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Melody McAllister says to give students opportunities they want to participate in
80 Plays7 months ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
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Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star-Sachstein and Crystal Frommer. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:21
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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.
Podcast Network and Guest Introduction
00:00:32
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The Learner-Centered Spaces Podcast is now a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. We are so happy to have Melody McAllister on our show today. Melody is a wife, mother of five, educator, and author.
00:00:50
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She and her family relocated to Anchorage, Alaska from Dallas, Texas in 2019. McAllister is a 2017 Garland NAACP Educator of the Year and author of I'm Sorry Story, a children's book about taking responsibility for mistakes and making sincere apologies. She is a classroom teacher and the community facilitator for several large educational communities.
00:01:15
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and is a consultant for edtech companies and small business owners looking to enhance their social media presence. McAllister has presented multiple times at ISTE about equity issues in education and writes about her life journey and her blog, hegavemeamelady.com. Please welcome Melody to the show today.
00:01:37
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I wanted to say thank you both for having me on. I didn't tell you guys that already, but thank you. This is really a treat. We are so appreciative of you spending some time with us this morning.
Alaskan Adventure and Educational Growth
00:01:47
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Can you tell us a little bit more about your move from Dallas to Alaska?
00:01:53
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It's really changed me. I think that I'm a better educator for learning from my Alaskan educators and just being here with these kids. Last year, when I was a long-term sub at the school that I'm teaching at, we were outside of the fence on this trail, and we were examining the bear and the moose scat.
00:02:12
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and talking about how fresh it was. And so we needed to be on alert. And I'm just thinking, but of course, you know, we're out here. They let me take these kids on this trail. I don't need to worry. Well, then I get on the radio. Hey, guys, the neighboring school has said they saw a bear on the trail. So you guys need to come back into the fence. Oh, my God. This is crazy.
00:02:33
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And what do you know? I'm internally freaking out, but my students, sixth graders at the time, they just lead me right back into the fence. We had been out on the trail for 45 minutes at that time and they knew all the shortcuts. We went back into the fence in time to see this big black bear cross where we would have been. And of course we're staring at it and then we have to go inside because
00:02:54
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a chain link fence isn't going to keep anything out. So then we're just, we go inside. But I just like, these are experiences that not a lot of people have, but watching these kids and that's a, that's a huge thing here, bear and loose safety. That's like part of the curriculum, putting them in action. Not once did they freak out. Not once did they scream. We all started talking and singing, going back. They knew what to do. They taught me so much. And so when I was hired to teach at the school full time, I, I come in knowing that my students have a lot to teach me and, um,
00:03:24
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I've, you know, it's just been an incredible learning experience. So yeah, that's my story.
Community Building in Education
00:03:31
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And as we get into our conversation today, we'd love for you to tell us a little bit about a defining moment that puts you on the journey you're on today.
00:03:43
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Awesome. I loved, I loved thinking about these questions. And one thing that even before I was thinking about the questions that has really resonated with me for my entire career and education, which started in 2004. I hate it's almost I hate and I love saying I've been in this for like 20 years now.
00:04:03
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But community has always been super important to me. And even before I knew really what social emotional learning was, because I don't remember that being something that we learned in college, but those were the things that I really just like doubled down on when I started teaching. And it was just a natural thing. So developing that community in the classroom, developing that community with the teachers that I've worked with, with the families that
00:04:27
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belong to my students has always been super important to me. And just making sure that I resonate with my students on an emotional level, make that connection so that they remember what they're learning. Those are the things that have always justified me as a teacher.
00:04:44
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That's amazing. And as you're thinking about those defining moments, as you've come into the classroom, and I know that you have a pretty awesome and unique approach to how you run your middle school classroom, what does a learner centered space look like, feel like, sound like to you with or without technology or thinking in terms of just how you put your kiddos first?
Multimedia Class Project
00:05:14
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Yeah, so I feel like when it comes to technology, I have one class that I teach at my current school and I do teach middle school and this one class is my multimedia class and I have sixth, seventh and eighth graders in there and we create our online school newspaper and
00:05:33
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It was something that in quarter two, we decided we were going to do because we were working on the yearbook for quarter one. For quarter two, we're like, let's do something different. So we developed the outline and the purpose and all of that and just put that together. I did that with my students. We looked at different templates before we decided, OK, well, maybe we should just keep it simple and do it on a Google site. And so third quarter, we just started putting it in action.
00:06:00
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So what happens when my students come into my classroom, I'm at the board and we just, it's like a newspaper. It's so cool. And we just start talking about what we're going to put on the front page, what everybody's assignment is. We have sports people. We have one or two students that develop memes. It's like our comics page, but they develop memes.
00:06:20
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And then we have someone that does contests and then, you know, the different grade levels share about what's going on currently. And it is so chaotic and fun. And then my students like they grab a camera, they grab their phone, they go interview students, interview teachers or staff or whatever, take pictures, bring it back, we put it together, we try to update it every week. And
00:06:39
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sometimes when I'm just sitting there and I'm looking at and I feel like I'm the main editor like they all do their job they know what their job is and I'm just making sure that grammatically everything looks great and it's pretty chaotic you know it's loud and I imagine that I'm helping some of these students they want to be journalists someday they want to do this full-time and I'm giving them like just a taste of what it might be like if they were doing this for you know they're you know as an adult like you know
00:07:05
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I guess like in a newspaper or whatever, just the loud of it. And it's fun. And I know my students look forward to it. I look forward to it. It's, you know, we don't get to do it as much as our core classes, but it's something that we look forward to every day. And something that I try to always implement in my classroom as well is just that student voice and choice. And I know that we've been saying student voice and choice for a long time. But you know, when they have a say over what we're doing,
00:07:31
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It's always like, it always exceeds my expectations. It exceeds their expectations and it really glues what we're learning about. So that's kind of what it looks like when you're in my classroom. And also, we fail a lot, you know, like some of the stuff that we think we're going to do doesn't always turn out like what we hope, but also sometimes it turns out a lot better. So that's kind of what it looks and sounds like. So, Melody, I love that you're talking about journalism in particular in the newsroom because so much of
00:07:58
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how I got to where I am was through my journalism classes as well. There's something so
00:08:05
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unique about teaching journalism to students and I've always believed that journalism is really the most dynamic sort of content to teach kids because the real world application is sort of really built in. So as you were developing that learning space, like what were some of the things you considered
00:08:31
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Middle school gotta be different i was doing that work with high school students who had you know maybe a little bit more mature than middle school students so. How did how did it all look and what steps did you take to create that environment i think our listeners can really benefit from that.
00:08:52
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Yeah, well, I was really unsure of myself to begin, honestly. I had this idea, you know, let's do a school newspaper. And I wasn't even thinking about doing it online, but I was thinking, gosh, we don't like to print off a ton of paper because, I mean, I think any teacher knows that our students throw away everything that we give them at some point.
00:09:14
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And I was talking with another teacher. She's like, why don't you just do it online? And I was like, that's brilliant. So I went back to my class and I'm like, what do you guys think about doing like instead of like printing this out, what do you think about doing an online paper? They're like, this is great. So we started looking at like templates on Canva and things like that. And then I realized and I guess we all realized that if we did that template, it was really
00:09:34
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closed to end. We had, we had a lot of limits. So then somebody said, why don't we just do a Google sites because they do that regularly. And I'm not like a Google sites, you know, champion. I don't use it regularly. So I just kind of had to trust them.
00:09:48
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And together we sat and we just, I mean, obviously it didn't take that long because a Google site doesn't take that long to pull up and make and create. And we decided like who was going to do what, who was going to be in charge of what, and we just created this theme. We voted on what our paper would be called, the live stream report, because I work at Anchorage Stream Academy, which is a STEM school. And
00:10:12
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So and then we just decided what we're going to be a part of our sections and and how we were going to do this. And we didn't have all the answers. So we were like for the first three weeks, we were just kind of like trying things out. And and then we started to realize, oh, this is what happens when you do this. And and what something that I brought along was, guys, we want this to look as uniform as possible while every page can be different in its own way. Like we want the font to be the same. We want the headings to be the same. So that was just like this.
00:10:40
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the kind of technical stuff that i brought but the creative aspect was all them which we all talked about the audience is there are their peers right so they knew what their peers would like and we talked about how the stories don't have to be super long nobody wants to read any more super long stories and you know that's where like
00:10:59
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You know, when you're in journalism, you know, the important stuff is usually at the top so that everybody gets what they need when they first read the story and creating catchy headings and stuff like that. So that was kind of the process. And it really was. I will say that with my students, we did it all together. I had never taught a class like this before. It was something kind of out of my comfort zone. And
00:11:22
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But the success of it came because my students did it. It was all them. I did help them. Sometimes they were like, how would I say this? So I help them with editing. And I know how helpful editing is when you're trying to create a message and you're not really sure how to make it just make it better and more appealing. So that was the part that I brought in. So I felt like, man, I have a really easy job right now. This is kind of where I shine in real life. And now I'm helping my students.
00:11:50
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And I teach language arts to seventh grade. So I felt like I was hammering in all of those important aspects that maybe they wouldn't really get in class, even the eighth graders, because, you know, class can be boring a little bit. So I feel like as they leave and they get to choose, you know, a new special every or a new elective every quarter, a lot of them are coming back for the next one. They're excited because we're going to grow. We're going to do even more
00:12:13
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multimedia. But I just feel like, and I asked them, did you guys learn a lot? They're like, yeah, we learn. So it's, you know, and I always ask them, like, I always do those check, check-ins just to make sure that they feel like they're being included, that they actually feel like they're learning something. And I, my son, I teach him in my ELA and social studies class at school too. And I was asking him on the way home yesterday, like, is, what have you been learning in my class? Like, and he gives me the truth. Like, middle school students, they don't hold back. They don't care about your ego.
00:12:42
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They will hit you with the truth every single time. So I feel like this year has been a pretty big success, even though I've been feeling my way through it. Thank you for sharing that.
Personal Growth and Student Engagement
00:12:51
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This is Crystal here. And I'm curious what advice or tips that you would have for another educator who would like to lean more toward the learner-centered spaces that you're describing.
00:13:02
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Yeah. So there is a lady named Kelly Gibson on TikTok and she's like, it's got Gibson's the name, I think is her TikTok. And she is a seasoned high school teacher and I love her TikToks. They're so real. They line up with how I feel about teaching students and seeing them as whole people.
00:13:24
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And something that she said earlier in the year was, hey, teachers, stop trying to force kids to do stuff. Compliance is so important, right? And she's like, listen, you can't make kids do anything. And I was just like,
00:13:39
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Duh, that is so true. You can't make kids do anything. And now I think working at middle school, I know that even more. And when you get into those power struggles with kids, nobody wins, you know, you may get them to turn in, you know, a page with their name on, but that's nothing. So she really just encouraged us teachers to
00:14:00
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Be real with our students, which I always am. I'm very honest with my students. I'm transparent with my students. When I mess up, I apologize to my students. I make it right with my students. I model all of that. And so something that she encouraged us to do was just to just give them opportunities and give them opportunities that they want to participate in. And maybe they are going to be on their phones a little bit too much. I mean, that's a struggle that everybody has, I think, at this point. But when we constantly give them opportunities,
00:14:29
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They're going to choose some, you know, and the way that they choose is up to them. And honestly, I don't know that every, you know, principal or administrator would believe, you know, would agree with that, because they definitely want more of that C word, right. But compliance, I'm trying to eradicate it from my vocabulary, I guess.
00:14:49
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But it's like, yes, when you give students those choices, when you're real with them, they do. And I've put that to heart this year. When I heard that, I was like, I needed to hear that, and I have put that into action. And I have really given up on the whole compliance thing. There are parts, obviously, I need grades, and I need to make sure that my students are doing as much as they can. But at the same time, that pressure for me to force my kids to do anything has been taken off of my shoulders.
00:15:16
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And I have on my part tried to come up with experiences, learning experiences that they want to be a part of. And I think I've done a really good job of that. So yeah, that's what I would say. And honestly, I check in with my students, you know, weekly, sometimes quarterly, like,
00:15:33
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So what's going on here? What did you like about what we did? And what did you hate about what we did? Because if I hate something, I don't want to keep doing it over and over because that means they're going to check out on purpose. And if I know that, I wouldn't do it again. And there and I talked to him like sometimes, hey, this isn't a me thing. This is like a school thing that you have to do that I have to do. So even though you don't like it, how can we figure out a way that it's, you know, more palatable or, or just can you work with me here? And
00:15:59
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I will say for middle school students, they're really forgiving when you treat them like people. And so that's really shined for me this year. And I would just say be real with any of your students.
00:16:10
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and treat them like human beings and they will come to the plate for you and they will do their best for you most of the time. So yeah, I would say it's not like a silver bullet. I don't have that. And I've kind of let go of thinking that I need a solution for everything because we are all going through different parts of our life where whole people, our students are whole people as well. And according to what we're all going through kind of depends on what they're also gonna deliver. And just understanding that has given me
00:16:39
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kind of a better perspective of what I feel is going to happen and the outcomes that are going to happen.
00:16:47
Speaker
Thanks for sharing that. I love your point about teach students like they're people. It's so obvious, but it's so ignored at the same time. And it's nice to get that reminder. So you speak wisdom to me. Thank you. So I was going to share, you mentioned about compliance and things we just have to do because administration is making us do it.
Grades and Educational Challenges
00:17:12
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And I've gone to the dark side. I'm half administrator and half teacher.
00:17:17
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I'm like this centaur of an educator here and I am very open with my, I teach seventh grade, I'm very open with them that I don't believe in grades. I think that they're inequitable and I do have to give them and we have to just go with the system that we have and do the best we can and
00:17:38
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And a lot of the things you just said, like, hey, let's work together on this. I'm going to work with you on this. And I think there are many administrators out there who feel the same way, but there are just so many systems around us that are almost insurmountable, right? We can't break them down and just so many different stakeholders that are part of the decision-making. But I think it takes more voices.
00:18:03
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like yours and mine and star and all the guests we've had about, you know, we have to do what's best for students. We have to do what's best for learning and try to break down some of these systems. So I really appreciate the things that you're saying about, you know, we can, we can work within the system, but we also have to fight it at the same time. And I'm glad that there's people like you in our system, you know, that are, you know, have admin have teacher, because that's your, you are part of that change that we need so badly.
00:18:35
Speaker
I was also just going to add, it is always hard being a disruptor when you're in a place that is still holding traditional beliefs. When I started doing all the work that I have done over the last, I think it's like 12 years now that I've really been deeply steeped in this learner centered space business and the grading reform in particular.
00:19:02
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It is still an uphill battle, and as much as we are kind of warriors for that cause now, we are certainly not the first to have come. Folks like Alfie Kohn and
00:19:18
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These conversations as far back as Maria Montessori had been having these conversations about what the best learning space is for kids and how best to assess and understand growth in learning.
00:19:34
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And for me, I believe that it's such a growth to see so many people. And I know Twitter, you know, the platform formerly known as Twitter used to be a space where a lot of people came together and now we're in a situation obviously where folks have fled.
00:19:56
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from there, but there are so many more voices in this conversation than there were 10 years ago. I mean, most people thought I was crazy in my classroom. Doing the work that I was doing when New York City required me to do, just like you were saying, Crystal and Melody, what you were talking about in terms of having to have grades,
00:20:21
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And then insisting that despite the system requiring those kinds of things, we're still capable of making our own dent in that misgiving for kids. And we had the opportunity to talk to my son earlier on a podcast and just watching him as a learner has really solidified and
00:20:47
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It has been a constant reminder of why this work really matters. And I know you have a bunch of kids, Melody, and I see them all the time on social. They're amazing.
Personal Influences and Inspirations
00:21:02
Speaker
Is your work driven in any way based on the relationships you know you have with your own kids and the special needs that they have? For sure.
00:21:14
Speaker
You know, I think you can be a great teacher, whether you have your own personal children or not. That's what I call them because I call my like you guys probably too. I call my students my kids sometimes, but definitely they have given me a greater understanding of what personalized education means and also meeting students where they are.
00:21:32
Speaker
And sometimes we can get stuck. And I feel like I probably made this mistake more early on, that feeling like students learn the way that you learn. And that's just such a myth. There are so many different kinds of learning. And because I do have a bunch of kids, five, my own children, they do not learn the same way. And that's every time I have another one, it's made me a better educator in the long run. And yeah, so yeah, for sure.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yes, so who would you like to shout out people that are go-tos for you in, you know, like who would you want our listeners to follow or look into as another resource for a learner-centered space? Well, you two for sure. You guys are doing amazing work. I'd also like to give, and thank you for having me on here. I just
00:22:25
Speaker
I absolutely love Kelly Gibson. She's on TikTok. She's the Gibson is my name. But some some Alaskan educators who I absolutely adore who are still in the classroom doing amazing work would be Laura Davies, Anthony White, Alexis Griffey, and they really inspired me, Alison Curry. So those are some educators that maybe they don't have quite a big following, but they're people that because they're in Alaska, they understand the struggles of what
00:22:50
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you know, Alaska has a different kind of educational setting. And so those people really inspire me and they're all in to different kinds of grading and student centered. So I want to give the shout out to them. And also, I forgot to mention Laney Raul. I know you guys have had her on your podcast. I love her. She has this book called Evolving Learner. And a few years ago, I had her on my book chat, which is alive. She
00:23:16
Speaker
She said something in her book and I was like duh, but it's like how we forget sometimes to just ask students what they want and that really was like duh like They're the untapped resource that are so forgotten so many times and so because of that she really pushed my thinking to make sure that it was always a Priority to ask my students how they were feeling or what they liked. So yeah, I'm gonna give a shout out to her as well Thank you and where can our listeners find you online?
Connecting with Melody and Closing Remarks
00:23:46
Speaker
You can find me on every, on the Twitter formerly known as X at Melody or yeah, Melody McCallister. I have a different name now because I got in Twitter jail last year. So I'm kind of growing my Twitter all over, but I'm on TikTok at Melody McCallister.
00:24:03
Speaker
MJ McCallie writes on my website and my Facebook. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm on all of those and I follow back all the educators. So if you Google me, I'm pretty Googleable and you can find me. My students take it upon themselves to Google me, which they do every once in a while. I laugh so hard, but I'm on Google. So if you can't find me, just Google my name.
00:24:26
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.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.