#384 – Integrating WICOR®, with Kera Diller

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:

• What is WICOR?
• Why is the WICOR methodology powerful and effective?
• How might you integrate writing into your classroom?
• How might you integrate inquiry into your classroom?
• How might you have students collaborate?
• How can you help your students be more organized?
• How can you integrate reading into your classroom?
• What is one WICOR strategy that you would like to try?

• AVID (official website)
• WICOR (AVID)
• 2025 AVID Summer Institute (AVID)
• Summer Professional Learning (AVID)
• Resources (AVID)

#384 Integrating WICOR^®, with Kera Diller

AVID Open Access
37 min

Transcript

Kera Diller 0:00 But I really have grabbed onto the notion that it is more of a recipe, ingredients that you can pull together when you’re planning, and you have this recipe for rigorous instruction. I’m going to need a dose of this today and a dash of that today, and maybe today, it’s going to be really rich in collaboration. And so it’s just being a chef.

Winston Benjamin 0:26 The topic of today’s podcast is WICOR with Kera Diller. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. If you’re looking for fresh ideas, meaningful connections, and impactful strategies, check out the AVID Summer Institute, a professional learning experience where good teachers become great teachers. Registration is now open to learn more. Visit avid.org

Rena Clark 0:55 Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 1:06 I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 1:07 And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators,

Paul Beckermann 1:11 And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 1:16 Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin 1:20 Our quote for today is from AVID in their description of their proven learning support structure, WICOR, which stands for Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. AVID says, “When educators create instructional experiences integrated with the rich layer of WICOR, students are actively engaged with content through productive struggle, cognitive wrestling, and critical thinking to access rigorous content from a multitude of perspectives and use it to create new innovations, challenge old ideas, and positively impact the world around them.” That’s a big, heavy quote about what AVID is. What do you all think? What do you all think?

Paul Beckermann 2:13 That’s a heavy one, for sure.

Rena Clark 2:15 I mean, if you’re part of the AVID family, WICOR is just an acronym you’re very used to. So for those of you not, this becomes second nature, but it’s not a checklist. So I want to make sure for those listeners, WICOR is not a checklist: “Oh, we did writing, we did inquiry.” That’s not how it works. It’s a layered instructional experience.

So it makes me think, as the educators, how we weave these things together. It just reminds me, as the educator, it’s not just our job to deliver a checklist and get through these things. It’s really about how we design learning experiences and invite students to think critically, explore, and take ownership of their ideas. And WICOR has a framework for that to be able to happen.

Paul Beckermann 3:02 Yeah, there is so much in WICOR. And you’re right, Rena, it’s the foundation of a lot of the AVID strategies that are out there. I thought about going a bunch of different ways with this one. I really love that “positively impact the world around them.” That makes it real life and authentic. I love that.

I’m going to focus on the productive struggle piece. It’s productive struggle, cognitive wrestling, critical thinking. I love the idea of students experiencing that, doing the heavy lifting of learning, even if it can be a struggle at times, because that’s where they grow. That’s a really healthy thing. So I think by giving our kids an opportunity to struggle through that learning, it’s going to stick, it’s going to be more engaging, and it’s really going to help them become critical thinkers in the big picture.

Winston Benjamin 3:48 I love that, because in order to grow, you got to go through struggle. So that’s the best thing in life. So we’d like to welcome our guest today, Kera Diller, who knows a little bit more about WICOR than I do, maybe our panelist does, but she’s going to be a great person to have a chat with before we do anything. One of the things that we like to do is ground our audience in the person that we’re talking to. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got introduced to this concept: WICOR?

Kera Diller 4:17 Absolutely. I was introduced by an administrator to AVID in 2019, and then one of my first trainings, of course, WICOR was part of the baptism of just getting introduced. And so once I was able to take that framework back to my classroom, I just realized I have all these ingredients for rigor. I have all of these components. And so to really put the framework together of WICOR itself, it just was a game changer for me as a teacher, and just knowing that, yeah, these are the skills I want my students to have. These are the things that should be involved. And as Rena said, it’s not a checklist.

But I really have grabbed onto the notion that it is more of a recipe, ingredients that you can pull together when you’re planning, and you have this recipe for rigorous instruction. I’m going to need a dose of this today, and a dash of that today, and maybe today, it’s going to be really rich in collaboration. And so it’s just being a chef, rather than a cook, because I take the curriculum, the things that are given to me, that are mandated, that I’m required to do, and I’ve really just taken WICOR as just influencing that rigor on a bigger level.

Paul Beckermann 5:41 I love that being a chef, that’s a great metaphor. That’s cool. So can you give us some context of your teaching assignment? Where are you in the education world?

Kera Diller 5:52 Oh, absolutely. Sorry. I totally brushed over that part. So I am a high school teacher of English. I started in the middle school when I was introduced to it, and so now I teach English in the high school level, moving up from middle school, and I’m also the AVID coordinator on campus. Awesome.

Paul Beckermann 6:09 So you know WICOR well. So in your perspective, how would you describe WICOR? We gave the general overview, but how would you describe it to us?

Rena Clark 6:19 You have to go, WICOR. WICOR, what?! Come on, Paul.

Paul Beckermann 6:23 I know, part of the Summer Institute jargon, right? Which people can sign up for. It’s still open. Get out there and find your closest Summer Institute. All right, WICOR, give us, give us the recipe, Chef. Or what is that?

Kera Diller 6:36 Other than just referring back to that Chef versus cook idea, I’m hoping to transfer that idea back to my students, right? I want my students to become more chefs than cooks, and so I always try to bring back that to the why of why are we doing the big W that’s on the board? Why is my board labeled?

And so when planning, my PLC and I will sit together, look at a weekly planner, look at what we have to do—our big rocks—and identify what is a non-negotiable. And then we just look and brainstorm and collaborate on how we can infuse any of those five components to maximize the rigor of the lessons that aren’t a checklist.

Even when I coach teachers on campus, I try to shift them away from the checklist idea, because they do have a tendency to lean towards that. But it definitely is more of just a comprehensive piece of adding rigor to any lesson for any subject. These can be applied across all areas. I’ve seen PE teachers use it, dance teachers use it, just to really fully connect their learning and add more rigor into the thought process in order for them to retain and use transferable skills.

Paul Beckermann 7:48 That’s great. I love that you’re pushing kids. Very good.

Rena Clark 7:53 So I’ve talked a little bit. We’re getting to what WICOR is, and we’re going to delve deeper into that. But why? Why these five components? What about these ingredients creates that recipe?

Kera Diller 8:07 So the way I deliver it to my teachers on staff is going back to just our mission statement at AVID that all students can learn at a high level and be globally ready. And so these are the five skills. And I tell this to my students as well: you can’t exist very productively in a world without any of these five skills. If you can’t communicate through writing, if you’re not organized to keep yourself on track, if you’re not able to collaborate with coworkers, or inquire if you’re not asking the right questions.

And this one always gets them. And so when I’m trying to connect ninth graders to that why, and when I’m making them ask those questions, I tell them, “Guys, look, take it from me as an adult, sometimes I get off the phone with customer service and I just didn’t ask the right questions.” It’s adulting, and they don’t realize that asking the right questions is going to be something that they’re going to tackle in life.

And then I always go back to that “knowledge is power.” You’re not going to ask them if you don’t know what to ask or if you don’t know what you don’t know. So that whole cliché of “the more you know.” And so that just takes practice and recognition through inquiry. And then, some of them just think that inquiry is all about science, but it’s not. It’s about everything and just curiosity. And that not all questions have to be answered immediately as well. And of course, reading: if you can’t read, you’re not going to be able to get far in life.

Winston Benjamin 9:44 I appreciate that, see. So now, as a person who I’m just imagining someone listening to the podcast, and as you said, sometimes teachers traditionally go into checklists, right? And I do too, because I want to be finished. I want to be finished. I want to get it right in order to help.

Let’s think about how we integrate WICOR into the classroom. How do you approach that? How do you approach it so it doesn’t become a checklist? How do you approach it so it becomes more focused on student support? What is the approach that you think about using?

Kera Diller 10:24 So when lesson planning, I approach it with: when the skill that they’re having to learn, what is it that they need them to master? What is it that I need them to actually do? And of course, with an English class, it’s a lot easier, because they either have to write something or they have to read something. So to go beyond that, it’s more about the whole student, when they have to collaborate, when they have to organize information, because organization works a lot of different ways.

So the first thing I do is talk with my colleagues about what’s our end game. We have to keep that end in mind, whatever the unit has, whatever the lesson has, we have to keep an end in mind. And what can I maximize WICOR? Basically, is this a great place for me to use reading strategies? Or is this a great place for me to use collaboration?

And as we go on about what those actually look like, it’s made me just a lot of honing in on the craft. And there are a lot of days where I shift gears, where I shift from a jigsaw to a Socratic seminar, or I shift gears. Sometimes it’s not lesson planned, but I realized, “Wait, this would be much better delivered as this.” So it’s really just being flexible and understanding that as long as those components and that framework are thought about and are intentional, then you really can’t go wrong.

Paul Beckermann 11:55 That word you just mentioned there, intentional. That’s really a key: to be consciously thinking about those. Even though it’s not a checklist, it’s still a place to check yourself and see, “Am I doing things that I could be doing?” So let’s dig a little deeper into each of these elements of WICOR. Let’s start with the W, Writing. What does that look like in your classroom? Maybe a strategy or two, so people can visualize this?

Kera Diller 12:21 Just like anything else, you have high risk and low risk, right? You have high stakes and low stakes. So writing looks bellwork when they come in. They’re usually given a low risk question most of the year, just to keep—it’s like a stretch of the writing muscle, just like before you run a marathon, you want to stretch your legs. So I explain it that way. It will be a “would you rather” question, or “what’s your favorite Easter candy this time of year?” And they have to explain and elaborate through writing.

So sometimes, and of course, to follow up with that comes a lot of other factors, but writing could look as simple as that. And of course, I teach high school, so even those questions are just as popular at high school level as they would be in a second or third grade class.

And then we move on into the more strategic writing, where they have to respond to a question. And so we formulaically put together some kind of point, evidence, analysis outline that gets scaffolded for them, a lot of sentence frames. And then we get into the bigger picture on those bigger essays, and the writing part of that, and the process that goes into those bigger essays. So the writing process, with the editing and revising and drafting, and the peers looking at each other and then evaluating, putting to work that rubric. So there are lots of different levels and ebbs and flows of writing, but it can be something as simple as a bellwork or an exit ticket, three to five sentences, all the way to that big formal piece. It’s flexible.

Paul Beckermann 13:59 I’m curious. In a class that’s not a writing class—because you’re English, so you’re teaching writing—how would writing look in a literature lesson where the end result is not necessarily the writing itself?

Kera Diller 14:13 Oh, gosh, so in literature, it’s almost easier, because a lot of times the written response is bouncing off the literature, so they’re using their critical reading strategies and then going into the writing. But what really excites me is seeing the dance teacher using writing, because it’s easy in an English class where literature, reading, and writing go hand in hand.

But I’ve seen dance, I’ve seen art classes. I’ve seen construction classes utilize writing in their craft, whether it’s summarizing some steps, whether it’s responding to, “How can I use this in the future?” or it’s connecting, even going back to the focus notes side of things, of, “How can I connect this?” “What reminds me of this?” and just using the muscle of writing and communication in that way.

Rena Clark 15:08 I appreciate that. And I’m thinking in their world, the writing of maybe reviews. Kids love to write reviews of things. And maybe, then that gets back to your point: if they ask the right question, yeah. And what can inquiry look in both your classroom and other classrooms as well? So what does that inquiry process look like?

And as you’ve seen, when we say writing, you mentioned a couple different strategies that some of our listeners are familiar with: Socratic seminar, this or that. There are different components; it’s not just writing. There are lots of different strategies integrated into that component. So we can talk about that as well. Inquiry.

Kera Diller 15:50 It’s so hard not to interweb these things, because they are really all interconnected. And so trying to bounce from one to the other, isolating in isolation, is nearly impossible.

So going back to that, writing an exit ticket for me might look like, “Hey, write three facts. Give me two questions you still have about the text,” and there’s the inquiry piece, right? They are now prompted to ask questions and write them down, and then maybe one prediction that they might have happening in a story. So now it’s just a whole new compilation. I’m not just writing, but now we’re including the inquiry in the writing, and then we’re probably going to use that writing later for collaboration, and it’s probably going to be organized because I just told you the 3-2-1 method that some of our AVID listeners might also be familiar with. And so now we have the organization as well.

Winston Benjamin 16:47 I want to ask this question, but I’m going to try to think about it in two different ways. This idea of collaboration, right? Everybody knows, as you said: Socratic seminars, peer talks. How does it look in your classroom to do collaboration, and what happens? And how would you do collaboration with students who are resistant, because I’m thinking about my population of students who say, “I don’t want to talk to nobody.” They’re middle schoolers, so they don’t want to talk to nobody, right?

Kera Diller 17:20 I would say every teacher is guaranteed to have resistance. Exactly.

Winston Benjamin 17:24 So how would we? How would we?

Kera Diller 17:27 It all comes back on to that AVID language of the insistence on rigor. We have to insist as educators, and collaboration works in many different ways. And again, here we are working in relational capacity, because if kids are feeling safe to talk to each other, that’s the number one game right there, and that is the utmost foundation of everything: just making them feel they can share.

So collaboration looks a lot of different ways. We shift from cooperative learning to collaborative learning. I know there’s a lot of gray areas on how people interpret both of those and differentiate between the two, and both go on in my classroom. So if I say, “Hey, we’re going to collaborate,” rather than cooperatively learn together, it’s going to be a lot different. It’s going to look differently.

Going back to that word of intention, I have to intentionally plan and set up the classroom for collaboration. So whether it’s that jigsaw where everybody is going to have their specific role and then they’re going to come back together from another expert group, that takes a lot of intentional planning. If it’s not as intense as, let’s say, a jigsaw, a lot of times I’ll throw out different roles that are consistent: “I need a recorder, a reporter, a time keeper,” and those are some consistent roles that I’ll throw out and say, “Okay, we’re going to do it this way for our gallery walk today.”

So really, it’s just putting specific skill sets to specific students in order to put together a common product that they all have equal fair share in. It’s not just talking about the work; it’s really working on the work and putting those pieces together. And so that, to me, is the difference between collaboration and cooperative learning, and a lot that gets misconstrued in the classroom, especially with the newer teachers.

And it again, goes back to taking that intentionality of, “What do I want them to learn? How do I want them to learn it?” Going back to the resistance: they realize they are a missing piece. And so we have to really encourage them, “Hey, this part is going to be missing if you don’t really work with your group.”

But there are lots of layers. It does not happen in one day, it doesn’t happen in one week, and it may not even happen that entire year, but it’s that insistence that this is going to continue to be an expectation in my classroom, and you’re either going to meet it or you’re not. And it’s just helping, asking them, “How can I help you get to that point?”

Whether it’s introducing them to their new group members and having them with group members they’re familiar with a little bit more, those resistant students take a little bit more intentional tasks. So right now we’re in third quarter, fourth quarter of the school year, so I have my hesitant students working with people they’re comfortable with, the other hesitant students. I have to figure that out, even from day one: “Who are my hesitant kids, and how am I going to get them to grow at the end?”

I think a lot of students don’t think about that part. They just think, “Oh, you’re either going to do it or not, and we’re going to keep plowing past you.” But it really takes some relational capacity, understanding where the student comes from, and just knowing a student, because sometimes they start. They’re not shy the first three weeks, but when they realize, “Oh, Miss Diller is not giving up. I better figure this out,” and then encouraging them, “Hey, I noticed that you actually raised your hand to share today.” It looks like a lot of different things, but it really goes back to that intentionality and relational capacity.

Winston Benjamin 21:14 I really appreciate you saying that there would be something missing without them and having them realize their value added really is beautiful. So I wanted to take a moment and big that part up.

Paul Beckermann 21:28 Right? That struck me, too, Winston: that you are missing from this equation. You are important, and you’re missing. We need you back in this equation. That’s so important.

It reminds me of an activity I did in my speech class where we had a mystery, and we divided up all the clues, cut them into little slips of paper, and then the groups had to deal them out like cards. So every student had five clues, and then they had to solve the mystery. But nobody could show anybody else the clues; they all had to verbalize, they all had to talk. And if somebody didn’t talk, you’re missing. We’re missing you. And this is just it on a larger academic level, which I love. All right. Well, we’re at Organization now, we’re at the O. What would you like to say about organization and the necessity and approach to that?

Kera Diller 22:22 So organization can look two different ways. A lot of people think of organization as how a student keeps organized: the notebooks, the binder checks, and “Where do I keep all of my stuff?” And then there’s how the classroom is organized: “Where are our tools and things that we’re going to need?” And then there’s the flip side of that: “How is information organized? How does our brain organize information?”

And so I usually will throw in, when I’m doing my intentional lesson planning, “How do students need to be organized physically when they come to class in order to be successful in this?” And so I usually present that side to them, and then it’s, “Hey, we just did a set of notes. Now we have to go process and organize the information that you just took.”

Or if it’s a scaffold or some kind of graphic organizer, I would say, “Hey, this is how I decided to organize your notes for this unit. So it’s going to be a three column for a novel.” And so I usually will throw in that little chirp of, “Hey, organize. This is how we’re going to organize our thinking.”

And so that’s how I tackle it with my co-teacher. I have two inclusion special education classes that I co-teach with a special education teacher, and this is where they really shine, and this is where their ball is in the park, because they do so much of this with their students. So organization can look in lots of ways and will look in a classroom, but we have to look at it from two different lenses, whether it’s the functionality of a classroom, and then it’s the organization of our minds and the information that we’re receiving.

Rena Clark 24:04 I love that, and you’re modeling those transferable skills for students. Calling it out. Well, that brings us into Reading, as you said, which we all need. But reading can mean a lot of different things. And I’m curious not just about reading text. I know your ELA because I also teach reading in videos, reading of multimedia. So what does that look like in maybe your classroom, and possibly some other classrooms as well?

Kera Diller 24:36 Of course, the easy answer in reading is the novels and the stories that we read, but really non-print text. Images—I do a lot of things with images that would act as the text, and so we process that the same way we would print text. We did a graphic novel of the Odyssey, which I liked better. It’s functioned the same way, but an art teacher would probably use a lot of images of specific artists that they would want to teach about.

Reading is a lot more than just taking in information. But when we look at the AVID critical reading strategies, we have to connect it to prior knowledge at some point first, right? We have to activate our learning, activate our knowledge of what do we already know? And then the other thing, if it’s print, you’re going to have your vocabulary that’s surrounded by it. If an art teacher is showing a picture of a piece of art, they’re usually going to have some kind of vocabulary attached to it to connect it to.

And then it comes back to connection of self to text, self to that image, or world to the image, and then also maybe text to image. So it’s a lot more about making connections on the reading side for me, because it’s not just a sit-and-get and regurgitate, and it’s not even always summarization. I think a lot of English teachers get caught in the summaries, but it’s that connection after that, and it’s not even so much about the standard and skill either. It’s really going to be rooted in trying to add to the schematics for student learning. We want them to build exposure to their long-term memory so that they can come back and build on it even later.

So whatever that knowledge base looks like in every class, reading can be an article, an image, a media production, a movie, a clip, but it’s all about the connections.

And then, to wrap it up, because we are on that last R, everything else comes with it. They can write about it, they ask questions about it, they collaborate about it, and they organize information and make those connections. And so I feel R is on the end for a reason, because it just pulls everything in. They could have easily taken WICOR and made it a whole different acronym, but I feel reading really is the core, it’s the center base, because everything we do revolves around some kind of text or media.

Rena Clark 27:27 Well, it’s given me a lot to think about, and I really appreciate that you’re so thoughtful in your planning and connections in all that you’re doing, and it sounds like you’re supporting lots of other educators in your building to do that work as well, which makes me think we need to get into our toolkit.

Rena Clark 27:53 So of all those other educators that are out there that might need a little support or thinking about this, what do we have for them in our toolkit today?

Winston Benjamin 28:04 I’ll jump in. I say go to the AVID website, avid.org, to learn about other specific supports that we offer in your classrooms, ways to help students get themselves focused in the most academic experience possible.

Paul Beckermann 28:21 I’m going to focus on the Inquiry one, and they are all wrapped together. But as a former English teacher myself and a library media specialist, I love the research process. I think it’s so important that students learn how to navigate the information landscape. It’s information overload.

Otherwise, they need to figure out how to get what they want, cut through the noise, assess the credibility of both their questions and the resources that they get. I think this is one of the most important life skills that we have in today’s information-saturated age. Can we really cut through and make sense of the information that we are sifting through every single day? Information literacy, and mix that in with Inquiry.

Rena Clark 29:06 I love that. I was thinking about, we talk about WICOR, and if you’re using that, the idea of having WICOR anchor charts, showing different components of WICOR. I love that Kera was talking about intentionally calling it out, how we’re using it, and maybe how we’re using it in different content areas, in classrooms, but having it in student-friendly language, because sometimes we get into a lot of educational jargon, shocking, but having that student-friendly language and making those intentional connections, Paul, why is this going to be so useful? How is this going to help you? Kera said earlier, how is it going to help you when you’re talking to a chat bot and customer service or what number to call, but whatever it is, how you’re going to go about that. All right, Kera, do you have anything to add for our toolkit?

Kera Diller 29:52 I really appreciate Paul, because that inquiry process—I always tell my AVID students who are researching college now—is a frenzy, the juniors especially, because they’re going to be applying in the fall. I encourage them to go down that rabbit hole, because they’re overwhelmed with possibilities right now, pulling in the organization, and then also that inquiry. “What do you need to know in order to be better informed? What do you need to know in order to make a more fruitful decision?” Because there are 4,000 universities out there that you can try and filter through.

So it was an interesting conversation, even this morning. “All right, you’re going to—I encourage them—go down the rabbit hole. Your project is to tell me what your outcome is, but show me your path. What did you think first, and how did that? How did you get to where you ended up?”

And I encourage them to have that freedom, so that they didn’t feel they had to check a box. I didn’t give them a list of things to find out. I told them, “What do you really need to find out? What’s important to you? List your 20 questions first.” And so I really appreciate that. Inquiry is more than just a science lab, but the research side with English, and then even in an AVID class, it’s everywhere. And that’s why WICOR is so important: it really is everywhere. There’s no isolation.

Paul Beckermann 31:17 Awesome. We’ve had a lot to think about today. I think it’s time to distill it down a little bit. So let’s hop into our one thing.

Paul Beckermann 31:37 One thing time. Winston, what’s on your mind?

Winston Benjamin 31:42 This is all about rigorous engagement. I know sometimes it seems kids don’t want to do things that are fun or not good for them, but this is an opportunity for teachers to really think about ways to make those experiences beneficial for students, because it drives from their interest. So I like this. It’s still rigorous, though.

Rena Clark 32:04 I love this picture that you’ve painted for us today, Kera: this idea that WICOR is a recipe for rigorous instruction, and I can have those ingredients and put them together in lots of different ways to have different outcomes for different recipes, for different occasions, different students. I love that whole idea. I’m very visual, and I love that idea.

Paul Beckermann 32:29 I am still stuck on the missing piece thing. This has got to be a t-shirt, right? “You’re the missing piece,” not the missing link, or maybe the missing link. I don’t know. “You’re the missing piece,” but it’s not only “you’re the missing piece” as far as you individually, but then as a teacher, you can also think about, “What’s the missing piece in this lesson according to WICOR?” “Oh, I really need to bring in the organization piece, or I really need to bring in the inquiry.” So you caught me on two levels, the missing piece. “You are the missing piece.”

Rena Clark 33:04 I think Paul is going to write a song. I feel I see your mind going.

Paul Beckermann 33:11 Okay, well, “The Missing Piece.” It could be. It could happen. All right. Kera, what do you want to leave our listeners with? A final takeaway today.

Kera Diller 33:21 The final takeaway is the AVID adage: “You’ve got to go slow to go far.” I encourage teachers out there that are overwhelmed by the amount of information that WICOR has to offer. So when you do go and look at those resources, sometimes it’s overwhelming: “Oh, what do I do?” But I encourage them to take one piece at a time and get really good at infusing it. And maybe it does start with a checklist to get used to a lot of those strategies. But eventually the goal, the end goal, is to really maximize the learning and rigor of the classroom and that development.

Rena Clark 34:03 Because every piece is important, Paul, one piece at a time.

Paul Beckermann 34:08 It is. Just think if you were setting a jigsaw puzzle and there’s that one piece missing, that’s aggravating.

Kera Diller 34:15 So irritating.

Winston Benjamin 34:17 Well, we appreciate the opportunity to dig in with this AVID learning strategy. Thank you, Kera, for your time. But for everybody, if you think, “Oh, that sounds like a good idea,” or “I’m really interested in learning a little bit more about what this WICOR thing is.” WICOR, WICOR, WICOR. I’m sorry, I’m a hip hop head. I was waiting for that. I had to drop it. Somebody had to, and it had to be me.

But if you are interested and looking for fresh strategies, ways to make meaningful connections and have impactful strategies such as WICOR, please check out the AVID Summer Institute. I know that it’s an opportunity for you to do some learning during the summer so that your school year will be a little bit easier, and your students will have a better chance to be great learners. So thank you so much for your time. Kera, I really appreciate you digging into WICOR with me and the rest of the crew.

Kera Diller 35:11 Thank you for having me. It’s been my pleasure.

Paul Beckermann 35:15 You’re going to wrap us out, Winston?

Winston Benjamin 35:16 No, I’m not that good at that.

Paul Beckermann 35:18 I’ll do the WICOR. What do you want to say?

Rena Clark 35:22 WICOR Wicca Why? WICOR WICOR What?

Winston Benjamin 35:26 WICOR u [laughter]

Rena Clark 35:30 Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 35:34 We invite you to visit us at AVID Open Access.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 35:46 We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 35:51 And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 35:55 Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 35:57 You make a difference.