It would be interesting if every Vermont High School took a Grit and Self-Control survey.

Imagine then what we might glean from comparing those results with those from readily/easily available surveys such as: AoE Youth Risk Behavior Surveys; VSAC Planned Activities After High School; VSAC Actual Activities After High School, School Health Profiles; Participation in Sports and School-based Clubs; Community Involvement Out-of-School; and Range of Academic Offerings available.

Hello Mike!

I can't wait to hear about your work at our next meeting. Also, you might be interested in a few articles that are here in our Diigo library.

If you use the "Search in this group..." field (top right of page) you can search for "grit" and find some past bookmarks that might be of interest to you around the topic of perseverance.

For me, I believe that transformation needs to be much Less focused on programs and More focused on processes. What are the Processes that are in place to ensure student voice, rigor, relevance, other ed buzz word, etc? Do we have a System in place which Really allows these things to occur Naturally?

The biggest thing is that Inherent in programs is the assumption that we have the answers...when the question for each student is different. Processes allow for students to find their own answers and own best path to college and/or career.

Additionally, processes allow for evolution in systems rather than requiring programmatic "change" across a school.

To Adam or any others out there...I'd like to observe a flipped classroom in action. Are there any pioneers in Vermont who are doing this well?

Hey Karen! Along these same lines I often think that schools should take advantage of the Vermont Senior Survey Part I: Planned Activities After High School that VSAC puts out.

To me I wish that we would think about ways to use this information across the curriculum so that our students can see the relevance of high school to their expressed college and career aspirations.

We have been asked if it would be possilble to password protect the Rowland keynote.

For all Rowland Foundation Diigo members the password is: 2011skr
http://www.therowlandfoundation.org/video.shtml

I've posted a number of articles about Flipped Classrooms and Blended Instruction.
I wouldn't generally post this many articles, but I had a couple of people request that I add any information that I had in my personal collection to this group.

Adam,

An idea that I have been bouncing around is NOT requiring students to access the information from home.

What if instead the students were on an A-day / B-day schedule...where on A-days students would be receive class content in a technology lab at school where they would explore and research information needed for the next class. They would wrap up the Content Day by completing an exit ticket on the material delivered that day.

B-days would be Questioning and Application Days with the teacher... who would have modified the lesson based on the levels of understanding expressed by the students at the end of the previous A-day's exit tickets. (Just in Time Teaching)

Essentially this model would allow a teacher to "teach" a class on B-days while also having a full block every other day for planning for that class...and the opportunity for callbacks and/or open office.

Anyhow...just a brief thought about one possibility.

A note to this is that Blended Instruction is important piece for students for many reasons. But, an often overlooked reason is that if we look at the post-high school experience of students we see that colleges and employers rely heavily on technology to deliver content and education. We need to be preparing students to learn how to learn through technology.

Adam...how about providing the lessons on DVDs for those that might not have computers in their homes.

Or, thumbdrives for those with poor internet access.

Or, QR codes for those students with more access to technology?

Susan, A few years ago Moosalamoo Center at Otter Valley started the process of moving towards narrative report cards. At this same time we were moving to a more heterogeneously mixed group of students...some of which were the "academic all stars" of the school. With that, there was some concern about the perception of the program by college admissions offices if we went away from traditional grades.

To find out, I surveyed 19 Vermont colleges and received responses back from 8. Here is a copy of the responses from those Vermont colleges which responded. I've deleted my own reflections and conclusions...I don't want to present any bias.

Hope you find this interesting. Here is a link to view it in PDF.

Narrative Report Cards - Perceptions

Authentic Assessment: A Handbook for Educators by Diane Hart is a great introduction to Authentic Assessment for those just getting in on the ground level.

And...I loved the youtube clips!