#336 – Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners, with Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• How do you define personalization?
• Does what you see in your school align to your definition of personalization?
• How could you make your learning space more personalized?
• What are the benefits of personalization?
• What are some effective examples of personalized learning that you have seen?
• How can you create a positive, trusting climate where learners are willing to take risks?
• Why are relationships so key to personalized learning?

• Eric Sheninger (official website)
• Nicki Slaugh (official website)
• Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners (written by Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh)

#336 — Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners, with Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh

AVID Open Access
47 min

Keywords

students, learning, teachers, nikki, personalize, personalization, school, talked, feel, feedback, learners, classroom, proficiency, meet, create, kids, standard, culture, opportunities, class

Transcript

Eric Sheninger 0:00
To really personalize learning, it’s getting to know your kids.

Nicki Slaugh 0:04
I think the first step is moving from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom. You want to free yourself up to have time to meet one-on-one and small group and differentiate.

Eric Sheninger 0:16
Learning is a very personal experience.

Rena Clark 0:22
The topic of today’s podcast is Personalized: Meeting the Needs of All Learners, with Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes that we can raise the bar for education. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:55
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:56
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 1:00
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music 1:04
Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:09
Our quote today is from the introduction to Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners by our guests for today, Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh. They write: “Classrooms brimming with curious learners are often trapped in a system built on uniformity.” Okay, Paul, there’s a lot of things you could take.

Paul Beckermann 1:33
I know it makes my head really start swirling and thinking about things. I mean, that word “trapped” really jumps out, and uniformity. It really reminds me of a quote I heard at a conference. There was a speaker, and she was talking about how standardization is the opposite of differentiation, and she went on to talk about how she felt that actually standardized tests were almost close to educational malpractice because, by definition, they’re inequitable. No students are standard. So if we standardize what we do to them, we’re giving everybody sort of this inequitable experience. Granted, we need some degree of uniformity to run a school with thousands of kids in it in an orderly fashion, but whenever we can, I think this quote compels us to think about, where do we have flexibility within that system, and how can we not let our students feel trapped, because that’s demotivating, uninspiring, defeating. It’s exactly the opposite of what we want.

Rena Clark 2:28
Or fall into those traps ourselves, as educators. I was thinking today, the whole system, the bell system, what was it all built on? And uniformity? And so, we have to be able to work within those systems, because they do exist. How do we work within those systems? I’m excited today to kind of dig into that a little bit more. We’ve got not one, but two guests with us today, so woo-hoo! Double, double. We have Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh. They are co-authors of the book Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners, which was published on June 6 of 2024, so very recent. Eric is a former teacher and award-winning principal. Under his leadership, his school became a globally recognized model for innovative practices. He is the founder and CEO of Aspire Change Edu, a best-selling author and a sought-after speaker. And then we also have Nicki, also a former teacher, former instructional technology and curriculum coach. Woo-hoo. Yay. Same with us here. And a current secondary principal. So as principal, Nicki’s forward thinking leadership has transformed a conventionally structured school into one that advocates for personalized, competency-based learning, attracting nationwide attention. So we are so excited you’re all here with us today, and we look forward to learning from you.

Eric Sheninger 2:28
We can’t wait to share our nuggets of wisdom.

Paul Beckermann 4:05
We love nuggets of wisdom.

Rena Clark 4:07
And we did just give that brief bio, but I would love if each of you could just take a moment to maybe give us a bit more information about yourselves, your journey into education, or whatever you’d like our listeners to know about you.

Eric Sheninger 4:20
Go ahead, Nicki.

Rena Clark 4:21
Okay, this is my 23rd year in education. I have loved every single year. I started off teaching kindergarten, first, second,and third grades. That is where I fell in love with differentiation and personalized learning years ago, because when I first started teaching first grade, I had students that were entering my first grade classroom, some of them were able to read chapter books and comprehend, while others couldn’t recognize a letter or a sound. And so I was given that one-size-fits-all program, and my heart just kept telling me, “You can’t do that. You need to meet the needs of all learners.” And so I knew right then and there, 20 years ago, that I needed to create some sort of system to pull me away from the front of the room and to work small group or one-on-one to meet the needs. So that’s kind of where it all started, 20 years ago, in a first grade classroom. So I’ve done that in my elementary years. Then I was fortunate enough to be an instructional coach to help people integrate technology in numerous ways, and obviously the most important to get live data and feed live data right then, so you can provide feedback and meet one-on-one and small group with what you get. Then I moved into this current role, which is a secondary school principal. I’m in charge of grades six through nine. And so my dream was to take what I was doing in an elementary classroom and to see if I could figure out a way to do it in a secondary classroom, so that I could motivate all the students to come to come to school, go to class on time, be engaged, and then challenge those highfliers and give them an opportunity to fly, and then provide support for those kids that need additional support in a secondary setting. I’ve loved every bit of it.

Nicki, I’m going to be listening closely to you, because I just shifted. I spent so much time in elementary, a little middle school, and I’m just shifting into supporting secondary, high school teachers, as well, and taking all of that. So I will be listening closely. How about you, Eric?

Eric Sheninger 6:27
Well, you know, since people can’t see me, they could probably recognize my distinct voice, from my reality TV star days. So I was the face of The Principal’s Office on truTV many, many, many moons ago. And I tell you this because on national TV, people got to see how fixed my mindset was and my journey really comes back to the center of what we all do, and that’s students. When a student told me school was like a jail, it kind of gave me my light bulb moment. If kids don’t want to be here, A) we’re not meeting our needs and B) we’re not going to improve outcomes. And then I got on the dumbest thing anyone ever says. I got on social media. I got on Twitter. It changed my professional trajectory, and I tell you this because I got called out on social media for my reality TV star days. People are like, how can you be advocating for personalization when you were the poster child for everything that’s against it? And I think that’s the unique aspect of my story, is we all have to find our path, and we’re going to talk about why path is so pivotal to learning. And my path kind of got diverted in a good way, and that’s when we began to learn how to unlearn and relearn, and at the high school setting, create a culture that was more in line for what our students needed. And the rest is history. Because my teachers did amazing things. We improved achievement. We became one of the top performing schools in New Jersey and the country, and I was the benefactor of my teachers, but also the students who set me straight.

Paul Beckermann 8:07
Cool. So your new book is titled, Personalize: Meeting the Needs of All Learners. So, personalization is a key piece here. How would you define personalization and why did you choose that as your book’s theme?

Eric Sheninger 8:20
Okay, I’m going to take the definition, then I’m going to have Nicki talk about the theme. So when we think about what you both were talking about as we entered, that one-size-fits-all approach, students asking to climb that same tree is the exact opposite of how people learn, and if all students are doing the same thing at the same time, the same way, we can honestly look in a mirror and say we’re not meeting our needs. “Personalization,” in our definition, is all students getting what they need, when and where they need it to learn. Nicki, why did we choose these themes?

Nicki Slaugh 9:00
We feel like it moves beyond the one-size-fits-all model. We don’t want to create a bunch of little robots, and we really want to give voice to all of our learners and allow them to work at their own pace and provide them different pathways of learning. Again, like I mentioned earlier, I think it’s really important that we empower our students to become engaged, motivated and responsible for their growth, and so, that’s that’s why we chose that theme. Basically, every decision we’ve made is for the students.

Rena Clark 9:35
So when we’re thinking about focusing on students, you’re going to talk about student agency. I’m curious a little bit about what role the student agency really plays in personalization. And then how do we go about empowering students to take agency in their learning? How do we get them to get there?

Eric Sheninger 9:52
I think I’ll give the broad-brush approach, and then Nicki is going to jump in as an actual practitioner who’s leading this work. When we look at agency, one thing we try to challenge is the notion of best practice. If there was a best practice, we’d all be doing it with a high degree of fidelity, getting amazing results, and we’d be living in a utopian educational society. That’s not reality. There are effective practices. And the one thing that we set out to emphasize in personalization is there is not one right or best way to personalize, and that’s really where these high agency strategies come into play. Something as simple as voice, which you can do in Tier One Instruction. All students being able to respond, to a review of prior learning, a check for understanding, a closure task, whether using individual whiteboards, dry erase spaces, or technology. Choice, choosing the right way to demonstrate understanding, choosing the right tool for the right task. I’m going to leave path and pace to Nicki, because that is where they just excel. But, also looking at place. When we think about how place impacts learning, place can be outside. Place can be virtual. Place can be flexible seating in combination with flexible pedagogy. If the space changes and the pedagogy does not, it’s not personalization. So, I’ll let Nicki kind of talk about path and pace, because they’re integrating all these high agency strategies at her school. Share the magic, Nicki.

Nicki Slaugh 11:28
I think student agency is the heart of personalized learning. I think it’s really important to give our students, as Eric said, choice and voice, and give them the ability to move at their own pace. But I also think it’s important to allow them to be involved in decision making. I want them to set personal goals, create daily to-do lists, choose learning resources, have numerous opportunities to self-reflect, self-assess, even self-grade. I think it’s important that we set up, create a supportive environment where it’s okay for our students to take risks, make mistakes and learn from them, and in order to do that, you need to create an environment where students have the opportunity to conference one-on-one with their teachers and receive feedback. Right? That’s kind of the overall picture, but some examples would be in a class, say, as math, where actually the standards build upon each other, we run a full self-pacing program where students, as soon as they enter the classroom, every single child is working on a specific standard based off the data that we have received. Students have opportunities to take pre-tests and prove proficiency. If they prove proficiency, then they can obviously move at a faster pace. We have checkpoints throughout our system. It’s a flipped classroom approach. So students are learning from the teacher on the computer, they are passing off assessments at their own time. We have a very high proficiency rate. If you were to think proficiency back in the traditional system, it would be 90%. While this is going on, there’s a lot of formative assessments happening. My teachers are getting live data on an iPad, seeing the result, pulling students right then and there into small group, or one-on-one, and sitting down and personalize that feedback to reteach it, hear the student explain their why, provide assistance, and be proactive in their learning so that they just get it in real time. It’s a really cool system, a flipped learning approach. It’s a blended learning approach, where they’re learning online. They’re taking formative assessments, they’re meeting one-on-one with a teacher. They have an opportunity to do two years of math in one year, if they want. I currently have eighth graders. They’re in 10th grade math right now. I have eighth graders that completed 11th grade math based off our system, because really, there’s no reason to put boundaries up and have students sit in a class and everyone learn the same thing at the same time, if they have the ability to prove proficiency faster. So, that’s one example. Another example would be, say, in a science class, some students might want to learn from a teacher so they have opportunity to choose how to learn. I want to learn from a teacher over on the left in a small group, other students might feel more comfortable watching a video, taking notes, pausing, rewinding it as many times as they want. Some may want to listen to a podcast. Others may want to read an article on annotate. So that’s another example. It’s just allowing choose students to choose how to learn, same as choose how to practice. Do you want to do you want to do a simulation, or do you want to actually do a hands-on lab? And, also, choose how to prove understanding. So instead of everyone taking the same test, maybe put four different ways up, and the students can choose which way speaks to their soul, and as long as they prove to the teacher that they understand it, then they’re they’re welcome to move on. I hope that helps and gives you some examples.

Eric Sheninger 15:05
And as you think as teachers and administrators, what those pedagogical shifts look like, we kind of outline about four or five, and they’re not new. When we think about personalization, we think about path, we think about place, station-rotation centers, where data is used to group, regroup, target instruction. Choice activities, whether it’s a must-do, may-do, or a choice board, or a playlist. Different ways to restructure the tasks, where students get to work at their own pace, follow their path, but the teacher gets to provide that targeted support. Nikki mentioned the flipped classroom and self-pacing, and again, this kind of comes back to our point, that the right way, the best way, the most effective way, is your way. But through all those examples, looking at voice, choice, path, pace in place, the role of data, the role of the teacher, but in essence, all those learners getting what they need, when and where they need it to learn,

Paul Beckermann 16:02
You both kind of touched a little bit on the idea of assessment, and have given a few examples of that, but when we’re assessing in a way that’s personalized, or that supports a personalized approach, what are the key takeaways that a teacher would need to be thinking about?

Eric Sheninger 16:19
Nicki, this is your field, so I’m gonna let you go, and then I’ll see if I even have anything to add.

Nicki Slaugh 16:26
Okay, well, I think in a personalized model, assessment becomes more about feedback for growth versus just final judgment, like on a one-time experience. So, as we feel like at Quest, we wanted to create proficiency skills. So before we could design our assessments, we created a proficiency scale based off emerging, developing, mastering, extending. So our teachers would take the state standards and they would choose their power standards. We would vertically align them, we would rewrite them in “I can” statements, and we would identify the verbs first. If it says “design a model,” we would not be giving them a multiple choice test, right? We really put the emphasis on what exactly is the standard asking us to do. And so we would start with mastering, and then we would create an extension opportunity, and then we would go back and think about what would emerging and developing be, using resources such as depth of knowledge, DOK levels, or Marzano’s, or Bloom’s Taxonomy? We would sit down as a team to kind of develop that learning process. Once we created a proficiency skill, the roadmap for success for teachers and students, so they would have teacher clarity and understand where they’re going, then my teachers would actually create the summative assessment. So they’d look at that mastery standard and then come up with a variety of ways where students can actually prove understanding based on that standard. And then after that, we would create formative assessments, exit tickets, or closure activities to use along the way, so that every day we had a check for understanding and so we could be proactive in catching it before the final assessment. So as a personalized learning school, we have made the decision to where we do expect mastery. If they don’t receive mastery on the first attempt, then we have created a schedule, a daily schedule, where they have time in the middle of the day—it’s a class period called Mastery Minutes—where they will look at their student tracker, which includes where they’re at on their proficiency skill. They will identify areas that they’re still emerging and developing and they, independently, with the help of a teacher to guide and mentor them and coach them where to go, will actually go to that teacher, receive a feedback, receive a reteach, and then practice an additional variety of ways, and then they are reassessed, if that makes sense. So I hope that kind of helps with proficiency skills, and then we create summative assessments based off the proficiency skills. We have high expectations. We want mastery. Throughout the process, we have exit tickets, and then also, after the exit tickets, we have one-on-one conferencing to where you receive feedback for growth, rather than just an 18 out of 25 that doesn’t really mean anything, and you move on.

Eric Sheninger 19:27
The question about feedback makes me think about a quote from John Dewey, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn when we reflect on experience.” And when we think about learning, you can’t learn without feedback. Consider this. Try this. What does the research say about feedback? Feedback has to be timely, it’s got to be practical, it’s got to be specific, it has to be actionable. It has to be leveraged using the right medium. And when we think about the personal and personalized, a personal experience is laden in feedback that is helping students to reflect on “Why am I learning this? How will I apply it in an authentic way, and what tells me if I’m successful?” The students cannot process the why, the how, and the what if they’re not given—provided—feedback that is practical, timely, specific, actionable, using the strategies that Nicki stated, but also, when we think about again, the right way is your way, everybody, and we want you to think about personalization is not putting every kid on a device, having them use an adaptive learning tool where there’s no talking and no discourse. I know where to get to relationships, but to really personalize learning, it’s getting to know your kids. It’s helping them to understand where those gaps are, and actually empowering them to act on those gaps, to advocate for what they need to be successful. Feedback helps students self-regulate. It helps them be better communicators. It helps them be more effective collaborators. It helps them to be these creative scholars. Without feedback, we can probably deduce that is learning actually taking place? When we think about how the four of us have learned, we’re not just sponges. We learn when people give us feedback on a degree to which we listen or don’t listen, on a degree to which we might not be focused, how we might not cook very well. We can go on and on and on, but without feedback, you can’t really have a personalized environment.

Rena Clark 21:43
It’s kind of that step in empowering the students to have that student agency through that process. You’ve both already alluded to this. How do we differentiate, kind of meet the individual needs? We have so many diverse learners with so many different needs. And Nicki, you talked about you’re at a personalized school, but I’m wondering, for our listeners out there who might be the lone person in their building that wants to take this on, or a lone PLC, where might be a good place for them to to start or try some of these things on?

Nicki Slaugh 22:21
I think the first step is moving from a teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered classroom. So even if your school isn’t a personalized learning school, you want to free yourself up to have time to meet one-on-one and small group and differentiate. If we’re always in front of the room talking at the children, we don’t have a lot of time to build relationships, get to know them as a learner, identify their interests. So, if we start by shortening our mini-lesson to 10 to 15 minutes, and then creating opportunities through choice words or must-do, may-do, or playlists, that removes you from the front of the classroom, provides them meaningful and purposeful activities that they’re engaged in because they have choice. Build them based off the interests they have. Get to know them as a learner so that when you create these choice opportunities, it speaks to their soul. For instance, if I have a bunch of kids in one class that are really into pop culture, but others that really want to focus on cybersecurity and hacking, if I was in the ELA classroom, I’m going to provide articles that meet the needs of those students within that class. So there’s choice in what you’re going to read. We’re still going to focus on the same standard, but you have choice in choosing the article you read. Just a teeny switch like that will help them be engaged. They’re working. That provides you time to move around the room and actually differentiate. Same as if you have a choice board from three choices to nine choices, whatever you want. Provide them multiple ways to learn that you don’t have to, step-by-step, hold their hand through. So I think just getting to know your students as learners, identifying what they like, what their interests are, create activities for them to be engaged so you don’t worry about classroom management. And then you figure out a way, based off your exit tickets and your closure activities, if you’re using Post-its or whiteboards or digital learning tools such as Padlet, Mentimeter, or Nearpod, however you’re doing your form and assessment, take that data daily and then decide your groups each night, who you’re going to pull the next day to meet their needs. I feel like that’s a really easy way that you could start, even if you’re in a traditional setting.

Eric Sheninger 24:41
I want to come back to differentiation. This is another thing that, when we think about how we are taught to be teachers, think about what word often follows differentiation. What word starts with an “i?” Instruction. How do we differentiate instruction? The one thing that we try to dispel in personalize is instruction is what the teacher does. Learning is what the students do. You can instruct until the cows come home. It doesn’t mean kids are going to learn. A lot of instruction is talking to kids. It’s sit and get. It’s sage on the stage. And it doesn’t mean that elements of differentiation don’t have value, but personalization is about the learning. So as we think about differentiation, what are those core components differentiating content, process, and product? So often we see a differentiation of content, especially at the secondary level. We’ll see videos, we’ll see text, we’ll see images. Yeah, yeah. I’m differentiating all the time. However, when we think about the things that we talked about, we really want to differentiate process, the learning process. How do you do that? You do that with stations. You do that with self-paced. You do that with small group. You do that with target instruction. That’s where you’re using data or evidence to identify those learners that need that adequate support. So differentiating process could be station rotation. It could be a choice board. It could be a must-do, may-do. It could be a playlist. It could be differentiation within differentiation, when students are watching a flip video at their own pace. And then that teacher is creating tasks based on the ability, not just those students that are approaching standard, not just the students that are at standard, but the students that are beyond standard. What about differentiation of product? That really is how we let our kids choose how to demonstrate understanding, but you can only do that if you have rubrics and proficiency scales, if you have a way to provide students—let’s go back to what we talked about—that feedback aligned to the learning. And we try to flesh out, we set up differentiation as important, but then we start fleshing out those pedagogical shifts that really epitomize that personalized experience for students.

Nicki Slaugh 27:14
I remember when I was teaching elementary and so I would take, say, the Dibbles reports, or comprehension reports, whatever we are focusing on. I remember at one time I had students that were not reaching their fluency rate, and other students that were having some holes and gaps in their phonetics. Then I would have other children that could read and comprehend. Within my center, station rotation back then, I would have inquiry circles going on with one group of kids, with other kids, we were working on Fry Phrases, and I was timing them, helping them increase their fluency. And then other students were going back to some lower-level guided reading text, working on the phonetic sounds. So, it’s identifying where each student is at and then making sure that you have time to meet their needs. So that’s like an example of elementary. Even though I was in a current, same grade and everybody was in there, we were doing completely different things during our centers with the kids.

Paul Beckermann 28:18
So as all this stuff’s going on, you kind of alluded to it earlier, what role does relationships play in all this? You spend a lot of time in your book talking about relationships. So what are some of those big nuggets and important pieces of relationships in this equation of personalization?

Eric Sheninger 28:37
Without trust, there’s no relationship. Without relationships, no real learning occurs. We’ve all heard the saying “Maslow before Blooms.” Whether you agree or not, if you don’t have a foundation in relationships, trust, empathy, respect, self- efficacy, it’s really hard to create a personalized environment. That is one of the issues that Nicki and I are trying to flesh out in the book. Learning is relational. Learning is personal. Think about everything we talked about. Put the strategies aside, put the research aside. Learning is a very personal experience. When we think about how adults learn, sometimes we need to read things over and over again. We need to watch that video over over again. We need to find the most effective way to demonstrate our understanding. Sometimes we want to be outside. I will work in my pool because I put seats in my pool on hot days. So place matters. And as we think about those relationships, it’s how do we create a classroom culture that builds those relationships? How do we create a school or system culture that builds relationships? In the book, we flesh out specific areas, regardless of the role. You’ve got to be willing to take risks. You have to collaborate, you have to be open to feedback. You have to learn professionally. Professional learning is, again, of utmost importance. And one thing, again, going back to the theme of the book, is the materialized, because the different experiences that Nicki and I have in different areas kind of meshed, where things were going on in her school, especially the culture. And I’m gonna let her really…that’s all the areas her and her staff have just really excelled. But, you know, the one thing is kind of looking at all these elements, putting them together, and trying to create this, “Hey, here’s what you can do with classroom culture. Here’s what you can do with school culture.” But those are relationships, and I’m sure Nicki’s gonna flesh out some of the things that that they do in their school, and then we’ll see if I have anything else to add.

Nicki Slaugh 31:03
Well, I’m going to talk to the leaders that are listening first, because I think it starts in the top, at the very top. I wanted to create an environment for my teachers to where it is okay to question things, it is okay to take risks, it’s okay to fail and to try things, and that I was always there for them to problem solve, collaborate, go back to the drawing board. So, first and foremost, I’m allowing my teachers to do exactly what we just talked about, that we want our students to do within our classroom. I believe it needs to start up here, because if the if the leader is dictating and providing a one-size-fits-all approach, and teachers don’t get to express themselves, and the teachers do not feel trust, and they are fearful of taking a risk or questioning something, or following their heart, then it sets it up to where then they micromanage their students. I modeled to my teachers what I want my teachers to model for my students. That’s the first thing. And if they try something and it doesn’t work, I don’t want them to be scared to come to me. I want them to come to me after school that day. I’m going to be available for them. We’re going to lay it all out. We’re going to have discussions on why we think it worked, why it didn’t, listen to student opinions on that, and then we’re just going to go back to the drawing board and try it again. Especially with personalized learning and where everyone comes in at different places and have different interests, it just has to be an ongoing collaboration and problem-solving experience.

Eric Sheninger 32:44
In the classroom, when you think about a teacher and even an administrator, culture is about understanding that you’re not going to have all the answers. There isn’t one right or best way. As you think about creating that culture of learning, do the students feel that they’re cared for? Do they feel that they’re listened to? A lot of times, it’s not that students can’t do the work. Are we creating a culture where we have challenging expectations for every learner? It’s not that kids can’t learn. Personalization is about putting the wings on their backs and letting them fly. Personalization is about letting them understand what their strengths truly are. We don’t deal in deficit-minded thinking. Nicki and I try to shy away from from weaknesses, but how do we help our students identify those opportunities to grow, the opportunities to get support? I actually witnessed that today. I was working with a virtual campus here in California, and when I was popping in the virtual classes, I heard students advocating, saying, “Hey, I need some more information on this. I need this to be successful.” And I’m like, wow, that’s awesome. Those students are advocating for what they need to learn, and if kids are advocating for what they need to be successful, you can start to deduce that the seeds of personalization are there. But with seeds, we’ve got to constantly water them. We’ve got to take care of those plants. We’ve got to nurture, we’ve got to prune, we’ve got to get rid of the pests, because the pests, which sometimes are the naysayers and antagonists, they try to derail the momentum of the culture because it flies in the face of what they’re comfortable with. Comfort is the enemy of progress, and the most effective cultures empower the adults and teachers alike to take those risks to collaborate.

Nicki Slaugh 34:46
I kind of talk about a culture of learning. Obviously, you create a safe spot for teachers and students, then you want to celebrate learning. And so, not only in my weekly faculty meetings or professional learning opportunities with my teachers, do we sit down and we celebrate each other every single week. I have a designated time that is non-negotiable. We all meet together and we share things that we feel confident in, that we accomplish ourselves, or that somebody else saw them do, or something that a student did. But then in my classrooms, we are constantly celebrating learning. In some classes, they ring a dong when they reach mastery. In other classes, they ring a bell. In other classes, they take a selfie on a Polaroid and put it up on the wall. A glow-in-the-dark star in science. Or there’s some classes that, as students are reaching proficiency and they’re proving understanding, they can add a Lego when they’re working together to build a tower. So the focus is always learning. The culture is always celebrating successes. It doesn’t matter what pathway they’re on or anything. Again, the focus is on learning. My teachers, we do something called Teachers Supporting Teachers, where we have a time period in the fall where they need to take time out of their preps. They don’t need to. They get to. They love it. They actually go in and observe each other, and then send them an email sharing what they learn from them and any fabulous find. So my students see my teachers going in and out of the classroom supporting each other. I really liked to create an environment where teachers, students, admin, we’re all one team, supporting, challenging and inspiring each other every single day. I think it’s just how can you create a culture from the top all the way down, where everyone feels safe, has trust, and celebrates each other and just lead with love versus fear.

Rena Clark 36:49
Oh, I love that. Lead with love.

Paul Beckermann 36:54
That’s a T-shirt. Rena. Lead with love, not fear.

Rena Clark 36:59
I like it. That is some some great, practical things that we could take on. So I’m gonna actually move us into our toolkit.

Transition Music 37:09
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Rena Clark 37:20
And again, a toolkit can actually be an actual physical tool, or it can be an idea. And I’m going to go ahead and have Paul start us off.

Paul Beckermann 37:30
Well, I get fired up when we talk about personalization and things like that, because that I’m all about that. When I was teaching, I always felt like I wanted to start with authenticity. What’s the most authentic application of this learning that my students could do? And then I would think about, what could they create that’s real, that was authentic, that aligns to this learning, and then how can I give them choice and ownership in that? And those are some guiding things that I feel just set the mindset for creating a space where students can really thrive and own it.

Rena Clark 38:07
I was going to say, we talking about a lot of things, and I think when you first hear it, it might feel overwhelming. I have to do this and this and this. So I always say start small. Go slow to go deep. We talk about all the different ways that we can personalize and differentiate, but maybe start with just two choices. Or, if you really want to get ambitious at that beginning, three. And as we’ve heard, utilize yourself, get those opportunities so that you have more opportunities to give back feedback to students and meet with students. So how are you creating that opportunity? And start small. You don’t have to have five different choices to start with. Start with two.

Eric Sheninger 38:47
It’s like you’re in one of our sessions, because that’s what Nicki and I preach all the time. Just because a template has nine choices for a choice board doesn’t mean you need to do nine. Just fill in two. Just fill in three. I’m so, so glad you said that because that echoes with a lot of the advice that we provide.

Paul Beckermann 39:06
Well, you get a chance to drop something in the toolkit, too.

Eric Sheninger 39:09
Okay, I’m ready.

Paul Beckermann 39:10
It can either be that or something else.

Eric Sheninger 39:12
I’m surprised we haven’t even touched on this yet. The infamous two letters: “A” and “I.” So, as I think about artificial intelligence, once you identify the gap in practice with opportunity to grow, you can personalize your own learning by using artificial intelligence. If you’re a leader, you can use a tool like such as Consensus AI, that can search peer-reviewed research to justify any thing that you are trying to implement. Nicki and I use it in coaching, for my consultancy when we go and provide feedback. Making learning relevant is probably one of our most overused comments. You can take the standard by grade, put it in and say, “Make this standard relevant for students.” So AI can help save time. It can also personalize. You can also put data reports into ChatGPT and get suggested interventions for students. So AI, a) isn’t made to save time, but from a personalized approach, AI is not going to teach your lesson, it’s not going to build relationships, it’s not going to facilitate learning. So you’ve got to do all that first and then have AI fill in those gaps, as part of your toolbox.

Paul Beckermann 40:27
Nicki, you got something?

Nicki Slaugh 40:30
I just always use this example, but one of my teachers loves Chick-fil-A, and her students know that that’s her favorite restaurant. So whenever she’s creating story problems in her math class, it always has to do with Chick-fil-A because she uses AI. I think it’s really cool that you can get to know what your children are interested in, or create more relevant and real world application problems based off AI, right? You can put the standard in and then add some key things that you want it to add. And when you do that, obviously it motivates the children to learn and actually be engaged versus compliance. My teachers really love AI, just to be creative, the creative aspect, and increase engagement.

Paul Beckermann 41:12
Cool. That’s like a non-judgmental thought partner. Anytime, if you’re if you’re teaching buddy’s not right there to have a conversation with, well, there’s AI.

Nicki Slaugh 41:24
I think the most important thing to do is make sure that your students always understand what they’re learning, so they know what they’re learning. Be very clear and transparent. Teacher clarity is huge. Share the purpose. Why are they learning it? Then provide some sort of skill to where they can identify where they’re at in the learning process. The goal is for them to be confident in what they’re learning, so that when they go take that assessment, they can pass it with flying colors. Gone are the days of trying to trick the kids and have them not quite know what to study. Just providing them a roadmap for success and teacher clarity, again, a lot of opportunities for self-reflection, self-assessment, and then, self-grading.

Paul Beckermann 42:11
Awesome. That seems like a good time for us to jump into our one thing.

Transition Music 42:17
It’s time for that one thing. One thing. One thing. Time for that one thing. It’s that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 42:29
All right, Rena, what’s your one thing for today?

Rena Clark 42:33
I really like this idea of no reason to put boundaries up. It even makes me think about when using a single-point rubric. And I’ve noticed, you have rubric with these ends, and guess what? They kind of stop at the end. Oh, if you tell me, this is what four and a is, well, that’s what I’m going to do. But if you just have that single point rubric, then students usually go beyond, further, and can do so much more. So why are we putting those boundaries on?

Paul Beckermann 42:59
Oh, I like that. I like the single-point rubric. That’s fun. I I’ve been, what’s been resonating with me is this whole conversation about culture starting schoolwide. So your teachers have this culture. Your leadership is modeling that, and then your teachers feel that. They know what that’s like, then they can bring that back to their students. And who knows where it trickles to from your students too. But if you have that safe space to take risks, where you can have those open and honest conversations about where you are in the learning process, and students feel free to take risks, and I didn’t get there, but I’m going to try again. Culture is the foundation. I really like that. How about Nicki and Eric? What do you got? One final thought for our listeners today from each of you.

Rena Clark 43:48
Well, my biggest risk was I removed all points and percentages, and so we base everything off the learning process in our proficiency skills, and that has saved so many hours of time that I feel like is meaningless of my teachers and listening to what would cause teacher burnout, it was all those endless hours of taking papers home and scoring them and then inputting them when they honestly couldn’t tell me what the purpose of 18 out of 25 was. The parents also could not, and the students could not. So we, as a school, decided to jump in 100% and remove those points, create proficiency skills, provide opportunities for conferencing and feedback. And it has been a beautiful thing. So we use exit tickets every day. That is the data that we use, which is more meaningful than just scoring multiple assignments, if that makes sense. So if you create an exit ticket with one to three questions that are rigorous and relevant to the standard that they were practicing throughout that class period or that hour if you’re in elementary on that subject matter, that’s more meaningful for you and will help you guide instruction for the next day, and targeted instruction. We need to really think time management for teachers. What really is important? The focus is learning. And how can we identify if our students are learning, and I think proficiency skills are it.

Eric Sheninger 45:21
So last but not least. I think a final thought kind of summarizes what we have sought out to do when thinking about personalization. And the final thought is this: personalization is not more work. Are we doing the right work? And when we really focus on the antithesis of personalization, it’s maximizing the time that we have with our students. Simply, don’t get caught up in words. Our mindset is always going to say it’s just another thing. It’s not. We talked about relationships, we talked about feedback, we talked about pace, we talked about collaboration. Everything we talked about is not new. Personalization is not new. Sure, technology might be new. Sure, evolving research on the brain might be new. But if we can maximize the time that we have, do the right work, we can then better meet the needs of those who we serve.

Rena Clark 46:32
All right! And I want to jump in, because we didn’t bring this up in the toolkit, but we do have our authors here. So another thing that we can do, if you want to dig deeper into all of this is get the book, Personalized: Meeting the Needs of All Learners, by our lovely authors who joined us here today, Eric Sheninger and Nicki Slaugh. Thank you both so much for joining us and sharing all of your insights and work with us. We really appreciate it

Eric Sheninger 47:00
Our pleasure.

Nicki Slaugh 47:01
Thank you.

Rena Clark 47:03
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 47:06
We invite you to visit us at AvidOpenAccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 47:21
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 47:25
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 47:28
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 47:30
You make a difference.