Redefining Student Engagement through Modern Classrooms
Today, we delve into the critical issue of addressing the diverse needs of students within the classroom. Our esteemed guest, Rob Barnett, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of the Modern Classrooms Project, elucidates a transformative framework designed to humanize the educational environment, thereby empowering students to thrive. Through this enlightening discourse, we explore the necessity of relinquishing traditional control dynamics in teaching, allowing students to take charge of their learning journeys. This episode presents a wealth of strategies aimed at fostering student engagement and supporting individualized learning, particularly for those who may feel disempowered or left behind. Join us as we uncover the profound implications of this approach for educators striving to cultivate hope and resilience among their students.
The fifth episode of the Wheelhouse podcast features an engaging discussion with Rob Barnett, the co-founder and Chief Project Officer of the Modern Classrooms Project. The conversation centers around the innovative strategies employed by this initiative to humanize the classroom environment and empower students. Barnett shares his personal journey as a former math teacher in Washington D.C., where he faced the challenges of addressing diverse student needs within a traditional educational framework. The discussion highlights the necessity of moving away from conventional teaching methods that often leave students feeling disempowered and disengaged. Instead, Barnett advocates for a model that allows for self-paced learning and mastery-based progression, which not only fosters academic growth but also nurtures student confidence and autonomy. This episode serves as a profound reminder of the importance of adaptability in teaching and the potential for educators to create supportive environments that cater to individual learning styles. Through the lens of Barnett's experiences and the principles of the Modern Classrooms Project, listeners are encouraged to reflect on their teaching practices and consider how they can cultivate hope and agency among their students.
Takeaways:
- In the modern educational landscape, it is imperative for educators to relinquish control and empower students to take charge of their learning journeys.
- The Modern Classrooms Project has successfully equipped educators with strategies to humanize classroom environments and promote student engagement.
- A primary goal of effective teaching is to prevent learning gaps by providing personalized support tailored to the diverse needs of each student.
- The shift towards a self-paced, mastery-based learning model allows students to work collaboratively and at their own speed, fostering a sense of autonomy.
- Research indicates that chronic absenteeism can significantly hinder student success, necessitating innovative approaches to keep all learners engaged and supported.
- In conclusion, embracing transformative teaching methodologies can lead to a more inclusive and empowering educational experience for both students and teachers.
To find out more about the Modern Classrooms Project, check out their website:
https://www.modernclassrooms.org/
Find out more about Rob Barnetts new book, Meet Every Learner's Needs!
https://www.meeteverylearnersneeds.org/
Connect with us on Substack or Check out our Website:
Transcript
Have you ever been standing at the board trying to meet all your students needs and feeling like you were failing miserably and knowing you needed to do something differently?
Speaker A:But what?
Speaker A:Find out.
Speaker A:A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to give us a listen.
Speaker A:Season nine features a panel of four like minded friends and colleagues.
Speaker A:Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr.
Speaker A:Alicia Munro and yours truly.
Speaker A:We've opened the conversation this season to think about empowering educators to cultivate hope.
Speaker A:In this fifth episode we welcome Rob Barnett, a former math teacher in the Washington D.C.
Speaker A:area and currently the co founder and chief project officer for for the Modern Classrooms project.
Speaker A:And we're going to focus our attention to a powerful framework and a set of strategies they've created to humanize the classroom environment and empower each student to thrive.
Speaker A:You know, this was such a great conversation and there were so many intriguing ideas that we brought to the space.
Speaker A:I hope you'll listen to the entire episode to hear the details.
Speaker A:But among those ideas that I think you'll find intriguing are.
Speaker A:I needed to give up a lot of the control we expect teachers at the board performing.
Speaker A:Where did we get this vision of teaching from the movies?
Speaker A:You know, school can be really disempowering, dragging learners through the content and teaching to the middle.
Speaker A:I wanted to give the thinking back to them, to give them control.
Speaker A:How do we prevent learning gaps from even forming in the first place?
Speaker A:You know, together, let's cultivate hope for each and every student.
Speaker A:Now, episode five and our special guest, Rob Barnett.
Speaker A:You are not going to want to miss this.
Speaker A:Take a listen.
Speaker A:Good morning, I'm Grant Chandler and welcome back to the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:I have been looking forward to this conversation for couple of weeks now and I'm really glad that it is finally going to happen.
Speaker A:And before we get started, let me welcome my friends and colleagues, my panel, Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Dr.
Speaker A:Alicia Monroe.
Speaker A:Hello.
Speaker B:Good morning friends.
Speaker A:See you continue to do that in unison.
Speaker A:Like I feel like a choir director when you do that, right.
Speaker A:It's like wow, so beautiful.
Speaker A:It's just gorgeous.
Speaker A:We practiced last week so we won't practice again, right?
Speaker A:So this is episode five.
Speaker A:In our last episode we had an incredible conversation with Melanie Ullinger from New York and we are going to talk to another amazing educator this morning.
Speaker A:So I'm super excited to welcome Rob Barnett.
Speaker A:He is the co founder and chief product officer of the Modern Classrooms Project.
Speaker A:And it is ironic because I have been following the Modern Classrooms Project for the last couple of Huge fan myself, coaching a teacher who's doing that work and seeing amazing results in her 8th grade ELA classes, using all of their work in their approach to education.
Speaker A:So I'm super excited to welcome him to the wheelhouse.
Speaker A:So, Rob, welcome.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:It's a pleasure and an honor to be here.
Speaker A:Well, we are thrilled to have you.
Speaker A:So let's just get started because there's so much that we want to talk about today.
Speaker A:You are one of the co founders of the Modern Classroom Project and you of course have that other title, Chief Product Officer.
Speaker A:But for a lot of folks who may not be aware of what the Modern Classrooms Project is and why you started it, could you just start us there?
Speaker A:Like, how did this come to fruition?
Speaker A:And what is this amazing work called the Modern Classrooms Project?
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:Happy to.
Speaker C:The Modern Classrooms Project empowers educators to build classrooms that respond to every learner's needs.
Speaker C:And certainly I didn't set out to start a nonprofit or train teachers.
Speaker C:This all began in my own classroom at Eastern Senior High school in Washington, D.C.
Speaker C:about 10 years ago.
Speaker C:I was a high school math teacher and I found that when I taught the way I had been trained to teach, which was deliver one lesson to all of my students every day, it wasn't very effective.
Speaker C:Some of my students were advanced.
Speaker C:They already knew the content.
Speaker C:They were bored.
Speaker C:Some of my students were behind.
Speaker C:They had gaps in their learning.
Speaker C:They had, they lacked confidence in their own ability.
Speaker C:They were usually lost or confused.
Speaker C:And then some students were absent, chronically absent, and they missed out altogether.
Speaker C:And I was sort of standing at the board trying to meet all of their needs and failing miserably.
Speaker C:And I just realized I need to do something different.
Speaker C:So over the course of, you know, months and really years, I found an approach that worked for me.
Speaker C:Instead of standing and delivering direct instruction live, I made short instructional videos which explained my content.
Speaker C:Students could watch those in class or at home.
Speaker C:They could pause, they could rewatch, they could rewind.
Speaker C:I spent my time in class, sitting down with my students, getting to know them, answering their questions, helping them learn.
Speaker C:They were now free to work with each other a lot because I wasn't sort of at the board, policing their behavior, commanding their attention.
Speaker C:They could move at their own paces.
Speaker C:And most importantly, I could make sure they actually understood lesson one before moving to lesson two and lesson three.
Speaker C:And so that prevented learning gaps from forming.
Speaker C:And it also helped students, I think, develop some self confidence and self esteem.
Speaker C:They saw that, okay, if I really Apply myself and I have support from Mr.
Speaker C:Barnett.
Speaker C:I can learn math and that was really powerful for a lot of them.
Speaker C:This approach worked for me.
Speaker C:I'd like to say that it transformed my classroom and it saved my career.
Speaker C:I shared it with some other colleagues, including my math teaching colleague downstairs, Karim Farah, and it worked really well for him as well.
Speaker C:He ended up being named the most innovative educator in D.C.
Speaker C:public Schools.
Speaker C:People started to pay attention to what we were doing.
Speaker C: And so we said this was: Speaker C:We said, you know, we'd like to train eight of our colleagues here at Eastern High School.
Speaker C:They don't have computers.
Speaker C:Let's start a nonprofit, let's raise a little bit of money, let's buy computers for their students.
Speaker C:So we raised money, we bought a bunch of Chromebooks, we trained these eight teachers.
Speaker C:This approach worked really well for them.
Speaker C: And so the next year,: Speaker C:That worked well.
Speaker C:We were happy with the training.
Speaker C:Teachers were happy with the results.
Speaker C:They were English teachers, history teachers, social studies, science, middle school, high school.
Speaker C:We said, this is pretty good training to help teachers teach this way with videos and self pacing and mastery based learning.
Speaker C:Let's put this online.
Speaker C: And then: Speaker C:And even though this method had been developed before COVID it worked well for remote teaching and then it worked well for teachers when they came back to school also because it's really an approach that is about emphasizing human interaction and meeting every learner's needs.
Speaker C:And so I'll spare some of the details, but fast forward to today.
Speaker C:We've empowered about 80,000 teachers all over the world, K through 12, all subject areas.
Speaker C:And we help them teach in this way that I taught at Eastern High School because I think we've realized this challenge of teaching that different learners have different needs is really fundamental.
Speaker C:And teachers are hungry for strategies that actually work to help them address the wide range of needs that exist within a single classroom.
Speaker A:My friend Diane, who came across that work and has now been trained by them and is doing the work, her first comment to me when she started it was, I spend my class time doing exactly what Rob said.
Speaker A:I get to spend my entire class time interacting with students one on one in small group.
Speaker A:I don't spend my time policing behavior.
Speaker A:We get to actually talk about themselves.
Speaker A:We get to talk about them as humans, we get to talk about them as learners.
Speaker A:She was absolutely Stunned at how it really changes how she uses the space.
Speaker A:And Rob talked about that.
Speaker A:But here's another end user who wasn't the co founder who was like, oh my gosh, everything they say is true.
Speaker C:Well, I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker C:It sounds nice when I talk about it, but what's really powerful about it is teachers can actually use this in their classroom.
Speaker C:And I'm glad you've met one.
Speaker C:And if you're listening here and you're sort of skeptical of the big things I'm saying, you know, and you're on Facebook, for instance, I encourage you.
Speaker C:We have a modern classroom Facebook group with teachers all over the world, and they're sharing their stories.
Speaker C:And honestly, they're sharing their struggles too, because no method of teaching is perfect.
Speaker C:There's challenges, there's just always challenges.
Speaker C:But, you know, there are a lot of teachers who have taken this and who have, who have.
Speaker C:Who have really made it work.
Speaker C:And in the resources that we share, we're always trying to highlight those teachers stories too.
Speaker C:Because I was a high school math teacher at a particular school.
Speaker C:It worked for me.
Speaker C:But we want to show this can work for other teachers in other places.
Speaker C:As to what this teacher said, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker C:You know, we become teachers not because we want to stand at the room and command attention.
Speaker C:We become teachers because we want to develop relationships with young people and motivate young people and get to know them and inspire them.
Speaker C:And that's hard to do when you're trying to drag learners at different levels through content and sort of teaching to the middle.
Speaker C:Like, you don't have the time or space to build those relationships.
Speaker C:I felt like, you know, once I got this model really working for me, I wasn't going in and having to put on this performance and leaving exhausted at the end of every day.
Speaker C:I felt like my job is to show up, help my students learn.
Speaker C:And I felt invigorated by that because I was sitting down with my students and watching them learn.
Speaker C:And it, when I say it saved my career.
Speaker C:That's why, I mean, I started to really enjoy teaching.
Speaker C:And I think my students started to enjoy learning too, because they felt like when I come here, I can work on something that's appropriately challenging for me at my own pace.
Speaker C:I can get the teacher's support, I can work with my friends.
Speaker C:It's not like I've got to sit there and try to follow along with something that isn't right for me while the teacher gets mad at me for getting distracted.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I'm really glad to hear that, you know, someone who's had the same experience.
Speaker B:One of the things that you said, Rob, at the beginning of this, you know, this journey is about empowerment.
Speaker B:You know, we've really been using and lifting that word up when thinking about empowering educators and really empowering students.
Speaker B:And so this humanizing approach to education is really where our paths have just linked up, haven't they?
Speaker B:They so beautifully with, with the work and the conversations that we've been having with so many.
Speaker B:Can you talk a little bit more about that student perspective and that sense of empowerment and that you.
Speaker B:Cause you also mentioned this, you know, chronic absenteeism.
Speaker B:That's a.
Speaker B:That is a huge struggle across the nation.
Speaker B:We all know that.
Speaker B:How did that change?
Speaker B:Did it change?
Speaker B:How did the student perspective change through this sense of empowerment that you talked about?
Speaker C:Great question.
Speaker C:I think if we think about school from a lot of learners perspectives, school can be really disempowering.
Speaker C:So say you're an advanced student and you really want to.
Speaker C:You love math and you just really want to learn it.
Speaker C:And you go to class and your teacher is teaching to the middle.
Speaker C:You're not challenged, you're not growing.
Speaker C:You can't learn things that you already know.
Speaker C:Like that is disempowering.
Speaker C:Or say that you're in the majority of American students who are below grade level in math.
Speaker C:We know this from decades of testing.
Speaker C:You don't have fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh grade skills.
Speaker C:You show up at eighth grade, you're trying to learn eighth grade content.
Speaker C:You're not prepared to do it through no fault of your own as a student.
Speaker C:You just like the school system knows you're not prepared and we advance you to eighth grade anyways.
Speaker C:And how are you going to feel sitting in a class every day where the content is over your head because you're not prepared to understand it?
Speaker C:You know, people say they're not a math person or they don't like math.
Speaker C:And I hate to hear that.
Speaker C:When I hear that, I think this is a young person who's given up on themselves, who considers themselves inadequate.
Speaker C:But it's perfectly logical why they would feel that way, right?
Speaker C:They've just been pushed through content they can't understand.
Speaker C:And I think that's really horrible experience for young people.
Speaker C:And if you're absent, it's even worse, right?
Speaker C:Think about missing Monday and Tuesday and you come back for class on Wednesday, you shouldn't understand class on Wednesday, right?
Speaker C:If Monday and Tuesday had any value, which they should have.
Speaker C:You shouldn't understand class on Wednesday, but if you come back in and you're expected to follow Wednesday's lesson like you're going to be lost.
Speaker C:It's totally disempowering.
Speaker C:And oftentimes those students who are chronically absent, they need the most support because they have things going on in their lives that make school difficult, but they receive the least because they're in school for the, for the least amount of time.
Speaker C:And, you know, what's a teacher to do?
Speaker C:I was told, well, see if you can stay after school for those students.
Speaker C:But I can't stay after school.
Speaker C:I have a life.
Speaker C:And those students can't stay after school too.
Speaker C:They have a life, you know, which is preventing them from coming to school in the first place for.
Speaker C:For whatever reason, for whatever's going on.
Speaker C:So you just look at all the students in one classroom and you think this is not meeting their needs.
Speaker C:That's really disempowering.
Speaker C:What I tried to do with my classroom and what we help teachers try to do is create classrooms where every student is appropriately challenged and appropriately supported every day.
Speaker C:So if you're that advanced student, you don't have to wait for the rest of your class.
Speaker C:You can watch videos and advance through lessons and show mastery as fast as you want.
Speaker C:There's always something new for you to do next.
Speaker C:If you're a student who has gaps in your learning or lacks self confidence, you have the time you need, right?
Speaker C:I think every student's perfectly capable of learning math at grade level, but students may need a little more time, a little more support, a little bit of remediation to get there.
Speaker C:And it's true, not just for math, but every subject, by the way.
Speaker C:And so give those students the time they need.
Speaker C:And when they see that they actually can achieve mastery, that's really powerful, right?
Speaker C:Because then they start to feel like, okay, the problem's not with me.
Speaker C:I'm not inadequate.
Speaker C:I can understand math.
Speaker C:I just need a little extra time.
Speaker C:I need a little extra support.
Speaker C:And once they have that, they can excel too.
Speaker C:And then that absent student who missed class Monday and Tuesday, they should be able to come in on Wednesday and pick up where they left off, right?
Speaker C:They should be able to start on Monday's lesson because if not, they're just going to be hopelessly lost.
Speaker C:And a nice benefit by the way of putting your instruction digitally is students can catch up outside of class too.
Speaker C:I'm not expecting that every student will.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Students may struggle with access to the Internet or they may have other things going on.
Speaker C:But that student who missed Monday and Tuesday, they can come in on Wednesday, they can start with Monday's lesson, and then maybe they can catch up at home.
Speaker C:Their parent or their guardian or their older sibling can watch the video and learn and support them.
Speaker C:So I think when students come into class, they're appropriately challenged.
Speaker C:Not only are they engaged, they feel like, I can do this right?
Speaker C:I can learn.
Speaker C:That's really empowering.
Speaker C:And I think, you know, I was doing this well before COVID Since COVID we see gaps between learners being greater.
Speaker C:We see absenteeism being more of a problem.
Speaker C:This approach that keeps every student appropriately challenged and appropriately supported every day, to me, it feels more important than ever.
Speaker C:Now.
Speaker C:I do think that teaching in this way, it's different from how a lot of teachers are trained to teach, and it's different from what is sort of expected of teachers.
Speaker C:When you think of a teacher, you think of someone standing at the front of the room and delivering content in a.
Speaker C:In an engaging way.
Speaker C:And I think we get that maybe from the movies or TV or I'm not totally sure what.
Speaker C:But, you know, they can do that in the movies.
Speaker C:In real life, it's much harder.
Speaker C:And I certainly struggled to do that, just given that the different needs of learners in my room, it was different teaching in the way I've described.
Speaker C:And a big difference is I needed to give up a lot of the control.
Speaker C:When I was trained as a teacher, I was sort of told, you run your classroom.
Speaker C:You're in control.
Speaker C:But it meant I was doing all the work and the thinking, and students were sort of passively following along.
Speaker C:A lot of the time.
Speaker C:I wanted to give the thinking back to them, put them in control, let them drive their own learning.
Speaker C:And that meant I had to step back.
Speaker C:And sometimes that was challenging because young people don't always handle freedom and autonomy perfectly well.
Speaker C:In the beginning, I had some students who were confused or fell behind or wasted time, but I just felt like that's part of the learning process too.
Speaker C:I've got to figure out good systems so it's clear to students what to do.
Speaker C:I've got to motivate them.
Speaker C:I've got to make sure they understand what to do and how and why I'm teaching in this way.
Speaker C:And so it's an adjustment process.
Speaker C:But like I say, once this adjustment had been made, I felt like I was just showing up and helping students learn.
Speaker C:And I really liked that.
Speaker C:I think the other thing I'll say is that this Approach I'm describing, it may sound like a big change.
Speaker C:It may sound like a comprehensive sort of redesign of instruction.
Speaker C:And it can be, but it takes many years to get there.
Speaker C:And I'm always telling teachers, start small.
Speaker C:You know, you don't need to transform your classroom overnight.
Speaker C:Try one lesson where you don't stand at the board but you make a video.
Speaker C:I bet you're going to like that lesson.
Speaker C:Then try another one, then try a third, Then start letting your learners go at their own paces and start checking what they understand.
Speaker C:And you can sort of build lesson by lesson, unit by unit, up to a full sort of course using the modern classroom model.
Speaker C:But I always tell teachers, you just start small.
Speaker C:And that's what happened for me too.
Speaker C:Like I say, I didn't set out to design this instructional model.
Speaker C:I was looking for solutions that worked for my students.
Speaker C:So I didn't go home every day feeling like a failure.
Speaker C:And after a couple years, I think I had found something that we now call the modern classroom model.
Speaker A:Diane thought said what was really interesting for her was when her administrator or her evaluator came into her classroom and she was doing very different things.
Speaker A:They were shocked and didn't know she had to do some training with her principals because those things that they were expecting to see on the checklist occur in very different ways.
Speaker A:And so it was really.
Speaker A:She was like, you know, she called me after the first one, she's like, okay, I'm going to have to go down and do some training with the principal.
Speaker A:Because he was just looking at me like I didn't see anything that I was, you know, that I was expected to see on my checklist when I went into your room.
Speaker A:Because that checklist is, of course, you know, we know what I think about evaluation to begin with, but then that is a very traditional look at what instruction is.
Speaker A:So, Rob, do you guys, do you, do you do training for administrators on how to recognize this amazing instructional approach?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And I think the most common complaint we hear from students, parents, administrators, is you're not teaching.
Speaker C:Because I think what they expect is the teacher to be at the board performing.
Speaker C:I always think I'm teaching more and I'm teaching better.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Because you have access to me anytime you want on screen.
Speaker C:My explanations on video are always better than my live explanations because I'm not interrupted by a late arriving student or behavior challenge or anything.
Speaker C:They're concise, they're focused.
Speaker C:And in class, you have full access to me to help answer your questions.
Speaker C:You know, whenever you, whenever you need.
Speaker C:And I know my students much better too.
Speaker C:But yeah, there is sort of that traditional image of teaching and I guess it's enshrined in rubric sometimes that the teacher needs to be directing the room.
Speaker C:But like I say, it's the students who need to be doing the learning and the work.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I would tell my students, I already know this, like your job is to learn it and I'm here to help you and I'm building the conditions for you to do that.
Speaker C:So it is sort of a shift.
Speaker C:But I think once people understand it like, that is really, in my experience, what administrators and students and parents want.
Speaker C:They want classrooms where students are challenged and engaged.
Speaker C:It just looks a little bit different.
Speaker C:We do work with administrators.
Speaker C:We have courses for administrators.
Speaker C:And when we partner with the school or district, we like to go with administrators and walk through classrooms with our own sort of rubric.
Speaker C:It's not an evaluative rubric.
Speaker C:We call it an implementation and growth rubric because the idea is to see what's being implemented and where's the opportunity for growth.
Speaker C:It's not for, you know, evaluation.
Speaker C:And we walk through and we say, okay, like, yes, what we're actually, what we're really looking for here is what are the students doing, how are the students learning and how is the teacher providing support?
Speaker C:And we're trying to explain that.
Speaker C:Here's the rationale for this approach and here's what you can see to know that this is really working.
Speaker C:Here's what you can see to make sure that the teacher's using their time well and the students are really challenged and supported.
Speaker C:I always tell people that what modern classrooms really help teachers do is replace that portion of the lecture or of the lesson that is a lecture or that is teachers explaining content directly to students.
Speaker C:That's all I think that is really ineffective when done whole class.
Speaker C:And a video is a much better way of doing it.
Speaker C:But if you want to have a whole class discussion, if you're a science teacher and you want to do a lab as a whole class, absolutely, you should do that.
Speaker C:Like any kind of activity that works, that works best with the whole class together or in an interactive way should continue to be done in that way.
Speaker C:It's just the portion of learning that is sort of teacher explains students apply, that is I think best done at students own paces in a way that ensures that they reach mastery.
Speaker C:So, you know, teachers do this in different ways.
Speaker C:Every modern classroom looks different in general, I think, you know, your default as a modern classroom teacher Is students come into class, you usually do some kind of whole class opening activity, a warmup problem, community builder announcements, just something like that.
Speaker C:That's a nice way to build community.
Speaker C:Then students are released to a self paced work time in which students pick up where they left off and keep working.
Speaker C:During that time.
Speaker C:Students often are working together on things, right?
Speaker C:They watch the video, they close the computer, they get to work on some applied practice or reading or activity.
Speaker C:And you know, students can find classmates who are in the same place as them and work together.
Speaker C:They can find classmates who are ahead and ask for help.
Speaker C:And the teacher is providing one on one support and perhaps pulling small groups to do small group instruction or mini lessons.
Speaker C:I describe it kind of like a college library.
Speaker C:If you walk into a college library, you'll see some students working independently, you'll see other students at tables studying together.
Speaker C:And you know, you might, there might be a room off the library where the teacher is giving some kind of review session.
Speaker C:And that's how the modern classroom would look during a self paced working time.
Speaker C:And then at the end of class, there's often some kind of closing.
Speaker C:It might be, you know, it might be announcements, it might be reflection, it might be celebration of students who made progress.
Speaker C:And that's sort of the default day.
Speaker C:But we encourage teachers, if you want to do a whole class discussion, great.
Speaker C:Just tell your students on Wednesday of this week, we're not going to do a modern classroom lesson.
Speaker C:We're not going to use computers.
Speaker C:We're going to have a whole class discussion.
Speaker C:Here's what you can do to be really prepared for that discussion to get the most out of it.
Speaker C:Take Monday and Tuesday at your own pace to prepare and then Wednesday we'll do the whole class lesson.
Speaker C:And I think that works really well for teachers and teachers should do that.
Speaker C:It's really just taking the, the parts of instruction that are, you know, teacher, explain, student, apply, all at the same pace.
Speaker C:We're replacing that with a self paced sort of student driven experience where students advance based on mastery.
Speaker B:It's essentially this humanizing approach to education, right?
Speaker B:So looking at the needs of the students, really, you have to understand them as human beings and so to be able to make these decisions as the teacher within this space.
Speaker B:All of those pieces, you know, when we talk about the tenets of community, those are just really lifting up in everything that you're describing because it's a humanizing approach to education.
Speaker B:That's what I'm hearing.
Speaker C:Shout out, Rob, I'm, I'm glad you're hearing that.
Speaker C:I think sometimes people think of modern classroom.
Speaker C:They think of technology, they think of students on screens.
Speaker C:They think of personalized learning, which often feels really impersonal, feels like everyone at their own silo doing their own thing.
Speaker C:And that's not at all what we try to do at Modern Classrooms Project.
Speaker C:We want students to watch short videos, close the screens, and work together with their classmates or with their peers so that they can interact, they can learn from one another, they can feel connected.
Speaker C:Because that's, I think, ultimately what.
Speaker C:What learning is about.
Speaker C:I think if you.
Speaker C:When I was teaching and I was standing at the front of the room before I had videos, like, I guess there was human interaction.
Speaker C:It wasn't very high quality.
Speaker C:I was kind of like policing behavior and hoping students would listen, and they were spending their time being asked to sit quietly and listen.
Speaker C:There wasn't a lot of interaction.
Speaker C:Once.
Speaker C:I use technology in a pretty narrow and specific way, all of a sudden I'm spending my time just like the teacher you're working with, Grant.
Speaker C:I'm working closely with my students.
Speaker C:They're free to work with one another.
Speaker C:It's actually much more human, and we spend much more time engaged, face to face than we did when everyone was trying to watch me teach.
Speaker C:And so, yeah, I think that that human element's essential to modern classrooms, and it's the whole reason we send kids to school, right?
Speaker C:Otherwise, we just let kids sit on their computers at home and learn.
Speaker C:That approach doesn't work.
Speaker C:We shouldn't try to replicate it in school.
Speaker C:We should make school places where students and teachers interact closely.
Speaker C:And I'm a parent as well.
Speaker C:That's what I want for my kids.
Speaker C:I want them to go to school and work closely with their teachers and get to know their friends.
Speaker C:And I think the modern classroom approach creates classrooms where that is not just aspirational.
Speaker C:It's sort of the daily reality we have to recognize.
Speaker C:Every young person comes to school wanting to learn, wanting to be successful, and we just need to create classrooms where that's possible, where the student who needs a little more time has it, where the student who's ready for a challenge gets it, where the student who was absent can be engaged because they're not totally lost.
Speaker C:And it's not surprising to me that when we create those classrooms, students push each other and challenge each other and achieve amazing things.
Speaker C:It's what they want to do, and it's what they're capable of.
Speaker C:We just need to create the conditions for it.
Speaker A:One of the things that I hear when we talk about powerful student care with teachers is that they don't understand.
Speaker A:They try to envision creating those human connections with students in the.
Speaker A:In the traditional structure that they understand instruction and pedagogy to be.
Speaker A:And they struggle with thinking about how to do all of that that we talk about in terms of powerful student care and teach and make their pacing guide come to light with traditional pedagogical methods.
Speaker A:What I find and have found so incredibly beautiful with what you have done with the Modern Classrooms Project is that you have skillfully blended the two together.
Speaker A:That you have recognized many years ago that we cannot build relationships with students while we're standing at the board delivering the instruction that we believe is the only way that we can deliver it.
Speaker A:And you've empowered educators to really rethink how we do this work, to create human spaces for children to excel both academically, socially, and emotionally.
Speaker A:And I have been a fan.
Speaker A:You didn't know me before, but I have been a fan of what you have been doing with the Modern Classroom Project.
Speaker A:And I'm so thankful that you came to share your expertise and your journey with us here at the wheelhouse.
Speaker C:Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker C:And really powerful student care is what it's all about.
Speaker C:At the end of the day, we send our kids to school because we want them to learn and grow.
Speaker C:And our classrooms need to be spaces where that kind of learning and growth is possible and where teachers can take care of students and students can take care of one another.
Speaker C:I think, as I hope I've communicated, that's really hard to do in a whole class way because it's just hard to show that you care.
Speaker C:It's hard to establish relationships with 20 people at once.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:When we have relationships in our own lives, they are one on one, or they're with our close family or small groups of friends.
Speaker C:That's how relationships are formed.
Speaker C:And so how do we make that happen in the classroom?
Speaker C:We need a different framework for doing it.
Speaker C:And a framework is fine.
Speaker C:A framework sounds nice.
Speaker C:What we actually need are practices teachers can use tomorrow to build this kind of classroom.
Speaker C:And that's what Modern Classrooms Project tries to do.
Speaker C:It says if you want to have a classroom where you can provide powerful student care, where you can sit down with your learners, it's not just talk and ideas.
Speaker C:These are practices you can use.
Speaker C:And I know those are practices that you all embody and share in your own work too.
Speaker C:Like, you know, try this, Try.
Speaker C:Try making a video.
Speaker C:Try letting your students advance based on mastery.
Speaker C:Try seeding your students based on progress strategies you can use to really make, you know, really create a classroom where powerful student care is possible.
Speaker A:And that, my friends, is a wrap of episode 5 in this season of the Wheelhouse.
Speaker A:A special thank you to Rob Barnett, co Founder and Chief Product Officer for the Modern Classrooms Project, for joining us today in this episode.
Speaker A:Are you a like minded educator who's committed to promoting hope?
Speaker A:Subscribe to our All New Wheelhouse newsletter that you can find@thewheelhouse.substack.com Take a look at the newsletter and post some of your thinking about around these questions.
Speaker A:How does your vision of teaching align to Rob's?
Speaker A:How can we stop feeling the need to perform and interact with our students human to human?
Speaker A:What does it feel like when students are ready to engage in content they're actually prepared to learn?
Speaker A:And how can we here at the Wheelhouse help you reach these aspirational leaps and jumps?
Speaker A:We really want to hear from you and we hope you'll subscribe to our All New Wheelhouse newsletter.
Speaker A:The Wheelhouse is a production of Students Matter.
Speaker A:New episodes of season nine will drop every Tuesday beginning February 25th and continuing through April 29th.
Speaker A:Our show's theme music, Off We Go, was written and performed by Cody Martin and obtained through soundstripe.com.
Speaker A:you can find me on LinkedIn or Bluesky.
Speaker A:And of course stop by our website and check out what we offer at www.ourstudentsmatter.org.
Speaker A:you can subscribe to this podcast on either itunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts you know together.
Speaker A:Our goal is to prove to each student and to each teacher that they are both distinctive and and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:Until next time.
Speaker A:Remember, we got this.
