Are We Prepared To Be Doing The Same Learning In The Future?

Our ecosystem during the emergency remote learning grew stronger due to the established partnership with parents and the students. The students had the trust of being valued contributors prior to distanced learning. The process of relationships, perspectives, thinking errors, unconscious biases, and community trust were unpacked from September. The students regularly reflected on the interpersonal and intrapersonal processes of self-awareness to their community prior to emergency remote learning. We continued reflecting on an equitable learning environment from home with a focus on Social-Emotional and adaptive academic learning with new partnerships in new learning environments.   

It was still an emotional roller coaster as we learned to iterate and be creative together. The families and experiences from home were the transfer for learning rather than just covering the curriculum. The connections grew deeper that they became the foundation of the transferable learning experiences. Wellbeing and social-emotional learning were most important, and I placed them prior to academics through the development of skills and cross-disciplinary contextual thinking. Throughout the year we implemented social-emotional learning and the understanding of self-awareness and self-management (Blog post explaining SEL). For emergency remote learning we unpacked that transfer of SEL to understanding self success during the remote distance learning. 

During our Google Meets, acknowledging the feeling which was most important than just focusing on tasks no matter how long it took us. As I started focusing on acknowledging how they are feeling and to share their feelings the time went by. Less time was focused on tasks that altered my thinking and my learning. The students began building their own brain routines to develop new skills from home and from the community. They were already familiar with Ontario's Ministry Well Being guide and it was referenced for creating strategies of positive choices and belonging with the distance remote learning. 

Also, CASEL competencies were an integral part of the process (https://casel.org/core-competencies/). Prior to and after every task, reflections on social-emotional feelings were gathered to critically analyze their feelings and competencies for the next steps. Prior to and after every Google Meets, we had emotional check-ins and explicitly expressed based on Marc Brackett the color of emotions and the feeling wheels (Feeling Wheel Mood Meter).  

The students kept a written or oral records, or a sequence of images for a journal that was shared with classmates for feedback. Some students also organized teams for motivational workouts on their own. The outcome of emergency remote learning was to elevate students' cultural assets, their voices, and their agency from home. Learning is social and creating a safe space is important for their autonomy by being co-creators for their learning. 

Opportunities that were developed by the students were:

• Identifying ways to stay active at home indoors and outdoors with the family.

• Organization of their schedule based on ministry allocated hours for learning.

• Focusing on the four domains of the Well Being and the four key components for well-being strategies. 

• Aligning with the Indigenous medicine wheel of the interconnectivity of all aspects of one’s being. The circle of awareness of the individual self; the circle of knowledge that provides the power of how we each have over our own lives. 

• Connecting the occupational from the wellness wheel that was the fulfillment of chores that became the balance in their own lives. Focusing on contributions for new skills in the home environment and the community.  https://www.theottoolbox.com/wellness-wheel-for-families/

• Exploring the six domains of resiliency Resilience

• Designing their learning the way they see it. The autonomy of connecting their environment to their learning and finding ways to metacognitively share their thinking by applying many thinking tools. 

• Sharing reflections of their perspectives of who they are designing with and for, to develop a sense of empathy. 

• Learning to identify how they are solving problems from designing in the home or for the community. 

• Researching and connecting these opportunities to practical understandings of life learning skills. (In relation to the curriculum from Science (Structures, biodiversity, substances, heat...) to history by honoring traditions.   

• Leading their own learning by applying learning to and from the world around them. 

• Knowledge building and sharing by making connections to what they have learned and new learning that became cross-disciplinary for explorations. 

• Continuing to collaborate with family members or community members to communicate and share: What was surprising? What were they still curious about?

• Applying thinking tools to problem solve that they were familiar with from the classroom applications. Rotman I-Think integrative thinking tools for collecting data, causal models for causes and factors, Pro Pro the benefits of opposing ideas through the point of view of all perspectives, and developing a sense of empathy. 

• Continuing with the Sustainable Development Goals that were developed in September for our action-taking. 

• Implemented through SDGs to cross-curricular connections by continuing what we started of pitching their ideas in teams for local and global actions. 

• continuing with responsible citizenship and connecting the take Action project to the home and the community. Are all people treated fairly and equally?

• Aspiring ideas for hope from the home, from the community from nature on what kind of a world would they like to create. 

• Co-creating the plans of the week by taking turns sharing motivational quotes, videos, inspirational images, and of course humor and laughter. 

• Wellness became the most important integral of our Google Meets by taking time to practice consciousness through breathing exercises that the students adapted on their own as well. 

• Provoking small group discussions based on real-world events.

• Technology with remote distance learning was not just for posting resources, it was for engaging with each others' learning. 

• Collaborating, reflecting, consolidating on Padlet, Fligrid, Screencastify, Google Suites (forms, slides, Google drawing), Jamboard, Google slides with Slido Q&A, Wakelet, and Mentimeter.

• Technology added accountability for the students to reflect share their thinking and give feedback to each other. The accountability for me was to collect data and to reflect in order to iterate the process of learning.  

• Short instructions with reflective points and breaks. Emotional responsiveness to take breaks by playing their motivational music, or breathing exercises. 

• Applying active online discussions based on experts' insights and individuals perspectives and interactive reading books. 

• The greatest feedback was from passive self-paced interactive content like games, Kahoot, and Pear Deck. Digital citizenship that was developed earlier contributed to positive learning. 

• Creating impactful experiences beyond the curriculum that empowered students' learning from the pandemic to social unrest. 

I began connecting experts to our learning from breathing exercises, to the learning of the designing of protective gears to the understanding of the past for History that has shaped the present unrests. This presentation summarizes some of our learning evidence of all remote emergency learning experiences. 

An episode from Voiced Radio Ontario Learning From Home, I shared the reframing of my learning:

https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/ep-15-rola-tibshirani/

Relationships always matter for equitable learning experiences. Calling and emailing parents, understanding individual well being and online effects on students was the key to community trust and connections. Creating an environment for students to be heard and to be respectful of each other. The parents and the students chose how best to proceed with remote distance learning that responded best to their emotional well being with high trust and low stress. 

John Dewey (1938) quote: "We always live at the time we live and not at some other time, and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same thing in the future."

Learning is communal and social to co-construct meaning, for students to project their personal characteristics and for students to interact and be cohort learners sharing their cognitive presence. Learning from our students and shifting our practices to meet their needs, it is not a deficit base it is an asset base that the students are telling us what we need to do.

What educational experiences will we be designing for our students? Education continues to evolve and changes, please no more normalizing! 

Reflections: Week #1 Of Remote Learning

After week one of remote learning and taking time to call and chat with the students, I have more questions as I reflect on students' learning success. We have spent the year building relationships, thinking strategies, thinking tools to develop our competencies and strategies for executive functions.

In the classroom, we practice being passionate about each other and be forgiving to oneself when struggling. We support our feelings that no one is left alone to struggle nor to be overwhelmed.

 As I think about the week ahead and after listening to #Onedmentors on virtual digital citizenship, I have more questions about the weeks ahead. If you missed listening to the episode check it out. https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/digcitsummit-toronto/

The tweets that had me reflect on remote learning.

We are all trying to readjust to remote learning.  We are figuring out the well being, to get students to regulate their emotions and to monitor their thoughts, to complete tasks online, to manage problem-solving and to prioritize tasks. 

• How do we keep relationships, experiences fostering social connections and open-ended tasks?
• How are students' environments set or spaces for creative explorations and creativity? Are they feeling safe?
• How are they completing tasks through remote learning with so many distractions?
• How are we supporting students to be organized and staying focused to self-monitor?

No students would want to miss the work we are proposing for them or perform poorly on tasks.

There are so many haves and have nots in this situation that we are not aware of. 

• How are students reaching self-management and autonomy for skills development?
• How are students navigating everyday scheduling for activities and learning?
• How do we monitor their attention and comprehension?
• Are we scaffolding learning for students who need it?
• Are we chunking learning tasks and strategies?
• How are students developing information management?
• How are they getting tasks done?
• Are students working for short periods of time? 
• Are they reducing distractions? How are they focusing after being interrupted?
• How are they collaborating and communicating effectively with their classmates to experience academic and real-world success?
• What do they do when they get a roadblock?

So much to plan ahead. I will be sharing with the students' ways to self-monitor misunderstanding, self-management for planning learning.

With people at home, the learning environment is very different. There is cooking, cleaning, and babysitting. Authentic learning takes place within the real world, real connections, and meaningful contexts. 

I am about to learn how to explore and shift my learning to focus on social-emotional learning and executive function with the students in their home environment.  I will do what I know will work and what is best for my students and their learning.  

I am also thinking of Kevin O'Shea sharing how fatigue might set in.

We are entering week 9 of #onlinelearning Here’s some advice! Fatigue sets in and you’ll have to pivot a lot! #COVID19 #schoolclosure @TeachersOnFire @susancckim @levi_allison42 @diskon4no @awfrench1 @bbray27 @Kbahri5 @henneld_edu @SethiDeClercq @ChrisQuinn64 @fablefy pic.twitter.com/UmFZ7WYeQW

— Kevin O’Shea 🇨🇦🇯🇵 (Wear a mask and wash hands) (@MadForMaple) March 28, 2020

Which Steps Will You Take?

I have been out of the blogging scene since last August. I have lots to share since September from my learning with the students to professional participation within the professional community. 

Every year the steps of change in my teaching practices are trial and error that are critical to the students learning process. Giving the students the rein to self manage and be self-aware of how they are learning is the key to progress in the learning process.

Their lives are blended with emotions on a daily basis, from happiness to sadness, disappointments, boredom, anxiety, enthusiasm, and even tranquility. Sometimes they are feeling oppressed and compliant and sometimes they are liberated and leading their own learning. Bringing awareness of social-emotional learning throughout the learning process it develops students' leadership for self-management and self-awareness.

Learning is a human process what we say and how we act is important. The actions that the students are trying to convey matter and are expressed through communication from body movements, actions, and conversations with them. The students are eager to have an experience filled with healthy relationships, compassion and a sense of purpose. How do we take the steps to have them feel the process of their learning?

Since 2016 I have been exploring with the unlearning process and unpacking biases to create change with the students for learning.  https://learningprogression.blogspot.com/search/label/Unlearning It gets trickier every year and I have to be vulnerable by being a learner with the students. They give me beneficial advice on being a learner along with them.

The students require consistency during the day grounded in longterm conceptual learning where they also see the value to the real world connections. Retrieving and making these connections including learning strategies are important than just being assessed especially the chance to get and give feedback. Thinking about their own thinking and giving them time to retrieve not to assess.

The students spark my learning by connecting on their journey and what they need to move forward together. By showing them we care and allowing all the emotional challenges and disruptions to the learning validate why we are educators. We need to inspire students and change our practices to be more responsive learners with them.

Since I have not blogged since August, I am going to share the session that I presented at BIT2019 for a quick update on the iterations for SEL, collaboration and conceptual learning that has been developing since September this year.

The images on the slides all connect to external links. Many guiding questions are also shared that I have developed with the students and continue to develop. The images that don't have external links are, the screencastify of the assessments that were shared with parents. Feedback reflections on Flipgrid with the parents and the students about students' progress are not linked.  The slides are very explicit about SEL, collaborative cognitive process, developing identity, building empathy, cognitive biases, guiding questions and of course self-management by reflecting and collecting their own data. 

There is so much to share about how the process was developed together this year. Throughout the day I try to remember to take pictures to share the process on Twitter.

Thanks to Fair Chance learning https://www.fairchancelearning.com/ I also had an opportunity to share at TransformEd Ottawa on December 9th about the process that is co-constructed with my learners. Thanks to all colleagues who tweeted and shared about the process. I have captured a few tweets that reflect on my learning with my students this year.  I am missing a few tweets from that day. 

The key when building a community for learning is confronting our biases before we are able to unpack empathy. Often these biases are unconscious or implicit, meaning we might not even be aware we have them.

Until teachers become aware of our biases, and how these attitudes and opinions emerge through the language we use, we can fall into what’s known as the bias confirmation traps. In class, we spent the time learning by nurturing self-awareness and guiding each other to see how our biases interact for better understanding from me to them and among each other. 

We don't know what barriers every child is carrying unless we are building a community, sharing with confidence and having the power of trust of openness. Speaking to impact each other, trusting, connecting and being passionate with each other.

We spend lots of time reflecting together and setting our next steps by facing the challenges and how they are occurring. Together we are making decisions and always giving gratitudes and understanding for empathizing together.

Social-emotional learning is connected to our pedagogical learning process. The emotions are bridged to all learning experiences. Patricia Fiorino has partnered up with me exploring Middle School SEL and shared the Illinois SEL Standard with the students to guide their reflective practices. Her blogpost when Patricia visited with us.

It is important for the students to feel and experience the classroom culture of seeing connections and differences, appreciating the mindset of gratitude to build relationships. That is when teaching and learning will happen.

The students need to recognize their own emotions and the emotions of others:

• Understand their feelings, their causes and how they have influenced them
• Express their feelings and trying to inform their team members by inviting empathy from them during teamwork
• Regulating emotions than having them regulate them and finding strategies for what they need as well as others in their team. 

As mentioned in the BIT2019 presentation, collaboration to be designed for students to share unique skills and knowledge. During collaboration, interpersonal and intrapersonal relations are opportunities to give and receive suggestions. The students engage in meaningful conversations by seeing multiple perspectives. By also applying thinking tools like the causal model, the ladder of inference and the Prop Pro model From Rotman I-Think as well as thinking tools from Project Zero to develop divergent and explicit thinking representing many perspectives. (Links are on the BIT19 presentation)

Students co-creating a causal model about causes and factors for emotional learning and strategies to explicitly practice

The Ladder of inference to collect and interpret data for next steps

All voices are equitable for decision making on how they are learning

The students decide to take breaks as part of their process for learning

Sharing gratitudes 

We have to sustain and make social-emotional learning sticks. The students learn about the brain and how learning takes place. Pruning or unlearning is a process that eliminates connections that are not behaviorally relevant or useful. It is the reductions of unused synapses to allow newly learned information or skills to integrate with past knowledge and experiences. 

As teachers, we are the drivers of neuroplasticity change through the designing of knowledge building, creating rich learning experiences and guiding effective interventions to reach every student.

It is our responsibility to decentralize the classroom and our words and actions need to match those of the students to be able, to tell the truth, and face students' needs. We need to read each others' body language, collect data to inform us and the students inform themselves for better instructions and own success. We need to design learning that guides and suits students' feelings and emotions of how and why to learn. 

How can I give myself a position to learn from the students? How are we investing our time in actions that line up with our professional learning?  How to be a real learner than just teaching as employment?  Everything is rooted in gratitude, how are we giving the time for the gratitude to each other?