Mandy Irick Class 3- Blog Post 1: Emerald High School Visit

    The visit to Emerald High School was very invigorating, opening up my eyes to a world of possibilities. The first thing that stood out immediately to me was the culture that they have created among teachers, administrators and students. When entering into the classrooms, you could see students were very familiar with the terms and strategies that are connected with PBL. This was something that I think at my school is really key. Having a common language among both students and teachers helps to remove time spent on revisiting or discussing and leads to less confusion. Everybody must be on board and have that time to talk through what are the essentials. To create this type of culture, you have to have teacher buy in and collaboration. Teachers have to be willing to collaborate and discuss coming up with how this should be approached. It was apparent that they have done this which helps makes the jumping into PBL so much more efficient because you are spending more time on the things that you need to versus building the knowledge of simple terms or strategies. Mrs. Glace shared that she was able to pair off students who currently have had her in the past with students who haven't to help with strategies like consensus protocols or silent debates.
    The soft skills rubric was another common language that was used throughout that grouping of teachers. For the most part, this wasn't modified or adapted by other teachers and stayed the same format. After listening to the principal discuss that a major focus in their PBLwas on soft skills, I thought it was effective to again from a common language. For me, I feel that it is so essential that have a strong structural foundation for PBL to make it the most beneficial for our students and teachers. A simple start is to build common language and strategies that are utilized in every grade level so that it becomes both natural for the students and the teachers. It also clears up confusion. There is nothing more challenging in a school environment where students who are constantly changing classes who now have to decode what concept is being discussed for PBL because of vocabulary. I am all for teacher individuality and placing your own "spin" on things however, using PBL across curriculum and building a school wide culture requires key components that are the same no matter the content nor grade level. This is one of the primary focuses we have at GMS for our teachers and administration is to build a school wide culture with commonalities.
       The honesty and humility stood out above all when listening to the staff and administration talk. When the principal was discussing his school's journey into this shift, I could relate to everything that he was saying. He didn't refer to them just as a PBL school but instead a school trying to provide the best education for their students. The major focus was on PBL but in particular the soft skills. A lot of the times, we forget to really explore this because we are so driven my the content. Content is very important because we all know that as educators our students are assessed on all their knowledge for one day. This of course it always frustrating because it is only a vague snapshot at best and doesn't truly show the whole learner. Putting the testing frustrations aside, content is important but those soft skills are as well. I could clearly see this in effect at the school because students were able to work in groups having valuable conversations. At the same time, if one of us asked them a question, they could turn around, maintain eye contact and clearly explain what their focus was on. Being able to not only hold peer conversations but with adults as well is a valuable life skill. Being able to have conversations that are clearly focused, maintaining eye contact, listening to the speaker and understanding what is being asked of you is key. The students demonstrated the ability to do this.
      One of the important factors in making this a successful environment was that you could tell there was 100% buy in and collaboration among both the administration and teachers. The first thing I noticed was how the teachers talked about how they made time to work together even if they had to compile a Google doc., group text, time in the hallway or even carving out some time to plan together at school. Regardless of how they did it, they were all in and made time for the planning and discussing. They talked about how they worked out problems and spent time building some common languages to help the students understand the process. The other part of was the administration team. They took the time to become invested in the process. It was great for them to be as knowledgeable  as the teachers about how PBL should look and function for their school. The administration set clear goals for the teachers to follow when it came to trying at least one PBL per semester and then building upon it. It was very reasonable and touch on the needs of the students along with faculty. The teachers were constantly praising the administration for  facilitating the learning environment that was conducive to both students and themselves. You could tell everyone felt supported. Yet, they were realistic in what they were doing. Instead of being a PBL school, Emerald is a school that does PBL. The realization that reading comprehension and stamina was a problem was constantly echoed by the principal. The goal was to use this type of instruction to build upon preexisting  struggles. These were just a few things that I noticed and want to use this for my school to build a strong foundation.