welcome to this week in education i'm brenda sewell and this week we are joined by principal gary snyder from princes high school he's here to talk with us about the challenge success survey which is a survey that prince of high school students took in december of this year and it's given the school a lot of really helpful data to sort of shape what's going on at the school learn about student experiences gary welcome to the show thank you for having me so tell me a little bit about why his school decided to do a survey for students to begin with  it goes back some time there certainly have been some concerns about how or or students were feeling how they were handling stress and the amounts of homework and and we began this year really taking a closer look at our school and how and how we do school yeah and with a committee looking at a faculty committee with parent representation as well and we've had students come in to speak with us and trying to get a sense of what it is that we would like to do differently through that process we discovered the success the challenge success survey as a really good tool to help collect the data that  i think we were i know we were hearing you know we had a sense but it was a tool that had been tested it has been used in other schools and across the country and so that gave us a sense that we were able to then measure what it is that we were feeling and hearing so the servos really a way of getting hard data actually being able to measure not just and only thing the students their experience trust their students you know are heavily involved in that act of academics athletics of those have things they're really getting a measurement for students from student working with many schools across the country and we as we read about their work it's very similar to the work that we are doing ourselves and so it made sense then to reach out to to them and ask about their survey and the work they do and they were very very forthcoming and willing to work with us and we actually were able to turn it around and they helped us turn it around in a fairly short amount of time to be able to give the survey and get the data back within a good time so also knowing that it's a survey that's been used in other schools across the country so it not only gave us data but also a point of comparison interact with the researchers in their explanation of the data to us gave us that kind of feedback to some of the data in and of itself you might not know where does that fall within some normal range right and so it's not just what are the experiences in our high schools or in our students but actually this is an experience and many teenagers are going through right sort of having that not comparisons to you how you're doing compared but her thing what's normal yes ok interesting and learning and the danish age in which we live many of the structures of high school princeton high school but many other high schools have been in place for eighty ninety one hundred years and we actually started there with we we at the faculty read a little bit from john doing ok from one nine hundred sixteen which talked about and i'm making this too brief also but the importance of  having experience and reflection as a part of the learning process that academic learning in and of itself and book learning is not enough right and that there needs to be time for experience and there needs to be time for reflection we took that then also with present day research so if someone might say well that's john dewey from one hundred years ago he said they did which amazingly it is not i actually read john dewey this year and it was fascinating to realize how much of this conversation are still having one hundred years later but at the exact same conversation again that hands on learning experience that it really is still relevant that it is and so there is more current research about schools and and so it became about the need for different structures i was going to sing new structures but different structures and so we have a bell schedule committee ok which we like to start by saying it's a bell schedule committee that went months without talking about bill and that's part of that then is to explain we really want to think about our curriculum the structures of school you know the curriculum the time which is the bell schedule the space which are classrooms that are square or rectangular right and the the arrangement of departments so again there are a lot of structures in place in a traditional high school yeah and so really stepping back from those and wanting to rethink and really learn how we might do things differently so if if we those changes then need to begin to happen simultaneously yet if you only change the bell schedule you'll probably still do what you've always done well both pieces all fit together they're so interconnected that although one thing might have an effect on the other areas they're all going to function best when they're functioning yes yes and there there is some pretty good evidence that that some failed attempts at change in school has they've they've been trying to change one thing at a time and really as complicated as it is really trying to change all of them together so we're looking we're looking at our curriculum and doing curriculum revision or looking at our instruction and our assessment and our use of time and our use of space  to begin to allow phrase that we've come upon for deeper learning ok would it be safe to say that you sort of started this year if you're looking at how you do school and wanting to make it more and dynamic not just you know kids sitting learning rote memory but really making it a dynamic experience yes and it's a time back to the survey one of the the words from the survey is student engagement and and th begins to tie in with the thought that we were using around deeper learning that which ties back to time in the curriculum so a curriculum that feels rushed out in space and time to really to june and one hundred eighty days and over time that curriculum continues to be added to the thing that i and an easy example is history the united states history continues to get and to have students engage more and through that and doing that in ways that might be the problem based learning ok sometimes it's referred to as project based learning the two are similar they're not identical but the idea of being faced with a problem and for students and the teachers to be in then begin to solve the problem right and have questions to be curious to learn what they need to learn when they need it and and from there the education in their learning begins to blossom there's engagement that might involve research that might involve  surprises any you take away what we certainly have heard a lot and heard from the surveying the the issues around homework and the amounts of homework impact and also with the amount sometimes the quality of homework which there's a phrase that you used in the survey that busy work that not not all homework is perceived which is important and also as important to students right i know i was at a school board meeting recently where one teacher spoke up and he said although a student might perceive homework as busy work it might actually have a very strong benefit and be telling the teacher something or be helping students learn something that they're not realizing so it's interesting that you mention that where the perception is really what we're looking at it is the perception and then but it also could inform me if i'm the teacher that i might not have made the objective clear that i  right what the next step in the process might be so if i need you to do this homework so that when you come in tomorrow will be able to do the next part of whatever that lesson might be then it may have more meaning for the students to understand why i'm being asked to do right this is simon might be so what did you learn about homework on the on the survey that students took well we learned  that the amount it is is high ok and yet it's still hard it's measured in hours in the survey and there's also another piece of the survey which is also interesting of what students are doing that that information has been used in the classroom the teachers have have been trying to measure the length that the homework assignment might take big because there's also at times where that's not connected with a teacher might give an assignment thinking well this may take fifteen twenty thirty minutes max and then the students come back the next day and say that took me an hour and so some of our our teachers have had that conversation with their students and they've tried to give two different types of assignments that were similar yeah and one where they took home and the other one they did in class the next day and what and the stanford folks suggested this yeah this idea and sometimes in class it did only take twenty or twenty five very minutes to do what the teacher may have asked but at home it did take an hour right and so the teachers in the students have had conversation of why that might be where you're more focused in class and the opposite has has also happened that the year the teacher has learned that they thought maybe it would take fifteen or twenty minutes and then to write forty five minutes and so it gave feedback to the teacher of how long this assignment was going to take so that they've they've modified then to try to to gauge to have used the word calibrate and try to calibrate how long this assignment might take so you learned about homework and that are still spend a lot of time doing homework more than we'd like to have been it would be predicted for homework levels and stress level some of the other indicators that were being measured might start at one point in one thread get a little bit higher in tenth grade and get higher in eleventh grade and probably drop a little bit in twelfth grade right  our students come in at nine for ninth grade yeah nearly as high as juniors so there's just a little drop off for senior year yeah but really it starts high the stress on it's grades the homework amounts the stress the other indicators that looking only at the data it would be hard to distinguish between one tenth or eleventh grade ok they're similar yeah and as we looked at that  looked at that it caused us to step back a little bit and we want to look at ninth grade and focus there as a starting point ok looking at all the grades but really looking now at the ninth grade are there ways to bring some of those learning more to do but doing it better so i know one thing that the survey showed that we have a lot of students are invasion extracurriculars i know you share that at the high school students will be there to mine to o'clock at night because they want to be there involved with an activity that they really care about that they're very excited about looking at ways that we can get that enthusiasm that joyce for learning that happens outside the school day into the school day are the things that you're looking at with that or in a more you'd like to share about that concept of  school that type and that's it's an example we've used so i'm glad you mentioned it yeah some of our activities like model you and i use as an example that our students they're definitely learning they're definitely engaged there's an authentic assessment to it when they have to present and perform and yet that's an after school activity right so we've used that example to say why can't that  can we have that be the school day right how can an english class look like that or a history class or math class right now so that comes back to the curriculum so just in the curriculum so that that can happen also adjusting the time  because it then hard to do that in forty five minute blocks of time and dress the evening you know these activities that happen after school they're spending an hour an hour and a half two hours there is they're spending longer blocks of time where they can go deeper right where they're not in a rush to get the answer there's more of a natural investment because you know that you're here for this type of time and you can really invest in whatever project you're working on whatever you're learning about that day  yes so in our bell schedule conversations we talk about having different days with different blocks of time ok that there would be longer blocks of time on some days so you're looking at doing more of a block schedule i know some schools you know have a b days to identify what our needs are and then to have rationale to have we started by asking ourselves we need to know the whys before we start to figure out the what's so the what a bill schedule that already exist right and we didn't want to simply select something a what before we knew the why right and so we've we've with the survey data and other  work try to identify what it is that you know we're trying to do and why and and looking at the research and using those that information to guide us to develop a schedule yeah and much like we're asking the students to do that we've given the committee a problem ok and to do our homework then to do our research and to begin to problem solve in a creative way that what we are looking at a mix of long periods and short periods ok we're looking at a variety of days so you know one of the things that we've sense from the survey though it's not a direct question but a there's a there's a grind different if you went to the daily schedule that it's one two three four five six seven eight periods every day and took them a little bit more out than an afternoon class later that day i thought that so i would imagine that there's teachers who their first profit is i was third or so that's how we are right i mean most of us you know we in our cup of coffee we need all time to get going in the morning and i magine students are the same way  and from their research and some of these ideas are also suggested from the stanford folks ok and they're there follow up work that the someone we were already on the path towards more we could use their help and guide us but the research for high school students around a start time for the beginning of the day ideally the research is suggesting eight thirty is the ideal start time for high school students and our high school currently starts at seven we we work hard not to throw up barriers for ourselves right so that the mention of a lot later start time immediately can start to throw up barriers what about this write about that how will that be resolving and what about yeah  lots of questions but we don't have the answers to those but what we've tried to do is again stay with the why so the why part is another part of the survey  the our students are not getting enough sleep and in part of there are various reasons to that but again the research is suggesting that high school weight more than suggesting it's actually a piece of educational research that pretty firm that high school students are going to go to bed later and they would wake up later right now that that really has that has nothing to do with homework or anything else that's there s just like all that at what age and and so adjusting adjusting the start time could help in that so again without being stuck by the barriers of how are we going to do that and what problems will that cause we w going with that's what we're looking for wellness for students right and giving them a little bit more time in the morning would have helped towards that and so yes that is something certainly we are looking at i know that there's a lot of pieces that you're looking at changing again to create a school that's very vibrant that's full wellness i want to reiterate that our school is vibrant you walk down the hall here there's amazing stuff going on in our school all the time but we really do want to pay attention to what the students said about their stress level that we don't pay attention to things like sleep that they're getting we really want to make sure that we are addressing some of these things that aren't as good as they could be and maybe aren't as good as they should be but as we do that are there things in specific that you're really interested are excited about conversations that the problem based on what i wonder saying it's like ok what's the problem based learning but this idea that it's not it's not the teacher walking into the room with all of the knowledge to in part to the student right now it is more of a discovery constructing your own knowledge approach it but setting a problem forth and now how are we going to approach it and there's not one right answer to that and so students can approach the problem from many different ways right and then be come together in groups and collaborate and use those skills of collaboration and use the different skills that each one of them might bring to the table to help address and and solve this problem that's happening now and it's some of it is also giving the teachers the permission to we're driven by standards were driven by a school calendar them that says here's when you start and here's when you finish and you need to finish this content within this time right and so anything that disrupts our schedule a snow day or anything that takes us out of a routine and we're worried about not being able to complete coverage of the curriculum so really giving some permission to say you can do a project that takes you a little bit more time you can explore you can explore and teachers are doing so i've got a couple quick questions before we wrap up i would like to know as you know you've looked at all of this data you've heard stories from students even in conversation the parents and staff what do your vision for the high school at the end of the day what do you want princeton high school to look like to feel like what do you want the experience that's didn't have to be like  i start to think about a place without walls interesting yeah and more open spaces which is a piece i haven't mentioned the high school is looking to grow physically but we're  if we need more space and as we think about more space trying to think of that in a way that allows space for for things to happen for today senior projects or displayed in your school year and a group of students would have done senior projects and they were to perform and to to share their work and so we did that in the performing arts center lobby so that's a nice open space to be able to have visitors come in yeah parents came in outside community members came in to hear the students present their senior project to have a space like that common space open space for presentations for work and when we talk about students collaborating on a project or if they're working with robots they need space and so we're trying to think of open more open spaces that allow that kind of work to happen so envision a school that when you talk about it being vibrant it really is in the sense that you can walk in you're just going to see students and teachers working together and being able to collaborate and being able to go across discipline because they're not stuck in a room right or a hallway that english and science and music and math all can changes in their high school that will affect our students health and create a better learning environment for them where they can where they can find joy in learning rather than stress and learning what do we need from our parents our staff from our students how do we how do we build that together what role do they have we all have a piece with i'm glad you asked and it's a piece that we also have learned from the work at stanford so there's responsibility on our end to share what we're learning with parents as a mentioning john dewey and others who we are reading and getting ideas from for us to expand that conversation which we've tried to do as a as a faculty as well we mentioned the committee and from the start so we have to be communicating with our colleagues right and as a school we will have to be communicating with their parents we've had one parent night with another one coming up with middle school parents  might not be able to touch on every single point that we do now if we're stepping back and saying we're going to go deeper right in some topics you know the magic approach and not necessarily point by point and  linear progression well thank you so much for joining me today i really appreciate it it's been a very interesting hearing about what's going on the high school things that are coming down the down the pike and i'm really excited for what our school might look like and just a few years you were starting to the faculty is excited  that there's a sense of really an ability to be creative and i really to express what it is that we're trying to do and i think we all learn so much better when we have that opportunity to be creative to learn in our way that relative resonates with us so i mean there's a