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Toni Rose Deanon helps educators personalize learning
7 Plays17 minutes ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Purpose
00:00:00
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 Fromert.
00:00:14
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 a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network.
00:00:40
Speaker
Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Guest Introduction: Tony Rose DeAnon
00:00:46
Speaker
We are so excited to have Tony Rose DeAnon on the show today. They work in community engagement.
00:00:52
Speaker
Previously, they were a middle school ELA teacher, adult ESL teacher, and instructional coach for technology. We asked Tony Rose about their purpose and passion, and they said they strive to be an educator they never had growing up.
00:01:08
Speaker
So they focus on anti-bias, anti-racist work, and aspire to create a brave space for everyone around them. They like to stay grounded and at peace and practice yoga, write, get lost in stories, and go on two-mile walks with fur babies.
00:01:24
Speaker
Roller skating, running, and karaoke brings them much joy. We are so excited to talk to Toni Rose today. Welcome. Thank you for having me. This is so exciting.
00:01:36
Speaker
Welcome, Toni Rose. It's so awesome to speak with you again.
Career Challenges and Differentiation
00:01:40
Speaker
As we start our program today, i was hoping you could share with us something that was influential on your educational journey or something that you're working on right now.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this for a hot minute today during my walk. And something that was a defining moment in my education journey consisted of me not getting a contract at a school that I was working at.
00:02:02
Speaker
And that all happened because of an ah because of differentiation, honestly. So you know how a lot of our school leaders or admin come into the classrooms to observe. And so the biggest feedback for me was i didn't differentiate enough for students.
00:02:19
Speaker
And so my response, ah first of all, I was the type of educator that was like, okay, Beth, that's cool. Thanks for the feedback. I need you to show me how to do it then, right? Model it for me exactly what you're looking for.
00:02:32
Speaker
And because I refused to sign the observation and they could not model it for me, i was not invited back to that school, that following school year. And so for me, that just kind of taught me, right, that,
00:02:46
Speaker
you know what, maybe that school was not the best for me. And there's also this piece that was missing of differentiation. I really wanted to know how, but I just didn't know how. And I didn't have the support. I didn't have the resources to make it to that, make it to the point where I could understand what differentiation looked like in the classroom. Now, mind you, I was an educator who had students with IEPs and 504s who were emergent multilinguals who were gifted, advanced, and all of these things all in my classes because my admin really believed that I could manage all of that, which I could. I had great relationships with students. The test scores were up.
00:03:26
Speaker
and It was just so frustrating for me because they wanted me to work on something and they yet and yet they couldn't provide the resources, the support, or even a modeling to make me understand how it's supposed to go.
00:03:38
Speaker
So knowing that, you know what, this is probably not the best place for me. I miss the students every day. i love that school so much because of the students. And also just understanding like, you know what, it's my time to bow out.
00:03:50
Speaker
And then I also need to go ahead and find ways for me to be able to differentiate and not depend on other people to teach it. Does that make sense? It really does. And what I'm curious about right now, Toni Rose, is thinking about, because I think a lot of educators struggle with differentiation.
00:04:11
Speaker
in the time since that experience happened to you, have you explored different ways differentiation could look?
Discovery of Modern Classrooms Project
00:04:19
Speaker
And when did you have that um aha moment, if you have, that really helped you understand what differentiation is And how does that contribute to like a learner-centered space authentically?
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, this is such a great question because what I do for work now, right? I know my title has everything to do with community engagement, but essentially what that means is I create ah learning environments or learning experiences for educators now. So I get to work with educators now all across the nation, which is exciting.
00:04:49
Speaker
And it's really about differentiation. so i was... I was introduced to the concept of the instructional or the instructional model of Modern Classrooms Project, right, where we focus on blended self-paced and mastery based learning.
00:05:02
Speaker
And this is my 10th year of teaching, mind you, that I was given this instructional model that actually showed me how to differentiate for students through the three pillars of blended self-paced and mastery based learning.
00:05:15
Speaker
And so because of, ah because I was able to cater to my students, regardless of their abilities, regardless of their, the accommodations that they needed and the supports that they needed, I was able to have those one-on-one conversations with students, check in and then, and then provide an opportunity for them to explore their learning in a way that makes sense to them. That's where the self-pacing comes in, right?
00:05:38
Speaker
And it just kind of tied in beautifully because I was like, oh my gosh, this is everything that I wanted to do. And I'm just now learning it my 10th year of teaching. and And so Star, mind you, i have read so many things. I have listened to so many podcasts. And I know that you and I've had a conversation as well about, you know, me wanting to shift to mastery-based learning, to shift away from the grading, the traditional grading practices that I've i've been used to the past couple years that I've been teaching.
Transition to Instructional Coaching
00:06:06
Speaker
And i I could define it and I could tell you what it could look like in the classroom, but I didn't know how I could do it. And so when Modern Classrooms came in and was like, hey, do you want to try this instructional model?
00:06:21
Speaker
I jumped right in because I was like, why not? All the things that I've been trying to do myself have not been working. I just reverted back to the traditional way of teaching and learning. revert back to the teaching practices that I was used to that I went through as a student myself.
00:06:35
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And so understanding that like I needed a lot more guidance and I needed that how. And so that was kind of how I shifted and made it a made it so much better for myself and my students when it came to differentiation.
00:06:49
Speaker
And now, mind you, I've always wanted i thought I was going to be a lifer in the classroom. Right. I love being a teacher. I love everything about it. And I know that's such an unpopular opinion, ah but I really, really loved it.
00:07:01
Speaker
And I couldn't. And and i knew that once I hit 10 years, i was going to take a break because I didn't want to be burnt out. I wanted to still hold on to that passion, that joy, that excitement of teaching and learning.
00:07:12
Speaker
And so I stepped out, became an instructional coach for technology during COVID now. and And so that really pushed my thinking about what what could blended self-paced and mastery-based look like in spaces like this when schools transition from you know, in in the classroom to virtual or hybrid or all of that good stuff.
00:07:32
Speaker
And so Modern Classroom was like, hey, we have a full-time opening. You've been mentoring teachers um throughout the school year anyway, teaching them how to create this environment for their students.
00:07:43
Speaker
So why don't you come and
Empowering Educators and Learner-Centered Approaches
00:07:44
Speaker
join us full-time? And this is something that you could do. And so it's just been a passion for me to work with educators on who are struggling to figure out how to personalize learning, how to differentiate learning, and how to make learning that much more joyful for both teachers and students, right? And so I get to be a part of that um that shift. I get to be a part of that transformation.
00:08:05
Speaker
And it's just so amazing to see teachers' growth, right, from struggling and getting frustrated and almost quitting because they didn't know how. They're just they they're at the limit to now being like,
00:08:19
Speaker
this is everything I wanted it to be. This is exactly what I want my classroom to look like. I can have conversations with students, not only get to know them as human beings, but also get to know them as students. So knowing their academic strengths, at their their challenges, and then also knowing that they play soccer after school and that they have a really close relationship with their mom.
00:08:39
Speaker
So i I get to be a part of that. And to me, that's just so exciting. And and this is why i get to just be with educators and empower them and support them in so many ways because I didn't have that.
00:08:52
Speaker
And so I wanted to be that person for educators moving forward because it was something that I didn't have. Wow. I can empathize with so much of what you just said, as you know, because you and I kind of nerded out to this a few weeks ago already.
00:09:10
Speaker
um So what I'd love to dig a little deeper into, you mentioned a lot of stuff there about moving into this new role outside of the classroom, which you never thought you were going to do.
00:09:21
Speaker
How have you managed to keep that joy? And do you think that you'll head back to the classroom at some point? And, you know, modern classrooms, how how does how does one get involved with that organization?
00:09:38
Speaker
Oh, those are all such great questions. I think at this current state of my being, joy is one of my values that I prioritize. So constantly looking for ways to bring joy into the spaces that I create specifically for teachers and teachers of color, right?
00:09:56
Speaker
So um it's just so I'm so fortunate to be with Modern Classrooms because they have allowed or at least given me so much autonomy to move how I need to move.
00:10:06
Speaker
And so knowing and understanding and cultivating relationships with teachers to see, hey, what does my community need? What does my community desire? What do they what do they want to see? and And how can I better support them, um especially when it comes to frustrations about, hey, how do I communicate with admin about what I'm doing, right? How do I communicate with parents and families and caregivers and stakeholders, honestly, of us shifting away from this traditional way of teaching and learning into more of a self-paced process?
00:10:37
Speaker
mastery-based learning, right? And so I get to be a part of those conversations. And it's it brings me so much joy because I feel like, oh, man, these teachers trust me. They want to be a part of this um innovative or at least like part of this movement to really create a space that is learner-centered because we're we're providing opportunities for students to practice and not perfect but make progress in their executive functioning skills, right? Self-pacing comes with time management, prioritizing, with figuring out how to collaborate, figuring out, like, what my next moves are, right?
00:11:16
Speaker
And so it's been really joyful for me to have these conversations with with teachers, even though even sometimes when they're resistant, right? They're like, oh, this could never work. i i i find I find that behind that resistance, there's fear. And so we kind of have those conversations about like, hey, I know you want your students to succeed. So let's try this out, even if it's just like a little bit, right?
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. So that for me just brings me a lot of joy to know that I'm part of that process. I'm part of that journey that they are in when they're creating this learner-centered, this differentiated, personalized ah classroom. Because we all know that the traditional way of teaching and learning has not worked for so many years.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yet there's not a lot of support and resources, even though there's a lot. right It seems like there's a lot of resources. um And sometimes I think it's too many resources. And that's why teachers get overwhelmed. um And so that's how that's kind of how we come in. right Like, hey, let's talk let's think about just the bite-sized resources.
00:12:16
Speaker
steps that we could do to implement right away in your next class, right? Like, let's try this out. Let's try it this way. See how that works out. So I'm really like a thought partner for them. And then I get to, again, create communities where our teachers are constantly sharing their wins, their celebrations, their challenges, their questions, their Even sometimes their defeat, right? Like, hey, I'm so tired. This is not working out for me. How are y'all sustaining yourselves?
00:12:41
Speaker
And the community just continues to give back to each other, right? and And I think that that's just so amazing. um The third question, I'm blanking on the second question, Star, but the third question of how do you get involved with Modern
Getting Involved with Modern Classrooms
00:12:53
Speaker
Classroom? We do have a free course.
00:12:55
Speaker
And so if you're like, you know what? I got the blended piece down. I want to know more about the self-pacing piece. You can go on our free course, which is learn.modernclassrooms.org. And there's a module specifically for self-pacing so that you can go through and you can see examples of different progress trackers, different ways that that teachers from different grade levels and different content of how they've created a self-pacing environment in their in their in their schools and their classrooms as well.
00:13:22
Speaker
And so it's not just like teachers talking at you. It's also very much like copy and paste this thing. This is what worked for me. You're more than welcome to copy it, make it your own and do what you gotta do to make this work for you.
00:13:33
Speaker
And so there's a free course. We have a Facebook group as well with over 20,000 teachers who are, again, constantly sharing their resources for free. Right. So we have that. um And then we also have like implementer meetups on the second Wednesdays of every month where teachers can come in, even if you've never.
00:13:53
Speaker
implemented the model, you can come in and ask questions because again, our community is just so excited and passionate about sharing what they're doing in the classroom. And that brings them joy. And so I get to, again, cultivate these um environments for teachers to be, to to empower each other, to support each other, and to feel as if they're not the only one who is trying this quote unquote new thing.
00:14:18
Speaker
You sound like ah you have a super cool job. It sounds amazing working with educators and talking about such helpful topics in the classroom. I am a classroom teacher as well, and differentiation is something I've always wanted to improve. And so I think i'm going to check out this course with modern classrooms.
Mastery-Based Learning and Assessment
00:14:38
Speaker
um But one thing I definitely struggle with as an educator is assessment. And you just mentioned progress trackers. And I'm curious how the progress trackers connect with assessment, whether that be formative or summative, and and how Modern Classrooms Project might be able to help a teacher with that.
00:14:57
Speaker
Oh, this is such a great question. So one of our pillars is mastery-based learning, right? And so this ties in with our assessments, both formative and summative. So when I implemented this model in sixth grade English, one of the things that I really struggled with was reading those essays. I know y'all can relate. Those essays would sit on my desk for weeks, sometimes months at a time, because I was like, who has time to read 200 plus essays? Not me.
00:15:22
Speaker
And so what we did with with this model is that we actually, we meaning my my sixth grade English team, because we really thought about scaffolding and making sure that students are able to feel successful and be successful in the summative assessments. And so in English, our summative assessments were essays, right? They're writing pieces. And so we broke that up.
00:15:43
Speaker
We broke that down. So if we had an eight-week unit, And we're writing a narrative and we know that we want students to have ah a dialogue added into those narratives. So then that formative for that week for one week would be, hey, add dialogue into your story, right?
00:15:59
Speaker
So going back, like our pretest is write a narrative, no instruction given. And then as they work on this one document, right, every week they're adding something new. It's either dialogue, um it's figurative language, it's description, but they're adding on to that one document because it shows again that your first iteration of something that you write is never going to be a good one.
00:16:25
Speaker
And so students got to revise as much and as often as they wanted so they can see, oh, I i can't just write this thing one time and not revise it, right? So it just became a part of our assessments every week was to add something to your writing so that by the end of the unit, the students have created this beautiful essay or this beautiful story.
00:16:46
Speaker
And I know exactly what each student was writing about because throughout those weeks, I scaffolded it, made it made it a little bit shorter so that I can see, oh, okay, they got the dialogue down. Oh, okay, they got the description down. Oh, I know that the student is talking about A, B, C, D because I've already read that throughout the whole unit. So I didn't have to wait until the last the last ah week of that unit to grade the essay. Like I already knew what they were writing about.
00:17:12
Speaker
And so when we think about assessments, we wanna go ahead and create practices that mirror those assessments, right? One of the things that my students really loved about this self-pacing is when they watch a video, they get that lesson from me that I created.
00:17:27
Speaker
They get to write their notes, however that looks like for them, whatever is the best ah practice for them. And then their practice mirrors the assessment. That doesn't mean that the practice and the assessment were the same thing, but it mirrors it so that by the time they got to the they get to the assessment, they already know, okay, the skill that we are focusing on is theme.
00:17:47
Speaker
So I know that my form of assessment for this week is theme. So then i can use I can transfer the skills that I used in my practice into my assessments. And this is the thing that I tell my teachers all the time that I get to work with is that when you create assessments, please make sure to do that yourself so that you know exactly what you're asking for and you can actually understand understand I don't want to say make assumptions, but make predictions of what your students could struggle or would struggle with based on the assessment that you asked, right? Because prior to implementing this model, I was just like, oh, this is a good question.
00:18:21
Speaker
My students would love this. And then it was all kinds of wrong answers. And so I'm the common denominator and I didn't do the assessment. So it was my fault. i I wasn't clear with what I was asking. So I highly suggest like scaffolding it, making sure that it ties into the practice and then also like do it yourself so that you know exactly what you're looking for and that your biases don't come in and say, oh, well, this sounds good. so I'm going to give the student an A. ah So hopefully I was able to kind of answer that question. k Crystal.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yes, you answered it beautifully. i think that really helps. And I'm not an English teacher. I'm a math teacher. But I can completely relate to what you're saying of giving these small buildup activities and formative assessments. And so I can keep my finger on the pulse of of how the class is doing in a particular unit. So great answer.
Influences and Teaching Philosophy
00:19:16
Speaker
And next question for you is, through your journey, who would you shout out as someone who's influenced you or someone you want to recognize? Oh my goodness. This is such a great question. um and surprisingly, I have a list already. I want to go back to my fifth grade teacher, English teacher, Ms. Tidwell. She was the one who introduced me you to literature. My reality was not the best. ah Moving from the Philippines to South Georgia, there was a lot of bullying that was happening. So ah she introduced me to so many different types of literature that
00:19:53
Speaker
Everything was just great after that, right? And so she really inspired me to become this teacher as well of like, wow, if she can make a comfortable space for me to learn to be, then I can do that for students as well. So Ms. Tidwell, shout out to you, my fifth grade English teacher.
00:20:08
Speaker
um Another one is Dr. N, who was also my AP calculus teacher in high school. um And he made learning calculus fun, which i am not a math person. So then I...
00:20:20
Speaker
you know, i kind of, um, thought about that as well, kind of, uh, internalize it and say like learning can be fun regardless of whatever content I am creating. Right. So shout out to Dr. N as well.
00:20:31
Speaker
Um, and then another thing is, that is I, I want to shout out Vicki Davis. I don't know if you know the, the, the 10 minute teacher podcast with the cool cat teacher, Vicki Davis really helped me with my, my teaching and and um,
00:20:47
Speaker
my teaching and learning, honestly. So like I listened to that podcast everywhere all the time. um And I would always get joked by my other colleagues and say like, you're constantly listening to Vicki Davis. And I'm like I know, I know. what i and And so I really want to shout out to ah shout out Vicki Davis for that. And then the last one would be my coworker, Emily Culp.
00:21:06
Speaker
She and I implemented the model together. And when I tell you that she made me such a much like a much more concise teacher, because I like to talk, I have ADHD.
00:21:17
Speaker
I can talk for hours. I could do all the things and I can throw 100 things at my students expecting for them to do all of it. And she really reeled me in in the most loving and nurturing way of being like, hey, TR, let's do it this way instead. Or these are great ideas. Can we scaffold that a little bit?
00:21:34
Speaker
Right. Can we take away maybe 50 options instead of having 55? Right. Maybe we could have five. And so she really got me thinking about just my time management, my organization and being concise and focused so that my students can also be focused and concise when they're creating the different projects and tasks that we have in class. So shout out to all of those educators. They have really just made me a human, like i made me a better human being.
00:22:03
Speaker
Thank you so much for that, Toni Rose. Where could folks find you online if they want to follow you and the work that you're doing?
Closing and Listener Engagement
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, i'm unfortunately, unfortunately, I'm on all the social media channels.
00:22:17
Speaker
um So on Instagram and TikTok, it is at Classroom Flex. On LinkedIn, it's Tony Rose DeAnon. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram. And gosh, it's like, honestly, if you Google my name, you'll find a way to connect with me because I am, my digital footprint is wild. um So definitely reach out to me. Slide in those DMs. I always tell people like slide in those DMs. I love having conversations with ah random strangers because I think that expands my brain and opens up my perspectives as well. So definitely slide in those DMs and whatever social media platform that you have, I am on there as well.
00:22:56
Speaker
Well, thank you, Toni Rose. We're also going to put a link to the Modern Classrooms Project free course that you mentioned. So our listeners can check that out too. I'm going to check it out myself as well.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yes. And we are at Modern Class Proj, P-R-O-J. So all of the things that are happening on social media for Modern Classrooms, I also um have a hand on that as well. So if you DM at Modern Class Proj, I will be the one responding.
00:23:25
Speaker
Oh, very cool. Well, thank you for being on the show today. today This was great. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
00:23:33
Speaker
Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at MasteryPortfolio.com. You can follow us on X at Mastery for All and LinkedIn in our Mastery Portfolio page.
00:23:47
Speaker
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