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Johnny Chu says assessment can be authentic
113 Plays1 month ago
Shout out to colleagues at St. Andrew’s School in Austin, TX
- Kama Bruce (Caitlin Gable)
- Alexandra Baird (SAS LS Curriculum Coordinator)
- Geoff Harrison (The Compass School)
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
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Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast where we empower and inspire ownership of learning. Sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Starr Saxton and Crystal Frommert.
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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 a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network.
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Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Johnny Chu's Educational Philosophy
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Hello, we are so excited to have Johnny Chu on the show today. Johnny's worked in education for over 20 years, teaching multiple subjects to students from grades one through 12. He believes that learning occurs through relationships and shared understandings that students form through interactions with their social cultural worlds. So as an educator, he favors student centered constructivist learning environments where children inquire, hypothesize, problem solve as active members in the learning process.
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he learned how to teach at the school at Columbia University and eventually bringing these progressive educational practices to Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas. While at Columbia University, he earned a Master's of Education in Educational Leadership and a Doctorate of Education in Curriculum and Instruction.
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He currently works as the CDI, which means Creativity Design and Innovating Coordinator and Instructional Coach at the Audi International School in Houston.
Innovative Learning Spaces
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This past year, he coordinated the launch of the Chevron Makerspace at Audi, which is a maker studio and fabrication lab that promotes innovative, hands-on and project-based learning. We're so happy to have Johnny on our episode today.
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So Johnny, we are excited to learn a little bit more about a defining moment in your educational journey. Would you mind sharing one, please? Absolutely. Stars and Crystal, thanks for having me on the Learner Centered Spaces Podcast, and I'm excited to be here with you all today. So I would say a defining journey or moment in my education journey was really my first year of teaching. I feel really fortunate that I spent my formative years in education at the school at Columbia University in New York City, and that
00:02:37
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was a that is a school that is a school for the children of the university professors but there's also community and neighborhood students and children as well so it was a really interesting mix of students and I was there um at the very beginning of the school and so we really sort of had this sort of startup and and laboratory school sort of mentality. And I worked with a lot of really forward thinking educators who were really trying to sort of push the boundaries of what a progressive education can be. um And really felt like we were kind of in a laboratory setting where we were trying to do what we thought was best practice based on research. And we were doing a lot of action research and things like that as well. So um it was in this place where I feel like I really kind of built all of these
00:03:27
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educational philosophies and things like that that still kind of guide me to this day. And um one of the things that we did a lot there was really just building our own homegrown curriculum as well. And that really started with the students. And so I would say my journey as a learner-centered educator really took root there and um i'm just I'm grateful for the time that I was at that school and I feel like there I'm still connected with a lot of the teachers that I worked with and have ah a strong network with them to this day.
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So Johnny, i I heard you say a lot of things about um how it was a startup. and And one of the schools I was in as well, I spent time, like I came in on the second year that it was open and we kept growing it. You talked about some progressive practices.
Community Building and Curriculum Design
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I'd love to dive a little more deeply into that. Can you share some of the action research or something that really stood out to you that was unique And that has transformed the way that you teach now. Can you give us some specific stories?
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Sure. So I remember working at that time with ah groups of students that were from very diverse backgrounds. um So as I mentioned, half of the students were Columbia University faculty children. And then we had ah the other half that were from ah the community. And at that time, the school was drawing students from districts three and five, which is in Harlem and in Washington Heights.
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And because of that, we had such a rich diversity of ah socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity, and we just had kids from all different types of backgrounds and had all of these different experiences that kind of really enriched our community. And so a lot of the research that we did was really about how to build community and how to build shared goals and shared understandings together as as a community. and And so that really started with the curriculum that we were ah doing. It was very student-centered in that we would really just have kind of guiding questions. We used a lot of understanding by design by
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wigans and mctie And we would start with with a lot of enduring understandings and from there really build units around students' interests and and and what they ah were passionate and interested it in. um So I taught grade four. two through five at that school and when I was in teaching in second grade we had a unit on community and from there we would really just kind of explore and have students inquire at different essential questions of like what makes up a community, how do I fit within the community, how does my identity affect the community and so these are really sort of big questions for kids at such a young age but we were able to find that they
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were able to make sense of even these really big questions and in in ways that made sense to them. so And not also being in New York, we were able to really ah take advantage of the resources we had in the in the in the neighborhood and in the community there.
Hands-on Learning and Resources
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So we would be taking trips to museums, um trips to ah the public library, trips to even just the grocery store or to um you ah places of worship and things like that in the neighborhood. So it was a lot of
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it not just learning in the classroom, but using the community resources around us as as a way of of of building our units of study as well. That sounds like there it is a wonderfully learner centered environment that you have going on. Can you share a little bit how these kinds of experiential learning um activities in and outside of school compares to maybe what traditional spaces look like and how how they're different and what you may have experienced differently as a response from the students? Sure. So um I would say in a more traditional sort of classroom, you would really be kind of starting more with the content and thinking about what, you know, our
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ah what is I think in a more traditional centered kind of classroom you would really be starting with content and you'd be thinking about what do I need to cover, what ah learning objectives and and and content do I need to get across. Whereas in my experience I feel like starting with the students and starting with what they know and what their interests are really makes a ah very big difference. So an example of A unit that we did was one that is very common to do a unit on on um literature. and mo by ah
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I'm sorry. A unit that we did that is very common was one um that is about teaching biographies.
Project-Based Assessments
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And so um in a more traditional sort of way, you might read different examples of biographies, talk about what makes them up um makes up a biography and and things like that. But um I think having the freedom at that school to be able to do it from a learner-centered way, we actually started by having the students um think about people that were important in their lives and having them choose people that they wanted to write biographography biographies about, as opposed to just having um
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published biographies of of of people. um In one unit we actually took all of the biographies out of our classroom library and then we analyzed them and we looked at how many of them um were male um ah versus female, how many of them were minorities versus majority people and and what kind of voices were being represented and so from that we actually then went to the public library and did the same thing by kind of looking at the biographies there and from there we kind of
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had the students explore well what kind of voices were missing and how do we find ways of representing those those voices more. And we visited a
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local bookstore that was a Puerto Rican bookstore and and talked with a proprietor and why she started that bookstore and what the mission of that was. um We went to a publishing house in um Midtown where they published multicultural children's literature and we talked with some of the executives there and talked about their mission and from there we learned about the importance of having different voices being represented and then the kids actually wrote biographies of voices that they felt were missing in that in that space and then we published those books and actually had them housed in our school library as a way of having kind of an authentic purpose and and and an audience for for the project.
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And what the listeners may not know is that Johnny and I, and this is Crystal here, Johnny and I used to work at the same school. So I've had the privilege of firsthand seeing some of the work that Johnny has done with authentic assessments that you were just talking about and because we took our geometry students to the maker space to create tessellation pieces. And also I've seen a history class in the maker space when they were building inventions.
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um looking back at inventions from the 1920s and then thinking about inventions of current day. And so I just have seen firsthand all of these great authentic assessments going on in in the makerspace that you lead. Can you share more ideas that you might have or more philosophies that you might have around authentic assessments?
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I would say that the assessments that we've been doing and those projects that you mentioned, those were those were great examples. I felt like they were really fun projects for the students, but um the projects themselves were the assessments. It was sort of a project.
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or project or a-based assessment, so whether or not the students were able to use that that app, it was Geodribra, I remember, whether or not they were able to use that app to be able to create this polygon and be able to create the vectors ah correctly and whether or not they were able to To tessellate them like just the act of them actually going through and making this physical product. I feel like that what in its in and of itself was sort of a performance based assessment. So in that project that it was one in which they were
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demonstrating their understanding of geometry and the principles of geometry in that unit but also they got to be creative with it too where they were able to create a polygon and use software to design it and then we used a laser machine to actually laser cut it out onto pieces of acrylic so I feel like in that project it was It was a good assessment of their geometric like understanding and in their geometry class, but also their understanding of how to like physically manipulate polygons using tessellations and things like that, too. And and so I feel like that the kids had so much fun with that project that it you know even even though it was
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It was an assessment in a sense. It didn't feel like one to them. you know It wasn't one in which they were having to sit down and like take a paper and pencil test or anything like that. So they were demonstrating their understanding just through and this active sort of learning process.
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And and we've we've also were privileged to work with teachers who are open-minded and see a broad definition of what assessment is. But we might have some listeners who work with colleagues who might be naysayers when it comes to more authentic or hands-on or non-pencil paper tests.
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and Some of the things I've heard as a teacher is I don't have time for something like that. So what advice would you have for teachers who really do want to branch out away from traditional and go towards more student-centered? Do you have any advice for them if if they are surrounded by colleagues who just aren't there yet with them?
Adapting Teaching to Student Needs
00:14:40
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That's a great question. I would say that my advice would be um that you can just make small tweaks to your practice. you know um and I think one thing that I found had to be very effective in my practice is doing pre-assessments on units. um Even though it is something that takes time, you would need to dedicate, you know, maybe a class period to doing it where you actually start a unit, say say that you're you're ah starting
00:15:12
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a writing unit and you are having the students do personal narrative sort of writing. Doing a quick pre-assessment one day to actually gauge what they already know about this genre of writing and what they already know how to do is actually going to make the rest of that unit so much more manageable and so much more efficient. So um I would say dedicating time to getting to know your students and getting to know what they know first is going to make a huge difference and and make make a huge and impact and on um on that unit because I think
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if we just kind of go through the motions of going through unit one, lesson one, unit one, lesson two, you're going to have a lot of students that are going to be at varying levels of of mastery already in this in this unit. And so you're going to be constantly having to try to keep so different groups of students engaged because you're giving the same content to to to a whole group of students. So the more that you can get to know what students already know and then kind of ah tailor that and your your unit and your lessons in a way that kind of meets them where they're at, you're going to have just a lot more engagement and a lot more progress with the students. So um my advice would definitely be to get to know your students and and to get to know what they know
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first, before, and I think it'll make a huge difference and difference in the unit. That's been my experience too, Johnny, this is Star. the the The better you know your kids, the better the relationships you build, the more time you invest in understanding the depth of their knowledge and skill set, the more effective your teaching is, especially if you're responsive to it. um I think a lot of summative testing that goes on in spaces and even formative
00:17:16
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like traditional testing, that data doesn't ever really get used effectively. So when we think about what's a waste of time, I'd argue that maybe those formative tests or benchmark tests where teachers aren't effectively using the data they find to actively tailor their instruction makes it more of a waste because of exactly what you described. How are you going to engage a roomful of kids who come to the table with so many different learning strengths and challenges. So I'm grateful that you shared that story. Yeah, thank you for sure. star I totally
Student Self-Reflection and Goal-Setting
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agree with you. And I would add another thing that I think is really useful that I feel like doesn't get done as much is just having students doing more self-reflection and self-assessments. So being able to find ways to have students
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ah reflect on their own learning. if they have an If they have a clear understanding of what the objectives are and and what they're supposed to learn and having them doing some reflecting and self-assessment is something that um I think is something that's manageable because you don't have to sit one-on-one with students to do that, to have to teach them how to be able to assess themselves. But it also builds that self-awareness amongst the students and that metacognition. And I think it's just a great skill for them to be able to kind of ah be able to monitor their own learning and be able to set goals based on like where they're at and where they need to go and and I feel like that empowers them in a way that makes it, but it in a way also makes things more manageable for you as a teacher if you can like build systems for doing that in your classroom.
00:19:08
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You're definitely speaking my love language now, Johnny. um I am a really big fan of reflection and self-assessment and the amount that i I learned through my student reflections was able to help with a lot of differentiation in terms of how better to give them really thoughtful feedback that aligned with their specific needs based on what I couldn't see in their thinking. And one of the questions I always got, because I'm i'm a secondary person, like how do you bring that learning to younger children? Because a lot of folks always push back with me when I was, you know, I taught 11th and 12th graders mostly.
00:19:50
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So what does that look like for younger kids?
00:19:58
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Yeah, that's a really good question. um I think with younger kids, it's giving them examples of what proficiency looks like, you know, showing them a a an example of a piece of writing that is a really a stellar example and then having them take their piece of writing and being able to kind of compare it to see what they're doing well and what are the areas in which they can improve. So I would say I would argue that it's similar with
00:20:34
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um I would say it's similar with secondary and with primary students, giving them examples of what proficiency looks like and having them kind of self reflect towards that I think is a great way of of going about it and um you know, I think that with young kids, you might not think that they have sort of that self-awareness, but it it is just sort of like a muscle muscle that you have to exercise and by teaching them how to do so, they learn it over time. But I think with young children, it is a lot of modeling of that. um That's something that I think you have to kind of model and and demonstrate how to how to do it until they start to pick that up for themselves.
00:21:16
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um And i would I would say that's, you know, now now that I'm working in secondary, I would say that that's something that I really strive to do as well as making sure that when modeling things, I think we get into the habit with older students of just saying, well, they're older, they know how to do it, I don't really have to show them, but but that act of demonstrating and modeling it for them, so I feel like goes a really long way even with older students.
00:21:43
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Yes, definitely agree. And I know that none of us are doing this all
Acknowledgments and Listener Engagement
00:21:49
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alone. And we've all had, you know, inspiration from others who've gone before us. So is there anybody in particular who you would like to shout out who has helped you along on your journey to where you are?
00:22:02
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Yes, I have so many people, um you know, from my days at Columbia, at at the School of Columbia. But more more recently, I would really like to shout out my colleagues at St. Andrew School in Austin. So I worked, when I left New York, I went to Austin and I worked with a leadership team at the school there. Kamma Bruce who was the head of the lower school and Jeff Harrison who is the director of student services. Kamma is now at Caitlin Gable out at um in Portland and ah Jeff is starting he's founding a school in Austin called the Compass School
00:22:40
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and Alexandra is the Director of Curriculum at St. Andrews and we were such a strong team that we were really trying to do a lot of things differently there. So we were doing a lot of sort of design thinking principles with young with kids and we were trying to build out sort of a makeshift makerspace. It's definitely not as formal and as as as as expansive as the one that we have here at Audis, but we were just having the kids doing a lot of projects and and getting their hands um getting their hands dirty with taking things apart, building things, just experimenting with different materials and and things like that. So um I really want to shout them out because I feel like they were really instrumental in helping me to understand how we can
00:23:31
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take a lot of large ah groups of of of kids who were still like struggling with certain content and how to how to be able to get them to engage with in and in different ways and hands-on kinds of ways to make them feel successful at it so that um they didn't feel like they were they were struggling or that they were not not getting it. So definitely want to shout them out.
00:24:00
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Well, thank you, Johnny. And I know that the wonderful people at Audie are very lucky to have you. um Any student who has the opportunity to to have you as a teacher is also very lucky. And we are lucky to have you on our show. So thank you so much for your time.
00:24:19
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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 X at MasteryForAll and LinkedIn in our Mastery Portfolio page.
00:24:41
Speaker
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