Latest / IB Unplugged / Designing for Autonomy: A Model of Blended Learning w/ Damien Vassallo

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Designing for Autonomy: A Model of Blended Learning w/ Damien Vassallo · IB Unplugged

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Welcome to IB Unplugged, a Kognity podcast for
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IBDP educators that tackles your submitted challenges and questions
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by connecting you with experts and peers who share their ideas and stories
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from real classrooms.
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Whether you're a seasoned educator or new to the IB world, each bi weekly episode
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and guest aims to equip you with practical tips and positive inspiration,
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helping you teach with more confidence, creativity, and joy.
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So whether you're walking your dog or commuting to school, hit play and join
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a community of educators ready to learn, laugh, and thrive in your IB journey.
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Hi everybody!
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Welcome to another episode of IB Unplugged. We’re your co-hosts Courtney and John.
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And today we have the pleasure of meeting with Damien Vassallo,
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to talk about blended learning.
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Damien Vassallo is a passionate educator, school leader with over
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20 years of experience in global education and school transformation.
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He's all about reflective learning.
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And just this last year, he was the founding headmaster
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of Ntare Louisenlund School in Nyamata, Rwanda.
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Before coming to Rwanda, he was a DP coordinator,
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Dean of Student Life, Director of Global Education, classroom teacher,
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in Germany at the Stiftung Louisenlund and Landheim Ammersee.
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But this guy has got so much experience and so much interest in terms
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of what we can do to create true blended learning environments in our classrooms
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across IB programs, not just DP, but also in MYP as well.
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His interests are primarily within inquiry based learning, cooperative learning,
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metacognition, creative and effective blending, learning environments,
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and effectively just harnessing the power of digital technology to promote
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learner autonomy and personalization in education.
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And this was definitely focus of our conversation today.
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You're going to have so many sort of gold
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nuggets that come out for you on this one.
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But for me, one of the things that really stuck out
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was this concept of like, as a teacher in the classroom, you tend to think like,
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because I've scaffolded this and because I'm controlling
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the pacing of the learning here,
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I know what has been learned and therefore it's really effective.
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And I think sometimes as teachers, we get quite fearful of trying different
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systems because we feel like we're going to lose some control.
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But what became very, very clear is that it's far more effective for young people.
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They feel like they're getting a lot more out of it.
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They feel like because that autonomy exists,
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because the blending learning is there with a coach on the side,
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they're actually getting so much more from the educational journey,
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and it was really inspirational for me in that regard.
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Yeah, I definitely agree.
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And I think when you're talking to him, you can tell how passionate he is
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about this concept of blended learning and how he really believes in the model
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that he's been able to one kick off in his previous school
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and now really develop as the core model of the school that he's now founded.
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And I think there were two things that stood out to me.
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One was definitely in his leadership style, where I loved that
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he kept acknowledging like, yeah, it didn't go perfectly
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the first time we did this.
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There's been so much iteration
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on the model of I learned this, we evolved it this way.
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We figured out this didn't work, so we changed it.
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And I really like that openness and vulnerability
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of we're doing something really bold, which means that
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there's more risk of either small failures or big ones.
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But that doesn't discourage me, or my school,
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from still really revolutionizing the way that we develop our curriculum.
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And so I really liked that about the way that he was describing what he was doing.
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And then I also, you'll all find out soon, that one really big part of the way
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that his blended learning model works is through studio time.
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And I love this kind of middle space where, like he said, it's not flipped
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learning, it's blended learning and so these studios are not..
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Study halls are just places to do homework in a school,
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but really it is something quite different.
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So I think, listeners will appreciate learning about the studio time as well.
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Definitely.
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So regardless of if you're in a school
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that can be innovative and completely shift
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things around and create studio time and all this, or if you're in a classroom
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where it's kind of rigidly structured by the timetable,
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there's still going to be a lot of really powerful stuff in this episode for you.
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So we hope you enjoy the show.
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Hi, Damien, thanks so much for joining us today.
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Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure and privilege.
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It's a pleasure and privilege for us.
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So what we want to get started with is our classic warm up question, which is
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why did you choose a role, a career in education?
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I often feel like my career in education chose me, actually.
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I was just like most kids born with a natural
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curiosity, an intellectual curiosity to explore the world around me.
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And so I've always had a love of learning, a love of school.
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And there was always a part of me that wanted to share that with other people,
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especially with younger people,
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to kind of transfer that passion of learning to them.
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So my parents said,
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when I was a younger child, and I would get interested in something,
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it would almost become obsessive that I would kind of
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dive into my own line of inquiry and lose myself in it.
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And I think that that's true. And so for me,
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leaving school and later
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leaving university was such a hard move for me.
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I wanted to be in a context in which
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learning was very intentional and very deliberate.
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Even though I always tell my students, we learn not for school,
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we learn for life, but for me, this scholastic context
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was where I felt most at home and where I felt I could most
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reach other people to transfer that passion for learning.
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I love that, that sort of embodying a lifelong learner
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and wanting to make sure that other people can see the benefits of that as well.
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Of course, then that led to, you know, now founding a school and
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pushing things forward in this direction with kind of a new curricular.
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It's really exciting.
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So thinking about the future, then, what's coming up
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for the role of educators? What's in our future?
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You know, when we give an answer to this question, we run the risk of
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being quite cliche. Because, often people will say
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the new role of the teacher is to be more of a learning coach,
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rather than someone who transmits knowledge or wisdom to students.
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So kind of everything that I've been saying so far.
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Yeah, I would really actually affirm that and say, that's exactly right.
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I mean, when Alison King said back in the 1990s that teachers needed
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to move from a teacher centered approach to instruction to a learner
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centered approach to instruction, and she coined those terms, the move
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from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side, and met them in the middle.
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I think that's exactly true, but I think people are so tired
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of hearing about it that I would try to look at it
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from another angle and say the educators of the 21st century
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need to be facilitators of inquiry. Not just facilitators of learning,
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but really facilitating inquiry. And to facilitate inquiry properly
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I think that they also have to be metacognitive coaches.
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So the role of teachers has moved
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from this more purely cognitive level
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to a metacognitive and strategic level.
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How do we teach learners to approach their learning
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in ways that will be effective and will optimize outcomes for them,
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how do we instill in them motivation throughout these learning processes,
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and keep that spark of
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intellectual curiosity that they're born with alive through adolescence
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and into adulthood, and to fan the flames of lifelong learning, as you said before.
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So for me, teachers in the 21st century will be facilitators of inquiry,
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and they'll be metacognitive coaches who promote reflective learning.
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Nice.
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And I think you can see that reflected
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in many schools who are really adopting more of like a coaching concept.
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A lot of people are going through professional development,
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where they're trying to increase the amount of coaching
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capabilities of people on their staff and the teachers and all the way
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through the whole program.
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So, yeah, I think that's in line with what we're seeing in different schools.
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That's a problem for a lot of teachers is that shift in their role.
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And I think school leaders need to respond by giving them the tools that they need
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and the professional development
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that they need to feel comfortable with that new role.
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Because for a long time, we will have teachers who were trained
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for a different type of role and were not trained to be the kind
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of 21st century educators that I'm talking about.
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So we have to realize that that's a real concern and a real need.
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And we also have to look at how we're educating younger teachers.
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And so that's something that my school’s
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also looking to do, to bring in student teachers,
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and help universities really prepare them to be the educators
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of the future who fulfill that kind of role that I talked about.
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Yeah. And I think that's probably even relevant.
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Even if you did, like your teacher training or something
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like that in the 21st century, it doesn't necessarily mean
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that you have those particular skills,
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and that approachability as a coach, as a teacher,
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you may have still been taught how to teach
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with an old style of teaching method.
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So it's shifting that even if you did that training in the last,
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you know, 10 to 20 years.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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I mean, I hate to say it, but I think teacher training is mostly
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on a global scale, still inadequate in terms of
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preparing teachers to promote good inquiry and to promote metacognitive approaches
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to learning to develop students reflective learning skills.
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Yeah.
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Is this the first year that you have not been teaching
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in the classroom, or in your previous school?
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No, actually, at my previous school, I was a principal of the
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IB World School and also a DP coordinator for a long time.
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And I always kept my teaching role in those positions.
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And in my final year, I moved on to become the pedagogical
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head of the school for the Director of Educational Programs.
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And in that role, I didn't teach consistently.
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I did jump in and cover certain classes,
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and I helped with revision sessions for the DP exams.
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But I wasn't teaching that year, and that was something that I really missed.
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So this is the first year that I've really not been a teacher in my role,
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but I see myself very much still as a teacher and an educator.
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And so it's important that,
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you know,
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I take part in learning experiences on campus as much as I can.
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Yeah.
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No, I mean, I think that that's essential
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to be able to still feel connected and grounded into the classrooms,
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even if you're not necessarily teaching there. Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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But I'm, you know, pretty fresh from being detached from that.
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So, yeah, 23 years in the classroom.
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Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
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Did you feel like there was, like a real switch,
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like you were talking about, of moving from this educator,
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at the front of the classroom to more of that coaching style.
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Was that something that you feel like you were always doing,
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or something that you really remember
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having this deliberate change in how you were teaching?
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Courtney, I really like that question,
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because for me, that was a very, very hard shift.
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So when I started teaching, I was very, very inclined to lecture.
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I liked giving very dynamic lectures
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and probably liked hearing the sound of my own voice too much.
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And so it was really difficult for me
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as I went through my teacher training and did professional development,
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to have to kind of relinquish that role and see that that role
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was not reaching my students in the way that I had hoped that it would.
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And it didn't matter how dynamic or interesting my lectures were,
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or at least how dynamic and interesting I thought they were,
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they were not activating our learners in the way that they should be activated
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to become real inquirers and critical thinkers.
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So when I interact with teachers who have trouble
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shifting
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toward a more learner centered pedagogy,
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for me, it's easy to empathize with them and to say, I know what it's like,
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and I know how hard it is to give away your stage.
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But it's not about you.
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It's about what leads to the best possible learning outcomes for your students.
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Oh, that's heavy. And it's good though,
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because, I think that's true for any educator.
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I think any educator has that sort of control sense
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and has that idea of like, I can dictate what's going to happen in the classroom
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and they're going to learn stuff because I've covered it and I've said it
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and exactly as you said, relinquishing that control
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and recognizing that there's more learning that can happen.
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I think is a difficult thing for any educator.
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Doesn't matter how you've been trained.
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I think that's a difficult thing to go through.
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So I'm glad you've brought that up.
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It's making me reflect and just go, yeah, I need to probably think
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a little bit better about how often I'm planning a learner centered plan
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for my lessons and how often I'm doing a teacher centered, you know, lesson plan.
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Yeah, absolutely, John.
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You know, if I could just comment on one thing you said, you know,
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there's this idea that because I said it,
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I've covered that content, and that learning goal is met.
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And the reality is, just because we've said it,
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it doesn't mean the learning goal is met.
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We've said it, and we feel good about ourselves
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that we've covered that aspect of the curriculum.
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But that doesn't mean it's arrived in the students and the student’s minds.
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So that's really important. And more importantly,
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it doesn't mean that the students can apply it to relevant context.
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Makes a lot of sense.
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And I think that it leads quite naturally into the big topic of our episode,
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which is on blended learning and true blended learning in IB,
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and I think really focusing on this learner centered model.
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I want to start first off, with just having a bit of a brief overview
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for some of the teachers and people who are listening that might not feel
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like they have a complete understanding of, if you could just
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define blended learning, how would you give context for this?
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Sure. To define blended learning, I'm going to take a really simple
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definition that I like.
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And that's the definition that I have heard from Michael Horn, who is
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an educator and educational theorist who has really inspired me
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(he doesn't know that)
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to help develop this pedagogy for my schools.
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But he might know it after this podcast.
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And Michael Horn basically says blended learning, put simply, is a combination
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of online learning with a physical learning environment,
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or what he calls a brick-and-mortar school.
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And, what we're trying to do, in blended learning
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is to harness and capitalize on the benefits of those two approaches.
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So, for example, online learning can facilitate personalization
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by allowing students to determine the pace of their learning,
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and also to determine the path to slow the learning down,
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to rewind and repeat and take their own time,
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or to move forward where they don't need that extra time.
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So online learning has that advantage.
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The physical learning environment, or the face to face
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learning environment have the advantage that we're in a learning community.
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So we have access to peers and to teachers who are experts in different ways.
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And we can co construct knowledge and understanding together with them,
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get support from them.
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But also, and I think this is even more key,
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in the physical learning environment you develop a lot of those skills
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that are so important like social and communication skills,
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being able to work on in a team, being able to collaborate effectively.
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And those come up short in a purely online learning environment.
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So blended learning environment is kind of the optimal approach to promote
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the kind of learning that's lasting and that has the most impact on students.
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Help me out structurally with this just a little bit.
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So is this like: am I using like an edtech tool, like,
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Kognity, for example, might facilitate some of the things that I'm doing,
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and then I'm also there as physical, or is it almost like a full online course,
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where it's like,
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here's your platform, where you're submitting assignments,
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here's your platform where you're kind of following things through, almost like
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I think many,
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many educators out there who are listening have done some form of online learning.
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Is it that style or is it kind of still under the full facilitation
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of the teacher?
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They're just using edtech platforms to kind of support
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their direction in the school?
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I think that's a difficult question to answer
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in terms of that contrast.
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I mean, maybe I'll explain, what it looks like in our school.
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And for that to be helpful for you understand what we're talking about.
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So I think, yes, the platform, the learning management
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system is key, combined with some edtech software
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like Kognity and my previous school we started to use Kognity.
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In fact, it's our probably our main edtech tool
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after the learning management system.
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So, almost all of the learning resources are available to students online,
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And all of their tasks are there as well.
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But all of this online learning takes place at school.
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And I think that that is completely unique for
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the concept that we're talking about, in a way,
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it's a blended learning environment, but it's not the flipped classroom
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in the sense that we send them home and they do the part of
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online learning, away from the school and away from the teacher.
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It's completely blended.
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So that when they're doing their online learning, they're actually at school
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and they're always in the presence of educators and their peers.
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So, that they can draw on their experience and their support.
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I would also add that in our blended learning environment, it's not just about
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the digital or online learning space, and the physical classroom.
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It's also much more. It's about all of the learning experiences
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that take place outside of the classroom, on the broader campus,
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that we would call co-curricular and residential.
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And also the experiences that go beyond the campus, into the community.
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So the blended and learning environment here has many concentric circles
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and encompasses and not only that, very, very close and personal intimate world
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of the students laptop tablet, where they have access
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to the learning management system,
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not only the classroom, but also all of those realms of experience
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and those learning environments beyond the classroom,
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that are perhaps more effective than the classroom.
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So I guess it sounds like it has the potential to bring in
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all the different competencies that a student might express
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in different facets of their educational journey,
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not just what you're seeing in the classroom,
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but kind of everywhere else as well.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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And connecting learning with the community is so important because,
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as I said, you know, the old motto of the first school
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that I had a full time job with a teacher,
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we learned not for school, but for life, coined by Seneca.
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So it's so real and so true.
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And so we have to make our schools look more like the world beyond the campus.
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And we also have to allow students to engage directly
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with the community beyond the campus from the youngest age possible,
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so that they're prepared for that world beyond the Academy.
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Today's KogTip is submitted by Laura Nikstad
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from the Sumner Academy of Arts and Science.
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Laura says, I've just started using Kognity
19:06
to support the internal assessment in chemistry.
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I appreciate the IA resources and the tool sections,
19:12
as there's a wide variety of options so that students doing vastly different IAs
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can all use and make the most out of Kognity
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as a resource.
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I know, in your new school,
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the DP are going to be launching coming up.
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But and the school just opened.
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It was last year, right?
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So we're not even one year in. Right?
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That's right, that's right. For the school
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I'm currently head of the founding headmaster.
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We're not even one year in,
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but we're doing this approach to learning already.
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Yeah. You might have learned a few things this year.
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Might have figured out a lot as you go along.
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And I'm wondering if someone like me or John, somebody came into the school.
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What do you think would be most surprising or most interesting
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about the way that you've set up your new school?
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So thank you,
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that's a really good question, Courtney.
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I think the most obvious difference
20:04
that an observer would notice
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when coming to our school, from other schools, would be studio time.
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And studio time is a term,
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that a colleague and I created
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after we attended the conference in 2019,
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which was called Design for Learning and where we met
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Michael Horn and heard his talk about disruptive innovation and
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creating a blended learning environment at your school. We were so impacted
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that we thought we have to, we can't just go home and say,
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what a great idea and do nothing about it, but we have to do something about it.
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And so because we had talked so much about design for learning,
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we thought of the design studio as a great kind of context
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or metaphor for learning environment.
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And we decided to create a flexible, open learning space,
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with different zones,
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to accommodate different approaches to learning.
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So a quiet area for independent work, a comfortable readers corner
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where students can sit on comfortable chairs
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and not use their digital devices and pick up a book and read or a magazine,
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more collaborative areas where students
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can work on projects together if they choose to work with their peers.
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And so what you would see if you came into the school I work at now,
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or the school I helped to develop, over the past 11 years,
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you would see these flexible open learning spaces that we call
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learning studios, and you would see students engaged in studio time
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and studio time for us is the home of self-directed learning.
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And we felt we couldn't promote true self-directed learning
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and student autonomy and agency, if we didn't create
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a learning environment in which that was possible.
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And so having these flexible learning spaces
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where students are in control, but where teachers are present,
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and they're not only to support students that they need help,
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but also to be their kind of metacognitive coaches
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throughout the process, actively monitoring what the students are doing,
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and actively guiding them strategically through the learning process.
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This was really the most revolutionary change that happened at our school.
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Talk to me about how that fits within,
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like, I'm kind of, I guess old school in my thinking
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right now with regard to like, okay, there's a timetable.
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And how does this kind of fit within timetables, seminars?
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How does studio time kind of
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sit there, ‘cause many schools I think can be governed
22:40
by their timetable, as opposed to the other way around.
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How does that look in your school?
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What does that actually kind of manifest as?
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This is a great question because, you know, the design for learning
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approach took us deeply into design thinking.
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And so when we were ideating
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and prototyping about how a blended learning model could look
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in which students had real agency
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and how we could incorporate studio time into our regular schedule,
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we actually started prototyping directly with by creating a kind of timetable.
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How could this look within the framework of the timetable as we know it,
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and where could we place it?
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And so essentially, and this was in a school
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that did not yet have the MYP, so we were working with the DP directly.
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And as you know, in the DP, you have to make sure that students have
23:34
a certain number of hours of instruction in each of their subjects.
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So this was something we had to think about.
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And we knew we couldn't really accommodate studio time into that schedule,
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and still maintain that if studio time had nothing to do with that.
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And that's where this idea, I think, comes from, that
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instead of the traditional flipped classroom, which I guess is not,
23:55
is a progressive approach, but it's quite old now,
23:58
and I don't think it's very, very effective, in which
24:01
children are sent home and they do their online learning at home,
24:04
or they did their online learning completely independently.
24:07
We thought, let's bring in teachers from all of the subject areas,
24:10
put them into studio time, and then that can be considered instructional time
24:15
in their particular subject within the DP.
24:18
But the students would be in control of when they were actually engaging
24:22
with that subject,
24:24
and for how long at that time. Of course,
24:27
the total time would be monitored by their teacher.
24:30
So to get back to your question, why don't I take you through
24:34
our kind of inverted classroom model so you can better understand it?
24:38
So students would go to what we call
24:41
a seminar at the beginning of a unit or a learning sequence.
24:45
And this would be this face to face classroom
24:47
that looks like classes in other schools.
24:49
So this would not be unfamiliar.
24:52
And they would
24:52
get a unit introduction in which we made quite transparent
24:56
what are the learning goals of this topics?
24:59
What are the concepts that we're going to be focusing on?
25:02
What criteria will measure your learning
25:05
and see if you reach those learning outcomes
25:08
and what texts and topics will we be working with through this?
25:11
So that everything is transparent right at the outset
25:15
of the unit or learning sequence, the students know the end goal.
25:18
They know how they'll be judged on that.
25:21
And that's done in presence with their subject teachers,
25:23
so that if they have any questions, they can be cleared up
25:26
right at the start of the unit.
25:29
It's kind of like backward planning, but for students,
25:32
like we often do this backward planning for our instructional design.
25:36
And we start with the end of the unit where we want them to be the end
25:39
product, the learning outcome and the impact.
25:42
So students know that's where I need to go.
25:44
And this is the way we're going to be going.
25:47
And then after that, we release them into the studio time
25:50
with the online learning tools that they have.
25:55
So with the learning management system and also with edtech tools like Kognity,
26:00
and tasks and assignments and resources,
26:04
and what they do in the first part of studio time within a learning sequence
26:08
is they acquire basic knowledge and understanding,
26:13
in that particular topic or conceptual area for the unit.
26:17
So what you're seeing there is the two lower tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy.
26:22
You know, they are recalling or remembering, defining,
26:28
and they are also understanding on a basic level. So that by the time
26:32
they come to class, and this is very much in the spirit of the flipped classroom,
26:36
they already know
26:37
quite a bit about the topic, and so we maximize on that time together
26:41
with the teacher to move into the next two tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy,
26:45
where they deepen learning, where they apply and where they analyze.
26:50
And that happened in the seminar.
26:51
But I want to say something about seminars at our school
26:55
that may be different from classes at other schools.
26:58
They are certainly teacher led,
27:01
but they're very, very learner centered and cooperative
27:04
learning is the main approach.
27:06
So sometimes we will do project based learning and cooperative learning.
27:09
But there's always cooperative learning in those sessions.
27:12
And that makes up the majority of that hour that they're in their seminar.
27:17
So, it is definitely still a student centered learning experience,
27:21
although it's teacher led, teacher facilitated and guided,
27:24
unlike studio time.
27:26
And once they've been deepened their understanding through analysis
27:30
and application, they go back into the learning studio.
27:33
And that's where this top tier of Bloom's occurs, where they create,
27:36
where they evaluate,
27:37
where they really apply what they've learned to other contexts
27:41
and become the designers that they're meant to be.
27:43
The inquirers and the researchers that they're meant to be.
27:46
And that can occur on a formative or a summative level.
27:49
So they could be doing something that would prepare them to approach an IA,
27:55
a kind of practice, exercise and inquiry,
27:59
or they could be working on their IAs themselves.
28:02
So that's how that works.
28:03
Then there's an assessment,
28:04
and then that cycle starts up again. Now in terms of their timetable,
28:08
what they're actually doing is week for week.
28:11
We have blocks of time where they don't have seminars.
28:14
So there's part of their schedule that we design as educators.
28:18
That's where we place their seminars based on the courses that they've chosen,
28:21
and the DP are the courses that they're taking, and the MYP,
28:24
and then there are these other blocks that account for
28:28
probably a third of their academic day
28:33
in the middle years program
28:34
and nearly half of their academic day in the diploma program.
28:38
That's where studio time is.
28:40
That's where the kids decide,
28:42
what subject I'm going to work on, when, etc.
28:45
And they actually enter that into the timetabling software.
28:48
Now, most timetabling softwares don't accommodate that.
28:51
So we've had to work with providers
28:54
to design the software in such a way as it accommodates that model.
28:58
And what students will do is they will actually, on a drop down tab,
29:02
they will select the subject that they're working on in that particular framework.
29:06
And when they switch to work on another subject, they'll select that again.
29:09
So all of the times that they're working on that subject are recorded.
29:13
Now, people might raise the objection, you know, from the DP perspective,
29:18
does that really count as the students hours
29:21
for the course? And the IB’s answer to us at our school,
29:25
the first school that I introduced this concept to,
29:27
where the DP had been running for 15 years,
29:31
they had said yes, if you have teachers present,
29:34
how you conceive of those instructional periods is up to you.
29:39
And so I really respect the IB for that.
29:41
I actually had a conversation with one of the director
29:43
generals about that, and she thought it was a great idea.
29:47
And the visitors have confirmed that they love this idea of studio time,
29:51
and they feel that it fits squarely within IB pedagogy.
29:54
Sorry, that response was rather long.
29:56
No, it's so cool, and you can see how it would work.
30:00
Obviously, I can tell where you've had to kind of justify a lot of this, before,
30:04
but it's very clear how this fits within the IB framework,
30:08
and, I think, across all the different programs themselves.
30:11
You can see how this would work within DP.
30:13
I mean, obviously, if you're going to start off with a seminar,
30:16
I imagine it allows great framing of something
30:19
like an interdisciplinary unit or does that even exist then?
30:22
Because it sounds like everything's kind of interdisciplinary.
30:25
If you're presenting a seminar the way that you've described,
30:28
I mean, my imagination is going right now, so maybe help me out if this is
30:31
incorrect or not.
30:32
But you would maybe, you know, highlight a problem or a sort of bigger concept
30:38
that can then be unpacked in the different disciplines that students have selected.
30:41
Is that kind of the right thing that's going on?
30:43
Absolutely. Let me say at the outset, in responding to that question,
30:46
we still have IDUs.
30:48
Interdisciplinary units are requirement at MYP and we still do them.
30:52
In the DP, we don't have them explicitly in my previous school,
30:55
and we don't have the DP yet at this school.
30:58
But interdisciplinary learning is a priority and studio time
31:02
is actually a real opportunity for that, because you have subject teachers
31:06
from other subject areas or subject groups present,
31:09
to help you make those connections as they are
31:12
coaching you metacognitively through your learning processes.
31:15
But certainly we also try to do it within the seminars.
31:19
You know, I'd like to pick up on this idea of why I think that this model
31:24
is so compatible with an IB curriculum,
31:28
regardless of which program we're talking about.
31:31
All of the programs center around inquiry.
31:35
Questions are the basis for all learning in our human experience.
31:39
You know, we start to ask ourselves questions when we're young
31:42
and other people ask us questions about the world around us.
31:45
And the IB's pedagogy is grounded in inquiry.
31:50
In fact, as we plan units, we see that that we have to come up with
31:54
inquiry questions or previously statements of inquiry
31:57
that were required, well and still are, in the MYP.
32:01
And what we see there is that
32:04
this approach to learning facilitates inquiry,
32:07
because it gives students room to approach these questions,
32:12
and to approach them in a very, very personalized and individualized way,
32:16
in a way that sitting in a classroom with direct instruction doesn't.
32:21
Because then, in most cases, the teacher is the only one asking the question.
32:25
And the students have very, very little time
32:28
to pursue answers to the questions that are most interesting to them.
32:34
And so,
32:34
you know, having studio time and having other formats like that
32:38
that encourage guided and free inquiry and personalized
32:42
inquiry are so important for IB pedagogy.
32:46
When we talk about design thinking as the basis
32:49
for creating this model, the first phase of design thinking is empathise.
32:54
Listen to your students, listen to what
32:57
their concerns are and their needs are.
33:00
And if we're going to talk about the DP, where most teachers would have a concern
33:05
about this high level of autonomy and agency,
33:07
because they say there's all this pressure to deliver my curriculum
33:10
and there's a lot of content and there's exams at the end.
33:13
I would say that that my students were saying, in the DP,
33:18
we have no time to do all this inquiry based learning that the IB expects of us.
33:23
Of course, they didn't formulated that like that.
33:25
They said, I don't have time for my IAs,
33:27
I don't have time for my extended essay.
33:29
I don't have time for my TOK exhibition, because I have to sit in class all day
33:34
listening to my teacher deliver the same content for all of us,
33:38
even though we're all very different as learners
33:41
and we're all in different places, and we all have different priorities.
33:44
So, please,
33:47
Mr. Damian, give me a forum,
33:49
in which I can actually get my IAs
33:54
done in which I can do inquiry.
33:56
And that forum for us with studio time, studio time of the answer.
33:59
And they said to us,
34:00
this was the best thing that happened to us in DP2, that we actually had time
34:04
to work on these things.
34:05
Kind of stop letting this teacher interrupt my learning, right?
34:08
Exactly, exactly.
34:10
Which sadly, is often true.
34:12
Yeah, yeah.
34:14
How often did you have to intervene with studio time?
34:18
Because like you said, you have all these teachers
34:19
and I guess the students are choosing the proportions of their time.
34:23
And you have this one teacher who maybe, like none of the students,
34:27
are spending enough time working on their class.
34:30
Like how often did you have to
34:32
guide students versus letting them handle it on their own?
34:36
Yeah, I think
34:37
we made some mistakes at the beginning, and this is part of the big learning,
34:41
but it's also part of this idea of scaffolding learning, right?
34:44
So if you do something like this,
34:47
you're going to have to have a really solid instructional design
34:51
and a really solid support structure
34:54
from teachers, that includes a student subject teachers.
34:58
It also includes those subject teachers who are in the learning studio,
35:01
and it includes mentoring.
35:04
And so our school has a very, very, extensive mentoring system,
35:09
in which each student is assigned
35:11
to a teacher who is their mentor.
35:14
It's very, very similar to an academic, but I would also
35:17
say a co-curricular advisor.
35:20
And these mentors
35:22
meet with the students on a weekly basis.
35:25
At both of my schools, my present school, my previous school,
35:28
this happened on Monday morning, every week in the first hour
35:32
of the school week.
35:34
And at my present school, we have another block on Thursday morning
35:38
where it happens.
35:39
But if that's not enough, we have an extended lunch break
35:42
where students can always schedule an appointment with their mentors
35:45
after they eat their lunch or before they eat their lunch.
35:48
So we have built a lot of time into our schedule
35:52
for students to meet with our mentors.
35:54
What a mentor does
35:55
is they take them through a reflective learning cycle week by week,
35:59
and that cycle has three phases: the planning phase,
36:04
the monitoring phase, and the evaluation phase.
36:07
And so part of our intervention is having these mentors who they're always
36:12
a subject teacher that has the student in one of their courses
36:15
so they know them well.
36:17
And the mentor is checking in on them across disciplines to make sure
36:22
that they're keeping up with their learning goals,
36:24
that they're meeting deadlines, that they're meeting program standards.
36:27
And they do this on a weekly basis.
36:28
So the mentor will advise them on how to allocate their studio time.
36:33
They'll say, you know, I've been noticing on the timetabling software
36:36
that you're doing a whole lot for English language and literature
36:39
and not a whole lot for analysis and approaches in mathematics.
36:43
So you're going to have to adjust this, right?
36:45
So they're monitoring and tracking the students hours
36:48
and the student engagement in different subjects.
36:51
But they're also helping them approach to learning more strategically.
36:55
So part of the planning is looking for learning strategies
36:58
that can help the students to optimize their learning outcomes.
37:03
And then there are,
37:04
you know,
37:05
as I said, they're monitoring students hours,
37:06
but they're also monitoring their progress.
37:08
And then they're doing reflection with the students together
37:11
to help them to evaluate not only their achievements
37:15
and their outcomes, but also the learning process.
37:18
So what's working?
37:19
What strategies are working for me and what strategies are not working for me?
37:23
That's one of the types of interventions.
37:26
But we also had to get teachers
37:29
to be more familiar with their role in studio time.
37:32
And, in our first go at this, I think that
37:36
they weren't actually prepared for that role.
37:39
Some of them saw their role as kind of sitting at their desk
37:42
and doing their email, waiting for students to come to them
37:45
as if this were a study hall to use the American nomenclature.
37:50
And studio time is not study hall.
37:52
It's course time, you know, so we expect our subject teachers
37:55
to be actively monitoring as they would in their own classes
37:59
when students are engaged in and learning, and we expect them to be asking students
38:04
good questions to help facilitate their learning, both from the subject
38:08
perspective, these cognitive or academic question
38:11
and this kind of metacognitive or strategic level.
38:14
And so yes, we had to intervene several times.
38:17
I think a classic theme would be: I do my walk through studio time,
38:22
and suddenly all the teachers jump up and start
38:25
moving around the room and asking questions.
38:27
But after a while, they got used to this new role
38:32
and we had to take the responsibility to also coach them in that new role.
38:37
Becoming a better IBDP educator
38:39
is a daily practice, informed through reading, research,
38:42
personal experience, and episodes from IB Unplugged,
38:45
like the one you're listening to right now.
38:48
But sometimes the show can go a bit too quickly,
38:50
or we simply forget some of the key points
38:52
once they're out of the car or back from our walk.
38:54
So to revisit the content in a condensed version, you can download
38:58
the episode summary at kognity.com/ibunplugged.
39:02
You'll find useful links to other resources and exciting
39:05
bits of information that you can use immediately in your daily practice.
39:09
So now back to the show.
39:13
So you can see where, like the role of the teacher
39:15
and the mentor tutor, or the mentor,
39:16
kind of help to
39:18
scaffold that accountability, make sure that students are going through with it.
39:21
And I especially like what you're talking about with regard
39:23
to the students evaluating or reflecting on their progress as well. Can I assume,
39:27
is that kind of what creates a reporting like, how do you report on this?
39:31
How does it get to parents, that sort of thing.
39:33
Is it mainly a student driven report then as well?
39:36
It's both.
39:37
So our reports are issued through our learning management system,
39:41
and students are required in each term
39:44
to write their own reflection on their progress.
39:47
And we usually give them some prompts or a framework to do that.
39:51
So in term one they might use the IB Learner profile.
39:54
And in term two they might use ATL as a framework, or a different framework,
39:58
a different reflection model.
40:01
The other thing is mentors write reports, and we require our mentors
40:05
to be in touch with parents at the beginning of the school year.
40:10
And at least once throughout the middle of the term,
40:13
toward the end of the term, we have parent teacher conferences where all parents
40:17
meet with their child's mentor, whether virtually or on site.
40:21
And so there is a definite open and consistent
40:26
level of communication between mentors and subject teachers
40:29
and also mentors and parents to make sure students are on track.
40:33
But I think another key intervention, which is a part of scaffolding
40:37
in order to promote learner agency and autonomy, that's so key,
40:40
is the quality of the instructional design.
40:43
So the unit plan with its tasks, with its resources,
40:48
has to help lead students toward the outcome.
40:52
And that means there have to be a lot of milestones or checkpoints along the way,
40:57
where subject teachers and mentors can see the student is progressing.
41:01
We can't let the 6 or 8 week unit go by without having those checks.
41:07
And I think that's the same in most conventional schools as well.
41:11
They'll do some sort of quizzes or have formative assessment,
41:14
that show their students where they're going.
41:17
But feedback is also key.
41:19
So feedback from the teachers mostly over the learning management system,
41:24
but also in face to face interaction on that formative assessment
41:28
throughout the process or throughout the learning sequence
41:32
to make sure they're moving in the right direction toward the goals.
41:34
And that's a real challenge because a lot of teachers
41:40
love being classroom teachers, and they love working with students,
41:43
but that doesn't necessarily make them instructional designers.
41:47
And one of the requirements at my school is that when you join our team,
41:52
you know, I ask, are you prepared to be a co designer of student
41:55
learning experience?
41:56
And are you prepared to be an instructional designer
41:59
and to collaborate not just with your colleagues,
42:03
across disciplines and within your subject area,
42:05
but also with your students to make sure that your units are
42:10
giving students the possibility to personalize learning based
42:14
on their interests within a curricular and conceptual framework.
42:18
What I like about that is
42:20
I think you can easily start thinking like, oh,
42:21
this blended learning is basically like free rein, right?
42:24
So you just get the students like,
42:25
here's the topic and you decide what direction you're going with it.
42:28
But what you've clarified for me now is like,
42:30
okay, now, there's still specific milestones.
42:31
There's still specific checkpoints.
42:33
You're designing that instruction for them,
42:36
but you have to do it in a way that allows differentiation.
42:38
It allows specialization
42:39
for the students to kind of go on whatever's good for them.
42:42
Instead of just like everybody's going to go down this specific direction,
42:46
there's still some scaffolding,
42:47
it still allows autonomy, which I like quite a bit.
42:50
And I'm glad you touched on that with regard to, like, hiring teachers,
42:53
because throughout this conversation I've been thinking like, to
42:56
what extent are you are you looking for subject experts anymore?
43:00
It sounds like you're mainly looking for coaches and people who can
43:03
kind of do both.
43:04
And I guess
43:05
especially in the diploma program, you would need people who can do both,
43:08
as they get into some of that higher rings of that content, I guess.
43:12
Yeah.
43:12
You know, I think most teachers, as we talked about earlier,
43:16
they're not trained,
43:17
at least not thoroughly and extensively, to be these kind of instructional coaches,
43:23
or these facilitators of inquiry, in the way that would be optimal.
43:26
And so we do want subject experts here.
43:30
I mean, I feel like knowledge
43:31
and understanding of content within a subject remains important.
43:35
Conceptual understanding is equally important and often gets
43:38
forgotten, unfortunately, by teachers and by those subject experts.
43:42
But I definitely would say we generally hire subject experts,
43:46
but we hire subject experts who are, kind of,
43:49
looking for a new approach to school.
43:54
And who are open to this new role and willing,
43:57
in the spirit of lifelong learning, to change
44:00
and to grow as educators,
44:02
and to say, look,
44:05
I want to be an instructional coach like you're talking about.
44:08
I want to be a strategic learning coach.
44:11
I want to add this to my repertoire and become a more well-rounded teacher.
44:15
And so we look for that openness, and we also look for some experiences,
44:20
in which the groundwork would be laid for that.
44:23
But that's the requirement: to be willing to be that and to be willing
44:27
also to be an instructional designer because,
44:31
you know, that that instructional design is going to be key
44:33
and it has to be in place at the start of the learning sequence.
44:37
And in best case, at the start of the term or the start of the school year
44:40
for students to be secure and to meet IB program
44:45
standards within this framework, with this high level of autonomy.
44:50
I would argue that
44:53
the type of scaffolding and the type of support
44:56
that students get within this model is more extensive and more effective
45:01
than in the traditional classroom, even though
45:03
the teachers feel very in control in those teacher centered direct
45:08
instructional settings, they're actually not giving the students
45:12
that kind of support, and there's no time left in the rest of the day to do so.
45:16
And so, what if parents are concerned about
45:19
their students having enough structure and enough support.
45:22
Within this system of blended learning that promotes
45:26
so much autonomy, I would say they're actually getting more support.
45:30
And they're getting more structure.
45:32
And there are more check ins than in the classic approach to learning.
45:36
Iif there is a teacher that had that openness
45:39
and that willingness and said, I really want to do this, that
45:41
besides joining your school,
45:44
what kind of advice would you give to them for learning besides maybe
45:48
oh yeah, just go back to school yourself.
45:50
But like,
45:51
what could you do as a teacher that really wants to evolve into that role?
45:54
I mean, there are definitely a few resources that I would recommend
45:58
for teachers to look at. Resources I won't name any specifically,
46:02
but resources in terms of a concept based curriculum, resources in terms
46:07
of, you know, diving into inquiry, resources
46:12
that highlight cooperative learning,
46:14
resources that talk about
46:16
the use of digital technology to promote personalization, things like that.
46:20
And there are good resources out there, but I think primarily it's not good enough
46:25
for me as a head of school or for a program coordinator,
46:30
to release them with a bunch of resources and say, just learn it.
46:33
I think we have to do it together as a team.
46:35
And so I think there has to be a really good in-house and also out
46:40
of house professional development program in place
46:43
for those teachers.
46:46
That was one of the big
46:48
learning outcomes
46:49
from our first go at this, in my previous school
46:52
was that we brought the teachers on board certainly
46:57
and made them stakeholders and key stakeholders
47:01
in this design process of designing this new pedagogical model with us.
47:05
But we didn't necessarily prepare them well enough for this new role
47:09
as educators, as facilitators of inquiry, as facilitators of reflective learning.
47:15
And so, one of the things we tried to do better and starting this new school,
47:19
and that was a real opportunity to recalibrate, was
47:23
let's bring all the teachers in, in August.
47:26
Our school year starts toward the end of September.
47:29
And let's take seven weeks. Seven weeks for teacher orientation,
47:34
for professional development,
47:36
for collaborative planning.
47:40
Seven weeks isn't enough.
47:41
But it's a start.
47:42
And let's make sure they feel at least somewhat ready.
47:46
Well, at least at our school, we would do like 1 to 2 weeks.
47:48
Oh, okay.
47:49
So it is a very big difference.
47:50
That's a pretty extensive change for sure.
47:52
And now of course we can't do seven weeks every year.
47:56
But we're going to make sure that the onboarding process has
48:01
at least a couple of weeks of this kind of training.
48:04
And actually, we've done a lot, we've used a learning management system
48:08
for teachers as well, so that there are professional development
48:12
nuggets or mini units that they go through
48:15
that are required before they start teaching here.
48:18
For example, in inquiry based learning, in reflective learning,
48:23
in our inverted classroom model,
48:25
these are all done as the inverted classroom.
48:27
So the teacher actually learns in the same way as the student.
48:30
You know, they're given an introduction by me, and then
48:34
they go into their studio time in their collaborative learning space,
48:37
and they watch videos and read materials,
48:41
and then they take a mastery test.
48:44
I think mastery assessment is also a key
48:47
part of the scaffolding in this blended learning model that I didn't
48:51
touch on when I was talking about our inverted classroom.
48:54
At the end of that first phase of learning where students or teachers
48:58
are in studio time, and they're doing this knowledge
49:02
acquisition phase, there's a mastery test at the end and it's usually
49:08
done through the learning management system in the form of a short
49:11
multiple choice or fill in the blank quiz,
49:15
or short answer quiz, which is then uploaded.
49:18
And whoever is the educator, either the classroom teacher or the PD
49:23
facilitator for teachers can see how each individual candidate scored
49:27
so they know how they're going to differentiate in their seminar.
49:30
It also is an added
49:31
check to make sure they've actually done what they're supposed to do.
49:36
In their own pace and in their own way.
49:38
But they've done it before
49:39
they come to the seminar, before they come to class.
49:42
And so I think it's important
49:43
that teachers go through that in PD, but they actually try it out themselves,
49:48
before they deliberate for their students.
49:51
It's such a cool idea because it takes the theory
49:53
of what you're doing, put it directly into practice
49:55
so that you kind of, you know,
49:56
as you experience it yourself, you recognize what works well,
49:59
what doesn't, what you need to adjust for your students as well.
50:01
But, Damian, this is super interesting stuff.
50:05
And really inspiring as well.
50:06
Like, you know, I know, for example, in my context,
50:09
we don't have studio time, we don't have those seminars.
50:12
But I can see
50:12
ways in which I could start to incorporate this into my own classroom.
50:16
This sort of, yeah, blended learning approach where it's something
50:19
it's not just flipped because actually it's far more than flipped, isn't it?
50:23
It's putting all the stuff right in the room itself. And,
50:27
yeah, it's been really inspiring for me as an educator to think of, like, here
50:30
are some ways that I can actually take a step forward,
50:32
still accomplish all the things I need to do as a DP educator,
50:35
and yet make it far more personalized and far more effective
50:38
for young people as well.
50:40
And I loved what you commented on earlier about like,
50:43
the teacher feels like we've got control because we have scaffolded
50:46
exactly when things are going to happen.
50:47
And therefore I can say: I've said it and therefore they know it,
50:50
and we've done it, but as you mentioned, it's actually far less effective
50:54
than what you're proposing here because students are far more autonomous.
50:57
They're designing it together with the teacher.
51:00
Yeah, super, super inspiring.
51:02
Really cool work that you're doing.
51:03
Thanks so much for sharing it with all of us. This has been great.
51:05
Thank you very much, John.
51:06
Yeah.
51:07
Thank you Damian I think it's yeah, all of it's and super interesting for me too.
51:10
And I think that one thing that I also was thinking about is we, at Kognity,
51:14
we feel like when teachers are doing these flipped
51:17
learning models, it's like, oh, yeah, like our product is really great for that.
51:20
But then you explain the studio time and I'm like, oh, it's even better for that.
51:24
Like, this is a really great use case and way of using edtech tools
51:30
where it's not just about, oh, well, that's the homework tool.
51:33
It's like, no, no, this is part of the class as well.
51:35
But still getting that individualized, tailored approach.
51:39
Exactly.
51:40
When we were introduced to Kognity, we thought Kognity is the ideal
51:44
ad tech software for this, because it's actually promoting exactly what we want,
51:48
and it has mastery assessment built into it,
51:50
and it has pacing built into it, has feedback built into it.
51:53
And so it's really ideal for implementing this.
51:56
And John, I just want to go back to one of the points that you mentioned earlier
52:00
about how to do this in your own schools, because I can imagine a lot of teachers
52:04
or even school leaders who are listening to this
52:06
just find it exasperating, like we can't do that within our context.
52:10
This is going to require a major revamp.
52:12
I would say start simple. Exactly as you said.
52:15
What can I do within my own classroom, within its own timetable to create
52:20
perhaps a studio like environment in which kids can
52:24
engage in guided or free inquiry in a more meaningful way.
52:28
And, you know, when we started, we converted a sailboat storage
52:32
hall into a learning studio, so that we didn't have the ideal spaces
52:36
originally either.
52:38
So there's a lot
52:38
that you can do on a smaller scale that's going to have a huge impact,
52:43
and teachers shouldn't underestimate that.
52:45
Really great stuff.
52:46
Damien, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us and to clarify
52:49
what's going on, because,
52:50
this is super inspiring and I hope every educator
52:52
who's listening to this is feeling the same way that I am right now.
52:54
This is great.
52:55
Thank you John.
52:56
Thank you Courtney, it's been a real pleasure to be here.
52:58
And I hope that
52:59
some of what I've shared today can inspire educators to move forward
53:04
in promoting that spirit of lifelong learning and inquiry in our students.
53:08
IB Unplugged is a Kognity podcast hosted by
53:11
John Patton and Courtney Marline and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
53:14
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
53:18
If you'd like to submit a topic, request, or question, please do so
53:22
on kognity.com/ibunplugged.
53:24
Let's keep the conversation going
53:26
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
53:30
See you next time.