Latest / IB Unplugged / The Deep Learning Seminar: Agency, Inquiry, and Authentic Reflection w/ Matt Kuykendall

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The Deep Learning Seminar: Agency, Inquiry, and Authentic Reflection w/ Matt Kuykendall · IB Unplugged

0:00
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.
0:35
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of IB Unplugged.
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This week we're talking to Matt Kuykendall about the Deep Learning course.
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Now this is a course that's not specifically in an IB school
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and IB program,
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but it has elements of theory of knowledge, has elements of psychology
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that are built into it, and basically is focused quite a bit on building
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competencies in young people and putting that center stage,
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instead of letting a curriculum drive the whole course.
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And then along the side, we're developing sort of soft skills.
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This course is kind of flipping that, and it's saying,
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let's make sure that front and center, we're building these competencies
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and we'll use elements of TOK or things that we might know
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from the psychology course to kind of build that.
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But basically we're focusing quite a bit on the competencies themselves.
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Super interesting course.
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Lots of really valuable things here that you can put into any sort of
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teaching that you're doing right now.
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And Matt has been an excellent person to talk to about this.
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Courtney, you've worked with Matt for a little while, right?
1:32
Yeah, exactly.
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I've been working with him as long as I've been working at Kognity.
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So, this has been since 2017.
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He's been a very active participant
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in Kognity’s growth, and he's been working on IBTOK.
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He's been working on IB psychology, making the actual textbooks.
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He was one of the lead authors.
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He's done many webinars.
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I'm sure some of you have sat in on some of his webinars
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that he's done in the past, working with all kinds of resources.
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So, yeah, I've had the absolute pleasure of working with him for many years now.
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And these past couple of years, at the American school
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in Japan, he's been able to create this seminar in this course
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and it's really so interesting to learn kind of how he's taken his background
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as a TOK and psych teacher and really created this fantastic seminar
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that I think, like you said, it's not something that's directly part of the IB,
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but so much resonates with the ATLs, it resonates with TOK.
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And there are so many pieces that I think he was really great at sharing
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what you could do differently in those subject courses
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that he's learned from doing this deep learning seminar.
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And naturally, when you put the soft skills front and center,
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the question has to come around assessment.
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How are you going to assess that.
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How is it going to be valued both from the students, the parents
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and beyond that in terms of universities and that sort of thing.
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It was really interesting hearing him talk quite a bit about the way they assess,
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the value and the impact that comes from the students as they
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do Harkness style seminars
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as they kind of evaluate each other and do this sort of peer assessment.
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Those elements that he's talking about there,
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I don't think are specific to the deep learning course.
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There's stuff that any educator can bring into their own practice as well,
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and really have a profound impact on their students learning.
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Yeah.
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And I mean, just the topics that come up are just so relevant.
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I love every time he would give an example of one of the topics
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or things that the students are presenting on him,
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like, oh, I want to talk about this like these are really great
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ways of students thinking critically and having these reflections on things
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that they actually care about and put energy into.
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So, yeah, I think he's done just such a fantastic job preparing
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for this course and really setting up a great structure and
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the kind of content and base questions for the students to dive into.
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So I think, yeah, everyone listening will find these to be a great new way
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of looking at these competency based learnings
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and see what they could use for themselves.
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We've got a great episode for you.
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Stay tuned for IB Unplugged, where we've got Matt Kuykendall talking
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about deep learning.
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Hi, Matt.
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Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today.
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Hi. Thanks for having me.
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I'm really excited to talk about education with you all.
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Me too.
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So we like to kick off with a bit of a background question for you.
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And it is why education?
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Why have you picked a career in education?
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Oh, that's a great question.
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As long as I remember I wanted to be a teacher.
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Like, probably as soon as I knew that, like,
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you had to have a job to, like, make money and survive.
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I thought, well, teacher, what could be better than learning,
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getting paid to learn, and working with young people?
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Like, even as, like, a high schooler.
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I was working with the YMCA and doing volunteer work and coaching
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basketball, and I was just loved working with younger kids.
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And it's always been my passion. In school
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I was always attracted to English and history class because of the ideas.
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And even though I had more sort of probably traditional style
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teachers, they'd be called now, they were still able to sort of present
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the study of humanness through both history and literature
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in a way that just grabbed me and just I became infatuated with.
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You mentioned having teachers who are kind of more traditional.
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And I guess our second follow up question is more along the lines of,
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how do you see that role of the educator evolving?
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Both, I guess, from what you've experienced.
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But now looking forward into the next few years,
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how is that role of education going to change?
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Yeah, I think education as a few roles, right?
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Like in our societies and cultures, it's always played a few roles.
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One, it's been to certainly educate students
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in the traditional sense, teach them to read, write, do
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on board skills that allow
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them to be productive member of like the economy, to be honest.
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And I'll talk more about that in a second,
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because I think that's what has changed a bit.
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And then it's also been to socialize and to teach the values of the culture.
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That's always been a huge part of education is to teach kids,
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you know, like that book,
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everything I know I learned in kindergarten, right?
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Like to share, to be kind, to be generous,
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to teach values and to onboard
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sort of the mindsets of the culture,
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and the mindsets that are going to create thriving communities as these kids, like,
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grow up and mature and go out into the world.
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I think both of those things
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maybe are changing slightly in terms of the emphasis and the outcomes.
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I think in the more traditional approach to education
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outcomes have definitely been on the content side.
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And while they were doing that cultural education, that value education,
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it was often sort of done
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maybe at the lower levels, like in kindergarten, elementary school.
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And then when you got into middle school and high school, that wasn't considered
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as serious. That was sort of just pushed to the side.
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And now we're doing like the real work of like content acquisition.
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Yeah.
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And now I think we're starting to understand through different researchers.
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And psychology.
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You know, Amanda Duckworth,
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and her work on grit and Seligman and his work in positive psychology
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and lots of work from a lot of different other researchers
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letting us know how important, that sort of emotional intelligence is.
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Mindset work is.
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And with the changing needs of the modern economy
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from people that can do calculations themself, can crunch numbers themselves,
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can even like computer programs themselves.
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With AI emerging, it's a different sort of landscape.
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And so I think in schools we need to change into leaning more
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into teaching more of those sort of cultural values,
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those mindsets, those skills, and really lean into our humanness
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to sort of teach empathy, teach human connection.
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Because that I think is
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what's going to be marketable and important is our humanness.
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What can we bring to the table that, like, AI can't, you know.
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Yeah. No, I think that sounds great.
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And I think that it seems like with your deep learning course,
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that is the trajectory that you're kind of moving towards
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also
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and I would love for you to,
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yeah,
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share a little bit
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about describe your deep learning seminar, like what is it, how is it structured.
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Let's start there and dive in.
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So at the American school in Japan
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we launched this course Deep Learning Seminar.
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As you said this year, it was co-create with myself and two other colleagues.
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And we thought to ourselves, we ask ourselves that question,
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like the question you asked me, John, is like, what is important, right?
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What should every kid who leaves the American School of Japan
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a learning experience, what should they leave with?
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What skills, right?
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What skills are going to benefit them the most?
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Both as individuals and as productive members of society?
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And the more sort of administration
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thought about it and our school board is really sort of,
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you know, progressive with this and our and our director, Jim Harden,
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in conceiving of this course,
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the more we thought about it, the more we realized that it is
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soft skills.
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It is mindset.
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It is like the ability to think about themselves as a global citizen.
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This is the ability to collaborate.
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It absolutely is critical thinking, and creative thinking.
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And those are words that are not new to education, but
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I think they're new in the way we've sort of approached teaching them,
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which I'll get to later,
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and we thought how can we maximize that stuff?
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Because all these things that I just mentioned, teachers might be listening now
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and, and be like, yeah, I teach English, I teach IB psychology, I teach IB bio.
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We do that too.
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We collaborate, we critical think, we do all that stuff.
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And I would say the difference is that
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in our course, we made all that stuff front and center.
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It wasn't the appetizer, it wasn't dessert.
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It was the entree, appetizer and dessert.
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And we thought, how can we design a course where every day
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they're in situations where they need to do
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at least one of all these different things, these competencies, we call them,
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and reflect on it and develop metacognitive skills.
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And that was another sort of key components
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we thought being able to know your self,
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know your strengths and limitations and how to leverage those
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in the service of self and others is what is also super important.
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And how do we teach that.
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So the course is structured around big essential questions.
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We sort of call global problems.
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Some are like what is truth?
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And how do views of truth impact human behavior?
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One is, how do we balance divergent truth?
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So, John's truth might be different than Courtney's, right?
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But they both believe in it wholeheartedly.
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They both might have evidence for it to.
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So what do we do?
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Do we just, you know, whoever yells loudest, do they get their way?
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That's normally how it works.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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The loudest person in the room. Right?
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How do we teach students
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to sift through the noise, so to speak, and decide for themselves?
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Because that was sort of the third outcome is in our landscape
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right now with so much misinformation.
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Again, the return to AI and its ability to sort of flood the zone, to use that
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unfortunate phrase, with stuff,
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we need to equip students to be able to sift through that
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and find the facts within the noise.
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Right?
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And they need to be able to think for themselves.
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We want them to really realize how much is just sort of onboarded,
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and they just sort of have taken on and not necessarily chosen for themselves.
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But we want to teach them that process of choosing.
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We will walk them through that process of, okay, well,
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how do I go about even deciding or choosing,
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how I feel or believe about this, you know, really important issue.
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And that's
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done through just putting them in situations
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and asking them to reflect on it and think about it.
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We just had presentations today where students had to think of a truth
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in society, and then they sort of had to give autopsy, right?
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Like, where did this come from?
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An example is one of our presentations was, well, they asked the question.
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The truth was that,
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it was questioning the truth around beauty standards.
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Right?
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And they did this whole inquiry around the role of representation, specifically
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Disney, in creating truth around what is beautiful.
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And they trace the history of like, Disney princesses
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and even sort of Pixar movies and how that's sort of changing.
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And they talked about the recent controversy around Snow White,
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the lead being given to a Latina actress and The Little Mermaid controversy,
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and whether that was, you know, a valid controversy.
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Should people be upset about that or not?
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And so we just ask students to sort of
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really take on issues and
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work through those issues in a way that's evidence based,
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and relevant to them, and then talk about it with each other.
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So it sounds like the vehicle then for this curriculum,
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because as you mentioned earlier,
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you may be a biology teacher or somebody else and you go, yeah,
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we teach critical thinking, we teach collaboration,
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we teach some of those particular skills as well.
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Just the vehicle or the entree, as you put it, is biology curriculum.
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It sounds like this now shifts a little bit with curriculum is.
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But as you were talking, I'm kind of hearing a lot of TOK.
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And I know you've taught TOK before.
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I wonder, can you distinguish those two for us?
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How is like the deep learning seminar either
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enhancing or a better version of what we might see in TOK?
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Or are there overlaps or how is it kind of set itself apart?
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Yeah, there's definitely overlaps in the knowledge construction piece.
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Like where do these beliefs come from?
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What are different methods,
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of acquiring knowledge, where the strengths
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and limitations of those methods, what's quality evidence?
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Big idea questions is sort of like that.
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Even discussion of ethics. Where it's different is that, I'd say, TOK
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stays, sort of, philosophical.
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And we've tried to make deep learning
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more real world relevant and daily relevant.
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And we've also emphasized the metacognition.
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So I sort of maybe buried the lead with my sort of discussion of the course.
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But I know we're going to talk about assessment later, but
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students and teachers both care about what's assessed.
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Right?
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Like, you can go, I'm a workshop leader for psychology.
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And you can talk about all this content, different approaches.
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And you just want to like oh yeah, but what's the best.
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But what's the assessment?
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And why have my kids been marked down on the IA's?
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I want to know.
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And how do I construct learning
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experiences and lessons that lead to the exam.
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And teachers care about it because they want to honor their students.
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Teachers care about it.
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Not that honestly worried about getting evaluated by how many fives
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they get or what their IB averages, although I'm
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sure unfortunately some schools do
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use that metric to evaluate teachers, but they're most
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users are worried about it just because they care.
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They want to do right by their students, right?
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So in every course we end up caring about what is assessed.
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So we said this is a problem.
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This is why it's different in TOK
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and IB biology, is like in IB biology
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you're not necessarily assessing
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collaboration. Right?
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You're not assessing global citizenship or mindset.
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You're not assessing that.
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I might have the space to teach that and to scaffold some learning around it.
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But you're right.
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That's not going to show up itself directly in the assessment.
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I mean, obviously there's a new change with the IA
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where you can collaborate on some data, but ultimately it is the individual
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and what they know and their skills far less than the actual collaboration.
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Right. Totally.
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And like mindset in ATLs are the best IB schools integrated
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as you do John in your classes and that's awesome and wonderful.
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But often can get pushed to the side.
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And again, it's not it's assessed.
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The students aren't like grinding it like they're like, oh yeah, sure.
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Reflect like here.
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Whereas we literally assess metacognition.
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We don't assess the essay.
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The presentation I mentioned today and Disney and its role
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in representation, creating truth around standards of beauty,
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they gave a presentation that I didn't assess it.
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We listened to it.
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We respected it. We asked follow up questions.
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What's assessed is the students own reflection on that work.
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What did you learn from that that you didn't know previously?
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Why were you drawn to that?
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Were you engaged in the process?
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If so, why? Did you get to be in a flow state?
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What puts you there? What was interesting about that?
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What could you have done differently?
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How did you consider your audience when you're designing those slides?
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You had to ask and answer those questions.
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Did you think that went well?
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How could have you have made it more engaging?
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These are literally the questions that my students need to answer
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at the conclusion of creating artifacts, like a presentation or writing an essay.
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And that's what they're assessed on, and that's what I give them feedback on.
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And that's the key difference, too, is how many teachers are taking the time
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to give feedback on ATLs or some of these
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other mindsets and skills, whereas this course, that's all we do.
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It lends itself a ton
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to the development of the learner profile, just as you mentioned,
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and kind of the things that are longer lasting.
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What we're hoping that students are going to develop as they leave, and we all know
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they'll forget aspects of our curriculum anyway.
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But what we hope stays are those sort of things that you've just mentioned.
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I'm wondering, how do you kind of get that emphasis
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for the students to help them think more on how important that reflection is?
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Like, you know, in our classes, we'll talk about reflection.
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We'll get our students to do some reflection, that sort of thing.
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We see it as a valuable thing.
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And yet at the same time, I think they get some reflection fatigue.
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How do you get that sort of shift from: this is content
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I need to have my content, to
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this is a truly important thing that I'm doing as part of the course.
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I'm smiling and laughing as you're talking because
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it sounds like you were in our room as we were playing,
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and it sounds like you're in a room now with kids saying not another reflection.
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Are you serious?
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We just did. This is ridiculous.
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You nailed it, man. Reflection is real.
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I remember when I was in teacher college, right?
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In my ed major, and I had a joke that they made us reflect
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in our reflections, and I was like, drove me crazy.
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Like it became this, like, throwaway thing.
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And how do you maintain the authenticity and the sincerity and
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we asked this question of us as a deep learning team, my colleagues and I,
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how do we stop the metacognitive reflections
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that we grade from devolving into an IB essay
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where it might be formulaic,
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where they learn how to tick the boxes because we do have a rubric because again,
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we're trying to like we give them sentence starters about how to have like a begin
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like a really metacognitive thought.
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Oh yeah.
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And I've caught kids using AI. Like in all honesty. Like they've,
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I've put in AI check is it's like they're using AI to do their metacognitive reflection.
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Reflect on this as if you were a 16 year old student doing the course please.
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Again, this is year one of the course.
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And we're learning every day.
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We are reflecting not to like no joke.
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We're reflecting obviously like good practitioners
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and we're like okay so is this working like are we reflecting too much?
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We actually just made the decision that indeed we are.
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We also have these at the end of every unit.
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So like at the end of like,
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our unit on truth, right?
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We have a Harkness, which is, just a whole class conversation in an oval.
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It's it's a trademark.
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So a term from, I think Phillips Exeter.
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And we just it's student led, we give them prompts,
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but they're, they have a day of research, sort of preparing for the Harkness
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where they're meant to sort of design their own questions and,
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and get different perspectives.
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We created choice boards of resources to sort of arm them with, the,
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resources to sort of look into different perspectives.
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And then they have to reflect over that.
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Then they do an artifact.
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I just mentioned the presentation untruth that the truth audit.
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And then they have to reflect on that.
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And we're realizing like that might be too much
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because that's coming in quick succession.
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So how can we build in reflection into the process.
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So for this truth audit, we sort of change it up.
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And instead of having them sort of write a reflection in like a formal way
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when they're finished with the presentation,
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I just asked them on the spot some of the questions that I posed to you,
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like, what drew you to this?
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Why did you choose Disney? Right?
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Why are you engaged in the process?
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So there's significance the reflect on that me formally but process.
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I just asked them the moments and they answer those
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in front of the class, which I thought was a really powerful too.
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And so we're trying to think of more creative ways
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to sort of build reflection into the work itself, to make it also more authentic
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we think to your point, John, and, we also have moved
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to instead of just writing, we've gotten almost all students now.
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It's actually like 80% they're interviewing each other.
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And that's been way more sincere.
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So like the three of us could even get together
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and we'd ask each other questions and follow up questions.
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Again, we have a list of questions that they can choose from to reflect
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on our standards, our process, communication and significance.
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And each of those is a collection of questions that they can choose to reflect
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on, and they interview each other.
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And those are awesome.
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Those are less formulaic and less AI generated than the essays.
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Right?
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And so we're trying to encourage we haven't required it yet
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because we want kids to be able to work
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in the medium that they're comfortable with.
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And sometimes it is quite personal.
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So they don't want to work with another student.
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But like I said, almost 80% now are choosing this
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interview method, which is either video or just like a voice
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note that then they airdrop to me and I can listen to it.
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All right.
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Hi, my name is Robin Walensky, and I am a school leader at Nest
21:47
International School in Bangkok.
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I'm recording live from the IB Global Conference in Singapore.
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I'm going to give a tip for Kognity, right now as the vice principal
21:57
for years 12 and 13 and also the diploma coordinator at Nest,
22:01
I can't say enough about Kognity and the agency that it provides
22:06
our students in their studying and exam revision.
22:10
Our kids are very excited about the platform.
22:13
They use it across the board in all subjects the company offers.
22:17
They absolutely love it
22:18
and they like to use it outside of class more than they do in.
22:23
And the various question banks and practices are they're very favorite.
22:27
I highly recommend Kognity.
22:31
How have you found like,
22:33
I think that a lot of reasons for the assessments in traditional
22:37
classrooms are also for providing that external motivation.
22:41
And I'm wondering if you are finding that it's hard to get students on board
22:46
to really commit to that level of reflection
22:49
and that level of preparedness for these,
22:53
for these discussions, because like you said, you can't
22:55
if none of the kids are coming
22:56
prepared with any background questions or knowledge, then
22:59
it's going to maybe not be the same level of quality
23:02
that you're hoping for in the conversation.
23:04
Has it been hard getting students motivated in the same way,
23:09
when they have a different way of being graded or assessed or whatever?
23:14
Yeah, absolutely.
23:15
I mean, yes and no.
23:17
Like one of the first feedback early on because this is our I just
23:20
I mentioned earlier, this is our, you know, inaugural
23:23
cohort.
23:29
And some of them at the very
23:30
beginning were like, we want the discussion to be graded.
23:33
We want you to grade artifacts like, why aren't you grade my presentation?
23:37
Why don't you grading that?
23:38
They wanted to be graded because they were like, but like I'm
23:41
putting all this effort into it and we're like, yeah, the journeys,
23:44
you know, the journeys, the point, you know, like it's.
23:47
And, we're trying to really teach that because the journey is the point.
23:51
Like the grade doesn't matter.
23:53
And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's cute.
23:54
Now I want to grade. Yeah, exactly.
23:58
The answer is some kids still will use AI for their reflections.
24:01
Some kids will spend that day of, like, preparation for the hardness doing,
24:06
you know, probably other homework on their computer,
24:08
you know, in the corner or in the library, or maybe they're sitting outside.
24:11
It's like I said, this beautiful spring, cherry blossom season,
24:14
we have beautiful trees in our courtyard to go out there and do whatever they do.
24:16
But I'm giving them that trust
24:18
that they're going to use the time, like, you know how they see fit to do it.
24:22
And they're hopefully
24:24
make the questions relevant enough that they care, that it matters to them,
24:28
that they want to look into it, because it's interesting to them.
24:32
I mean, one of our first harnesses was on identity and one of our questions was,
24:39
are your identities
24:41
chosen or given? And what sort of that came from,
24:44
as we use the case of Rachel Dolezal,
24:46
I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she's an individual who was born,
24:49
ethnically Caucasian to two Caucasian parents but identifies as black.
24:53
And she worked for the NAACP in Washington state.
24:56
There's also a community of individuals in Appalachia, BBC that is,
25:01
news, coverage of them,
25:04
a little like documentary, a little documentary.
25:06
And they are all phenotypically white and all identify as black to the point
25:11
where, like, that's what they write
25:12
when they go to a doctor with this on their driver's license, like they,
25:17
and we said, you know, is this okay?
25:19
Who gets to decide? Do you get to decide your identity?
25:21
Of course, the correlations to transgender issues are obvious, right?
25:26
So a transgender person identifies is that different than trans racialism.
25:30
And some people are like, of course is different and like
25:34
get really excited about this.
25:36
And then you ask why? Why is it different?
25:39
And then that opens up a whole longer, more nuanced conversation.
25:43
Right?
25:44
And so we try to make it relevant and interesting
25:47
and just like you can't get every kid
25:50
to like, love chemistry or like every bio kid love psychology.
25:54
You hope you can write.
25:55
That's what you're trying to reach everyone.
25:56
But, we're trying to make it as interesting, as engaging as possible,
26:00
and we're trying to empower them again.
26:01
We're trying to teach skills of like self-management.
26:04
So like, if, you know, and if we notice, students aren't coming prepared,
26:09
they're not talking to in the Harkness, they're mailing in their reflections.
26:12
Their work is not at the level that it should be.
26:15
Then we have a conversation.
26:17
And to be honest, like I haven't had to have many of those this year at all.
26:20
Good.
26:21
It's cool because what you're talking about here lends itself so much
26:24
to what we, I think, really aim to do within education itself.
26:27
And like Courtney and I
26:28
have spoken a few times regarding AI and its impact on education.
26:32
And often
26:32
we kind of come back to this idea of, are we asking great enough questions?
26:37
Are we providing stimulating enough content that doesn't make
26:40
somebody just want to go to AI and just jump the hurdle?
26:43
You know, seeing this is just like a barrier to what I could do next,
26:46
but instead actually something that's really quite enriching.
26:49
And it sounds like what you're doing with the deep learning course is exactly that.
26:51
You're providing that deep learning on topics and things that are interesting
26:55
for students, that kind of go beyond what they could find from an AI model
26:58
or something like that, to kind of avoid the work as it would be.
27:02
And you were discussing earlier with, like the Harkness discussions
27:05
and especially when the students are kind
27:07
of having that reflection conversation together,
27:09
you know, my mind as an educator was just sitting there going,
27:11
that sounds like the thing, like right there when they are reflecting
27:15
really well, when they are talking to one another, interviewing each other,
27:18
it sounds like that's the deep, powerful learning that's going on.
27:22
And it almost in my mind, doesn't matter what kind of gets assessed or what
27:25
sort of shows up after that, because that's the meat of it.
27:28
That's the whole big thing.
27:30
One is that accurate?
27:32
And two, is that kind of the whole idea here to try to build up
27:36
that authenticity of young people, to see where they can assess themselves
27:39
and they can go without needing that guide on the side kind of thing?
27:44
Yeah.
27:45
I think we really do view the Harknesses as like if we've done a good job
27:50
throughout that unit and like truth that those will be really,
27:55
fertile and really stimulating for all students.
27:58
And it'll have like a lot of buy in and, you know, we have four peer days.
28:02
We have like 75 minute, 80 minute classes.
28:05
And, they generally go the whole time.
28:08
Right?
28:08
And it's just them like they get in, we start right away
28:11
and they're talking about the whole time just, you know, 15.
28:14
And we do cap all our deep learning classes at 15.
28:16
That's also important to mention because you don't want it too big, right?
28:20
Because that's a arge enough discussion. And,
28:25
that sort of tells us that we've been able
28:27
to get their interest, we've been able to prepare them with, perspectives,
28:31
diverse perspectives that allow them to represent diverse perspectives,
28:36
in that conversation that they do respectfully.
28:40
We start very early.
28:41
I'd mentioned earlier about we want to teach kids
28:43
how to have civil discourse in our society.
28:45
I see Stanford just brought back this course.
28:48
I think it's called Civil Society that they used to acquire
28:51
until like the late 90s, and they dropped it for a variety of reasons.
28:55
And now they brought it back.
28:56
They decided that students need to learn how to disagree with one
28:59
another, that they don't know how. Right?
29:01
And again, this is related to Height's work,
29:03
unlike the coddling of the American mind and sort of his thoughts and ideas
29:07
on, this, that
29:08
A lot of our students haven't ever been in a disagreement
29:11
and they feel like really aggrieved when someone disagrees with them.
29:15
And so we're teaching them that it's okay to be
29:19
maybe proven wrong if someone disagree with you, that's okay.
29:22
And we're really trying to empower that
29:24
and teach some different language they can use. Like, another perspective is
29:28
or I would offer up a counter claim to your point.
29:32
Something like that.
29:33
To really take it away from the person and make it about the ideas.
29:36
And we teach them this language, we role play with them.
29:39
And, that part has been going incredibly well.
29:42
Well, we actually is sort of having issues with our students
29:45
is them sort of still worrying about being wrong and so hesitating
29:52
and that's coming out in the reflections, which is really interesting,
29:55
like, oh, I would have said this,
29:56
but I was worried that it would be misinterpreted or that I would be judged.
30:01
And this fear of judgment
30:02
is something that's really pervasive that we're trying to create,
30:05
we said from the beginning, this is not a safe space.
30:08
This is a brave space.
30:10
You might get your feelings hurt sometimes, and that's okay.
30:13
You know, someone will disagree with you, hopefully.
30:16
Right?
30:17
If we're doing it right, there will be disagreement
30:19
because that means we're open and we're honest with one another
30:23
we’re voicing our perspectives.
30:24
And we're listening to diverse perspectives.
30:28
You can't be surprised when they feel like they're going to be judged,
30:30
when that's basically all we've done throughout their entire educational career.
30:35
Like, let me put some judgments.
30:37
I'll even put some numbers and letters
30:39
to show you how I've been judging you thus far.
30:42
Yeah. Yeah.
30:43
You can see where that would be
30:45
a paramount sort of thing that's important for them.
30:47
Yeah.
30:47
Oh, it's so interesting because like
30:49
when you were talking about it being about the kind of discourse
30:51
and the debate part and it's like when I was in college,
30:54
we were required to do public speaking, which I feel like
30:57
was a really valuable thing to be able to practice and like a skill to develop.
31:01
But like, that's just one sided.
31:03
Nobody ever talks back at you.
31:05
And that's really the important part.
31:07
The important part is someone talking back at you and you actually listening.
31:12
And hearing them.
31:14
Not just thinking of how to prove them wrong,
31:17
but thinking of how to expand your own worldview.
31:20
And this is sort of why we start by.
31:22
And we don't want them all to be sort of like nihilists,
31:25
but like we lead on like harare's work in sapiens.
31:28
Right?
31:28
Everything is.. Any large scale cooperation is based on miss.
31:32
Right?
31:33
And it's all made up.
31:34
Civil rights are made up, money is made up.
31:37
That doesn't mean doesn't matter.
31:38
You know, race is made up, gender is made up.
31:40
It doesn't mean it doesn't matter, it does.
31:43
It absolutely does.
31:44
But the point is that these things are socially constructed and that,
31:48
we have power as societies and as groups of people and as cultures
31:53
to sort of construct ideas
31:54
that have things that are invented but have real meaning in the world.
31:57
So let's make so these things are not like,
32:00
you know, come down from they're not written in stone.
32:04
They're not like, you know, the laws of nature, like the laws of physics.
32:08
And so they might be wrong, there might be things
32:11
there might be ideas, beliefs that are very pervasive.
32:13
I mean, think of all the things that used to be true
32:15
that are patently not true around like,
32:18
superiority of races, and other social truths that existed,
32:22
that we know are absolutely not true unless we get them are seen.
32:25
Is that just because something's true,
32:27
known as a truth, doesn't mean that it's supported by fact.
32:30
There's some truth or supported by facts, and that's awesome.
32:33
But there's some things that are considered
32:35
true in society that are not supported by any fact at all.
32:38
They're just widely held beliefs. Yeah, no.
32:41
In these discussions, how much do you get involved?
32:44
I'm not familiar with the kind of rules of the the Harkness model, but how?
32:49
Yeah, I could imagine it's easy to get derailed,
32:53
but maybe that's also the point.
32:55
Yeah, I've only that the beginning of the year.
32:58
I didn't ever get involved at all.
33:00
Recently I got involved in one because they got sort of off
33:03
track down this far tangent, and we normally encourage tangents, but
33:07
this is just so out there that I'm like, okay, can we get more unfocused?
33:13
Why don't you guys consider what Shavon said about this?
33:16
Right? And then that brought them back.
33:19
I've never had to get involved yet to prevent, someone from,
33:25
ganging up on another individual or something like that, or some sort
33:28
of, like, conflict.
33:30
And generally they are pretty good being on point.
33:32
There's generally it's really interesting
33:33
to see kids and sort of emerge as leaders.
33:35
And the best is the kids that just hate the awkward silences.
33:38
And they're not generally leaders, but they cannot stand
33:41
to just have silences, to be like. So,
33:46
well,
33:47
does anyone I guess we should start with this question and it's just to see them
33:50
sort of like, emerge into that space through their discomfort.
33:54
It's just great to see.
33:59
I mean, it lends itself
34:00
to just the question of what does the teacher do?
34:03
Because obviously many teachers might be used to like a teacher led classroom.
34:07
This sounds very much like a student led classroom, especially
34:11
in the Harkness style where like, what's your positioning?
34:14
How do you kind of lead the course?
34:16
How are you involved in it?
34:18
How do you see your role in that space?
34:21
Yeah, it's a great question.
34:22
So we had we were given the gift of time last year, my colleagues and I
34:26
to plan the course. So,
34:29
with our
34:30
idea of fold teacher Lotus 5/5 at the high school level, and
34:33
I had two fists and then three fists was planning this course,
34:37
and my two colleagues had the same schedule.
34:38
So every other day we were planning all day.
34:40
So we were able to plan literally every single day.
34:43
Moving into this year.
34:44
And every day starts with a provocation.
34:46
Every day starts with an SEL opener.
34:48
What's that? Like social emotional opener.
34:51
So it'd be like, John, if you were a fruit,
34:55
what fruit would you be and why?
34:56
Yeah, that sort of thing.
34:58
Okay. What fruit would you be, John?
35:00
The first one that came to mind was banana,
35:02
but that's probably just because my daughter is all about bananas right now.
35:07
So, I'd be a
35:07
coconut because I get to chill on the beach all day.
35:10
Banana’s are at the beach as well.
35:13
Yeah, we just get the kids. And again, just, like, sharing.
35:16
And, you know, high school kids are cliquey
35:17
and they're sort of in these classes as international school.
35:20
We've lots of new kids.
35:21
And, then we have a provocation.
35:23
So maybe it's that documentary I show of all these redheaded white people
35:27
that identify as black. Right?
35:28
And then it's like, okay, so what did you think about that?
35:32
And but much more structured questions around that.
35:34
So we do a lot of like think peer sharing.
35:36
We do a lot of small group work.
35:38
And a lot of sort of
35:41
it's all discussion based. So it doesn't look unlike a TOK class.
35:45
Some days we'll have like
35:45
graphic organizers
35:46
really after like, work through something like a structured inquiry around,
35:50
something like, for example, coming up here,
35:52
we're moving into this idea of like collective good.
35:54
So like I mentioned earlier, how do you handle competing ideas of collective good?
35:59
And what does the structure of a thriving community look like?
36:03
Like what does it mean to thrive both individually and collectively?
36:06
Right?
36:07
And so they're going to look at different constitutions from around the world
36:10
to see different cultural and political perspectives on thriving,
36:14
because ideally, one would think
36:15
that a constitution is set up to create a thriving community.
36:19
We would hope,
36:21
yeah, we hope that's the idea.
36:24
Yeah.
36:25
So that's the more sort of example of something
36:27
more like a structured inquiry where it's like there's this incredible resource.
36:30
I forget the exact website
36:31
that literally just has every country's constitution on it.
36:33
And so we're just gonna be like, okay, go.
36:35
And they have some questions need to answer about commonalities, etc.
36:38
and then share out.
36:39
So every day is is very much,
36:42
small group discussions at like five, ten minutes of time.
36:46
We have like, butcher block paper that they'll write on.
36:50
So in looking at,
36:53
and looking at ideas of a thriving community,
36:55
too, they did a little mini inquiry today on, deontology
36:58
utilitarianism and rawlsian principles like the fairness principle.
37:03
And so they had to we gave them some resources for that.
37:07
Different groups had each thinker than they,
37:09
did a gallery walk around the room where they were taught about each thinker
37:12
from the other groups. Right.
37:14
So just the usual moves that, you know, teachers use in their other classrooms.
37:19
But again, the focus is maybe different on the content.
37:23
And then at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day,
37:26
sometimes two will ask to reflect on one of those competencies.
37:28
So like what competencies you want to work on today.
37:32
Like you're going to work in your mindset.
37:33
You're going to try to think sort of, globally and transdisciplinary,
37:37
and sort of ask them to sort of reflect on that almost on a daily basis,
37:41
to try to build that in. Okay, so highly structured,
37:45
and highly scaffolded for the students to journey
37:48
through the stuff that you've, kind of laid out here.
37:51
But I like what you just mentioned there.
37:52
So they start with, what's that competency they really want to focus on
37:55
for today's lesson. Is that right? Yeah.
37:58
And we have sort of like a wheel where
38:01
if I share my screen I can share with you where we have different questions
38:05
and sort of coming from each of the competencies.
38:08
And we'll sort of highlights some that are most pertinent to that day's work.
38:12
So if they're going to be collaborating like they were today,
38:14
we'll put a collaboration,
38:17
outcome on there.
38:18
And so we'll be like, okay, we really want to focus on this.
38:21
Like how can you ensure that everyone in your group today is actually contributing?
38:24
So before we go on to this group work, let's think about that.
38:26
Right? Really primed their brain with that.
38:30
And I mean, I find it helps, you know, like again, and this is stuff
38:34
that, as I was saying earlier, often gets pushed aside in other classes.
38:37
It's like, oh, I don't have time for that.
38:40
And you know, that's maybe okay.
38:42
Like in a fast paced
38:43
like IB class or AP calc class, like because there's different outcomes.
38:48
I think that's the beautiful thing about like,
38:51
a more sort of like,
38:53
you know, sort of like liberal arts approach to education.
38:55
Is that like, yeah, there's different classes
38:57
or there's different learning outcomes and different emphases.
39:04
And in here, that's what we emphasize, you know.
39:08
So the intention of the core is these competencies
39:12
and the competencies come out in this wheel.
39:15
So like collaboration is one of them.
39:18
Mindset global citizenship.
39:20
Communication creativity and critical thinking.
39:23
Nice. You've done this before.
39:26
Okay.
39:26
So they have this wheel and then you're highlighting those in the classes.
39:30
So it's like the student.
39:31
It's like in a content based one.
39:34
The students know what the objectives are.
39:36
They're really actively looking at it like, I know what I'm supposed
39:39
to be working on here. Yes.
39:42
And there's this is also a two year
39:46
course I should mention, this is the inaugural year of one.
39:49
And then these this core will matriculate to,
39:54
deep learning to, where they'll be
39:56
doing a more sort of individual,
39:59
project, ideally with outside partners.
40:02
And in that situation, they are going to be asked to sort of
40:06
choose the competencies the sort of learning outcomes
40:10
each of these comments have, like six learning outcomes to them.
40:14
And they will choose that they want to focus on through their project
40:19
or a group of competencies, or like three or 4 or 5 or whatever.
40:24
And then that's what they will focus on.
40:25
And they reflect on like why they chose those,
40:27
why they think they need to get better in those and develop those.
40:30
Then as they're working through their their senior project, if you will,
40:33
they'll be reflecting on how they've made progress in those areas
40:37
while simultaneously making progress in their project, their like literal project.
40:41
So for those students who
40:44
we kind of mentioned it at the top of the show,
40:45
some of the students who might be a little bit
40:47
more grade focused and that sort of thing, do they see this as,
40:51
okay, I have to do all the competencies and I have to make sure
40:53
I meet all the learning outcomes in order to succeed.
40:56
Or is it set up as a way where, like students can pick like
40:59
these are the competencies
41:00
I actually I'm already kind of good at, and I want to strengthen them
41:03
and this is the thing that I kind of want to do.
41:04
And therefore I focus on these maybe 3 or 4 competencies
41:07
and the learning outcomes with them. And I kind of ignore the rest.
41:10
How does that is it one or the other?
41:12
Is it kind of both?
41:13
And how do you see that playing out,
41:15
especially with those students who are more quantitatively driven?
41:17
Yeah, there's no expectation that they address all of them.
41:21
There is probably, there is the
41:24
outcome or the result that
41:26
they will all be emphasized at different points throughout the year.
41:30
I just mentioned
41:31
we would emphasize collaboration when they do something collaborative.
41:35
But in deep learning two, there's no expectation
41:38
that they would have to sort of tick them all off.
41:41
Not at all. They just have to
41:43
know themselves and know which ones they should sort of focus on and improve on.
41:47
And so then how is that interpreted and reflected upon
41:51
from both the student and I guess, parents who maybe are just looking for a grade
41:55
and they're looking for, okay, but yes, is my kid the best in the room?
41:59
Yeah.
42:00
How has it been with like the other stakeholders
42:02
like parents and kind of everyone else around at the school?
42:05
Yeah, that's a really good question.
42:06
We went on sort of like a sales campaign last spring where we like
42:10
went into the soft, the grade ten,
42:13
advisories.
42:14
We did some like,
42:15
mini lessons and sort of like here's like a preview, right,
42:19
of like what it'll be like.
42:20
And, we went to the board, we presented the board, we presented at Parent Coffees.
42:25
We sent out letters and communications to the parents.
42:28
They knew this was coming.
42:30
And they knew it was going to be different.
42:33
And there hasn't in the last spring, as we were sort of
42:37
like rolling it out and sort of selling it, for lack of a better term.
42:41
Getting community buy in,
42:43
there was a bit of pushback about, like,
42:46
you know, this seems really nebulous, right?
42:49
And so will this be hard or this be easy?
42:53
This is taking the place of an AP class my student can take.
42:57
It's sort of it's required the way TOK is required in the IB diploma.
43:00
We required for our high school diploma.
43:02
Every student has to take deep learning one and two.
43:04
And that does take up a slot in their schedule.
43:06
And they're trying to, you know, maximize, the courses that they want to take.
43:12
And so there was some concern around that.
43:14
And this year though, like coming out of parent teacher conferences, it was great.
43:18
Like there was incredible feedback.
43:20
I mean, it's what you guys experience, you know, talking to parents
43:23
when you are TOK teacher, like, so like,
43:26
our dinner table conversations are so awesome.
43:28
Like, I wish I could take this class, you know, like once
43:31
they're in it and see what the value is, they get it.
43:35
Like they get it.
43:36
It's just something so different, you know?
43:39
And so different.
43:40
Do you think there's then greater by and because oh this
43:44
doesn't have the typical grading system of some of my other courses.
43:47
And therefore I can almost kind of relax a little bit.
43:49
I don't have to worry about that judgment pressure,
43:51
but rather I can just be fully present in this classroom.
43:55
That's the goal.
43:56
I mean, we initially wanted to not have grades
44:00
at all in this class, but then we realized like, that wouldn't really work either.
44:05
Our administration too,
44:07
for like the teachers out there and like college counselors out there,
44:09
our administration did a full college tour last summer where they met
44:15
with admissions directors, and they told them about this course.
44:19
Would this help our kids?
44:21
Would it hurt our kids?
44:21
Like, how should we describe it to universities?
44:24
Like they did a full deep dive, with college admissions.
44:28
Should we grade it? Should we not?
44:29
And so what sort of came out of that answer?
44:31
Yeah. We should still attach a grade to it.
44:33
But they almost unanimously were like,
44:36
this is going to be, you know, this will make your kids distinct.
44:39
Like, this is what we're looking for.
44:40
This will set them apart
44:42
from every other kid with ten APs coming out of an American high school.
44:46
And we are the American school in Japan.
44:49
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44:55
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Now back to the show.
45:30
And I'm wondering also like I see
45:32
how we're seeing the positive impact from the from the parents,
45:36
the other teachers teaching the other subjects.
45:40
Have you seen any difference in how.. Are you teaching any other subjects
45:44
right now?
45:45
Yeah, I'm teaching psychology also.
45:47
And last year I taught AP seminar,
45:50
which is sort of a research focused course.
45:53
We as a school want deep learning is a full school thing.
45:57
These competencies that I rattle off to,
45:59
they are not unique to the deep learning course.
46:01
They are school wide the way ATLs would be for an IB school.
46:05
Yeah.
46:05
And so this is the elementary and middle school are doing incredible work.
46:10
And have been on getting kids comfortable with this language.
46:14
And I know that our course will look different in two years,
46:18
three years, five years, ten years than it does now because kids
46:21
will come to us just so fluent in this and so used to it.
46:25
So it definitely is a whole school sort of change.
46:28
Deep learning is a culmination of that pedagogical,
46:34
shift.
46:35
So then do you see some of the stuff that's going on within deep learning?
46:39
I mean, a moment ago you were just distinguishing
46:40
how the liberal arts style education is so powerful
46:43
and that you can have different learning outcomes and for that matter,
46:46
different learning approaches in each particular course.
46:48
But do you see the style of learning and the style of approach
46:51
that you're doing here is something that could benefit other courses.
46:56
You know, if I'm a you know, I am a biology teacher specifically,
46:58
is this style thing something that you think
47:01
would be useful in those types of courses as well?
47:03
Or is it better to kind of keep it in its place?
47:06
I think it's a time issue. Right?
47:08
Like I'm just sort of a realist about it.
47:11
Like, if a kid see an IB bio and they are taking an exam
47:15
and you have to get through that curriculum,
47:17
you only have so many hours in the year, right?
47:22
And you have a dictated hours by the IB that
47:24
how many hours you have to teach to teach that content.
47:26
So how much space do you have to do this work?
47:29
You know, if you were an at a non IB school and you were not teaching
47:33
IB course, I think you know, sky's the limit in terms of your flexibility
47:38
in how you wanted to integrate this type of work with your content work.
47:43
I think there's a lot of I think that's the future.
47:45
Again, as you started off, we started this conversation
47:47
sort of talking about the future of education.
47:49
I do sort of see it going more that way, where we can deemphasize content,
47:54
some of these other areas,
47:55
because we have tools to sort of do the heavy lifting in that way for us,
48:00
although that's not the actual heavy lifting.
48:01
That's the sort of like what we think is the heavy lifting, the calculating,
48:05
the real heavy lifting is the transdisciplinary application, right?
48:09
It is the problem solving.
48:10
That's the real heavy lifting. Yeah.
48:12
And so I think that when you are freed
48:16
from curricular constraints then you can integrate more of this.
48:20
Now again, I'm not trying to disparage the IB and curricular constraints.
48:23
I love the IB.
48:24
Yeah, I think they have a wonderful curriculum.
48:27
To that, I mean, you know, obviously they're considering curriculum review.
48:30
They're always looking for people to be involved in the curriculum review
48:33
and talking about ways that it can be better.
48:35
I even just got an invitation for like the biology, chemistry, physics ones,
48:39
and I know everybody did that was in the new DP newsletter.
48:42
And so I guess what I'm getting at here is like, as the
48:45
IB reviews the curriculum
48:47
and what they deem as like, here's what needs to be in the curriculum.
48:50
Should we start to shift a lot of what we've been speaking about with regard
48:54
to like curriculum knowledge, push that a little bit further out
48:56
and bring in more competency type stuff like what you're doing here,
49:00
or is it better to kind of keep them this is science type thinking,
49:04
this is maths type thinking, this is English type thinking, that sort of thing?
49:08
Well, that's such a good question.
49:11
Again, as long as the IB still works
49:13
as a sorting mechanism for the ox bridges of the world,
49:18
scoring metacognition is the..
49:25
It's going to be the scoring of it would be tough.
49:28
The assessment would need to shift.
49:30
And then again you get that problem with like, well, if you're not testing it
49:34
then maybe it's not emphasized in the classroom.
49:38
And so testing metacognition, testing critical thinking
49:42
the IB is very great way of testing critical thinking I believe.
49:45
Yeah. Excellent ways of testing critical thinking.
49:47
Creativity is a bit harder to test.
49:51
Mindsets, certainly harder to test.
49:52
Global citizenship’s harder to test, global collaboration, you know what I mean?
49:55
Like, these are harder things to assess
49:57
in a standardized way when we're trying to create,
50:01
when we're labeling kids with numbers and then deciding who goes to Oxford.
50:05
Right.
50:05
But if you were running an IB psych workshop right now, and you were
50:09
now that you've had some time to really sit in on this deep
50:12
learning course, and you wanted teachers to be able to at least take parts of this,
50:18
what would be the parts that you think they could reasonably put into
50:24
IB psych, for example?
50:26
Another really great question.
50:28
I think you can integrate metacognitive reflection in terms of,
50:32
what you can ask students to apply the learning to themselves.
50:36
I think that the new IB psych syllabus, is excellent
50:40
in trying to reduce the reliance on,
50:44
regurgitation and memorization and emphasize application and integration.
50:48
And I couldn't be happier with the review.
50:51
You were talking about reviews, John. The new IB service is amazing.
50:54
And that
50:56
it does lend itself to integrating this type of reflecting.
51:01
Like, why does this matter to me?
51:03
Right?
51:03
Like, what was my childhood like when studying human development, right?
51:07
What are ways that we can communicate ideas
51:12
about health and wellness to others in the community?
51:16
My classmates in my high schools, health and well-being.
51:19
So, like, what are how can I think deeply about communication techniques
51:23
considering my audience, considering my goal, my purpose?
51:27
And then maybe a project is, a PSA, right?
51:31
A health campaign in your high school.
51:32
And that's very easy to integrate into the IB psychology curriculum.
51:36
And in fact, we, have, at Kognity, integrate
51:40
some of that work into, the new, textbook.
51:44
And it does lend itself to that.
51:47
And while that might not be
51:50
the reflection on that collaboration might not be assessed in IBUA,
51:54
the learning is still there in terms of the application
51:58
and the style of learning that I know the IB
52:00
is trying to nudge teachers towards, which is that application
52:03
to the real world, bringing psychology sort of out of like from like a, dry
52:09
sort of regurgitation of research to, a living thing
52:13
that has real world application.
52:15
So as a content teacher in the IB,
52:18
you know specifically IB biology, but as a content teacher in the IB programs,
52:21
I guess what I'm hearing now is first like be aware of those places
52:26
in the content as it already stands, where there are some good places
52:29
where I could really get into the deep learning and develop the competencies.
52:33
Like you've just been speaking about, and then try to scaffold that in obviously
52:36
being aware of my time constraints, but knowing that developing
52:41
those competencies is going to be profoundly important
52:46
for the young person just as much if and probably way more than understanding
52:50
the specific content mechanisms.
52:51
And therefore, if I'm a subject teacher,
52:53
I need to just be aware of them
52:54
and I need to scaffold through those as much as I possibly can.
52:57
Is that a fair summary of what you've just mentioned?
53:00
Yeah, definitely.
53:01
And what's transferable?
53:03
I think you use that word earlier and those are the skills..
53:07
In essence, that is what deep learning is all about is what is transferable
53:11
between across subjects to your own life.
53:14
What are the mindsets?
53:15
How can I change the way I view this course, this biology,
53:20
the way I view biology, the way I view myself, and orientation
53:24
to something that's challenging in my IB biology class,
53:26
the way I prepare for my exams, like all that stuff
53:30
helping students engage in self-reflection.
53:34
Even if something is simple, a great way to do it.
53:36
Something simple is your students take a test.
53:38
You ask before the test.
53:40
The test kind of you announce it.
53:42
Write down a goal for the test. What is your goal?
53:44
What score do you want to get?
53:45
You know, I'm sure use IB rubrics and IB assessments.
53:47
What score do you want to get?
53:49
And I'd be like, would it be like 20 twos a max or I want to get 18 or 22.
53:53
Okay. What is how are you going to make that happen?
53:55
Write down how are you going to make that happen?
53:57
This is a very quick and easy way
53:59
to integrate metacognition into an AI course that is very useful.
54:03
It doesn't take a lot of time.
54:04
And again, you don't need to assess it, but you've integrated into your practice.
54:07
Now the students take the test. Maybe they get 18.
54:09
Maybe they don't. You ask them, did you meet your goal?
54:12
Why might you have not met your goal?
54:14
And maybe
54:15
they didn't prepare the right way as they said.
54:17
Maybe they prepare the way they said, but it didn't work.
54:19
And now they say I'll prepare differently next time.
54:21
Maybe it was some other environmental thing.
54:23
Maybe they were up late because they had a basketball game.
54:26
And so like little things like that to like encourage metacognition
54:31
wherever possible, I think is really, really, really important.
54:34
And it's certainly possible.
54:36
Yeah.
54:36
You can see how that would be both simple, effective time.
54:39
You know, appropriate for time and could easily transfer
54:42
to all different types of courses as well.
54:44
Yeah. And around collaboration too.
54:45
Like as they move into that group work, we all do group work
54:48
and you can certainly have them create similar goals
54:51
and have similar sort of reflections on their collaborative work, you know,
54:55
and that helps them learn themselves as collaborators.
54:57
What worked, what didn't,
54:59
what you need from your group mates to help you be successful
55:02
and then have them share that with a group mates.
55:05
What I'm hearing is there's plenty of opportunities.
55:07
And I think we know this as educators where we're thinking like, I'm hoping
55:10
that these competencies are actually being learned
55:12
while I'm doing this thing, or I'm kind of expecting that
55:15
they'll be learned kind of almost by osmosis or some form.
55:18
Like I'm not directly bringing it out,
55:19
but they're going to develop these things anyway.
55:21
But instead, what I'm hearing now is take the beat to recognize
55:26
there is something else that you could be teaching right now
55:28
and that could be emphasized. Take the beat to recognize that
55:30
have the students think critically about it,
55:32
write some things down, and then dive into that,
55:35
and then take the moment to come back and reflect on it.
55:37
It's not going to take more than a couple of minutes,
55:38
and it could have a big impact on how the students learn.
55:41
Yeah, absolutely.
55:44
Great.
55:44
I think we can wrap up talking about assessment,
55:48
because I think a lot of people do want to know,
55:51
because it is something that does still matter
55:54
for a lot of different schools and has got a value in that.
55:57
But if you could
55:59
give a bit of an explanation of how you do
56:02
assess the steep learning course, that would be great.
56:05
Yeah. We have three strands.
56:07
Communication process and significance.
56:10
And they are reflected
56:13
on their metacognition exclusively in regard to those three strands.
56:17
And they reflect on their Harkness
56:20
experience in terms of the process preparing for it,
56:24
what they took away from it.
56:25
And then there's sort of communication choices during it.
56:28
And then also each unit, has a artifact
56:32
and they do the same thing, reflect on communication process and significance.
56:36
Okay. So how are you engaged in the process?
56:39
What was challenging had you overcome those challenges?
56:43
And then what communication choices did you make if you wrote an essay?
56:46
Well, why was an essay not a presentation?
56:48
Or was it a presentation, not an essay?
56:50
And then inside that, they need to consider their audience.
56:54
So for a lot of the artifacts, I'm not the audience.
56:57
There are a number of artifacts and facts early in the course,
57:00
some of the belief ones I mentioned earlier, their audience was their parents.
57:04
Imagine that.
57:05
You know, like giving your parents a presentation
57:07
like, who you see yourself as is a teenager.
57:10
Like, I would love if my daughter
57:12
get me into that.
57:13
And then that changes the structure of their content.
57:18
Right?
57:18
And you guys know, like your audience matters
57:20
your product.
57:22
And we're trying to get students
57:23
to appreciate that and be purposeful about their choices.
57:27
Everything we do is trying to design slower thinking,
57:32
engage system to use like term and be purposeful.
57:36
Be purposeful and think about the choices you're making.
57:39
Don't just make them on autopilot.
57:40
Yeah, one thing that you said earlier that stuck with me.
57:43
It was like, it's not a safe space, it's a brave space.
57:46
And I'm wondering, have you seen a difference in the how
57:51
they're being assessed of like the shy kid or the students
57:56
that are more it's such a bigger barrier to be in a brave space for them.
58:01
Like have you seen a big difference there?
58:03
Yeah, it is for some kids it's still very challenging.
58:06
They're really reticent.
58:08
And those are the kids whose reflections I often look forward to reading the most,
58:12
because it's so cool than what they give you, versus what they're not
58:17
comfortable sharing with their classmates.
58:21
But then there are other students that now it's,
58:23
you know, April, and they're starting to share more.
58:26
They're starting to come out of there. Some are starting to be more,
58:30
willing to contribute.
58:31
Like today we're talking about we went from the Disney princesses,
58:34
then talking about affirmative action and like, should,
58:36
you know, should representation in media be like dictated like,
58:39
should we dictate, like how many leads and different TV shows and movies
58:44
go to different ethnicities or genders or whatever?
58:47
And then that went from affirmative action in media
58:50
to affirmative action in, like, other realms of life.
58:54
And a student who's been quiet sort of all year.
58:56
And I know there's sort of more sort of write offs and, and politically,
58:59
they said,
58:59
I don't think it should be regulated by the government.
59:02
And they never would have said that in, September or October or December.
59:08
And so that was really great to see.
59:09
And what was even more great
59:11
is that even though
59:12
the majority class sort of the vibe was that most people thought it should,
59:15
we're in favor of affirmative action in different realms of society,
59:18
the way they respectfully responded to that student was just awesome.
59:23
Anything else that you feel like we haven't covered
59:25
that you'd want to make sure we know about with regard to the deep learning course?
59:28
I mean, I feel like we've
59:30
I don't know, it's been super enlightening and I feel like I've learned a whole lot
59:32
just now, and I'm feeling quite inspired about my own teaching.
59:35
Is there anything else you'd want to add here?
59:37
No, I mean, just that again, I think it's really important
59:42
for schools to sort of put their money where their mouth is.
59:46
Like if they say they care about mindset and competencies
59:50
and these skills that we know through research really matter in the world,
59:54
more than sort of a more traditional, sort of testable, objective, viable,
59:59
markers of like
1:00:00
intelligence or, skill sets or competencies.
1:00:04
We should create the spaces in our schools to do that.
1:00:07
Right? Yeah.
1:00:08
Or we should emphasize that and we should empower IB teachers
1:00:11
to maybe,
1:00:12
you know, not get to that unit or like the exam scores
1:00:15
and maybe what the most important thing is here,
1:00:16
the most important thing is teaching students
1:00:18
the skills and the mindsets that we know will make them,
1:00:22
successful and again, personally successful
1:00:25
and also successful in sort of the greater communities that they move into.
1:00:30
As the dynamics of those communities are changing so profoundly in response
1:00:34
to sort of technology in AI, and we really do need to equip them
1:00:39
to handle sort of these changes that are coming at them at warp speed.
1:00:45
And so I'm just really proud and thankful
1:00:48
that our school has created that space and is really leaning into that.
1:00:51
And I just feel sort of honored every day to sort of walk in the classroom
1:00:55
and do this experiment with the kids.
1:00:57
And we are learning as we go, as I said, and it's not perfect
1:01:01
and it's a really teaching soft skills, assessing mindset, teaching mindset.
1:01:05
How do you teach mindset? Right.
1:01:06
These are challenges that are not easy questions to answer.
1:01:09
But we're trying right? You got to try.
1:01:11
You got to start somewhere and you know, and I would just encourage teachers
1:01:16
to try, just start you know just try because I know
1:01:19
a lot of us out there know that is what's really important.
1:01:23
I love it.
1:01:23
And it's got me was super inspired because we're actually doing an audit
1:01:26
of our assessment policy right now and really thinking deeply about
1:01:30
what are the things that going to be present in our policy.
1:01:32
So if for nothing else, you've definitely inspired me to go into that
1:01:35
with a little bit more vigor. So thanks, Matt.
1:01:37
You're very welcome, John.
1:01:38
That's very kind of you to say.
1:01:41
Thanks so much for this conversation.
1:01:42
It's been really enlightening, as I mentioned before.
1:01:44
And, really cool to see the work that you're doing
1:01:46
with the deep learning course.
1:01:47
And I think it's an awesome, course you got going there.
1:01:50
I'm glad that your school is taking it on as you mentioned there as well.
1:01:52
And, hope to hear back from you soon to see how your two of the deep
1:01:56
learning course goes. Yes. Thank you so much.
1:01:59
It was great talking with you and Courtney.
1:02:01
I appreciate the opportunity.
1:02:02
Thank you. We appreciate it too.
1:02:05
Take care.
1:02:06
IB Unplugged is a Kognity podcast hosted by John Patton
1:02:09
and Courtney Marlene and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
1:02:12
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
1:02:16
If you'd like to submit a topic, request or a question, please do
1:02:19
so on kognity.com/ibunplugged.
1:02:22
Let's keep the conversation going
1:02:24
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
1:02:27
See you next time.