issue 9spring 2011

Design

Value-DrivenDesign

How to create a school thatreflects its core beliefs

A Conversation with Daniel Coyle

Alumni Spotlight

p 18p 2 p 14

Sticky Curriculum/Creative Fusion

2 Value-Driven DesignHow to create a school that reflects its core beliefs

People Who Inspire Us

14 A Conversation with Daniel Coyle

Alumni Spotlight

18 Life on the Hill:Class of 2004 alum Josh Kantor’sExperiences as a Senate Page

In Each Issue

1 Greetings from Paula

20 Spark Online

21 Spark Plugs

22 UCDS Mission Statement

In this Issue

TM

BY TEACHERS FOR TEACHERS™

Spark is published by University Child Development School.

Head of SchoolPaula Smith

Assistant Head of SchoolTeacher Education Center Director Melissa Chittenden

Editor & Publication DesignJack Forman

Contributing WritersMelissa Chittenden, Jack Forman, Melissa Holbert, Meg Herland,Josh Kantor, Paula Smith, Jill Marlow

Contributing EditorsLeanne Bunas, Diane Chickadel, Melissa Chittenden, Betty Greene, Stephen Harrison, Cory Ihrig Goldhaber, Julie Kalmus, Angie Manning Goodwill, Shanthi Raghu, Abby Sandberg, Paula Smith, Kai Toh, Natasha Rodgers

PhotographyMelinda Deal, Stephen Harrison,UCDS Faculty and Staff

For submission information, please contact Shanthi Raghu atshanthir@ucds.org.The editor reserves the right to edit and select all materials.

Past issues of Spark can be read at www.ucds.org/spark

© 2011 University Child Development School. All rights reserved.

An ancient Chinese saying advises, “One foot cannot stand on two boats.”Having grown up on the Puget Sound messing around in rowboats, I can say from experience

that this is most certainly true. I think we would do well to heed this advice as we work to improve education in the US. Unfortunately, we currently ask teachers to stand on two boats as most still work in a factory model classroom while increasingly being required to teach to standards that call for a mastery model of instruction.

I am sure that most of us reading this article have been educated in a traditional factory model classroom where our teacher spent most of the day lecturing and moved the entire class together through every lesson in the textbook, regardless of how we performed on the test at the end of each unit. This model is based on the assumption that students of the same age learn at the same speed, that the teacher’s main job is to disseminate knowledge by covering content, and that a student learns concepts best when reading or listening. This way of organizing a classroom is synonymous with the word “school” and educational reform efforts over the decades have largely been implemented within this model.

The mastery model of instruction is most common outside of school, and requires a student to master skills, as well as accumulate knowledge. If you or I decided to take a tennis class on Saturday morning, we would expect our teacher to impart some instruction and then let us have a go…to try and apply what we had learned to that point. Whether learning to cook, write poetry, play an instrument or learn chess, we would expect our teacher to coach us and tailor the instruction to our level of competency. It is unlikely that we would show up for this class a second time if the teacher simply lectured to our group and sent us home to practice on our own. The point of taking a tennis class on Saturday is to gain mastery. Both teacher and student begin the class with the expectation that it will take an unknown amount of time and practice to reach that goal.

Over the past decade, there has been a groundswell of concern about K-12 education in the US, as evidenced the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, state school achievement mandates, and the rapid growth of charter schools. To measure the success of these initiatives, we have relied on data, and the easiest data to collect has been standardized test scores that are now available to everyone over the Internet.

Increasingly over this time period, schools and districts have been ranked on the outcome of standardized tests and have used these measures to hold teachers accountable for evidence of student learning. Unfortunately, this pressure has led to a narrowing of curriculum in elementary schools across the country and to an increase in rote teaching to the test rather than teaching for deep understanding.1 This shift toward accountability is actually moving us one small step toward a mastery model by focusing on student learning; however, no real effort has been made to shift from the factory model of instruction and assessment. As a result, teachers are still expected to cover curriculum in the same traditional lock step manner and, even worse, are not required to teach the skills that children will need to apply, communicate and think critically about what they are learning. This may be why 30% of our students drop out of high school and why a majority of those who do graduate are not “college ready.”2

I believe we have an excellent opportunity to re-design our schools and shift to a single classroom model based on mastery. Over the past 12 months, 42 states across the country have adopted Common Core Standards that spell out the skills and concepts that students will be expected to master in Language Arts and Math at each grade level K-12.3 States are expecting that standards-based assessments and curriculum will soon follow.

If this new standards paradigm is to really be fully implemented, teachers will need a clear picture of what mastery looks like. They will need the support to change the way they teach and organize the school day to resemble how a tennis class is taught on Saturday morning. In addition, teachers will need authentic assessment tools in order to gauge student understanding as they teach and the flexibility to move students through material at different speeds and with different types of instruction. I am hopeful that public, charter and independent schools already using a mastery model will share the changes they have made to make this model work.

It is our experience at UCDS that mastery-based teaching requires a fundamental change in the culture of a school to support a more active role by teachers. Teachers in mastery model programs need time to work together to develop teaching, coaching and assessment strategies that require more evidence of understanding than in traditional classrooms. Our teachers spend a great deal of time in conversation and share educational values that are translated directly into our goals for students. The following topics are threads that run through our ongoing conversations:

Like a seasoned coach, teaching for mastery requires skill rather than a script. We should redesign our schools with a single vision in order to attract, develop and sustain the most skilled teachers. Only then will our children enjoy the 21st century education that they deserve.

1 Ravitch, Diane (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Basic Books: New York.2 Peter D. Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies (2005). “Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared of College and Work?” Achieve, Inc. online at http://www.achieve.org/files/pollreport.pdf.3 http://www.corestandards.org/

Paula SmithHead of School

Leaning Forward–Is the curriculum interesting?Are students fully engaged, motivated and curious?

Right sizing–What have students mastered already, and is this a real stretch?How is instruction paced for students progressing at different speeds?

Data Driven–How will students show their thinking and present what they know? What does mastery look like?

Learning to learn–How are we coaching individual students to become independent?What learning strategies and habits of mind do we want a student to develop?

Value Driven

Design how to design

a school that reflects its

core beliefs

by

Jill MarlowMeg HerlandMelissa Chittenden

Melissa Holbert

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•Facilitate•Create Balance

•Communicate•Collaborate

•Innovate

What’s the art of the possible?For us, everything about how UCDS operates is based upon the belief that anything we want to accomplish IS possible, and yes, at times it’s an art form to do so! The art of the possible is the core belief that, collectively, we create a fluid environment, one that celebrates the magic of youth, provides individualized stretches for students, offers a collaborative learning environment for teachers and assumes an overall flexibility. The phrase “form follows function” is commonly used in our planning conversations. We first ask ourselves what we want the end result to be and then design our systems (teaching goals, schedules, committees, etc.) based upon these goals. This creative process forces us to “turn the conversation clockwise,” generating a school environment designed and driven by our values, one that is constantly growing and requiring that we revise our work based upon what we see and what we want to improve.

Value driven design requires a foundation of shared values amongst the faculty and staff. The overview is that everyone is expected to do his or her best work. What does that mean? At UCDS, your best work is not dictated by what time you arrive or depart school each day, how successful your “lesson” was or how your students score on tests. All of the afore mentioned items are tangible and easy to evaluate, but they don’t address the essence of an effective teaching culture. For us, “your best work” is based on five specific values (generated by the faculty) that represent what good teaching looks like at UCDS.

For us, these shared values are that we all must:

These less-tangible skills are the focus of annual professional goal setting, mentoring and evaluation; yet, while this is a unique model in itself, it’s not the full picture of “why” we utilize these shared values. More important than how we evaluate teachers is the fact that these five values are the same ones we work to instill in our students. Each subject area activity is designed with these attributes in mind because we feel that the skills associated with these values are imperative for our students to learn and for UCDS teachers to model. This cultural continuity between faculty and curricula not only helps us create an environment that fosters meaningful learning but one that requires everyone to make those around them “better.”

Prior to developing our Teacher Profile (shared values), we too followed parts of the commonly-used model for teacher evaluations, annual

observations in our classrooms and a discussion/written notes following that observation. Our experience revealed that when we used this more traditional evaluation model, teachers were indirectly encouraged to promote themselves or their own acquisition of knowledge as opposed to creating a more collaborative and collegiate school environment. At the same time, we found no link between the teaching culture and the curriculum. We set out to make a change that would move the teaching community from congenial to collegiate as well as something that would link what we value with the curricula we teach. UCDS is in a constant state of renewal, always evaluating and revising every process. The students and the teachers are the direct beneficiaries of this generative work.

Developing a school culture that is based upon value driven design

takes time as well as courageous conversations from all the constituencies within a school.

The end result however is worth the work! It’s the art of the possible.

What follows are our five core schoolwide values, each seen on their own and in the context of the theme-based curriculum in our second and third grade level. Considering this year’s yearlong Theme, DESIGN, these teachers and students learned about toy design from many perspectives by creating a fictitious toy company called “Kidz Are We.” From brainstorming the company name and mission to delivering toy prototypes weeks later, the 2-3s lived and breathed each value. As exciting as this curricular project was, it was one of dozens throughout the school, each based on the core beliefs that unite us.

Continued >

•Innovate

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The Core Philosophy:UCDS teachers innovate. At the core of the UCDS philosophy is the concept of renewal. The process of inquiry motivates teachers as we create curriculum that requires students to delve deeply into the learning process. Common questions are:

– What methods can be improved upon?

– How can we develop this curriculum further?

– What questions will motivate students to go deeper?The faculty adopts a new theme study topic each year that is purposefully rich. And while the thematic curriculum is inherently dynamic, beyond that lies an understanding that teachers who know their students are best suited for designing a program that is tailored to students’ specific needs. We create activities that encourage leaners not only to explore subject matter but also to discover their own capabilities.

There are no preset textbooks at UCDS. Teachers use a continuum of skills to design curriculum that reaches learners at their respective developmental and academic levels. Employing a rich sampling of resources, the faculty designs curricula that support and inspire young learners. Working in a culture where improving our teaching methods and strategies is valued propels us to keep learning as well. Our classroom closets are filled with guides and educational resources. Our shelves are snug with engaging materials. And what we don’t find on our own shelves can usually be located in the classroom down the hall. The sharing of ideas, as well as resources, is commonplace. Inspired by the students and each other, teachers have both the drive and the energy to innovate.

Sticky Curriculum:Innovation is the result of collaboration in action. Teachers brainstorm ideas, ask questions and design curricula that are meant to excite and pique the interest of students under a large connecting idea, our yearlong theme.

Students learn from our curriculum, but then something magical happens: They also begin to innovate. Students take the curriculum a step further. They ask their own questions, create and devise new ideas, and form hypotheses. This is where teachers initiate the innovation that stems from student-centered learning. It’s the teacher’s job to be responsive to these questions and build new curricula that incorporate students’ ideas. These new avenues of thought drive the search for resources that support development of curricula.

An example of this process is visible looking at the 2010-2011 school year theme, DESIGN. Teachers started broad discussions about DESIGN from a variety of perspectives that would be of interest to students. Some ideas were story and book design, kite design (which was inspired by a read aloud book, Windblowne) and the design of inventions, specifically toys. Teachers narrowed in on one area that both the teachers and students would find exciting.

The 2-3 Toy Design project was born!From this point, teachers began seeking out expertise to create exciting, meaningful and authentic experiences with the toy design process. Teachers initiated the Toy Design project by facilitating a trip to an actual toy company. The second and third grade students held a toy ideas brainstorming meeting where they were in charge of both bringing their own ideas and generating questions and recommendations to respond to others’ suggestions. Students then received

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feedback from the toy company professionals and teachers about real issues: feasibility, marketing and product design. Using this feedback, students refined their plans and continued through the toy design process. It’s this interplay between the students and teachers each building off ideas of others that progresses and guides the students’ learning. Along the way, teachers guide the students and provide structure while simultaneously introducing and incorporating new concepts that build off students’ ideas. It is this collaboration between the students, teachers and resources that results in an innovative, exciting and useful learning experience.

Continued >

Where better to learn about toy design than at a toy store? 2-3 teachers think out of the box to

provide students with a research opportunity in a local store’s toy section (top)

Fueled by marketplace research, teachers coach students to create their own ideas for toys and

marketing plans (right)

•Collaborate

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The Core Philosophy:

UCDS teachers collaborate. As part of a collaborative faculty, we learn from one another, inspire and challenge each other, and create curriculum together. The value of collaboration is that it facilitates open and meaningful discussion, teamwork, risk-taking and flexibility. The model of collaboration among students, so evident in each UCDS classroom from Pre-K through 5th grade, has its inception in weekly teacher planning meetings. As teaching teams, we meet together to create curriculum. In those sessions, what often begins as a simple idea, proposed by one teacher, gives rise to the full collaborative process: ideas are modified, enhanced, defined and detailed by the group. We generate questions, set academic goals and address student needs as we plan. The resulting curriculum is stronger, deeper, and more salient. The schedule at UCDS is specifically designed to support this collaboration among teachers. Teachers forgo individual planning time during the school day in order to have weekly blocks of time to work together. Not only are ideas exchanged but also there is a division of labor streamlining the process as team members each take a role in readying the week’s activities.

StickyCurriculum:Teachers collaborate to design relevant and engaging curricula and aim to consistently model what goes into the process of curricula design—seeking out information, evaluating resources and asking questions to further understanding in the classroom.

With the theme of DESIGN in mind, teachers in the 2-3s began the process of creating thematic curricula by brainstorming. We sought high-interest content, rich in design concepts and opportunities to weave skills into problem-solving. Toy design topped the list!

In the process of collaboration, teachers are both experts and learners. Seeking out resources supports teachers in building thoughtful, accurate, exciting and rich curricula. Books and Internet resources often provide guidance, and in this case, the most beneficial resource was a direct collaboration with designers from a local toy design laboratory. Teachers’ area of expertise lies in taking the information gleaned from meetings with these experts and using that information to build accessible curricula for students. The faculty is also charged with embedding the skills outlined in the UCDS Continua into each project so that students can learn to put these skills to use and master them in a meaningful context.

As teachers consulted with toy designers, they were able to identify other beneficial collaborations at their fingertips. The UCDS Library Specialist provided book ideas, the Technology Specialist offered technical support, and a Resident Teacher shared input on graphic design (below). As students worked to move from brainstorming, to sketching and technical drawings, teachers were eager to model how they consult resources to troubleshoot when

problem-solving. Students moved with expert guidance through the toy design process—brainstorming ideas, conducting market research, sketching initial product ideas, and incorporating feedback from peers, teachers and toy designers. Next, they revised designs and began technical drawing. Finally, students created a model, a prototype and an advertising campaign.

With graphic design coaching from a 2-3 teacher, students played off of a familiar toy store’s name

to create a brand for their creativity (right).

Continued >

1See Spark #6 at ucds.org/spark2See Spark #4 at ucds.org/spark 7

In a thematic curriculum, teachers work to integrate core subject areas and skills while making learning relevant to the students. In the toy design project, teachers included social studies with an examination of the history of toys from ancient civilization to present day and an investigation into how geographical resources and societal needs relate to toy design. As prototypes neared completion, we incorporated marketing, consumer education and graphic design into the project. In Literature Groups1 teachers guided students to read about the influence of graphic design throughout history and how it relates to toy packaging and box design. During Math Vitamin2, students drew technical drawings to scale, which the expert toy designers in turn used to make templates for prototype pieces. Teachers also capitalized on the discussion of marketing and box design to explore geometry, measurement, multiplication, subtraction and addition. Students studied graphs that reflected common elements of package design and applied their findings to their own creations.

Collaboration is the key that allows teachers to create a meaningful and engaging, skill-based curricula across subject areas.

Collaboration doesn’t have to be locally derived. After assembling a talented team of teachers to create the Toy Design curriculum, the faculty looked outside its doors to find experts in their field. They found them in the talented toy designers at SmartLab, including Christine Lee (above),

Drew Barr (below) and Lauren Cavanaugh (not pictured).

•Communicate

3See Spark #3 at ucds.org/spark4See Spark #8 at ucds.org/spark

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The CorePhilosophy:

UCDS teachers communicate. Teachers organize each curriculum around big ideas and interesting problems. We connect learning to the real world. We design activities that reflect the interests of the students, as well as issues in the community. We listen carefully to what children are saying and respond respectfully to the questions they ask. Students know their ideas are valued, and as a result, they learn to communicate with purpose–to voice their ideas when collaborating on a project, to make proposals to their peers at Class Meeting3, or to work with teacher mentors as part of their 5th grade Service Learning project.

Communication around the school is rich and thoughtful. Teachers read subtleties in the conversations they are having with students, parents, and with each other. Reflection, respect, empathy and authenticity are hallmarks of communication here. Peer coaching and mentoring are part of the design of the school and are particularly evident in the classroom and on our teaching teams. We ask each other questions that help us genuinely and critically reflect on our work. The Resident Teaching Program provides us with a cohort of beginning teachers each year, who bring new questions and insights, give us an opportunity to articulate our program philosophy and goals and cause us to once again reflect on what we do. In addition to the Resident Teaching Program, mentoring programs to support teachers joining our faculty and the yearlong Experienced Teacher Cohort4 utilize these peer-mentoring practices, both formally and informally. We listen to each other, ask for feedback and regularly share observations with each other. Teachers, new and returning, rely on each other for coaching, and we set goals accordingly. We work together in a variety of ways and the ongoing cycle of reflection, communication and feedback is designed to support collaborative relationships among teachers.

StickyCurriculum:Communication was a key component of the toy design process among teachers, students and a variety of resources.

While learning the skills and concepts infused in the toy design curriculum, students used their communication skills to brainstorm, discuss, and create a student-run toy design company. Through their discussions and collaborations, students picked a name, Kidz R’ We, and developed a mission statement to communicate the company’s values.

Students used graphic design principles to craft a logo that embodied their company’s values and further communicated those values in symbolic form. Later, students created advertising campaigns for their product line. Teachers leveraged the expertise of a Resident Teacher with a background in graphic design to offer the students advice about design elements.

Once students had their values in alignment, they eagerly began the process of deciding on a toy to design. Students brainstormed their ideas through journal writing and sketches in preparation for presenting their plans to the Kidz R’ We company at a pitch meeting. Next, students took a field trip to SmartLab, an actual toy company, where they had an opportunity to present their ideas to experts in the field. The meeting took place in the SmartLab’s conference room. Knowing about the authentic atmosphere of the meeting in advance added an element of formality and importance that inspired students to do their best work.

During their presentations, students practiced essential skills of communication: listening and providing constructive feedback to one another. As they heard their peers’ ideas, students asked questions for clarification and suggested changes. After all the ideas were presented, the toy design experts sent their professional feedback about each toy. They provided information about product feasibility and marketability of each toy design. The experts and teachers provided thoughtful feedback about the students’ toy designs in a way that did not limit creative ideas. Students used this feedback to

Continued >

Kids R’ WeRemote Control SkateboardA skateboard approximately 10 inches long. Intended for a younger orsmaller person.

Remote Control BallA ball used for chasing, racing or hiding games. Buttons on the RemoteControl Ball are colored and each button is responsible for a certaindirectional movement.

Singing PillowA portable pillow that provides music to the user. Has programmable music that you want and a timer for specifying when you want it played.

Spy CarA car (di�erent model available) that a person could use for spyingpurposes. The car comes with a camera and sensors that detect whensomeone is present.

New DSA new DS model where the player is able to enter the game.

New LegoA new Lego design with an improved way to connect lego pieces.

Voice Commad BMXVoice commanded bike approx. 10-12 inches long.

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make revisions to their original designs. As students continued through the stages of the toy design process, communication and feedback after each stage were key components.

The culminating project included students working together in small groups to present their toy and explain the process they used to complete their final product. Students presented their work to the toy experts at SmartLab as well as the entire school community during our Theme Fair celebration.

Teachers designed a rich and authentic learning environment as they guided students to communicate ideas in a variety of ways and modeled communication among professionals.

The student-designed “Spy Pod” toycaptured the 2-3s imaginations from the ideation phase on.

Students brainstormed that it could be “A car that a person could use for spying purposes.” The car comes with a camera and

sensors that detect when someone is present.

Continued >

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The CorePhilosophy:

UCDS teachers create balance. The belief that it is possible to be responsive to individual needs while balancing the goals of the group is integral to the design of the UCDS program. Diverse learning styles are not merely accepted but are encouraged. We actively seek learners with different strengths and perspectives, and in turn, we teach them to listen to each other, coach one another and develop areas of expertise.

A very similar diversity of thought and purposeful breadth of perspectives is replicated in the teaching community. Teachers work in teams that represent varying levels of experience and expertise. We often have different but complementary teaching styles. Each year’s teaching teams are designed with this in mind. Because we are eager to share our own talents, backgrounds and passions and because we coach each other through a culture of collaboration, we feel supported to take risks and to propose new ideas. In this way, teaching teams are stronger, and the learning experience is enriched for the students. Teachers commonly change grade levels from one year to the next, broadening perspectives further and making for more seamless travels as learners grow through the school. This balanced faculty and the diversity of our teaching teams encourages ongoing professional growth.

StickyCurriculum:Self-reflection is the basis for designing balance in the classroom. When students begin to understand themselves as learners—their strengths and challenges—they begin to practice valuable strategies that create balance in the community. Teachers guide students with this knowledge to use their strengths as resources for their classmates and to model their thinking. Knowledge of one’s challenges allows for informed observation, the propensity to seek resources for problem solving and the ability to consider and question alternative approaches. Balance is the ability to think flexibly in both social and academic settings.

Students frequently reflect on personal goals, which aids teachers as we outline expectations for group work and create successful peer groupings. Such was the case with the Toy Design group project. While one student set a goal to stay actively engaged and attend to group work, another set her sights on listening to the ideas of others and making compromises. Both group members worked to achieve their aims, supporting each other’s challenges and extending themselves in the process. It is this balance, being reflective about strengths and challenges, that creates and fosters a community of learners.

Creating Balance in a classroom at UCDS begins with teachers knowing each student on a personal level and

actively coaching that kind of deep understanding for the students of themselves. Teachers regularly model this

self-discovery process in front of students and with their colleagues to build a culture of individualization and the

expectation that “everyone’s working on something.”

•Create Balance

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UCDS teachers create balance by actively individualizing to each student and coaching them to build their role in the larger community. Here, a 2-3 teacher guides a group as they identify team goals (above), and several student journals chronicle the process, from brainstorms and schematics (left, bottom left) to

metacognitive reflections about the collaborative process itself and individual roles (below).

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The Core Philosophy:

UCDS teachers facilitate. The role of the teacher is unique at UCDS. There is an ongoing cycle of curriculum design that includes these four essential facets: assess, reflect, design and implement. The ongoing assessment that occurs as students engage in the curriculum directly informs what we plan next. Personally invested in the curriculum that we design, teachers set up the classroom as a laboratory for students to conduct their research and the teachers act as coaches, building in supports and facilitating next steps. Children here own what they are doing and exhibit an engagement that is not always seen in more traditional, teacher-led classrooms. In turn, how the students approach the curriculum influences our planning. Student responses to each day’s learning motivate us to change, redesign and improve our curriculum the next day. Assessing our students as they work gives rise to reflective conversations among teaching team members. Again, questions come into play–as we ask ourselves and each other “What worked best?” and “How can we make it richer, clearer, more accessible?” Armed with a fresh understanding of what worked and what can be improved upon, we begin the process anew–assess, reflect, design and implement.

Sticky Curriculum:At all levels, teachers use formal and informal assessments to meet students where they are and coach them to the next step.

During math in the elementary level, the students are given a problem inlaid with a story hook at Math Vitamin® to engage each student in solving the problem. Teachers wrote a Math Vitamin problem about designing a toy box in a way that students at different levels of understanding could approach the problem with a variety of strategies. From the beginning of the problem teachers begin their informal assessments. As students found the surface area of different elements of design on toy packaging, teachers offered assistance, helping some students understand how to use the ruler for proper measurement while extending the Math Vitamin for other students who were ready to tackle partial product multiplication of multi-digit numbers. Assessments allow the teacher the opportunity to create an individualized plan for how to guide a student through the process of reaching a solution. For instance, some students might need to have the Math Vitamin read to them, with brief breaks to highlight important information. Together the teacher and the student create a plan or process chart for the student to refer to as they try to move independently through the process. Teachers give students models to reference and organizational techniques, all strategies used to give beginning mathematicians guidance through each Math Vitamin. Teachers also ask students to seek out larger mathematical patterns, to consider an outside audience when documenting their work and to promote increasingly efficient and sophisticated methods of problem-solving.

With individualized plans, teachers take the time to be sure that each student is being appropriately stretched based upon their individual acquisition of each skill set. The toy design project spanned many curricula, and Math Vitamin is just one of many ways that teachers work to facilitate each student’s learning.

•Facilitate

With each of the five core values in mind (Innovate, Collaborate, Communicate, Create Balance and Facilitate), teachers at UCDS begin each day, month and year with shared understanding, eager to develop exciting curricula at every level of the school. From its inception, Toy Design was less about designing toys and so much more about designing learning for each student, driven by an invested, enthused faculty. As the sun sets on Toy Design, we eagerly await our next curricular exploration!

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Daniel Coyle is a contributing editor at Outside and the author of the New York Times bestseller Lance Armstrong’s War and Hardball: A Season in the Projects. His new book is The Talent Code.

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People WhoInspire Us

This past fall the UCDS Teacher Education Center hosted Daniel Coyle, contributing editor for Outside magazine, for a series of talks with the UCDS faculty, parents and larger community. We were most excited to talk about his book The Talent Code, which explores the importance of motivation and future-oriented thinking to compliment the kind of deep practice that leads to success. From sports to music to reading acquisition, Coyle talked about the importance of multi-age learning, individualized coaching and reflective thinking in designing a learning environment, all hallmarks of the UCDS program. What follows are excerpts from our conversation.

SPARK: What led to you writing The Talent Code? We read the book as a faculty and are very intrigued by the implications for education.

Daniel Coyle: How did the book begin? The short answer is that I came across a clip about a Russian tennis club that had produced more women’s top 20 tennis players than the entire United States. I called the guy who had done a documentary film about that club and he said, “you have to go! It’s just unbelievable. The place is like a dump.” That really made me interested since as a journalist I’m always looking for conflict and tension. Intuitively, we know of other places around the world that produce unusual amounts of talent–as a sports fan you know of them, as a music fan you know of them–these strange little places.

As a journalist I specialize in profiles, and so I look at people who have a certain amount of notoriety for being really, really good–athletes, politicians, musicians. You begin to see these patterns that keep recurring in the way that they approach their crafts, and their childhoods, and the ways that they talk. As a guy who has tried to get good at a few things in life with varying success, and as a parent who’s watching his kids grow up now (I have four kids), you start to see the patterns.

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UCDS parent, John Neilson loved ideas; those he found in literature and those he gained through a deep appreciation of world culture, math, science, art, music, philosophy and physical excellence.

In 1999, at the age of thirty-eight, John lost a hard fought battle against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In honor of John’s life, The Neilson Endowment Fund was created. Through the Teacher Education Center at UCDS, we use this endowment to create and share programs that offer children access to big ideas.

John was an inspiration to us in life and we dedicate this, ‘People Who Inspire Us’ section to him.

A Conversation with

DanielCoyle

Continued >

SPARK: We were fascinated by how you represent the idea of myelin, how deep practice, enthusiasm and energy can impact success. The epilogue of your book mentions the tension in the “reading wars” between the whole language approach and the in-the-trenches work of learning phonics, and emphasizes the careful balance that it takes to become a proficient reader.

You can’t just believe that you’re going to be a tennis star–that’s the first step, but it takes a lot of work. From a teacher’s perspective, how do you find that balance?

DC: That is really the deep paradox at the center of all of this. It is a balance because both are absolutely essential. If you think about growing skill as a construction project, you need to have a certain number of hours and a certain time of practice as a human being to grow these skills.

But that is a sort of irrational thing to want to do, isn’t it? To spend 10,000 hours or 20,000 hours doing this certain thing, whatever it might be? You need to have that irrational passion, that fuel or love, that keeps you going back when you shouldn’t! That keeps you thinking about it in the odd times, that keeps you obsessed.

The real challenge to schools, and where I think you guys are succeeding, is finding a way to have both going on–where you really are providing the spark for the fuel tank but also the sort of game-like learning that I’ve seen going on here, the engagement and ways that the curriculum is interconnected, these spaces where that deep engagement can happen.

SPARK: You talk about skateboarding in an empty swimming pool as a metaphor for how to self-motivate and practice.

DC: Of all of the places that I encountered, the most learning that I observed was in a swimming pool with skateboards. It’s the perfect metaphor

for what I think a good school should be, which is the space that is really fun, gives really clear feedback, is very game-like and always sends you back for more. You go up, but there’s no coach saying, “you should really lean more forward on your toes there!” Because the pool tells you what you should do, and you can feel it right away and get better very quickly right away because of the kind of beautiful design.

It’s a design question.How do you design a swimming pool-like space where you have the kids go up, love it; go down, love that; want to go back for more and more and more and be able to tell where they are all of the time to say, “Oh this is what I missed, this is what I need to do better” and to have the energy to keep doing that. So, it is that balance. The other balance is giving the kid enough private space, enough room by themselves to figure out what they like and don’t like. So, it is a deeply paradoxical proposition to do this stuff.

SPARK: Pushing the analogy a little farther, thinking of that swimming pool, there are certain design elements that you can integrate that can guarantee that the kid never falls, ever. That they just never fall off their skateboard. Or, you could make it a really rigid “rigorous” swimming pool where they’re guaranteed to fall a lot! So it seems like that balance there too is important too–the space should inform the process, but that risk dynamic seems like an interesting gray area. How much risk should there be?

DC: What I saw was how much that was always individualized to each kid, whether they were learning how to play music or hit a golf ball, it was always this individualized thing where it wasn’t the same “pool” for everybody,

where the pool had all of these wings and pods that could accommodate the different places and allowed for a certain amount of exploration. That is a tricky thing to do, to find that kind of individualized attention. What I was interested in seeing here is how game-like a lot of this learning is going on here–and I think that’s the most powerful tool to capture attention and make it a project that’s linked to the next thing and kids have ownership of.

SPARK: We talked as a faculty about the idea of a “dinosaur kid,” the kid who at an early age is captivated by the idea of dinosaurs and can’t do anything but dinosaurs–just voraciously eats everything that has to do with dinosaurs. But it seems like when you talk about the irrational passion that leads you to overcome those obstacles along the way, it doesn’t necessarily have to come from within, the way that the dino-guy is who is just captivated by dinosaurs on his own. The space really can inform the discovery, and there are some subliminal or maybe even explicit cues that you can give along the way to help kids find that passion. Where’s that balance? Do you feel that this mostly needs to be coming from within, innately?

DC: No, not at all. I think that the environment really creates a lot of that, and that’s what I saw in the talent hotbeds and where a lot of the interesting psychological research comes in. And I guess the best metaphor to sum all of the research up is the metaphor of the windshield. Who is in the kid’s windshield that they see every day? What people are in the windshield?

In the talent hotbeds, the pattern that I saw was that the space always accommodated older kids who that kid would want to be. For example, I happen to coach baseball sometimes and as an American baseball coach, you have all of the 12 and 13 year olds show up in one practice, and then all of the 14 and 15 years olds show up, and then all of the 16 and 17 year olds.

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But in the Carribean in Curacao where I visited, they did it very differently. They had all 90 kids on the field at the same time!

And it sounds like that could never work, but it actually does work very well because everybody breaks off into little groups and the younger ones are with the older ones. The older ones are having to teach, which is a powerful learning experience for themselves to have to explain how to throw a curve ball and the kid’s watching him, learning not from some distant Martian adult, but from somebody who’s their older brother or sister.

And that interaction, the lightning bolt that happens, when someone stares at someone that they want to become, the vision of their “future self,” that moment is something that I think we sometimes undervalue in our culture where we tend to break the kids up and have walls between classrooms and groups.

SPARK: You call that idea “future belonging.”

DC: The most effective example I saw was at KIPP Schools, the charter school in San Jose. I asked, what’s the most effective thing you guys do here? And this is a school much like yours: very committed to the idea of having a very coherent, detail-oriented world that they created. And all of the teachers are on the same page, giving really thoughtful curricula, really a great school. And I asked “What’s the best thing you do?” and they said, “you know, it’s not really anything that happens here.”

They take field trips with their fourth graders to visit college campuses. They won’t even talk to the college kids there–they just show their fourth graders where the dining hall is, and the dorms and classrooms and then they come home. And it just changes a lot for these kids!

SPARK: Is that the idea of “ignition?”

DC: The ignition process is essentially connecting dots. My dot with this dot. And it’s not motivational posters on the wall or a charismatic speech from a charismatic teacher. It’s just looking at a kid that they identify with–that’s all! Looking at them and saying “I want to be them.”

There’s one kid that I met there, Daniel, whose family had no experience with college. I asked him a very vague question like, “what do you think about your future? Where do you think you’re going to be?” He says, “I really like Stanford, but I’m more of a Berkeley guy!” A fourth grader! It would never have happened, but that field trip is where they see a change in energy and identity. Suddenly, kids say, “this is where I’m going.” This idea that there’s a group and I already belong to it!

SPARK: It seems like the unintentional cues are just as, and sometimes more, important than the intentional ones. We gathered as a faculty that it’s really about reflecting about the process of learning itself–less about specific performance on a spelling test or math quiz, and more about how it feels to work hard at something.

DC: We underrate how confusing it can be to be a kid, particularly in America in 2011. Letting kids understand how the process of learning works–that it’s a struggle at times but that’s a good thing–it’s incredibly powerful to understand how you learn. It’s much more in the landscape than

in something you can actually tell a kid. You have to create a school environment where those sorts of things are celebrated. Where they see you celebrating someone else’s success–that can be even more powerful than telling them! If they see you admit to your mistakes, it’s much more powerful.

As a teacher, the part that I took away that I saw teachers do really well was the importance of the first 10 seconds. When you first meet a child when they first walk into the room, that is the most important section of time that you’ll spend with them. Those are very hard to undo, those first impressions. I saw the master coaches were able to connect in a profound way in that first time, and really worked to know their students in profound ways, to know just how to individualize to them.

SPARK: We recently heard John Medina, the University of Washington neuroscientist, talk about how emotional intelligence can strengthen teaching. He said that, more than any other assessment tool, the ability of teachers to really consider things from their students’ perspectives has the largest specific relationship to student success.

DC: It’s really an underrated skill–to be a flexible empath seems to have a huge impact on the people you teach. There are always risks involved with learning a new thing. You have to feel safe to try, and believe that you’re heading in the right direction.

It’sincredibly

powerful to understand

how you learn.

s

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In addition to The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle keeps a entertaining blog with several real-world connections to The Talent Code, in addition to excerpts from the book. Read it at: http://danielcoyle.com/

UCDS Alum Josh Kantor shares his experiences in the other Washington. . . as a Senate Page

ServiceLearning (on the Hill)

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AlumniSpotlight

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Let me attempt to describe for you what it is like to be one of the 30 United States Senate Pages. Each morning, I rose at 4:45, sometimes earlier. I would shower, shave, make my bed, clean my room, and put on my suit and tie so fast I could win an Olympic speed medal. We all would quickly eat breakfast and clean the kitchen in time to be sitting in class by 6:15 sharp. On most days Pages have four 30 minute classes. However, we would make up the rest of school on our own with hours and hours of homework.

At 8:15, done with school, we made our way from our house and school to work in the United States Senate. We always showed up an hour and fifteen minutes before the Senate went into session to prepare the chamber and the Vice President’s capitol office, as the President of the Senate. To do this, we would go and get the Congressional Records and other dailies and distribute them around the capitol complex. Additionally, we would set up each Senator’s desk with their bills and dailies. In addition to the Senators’ desks, we also set the Parliamentarians’ desks, the journal and bill clerks desks, and the Presiding Officer’s Desk. Once that was all complete, two pages would go to get the ivory and silver gavels dating back to the late 1700’s.

Since access to the United States Senate chamber and lobby is limited to only Senators, Pages, and a couple of party staff members, we had to be extremely disciplined and responsible. No one was looking over our shoulder to make sure we did our work. No mistakes were allowed.

We would work all day and into the night until the Senate went out of session. Sometimes this was 3:30 in the morning. But this wasn’t the end of our responsibilities. Once the Senate got out of session and the Senators left, we had to clean up the entire chamber

and get it ready for the next day’s activities. On top of all of this, we still had to do hours of homework assigned every night to supplement our roughly two-hour school day.

This wonderful experience taught me to manage my time well and to be extremely disciplined. I also learned first-hand how the Senate and the federal government work, and I was lucky enough to be present during the health care and the financial reform debates.

During the debate on the financial reform bill I learned a lesson I will take with me for my entire life. One Senator in the chamber was fighting for a principle that she thought was very important and felt passionately about. She stood by her principles even when things were being thrown at her left and right to get her to change her vote. This stood out to me because politics is the art of compromise but sometimes you have to stick to your guns even when it’s hard to.

I believe that it is important to stick to your principles even when it is not the easiest thing to do, let alone when the other path is tempting in the short term.

The experience of being a U.S. Senate Page has taught me many important things that can only be learned outside the classroom. Everyday the 30 of us relied on teamwork, individual leadership, and discipline to get the job done. I grew as a leader and as a listener, ensuring that we all went in the right direction while, at the same time, making sure everyone’s voice was heard. Finally, I will never lose the friends I made as a Page nor will I forget the lessons I learned from some of the most influential people in the United States.

“I always wanted to be an All School Meeting Representative,”Josh Kantor jokes in a phone call with a UCDS teacher this spring. “I was never elected to be one, but I went to a meeting once as a sub... Maybe that’s what started it all, my desire to get connected!”

Josh, a UCDS fifth grader in the 2003-2004 school year, is now finishing his senior year at University Prep and heading to Emory University in Atlanta, GA in the fall. He recently visited UCDS with class of 2004 graduates and regaled us with stories about his junior year as a Senate Page in Washington D.C.

“I definitely see the connections of what was built at UCDS and who I am now,” Josh says. “I think there are two or three main things: especially that intellectual curiosity while exploring and building confidence. Math Vitamins are really hands on, exploring, seeing what’s out there and finding out how to make it work. That definitely influenced the calculus and statistics classes that I took on the hill, that kind of hands-on learning and exploring. But more than that, it was the independence and confidence to try.”

Josh and his Page colleagues wore two hats in this elite program. In the morning, they’d take a typical high school course load but then immediately transition to their senatorial duties. Asked about that working environment, Josh recalled, “There were so many ways that we all collaborated. At work every day there was no way that one of us would have been able to do it alone. I learned how to be a strong leader and listener. One project was making care packages for troops overseas and that took a lot of different skills: fundraising, getting in touch with all of the troops’ families and a lot of writing. The whole experience was a lot like All School Meeting [at UCDS]. Each of us was like a Rep, reporting about our experiences.”

His journey to the capitol and back was paradigm-shifting, but Josh traces the roots of the odyssey to his years in the Early Elementary and Elementary grades at UCDS. “A huge part of my aspiration started at UCDS. When I went to Middle School, I was on the honor board and really felt that wanting to give back to the community. I think that started when I was at the UCDS South Campus!”

Josh writes,

Learn more about the Senate page program at:http://pageprogram.house.gov

Spark Online!

As we consider programmatic design in mission-rich schools, it doesn’t take long to consider the effect that a school’s physical plant has on its program. Almost fifteen years ago, UCDS began the process of designing its Early Elementary “Labyrinth” building, a remarkable physical manifestation of the core values that guide all that we do. Seattle Architect Don Carlson worked to understand our culture and design spaces that seamlessly meld educational values with wood, bricks, mortar, glass and steel.

“I worked with the school for five years building a new build-ing, understanding the ‘learning by doing’ model,” Don says. “The building and the program are integrated completely together at UCDS. The school is for the children. They know it’s theirs, they take command of the building.”

The Architecture Behind an Innovative SchoolSeattle Architect Don Carlson Shares His Plans for

Ascend International School in Mumbai

View them online at:

www.ucds.org/spark

Since then, Don has turned his eye toward the Ascend International School project in Mumbai, inspired by the UCDS model. “Those lessons that we learned, we’ve now invested in the Ascend International School, even more,” Don explains. “We’ve expanded on them. Ascend is not only learning from the design at UCDS, it’s an evolution of that from elementary all the way up through twelfth grade.”

Seizing on the opportunity to showcase his designs in sync with this year’s DESIGN theme study, Don covered the walls of our Artist in Residence room with designs from every step of the process: brainstorms, early sketches, CAD drawings and photographs and talked about the nuts and bolts of this immense new school in Mumbai. His talk is available in streaming video format online. View it at:

www.ucds.org/spark

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Read Spark Online!As part of UCDS ongoing outreach work, we’re pleased to announce that Spark has a new face online. View all of our issues in photo-rich or text-only formats! Scan QR code with mobile

device for more info

Theater Design Research in the First and Second GradeAs the UCDS 2-3s embarked on Toy Design research this spring, the 1-2s focused instead on Theater Design, from sets and costumes to scripts, choreography, lighting and sound effects. Students created short one-act plays based on Literature Circle books and performed them in front of HD cameras to create dozens of short films to debut at Theme Fair (screen shots below).

Much like the 2-3 Toy Design project and other research-based learning happening at every level of the school, Act Facts was a collaborative process that incorporated every major curricular strand. The 1-2s visited working theaters in between shows, read non-fiction articles about theater craft, and worked in small teams to synthsize all of their learning into carefully developed products.

View them online at: www.ucds.org/spark

The GlobalAchievement Gapby Tony WagnerThe Harvard education professor explores necessary steps to reinvent the education profession. Mr. Wagner visited UCDS in the 2009-2010 school year.

The Death and Life of the Great American School Systemby Diane RavitchFormerly ardent charter school and market-forces advocate Diane Ravitch discusses why her stance was so wrong.

Delivering Happinessby Tony HsiehZappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh discusses the importance of preserving core culture in delivering his online shoe store’s success.

Switch(How to Change Things When Change is Hard)by Chip Heath & Dan HeathBrothers Chip and Dan Heath explore the notion that change is hard in organizations because rational and emotional thinking doesn’t always match.

On our bookshelves...

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Members at LargeHoward BurtonMichelle GoldbergSteve HollomonRoger PageJulie West PrenticeCaroline ProbstPeggy RinneEric SandersonJeff TaradayFaye TomlinsonKobi Yamada

Ex-Officio MembersPaula Smith, Head of SchoolChristine Leahy, Parent AssociationBetsy Watkins, Faculty