Image from nosoonersaid by way of Act III, Scene 3 of The Winter’s Tale, which is famous for one of the strangest stage directions of all time. (The link to the original source for the image no longer works, unfortunately.)
Snow Days and Elder Gods
For most of us, this is an encouraging sight:
Those are all potential delays, early dismissals, or cancellations in the next week or so. That’s good news, because we all retain at least part of our childhood excitement over snow days. It always feels like a gift from whatever deity we believe in.
Which is Cthulhu, naturally.
As we grapple with snow days, we’ll see that this course is built to withstand pretty much any disruption. That’s why instruction is flipped, feedback is revolutionized, assessment is shifted, and so on. It’s also why a post like this one exists: to set up the foreseeable future in a permanent, archived place.
Bookmark this page. If you have questions about anything we’re doing for the rest of January, the answer’s likely to be here.
The Essential Questions
It’s always worth reminding you, the stakeholders in all this, that this is a Humanities makerspace. It’s the first of its kind. See the syllabus again for the questions we ask and the problems we solve:
That syllabus lists the essential questions we might ask and attempt to answer through collaboration and experimentation. The biggest ones persist through every other unit of study:
Click for the entire syllabus.
That’s a screenshot of a document distributed and posted in early September, in case there’s any doubt about how long ago this was set up for students. Everything we do is about those questions. They really are universal: What does it mean to live a good life? How can we co-exist differently? What is the purpose of school?
Even our course calendar, which is always available on the side of this site, provides students an explicit maker focus:
That’s a screenshot of the current “unit,” which is really just the three weeks carved out for GAP purposes. During that time, we are tackling issues of truth, lies, and memory, just as we did in December. We are prioritizing the skill of close reading, especially of literature, and writing several emulative essays. We’re also beginning prep for the exams students will take at the end of the year.
That’s why stakeholders have two calendars right now, with this one added on December 11:
It’s separated by course level. The second calendar takes the focus on makerspace innovation and essential questions and pitches it in terms of daily focus. There is a day set aside every week or two just for sustained, silent reading, and plenty of time scheduled for test prep. At the end of every week, we’ll return to students’ Pareto Projects, which we launched at the beginning of the year:
Crossing the Rubicon
Part of that focus on what students do in class — a focus that has been in place since the beginning, but is now controlled more — is a new approach to how your decisions are monitored and tracked. Think of it as a nod to Big Brother, since we’re reading about him.
There are several documents that cover this revamped approach to student accountability. They were all distributed in class and online on December 10:
That’s a screenshot of the Google Classroom feed for one of the AP classes, in case there are any doubts. The posts for the other three class periods are identical, except for the remaining schedule, which is course-specific.
We went over these ideas in class on December 11, 2017, in one of the rare lectures students have had to sit through in Room 210. Here are direct links to the documents themselves:
- Instructional Post: Crossing the Rubicon
- AP11 Remaining Schedule (12/11/17 ff.)
- RE11 Remaining Schedule (12/11/17 ff.)
- Quick Guide to Stakeholder Involvement
They are all very, very important. If you had to choose one to focus on here at the start of 2018, however, I’d pick Crossing the Rubicon.
Infinite Campus Update: Cross[ed] the Rubicon
The guide to stakeholder involvement talks extensively about how to keep up with student progress. Google Classroom tracks the writing process, metacognitive and reflective writing, and most other evidence of student learning. This website contains instruction, general feedback, and all course materials and guides. The GAP scores entered into Infinite Campus every three weeks or so convey a nuanced, specific profile of each student (provided we line up that number with the profiles, skills and traits, and course basics).
I think it’s worth revisiting the why behind this, especially as it related to the Skinner-box logic of student motivation in most places. For now, though, we’re talking about a change that was made over the break to how we use Infinite Campus. I’m going to quote Alfie Kohn again, before I explain that change, and ask you to think about his wisdom:
It’s not enough to disseminate grades more efficiently — for example, by posting them on-line. There is a growing technology, as the late Gerald Bracey once remarked, “that permits us to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn’t be doing at all” (quoted in Mathews, 2006). In fact, posting grades on-line is a significant step backward because it enhances the salience of those grades and therefore their destructive effects on learning.
Nothing is more disheartening than students spamming F5 on Infinite Campus, waiting for a number to tell them whether they’ve been punished or rewarded. Grade abatement solves this by removing the immediacy from the number, and by transforming what the number means: from a cryptic calculation to a clear, holistic, forgiving, student-centered profile.
Grade abatement eliminates the unpredictability of feedback, too, since there are hard-coded dates for student self-assessment and “collective human judgment informed by evidence,” as Tony Wagner puts it. It can take anywhere from a day to a month to get assignments scored and entered in a traditional classroom; in here, the process is everything, and we can evaluate that process whenever we need to.
And I say all that because there is now an “assignment” in Infinite Campus, next to the GAP score:
That’s what it looks like on my end. To a student, it will appear only if there is a number entered into the scoring column.
Like everything else, this “assignment” is a lesson unto itself. Students have to be able to read closely and think critically. By looking carefully, you’ll see that it isn’t part of score calculations, which means it isn’t part of a final average. The number of “total points” is irregular. And it’s got a strange name: “Crossed the Rubicon.”
For Stakeholders: What the “Rubicon” NUMBER in Infinite Campus MEANS
This is the number of times that a student met the criteria outlined in this document on in-class focus. Instead of sending emails, printing documents, etc, and relying on students to convey that information to other stakeholders, this weaponizes the worst parts of online gradebooks: Here is a clear, unavoidable number that tells all of us how often a student failed to meet the basic requirements of the classroom.
The total “points” available reflects the total number of days that our calendar indicates we will meet during that GAP cycle. For the last part of Q2, we are supposed to meet 13 times, hence the 13 for total “points” available. In December, there were only ten days considered.
If a student has nothing here, she did her job every day. I’m not putting a zero down, because zeros are the most charged and toxic numbers in education. All the explanation in the world can’t prevent a zero from triggering panic and anxiety in most students.
If there is a number there when we do our GAP scoring, that’s how many class periods featured one of these:
- doing homework for another class
- playing games
- sending text messages
- watching videos
- sleeping
- rappelling down the side of the building and escaping into the woods
- gossiping
- complaining
- gazing too long into the abyss
- checking social media accounts
That’s a partial and partially ironic list. The serious piece of this is that focus and self-control are the mainstays in any real success in any walk of life. I’m not writing down a student who is distracted for a moment; I’m tracking students who are clearly not meeting the basic requirements of focus and self-control.
If this is too close to the Skinner-box logic we carefully avoid everywhere else in this makerspace, there won’t be “Rubicon” numbers online in Q3. Let’s see how the rest of January goes.
New Seats: Starting Positions
Another shift for the new year is that all students have assigned seats. I’ve printed labels, placed them at tables, and covered it all in packing tape to protect from the spillage of high school students. These seats won’t change unless we get new students (which has already happened since I began typing this post, naturally).
Students are going to see immediately that these seats are clustered together, away from the whiteboards, charging stations, PC bank, and other creative elements of the makerspace. The goal has always been to make better use of the space, so much so that it was an explicit assignment in Q1:
So we have to think of these seats as starting positions, not desks. Students sit in them at the start of class, and then they let the bell do its Pavlovian job: They get up, reconfigure their groups and workspaces, and use this room to get things done. When the second bell rings, they put the seats and furniture back where it was when they started.
To address the students directly1: You are responsible for the space now. If you don’t put the furniture and seats back where they belong, that reflects poorly on your self-awareness and collegiality. If you don’t make good, conscious decisions about how to reconfigure the room from day to day, that reflects poorly on your critical thinking and self-efficacy.
Readings: January, 2018
The only exception to the modular chaos I’m describing in that previous section is the sustained, silent reading scheduled from time to time in every class. On those days, the focus is on individual reading, and student choice is limited.
Below is the packet that we are using throughout January, 2018:
It contains an excerpt from 1984 and three essays. Here is a direct link to the full text of Orwell’s novel:
All of our work will use these pieces. Additional reading, especially when it’s exam-driven, will be delivered through Google Classroom. When we launch a new set of essential questions — or expand on our study of truth, lies, and memory — the reading will look like this, too: a piece of traditional literature attached to essays and short fiction.
As always, the primary focus is on how we learn, not the products we hang on the fridge. It’s not important that you finish 1984, for instance, although I sincerely hope you do. It’s important that you track your interactions with the novel2. I’d strongly suggest a weekly appointment with a journal of sorts — something in which you reflect on your reading, think about your choices, and draw some insight.
Writings: January, 2018
That’s one type of writing you should be doing: reflective, metacognitive responses to what you’re reading and discussing in class. Essays will continue to be process-driven exercises built on whatever we’re reading. Here, for instance, is what you were working on before break:
- 1984: Text-Based Response | https://goo.gl/ic2tyM
- Learning to Lie: Essay Writing | https://goo.gl/QJ41Tc
The first prompt there is derived from the Regents Exam, which all juniors have to take; the second prompts you to write the kind of essay Paul Graham encourages. That’s why your assignment before break was to submit evidence of the process of writing the second response, not necessarily a finished copy. Real writing is ongoing, when it has to be, and often unfinished.
We’ll continue to balance test-based necessity against authentic writing in this way. You’ll also spend part of this month learning how to publish your writing online, which will let you generate a portfolio of work for the future.
Formal assignments, as always, will be posted to Google Classroom. The next writing prompt will ask for classification and division, a style of essay you’ll see in “The Ways We Lie,” which is part of the reading. There will be emulation-through-analysis exercises, too, to get you going.
We might be able to start that tomorrow, but it also might take a few days to shake off the holiday atrophy and remember how to use Room 210. That’s the benefit of the calendar you now have: The middle of every week is makerspace-driven, which means you are solving problems and creating meaning and generally trying to learn as much as you can. It might be very predictable, if we’re in the midst of a novel or essay, or it might change individually from day to day.
That freedom should prompt some regular reflection and metacognition, too. The students who get the most out of this class are the ones who learn how to use its freedom most effectively, and that takes self-awareness and self-monitoring.
It’s a lifelong skill, too. Why do you think I write so often? It isn’t just to flip instruction and give us more time together in class. This is how I refine the course so it works better for students: by reflecting and being metacognitive about what we do. You need the same habit of mind.
Interstitial Discussion
Use this online space to talk to me about what you’re thinking and what you need. Use Google+ or some other online tool to work interstitially with each other3. Try to reserve class time for face-to-face interactions, like workshopping an essay or discussing what you’re reading.
Play the part until it isn’t a part anymore. You have about six months left in here, which is just enough time to build a better version of yourself before you head off to the next stage. Remember, though, that whatever choices you make each day are yours. This course is a mirror, and blame is just a way to hide from what it shows you. You’d do well to remember that:
Read this again, as necessary, to remind yourself what is at stake.
This is being written with the idea that other stakeholders should start to monitor what I’m teaching, because it really does take a village to do this thing. That was part of the reason to flip instruction and take the massive time required to write all this down: to let parents, counselors, principals, etc., be part of a Humanities makerspace. ↩
Now I’m back to addressing students directly. They really are the reason we’re here, so it’s hard not to address them. ↩
I think we are going to find time to look at our course’s erstwhile subreddit, for instance. We may have a mod or two lined up to bring it back to life. We’ll see. ↩
I understand the entire crossing the rubicon idea, but you only mention parents, counselors, and principals. Will we be able to see the document and see what we may have done wrong during that three week period? I think if we can talk to you about our mistakes then we can be more aware of them, not make them again, and better ourselves as students and people in general. Learning from our mistakes an important part of life and a skill that is important to learn and practice.
Students always have access to everything. You can reach out directly to me, in class or online, for copies of notes or to set up a conference. One of our most important skills is self-awareness, though, which means that there shouldn’t be much doubt if a student crosses that Rubicon or otherwise falls into a lower profile. I’m not looking to dock anyone, so you’d have to be significantly off-task, even before this Big Brother experiment, to “not meet the basic requirements of the course.”
To answer your question with something actionable: All students should ask for feedback, since that feedback is primed and ready to be distributed to you. Advocate for yourselves. I’d suggest you all ask in writing first, so there is a record of the request. That’s another skill you (unfortunately) need to learn in life: Create a record of your efforts, so that you can withstand scrutiny and defend yourself as necessary.
It’s a good thing to have a record of your accomplishments, too. When we talk about publishing online to create a digital portfolio, that’s what we’re after: a record of what you’ve done. Writing remains, right? Verba volant, scripta manent.
I completely agree with you. If we are able to identify our mistakes better, we can improve them and catch ourselves next time. It would help if after the three week period if we could look over what we have done wrong and do better, reflect on it even.
Getting a grade for “Crossing The Rubicon” is a very useful tool to use to see where we stand, as students, in this class, and how we can improve. By seeing our number, we can see how many times we got off task. I agree with Maggie, that we should be able to see the “mistakes” we have made, so that we can make sure to not repeat them and cross the Rubicon yet again. This could be yet another life skill to learn in this class, one that I believe is vital in life.
I agree with Maggie as well. If we can’t see the mistakes we made, then we can’t learn and grow. And if we can’t grow, then what is the point of the Rubicon?
I really like this idea of crossing the rubicon, it will make it easier for the tier 3/4 students to be divided, and it will keep people on task. It’s not the worst thing in the world to get a mark, however it will keep students in line and in control of their behaviors and technology based habits, as well as it would be an effective means of grading students even thoroughly. Similarly, this gives students more to write metacognitively about, judging their actions and explaining why they do what they do.
I agree with Cam, crossing the rubicon keeps students on task, knowing that everything that you do wrong is documented motivates you to stay on task and stay focused throughout the period. It helps students understand why they got the grade they got.
I’d like us to talk about when and why students — not just you all, but students in general — might need the clarity. The profiles we use are clear, and if you’re off-task a lot, you know that’s happened; that should make it simple cause-and-effect logic. If you spend significant time off-task, it’s as straightforward as handing in assignments late: You didn’t do your job. There is sometimes an explanation for that, and that’s always fine. Often, there isn’t much of an explanation beyond a lack of self-control or a misunderstanding about what’s required.
I never want you all to beat yourselves up for that lack of self-control or a failure to pay attention to what matters, but there has to be a time when you’re held accountable for mistakes. My hope is that you see the forgiving nature of our approach here: It allows student mistakes to be folded into a wide matrix of other efforts and aspects of growth, so all but the most resistant learners end up passing.
I agree Maggie, with the concept that in order to not make the same mistakes, I need to know the mistakes I’ve made. The best way to learn from our mistakes is also to talk about them with each other. I would definitely like to see the Crossing the Rubicon document, and have a class period to discuss the document.
There’s another comment here saying this, but I’d like to repeat it as often as I can: All you have to do is ask. What we’re after is clarity and self-efficacy, right? I want you all to understand the impression you make with every decision. That doesn’t mean turning yourself into a robot who never feels distracted. Yesterday, I think I spent 20 minutes teaching a group of students about the nature of plagiarism in art and music, because (1) that’s interesting, and curiosity matters, and (2) it connected to the idea of publishing these essays and the subject of lying. But you could easily see that as tangential to the “assignment” for Wednesday’s class period.
I don’t know that there’s a trick to this. If you have a period of silent, sustained reading, doing anything but that crosses our proverbial Rubicon. When we start test prep, those periods will be reserved for test prep only, even if we all wish that the College Board and Board of Regents would be swallowed by some sort of terrestrial cataclysm. If you have an open makerspace period, you can probably do a dozen different things, if you’re transparent and direct about it.
The more I do this, the more sure I am that there isn’t a game to play in this course. There isn’t a personality conflict or a war of wills. It’s as close to the ideal of learning as I can get us, and we’ll get closer to that ideal when we embrace just how flexible and forgiving this system is.
Responding to what Maggie was talking about and what Julia had touched upon, the crossing the rubicon idea is something that we all can see on the portal. Although it will not say what we have done wrong or what we need to fix like you were concerned about, it can let us know that we need to change. We can always ask what we did because Mr. Eure keeps track and has notes.
I think that the Crossing the Rubicon idea will be a great tool for students to see and understand where they went wrong. It will also be helpful to some students who may not be aware of themselves or their surroundings. A student may do something that they don’t pay much attention to but could be a huge distraction to others. It will just overall be a great way for people to be able to keep track of what they are doing on a daily basis and allow us as students to learn and grow. By having this in place it is a constant reminder to stay on task and do our work because we know that any off task behavior will be recorded.
I agree. In other classes our in class focus isn’t tracked by the teacher in any way, unless it’s a major problem. No one really pays attention to little things. In addition to a student doing things that distract others like you mentioned, a student could be very quiet and appear to be very focused, but could be completely off task. There’s no reason this student should receive less feedback about their lack of focus than a student making a visible disruption. There’s a lot that goes into what grade abatement profile we receive, so this is a good way of getting more specific feedback.
I agree that the “course is built to withstand pretty much any disruption.” It focuses on metacognitive writing and interstitial learning and discussion, which all can be continued individually at home, regardless of whether or not school is closed.
What Victor is saying couldn’t be more true. The website gives everyone access to all information, and it is available at any time. You don’t have to be in school to continue your work. While it is nice to have a designated period and makerspace for English, this work can really be completed at any time in any place. Therefore, progress shouldn’t halt for snowdays. Success in this class depends on how much effort you put in, including on days off.
I like the idea of Crossing The Rubicon for the same reasons as Cameron mentioned. It really helps to distinguish the tiers of students. However, I will say that it is sort of counterproductive to the ideals of this class. Counterproductive to this idea of us not needing the teacher to watch over us, to get work done which is what what makes this class impartial to having snow days, as one can just get their work done at home just as effectively.
The idea of putting that grade in campus is helpful, as most students will only care if it appears in campus portal, although I disagreed with the way it was graded. I believed that it should have been the number of days ON task out of the total days rather than the days OFF task out of the total days, as that grade would have been less misleading.
I thought that the new seating arrangements was a good, it helps students stay on task, as they may have started to go on tangents with their last seat partners and this helps us to interact with others in the room.
I had the same reaction when I read the “Crossing the Rubicon” post. I felt that it was uncharacteristic that a class devoted to student independence would have such an actively monitoring teacher. But the whole point of the Rubicon’s implementation is to have us gradually take responsibility for ourselves. Even though the Rubicon has a somewhat intimidating presence, if we just work in the way the class was designed, its influence will become less and less prevalent because we’ll all be doing our jobs.
I also agree that the new seating arrangements were a good change. It never hurts to sit with people you wouldn’t normally talk to. And even if you feel uncomfortable in your new group, you still have the freedom to move around the room.