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Dr. Matthew Rhoads says formative assessment informs personalized learning.
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Transcript
Introduction to Learner-Centered Spaces
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. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:22
Speaker
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.
Meet Dr. Matthew Rhodes
00:00:41
Speaker
We are so glad to have Dr. Matthew Rhodes on the show today. He is an EdTech integrationist and a leader for Consortium of Adult Education Schools, where he coaches teachers on blending instructional strategies with EdTech tools in various educational settings. He creates a wide range of professional development resources, including live sessions,
00:01:03
Speaker
online courses, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts aimed at enhancing the skills of educators and administrators locally and globally. At San Diego State University, Dr. Rhodes serves as a coach, supervisor, and lecturer specializing in dual language and English language learners and guides pre-service teachers through their clinical practice. He also chairs doctoral research focused on education and ed tech at Concordia University Irvine.
00:01:33
Speaker
Last, he consults for schools and EdTech companies focusing on professional development and effective integration of EdTech tools into classrooms. So we'll get started. You want to tell us a little bit about your journey, how you got to where you are, and maybe add in an interesting fact about yourself.
Journey from Special Ed to EdTech
00:01:50
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Yeah, so I come from the K-12 environment. I helped
00:01:58
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didn't really get into coaching or professional development until about my fifth year in education. I am a special education teacher by training at the K-12 level. I taught almost everything under the sun at the high school level in a co-taught environment or within a special education environment. So that's really my beginning, but then ultimately over time I began
00:02:26
Speaker
as a site kind of on-site ed tech coach, and then kind of evolved from there to doing a lot of professional developments at the district level, which then kind of propel me into a lot of other opportunities that I'm at now. So I'm just really blessed with the opportunity to have hands in higher ed, K-12, and in adult education, which is my primary
00:02:56
Speaker
gig right now. Um, so it's, it's really a blessing and I just love seeing, um, just all the levels and it really helps inform my practice and, um, you know, can really see, I just like seeing what's going on and how I can improve, um, you know, outcomes for students and make teachers lives easier. Of all that experience, what's been your favorite grade to teach or favorite subject?
00:03:23
Speaker
I like social sciences. I really enjoyed teaching that, like government or world or US history has always been entertaining to teach. I think it's the most
00:03:38
Speaker
Fun on my end is the teacher, because it's just something that I'm interested in. I would say math is probably, for me, the least favorite subject. I just find it not very fun or entertaining. But that's just me. But yeah, that's kind of from my teaching experience, the classes that I really enjoyed or did not really enjoy teaching.
Creating Contextual Learning Spaces
00:04:06
Speaker
So in all that experience, what would you say a learner-centered space looks like, sounds like, feels like? What would you say that's like to you? It really just depends on the context.
00:04:22
Speaker
an adult learner, it's much more where there's a lot less scaffolding in place before you lean into providing opportunity and choice for adult learners for them to amplify their voice. And I think when we go into K-12 and depending on the grade level, you know, there's far more scaffolding modeling
00:04:50
Speaker
that informal feedback, formative assessment leading into then opportunities for students in the same manner to amplify their voice, but it's a lot more structured. There's more routines than when we're focused on adult learners. So I think there's a lot of similarities. I just think that there's a lot more structured approach as we get
00:05:15
Speaker
younger and far more routine-based. And then as we get older, we hope to have more of that gradual release and independence. So that's kind of my opinion. But at the end of the day, I think that hopefully the final work product is something that the student has some buy-in in. They really kind of enjoyed developing and creating it.
00:05:42
Speaker
and have an opportunity to showcase that to not only their classroom, but also their local and global communities.
Role of Formative Assessments
00:05:55
Speaker
So looking at how a learner-centered environment is across K-12 or even in adult learning, how would assessment would play a role in that environment? I think that formative assessment is the first and foremost place where
00:06:10
Speaker
We can see where our students at in real time and provide that just-in-time feedback to support them, whether it's individually or various groups of students. And then that formative assessment can lead us to those opportunities where we can have that larger summative assessment. Whether that is more project-based, you can then create more personalization within those summative assessments after those initial
00:06:38
Speaker
formative assessment term plays where the feedback has been provided and we know that there's a level of competency of the student before going into really demonstrating all those skills together in that summative experience.
00:06:55
Speaker
So I'm, as you know, a math teacher. And going back to what you said, I completely respect that math may not be your favorite subject, but it is super, super fun. There's always laughter and talking and engagement going on in my math classroom. That's my goal. And I'm always interested in learning from, especially social sciences and humanities teachers, what ideas do you have for a formative assessment? Like what's your favorite go-to for that?
00:07:24
Speaker
I mean, just formative assessment for me in any classroom is like interactive slides or interactive flashcards that focuses on retrieval practice so that we can see what the student knows in real time. And then we can see that trend across the classroom. So I mean, it can be even gamified like Quizlet, quizzes,
00:07:52
Speaker
I mean, there's so many different tools that are available where we have these. It can be even just whiteboards. I mean, there's a wide variety of things that you can do that can make it more, I guess, entertaining or fun. But it can come from very simple strategies, like just the mini whiteboards to gamification, like using quizzes.
00:08:22
Speaker
It can be really just small segments of it where it's like one or two questions or it could be 10 questions set. So that's just something for informal formative assessment. I think really the fun part is that
00:08:39
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when we're focused on this feedback opportunities. I think you get more opportunity for students to discuss and review those formative assessment results, which you can turn into like escape rooms or that type of thing or that additional practice outlets for them. So I think there's options. I don't know. I don't know what really is the
00:09:09
Speaker
super that's going to make everyone super engaged. It just really depends on how you know your students. And I think that's really important for the learner center classroom because you're going to understand what your students like and, um, you know, what will, you know, peak their interest and then you'll adjust
00:09:32
Speaker
That's such great advice. I give these very small retrieval practice quizzes once a week. And as one of the questions I ask my students and ungraded personal questions such as, what's your favorite candy? What's your favorite place to go on vacation? And just random little questions. And I try to use that information to put into the lessons or into the conversations or to games. And I think it's really neat when
00:10:01
Speaker
We can have very friendly debates about, I think one of them was, what's your favorite dog name? And we had this big debate about, you know, what's the best dog name? And you could do so much math with that. You could do so much, you know, writing and have a conversation. So there's a lot you can do when you know your students. So thank you for mentioning that. Yeah. So yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker
And so as a professor, if somebody came to you, like one of your students in the university and had a question for you about how do you advise me to be more learner centered? Maybe that student didn't have a lot of role models doing that when they were in K-12. What would you advise that student to do, to be more learner centered? I think, like we said, you can use formative assessment to see where your students are at that time, but you can also include
00:10:53
Speaker
prompts or things where you can kind of learn what your students interests are in and get to know them more as a person, whether it's putting in those informal quizzes like dog or cat or going to the moon or going to Antarctica. So those types of fun little things that you can incorporate into
00:11:19
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just those lesson starters and even the form informative assessments and that can lead into, you know, once you get that initial information is this like
00:11:29
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hey, I noticed that you enjoy, or you picked dog versus cats. Do you have a cat or dog, or what type of breed is it? Do you have what responsibilities do you have? Do you like taking on a walk? Or then maybe I'll show you a picture of it. So I mean, those type of things, just that getting that initial information and just learning that little bit of information about that student can then lead you to building that relationship with that student.
00:11:59
Speaker
their best friend. But I think if you can share some similarities with them, even if it's like, Hey, I have a dog, and they have a dog, or they enjoy this, and I know I enjoy this, like building that, you know, that bond with that similarity is really important. And I think some of those strategies I mentioned are, are good ways just to get started.
AI as an Educational Co-Pilot
00:12:24
Speaker
So for the listeners who may not know this, we met at a conference in San Diego, and I went to your session on AI, generative AI.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I know that you know a hundred times more about the topic than I do and maybe more than some of our listeners. And I'm curious, how do you foresee, and I know it's really hard to foresee what's happening with AI because it's changing all the time, but how do you foresee AI helping teachers with the formative assessment or summative assessment in their classes, no matter the grade?
00:12:59
Speaker
I mean, I think that you just got to think of it as like your co-pilot and it helps you in brainstorming. A lot of the early research really says is that, you know, someone that really knows what they want to brainstorm along with AI can really develop and create things that are better with just either one of them alone. So use it as your co-pilot and kind of your
00:13:24
Speaker
Sidekick for brainstorming and coming up with ideas as well as then just use it to create that content with, you know, whether that that formative assessment or thinking of that summative project based assessment that you want to create and come up with a number of
00:13:42
Speaker
choices for that and then kind of helps you build it out at that point. So I like to think of it as that and it's something that you can use to make your life more efficient. Teachers have a lot of administrative tasks and it's just one way to cut down on time we spend email providing students with feedback.
00:14:06
Speaker
writing up a report. I mean, there's endless possibilities. So just use it as that co-pilot to make your life easier. You have a lot to do. Make it so that you can get things done quicker and even at a higher level versus being too proud to utilize it all the time. Use it so that you can have more time with students, more time with your family, more time.
00:14:34
Speaker
doing things to really just make you a better overall person and to be present.
00:14:44
Speaker
That's great advice. And I wish that I remembered to use it more often. I'm starting to do so more than I used to. And I've read a statistic, and I don't know if it's still valid. I don't know how long ago I read it. It wasn't that long ago. But maybe only 7% of educators surveyed said they're using AI in their work. And I know that number is going to grow. But do you have any tips for how to get more educators
00:15:13
Speaker
comfortable with it and to use it to save time. I just think just as if you're an instructional coach or you're facilitating a PD, really just showing the use cases of how it can be used to help make your life more efficient and more effective and support student learning. And by just showing those examples and then having coaching reinforce it, like say, I was, for example, I was doing a PD on a tool
00:15:43
Speaker
called Curry Pod for formative assessment. And we've done a number of these. We did whole school, PLC level. And then at that point, just going into classrooms and asking teachers to say, hey, do you have an upcoming lesson where you're doing this? And I can come in and watch you or co-teach it with you. And to me, that's one way of doing it. Another way is to, if you're coaching, you
00:16:13
Speaker
go ahead and co-plan with them and say, hey, how would you normally plan this out? And then how would you build out this content for this lesson that would help you, whether you're going to print it out or put on your student information system, et cetera, kind of work with them on that process collaboratively and show them how to do it, just show how easy it is, and then ultimately,
00:16:40
Speaker
they're going to get bought in. And if their colleague across the hall is using it and is excited about it, you build excitement throughout departments and buildings, and you're going to get more people to then adopt it. My goal is always to get that first 60% that are more enthusiast and excited about it. And then ultimately, the hope is, and then they'll spread it to that maybe 20%, 10% of people that are
00:17:10
Speaker
Um, more resistant to that change or using this particular tool. That's really good advice because we can't, we're not going to win over, you know, a hundred percent of any population with an idea, but we can do our best to model it. I love your example of the instructional coaches. We have four.
00:17:31
Speaker
Instructional coaches in our school from grade six to twelve and then we have more in the lower school But I work in the secondary portion and I know that those four instructional coaches are very excited to to show teachers ways to save time and
00:17:48
Speaker
Like you said, to use it to give feedback to students but also have more time to actually get to know the students and to focus on a more learner-centered space. So that's really excellent advice. Whether you're a listener as an instructional coach or you are a teacher, there's definitely something you could do just to incorporate it just a little bit, 1% into your work.
Acknowledgments and Career Influences
00:18:11
Speaker
So wrapping up here, I know that you've had a very fulfilling career so far through your journey of K-12 and post-secondary, but who along that journey would you like to shout out or give thanks to for what you have learned from them?
00:18:27
Speaker
I mean, there's so many people on that list, but I just think just currently with the consortium, our leadership council board is giving me the flexibility to build out a program that, you know, that we can
00:18:43
Speaker
really say that special, that's something, you know, I think giving people the opportunity and flexibility and trust to build out programs is really essential. So I really do appreciate that group of leaders for providing that to me. A couple of mentors, Dr. Card, who I am working on a number of projects with and I've known her for many years.
00:19:09
Speaker
I think she's great. Dr. Grove was my dissertation advisor. He was a fantastic mentor in that process. And then my first principal, Mr. Dawson, who hired me initially and over time gave me more opportunities to build my skill set early on. So I think just having people in your career, if you can
00:19:35
Speaker
build that network. And I think that if you're a leader, especially if you see promise in someone just to give them that trust and flexibility into not, you know, micromanage, I think that that really builds that efficacy in someone. And I can say from my career is that when I've had those people around me, it's it's allowed me to flourish. So that's something that
00:19:58
Speaker
I'm just definitely thankful for. And I may have left a number of people off that list, but there's many others. So if you fall under that list, I'm definitely thankful for your presence. And where can our listeners find you online?
Connect with Dr. Rhodes
00:20:15
Speaker
So you can follow me on X slash Twitter at Matt Rhodes 1990. You can also follow me on LinkedIn at Matthew Rhodes or on Instagram at Dr. Rhodes EDU and my website, matthewrodes.com. My blog, my podcast, my publications and books are all there.
00:20:34
Speaker
Really just try to stay involved as much as I can with the local and global community. I'm learning from each and every one of you each day and I hope that we're able to connect and grow together as learners and help us support students regardless of where we are in the context that we are working in education.
Debate on Cell Phone Use in Schools
00:21:01
Speaker
Speaking of Twitter, did I see recently that you were tagged in a conversation about a possible debate between cell phone banning and not cell phone banning? Was that right? Yeah. I've had two viral, essentially,
00:21:20
Speaker
tweets about this. I kind of talked about how five years ago in 2018, I was for cell phones in schools. But now in 2023, I'm at immediately against them, especially in the K 12 setting. So I'm now going to go on Tim KV's podcast teachers on fire, which is one I recommend for everyone.
00:21:44
Speaker
on I think it's gonna be on December 16th in the morning and I'll be debating Chris Nessie on whether we should be banning phones in K-12 schools or not.
00:22:00
Speaker
I am definitely going to give that a listen because I don't know where I stand on that. I teach in a school where I teach middle schoolers in a secondary setting and our middle schoolers are absolutely not allowed to have their cell phones during the school day, but they can after school. And I find the after school part to be really, really helpful because our carpool would take four hours if the parents couldn't text their kid and say, I'm here, come to the car.
00:22:29
Speaker
So, and I don't know how, I mean, I grew up in the nineties when I was in middle school with the nineties. And I don't know how my parents smelled me a carpool. I guess I was just there at the right time. I don't know.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the world has definitely changed. But I'm just, for me, mostly mine's just taking phones out of the instructional setting. And then, you know, whether it's outside of school hours, you know, ultimately, you know, that's up to a family's decision. I just think out, you know, within instructional spaces, we already have devices in most cases. And if you want to utilize technology, use the devices at school that are approved.
00:23:07
Speaker
versus phones in the classroom where there's a wide range of very addictive applications and things that students can search online and then constant communication and
00:23:21
Speaker
there's there's a myriad of issues there. So that's kind of just where I stand in a quick short summary. But I think it's not for, you know, an all out ban in terms of their entire lives. I think that, you know, structured use at home is something that is up to a family. And it just depends on those parameters that you set personally. But I think in schools and in classrooms, they shouldn't be present for those reasons.
00:23:52
Speaker
Okay. Well, I don't want to give away too much of that. You're going to be on. I cannot wait to listen to that. And I have to say I am on the side of no cell phones during instructional time. So I cannot wait to listen to that episode and that's teachers on fire. Okay.
00:24:09
Speaker
Great. Well, this has been fantastic. We really appreciate your time. And usually Star Saxton is my co-host, but she wasn't able to make it tonight. So you just have me, Crystal. But I think we had a really fun time talking to Dr. Matt Rhodes. And I hope that you listeners find him on LinkedIn, find him on Twitter, and he's got some really good stuff out there. So thank you for your time, and we will see you soon.
00:24:39
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.