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Aaron Blackwelder Says Learning Is Messy
133 Plays2 years ago
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction & Mission
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio. And I'm one of your hosts, Star Saxton. I'm another host, Emma Chapeta. And I am Crystal Frommert. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:29
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This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. So get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guests.
Introduction to Aaron Blackwelder
00:00:53
Speaker
Aaron Blackwelder is a digital learning TOSA and coaches Boys and Girls Golf in Southwest Washington. He is the co-founder of Teachers Going Grayless, an educational contributor to Spectrum Life magazine. Aaron is a Washington State English Teachers Fellow, 2019 Washington State Teacher of the Year nominee, and five-time Golf Coach of the Year.
00:01:16
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Aaron is a husband and the father of two boys on the autism spectrum, both of whom inspire him to become a teacher who meets the needs of all students. Please welcome Aaron to our show today. Good morning, Aaron. We're so excited to have you on. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your role, location, journey?
Role & Experiences as TOSA
00:01:37
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So far, maybe an interesting fact.
00:01:40
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Yeah. So my name is Aaron Blackwelder, and I am a digital learning TOSA in Vancouver Public Schools. I lead professional development district-wide on using digital tools.
00:01:59
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And my journey is I've been an educator now for 25 years. I've been loving my role as a TOSA this year. It's my first time out of the classroom. It's been kind of an interesting journey this year, but it's been a lot of fun and it's allowed me to get a picture as to what
00:02:21
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teaching and learning looks like from a variety of perspectives. And something interesting is I coach boys and girls golf and last week we just finished up our season. Our boys won second place as a state championship team and our girls did a pretty good job. They qualified one to state and she did a phenomenal job as well too.
00:02:47
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Congratulations. Yeah. Can you just tell us what TOSA is? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a teacher on special assignment. So I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher contract, teacher certification. I'm just not in the classroom. I'm assigned to a different role.
00:03:06
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Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for telling us about yourself, Erin. And it's so great to talk to you again. I had the opportunity to interview maybe almost a year ago now, and you told me about some amazing projects that you do with your English students. So I'm wondering today if you could just tell our listeners what a learner centered space looks like, feels like, sounds like to you.
00:03:30
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Yeah, so learner centered basically is what it sounds.
What is a Learner-Centered Classroom?
00:03:34
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It puts the learner as the center of the classroom. I believe it starts with creating a space that incorporates student voice and choice, not just in what is learned, but how we learn together, how we run our classroom, manage the classroom.
00:03:55
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And then finally, how we close up the classroom. How do we assess things? How do we look back at what we've done and report on those things? So Learner Centered is all about the learner. It's messy. It is very dynamic. It is difficult to plan as a teacher. I mean, of course, I plan things.
00:04:23
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but I really allow my students to guide those plans that have been set into action. Yeah, I love your use of the word messy because I definitely feel like those are some of the most active classes when to an outsider it looks messy and chaotic, but there's a lot of amazing learning happening.
Carnival of Engagements in Learning Spaces
00:04:43
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I was asked a few years ago, we were shown like, I don't know, like four different pictures. And we were asked, what does learning look like? And I don't remember what all four of them were, but I remember identifying, I mean, I think one of them was like a forest. I can't remember what the other ones were, but the one that I identified with was a carnival. There's so much going on. There's so many ways that people can
00:05:09
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engage and entertain themselves and enjoy whatever it is that they're doing from the foods that are there to the games, to the rides. You don't have to like everything there to have a good time. You can like some of it and really enjoy yourself.
00:05:25
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and gain a lot from the experience. And it's something that is centered around the experience of the individual with a lot of different options surrounding them. And so I just identified with that picture. And I think about that constantly when I'm asked about what is a learner-centered classroom look like.
00:05:49
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Well, thank you for that. I love that description and that connection. I'm curious, how does assessment play a role in that? Because that's a necessary part of teaching and learning. And what does that look like in a learner-centered classroom from your point of view?
Assessment vs. Reporting: What's the Difference?
00:06:03
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So there's assessment and there's reporting, and I think that we need to really separate the two. We can report our assessment, but assessment is about me as the teacher
00:06:20
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looking at the individual student and identifying areas of strength, what do they excel in that I want to further engage that student in to develop that strength, and what are some weaknesses that the student has, and how do I cater to those weaknesses and
00:06:45
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and provide feedback and opportunities to grow within those weaknesses. One of the things that really helped me as a classroom teacher is coaching. Being out on the field with my athletes, I don't design, I mean, I design practice plans on this is what we're gonna work on right now, but not all my athletes need
00:07:13
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those practice plans at their individual level. I have athletes who excel and I have athletes who are just starting and I need to be able to make the experience so that all athletes can engage and grow and develop and
Creating Universally Designed Lessons
00:07:29
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learn. It's the same thing in a classroom. I want to be able to have all my students
00:07:35
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grow and engage exactly where they are. And that comes through differentiating materials, providing universally designed lessons, especially using project-based approaches to learning where students can apply what they're doing in ways that are meaningful, not just, hey, I'm doing this because I got a test next Friday, and then we're going to move on to the next
00:08:04
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item of agenda. But yeah, that's to me what I think is what it looks like.
00:08:16
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Well, thank you for that description. I love the connection to coaching sports. I work with a teacher who is also a swim coach, and he approaches his math teaching very similar to that approach as well. I'm curious, though, you mentioned project-based learning and differentiating how much you're assessing a student on what they need. What would you say to a teacher who is teaching in a more traditional type setting who is required
00:08:42
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to give pencil and paper tests that apply to every student.
Advice for Traditional Teachers
00:08:47
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It's not differentiated. What piece of advice would you give that teacher? Give the test as little as possible. I mean, if you have to give one test a semester or one test every term, then give the test as little as possible. But make the learning more about
00:09:09
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The learning not about the test and it's okay to be honest with your students say hey we're doing this because we have to this is not the point of what we're learning we're learning because.
00:09:23
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What I tell my students is we're learning because we want to be better people. This is a part of the process that we have to go through here in the school. But I want you guys to know that what we're learning is more than this test, that we're going beyond the test and we're going to challenge you in different ways. You know, going to project based learning, I mean,
00:09:44
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one of the things that we did in my class, one of my favorite units that we did was around Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo & Juliet: A Project-Based Approach
00:09:50
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And Romeo and Juliet is this piece that it seems like every freshman has to do. Now, of course, I didn't have to do it. But it's one of those things that if freshman English is all about Romeo and Juliet. And a lot of times we teach it because it's the expectation of
00:10:13
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All freshmen need to have some experience of Shakespeare. They need to be inculturated into this. They need to have a shared experience that most other freshmen around the United States are experiencing. But it really needs to be more than that, comparing this to that test. When I did Romeo and Juliet, I told my students right off the bat, hey, Romeo and Juliet, they're gonna commit suicide at the end. They're gonna die by suicide.
00:10:41
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that I want you to identify some of the factors that led to their suicide. And when we identify these factors, we'll talk about them, we'll explore them and we'll research them. And when we complete the book, we will then begin a campaign where we will try to take some of those factors, such as family, societal factors, mental health, and so forth,
00:11:09
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and we'll create our own campaigns within our school where we can address these issues because we know we have students here within our community who are struggling with these things. So let's make an impact. So the learning needs to go beyond just because we're doing this text. It has to have some meaningful reason. You need to ask good, deep questions that are going to challenge the students
00:11:36
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and push them beyond this classroom and to think outside of themselves and their own individual experience, but to think about how does my learning impact and make the world a better place.
00:11:52
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I'm so glad that you are talking about this, Aaron, as an English teacher myself and also kind of struggling as a parent of now a high school senior who just went through a pretty abysmal English experience for the last four years.
00:12:08
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What I would like to know to just have you follow up on is you spoke earlier about these conversations you have with your students. And I think our listeners would be keen to understand your student's response and action like reaction to how you bring them into this process, those frank conversations, what do they look like and what is their response?
Impact of Student Projects on Society
00:12:31
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The responses were very diverse. I had students. So one of the things that I would do
00:12:37
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is I had learned that I needed to have student mentors in my classes. And I quite often have seniors who wanted to come back and work in my classroom, either as a TA or just kind of pop it and volunteer, because they knew that this unit was deep and meaningful, the Romeo and Juliet one. So I had some students who this unit triggered them.
00:13:01
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and brought about a lot of emotions in them that they needed to go through. And they needed support so my seniors would come in and be an ear for them, somebody who can walk them through and allow them not to feel alone in the process.
00:13:25
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I had other students who went, and what was beautiful is a lot of these students that this unit triggered came out the other end wanting to come back and support students when they were older. I had students who came in and felt that they did things that were very meaningful and empowered them.
00:13:49
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I had a few students who took their campaigns and brought them to our school board and brought about change within our school. We did not have a mental health counselor in the school. We had academic counselors and they pushed and pushed and pushed and got the school district to get a mental health counselor within our school.
00:14:15
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Um, so the unit, uh, a unit like that, um, can reach within a student and pull out the worst and the best within them and can shape them and mold them as human beings. And I believe it honors the student in their, in, in who they are in their identities and, and, um, they find meaning and purpose in what they do.
00:14:39
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And ultimately, as I said earlier, there's the difference between assessment and reporting. The assessment that went into this was I was looking at the students' work, asking them questions, challenging them further. When I saw gaps in some of their ideas, I would ask them questions and it would push them further within to go deeper and try to fill in those gaps.
00:15:06
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When I saw errors of logic, I would ask questions about them too and challenge students in their thinking. And students would process through this and they would make corrections on their own.
Why is Grading Reductive?
00:15:23
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But the reporting of this, when it came down to when a report card had to come out, it was both
00:15:34
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It could be both invigorating and also a letdown. Because I had to report a grade at the end of the semester, the way I ended up doing it is I put the onus on my student. I laid out some expectations of what an A, B, C, and a D looked like. I didn't give Fs. If there was an F, it was an incomplete, and students had to go back in and complete the things that they needed to complete.
00:16:03
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time into the next semester if they need to. But I laid out, here's some structures for an A, B, C, D. And students would self-identify, and they would reflect on their learning. And then I would have a conversation with each student about their learning, which I absolutely enjoyed. It was one of my favorite parts of the year. But then it came down to the final question, which was, what is your grade in this class, and why? And it was interesting to listen to students.
00:16:33
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But it was very anticlimactic for me because putting into a grade just felt very reductive. We had had all these great conversations, these great ideas had flown throughout the year. Now we have to label them. And it just didn't feel, it never felt right. It never felt right for me. I don't believe it felt right for my students.
00:16:57
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We wanted something different. We wanted something more. And so there was always some wonderful comments that went into the grade book or sort of the report card when reporting came that were came from the student came from me talked about their learning and how they applied their learning. So.
Focus on Learning, Not Testing
00:17:17
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I believe that when a teacher who has to give tests and they want to do more student-centered learning, they can do these things. They just have to make the learning center and the student center in the classroom. And those tests and quizzes that need to be given, they can be, but they don't have to be the point of what we're doing. There are greater points as to what we're doing in the classroom.
00:17:47
Speaker
I just, I love everything you just said, Erin, and I know that when we've spoken in the past, you know that my beliefs around grading and assessment were very similar to what you just suggested. And I just remember how disappointing it was, how I had taken all year to get them to move away from the idea of grades, and then
00:18:08
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Even though a student-led conference is a much more authentic way to do it, it still felt like it was diminishing all the hard work that they had put forth. So I appreciate your explanation of that process as well. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, Aaron, I'm just in awe of all of the projects that you do with your students and the huge impact that they have on your community.
00:18:32
Speaker
So thanks for sharing so many details so that our listeners can really get an idea of what it looks like. And we've learned a lot from you in the last 20 minutes or so. I'm wondering if there's anyone else that you want to shout out that we can continue to learn from.
Inspirations in Education
00:18:48
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Oh, boy. Well, of course, the Teachers Going Gradeless group is just amazing. There are so many educators on Teachers Going Gradeless.
00:19:02
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from a diverse group of teachers, from kindergarten through college, representing all different, you know, all different focuses such as math, science. You know, there's so many wonderful people on there.
00:19:21
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Got a great podcast, a great blog. Um, just, yeah, I would start there if you're interested in, it's not just about going grade list. It's about learning. It's about putting the student in the center of the classroom, um, and, and making learning meaningful. Um, beyond that, um, you know, I've, I've always enjoyed the work of Mark Barnes. Um, his work has just been amazing. Um, and, and of course you star, you've been amazing in my life as well.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, those are the people that come off and is immediate who I would point other people to. Thank you. I know that what you have to say will affect so many educators out there. If an educator is looking to find out more about your work, where could they find you online?
Connect with Aaron Blackwelder
00:20:11
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You can follow me on Twitter. I've really gotten away from social media. The pandemic did some terrible things to me with
00:20:19
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with social media, but I do check my messaging. My messaging is completely open, and when I get notifications, I do check those messages. You can follow me on Twitter, at Aaron S Blackwell One is my Twitter handle. If you need anything, if you have questions, I love engaging with teachers, please feel free to send me a direct message through that. That would be the best platform for me.
00:20:52
Speaker
Thank you so much. This has been wonderful and we definitely appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes.
Closing & Mastery Portfolio Invitation
00:21:16
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Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com. You can follow us on Twitter at masteryforall and on LinkedIn on our Mastery Portfolio page. We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please fill out the survey found in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.