understanding. This is especially important when working with students with special needs as I want them to be able to collaborate with others so they can do it in their future workplaces without frustration.
  • Understand how I can use more teaching tools in my toolbox to engage with students. LINCspring is a great way for me to find multiple teaching tools and strategies in one centralized location.
  • Create a 21st century learner culture where my students feel a sense of belonging and want to participate. Since they have learning differences, they are often self conscious. By innovating through having students co-create our class norms, expectations, and roles, my students took pride in their learning and their classroom, making it a much more productive and engaged learning environment.

The Most Important Lesson I Learned:

Not being afraid to try new things! If you don’t try, you will never find out if it actually works. By working with my LINC Coach Jason Green, he supported me in taking risks and trying new instructional strategies to create the classroom I wanted for my students. For example, I used a station rotation model to get students to predict what we were learning about. By using a video station, students were able to look at pictures, and then infer, make observations, and create a hypothesis. They were able to move around our room and ask questions. My students loved this experience and it allowed students to progress at their own pace.

My Coach Reflects:

Becca has been a joy to coach. She always came to sessions with an excitement to both learn new things and share the things that she had been trying. What was always present was a willingness to try and a drive to keep learning. These are some of the most important characteristics of a generative teacher and it shows in Becca’s classroom and with her students. (Jason Green, LINC co-founder)

Resource to Share:

Discussion Prompts for Classroom Roles
Descriptions of Roles/Jobs in Classroom

Kimberly Toney and Lawanna Kincade

Kimberly Toney and Lawanna Kincade

District: Alief Independent School District (TX)
School: Holmquist Elementary
Grade: School Principal and Tech Specialist
Demographics: Holmquist is a Title I public elementary school serving more than 1100 students. 35% are students learning English and 81% receive free or reduced lunch.

Kimberly Toney and Lawanna Kincade

Fun Facts:

Kimberly: “I have a degree in psychology and originally wanted to become a psychiatrist. I became a teacher because my best friend in college begged me to substitute for her because her principal threatened to fire her if she went out of town without securing a sub. I was hesitant but I did it anyway. I fell in love with teaching on my very first day of subbing and her principal felt as if I was born to be a teacher. That same year, I started my journey towards becoming a certified teacher!”

Lawanna: “As far as I can remember I have always wanted to speak another language. In my spare time, I’m currently learning Spanish on Duolingo. As an educator, you are never too old to continue learning and growing.”

Our Innovation in Action Helped Us:

By transitioning our instructional model to blended learning, it has allowed us to better meet the needs of all students. We have a transformation team, led by Lawanna Kincade, who led our training on LINCspring for a core group of teachers. We rolled this out slowly and allowed teachers to tinker with new strategies at their own pace. The blended learning model now in place enables teachers to incorporate more small group time and utilize technology to help students gain mastery over the areas where they had learning gaps. We align our blended learning lessons to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) so that students can receive individualized instruction and complete them at their own pace. This model has proven to be very engaging for our students. They love using technology and we are seeing increased engagement and learning outcomes. Our students are also learning key collaboration and communication skills. Our teachers also like the real-time data they receive to help them drive more personalized instruction.

The Most Important Lesson I Learned:

Kimberly: When rolling out new initiatives, I have learned the importance of communication and getting everyone on the same page. Instead of passing things down to teachers and telling them to do it, it works much better to involve them in the process and make sure they understand the “why” of what we are shifting in our instruction. By receiving feedback from teachers, it made our work stronger. I recommend to other school leaders always have an ongoing communications plan with your teaching team. This will help you get past hurdles and come together to problem-solve and stay on the same page.

Lawanna: Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. It is essential to see and understand the big picture when rolling out new models, but then take it in pieces. Slow down and ensure you get teachers on board and train them with a tool like LINCspring to build their capacity and confidence.

How did it help you in the transition to remote learning?

Our experience with blended learning models has been an amazing basis for the transition to remote learning. Because teachers were used to building blended learning lessons, we were already ahead of the game. We took what we were already doing and raised it to another level, Our students were familiar with using technology and being more independent learners which have been very valuable. We are continuing to build skills with our LINC coach to learn new tools such as Seesaw and Zoom. We feel we were much better prepared for remote teaching and learning than many of our neighboring schools and are very grateful!

My Coach Reflects:

The Holmquist team is a group of innovative risk-takers who are not afraid to dive in and operationalize creative learning experiences for students. I have watched and been in awe of their Transformation Team who has worked so masterfully alongside their teachers to provide them with meaningful guidance and learning opportunities that stretched their practices and imagination. The Holmquist leadership team had an innovative vision for student-centered learning long before remote learning, making them truly a team of innovators in action! (Cassondra Corbin-Thaddies, LINC Transformation Agent)

Resources to Share:

Checklist for Virtual Learning Planning
ELA Virtual Learning Plan
Schoology Course Example

Thad Keener

Thad Keener

District: Fairbanks North Star Borough School District (AK)
School: Arctic Light Elementary School, Fairbanks, Alaska
Grade: School Principal
Demographics: Arctic Light is the only school located on Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska and serves K-8 students of enlisted military families living on the base. While it is not a Department of Defense school, 100% of its students are children of Army personnel.

Thad Keener

Background:

The District provided funding for a three-year personalized learning initiative and Keener engaged LINC as part of this work at his school.

Fun Fact:

“Having the state ‘Teacher of the Year’ as my wife keeps me honest. Nothing escapes her. If one of my ideas isn’t going to work, she will let me know.”

My Innovation in Action Helped Me:

  • Discover how I could reallocate Federal Title I funds towards more innovative professional development and data review days with my staff
  • Deepen my understanding of how students enjoy learning in both project and blended learning models such as small group instruction and electives and how these models increased student engagement, resulting in improvement in student mastery of content
  • Encourage teachers to do less “stand and deliver” instruction and more small group practices, allowing them more opportunities to build relationships with their students

The Most Important Lesson I Learned:

We realized we needed to make significant shifts in the structure of our school and our instructional practices to foster more student agency and choice. And in order to make this happen, I needed to find partners to help me lead our educators through a mindset shift with wisdom and an attitude of kindness and respect. I found that essential partner in Tiffany Wycoff, initially through her Blended Learning in Action book. It was also important to understand that change takes time and it is important to support educators as they try new instructional practices, allowing them opportunities to take risks. Through the slow and hard work of bringing my team along, we were able to transform our school and increase the student achievement outcomes significantly in a school educating many under-served students.

My Coach Reflects:

Thad and the Arctic Light leadership team prioritized meeting faculty professional development (PD) needs when implementing blended learning. This meant it had to be differentiated for teachers and model best practices. We had fun creating a blended model that combined in-person workshops, virtual cloud coaching, and access to LINCspring. The internal support and leadership commitment ensured that innovative PD really did become innovation in action. (Tyffany Wycoff, LINC co-founder)

Resource to Share:

Headspace.com – Personalized Learning requires educators to not only have new structural skill sets, but it also requires us to embrace a healthy learning environment. Meditation, in its broadest definition, has proven quite important for both staff and students.