to dive deep to different subjects and it's a different way that the district can assess teachers and learning about how teachers doing and get feedback so that teacher and so i'm excited to talk with you both about this is something that our teachers can choose to do with their ten has been considered highly effective and it was started last year the trial program and we're continuing to implement that this year so it's also a way that we can help teachers take risks in a safe environment and really try innovative approaches to teaching so thank you again for being welcome to sort of i wonder if you can each give us a little bit of background on the project that you chose to do sara we can start with you ok i i've been teaching for twenty nine years all in princeton and  i have become more and more aware of issues of diversity and lack thereof i'm a trained seed facilitator which is seeking educational equity and diversity working in the district and so i was reading more and more  about children's literature and the lack of diversity in children's literature and so i was realizing that my classroom library the books that are available to the students are mostly because i bought them secondhand or they come from scholastic books because we can get them for free  and i realized i wasn't really offering diverse books to my kids and they weren't getting the benefit of really seeing themselves reflected or getting put other perspectives by what i was offering them so i wanted to explore whether  not i could change their reading habits for their reading by making them more aware of who wrote the books they were reading and who the main characters were and so we looked at their reading logs and assessed who the authors in the main characters were which led us into all kinds of conversations about identity and culture which was complicated way more complicated than i thought it would be but it was really important conversations and then we did a survey of my classroom library and then i started introducing more and more books to them and encouraging them to look at books as windows and mirrors to see their own experiences reflected but also windows into other cultures and identities  and then we did another i did another survey at the end so i think i definitely bit off a big chunk and then i'm doing it again in the air and slowing it down a little bit to not assume that we had really important conversations and i think the awareness of what they were reading and why they were choosing to read it beyond just going to read a fantasy book and now i'm going to read a science fiction book they were aware of that diversity yeah but diversity and who was represented in their books and how were they getting to understand other cultures there was a big jump so it was exciting and it was work that i really cared about and the kids were passionate about it so it was a good project i'm really survey i really said dive into that a little bit deeper in our show yeah donkey health and other projects that you showed last year for a few yeah so we had looked as a department the year before some of the members decided to take a look at the effect that grades have on students and they're not good and so as a sort of trial program i really jump to the chance to with an elective that i teach philosophy literature move away from individual grades person minutes but since we couldn't get rid of grades altogether right having only unit grades for assignment that's the thing so the logic unit deepest apologies unit the ethics unit that then broken down into in the first semester to grades their content knowledge of the unit and their class participation this is cut from his class and in the following semester for reasons we can get into later included one graded assignment as a sort of assignment for the unit in addition to the other two grades so that means that you took sort of all the projects and looked at them as a comprehensive system and then graded that comprehensive project correct and met with students at the end of each unit to assess their performance based on the rubric yeah and then translating that rubric into a grade so the grade was separated from the rubric talking to them about that and then  unfortunately still having to assign a great read and write but but going that route for viewers who might not understand when you talk about grades aren't always good for kids yet he explained a little bit about what kids experience when they have grades or how that can drive them in unhealthy ways or what how  sure the short version is that grades shift the focus away from learning and into i need to perform at this level in order to get this grade that i want which is almost always  yeah and so for students who are what we traditionally call highly motivated they want to prove i've reached this level of an essay yet and for students who may be sort of academically alienated they might say well i'm fine with getting this much a seal keep my parents off my back yeah and so i can stop there but it's also a tremendous sort of stress hope i get this new right alfie cohen has done a lot of research on the negative impact that grades have and that as soon as you can shift students focus away from grades their focus on the intrinsic value of it and the learning seems to come naturally with it yeah that makes sense that you actually you motivate the learning rather than  the final product and so part of that with the rubric we were using was the only teacher for philosophy literature but some other teachers experiment with this as well so the rubrics tended to set a sort of top number that was above what we expected anyone to do so what i told kids was if you're getting a six in this rubric yeah you have so thoroughly geek out on this topic that you discovered epistemology and have you differ than the typical assessments that you know a supervisor come in and you know watch your classroom see how you're doing how does a p p to the professional project differ than again the regular assessments that most teachers go through well i think  when you do the a t p instead of the annual performance review at the end there's you don't have as many observations so my one observation last year i had one supervisor but i also had my principal come in because i wanted her to see yeah and i taught a lesson for my project because i thought well that's what i should do and it was exciting to have them in the room it was exciting to have them sort of see it in action and then there were lots of conversations about the project so it was really more focused on what research i was doing and what resources i had and where it was taking me and how it's modifying the project rather than the typical in will performance review at the end of the year is a lot of demonstrating evidence of how you set up your classroom and how you manage it and how you assess which when you've been teaching the same place a long time in the same school there's not a huge amount of change yeah every year is different that's what i love about teaching every group of kids is different but the basic skeleton of how i function as a teacher didn't change much from year to year so that was just a lot of paperwork and not so exciting where this project i was really excited to go meet share and show what i'd done and what i wanted to do in the future yeah it was nice to have that passion back for that part not just copy paste from  binder yeah that's a really neat for you how is it it was different i would echo almost all of them entirely your project i think was more or it was more involved than mine was it sounds like but it than hitting tick boxes on you know the here's my evidence for that this element of this yeah danielson domain and three pieces for each or whatever that it was able to be  a genuine conversation with mark kelly my super bass or about i've seen these changes the students reflections are saying these this is an element that i'm going to adjust for the next time and have conversations about pedagogy in theory rather conversations about well as you remember you know i did get that email from that one parent who said that they're a very impressive sponsor a good supervisor knows that stuff already and so to to not have to hand him that massive binder that yeah he will see again and again and again it was was wonderful so would it be fair to say that it was it was a more meaningful way of having conversations about your work but it also sounds like it's sort of allowed to you both to refresh to take a new approach to something that you've been doing for a while to bring in a new element a new inspiration perhaps try to think the other thing is it you know we do this because we're passionate about it and we and when you get treated as a professional and you're allowed to explore something that you're curious about and you're motivated and you know was important yeah but that might not get that attention that time otherwise than it is and think it does it gets you excited and it and i was sharing it with colleagues and they were giving me ideas about things to do and wanting to end our parts of it so i think that you know really being treated and trusted as a professional to really pursue these really important topics is that you know there's only so much time in a day and there's only so many hours and so we're always making decisions about what's a priority and what's important and what are we devoting time to professional and otherwise and so to hear that this is important in your this is what you're supposed to spend time on and yeah i was empowering wonderful and i think in terms of the folks like us who've been teaching for a little while  hitting all of the elements of the danielson domain can get become safer after a while yeah yeah and part of when we designed the the a p p process was to give teachers the opportunity to take  risks and do something that you know it's entirely possible that this experiment with with removing greats could have been a disaster mourners it fortunately wasn't but had it been i would have sat down had a conversation with mark and said here's why it didn't work and i'm either abandoning completely we're doing right here next year with these modifications and to be treated like a professional or it's not we expect you to prove the same thing that you already right was was great the ability to take risks to push your craft forward was wonderful and well i feel like teachers have very few instances where they able to fail in a way that is that's always that you know yeah right you know it doesn't work out what will the end result really yeah unwellness be something that will have a long term effect that we don't want to have so yeah that was definitely a consideration but it is exciting to go try it and then modify and say i don't know how this is going to go yeah so how did your students respond start with you what was that experience like for them they are they seemed to genuinely like it i had about twelve students each time and was able to iterate it twice based on a semester long course that was good yeah the first semester some of the feedback from the students was that they wanted a very concrete assignment in the unit to say you did this well in the society ok which was surprising but easy to do so for the logic unit it was their logic test which since the logic unit is more objective it was you know you need to know the stuff here's your test on that stuff was a consideration of their theory of knowledge and what they can know and how they can know in written form that that got a great and so those assignments existed before but they were evidence for their unit understand yeah and so modifying that based on their feedback was helpful and it's what i'm doing again with the course this year even though that's not me p p this year  so my sense was that they really liked it there all but i think out of all of them all but one student was pretty unequivocal about liking it and one student was yeah a little iffy you know you're going to have different different needs and desires and you know going to have everyone in the same boat and the concern mostly was i think sort of a conditioned response of i didn't really know exactly how well i was doing until the end when we talked and i would imagine that that would be a bit scary for students to have to experience that when they have relied so heavily on grades on their students to go home and check their grades every single night yes to be able to have them step back imagine not be a growing process for you in the stud definitely and so making it part of what i garnered from that was that i have to make it clear what the feedback looks like the feedback isn't a percentage the feedback is when i say it would be good if you attempted all of the problems in the problem many for you how does a student responded to your project of bringing in more diverse authors and more diverse storylines i think they were really enthusiastic and i really presented it as i'm really excited about this and i need your help and only last thing look at this classroom library because i really don't know what's represented in my classroom librarian can you help me and i showed them some graphs and some data and some of the websites with some of the percentages  we need diverse books and the brown book shelf were really helpful to me so they were on board for helping with that and then the fact that we were using their data and that there wasn't a right or wrong it wasn't as though you know you passed or you failed or you're not good you're not a good reader you are a good reader but using they're reading history from their reading log and then they came up with fractions and percents and so it tied into our math and it really then looking at the data what do we see as a class about how we're  reading and then what are we we know what do we want to do about this so we had some really important conversations i got insight into their understanding so a lot of them did not know the word caucasian and i guess i just assumed i don't know why i can't say that is the word they would know so talking about and a big conversation talking about the difference between identity cultural identity and personality characteristics because one was safe so when i would have them describe identity of a character they would say greedy or you know friendly it's like ok let's dig a little deeper and then can you change your cultural identity you know because i had one when i was trying to phrase it that well identity is something that you usually can't change and then i think well wait a minute oh and then you start thinking how far are we going in this conversation with fifth graders are we going to talk about you know boys transitioning to girls are we going to what i did how does identity change is a really complicated topic definite but i love fifth graders because they're this you know this cusp of teenager hood and they're able to do so many things independently and think big thoughts and i think it's really easy sometimes as an elementary school teachers a teach in a safe manner and just avoid anything that's going to be complicated or not an easy answer but the kids are thirsty for authentic conversations and especially in our world  today these are conversations that need to happen and we need to talk about race and what that is and how is that reflected in our reading and how is that reflected other places and so i was really inspired by the kids and i think they felt really empowered to have those conversations and safe place right to dig into those topics and i just started it with my class today and actually wow i just said i'm doing a project and i really need your help and i'm excited and i hope you're excited too and we're going to look at your reading they're bringing their reading logs tomorrow and so off we go again to try to refine it and dig a little deeper than last year when i think what you mention are you said kids are really hungry for these types of conversations i think that's so wonderful to start them in elementary school when they when they feel a lot more comfortable being honest i think than i thought it time to get to middle school or high school they know the right answer and be able to have really honest conversation with kids and challenge what they're thinking and encourage them that means that have a good middle school or high school then they're ready to think critically because they started thinking critically about some really challenging topics at a young age so that's really exciting it's tricky i mean you have to be careful to be forgotten you've always got some kids who haven't talked about any of these issues at all or thought about them and you have parents who might be very protective and not want them to think about that and then you've got other kids who know all about kinds things and you have to find a middle ground and at this point i know what's developmentally appropriate and i can steer a conversation or table something and come issues coming up around transport have you looted books with transfer there's a mood or i i have books with trans characters not a lot and i i wouldn't say that i steer kids to them as much as some of the other books but they definitely get picked up and then i look to see where is that child and their understanding of what's happening and then and they're understanding it where they are and i don't feel like it's my job to necessarily push them to something else all clarify something because it's confusing to them but they're having that experience of getting that different perspective or reading that because they're interested so my responsibility is to have books that we read a book today a muslim book of colors it was a it's a picture book but all kinds of you know job and things like that that they didn't know the vocabulary but we talked about it and they were doing windows and mirrors how is this how can i see myself reflected in this and then how is it a  window so that i can see and understand another culture and at the beginning one of them said well you know what is muslim me and so we we go from you know the here to here but they're making connections to the head to ramadan and i donate to charity too and so it's exciting to education is part of that is reading different books and becoming exposed to that and again my colleagues all around me you know are suggesting blocks that they're reading in their classes this is happening all over the place so it is fun to bring it in and make it part don't think you can do all of these problems are interesting and so you're not getting graded on a percentage you know some of them are as much as if there are twelve problems the first six i think you should be able to do and the last six i don't think you should be able to do but you might figure it out so try it so yeah so i've learned that i really have to sort of scaffold them to understanding that this isn't this isn't a trick this isn't restraining how do you think a lot write it i'm not telling you it's not percentage based and then go well let's take a look you've been in this one in this minute so yeah that's of that's a forty five percent sorry but making it something where really the focus is on what they're learning yeah that one training makes it sound so have lluvia but that there is something to that that they they get stuck in this my eighty page binder and it always goes well for me so so that was big but also the quality of the discussions that we've gotten into have been much richer so it really drove home having fewer and more purposeful grades you know that some teachers have been experimented with which is from what i understand really been great it's interesting really exciting so yeah yeah they're what have you learned well the white teacher i grew up in princeton went to all the schools yeah and i didn't have a lot of diversity in my experiences and so i need to remedy that and and  i think a lot of the thinking is that it has been that you know kids of color need to see themselves reflected and it's certainly very damaging if they don't see themselves reflected but there's also benefits for everyone that caucasian kids white kids need to understand that every single book is not from the perspective of a white character by a white author and that is critically important as well and so i think by be having those authentic conversations and the kids knowing that i care enough to be in this battle with them we came together last year as a classroom community because we could have those really meaning they were suggesting books to me i'm suggesting books to them is a dialogue and it brought us together and so that's always what teaching is about that's how you do the best learning so i grew and i learned to keep making taking challenges you know putting myself but we only have a but to wrap up i'm curious if you guys have ideas for other projects moving forward if you're continuing i think you said you're continue at this time on to new same projects using a different one and what are you what would you like to study or learn about or approach through this project in the future me am trying to piece out my project a little bit to not make those assumptions so i'm taking lessons from teaching tolerance and diverse perspectives and breaking them down to that's age appropriate  so really looking into cultural identity a little more deeply and then how do you read a book sort of looking for those clues because it's a lot of inference it's not authors telling you right this is the color of my skin or this is my cultural background and that was really tough for them because they're not used to reading through that lens so i'm trying to do the same idea but breaking it down a little bit more and digging a little deeper so it's great yeah this year my project is focused on homework and a student self study so having kids play with the variables surrounding their homework so interesting are they listening to music is facebook open while they're working are they snapping while they're working you know what i what are they doing there how does that affect the time it takes to complete their homework and how does that affect their engagement with the homework so i'm getting ready to roll that out to the to the kids to see if they're interested in trying it out yet  very introspective but in a way that can really i'm sure help that amec of your classroom and the student experiences themselves that's the hope you know thank you guys both for coming on the show it's been the light to talk about this it's been really fun to learn about the projects you guys have been working on and what you have learned through  students i think this is a really neat opportunity for like we said for teachers to try new things take some risks and hopefully make a better learning experience for our kids and also for teachers which i think is equally as important