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Dr. John Spencer says to assess learning, not the product
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Matinga Ragatz
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces Podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning. Sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
Audience and Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom. 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. The learner-centered spaces podcast is now a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network.
Guest Introduction: John Spencer
00:00:41
Speaker
We are so excited to have John Spencer on the show today. He is a former middle school teacher and current college professor. He is passionate about seeing teachers transform their classrooms into spaces of creativity and wonder. He spoke at the White House in 2013 about what it looks like to be future ready through PBL. He is a dad to three kids and has two giant great Danes. Welcome to the show, John. Glad to be here. I'm so excited you're here too, John. I use your videos in so many of the professional learning that I do with teachers. They're the perfect amount of size, like length, and they're also so informative and easy to watch. The teachers absolutely love them. So thank you so much for putting out great content. Oh, thanks. You're welcome.
John's Pivotal Learning Moment
00:01:30
Speaker
So as we get started, can you share a little bit about a defining moment in your educational journey?
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think the most defining moment for me was in eighth grade. I was painfully shy and pretty nerdy. And if you can imagine, I'm kind of, I was born in the 1980s, so kind of a child of the eighties. Back in the day, that the nerds were kind of the tropes to be tolerated, not the characters to be loved, right? Everyone wanted to to be Zach Morris and to not be screech. And so my whole goal in and throughout school was to be invisible. And I remember in eighth grade, I did a project and in Mrs. Moot's class, she was our history teacher, um she required everyone to do an an independent project. And we had a bunch of different choices and we would have one day a week to work on this independent project. And I did a history day project.
00:02:31
Speaker
And it was the first time I had ever done true project-based learning. I had done a lot of you know like sort of crafty type projects where the teacher made all the decisions and gave us detailed instructions when I was younger. But this was the first time of really doing project-based learning, really having any kind of voice and choice and ownership of the learning. And it was defining for me in a lot of ways. it was um I actually didn't like it at first. I didn't love having a learner center um, pedagogy. I didn't love having project-based learning. I was overwhelmed. It was scary to me. I liked the predictability of the workshops of the past. And yet I also fell in love with history and I interviewed a bunch of former, um, baseball players. I did the story of Jackie Robinson, the integration of baseball. Um, I got to interview a lot of former African-American players who had played for what was called in the past, the Negro Leagues.
00:03:32
Speaker
And that was my defining moment um of owning my learning. It's where I faced my fears. It's where I learned um how to develop a growth mindset. It's where I developed resilience, communication, all of these um great skills that I learned throughout that year. And it's really, it's Mrs. Smoot was why I became a history teacher and why um I fell in love with the subject, but also fell in love with that type of learning.
Challenges in Implementing PBL
00:04:02
Speaker
I love that story, John, and I'm curious, did all of that experience transfer into your teaching immediately, or were you like me and did it take time to find your way into this PBL paradigm? I think it took a while, and it took a while for a few reasons. One was, you know, every context is different. so um First of all, I was scared at the very beginning. I had a very much a content delivery model my first year of teaching, but I did do one project with students and it went really well, but I made a bunch of mistakes. I i learned real quickly that I couldn't have something too loosely structured, that structure is actually vital for creativity, that having deadlines and phases
00:04:52
Speaker
um that those things are are necessary. And I somehow had forgotten that that was a part of how I did PBL myself as a student. And so I made a lot of mistakes. I had i was ah really nervous about it. I was afraid of different things. um I was worried about how to align it to the standards. So it was a journey of student ownership that I would say began with doing PBL and eventually moved into a place of providing structures and scaffolds, making sure I had language support, making sure I had all kinds of supports for students with um who were neurodiverse, students with learning differences, and really other things that happened over time, you know getting to a place where very slowly I started to incorporate student ownership into the assessment process, peer assessment,
00:05:50
Speaker
self-assessment, and again, learning all of those hard mistakes along the way. I made so many mistakes. I'll just say that it was a lot of bruise knees and epic fails and all of those things that help us grow. So it was not a fast journey. It was a slow journey for me. I can totally identify with that. And I think it's a great lead-in to thinking about learner-centered spaces.
The Impact of PBL on Learning Environments
00:06:18
Speaker
So if you could focus on how PBL in particular creates a learner-centered space, so and what is a truly well-functioning project-based learning environment look like, feel like, sound like when it's being done like in its ideal form?
00:06:38
Speaker
You know, it's interesting when I first began doing PBL, I noticed I would have to do some things immediately in just the physical space. um And it was moving from desks and rows to you know groups and um tables. And that was a big shift for me. That was a really different way of doing things. And I kind of thought, well, we've got it. We're good. And then as I... began to do more and more projects, I started to realize there's so many aspects of PBL that require us to rethink the space. So another thing was, you know how do you manage storage? How do you differentiate the space so that you have spaces for you know studio work and spaces for prototyping and spaces for ideation and all of these different things.
00:07:31
Speaker
And it really goes back to the idea of student ownership of the learning. And I remember for me, a big aha moment was it was my second year of doing PBL and I had the students create this um map of the classroom basically. I designed a map of the classroom and I just asked them using markers to color code what space they felt like belonged to me as a teacher, what space they felt like belonged to to everyone, and what space they felt like belonged to just them. And it was eye-opening to see how much of the space they thought was still just the teacher space, the the two whiteboards we had that could be used but weren't be used being used all the time.
00:08:16
Speaker
um the area by, I didn't have a a teacher desk, but there was an area I would stand off in at. and And so it was really rethinking this whole idea of ownership and and and slowly getting into the notion of allowing for more movement and encouraging more movement and encouraging more differentiation. And so that was sort of another phase in this um journey toward a more learner centered space And then eventually we got a straight up maker space. And so now we had really different differentiated spaces and I was teaching um you know STEM and photojournalism. And so we had the studio space and green screen and everything like that.
00:09:01
Speaker
And then my moment of recognizing, again, the need for rethinking space was I was never super comfortable. I have some kind of sensory issues. And so I wasn't really comfortable with how loud the space was. And I remember um having a student come to me and saying, I love your class, but i it's just too loud for me. and um you know there were a couple of students who had had noise cancellation headphones. This is pre-air pods, right? So they were big and bulky and they stood out and there's kind of a stigma attached to them. And so I realized we need to we need to create quiet zones inside of this maker space. And so I created some podcasting areas that were quiet, but also just quiet workspaces to work individually where a student could be in their group, but they could be by themselves.
00:09:58
Speaker
and I realized that myself as an introvert would have hung out in that space all the time. And so it was the next space was really differentiating for sound and for quiet. And it it came from a place of honoring a lot of introverts, but also honoring a lot of my students who were neurodiverse, who um the sheer amount of noise would make it really hard. But what I found is like any other kind of universal design approach, it benefited everyone. And so I share that because for me, all of this goes to show you that these things are never complete, right? There was, it wasn't like I shifted toward a learner center space automatically and I was done. This was a 12 year journey of more and more differentiation, more and more option, more and more student agency and ownership in the process.
00:10:51
Speaker
I love what you're saying about the noisy space because I think that's a struggle that many teachers have and many students have. And what you were saying just really hit home for me because this year I had a student, he's a wonderful student, and he's really social so it surprised me. But he came to me and he said, I'm i'm really having trouble coming to your math tutorials because it's just so loud. It reminded me of the, you know, the back to the future when Huey Lewis says to Marty, you're just too darn loud. movie But I was like, Oh man, like that's why you're not coming. I didn't even think, and it was really great feedback for me as a teacher. And so I created kind of like a, you know, the quiet car of a train. I created a quiet tutorial time and it was like Tuesdays at lunch.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I didn't tell a lot of kids about it. It wasn't that it was exclusive, but if I told everybody about it, then it would get noisy again. But it was kind of by appointment where students can say, I'm having trouble with this and say, Oh, actually, if you'd like to come Tuesday at lunch. And I purposely kept it but rather small and pretty quiet. So I really, really appreciated that the student came forward. and told me that and I hope more students will speak up about that and more teachers will be cognizant of having quiet spaces. So thank you for sharing that story and I will be more mindful of it as well. So my next question, you talked about it a little bit when you're introducing your PBL experience.
Strategies for Assessing PBL
00:12:25
Speaker
So I think many teachers
00:12:28
Speaker
might be you know leaning towards PBL, but they also are required to assess and maybe give a grade, right? Or hit marks on standards of mastery or follow a rubric of some kind. What advice do you have for teachers who are struggling with the assessment part of project-based learning? So what I would say for the assessment part is you have to first of all recognize what your grading system is to begin with. So we had an an interesting hybrid of we were standards-based and so things like, um you know, late work, you didn't lose points for late work, for example, or um there were no zeros in the grade book in the beginning of the semester, although they could be converted to it.
00:13:17
Speaker
a 50% later if students never turned it in. So some traditional, some, you know, standards based. And, you know, what that created was a little bit of confusion for students, for parents, but also, um, it at least created within a traditional system of ABCD grades, the recognition that we are assessing the learning, not the product. And so this was really hard for students to to wrap their brains around at first. um We had rubrics, but the rubrics were about looking at the product to to to see evidence of mastery of the standards, not how good is your finished product. In fact, sometimes students would not finish ah a product in doing a project.
00:14:14
Speaker
Sometimes they would make it take a big, bold, creative risk and it wouldn't work. Um, sometimes there were things on the finished product that were delayed. Any of those things, Michael is multiple measures that we can look at to see if you mastered your learning. So that's the first kind of thing to keep in mind. The second thing is that, um, there are so many different ways that we can gauge the mastery of the learning. So. peer assessment, self-assessment, you know, rubrics. I personally am a huge fan of taking a rubric and converting it into a checklist. If you think about it this way, when you do projects at home,
00:14:58
Speaker
um we tend to, you know, doing projects at home, we don't, we we don't tend to use rubrics. Rubrics are great, but we tend to use checklists. And so the notion of giving a student a rubric ahead of time and saying, use this rubric as we go, you have to be very deliberate about using the rubric. I actually think it works way better to convert that into a checklist, which is what students would more naturally do. um I'll say this about you know assessment during PBL. It has to be daily. It has to be formative. It has to be ongoing. It should be structured. It should be specific. It should be helpful. All of those things that we know about
00:15:39
Speaker
assessment in general. um I love using specific protocols. I have a 20-minute um peer feedback process that I use. I have a sketch video on on the YouTube channel about it. So I would say, you know, going that route, a varied student-centered align to the standards. That's the advice I would give for doing assessment in PBL.
00:16:03
Speaker
John I love what you just walked us through, as it it was probably my learning as well when I got to a point where the PBL was functioning well in my space. All of those things took me time to discover, um you know, starting with the right rubric, because you know, I think the impetus, especially if it's group projects that folks are doing to grade everybody on the product together with the same score. And um I have challenges with that. um But I didn't in the beginning because I didn't know any better. Yeah. And I wonder, as you were talking about that checklist and how you're checking in with folks every single day,
00:16:46
Speaker
Can you say a little bit more about how kids understand criteria and how um having that understand and that understanding and clarity upfront, how that makes the experience more viable? Yeah, so I think it's really important that they know what the learning targets are that they're trying to master and what it looks like for them to reach that criteria. And I think we need to be very It's not that we need to be very specific. I remember thinking it it had to be specific, but we need to make it very visible for them, very concrete for students. I think once that happens, it becomes a lot easier to use that within rubrics, to look at exemplars, um to incorporate it into student portfolios. um I think that's sort of the beginning of it. And I will say kind of going back
00:17:40
Speaker
or going to what you said about you know the group work and the group rubrics and things like that, I made a lot of those same mistakes. I did i did group grades and realized that created really unhealthy group dynamics. It created bad power dynamics where you know someone would would would use the grade to bully another student kind of and make groups um risk averse, all kinds of things I didn't want. And then on top of that, you know I'll just say learning, um it continues to be a journey. you know One of the things I just started implementing was getting students to see the difference of asking for feedback on something they've done and getting feedback on what should I do differently next time, which is sort of ah an an an Adam Grant strategy that I really like.
00:18:35
Speaker
um you know, in doing student-centered assessment for a long time, I would give them a criteria and say, look for this in in your peer feedback process. And now, about half the time, I ask students to ask their peers for the kind of feedback that they want. And so it continues to be a journey.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I have a question for you. So I work with some traditional teachers yes and one and they're wonderful people and and they're they're trying um to see more learner centered approach.
Getting Started with PBL
00:19:14
Speaker
So I'm curious, what advice would you have for someone? Cause I just had this conversation just the other day where they said, we don't have time for project based learning. It takes swept way too many days and we have so much content to cover. What would you say to someone who has that argument? So I think for, um,
00:19:33
Speaker
For PBL in particular, I think there's a couple of things that frighten people about it. One is how much time it takes. Another is letting go of control. right Those are the two biggest things I see. And by the way, you know this that was connected to the the research I did with my dissertation and at the university has been around project-based learning and professional development, teacher motivation, some of those factors. And one of the things that I found really interesting is if you can help a teacher see what PBL looks like, and you can show them how it will be structured, right that they' that it's not just a free-for-all. And even if, in some cases, have them co-plan some of the factors around classroom management and logistics, then what happens is they're motivated to do it. and
00:20:29
Speaker
right But now they not only have motivation, but they're beginning to increase in their self-efficacy. And the sweet spot is if motivation is high and self-efficacy is high, people are much more likely to engage in things like project-based learning. And then I think you have to create early, easy wins. So I really think don't start out with project-based learning. Start out with a design sprint that you do on Friday afternoon in a self-contained classroom.
00:21:00
Speaker
when kids are already a little bit squirrely, or a Monday morning design sprint when, um you know, we used to do Maker Mondays on on Monday mornings, which was a time when there was a big issue with truancy and and with tardiness. And it it gave students a reason to be there. And so, you know, it was it was a 45 to 60 minute block of time over the course of the week. So I think doing things like that, you know, starting out with a two day project, mini project, uh, before spring break or on the first week of school, really going for those moments where you can see success, but also experience some of those mistakes without it feeling very high risk. So, you know, really start off small structured, how people see what it's going to look like, and then give that permission to make some of those small mistakes along the way.
00:21:58
Speaker
I so appreciate that advice, John.
Influences in PBL Community
00:22:01
Speaker
As we start to close out the episode, are there folks you'd like to shout out? Who are some of the people who have helped you on your journey or other people you see doing great work with PBL that you'd like to mention for our listeners? Oh, gosh, there's so many people. um I am a big fan of um the book Pulse of PBL by Mike Cackley and Matinga Rugatz, they both really look at the overlap between project-based learning and social-emotional learning in a way that's very practical. And so huge fan of their work. I also think Trevor Muir and just what he's done
00:22:47
Speaker
as a PBL coach um and and you know I got a chance to see his classroom when he was a high school teacher. It was phenomenal just in terms of the authenticity and community connections. um I really think it's important some of the work right now that Nick Provenzano is doing around PBL and makerspaces specifically for um students who are neurodivergent and what it means to meet their needs and to not treat inclusion as an afterthought. um So I think those are all people that I would give some shout outs to.
00:23:30
Speaker
Thank
Connect with John Online
00:23:31
Speaker
you. And where can listeners find you online and connect with you? So you can find me on Twitter um at Spencer Ideas. And my Instagram is at Spencer Education. And then my Facebook is at Spencer Education as well. And then you can find me on YouTube. If you just go to SpencerVideos.com, it takes you straight to my YouTube channel. And I make a lot of these little sketch videos. I do writing prompts, video writing prompts, um and I do some kind of step-by-step how-to videos as well.
00:24:11
Speaker
Thank you. I, you have some great stuff online. So if you are listening and you haven't already looked at John's content online, it's fantastic. It's really inspiring. Um, and after listening to you answer these questions, I think you're very much like Zach Morris. You're very cool. not each like Um, although I do love screech. Um, so thank you, John. It's been great. Thanks. I really appreciate it. Thanks, John. Thank you.
Conclusion and Call for Feedback
00:24:42
Speaker
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. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio dot.com. You can follow us on Twitter at MasteryForAll and on LinkedIn on the Mastery Portfolio page. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.