Student Involvement in School Transformation

If you haven’t read my previous post on the 1st steps I took with regard to student involvement in the school change process, you may want to before continuing. During this second meeting with students, I asked them to consider all the ideas that they had brainstormed and categorize them; I directed them to identify whether the identified change would have a high impact or low impact on student engagement and preparation for their futures. I also asked them to consider whether the change would be easy or difficult. I documented their very interesting and at times insightful conversations. Prior to this meeting, I had sent all students a video of the inservice presentation on Vermont’s Act 77 and educational quality standards that teachers had received several weeks ago. Unfortunately, none of the students had watched the video and were missing some pertinent information during their discussions especially around grading. This was particularly interesting given the discussion students had regarding the flipped classroom methods they have experienced. Despite a lack of preparation, several themes came out of the discussion that I think are important and we will have to revisit next time we meet. One was grading and assessment methods. The second was classroom instructional methods. And the third was the issue of time. These are certainly essential elements of personal learning. Check out the ten minute video below to hear some of the student comments this protocol elicited.

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