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Imagine! West Michigan Overview
- 1. Imagine! West Michigan Community Information Night
- 2. Tonight’s Agenda (singing optional) ▪ High school overview 6:30 – 7:00 ▪ Breakout discussions 7:00 – 7:15 ▪ Share feedback and answer questions 7:15 – 7:25 ▪ Next steps & how to get involved 7:25 – 7:30
- 3. A little bit about us ▪ Imagine! West Michigan Education Foundation is a 501c3 tax- exempt non-profit corporation, founded in 2015 ▪ Governed by a five-member board of directors comprised of business and community leaders, educators, and parents ▪ Working to establish an innovative new high school here in the Tri Cities, to open Fall 2018
- 4. A couple things we’re proud of ▪ XQ Super School design challenge semi-finalists, 2016 ▪ 4.0 Schools Essentials Fellowship, 2016-17
- 5. Who’s interested so far… ▪ Walden Green Montessori, WMAAA, Voyagers, and homeschooling students & their families ▪ Our local business community, including the Chamber of Commerce, HR leaders, CEOs, and small-business owners ▪ Education innovators, including professionals in our local ISD and coaches from around the country ▪ You - by coming here tonight!
- 6. Let’s Grow a School What we’ve learned and what we’ve built
- 7. Insights – What we’ve learned from… PARENT INTERVIEWS COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT & 21ST CENTURY NEEDS INNOVATIVE SCHOOLS
- 8. Parent Insights*: What you’ve liked about K-8 *WMAAA&WGMparentinterviews,Jan-Feb2017
- 9. Parent Insights*: What you want from a high school *WMAAA&WGMparentinterviews,Jan-Feb2017
- 10. Community Insights: Issues & Opportunities ▪ 21st century skills ▪ Attracting talent ▪ Promoting entrepreneurs ▪ Community involvement ▪ Mental health / stress ▪ “Adulting” ▪ College costs / debt ▪ Artificial intelligence ▪ Gigs vs. jobs
- 11. Insights: Model Schools STUDENT-LED EXPERIENTIAL SERVICE INTEREST-BASED LEARNING REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE INDIVIDUALIZATION PERSONAL ADVISORS PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
- 12. Insights: Best Practices ▪ Personalization ▪ Competency = credit ▪ Interest-based learning ▪ Relevant rigor ▪ Authentic assessments ▪ Purposefully small ▪ Real world experiences ▪ To know and be known ▪ A culture of ownership
- 13. What we’ve built Our design intentions for a new high school
- 14. Our vision for each student That they will gain for themselves the knowledge and experience needed to construct a life of meaning and purpose. Research-backed (University of Chicago): three factors to young adult success in life: Competency Agency Integrated Identity knowledge and experience construct a life meaning and purpose
- 15. Design Framework “Over time, through developmental experiences, children build four foundational components, which underlie threekey factors for young adult success.” © 2015 University of Chicago CCSR
- 16. An iterative cycle of Action & Reflection ▪ Expectations – Personal Learning Plans (PLPs) ▪ Experiences – Doing to Learn and Learning to Do ▪ Exhibitions – Outcomes, feedback, and reflection
- 17. Developmentally Appropriate and Human-Scaled ▪ Relationship-based: small school, personal advisors ▪ Collaborative, ownership culture: by students, for students ▪ Personal and flexible: one student at a time approach ▪ Real-world experiences: start living your life now
- 18. Relationships Purposefully small: 200 students in grades 9-12 Personal Advisor (18:1) Multi-age Crews
- 19. By Students, For Students ▪ Trust and respect ▪ Shared decision-making ▪ Freedom to make choices –What to learn – When to work –How to learn it – Where to work –How I’ll show it – Who to work with
- 20. One Student at a Time ▪ Individually-tailored curriculum ▪ Flexible day schedule ▪ Enabled (in a public school) by competency-based crediting
- 21. Real-world ▪ 1000 hours of internship, beginning in 9th grade ▪ Impact Capstone ▪ Senior Gateway (portfolio defense)
- 22. Curriculum & Graduation Requirements Communication Comprehension skills (literary and informational) Rhetorical skills (oral and written) World Language proficiency Artistic Expression (creation and performance skills) Society & Culture Social Reasoning Skills (Civic Life, Economic Thinking, Contemporary Social Issues) Global Studies (World History & Geography, International Economics) U. S. Studies (U.S. History & Geography, U. S. Government, U. S. Economics) Cultural Studies (World Culture, Art History & Appreciation)
- 23. Curriculum & Graduation Requirements Scientific Thinking & Knowledge Empirical Reasoning Skills (Design Thinking, Contemporary Scientific Issues) Physical Sciences Life Sciences Earth & Space Sciences Mathematics Quantitative Reasoning Skills (Modeling, Probability & Statistics) Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry (Fourth credit & beyond: Trigonometry, Calculus, Elective Topics)
- 24. Curriculum & Graduation Requirements Practical Life Financial Literacy Wellbeing (Health, Physical Fitness) Professional Development (Advisory, School Economies, Internships) Personal Development (Intrasessions, Gateways, Impact Capstone)
- 25. The School Year ▪ Consists of four cycles. Fall 1 and 2 are both six weeks; Winter and Spring cycles are eight weeks. ▪ Each cycle ends with an exhibition week, followed by a break. ▪ Example, Fall 2: ▪ Intrasessions & orientation weeks…
- 26. The School Day ▪ Flextime! 7:30am – 2:40pm or 8:30am – 3:40pm ▪ M/W/F All students on campus ▪ T/Th 9th/10th half-day internships (AM or PM) 11th/12th full-day internships
- 27. The School Day Mon/Wed/Fri 7:30am – 8:30am First hour coaching* 8:30am – 8:45am Daily Advisory 8:45am – 11:45am Work Cycle 11:45am – 12:00pm Scrum 12:00pm – 1:00pm Lunch and recreational break 1:00pm – 2:40pm Seminars 2:40pm – 3:40pm Last hour coaching** *Early schedule only **Late schedule only
- 28. Breakout Sessions ▪ Choose your topic/group ▪ 15 minutes to discuss ▪ On your topic – What did you like? – What concerns do you have? – What questions do you still have?
- 29. Breakout feedback ▪ Likes ▪ Concerns ▪ Questions
- 30. Next Steps ▪ We have interest from authorizers ▪ We must secure a building ▪ We need to begin our startup fundraising campaign
- 31. Next Steps… will you join us? ▪ Sign up for our weekly newsletter ▪ Follow us on Facebook ▪ Sign our intent to enroll (9th grade in 2018 or later) ▪ Send a tax-deductible donation ▪ Contact us with questions, or to ask Kim to speak at the next meeting of your local community organization or group!
Editor's Notes
- To learn more about XQ, visit: https://xqsuperschool.org/ To learn more about 4.0 Schools, visit: http://4pt0.org/
- Started as a conversation among some parents at Walden Green Montessori. I know the WMAAA parents have had the same conversation… “wouldn’t it be great if…?” Started to engage the larger community – talking about some of the challenges students, schools, and communities are facing today; and the even greater changes to come as our 21st century society continues to evolve – in ways we honestly can’t even imagine yet.
- Ken Jennings (MLTS) Google Lens (this week) Interlude – I have to say, everyone is looking at these issues & opportunities. And it’s a fair question to ask, why are you proposed a new high school, instead of working to make improvements in our existing schools? My response is that we need both. We hope to directly serve a need for those students and families who are looking for a different approach to high school, but we also hope to be an example that our larger high schools – the ones who in fact will continue to serve the vast majority of students in our communities – can learn from and steal shamelessly from.
- Everything I’m going to show you tonight – despite how different it may look from traditional practice, is a real educational design being used successfully in a real school (or in many schools!) throughout the country. I’d guess 95% of our design is totally plagiarized – and that’s how it should be. We learn from what works and we choose what will serve the needs in our community.
- PERSONALIZATION: There is no such thing as average. The best schools meet each student individually. COMPETENCY: Likewise, credit is awarded when mastery is shown – not by seat time. INTEREST-BASED: People learn best when they are interested in what we are learning! RIGOR: Students should be challenged, but the challenges should be purposeful and related to the skills and knowledge they need. AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT: Likewise, assessments should measure real learning and not memorization. Exhibitions and other work products, not multiple choice tests. SMALL: Human beings can only manage relationships within a group of around 200. Larger groups subdivide into cliques by necessity. REAL-WORLD: To learn how to be adults, teens need opportunities to interact in adult society. To discover their career aspirations, they need to try careers! RELATIONSHIPS: Students who have a stable, one-on-one relationship with a trusted adult (outside the parent-child relationship) are significantly more successful in life. OWNERSHIP: Learners with ownership - of their learning, of their relationships, of their community, of their learning environment - have some means of effecting change, directly. Whether it is one-on-one, in the intimate setting of advisory, or through the decision-making structures of the school as a whole, learners need to have a real, meaningful, and direct voice in their schools. So we have all these reasons, and all this fodder. What do we do with it? What does the school look like?
- Gain the knowledge and experiences [COMPETENCIES] Needed to construct [AGENCY – I CREATE MY LIFE] Of meaning and purpose [IDENTITY – IT’S A LIFE THAT IS UNIQUELY MEANINGFUL TO ME AS A PERSON]
- Promise – this is the only education research-y wonky sort of graphic I’m going to share with you tonight. UChicago research three key factors for success: “Being successful means having the agency to make active choices about one’s life path, possessing the competencies to adapt to the demands of different contexts, and incorporating different aspects of oneself into an integrated identity.” (TGIF – “growing up” achieving independence and self-awareness. Agency, Identity. And behind that, to actually be able to succeed, you need to some competency. Dan Pink – Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. All ways of saying the same thing.) Built on four components which are developed throughout childhood and adolescence – birth to about age 24 Self-regulation includes awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings, and managing one’s attention, emotions, and behaviors in goal-directed ways. Executive function or what we just call “habits”. Knowledge consists of sets of facts, information, or understanding about self, others, and the world. Skills are learned abilities to carry out a task with intended results or goals (either general or domain-specific). We’re going to dig deeper here since this one, of the four, is the most specifically the “job” of school to help kids develop. Mindsets are beliefs and attitudes about oneself, the world, and the interaction between the two. They are the lenses we use to process our everyday experiences. Values are enduring, often culturally-defined, beliefs about what is good or bad and what is important in life. Values serve as broad guidelines for living and provide an orientation for one’s desired future. These are developed through an iterative cycle of developmental experiences comprising both action and reflection, supported by trusting relationships with peers and adults. (If you are interested in the details of this University of Chicago research, come see me after and I can point you to more information.)
- Expectations – Personal Learning Plans (PLPs) Knowledge to gain Skills to master Personal qualities to develop (habits, mindsets, & values) Experiences Internship, service work, and entrepreneurship Workshops, seminars, and dual-credit college classes Project-based learning Individualized study (self-paced learning) Exhibitions – Reflecting upon the experiences, and holding oneself accountable to expectations: - sharing outcomes (deliverables) from internship and project-based experiences - demonstrating skills acquired and sharing knowledge gained – teaching others through exhibition - self-assessment of personal growth, including the effect of the experience on one’s mindset and values with peer, advisor, and mentor feedback and to inform the next cycle.
- What do teenagers need? What do people need?
- A PERSONAL ADVISOR and a CLOSE-KNIT CREW. You'll have one personal teacher-advisor coaching you throughout your high school career. The other 15 to 18 students who share your advisor form your crew. Your crew will work together, play together, support each other and learn from one another for four years. It's not always easy being a crew and it can get messy at times, but in this school it's impossible to be anonymous, ignored, or left out. You'll usually start and end each day with your crew.
- Discover who you are and what you are capable of, by trying it out.
- The other half of Tue/Thu for 9/10’s is at school in a shortened version of the full day M/W/F schedule.