It can be challenging for schools to consistently keep families abreast of new information, and make room for them to ask questions and share concerns. The Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy (KAPPA) faced this challenge. The pressures of remote instruction prompted them to repurpose their town hall – which they had previously used for ceremonies and special events – to increase parent-school communication. This adaptation helped sustain learning for its 375 students through remote instruction, and facilitated their transition back to in-person learning for the 2021-2022 school year. KAPPA has not only maintained changes to town hall, but has continued expanding opportunities for families and the school to communicate, recognizing this bond as beneficial for students in years to come. 

 

 

Additionally, Crew provides space and time for students to progress monitor and set academic goals for themselves.  According to New Visions coach Jon Green, since March 2020, KAPPA has automated letters sent to students’ homes that identify missing or low-scoring assignments bringing down students’ GPAs. Crew then hosts student-led activities that invite students to examine their course averages, pinpoint the weighted assignments that are resulting in low grades, and then create plans to address them. In this way, Crew’s curriculum is responsive to both students’ social-emotional and academic needs, drawing from Town Halls and other systems and structures to shape lessons.

To provide consistent support for Crew and ensure it is responsive, Fierman created another position – Dean of Culture – which has opened more lines of communication with parents and students in order to make the most of Crew time. Additionally, Fierman has brought in a parent coordinator who regularly sends email updates to parents, a newsletter throughout the school, and provides virtual workshops to help families support students through their academics at home. 

Alongside these new changes, KAPPA continues holding town halls twice per month, supporting an open-channel approach to parent-school relationships that continues to support positive relationships and greater student engagement.

In response to a pattern of decreasing student achievement, the New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science IV (AMS IV) launched their first advisory program in fall 2021, and developed student-led conferences. This approach helped students not only reflect on their academic journeys, but develop the skills to explain their choices and articulate future plans with and to the adults in school and at home.

During the summer of 2021, AMS IV conducted their annual review of the rises and falls in students’ GPAs and attendance from the past school year, and set a goal to improve both. Assistant Principal Lendonna Thomas knew reaching this goal could only be possible if students recognized their agency over their learning journey and built the skills necessary to reflect and plan towards growth. To increase student ownership, AMS IV therefore developed an advisory approach that included several key aspects: a focus on preparing students for student-led conferences and collaborative planning by teachers.

Launched for the first time in fall 2021, advisory at AMS IV seeks to ensure that every student at each grade level has a relationship with a trusted adult at school who knows and supports them toward their goals. Consequently, each teacher at AMS IV serves as an advisor for 10 to 12 students in their grade level. Students receive a weekly email reminding them of their current grades, and during advisory, students create an action plan to improve those grades. This action plan includes setting SMART goals, or goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. The plan also includes self-advocacy steps toward reaching those goals, like asking specific teachers for help during set times, or requesting extended time.

Additionally, advisors check-in with individual students informally throughout the week to make sure they are completing work on time, attending classes, and studying. Advisors are also tasked with supporting students socially and emotionally, and so make sure to address any non-academic needs or concerns students may have during these informal check-ins. They then document what they learn from check-ins on a shared Google doc.

Although advisory was originally planned to include two group meetings a week — one focusing on academics and college-readiness, and one on social-emotional learning — teachers soon found they needed more time to communicate with families, attend to administrative duties, and meet with students one-on-one. In response, they switched to meeting once a week, maintaining the academic goal-setting routines with students but with a concerted focus on helping students prepare for a newly launched initiative: student-led conferences.

For many schools, family-teacher conferences with students are a time when teachers update families on students’ academic progress and classroom behavior, and present a plan for the next steps students should take to reach learning goals. But for the educators at AMS IV,  it was important for students rather than teachers to take the lead during conferences so that they were more deeply meaningful for students. Doing so engages students in deep reflection about the way they learn and think, and pushes them to identify and recognize their individual strengths, strategies, and areas of growth. Leading their own conference fosters ownership over their learning journey, and presents the opportunity for them to vocalize what they need in order to reach the goals they define.

Student-led conferences (SLCs) occur two times per year at AMS IV: midway through fall and spring, advisors meet with families to review students’ progress reports. Then, at the end of each semester, during an SLC, students present their academic work in a slideshow to their advisor and family, answer questions, and explain their thinking and learning. To ensure all students follow a similar SLC structure, Thomas developed a curricular arc for all advisors to follow and adapt, including a conference slides template for students, resources and references, and a script scaffold to get students started. Thomas makes it clear, however, that “everyone has their own way of designing”, and that advisors should encourage students to personalize their presentations and fold in language that revolves around self-advocacy and reflection. To this end, the student script includes space for them to not only establish SMART goals, but also discuss their mental health, a conversation Thomas says must be dovetailed with those around academics. Because SLCs include such detailed points about students’ thinking, academics, and goals, and are meant to engage in adult conversations about their lives, Thomas notes that students spend roughly one to two months preparing and practicing in advisory.

During the first round of SLCs at the end of the fall 2021 semester, which were virtual, Thomas noticed that many students found themselves engaged in difficult conversations with their families. For example, some students and caregivers had different expectations for a student’s academic progress, and the SLC was the first time these differences surfaced. Students who were not prepared to talk through these differences struggled to complete the conversation.

Recognizing that SLCs are so personal and vulnerable, Thomas wanted to make sure that students moving forward not only composed a thorough slide deck and practiced academic speaking points, but were prepared to face any challenging conversations that may arise in response. Developing conflict-resolution skills in a safe and supportive environment would prepare students to face future tensions in the world once they leave high school.

To prepare students for potential tensions during SLC, Thomas reflected on the notes she took during the first round of SLCs, and took stock of how challenging reactions from adults – like disappointment, anger, and sadness – unfolded. She then created imaginary scenarios based on her noticings, and included them as part of the SLC curricular arc so students could practice encountering and addressing them in advisory.

“The purpose of the scenarios is to give them the opportunity to experience a situation before it happens, because when it happens on the spot, it’s hard to know what to do,” said Thomas.  

While reflecting, preparing, and practicing presentations takes a huge amount of time, AMS IV’s SLC-focused advisory has come to combine academics and SEL in a meaningful way thanks to the ongoing collaboration between teachers. Bi-weekly, grade-level meetings are a time when, as Thomas says, teachers “elevate our concerns about students”, and look for trends that could inform upcoming advisory lessons. During these meetings, teachers discuss individual students, drawing from several points of information: 1) the Google Doc, where teachers post short summaries about their check-ins; 2) a grade-level Google Chat, where teachers share real-time noticings, updates, and questions about students, sometimes prompting another teacher to initiate an urgent conversation with an advisee; 3) weekly email updates about which of their advisees are passing and failing classes. Teachers then identify next steps for individual students, whether it is more check-ins or specific scaffolds for their SLC. Students who are consistently failing a class, for example, are required to attend study hall, but may also receive other, personalized support depending on their situation.

Teachers also discuss critical trends across advisory groups, which inform the advisory lessons created and disseminated by two advisory teachers at each grade level. And, importantly, these meetings shape the way individual teachers respond to and support individual students, greatly impacting not only their academic relationships, but their interpersonal relationships too. For Thomas, while advisory requires so much of her and her team’s consideration and attention, the hard work is well worth the pride she says students now take in their learning and growth.

“Students have started advocating on their own about their work,” said Thomas. 

Thomas looks forward to continuing SLCs, with the hope that student-led practices will expand to other areas of AMS IV as well.

When Wadleigh Secondary School faced the threat of closure, its families and students called for change. In response, in 2018, led by new principal Kyleema Norman, Wadleigh took up a Pedagogy of Love, an approach to teaching and learning that aims to build students’ self confidence, ownership, and love. Wadleigh has manifested a Pedagogy of Love through structures that support student-teacher relationships, most notably the Post Secondary Team (PST). As a result of the trust built between students and teachers through PST, Wadleigh launched a unit that not only reflects high academic and artistic expectations, but celebrates Black and Latinx achievement.

When reflecting on Wadleigh’s threat of closure in 2018, Kyleema Norman notes that in order for Black and Latinx children like those served at Wadleigh to succeed, a school must reflect them in the material, hold them to high expectations, and above all show them consistent love. Building on pedagogues like Paolo Freire and bell hooks who describe love as a choice we make to challenge harm and pain, Norman and Wadleigh developed a pedagogy of love that 1) responds to the lived experiences of Black and Latinx students, 2) centers Black and Latinx achievements, including those of students, and 3) holds Black and Latinx students to high artistic and academic expectations.

To manifest this pedagogy requires trusting relationships between students and teachers. Therefore, during the 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 school years, Wadleigh made a series of changes that began with critical conversations among teachers, and included the development of initiatives that both provided new support services for students and strengthened student-teacher relationships. These changes eventually made possible what Norman calls Unit 0: Black Lives Matter. Emerging in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Unit 0 led students to closely examine existing curricula, and demand that more Black and Latinx lives, accomplishment, joy, and history be represented and valued in their curriculum.

In the 2018-2019 school year, Norman guided teachers through critical reflections with one another about racism, deficit mindsets, and implicit bias. She initiated “courageous conversations'' during staff meetings. Informed by Glenn Singleton’s Courageous Conversations About Race and Gholdy Muhammad’s Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy, teachers reflected on their approach to teaching Wadleigh students, and the assumptions they held. This led faculty to share and discuss strategies for centering student inquiry and assets, and laid the foundation for them to develop initiatives that reflect a Pedagogy of Love.

In the 2019-2020 school year, Wadleigh began working with The Ascenders, a service started by one of Wadleigh’s families to help seniors complete college applications and Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) documents. The Ascenders also support students academically through college. This service was critical in holding students to high academic expectations while working with students’ lived experiences, as the Pedagogy of Love contends.

Then, during the 2020-2021 school year, Wadleigh created an Advisory course, led by the guidance counselor, which helps freshmen orient themselves to high school and college readiness, learn to read their transcripts, and use progress reports to set academic goals. Simultaneously, Wadleigh launched a course called I Have a Purpose for students in grades 9 and 10, led by author Carmen Ashe. Ashe, who published the memoir I Have a Purpose, provides space for students to share and discuss their lived experiences as Black and Latinx youth, work through problems and challenges, and imagine a future past high school. Together, Advisory and I Have a Purpose actualized some of the foundational tenets conceptualized by Norman’s Pedagogy of Love. However, it was Wadleigh’s creation of a Post-Secondary Team during the 2020-2021 school year that manifested all three aspects of a Pedagogy of Love: responding to Black and Latinx students’ experiences, centering their achievements, and holding them to high artistic and academic expectations.

Recognizing the need to center students’ assets and identities, and more deeply understand the challenges they face, Wadleigh developed a Post-Secondary Team (PST) in collaboration with New Visions College Readiness Network for School Improvement. Made up of volunteer teacher mentors from various grades, the PST is meant to provide ninth graders with consistent adult contact, positioning teachers to learn about and respond to students’ lives in order to help them feel more comfortable and capable at school. Teachers Judy Olsen and Theadora Lecour, and teacher/Assistant Principal Dulyne Desmangles, noted that PST, more than any other structure has, for them, helped make tangible a Pedagogy of Love.

Following a fall welcome celebration, a social-emotional survey, and a check-in with their groups, PST mentors review mentees’ attendance records and grades, and hold an initial meeting to identify students who may need extra adult support. For the rest of the year, PST mentors regularly check in with mentees (and sometimes students who are not their mentees) during breaks, lunch, after school, and downtime in their classes, and log check-ins on a shared Google doc. They then meet on Tuesdays to review students’ grades, attendance, and check-ins, and on Thursdays to develop goals, and strategize responses to individual student situations.

Lecour notes that one-on-one check-ins have revealed many unique and oftentimes adult responsibilities students have outside of school, ranging from caring for siblings to living independently, all of which she says is “no less important than their school life.” Olsen similarly points out that, had it not been for PST, she would never have known these critical facets of students’ lives.

Desmangles also stresses the importance of creating a space where students feel comfortable advocating for support in the classroom as well.

But PST does not just focus on addressing students’ challenges: they also celebrate their successes. PST mentors review report cards with students individually through a guided reflection, then celebrate students’ meeting their Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (S.M.A.R.T) goals publicly during ninth grade community meetings, and pin accomplishments to a bulletin board. Ultimately, PST has led to stronger student-teacher relationships through a pedagogy of love, ensuring that Wadleigh students recognize their own genius, as well as Black and Latinx genius, writ large.

In May of 2020 George Floyd was murdered, galvanzing protests against racial injustice across the country. In response, Wadleigh’s teachers and students, working from a foundation of trust and solidarity developed through various structures and particularly through PST, engaged with what they call Unit 0: Black Lives Matter. Norman and the educators at Wadleigh built a one-week curriculum for all students to engage with across all subjects, and implemented it in fall 2021. The curriculum prompts students to ask critical questions of their subject curriculum like, Where is the Black and Latinx literature, art, innovation, and success? and Who are Black scientists and mathematicians? In History and English, teachers use the Courageous Conversation model to analyze with students how and why certain terminology, language, and history is omitted within the History and English curricula, and how this perpetuates anti-Black racism.

In its first year, Unit 0 culminated with students writing letters to the New York Board of Regents documenting their findings and analyses, and demanding that change be made to more completely represent the history, knowledge, and accomplishments of Black and Latinx people. Wadleigh educators then selected 10 letters to officially send. As a result, when the New York Board of Regents initiated an Equity and Diversity Plan, they cited the voices of Wadleigh's students. Looking forward, Wadleigh educators plan to launch the Unit at the start of both the Fall and then Spring semester so that students can continue to analyze and act upon documents that impact their education, and their lives.

As Norman observed in 2018, equitable education cannot happen without the enactment of love. As a result of new structures that support students’ academically and social-emotionally, and strengthen student-teacher relationships, Desmangles, Olsen, and Lecour note that they see “more smiles” and greater confidence in students. Reflecting on a group of students who asked to take over planning, organizing, and leading their ninth grade celebration, Desmangles hopes that Wadleigh’s students continue to take the lead in their learning.

Wadleigh now celebrates over 63% of its student population hitting an 80% or higher GPA, a marked increase since their threat of closure in 2018. Although Norman left Wadleigh in June 2021, she is confident that the educators and the students they serve will only continue to flourish through a pedagogy of love.

• How’s your heart? How’s your brain?
• On a scale of llama, how are you?
• Where are you on this emotions chart?

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona today recognized 297 schools as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2022. The recognition is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups. Secretary Cardona made the announcement during his Road to Success Back to School bus tour.

New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math & Science II (AMS II), located in the South Bronx, is honored as an “Exemplary High-Performing School” among New York State’s highest performing schools, as measured by state assessments or nationally normed tests. AMS II is one of just nine high schools in New York State, and the only public high school in New York City, honored this year.

“I applaud all the honorees for the 2022 National Blue Ribbon Schools Award for creating vibrant, welcoming, and affirming school communities where students can learn, grow, reach their potential, and achieve their dreams,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “As our country continues to recover from the pandemic, we know that our future will only be as strong as the education we provide to all of our children. Blue Ribbon Schools have gone above and beyond to keep students healthy and safe while meeting their academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs. These schools show what is possible to make an enduring, positive difference in students’ lives.”

The National Blue Ribbon School award affirms and validates the hard work of students, educators, families, and communities in striving for – and attaining – exemplary achievement. National Blue Ribbon Schools serve as models of effective school practices for state and district educators and other schools throughout the nation.

“We are excited and honored to be named a 2022 National Blue Ribbon School,” said Principal Sandy Manessis of Advanced Math & Science II. “AMS II takes the time to get to know each of our students and provides them with an incredible amount of care while setting and maintaining high expectations. From the moment our students walk through the door, they are welcomed by numerous staff members, seen as individuals, and supported by dedicated grade level teams that promote their personal, academic, and socio-emotional growth.”

AMS II serves more than 500 students in grades 9-12. In June 2022, AMS II graduated 98.6 percent of its students, and has graduated more than 93 percent of its students every year since its first graduating class, making it among the highest-achieving public high schools in New York City. Students have extensive college and career preparation opportunities through Advanced Placement classes, College Now courses, and partnerships with organizations like Per Scholas and First Workings that provide students with work-based learning experiences.

“AMS II has worked tirelessly to ensure that each student has the opportunity and support necessary to succeed. In the midst of an exceptionally difficult period of time for public schools and the students they serve, the recognition as a National Blue Ribbon School validates the hard work and commitment of the students, staff, and community of AMS II,” said Edgar Rodriguez, superintendent of New Visions Charter High Schools.

“New Visions is so proud to support the students, staff, and community of AMS II, and pleased that the school is receiving this well-deserved honor. We learn from AMS II in New Visions’ work as a school support organization, and we are glad this recognition highlights the school as one others can learn from as well,” said New Visions President Mark Dunetz.

For more information about AMS II, please visit: https://www.newvisions.org/ams2

The Alliance for Excellent Education recently hosted a webinar on "Scaling and Sustaining Positive Effects of the New York Small High Schools Initiative." The webinar discussed the findings of an ongoing study, done by policy research firm MDRC, that found that small high schools of choice helped narrow the achievement gap, increased graduation rates and improved college readiness for students in New York City.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Open Society Institute, the "New Century High Schools" initiative created more than 100 small, public high schools of choice, more than half of which were created by New Visions and its partners. Appearing on the panel were Gordon Berlin of MDRC; Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University; Bob Hughes of New Visions; Adam Tucker of the Gates Foundation; and James Shelton III of the US Department of Education.

On the success of New Visions' involvement in the initiative, Mr. Hughes commented: "New Visions was able to bring a set of social relations with a wide array of different community groups to the table. Those partnerships enabled us to really move very quickly to scale the initiative. We started with 10 schools our first year, and by the fourth year, we had 45 schools up and running in the Bronx alone. At the end of the day, it wasn't just about 'small,' it was about a set of resources that changed the relationship of teacher and student to the curriculum and the community in which they operated."

Addressing the purposeful investments in intermediary organizations, Mr. Tucker remarked: "In order to move the needle on graduation rates, it was part of our belief, part of our experience, part of our theory of action, that what New York City needed was outside capacity to help change the system...the way to help that system move forward was to invest in organizations like New Visions."

Many times, financial aid packages offered by colleges and universities do not cover the full cost of attendance.  Too often, those gaps function as deterrents for students.  For the last six years, New Visions has awarded an exceptional set of high school seniors from New York City with scholarships to help offset the cost of attending the college of their choice.  This year, we are proud to present 10 outstanding students with New Visions scholarships of up to $20,000.  Today, meet…

Abdullah Nabeen
High School of Telecommunication Art and Technology, 2015
Skidmore College, 2019

"My passion for computer science took me from a small village in Bangladesh to New York City and I have done everything I can to pave the way toward a career in computer science. The next step: a college degree that will help me turn my passion into a career.”

Before Abdullah Nabeen moved to the United States from Bangladesh, he used to think that ”computers were just a bunch of wires and buttons,” but because of his parents’ steadfast devotion to providing the best educational opportunities for him, they moved him to the U.S. at the age of seven. Today, Abdullah has plans to impact the world through computer programming.

During the eighth grade, his curiosity about computers led him to participate in a weekend computer programming course at his local library, where he became fascinated by the idea of using computers to solve problems. Today, outside of excelling in science and math classes at his high school, locally known as “Telly,” and tutoring young people on the weekend with Minds Matter, Abdullah spends his free time fixing computers at his cousin’s electronic store to continue sharpening his computer programming skills.

A stellar academic student, Abdullah will be attending Skidmore college next year. He plans to  major in computer science and hopes to one day create an “intelligent” car that is smart enough to prevent accidents.

Treasure Goddard
Academy for Careers in Television and Film, 2015
Spelman College, 2019

“During these coming mind-opening, socially engaging and intellectually exciting years of my life, I hope to create as much as I can.”

Throughout her life, Treasure’s creativity has always opened doors for her. In the midst of a sometimes tumultuous upbringing taking care of her five younger siblings, Treasure found the joy of self-expression through the YouTube channel she created while in middle school — a place where she knew “someone, somewhere in the world was listening.” Treasure used her channel to share with the world her experimentation with film editing software, mastering her camera and learning the power of her own voice.

Her next four years at the Academy for Careers in Television and Film catapulted Treasure deeper into her love for film production and provided an opportunity for her to participate in a highly selective program, NYC Generation Tech, a program that opened up a whole new world.

“Through Gen-Tech I had discovered my true passion; technology-entrepreneurship. Not only was I able to take my speaking skills to a professional level, but I was also still able to create my own works.” In Gen-Tech, Treasure founded Orgster, a mobile application useful for helping students get homework done in transit without the need for papers and heavy books. She also went on to participate in Girls Who Code, and intern at Learning Curve, an organization for teen entrepreneurship.

Treasure is hopeful and excited about the creative opportunities that will arise for her as she enters the next phase of her life as a freshman at Spelman College this fall.

Many times, financial aid packages offered by colleges and universities do not cover the full cost of attendance.  Too often, those gaps function as deterrents for students.  For the last six years, New Visions has awarded an exceptional set of high school seniors from New York City with scholarships to help offset the cost of attending the college of their choice.  This year, we are proud to present 10 outstanding students with New Visions scholarships of up to $20,000.  Today, in our last installment of "Meet the 2015 New Visions Scholarship Winners," here is Chuppa Cross and Tasnim Mollah.

Chuppa Cross
Millennium High School, 2015
Stony Brook University, 2019

“Being able to work on the design of space-faring technology is a career interest I have developed from my initial curiosity about space.”

Since he was a little boy, Chuppa has always had an interest in aerospace. “Ever since I was young, the heavens have always fascinated me,” he said. Today, he has turned his interest in aerospace into a career path, which he hopes to pursue, starting in college this fall. 

As a student at Millennium High School, Chuppa has prided himself in being able to help his peers in various academic subjects, particularly math and physics.

“Here at Millennium, I’ve had the great opportunity to explore more advanced math and it has confirmed that math is definitely something I want to be able to study in college.”

As he enters Stony Brook University this year, Chuppa hopes to use his passion for math and physics to create technology that will help to give us a better idea of the “mystery of space.” 

Tasnim Mollah
Hillcrest High School, 2015
Yale University, 2019

“As I continue to pursue success, I aspire to eradicate gender discrimination present in traditional societies. I hope to represent my identity as a Bangladeshi woman who, one day, contributes to society.”

Tasnim Mollah has big dreams for changing the world after she graduates from college, and the past four years of her life have proven that she can and will succeed at anything she puts her mind to.

Tasnim moved to the US from Bangladesh two years ago and worked through depression and separation from her family to succeed academically. “ I realized that I had to give my best efforts in surfacing from the culture shock and overcoming my obstacles,” she said. “Even if the despondency forced me to curl up in a ball, I fought against it and channeled all of my energy into shining in my classes."

Tasnim successfully maintained a 101.5 GPA while working to support her family and actively participating in extracurricular activities including the math club, badminton club, Young Women’s Leadership program and Amref Health Africa.

As a result of her outstanding dedication to her academics, Tasnim has been accepted to Yale University on a full academic scholarship, through Questbridge. She plans to pursue medical sciences at Yale towards her dream of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Jeremey Wilder is a science teacher at Grand Haven High School in Michigan that has a student population of approximately 2,000 students. Starting next year in grades 5-12, all students and teachers will use Chomebooks and GAFE tools at his school.

Jeremey was an early adopter of these tools, and last year used New Visions CloudLab developed tools, Doctopus and Goobric, to manage class journals for his AP Environmental Science and 10th grade Biology classes. Below you will find a Q&A with Jeremey on how he is leveraging these tools to make his classroom management more efficient:

Q: How have you traditionally approached student writing in your courses? What did you find most challenging about managing the process?

In most of my classes, writing assignments were limited to short answer responses on tests and a longer writing assignment per unit. Returning writing assignments promptly and providing quality written feedback prevented me from assigning writing assignments more frequently. I question the value of assigning student work for which I cannot provide feedback in a timely manner. 

Q: What most appealed to you about Doctopus and Goobric when you first heard about them?

I was selected to pilot 1:1 student computers in 2013 following a successful district bond campaign. I attended a Michigan Google Apps for Education conference to prepare for the pilot. At the conference, participants mentioned a file sharing and assessment tool, Doctopus, that streamlined the digital management of student work. I viewed YouTube video tutorials, researched how to access the Doctopus script, and tried it out with some of my classes. I’ve continued to use Doctopus as it has evolved with the GAFE platform. Having spent the past year as a technology coach in my building, I’m convinced that the file management and assessment tools that Doctopus and Goobric provide can create truly paperless classrooms that are functional for teachers. Nearly all student work that I assess is hyperlinked, placed directly in or otherwise connected to the Google Docs and Sheets managed by Doctopus and Google Classroom. 

Q: What lessons have you learned from using these tools to manage student writing in your classes? How have students reacted to them?

In the past, I was as much worried about my students’ willingness to write as I was about my ability to grade and assess work and provide quality feedback in a timely fashion. Student acceptance for writing typically is very low, yet I have experienced almost zero resistance using these tools. By encouraging comments about depth of thought or insightful ideas directly in student documents, some students that were reluctant to share verbally in class became regular contributors to class discussions. I use the GAFE tools and Doctopus to access work and track student engagement, view progress in real-time, and determine which students need more attention during particular lessons.

Q: You recently tweeted (see below) that you attribute your students' improved AP Environmental Science scores to these tools. What kinds of gains did you see? In your view, how did these tools help your students improve their writing?

Since adopting GAFE tools in my classroom, the changes in my students’ free response AP scores have been significant. Previously, the proportion of my students scoring in the top quartile was 39%; however, after using GAFE, Doctopus and Goobric for the entire 2014-2015 school year, 63% of my students scored in the top quartile, while for the first time, none scored in the bottom quartile. Writing on a daily basis allowed my students to approach the written section of the AP test with confidence. Continual written feedback, both from myself and their peers, allowed students to hone their writing skill and concisely explain their understanding of complex topics and questions. 

Q: How have Goobric and and Doctopus made you a more efficient teacher?

Using GAFE tools to review written assignments makes the process of providing feedback achievable in small increments of time. Now, I am far more likely to ask students to write about a topic in their journals than I ever did before. I also like the fact that I can control the share settings on their work. I now have the ability to adjust the share settings during an assignment so students can have periods of independent work followed by peer review and class level sharing.

Q: What would you say to a teacher who is thinking about using Doctopus and Goobric in her classroom (particularly a teacher who is less experienced with GAFE tools)?

I’m very excited about the newest iteration of Doctopus that allows it to interface with Google Classroom. Just this week I was training a colleague and explained how simple using Doctopus is now by just ingesting student work directly from Google Classroom. The video tutorials and Google+ community users have enabled myself and other teachers in my district to efficiently access and integrate the tools created by the CloudLab team. The ability to drastically increase the amount of writing that I assign and assess it with quality feedback tools like comments and integrated Goobrics justifies the initial learning curve, and I would recommend all teachers try out these tools.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

I constantly evaluate technology tools that might be useful for interacting with my students, and I try many of them out. Only a select few make it past the initial trial period due to the effort and time involved versus the impact on student outcomes. Doctopus and Goobric are tools that I strongly recommend because they increase the effectiveness of classroom management. The CloudLab tools are responsive to educators’ needs and feedback. I want to personally thank the CloudLab team for their work and commitment to students and teachers. 

Joe Schmidt is retired analyst/programmer, who spends his free time helping people more effectively leverage online tools to improve their job performance.  His primary focus is collaborating with those in education and the nonprofit sector.

Below you will find a Q&A with Joe on how he is supporting educators with their use of Google Apps Scripts and Add-ons:

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I started my Information Technology journey in the mid sixties working with IBM cards.  I was promoted to analyst/programmer and used various languages on IBM mainframe computers for a major corporation.  After I retired, I missed working regularly with technology and became interested in many areas of the internet.  When Gmail came out, I was an early adopter.  As Google created more collaborative products, like Drive and Hangouts, my interest only increased.

Several years ago, I was invited to give a talk to 7th and 8th graders at a local school.  During the talk, I enjoyed telling the 7th grade about the history of computing and sharing with them an online programming language called Scratch from MIT.  For the 8th graders I talked about cloud computing using Google Drive.  I really enjoyed being on the teacher side of the classroom.  These talks were the beginning of my journey into technology in education.
 

Q: How did you first learn about Google Apps Scripts and Add-ons?  What led you to start supporting educators in their use?

Several years ago I started watching YouTube videos about Google Apps for Education. I became fascinated with how Google was being used in the classroom.  I watched many videos and Flubaroo, a Google Sheet Add-on developed by Dave Abouav, was mentioned multiple times.  I found the Flubaroo Forum and answered a couple of questions and I discovered that I could use my experience and skills to help others.  I saw this as a win-win situation.

In following the Flubaroo forum, I saw postings where folks were using Autocrat and FormMule when Flubaroo wasn’t able to meet their needs.  I just had to learn about these new scripts, and now I actively help support all three.
 

Q: Which Google Add-ons do you currently support and what does each of them do?  Can you provide a couple of examples of how teachers are currently using them?  What are some of the more interesting or unusual applications of these tools that you've seen?

To give you a sense of these tools, please see my comparison of Flubaroo, FormMule and Autocrat for grading and reporting a quiz.  Flubaroo is the easiest to use and can meet the needs of many teachers.  The teacher completes the quiz to establish the correct answers and then follows the Flubaroo menus to grade and email the results.  There is no need to understand formulas or other parts of a spreadsheet.  Flubaroo can provide instant results via a feature called Autograde.  There is also a summary sheet created to provide useful information for the teacher.

FormMule and Autocrat are mail merge scripts. The grading and reporting are managed using formulas created by the teacher who has much more control.  In the above comparison, I have some links that allow you to see samples of simple quizzes graded by each script.  I have developed some shortcuts that will allow the teacher to report the results with a minimum of <<merge tags>>.  Documenting the shortcuts is a work in progress for the comparison sheet though. 

I am amazed at the many ways FormMule and Autocrat are used.  In addition to grading quizzes, there seems to be an endless list of opportunities to use these scripts in connection with a Google Form and Spreadsheet.

As for applications, WOW! There are so many ways that I see people using FormMule and Autocrat.  If the data can be collected on a Google form it seems that there is no end to what people can do with the data.   It seems that the school administration are big users of these tools. 

I have seen quizzes used in ways I would never have imagined. While most of the questions are from those in education, I see nonprofits and businesses using the Add-ons as well.

Q: What motivates you to volunteer your time to help teachers using these Add-ons?

Realizing that my skills could help teachers and other educators, I became hooked on the Flubaroo Forum.  I then discovered that some teachers were using FormMule and Autocrat and joined those communities as well.

It is funny, but over fifty years ago when I was in school, I wasn’t the best student.  Maybe I’m trying to give back to teachers now.

I enjoy volunteering my time and talents.  The longer I’ve helped, the more I’ve learned about the scripts and how they are used.  Supporting these tools has allowed me to meet some very nice folks from around the world from the comfort of own my home.  I’m also thankful to my wife of over fifty years for letting me pursue this latest hobby.

Q: In your experience, how do you think these free tools have changed classrooms?

I certainly hope they have made the classroom more exciting for students and life easier for teachers.

I remember in grade school, when we saw the film projector setup in the room that the teacher had something special to share and hope that today’s students feel the same way when they use Google tools and add-ons. 

Providing “real-time feedback” for students seems to be popular with teachers.  Teachers can quickly assess student's knowledge of core areas and the students can receive feedback on areas they may need to improve.

Q: What advice do you have for educators who are new to Add-ons and want to try using these tools in their classrooms?

Read the documentation to gain an understanding of what the Add-on can and cannot do.  Try the Add-on in a test environment, using all of the recommended steps, to be sure it is capable of doing what you need it to before you create the Form and collect live data.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to try out new things.  Join forums and communities to become acquainted with what others are doing.  Don’t forget to read the Help or FAQ sections of the documentation.

When asking a question, be as specific as possible.  It isn’t a game of Clue where those trying to help should have to ask twenty questions.  Share the spreadsheets so others can see the problem and find a solution.  I know there are security reasons for not sharing data, but create the problem in a test file, if possible using anonymous data.

When a problem seems extra difficult, I will ask the person if we can do a Google Hangout where they can share their screen.  It is amazing how much faster we can solve the problem as a result.  I love Google because of the collaboration it allows.  A Hangout is the ultimate collaboration.

Q: What online resources do you recommend for the use of GAFE tools?

Besides joining the Flubaroo, FormMule and Autocrat forums, I would say that Google search is your friend.  Watching videos was the way for me to get started in my journey.  For sure, look at the Add-ons at New Visions CloudLab.  Check out  the Add-ons that can be found in the navigation to see what is new and what might be helpful.


Q: How do you think these tools will look in five to ten years? Any other predictions about the future of edtech?

I think that technology will continue to become more powerful and useful in the classroom.  The term bookbag will no longer be understood.  What physical books will there be in the future?  Technology will make life more exciting for both teachers and students.  As for more concrete predictions, I struggle to keep up with the present rate of change, so I wouldn't dare attempt to predict the future.

Q: How can readers get in touch with you if they have questions?

The best method of reaching me is via the forums and communities mentioned earlier.  I can also be reached at Google Plus. 

Q: Anything else that you would like our readers to know?

Don’t let technology pass you by.  Embrace technology!  Don’t be afraid of it.

I have not directly used these Add-ons in any of my projects, however, there is a small piece of of me in the many projects where I have helped others.

I probably get more enjoyment out of helping others than they realize.

Anna Spoden is the Special Education Coordinator and 10th and 11th grade ELA Special Education Teacher at New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science III (AMS III) in Brooklyn, NY. Her school has approximately 400 students in 9th-11th grade. Anna helped launch the school's literacy intervention program in the school's first year and has since expanded the program to support all grade levels. Below you will find a heart warming Q&A with Anna on how she has implemented the program and changed the lives of several of her students.

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hi, my name is Anna Spoden. I joined Teach for America and moved to New York City immediately after I graduated college in May 2013, and I was hired by AMS III in July 2013. I’ve worked as a special education coordinator, and now in my third year at the school, I am also teaching 10th and 11th grade ELA. 
 

Q: Tell us about the literacy intervention program you use.

My personal experience is with the Wilson Reading System (Wilson). Wilson is intended for students with dyslexia and students who struggle with decoding written words. Students who could benefit from Wilson are often reading below a third grade reading level and struggle with sounding out words letter-by-letter. Wilson approaches literacy from multiple modalities, allowing students to interact with the decoding process through writing, reading, sound cards, tapping, and magnetic boards. Wilson has 12 steps that take students from basic 3 letter closed-syllable words to complex, multisyllabic words. All of Wilson’s lessons are scripted, which reduces planning for teachers and allows more time to to focus on specific student needs.

Q: What types of literacy intervention do you offer your students and how are the types different?

We offer the Wilson Reading System, Just Words, and READ 180. Each of these interventions addresses different student needs. Wilson is intended for the “lowest readers” who struggle with decoding and have a lexile (comprehension) level below 780L. Just Words is more accelerated version of Wilson for students with lexile levels below 1000L; it allows students to move through the program at a quicker pace. READ 180 is geared more towards students who struggle with reading comprehension and focuses on texts that meet students’ current individual lexile levels. We offer nearly all of our 9th graders READ 180 because it is helpful in bridging the gap between a middle school reading level and a Regents reading level.
 

Q: How do you identify students who may need literacy intervention support?

At the beginning of the year, all of our students complete the Performance Series test, which identifies each student’s lexile level. Once we compile all of the scores in a spreadsheet, we identify the students with the lowest lexile levels who then take the Word Identification Spelling Test (WIST) Assessment, which helps identify if the students struggle with decoding or not. Only students who struggle with decoding are a good fit for these interventions.
 

Q: Tell us a little bit about your experience with the intervention and how you have grown as a teacher? 

The two students (let’s call them Shawn and Joe) we chose for the literacy intervention program in November 2013 were both reading at or below a first grade level. Shawn only knew the four consonants and one vowel in his name at the beginning of our intervention. These two students experienced very little success in their classes and lacked confidence overall due to their struggles with literacy. By February 2014, Shawn read his first sentence. The clear joy and relief in his demeanor after successfully reading a sentence on his own brought me to tears. I started to notice Shawn in his classes would tap out the syllables of words with his fingers and felt more confident participating in class discussions. Because I co-taught these two students’ other classes, I was immediately able to see the impact of the Wilson program in their course work.

In year two, I met with Shawn and Joe every day for an hour to work on Wilson. By December, Shawn was reading controlled paragraphs and beaming about his ability to understand the things he was reading aloud. I also taught them in ELA class and both Shawn and Joe began participating during socratic seminars, asking questions during class, and offering opinions during class discussions.

While Shawn and Joe still struggle with reading in year three, their confidence encourages them to tap out unfamiliar words and advocate for themselves when they need things read to them. As a teacher, there has been nothing more significant in my practice than the on-going growth I have seen from Shawn and Joe. Their growth is something that inspires me every day as a special education teacher to try every option possible to lead students to success. Their success is direct proof that special education interventions are successful and will change these students’ lives when the program is implemented properly.

Q: What feedback have you received from students and parents about the program?

At the end of last school year, Shawn, Joe, and I created a reflection on the year and talked about our goals for this year. Shawn said that since he moved to the United States in second grade, no one had ever sat down and asked him if he knew how to read until he met me. He was previously pushed from grade to grade without one educator attempting to work with him one-on-one to understand his struggles with decoding. Based on conversations with his mother,  Shawn’s confidence and desire to learn has not only drastically increased at school, but at home as well.

Q: What changes have you seen in your students?

Joe has passed four Regents exams in the past year with above a 55, allowing him to be eligible for a local diploma. Shawn has passed 3 Regents exams and is also on track for a local diploma. They are considered two of the hardest working students in the school. In the 2013/2014 school year, Joe was a quiet, insecure individual who would lash out against students for bullying him and struggled to focus in class. Since then, Joe has gained confidence. All of Shawn’s teachers report that his grades continue to improve as he progresses in Wilson.

Q: What advice do you have for other educators looking to implement programs like these?

It is often difficult to implement literacy intervention programs due to low staffing. Most literacy interventions only work in extremely small groups (less than 5 students), which often makes schools hesitant to use special education teachers for those times. My biggest piece of advice is that it is worth the effort and resources.

In order to have a successful intervention, you must work to ensure student groups for literacy interventions are intentional and appropriately leveled. Avoid larger groups with multiple reading levels in Just Words and Wilson sections as this can lead to students losing interest or bullying. All of the testing and prep work that goes into intervention placement is worth it.

Q: Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers?

I sometimes worry when I talk about my experience with Wilson that I may sound as if I am exaggerating the success of the program. Wilson doesn’t work if it is not done with the right students and if the script isn’t followed closely. But when you follow the steps and empower the students to understand the value of the program, it is life changing for the students.

My experience using Wilson with Joe and Shawn is one of the main reasons I am dedicated to working in education for the rest of my life. Students with disabilities often experience failure in school. It is difficult for teachers to understand their needs, which often leads to their needs not being met. Wilson is a program that can help teachers better understand and meet their students’ needs while helping build their confidence. On Shawn’s birthday last year, I asked him what the best part of this past year had been for him, and he replied that it was being in Wilson and getting better at reading. He said, “thank you,” and Joe agreed. Wilson may not be a panacea for all struggling readers, but according to Shawn and Joe, it has changed their lives forever.

To learn about open positions at New Visions, please visit our career page. 

As a child, my father would jokingly say to me, “Do as I say, not as I do.” He intuitively understood that his strategy of telling, rather than showing or modeling, wouldn’t work with me.

This common sense concept holds true in the emerging field of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as well - both with students and adults. How can we design our schools to foster social emotional competence in students without doing so with the adults? 

SEL has been defined as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.” (casel.org) The phrase “and adults” may seem out of place because school is all about student growth, right?

Social emotional learning is often thought of as something extra to be taught in social skills classes, advisory groups, or in preschool, but let’s face it, any social learning environment is full of feelings. At any given moment in the classroom, any one student (or adult) can feel the range of human feelings available.

At New Visions Charter High Schools (NVCHS) we take adult development seriously (see New Visions Promotes Learning at All Levels), and we have come to understand that when adults feel “well held” in their own growth and development, they tend to be better able to craft learning environments and model the same with students.

Our challenge, at the network level, is greater than boosting student achievement through Regents exam pass rates and other college readiness metrics. We must prepare students to navigate the world of relationships beyond high school - and we must do so indirectly, by working with adults (see "The Prosocial Classroom").

So the question emerges: How do we develop capacity among adults to foster social emotional competence in students everyday?

At NVCHS, we know immersive experiences motivate teachers to try new things (see the Living Environment Pilot and the Parent Leadership Training Institute). Each of these social learning experiences are microcosms of what occurs in other classrooms, organizations, the family, staff meetings, and classroom groups of which our students are members.

As an instructional specialist for social emotional learning, I design experiential workshops to contain some of the most basic activities inherent in the social learning environments of school: Listening, sharing (resources like time), tolerating frustration, making choices, and reflection. Each of these activities approximates the inherent demands of life in groups and, when paid close attention to and worked with by an emotionally oriented educator, serve as a basis for enhancing social emotional competence, regardless of the type of group or age of the group member. An alignment of these demands of group life and CASEL’s (Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning) social emotional competencies are outlined here:

Another way to think about this alignment of group demands and SEL are as follows:

• Listening builds social awareness
• Sharing resources builds relationship skills
• Tolerating frustration builds self management
• Making choices builds decision making
• Reflection builds self awareness

As you can see, you are already working with these basic teaching activities (listening, sharing, etc.) in your classroom. It's my hope that this post can help to add a level of intentionality to your work (read more about Intentionality and SEL).

The emerging field of Teacher Emotion Research (Schutz, Paul A., Zembylas, Michalinos) is helping us to understand the emotional labor associated with leading learning in classrooms. Teachers have available to them, at each moment in the classroom, a very large set of emotional data. Although this very real emotional data does not live easily on a spreadsheet, there are trends and patterns, anomalies and phenomena about which we can become curious. In short, this data has meaning and can be put to use constructively towards learning goals.

The school and classroom environment, with all of its structures, constraints, and evaluative testing is a rich laboratory for integrating social emotional learning, whatever the task at hand.

Stay tuned for a blog post about a tool for analyzing emotional data in the classroom.

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David Rothauser is an Instructional Specialist for Social Emotional Learning at New Visions. Follow him on Twitter at @davidrothauser.

Distributing, collecting, and assessing student writing is typically a time-consuming process for teachers.  Cloud-based tools promise to simplify and automate these processes, allowing teachers to focus more time on classroom instruction.  Although these tools have been widely adopted in suburban schools across the country, urban schools often lag behind because they lack the infrastructure and support to leverage them. 

New Visions is looking to change this inequity with a new pilot program that aims to improve student literacy in high-needs high schools in New York City by providing teachers and administrators with curricular resources and Google Apps for Education (GAFE) tools to organize, manage, and facilitate student writing projects.

This project, “Personalization at Scale: Technology Integration to Drive Common Core Writing,” in partnership with the New York City Department of Education, was selected as one of the 13 highest-rated applications for the U.S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation (i3) 2015 competition. 

The i3 grant will directly impact 5,000 students in New York City by supporting high school English Language Arts (ELA) and social studies teachers, who are using New Visions-developed curriculum, in delivering writing instruction aligned with Common Core standards.  The pilot project will help teachers use the free GAFE platform to improve their ability to distribute, collect, and offer feedback on student assignments.

“With this Investing in Innovation grant, we’re poised to demonstrate how low-cost, cloud-based software and hardware devices can revolutionize teaching and learning and empower teachers with 21st century solutions to age-old, analog problems,” said Bob Hughes, president of New Visions.

The grant will enable New Visions to test the theory that cloud-based technology can improve the amount and quality of student writing, even in high poverty urban schools.  New Visions will work with 10 New York City high schools, selected from its network of 77 district and charter schools.  MDRC, an independent evaluation partner, will study the impact by analyzing the program at 10 project and 10 comparison schools.

Program teachers will learn how to use the Google Apps for Education suite of productivity apps and Add-ons, including Google Classroom and the New Visions Cloud Lab-developed Add-ons, Goobric and Doctopus.

Daniel Voloch, director of instruction at New Visions, said, “The key to the success of the pilot is that these cloud-based tools will be used in conjunction with Common Core-aligned curriculum materials developed by New Visions.  ELA and Global History teachers will receive training on assigning students digital writing tasks and offering timely, actionable feedback.  Technology will enhance this exchange between teachers and students, making writing a more seamless and frequent classroom activity." 

Thousands of teachers already using Google Apps for Education find the platform invaluable.

“I’m convinced that the file management and assessment tools that Doctopus and Goobric provide can create truly paperless classrooms that are functional for teachers.  I use the GAFE tools and Doctopus to access work and track student engagement, view progress in real-time, and determine which students need more attention during particular lessons,” said Jeremey Wilder, a science teacher at Grand Haven High School in Michigan.  “Continual written feedback, both from myself and their peers, has allowed students to hone their writing skill and concisely explain their understanding of complex topics and questions.”

Since the tools run on Google’s free platform and the curricula is open source, once piloted and proven, this approach can scale at radically low costs to schools across the country.

The New Visions Global History Curriculum is currently being piloted by 90 teachers across 32 high schools in New York City. The curriculum, which spans two academic years and culminates with the New York State Regents Exam in Global History (a requirement for a Regents or Advanced Regents diploma), comprises a common scope and sequence of lessons, along with formative and summative student assessments. Participating teachers collaborate through structured professional development sessions and cycles of feedback. The curriculum integrates online resources, including primary and secondary sources, images, video, and maps into student-facing curricular materials and provides students a opportunities to think critically, and to read, write and speak like historians.

Below you will find a Q&A with Kevin Shult, a Global History teacher in his ninth year at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, NY, who is now in his second year participating in the pilot. Kevin’s primary focus this year is to assist 15 teachers at his school with implementing the New Visions Global History curriculum pilot in the classroom. Kevin was recently tapped to be part of the pilot’s new Teacher Advisory Board, which provides strategic guidance in shaping curriculum resources and the future direction of the pilot.

Q: How or why did you become involved in the pilot?

Over the Summer of 2014, a friend sent me an argumentative essay rubric that mirrored many of the skills I already taught in class. After a little digging, I found this rubric was attached to the New Visions Global History curriculum pilot, which really piqued my interest. During the first few months of the 2014-2015 school year, I wasn’t an official member of the project yet but I corresponded often with the pilot leaders inquiring how they could help bring some of these tools into my  classroom. Soon after, I was asked to join the pilot team and additional teachers from my school were invited prior to the start of this school year.

Q: What has been your biggest challenge in teaching Global History? How has this program helped you address this challenge?

The biggest challenge is consistently finding ways to make lessons fresh and exciting for my students and myself. The pilot has opened my eyes to new source documents I’ve never used, such as The Records of the Grand Historian from ancient China and John Green’s CrashCourse videos, as well as a database of reading and writing strategies that help me reach students of all levels. At the start of each unit, I’ve introduced an activity that allows me to assess student comprehension of academic and content vocabulary. Within minutes, I can find out which students need support on vocabulary and which terms we will need to emphasize as documents are introduced throughout the unit. This early start into vocabulary creates in-class discussions, allowing students the time to make personal connections to historical terms and learn from one another. I’ve seen students use vocabulary more in their responses both verbally and written as a result.

Q: How are the curriculum pilot materials different than other curricula you have tried?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a collection of resources for teachers as organized as the one New Visions has put together. The multitude of reading and writing strategies organized in one place has saved me hours of searching. The curriculum not only provides ideas and suggestions for how a lesson could work, but it also contains differentiated activities. Everything is Common Core aligned with reading and writing strategies worked into each unit. These amenities, along with the PDs, are rarely found in present-day curriculums, especially free curriculum programs.

Q: How have the Professional Development workshops helped you with implementing the curriculum?

The PD events have given me the ability to sit and think through how I would teach a unit to my students. The best part of each event is that dozens of other teachers are doing this at the same time, allowing creative minds to come up with new and exciting ways to bring Global History alive. For example, annotation is a skill we teach our freshman in the first two months of school. After taking a workshop designed to build comprehension among ELL and Special Ed students using pre-, during-, and post-reading strategies, I found a way to differentiate annotation techniques. Rather than use YDC’s annotation rubric for all my students I have implemented Vaughn and Estes’ INSERT (Interactive Notation System for Effective Reading and Thinking). Using INSERT improves the level of engagement in class without writing extensive notes. The pilot allowed me to work through the new strategy with instructional specialists and other teachers before I implemented it in class.

Q: What units or lessons plans are you most excited about and why?

I enjoy bringing history to life for my students, so things that will open their eyes in amazement or disgust always bring a smile to my face. I was a big fan of last year’s activities revolving around Machiavelli's The Prince, which required students to identify previously studied rulers and cite evidence from their time in power to determine if they ruled in a way Machiavelli would have approved of. I turned the class into a courtroom and students played leaders under cross examination. This year I’m collaborating with our Humanities class to compare Dante Alighieri’s philosophy of government as read in The Inferno to Machiavelli’s The Prince.                                                       

Q: How do you think this curriculum will help you in preparing students for the Regents exam?

The majority of my students have difficulty writing thematic essays, which is a big component of the Regents exam. The curriculum provides a ton of opportunities for teachers to not only assign a writing assignment, but strategically provides skill-based writing lessons grounded in historical issues within each unit. One of the first skills tested freshman year, writing thesis statements, can be found in the first unit. The Deconstructing DBQ prompts activity helped students establish a purpose for reading documents and writing DBQ essays. The curriculum’s supplemental materials provide teachers with a myriad of opportunities to differentiate reading and writing for students of all levels. 

Q: Why did you encourage other teachers at your school to join the pilot? How did you go about encouraging them to participate?

The pilot is packed with Common Core activities and includes new topics from the NYS and NYC Scope & Sequence, something our teachers had not been able to leverage before. Last year I shared some activities and writing strategies with my department, along with the pilot website, and a number of teachers started to ask me how they could get involved. This year our school is running the pilot in all freshman Global History classes and the instructional specialists have welcomed them with open arms. The teachers like the support network the pilot provides and have already shared best practices within the department.

Q: What role have you played in supporting your fellow teachers in the pilot? What feedback have you received from them since joining?

I draw upon my teaching experiences to serve as a resource and mentor for teachers in my school. Each week, I work with teachers to review the pilot curriculum and help differentiate content for our diverse student population. I send out newsletters after each PD to update teachers on the pilot and share new resources with them whenever time allows. Many teachers enjoy the diversity of the source documents and the ability to mix and match activities that are already differentiated for students. 

Q: What feedback on the curriculum have you offered to the New Visions instructional coaches? How has your feedback been acted upon?

Each pilot teacher has the ability to provide commentary, ask questions, or suggest edits to any part of the curriculum, which is easy to do since all of the resources are available using Google Apps for Education. Prior to teaching I was an editor for a financial news company, so the majority of my feedback was grammatical along with suggestions on how to improve the format of student-facing materials. The curriculum instructional specialists, who are managing the pilot, are open to any feedback as long as it improves the end result and they act on any suggestions brought to them rather quickly.

Q: What advice do you have for other Global History teachers interested in the pilot resources?

Check out the curriculum website at www.globalhistory.newvisions.org and don’t be afraid to get in contact with the curriculum instructional specialists, Timothy Lent (tlent@newvisions.org) or Kameelah Rasheed (krasheed@newvisions.orgundefined). I started the pilot on the outside looking in and a year later was chosen to be part of their Teacher Advisory Board. We’re always looking for feedback and ways to improve the pilot. Your suggestions could help hundreds of other teachers and their students across the state. All it takes is an email to get started.

Flip a Negative into a Positive

Like most high school teachers across the country, I often encounter negative student behavior: cutting class, refusal to do work, excessive talking and sleeping in class, just to name a few examples. The cause of these behaviors often stems from a student’s desire for attention or task avoidance. In order to positively change these behaviors at my school, New Visions Charter High School for the Humanities II (Humanities II) in the south Bronx, we aim to change the student’s behavior through the use of positive reinforcement. For instance, instead of saying, “Jasmine will not stay in her seat,” at Humanities II we say, “Jasmine will sit in her seat for 20 minutes before being awarded a personal break.”

We take negative behaviors and flip them into positive behaviors to encourage and incentivize change in our students. By rewarding a scholar with an opportunity to take a break for a few minutes after working for 20 minutes, I find that I’m able to maintain control of the situation while the student is able to constructively channel her original desire for task avoidance.

Restorative-Plans

At Humanities II, we encourage students to identify triggers, reflect on their feelings, and practice new behaviors by taking a restorative approach to discipline. If students violate our community norms three or more times, we ask them to complete Restorative-Plans (R-Plans), which are guided questions that are intended to encourage self-examination in our students and teachers. We use Google Forms for R-Plans because they expose students to technology and because all of our students’ responses are aggregated in a single spreadsheet.

Filling out the form helps our scholars identify the triggers for negative behavior and walks them through where they went wrong and what they can do next time to handle the situation better. The R-Plan uses student-friendly vocabulary, which helps minimize miscommunication. For instance, the questions on the R-Plan are directly tied to Humanities II’s classroom procedures (Enter and Begin, Be prepared and Participate, Be in Uniform, Behave Scholarly, and End and Exit) and our school values (Rigor, Respect and Responsibility), which are all reinforced daily for our students.

If one of my scholars is removed from class for violating a community norm for the third time, he or she meets with a dean and completes a R-Plan. The student then returns to my class with a printout of the completed R-Plan, so we can discuss the student’s responses. Afterward, I will analyze my own role in the situation by completing a supplemental form. All of the student and teacher feedback is then reviewed by our school leadership team and teacher coaches to determine the appropriate student support going forward.

If one of my scholars continues to exhibit the same negative behaviors, the leadership team, coaches, and myself will work with the student to develop specific behavioral goals and create a daily tracker to monitor progress. We develop a Google Form that asks all of the student’s teachers five custom questions based on the goals for the student. The data from the Google Form is reviewed daily and students can earn points towards rewards, such as breaks, school store items, and homework passes. We have found that incentive programs can be motivating for scholars who find themselves on multiple R-Plans or for those who struggle the most with implementing the new behaviors outlined in their R-Plans. We use extrinsic rewards and self-reflection activities to help our students build intrinsic motivation and self-identify when they may no longer need a daily tracker.

A Change in Student Behavior

We have made significant strides at Humanities II in the last four years towards building a community that is based on restorative justice. Our scholars are supported each day by their peers, teachers, and the broader administration. R-Plans are now used across all classes and supported by R-Grades, which are grades that all scholars receive in their classes, based on their daily embodiment of our school values. These grades are included in report cards each trimester and help place an emphasis on character building.

As a result of the intervention program, we have seen a significant decrease in the number of overall suspensions in the first two months of this school year compared to the same time period last year. One of our students in particular went from filling out at least 5 R-Plans per day in September to receiving zero R-Plans in October. This scholar has several target behaviors identified; his repeated issues justified initiating the use of a daily behavior log at the end of September. While he still struggles with impulse control, he has become much more aware of his triggers and is developing independent coping skills. This student’s parent is very excited about the behavior log system and expressed appreciation for the school’s commitment to helping improve the child’s behavior. 

In addition to students, our teachers have become much more reflective as they examine their role in a situation. For example, one teacher wrote a reflection stating that she never realized how important her role was in escalating or deescalating behaviors until she understood the triggers for her particular students.

Recommendations

My advice for other educators looking to implement a similar program is to create a system that praises positive behaviors while not overly punishing students for negative behaviors. For this program to be effective, all staff members need to be trained, student-friendly language needs to be developed, and the use of the intervention and the related steps needs to be used consistently across the school. It is difficult to create change, but with the right amount of support and motivation, it’s possible, and already during the 2015-2016 School Year, we have seen significant change at my school!

To learn about open positions at New Visions, please visit our career page. 

About the Author

Alison Smith teaches at New Visions Charter High School for the Humanities II (HUM II) in the south Bronx. This school year marks her sixth year as a NYC special education teacher. She currently teaches literacy classes, using the Wilson Reading Program and Just Words for all students who read at a first through sixth grade reading level. For more on these reading programs, check out our recent blog.

This Op-Ed below originally appeared in the NYTimes on December 6, 2015 and has been reprinted with permission.

Are the student achievement scores at charter schools too good to be true? Every year, urban school districts across the country release test scores showing dismal student proficiency in math and reading, especially for students in poverty. At the same time, parents in those same cities often hear claims by many charter schools that their students score two or three times higher than their district school counterparts. Are these results accurate?

Unfortunately, conflicting claims make it difficult for parents to get the information they need. Charter proponents point to studies like the one from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which demonstrates better performance by some urban charter students on standardized tests. Critics challenge these studies by arguing that charter schools cherry-pick students, discourage the enrollment of students with behavioral problems or disabilities, and discharge underperforming students.

Based on our experience running both district and charter schools, we believe that charters have shown real gains and can play a transformative role in educational reform. But we also think the data comparing the schools and the enrollment process are not clear enough for parents to make informed decisions.

Moreover, because this fight remains unresolved, these gains are dismissed and the charter sector’s ability to serve as a source of innovation for the broader system goes unrealized.

There are four actions we can take to resolve much of the conflicting information and improve school choice.

First, the institutions that authorize charter schools, like state and city education departments, should move beyond simplistic — and potentially misleading — comparisons of test scores and instead follow the example of clinical trials. When evaluating a new medication, researchers must report the data for all participants, whether they complete the study or drop out. If researchers reported only the results of those who finished, they would erroneously inflate the efficacy of the drug because the dropouts would most likely be subjects who might not have tolerated or responded favorably to the treatment.

The same should be true with all schools, traditional district and charter. Failure to report student attrition often results in a false and inflated impression of the school’s actual effectiveness. When any school reports test scores, it should be required to report the number of students who have dropped out or voluntarily left the grade.

Second, we need to create a single, unified enrollment system for district and charter schools. During the current application process, parents are typically required to obtain and fill out multiple applications for different charter schools or networks. Multiple applications confuse parents and can encourage schools to cherry-pick students by targeting applications to specific student populations. Regulators should address these problems by moving to a single, universal application lottery and enrollment process for all schools.

Initiated in Denver and New Orleans, and now expanding to other cities, a common process has been proved to increase equity of opportunity. An analysis of those early efforts from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (which receives private and public funding and which favors free-market approaches) reveals that the single application makes enrollment more transparent and easier to navigate for parents, and provides district leaders with data on how to manage schools.

Third, states and other school authorizers should require schools to report on the types of students who are offered seats through lotteries, on which types enroll and, if students leave, on the reason for their departure. Key categories should include special education by disability, language status and previous academic performance.

The New York City Independent Budget Office, for example, found that students at New York City district and charter schools dropped out at roughly the same rates. But the disturbing question of whether charters “push out” troubled students has received national attention, most recently through the controversy surrounding the city’s Success Academy schools. Other reports have found highly variable expulsion practices or significant deficiencies in self-reporting across the sector. If we want to judge a school’s efficacy, then all schools should consistently collect and report this information.

Finally, when students leave, charter schools should be required, at a minimum, to report the vacant seat in that grade and, potentially, fill it with another student. A kindergarten class can lose 50 percent of its students during the year without replacing them. One New York City report claimed that charter operators left more than 2,500 seats for older students unfilled, even with thousands languishing on waiting lists.

In the end, transparency should be required for all schools. Charters receive taxpayer funding and many operate in public spaces, so they should be required to meet this standard. Universal admissions, together with better information, may not resolve all controversies around charters. But it will help parents make better choices and it is long overdue.

Correction: December 24, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the organization that found single applications make school choice more transparent and easier for parents. It is the Center on Reinventing Public Education, not the Center for Reinventing Public Education. The article also misstated the source of the Center’s funding. It is funded privately and also through government support and contracts. It is not privately funded only.

Roger Altman is a board co-chairman, and Robert Hughes the president, of New Visions for Public Schools.

Sarah Sanders is a third-year Algebra I/Special Education Teacher for grades 9-12 at Mott Hall High School in the Bronx. Sarah recently completed Instructional Activities for Algebra I Teachers, a New Visions Micro-certification course taught by formative assessment specialist David Wees. Registration for our Spring 2016 Micro-certification semester is now open. Check out our course offerings and register now. 

I never thought I’d be an algebra teacher, but I love it, especially at Mott Hall High School. Mott Hall is the reason I became a teacher. I worked here first with Americorps and fell in love with it. I’m one of three algebra teachers at my school and we don’t all get a chance to have common planning time so when I saw the p-credit course by New Visions just for algebra teachers, that really drew me in.

As a Special Ed teacher, I’ve been taught how to modify things for general teaching practices but I didn’t learn content-specific modifications. So I was really interested, especially when I saw that the course was being taught by David Wees, who’s done so much work on formative assessments.

I’ve really, really liked this class. I didn’t know what my experience would be like. So many people advised that I shouldn’t take a p-credit class right after finishing graduate school because going to classes in the evenings was tough. It was really hard to sit through class, knowing that I had lessons to plan for the next day and the time commitment was exhausting.

I can honestly say though, that I leave this class every week feeling really good because I can go to school the next day and implement something I’ve learned right away.

Everything we are learning is applicable in the moment for exactly what I’m doing in class, which wasn’t always the case with graduate school classes.

I’ve seen the greatest impact of what I’m learning in my self-contained class.Those students generally feel very defeated by math when they walk into my classroom. Imagine that after 10 or 11 years of these students not feeling successful at math, I used one of the routines we learned, “Contemplate then Calculate” and I could see lightbulbs going off.

In this routine, I briefly introduce a math problem and students try to figure out methods for solving the problem without using a pen and paper . Instead, they share their thoughts with one another on how to solve the problem and then reflect in writing on what they learned. They were actually having meaningful conversations about math and working together to talk through solutions to the problem!

That was one of the best classes that we’ve had this year.

The really nice thing about that routine is that every time someone states a strategy someone else has to restate it, so everything about this class has forced us to become better listeners.  You’re not just thinking about what you’re going to say next, you’re listening to someone else’s thought process. The students are learning the idea of “process over product,” because at the end of it, whether we get to the right answer or not, is not the point. The question is: Did you think strategically when getting to your answer?

I’m very grateful for the opportunity to sit, weekly, with other algebra teachers and think through these things. David models the teaching for us, so seeing it being modeled and then being able to practice it many times and brainstorm with other math teachers is invaluable.

This class gives me a chance to anticipate the pitfalls and the potential misconceptions before I bring it to my students.

If you’ve taken PD before, you might have had this experience too. You learn a new teaching strategy but you don’t necessarily get the chance to test run it so many times before you try it out with students. If you try it with your students and it fails, you are hesitant to go back and try again. This class has changed that experience for me.

The more I rehearse these routines, the more I do them with my students. The more I do them, the better my students get at math. It really is thrilling to see my students get so into math!  

Empowering Educators for a Successful School Year Ahead
As the summer wanes and the school year begins anew, educators are gearing up to guide their students on a fresh path to success. New Visions understands the critical role educators play in shaping the futures of students, and that’s why we’ve been hard at work fine-tuning the Portal - a student data management tool designed to assist educators in planning and guiding students toward their individualized needs and achievements.

The exciting news? New updates have arrived that make it easier than ever to help educators improve student outcomes.

Listening to Feedback and Evolving For Educators
The focus of the Portal remains unwavering - to empower educators in establishing, reflecting upon, and consistently improving key student planning tasks to ensure the success of every student. Let’s take a closer look at the exciting new features that have been introduced:

Easy Access to Key Portal Features
We’ve updated navigation to make top features like the Data Grid and Attendance easier to find - and added one-click access to new experiences for managing Credit Gaps, Graduation Planning, and Regents Planning!

We’ve added a “Postsecondary” section to make it easier to enter key college and career readiness experiences for high school students.

Looking for “Wizards”? Not to worry! You can still find them in the “Other Tools” section.

Quick Actions on Key Student Metrics
We built new sections, which make it easy for you to see key school metrics front and center.

We created a way for you to manage your school’s credit requirements and graduation planning metrics directly in the Credits and Graduation sections, and quickly identify students who have gaps to fill.

Post-Secondary Efficiency

We’ve created a new “Experiences” section on each Student Profile that allows you to add Post-Secondary experiences for every high school student.

We made sure that the information you enter into the Portal transfers directly and accurately into STARS so you don’t have to enter information twice!

Professional Learning Opportunities
Whether you’re a current Portal user or an interested user, you can attend our free trainings designed to equip educators with the skills and knowledge needed to harness the full potential of the Portal.

In a world driven by technology and information, the significance of libraries in educational institutions cannot be overstated. They serve as hubs of knowledge, creativity, and imagination, offering students the tools to explore the world around them and expand their horizons. Ensuring that every school has a fully functional and engaging library is no small task. This is where the Teacher 2 Librarian program, a groundbreaking initiative by the NYC Department of Education Office of Library Services in partnership with New Visions for Public Schools, Syracuse University and St John Fisher University, has been making a remarkable difference since 2019.

The Astor Center for Public School Libraries, a longstanding New Visions program, stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and vision. This initiative is centered around the idea that every school, regardless of its location or demographic, should have access to a well-equipped library that nurtures a student’s love for reading and fosters critical thinking skills.

Of course, a library is only as effective as the librarian who runs it. Recognizing this, the Teacher 2 Librarian (T2L) program was established as a comprehensive program designed to equip new librarians with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in their role. Since its inception, T2L  has played a pivotal role in training librarians who not only manage books and resources, but also ignite a passion for learning within their students. Through a combination of workshops, hands-on training, mentorship, and college study leading to a second teaching certificate as a Library Media Specialist, the program immerses librarians-to-be in the intricacies of library management, curriculum integration, technology utilization, and fostering a school library program that embraces diversity and inclusion.

Impact on Students: Enabling Access to Knowledge
The most significant impact of the Teacher 2 Librarian program lies in the students it serves. As of 2019, over 51,000 students have gained access to enriched library spaces, thanks to the tireless efforts of T2L-trained librarians. Furthermore, 86 librarians were hired for the upcoming 2023/24 school year. These libraries are not just repositories of books; they are gateways to information, creativity, and growth. And the Teacher 2 Librarian program isn’t just shaping librarians; it’s shaping the minds of thousands of students.

A Proud Partnership for a Brighter Future
The partnership between New Visions and the NYCDOE Office of Library Services exemplifies what can be achieved when organizations with a shared vision come together. By recognizing the pivotal role that school libraries and librarians play in shaping the next generation, we have crafted an initiative that is making a tangible difference in the lives of NYC students.

Lazard 2021 Summer Academy

My name is Julie Vukaj, and as a rising High school sophomore in 2020, I was completing my online classes when I received an email invitation to apply to the Lazard - New Visions 2021 Summer Academy. I was told that my school, New Dorp High School, was one of many NYC schools that would participate in this educational program, but I most certainly wasn’t aware of the impact this program would have on my academic journey.

This summer program allowed me and my peers to expand our knowledge on financial literacy, career options, building a strong network, asset allocation/investments, and many more topics. But, most significantly, this program allowed me to remotely collaborate with students to create professional Capstone Projects to present to Lazard professionals.

This taught us students to take on leadership roles by splitting into groups with peers to analyze company data and conduct financial research. As students during the pandemic, we appreciated the experience of participating in knowledge-driven group work which seemed to be a scarce opportunity in many of our classes. Moreover, this program opened doors for students to unfamiliar concepts. One of our first tasks in 2021 was to create exceptional personal resumes, where we achieved an understanding of how to produce one and edit it over time. In fact, I used the resume that I created in this program when applying to colleges in 2023.

Not only did we establish professional resumes as high school students, but we were also given the opportunity to network with Lazard associates from different professions to introduce us to a variety of careers. We cultivated questions to ask them and each panelist exceeded our expectations by elaborating on every topic we were curious about. They brought us down their career journey stories and substantially broadened our options for the future, which was very relieving to students who needed direction when deciding on colleges and their future plans.

This 2023-2024 school year, I joined Pace University’s Pforzheimer’s Honors College as a Finance major, and I can proudly say the guidance and inspiration I gained from the Summer academy set me in the direction I needed. Most of all, this  program set their students to be ahead of others and build leadership skills that will be needed in future professional positions.

92% of students from New Visions network schools graduated on time in 2023.

How have our partner schools outpaced their peers in student achievement outcomes year after year? 

New Visions for Public Schools thinks big picture to address schools’ complex and evolving needs. Through our deep partnership of almost 35 years with NYC Public Schools, we provide educators with the high-quality data tools, curriculum, and coaching they need to succeed with students.

Meet Jamie, a fictional student whose story draws from real-life experiences of the young people impacted by our work. Her path shows some of the many ways New Visions' programs address inequities and help schools meet their students’ needs at every step of their journey. From our citywide data Portal, to our free, open-source curricular materials, to our Career Academies, New Visions is building systems that make a difference for kids.

We need your support to continue implementing effective programs that reach hundreds of thousands of students each year.

Make a gift to New Visions for Public Schools today and support all public school students in NYC in achieving their goals.