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Ti-Fen (0s): Hi, everyone. Welcome to Compass Teachers show I’m. Your host Ti-Fen. My job is to interview Teachers around the world and Tease out there, teaching cactus education, research, or tools they use. Hopefully this show can offer us ideas for you to experiment in your classrooms. This episode, we will be exploring Social, Emotional Learning with Brain Science. 

We are really, really excited to have a wonderful Andrea Samadi joining us today. Andrea is a former middle school teacher who began working with the success and social, emotional learning principals with students in the late 1990s, Andrea’s book Level Up a brain-based strategy to skyrocket students success and achievement using the latest research to help others increase their learning potential. 

She is also the founder of Achieveit360 which offers  programs, grounded in brain-based research and practical neuroscience, helps parents, teachers, coaches and employees to optimize learning, well-being and achievement at home, school or the workplace. Without further ado. Please enjoy my conversation with Andrea. Hello, Andrea. Welcome to our show. 

Andrea (1m 38s): Hi Ti-Fen. Thank you so much for having me. 

Ti-Fen (1m 43s): So first of all, I think it would be great to know Andrea your journey first. So I know that you’ve started to work on integrating social, emotional learning very early, and I’m curious how social emotional learning came to you. 

Andrea (2m 3s): Definitely. It actually began when I left the classroom as a teacher, I did not last very long as a classroom teacher. I taught behavioral students in Toronto and my students were very bad and I burned out very quickly because I have no strategies in place at all to manage my students, let alone teach what was required for them. 

So I left the classroom and I went to work for a motivational speaker. Some people may have heard of him. His name was Bob Proctor. He was a done very well for teaching Success principles, to adults and mindset and around growth. And he was actually challenged to work with 12 teenagers. And it was pretty a pretty recent after I left the classroom and I thought, well, I’m going to go work for this speaker. 

And it was just kind of interesting how it all happened. It was through a chance meeting through my next door neighbor that I met and came across this speaker. And I thought, you know, I resigned from teaching and I went and I started to learn these principles. One of his, his most famous book was called. You are born rich, and it’s not just rich, financially, but rich in potential. And he talks about the fact that most of us have potential within ourselves that we don’t use. 

And I read this book when I was in the classroom, I was in a staff meeting and I was reading it behind my binder. And I was thinking, wow, there’s so much that I want to do. And so I ended up going to work for him and then this amazing opportunity when he was challenged to work with 12 teenagers. And it was one of those things that it was like a moment of truth for me, because I was trying to discover, what am I supposed to do with myself with my life? 

I’m teaching didn’t work out the way I thought it was going to be. It was very stressful. I thought I’m going a different path. This path didn’t make my dad very happy. You know, my mom’s supportive, whatever path I went, but my dad was like, what are you doing? You know, you’re going to regret this decision to break your teaching contract. You’ll regret one day, you’re not going to have benefits. And all of these things came into my head, but here I was and I was sitting in the audience and the speaker was challenged to work with these 12 kids, 12 teenagers. 

And it was with this, topic’s like a setting goals, having a better attitude, how to have a growth mindset, how to respond instead of react in situations. And these are all skills that we now know to be called social and emotional skills. But back then they weren’t called that. At least I didn’t ha didn’t know what they were. They were like soft skills and they weren’t important in the classroom at the time. But what I watched with these 12 kids and, you know, here I am a former teacher sitting there going, what am I supposed to be doing with my life? 

And there were these 12 kids that took these concepts and it like completely transformed their lives. And I’m talking to, in a matter of months that these kids were working with the speaker and in the speaker at the time, wasn’t very personable with children. He was more like a, he stood in front of adults, but he was challenged to work with these kids. And so he kind of have to do it. And I was watching him from the point of view of, wow. Imagine if these skills we’re being taught by an educator, first of all, someone that’s been trained to work children. 

And, and then the impact he had these kids, some of them went from See grades in their academics to eighth grade’s with their sports. Some of them were, not performing well with our sports. And they went to the starting lineups. And, and then just the fact that they were standing on stage speaking in front of a group of 8,000 people. And I remember we were at the Louisiana Superdome in new Orleans and you had these kids’ on stage. And you know, when you’re a teenager, that’s probably the most difficult thing is public speaking. 

And these kids were all up on stage and the audience full of adults were taking notes of what they were saying. And so that’s really where it happened. I, I noticed these are things that are, that are so powerful that change, these kids’ lives. And I knew right then it like hit me like a brick in my stomach teeth. And it was like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t know how, but these are skills that, that I recognized really changed. These kids’ lives. 

And that’s where it all began for me. 

Ti-Fen (7m 6s): Wow. That’s really amazing. So all that, the academic improvement I’m curious about behavior change that impressed you the most , like before and after. 

Andrea (7m 25s): Yeah, definitely. And now we’re talking about a matter of months. So normally these changes don’t take place that quickly. If we were to go and implement these concepts into a classroom, into a school, it’s going to take time to recognize. But the fact that these kids had direct take like laser target lessons, I was a part of writing some of the lessons back then, and we were writing one lesson a week and these kids would get the lesson directly with the speaker and then implement the ideas. 

So some of the, obviously some of the most important things were self-confidence. And so when you’re a teenager, it’s re the self-confidence the self-awareness, these are all skills that we’re coming into as we’re growing and going through life and learning who we are. And these children got like a fast track course on, you know, who are you? What are you, what are your goals in life? If you were to ask a teenager, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? 

You, you would probably get like a stumble. They wouldn’t. No. And I remember the speaker asked me that in my late twenties, what do you want to do with your life? And I just remember going, well, I don’t know, but I know it’s not what I was doing then. And when you find what you want to do with your life, it’s like so peaceful and Amazing. It’s like all the bells in this go off and you’re like, this is it. You know, you recognize it. And so these kids got that type of targeted instruction on introspection, looking at themselves, What, what do they want to develop? 

Maybe they, they need to develop some skills. If they want to have a career in a certain industry and they don’t have the skills they need, then they have the awareness that they needed to go build those skills. So that was the main thing that I saw. It wasn’t really, these kids came from great homes. They were, there were not any behavior issue or issues with these kids. Not like the kids that I taught in, in the classroom. I don’t know if they would have improved that quickly. 

Cause you know, there’s so many different factors. It’s like, you know, their home lives and all of that, that these kids came from a very, you know, target parents that were goal setters themselves. So they have like a step ahead already, but it just was amazing how fast they learned and took these skills and, and filled the gaps that they had with, with what they were learning. 

Ti-Fen (10m 6s): And the other thing I really love about your works. You put out so many resource they’re to bridge the gap between science and learning and especially brain-based science.  Like how did you meet neuroscience and like having another field of passion to bridge the gap? 

Andrea (10m 29s): You know, that’s a really good question because it was a huge opportunity that could of been lost Ti-Fen. It, it happened when my program was chosen in Arizona for a grant, some grant funding was here and I submitted an application to have my program chosen and it was awarded five schools. We’re going to work with my book and, and curriculum. And then one of the schools said, I can’t use the program is it is I don’t like it. 

You need to write me another book. And I could of said, Oh, you know, forget it. You just don’t get to do the program. This is the way it is. And you know, not taken the criticism and used it to understand why, you know, what, what don’t you like about it? What can I improve? And so I went in to the school administrator and he said, this is why I need you to write me at a different book. He wanted me to go from talking about in the beginning. 

I was because of what I have learned from the speaker. I only knew about the mind and how it related to Success, but he said, I need you to talk about how the Brain translates for Success. And so he started taking all these books off his bookshelf that he wanted me to read. And it was overwhelming in the beginning. I thought, is this I can really do. I didn’t know. I only know one area and suddenly now I have to understand how the brain works. 

But I was lucky because at the time I was in a training program with John Ashraf and he had a neuroscience researcher attached to his program named Mark Waldman. And so I actually took some of the grant funding that I got and I hired Mark Waldman to teach me the basics of neuroscience. And that’s what sure. I took everything to do with the mind out. I sat with this educator, he circled everything that needed to come out. And I wrote the book for schools in mind who are learning the basics of neuros. 

Ti-Fen (12m 23s): So would you mind telling us what the science has found out about the relationship with, SEL? 

Yeah, 

Andrea (12m 55s): Definitely. So when I first started to study neuroscience with Mark Waldmann and hired him to, you know, have him teach me this back then everyone was talking about the three parts of the brain and it was like the reptilian brain, the limbic brain and the neocortex. And that’s how everyone was talking about my emotions in the beginning, like emotions or in the limbic part of the brain. And that is like the old way of thinking now. 

And the new way, at least now we talk about how the brain deals with networks. So it’s like Brain network theory. So our emotions are all over our brain and how emotions impact learning when there’s something that you’re learning in your emotionally invested in it, it actually solidifies the memory. And so I had to go back actually, when I got this question from you, I had to go back and look at some of my other interviews like with Mary Helen in more Dino yang, she’s an expert on learning in the brain, especially when it comes to emotions and Learning. 

She wrote the book, emotions, Learning the Brain, and she talks about how we feel. Therefore we Learn in the very beginning of our book and I could spend the rest of my life following her work. And I would learn something new from her every day. But so, so what happens with, with learning in the brain? So it’s, it’s evolved. Neuroscience has evolved since I started beginning of learning about the brain and the three parts of the brain. And now everybody’s talking about these networks or regions of the brain light up with something like a certain emotion. 

And it’s not surprising that most of the significant emotion centers lie below our cortex, which separates us from other animals. But at least for the past hundred years, neuroscience has noted a link between let’s just say, somebody damaged a part of their brain, the left part of their brain. It has links to certain moods like depression. And if you have damage to the right, it can be associated with a broad array of positive emotions. 

So there’s lots now that they’re discovering about how emotions connect to learning in the brain, but it’s now all dealing with these networks. Instead of like in the past, you would say the amygdala was an important part of the brain. And the MIG doula is where we have our fight flight and freeze. And they used to say, well, students in the classroom, if they’re not feeling safe, they’re going to be frozen and they can’t Learn. And that’s the old way of thinking, because we now know that there’s so much more involved with these neural networks, that things like mindfulness in the classroom can make a student feel safe and calm down the whole network of their brain, 

Ti-Fen (16m 1s): According to CASEL, social, emotional learning competencies and to our listeners. And there is, if you don’t know these competencies, you can check out the conversation I had with our past guests, Elizabeth and Wendy, I will have this episode link in the show notes as well. But today I want to take on our conversation around self awareness in these, in self-management. So Andrea, you used to say that based on the research, when students perceive that their teacher knows them, both academically and personally they’re are better positioned to take ownership of the learning. 

I’m curious what happens to their brains that they have this kind of perception and this impacts their attitude in learning. 

Andrea (16m 53s): Yeah, definitely. Well, it’s, it goes back to the old way that we used to think about the Brain of the three parts of the brain. And knowing that the limbic area, a student has to feel safe in class. And if you don’t feel safe, if you cannot learn, and if your classroom has the feeling of calmness and safety, it reduces those students that might be coming in with other issues like ACEs, adverse childhood experiences that affect them. 

That probably every one of my students had, they were coming in and it was really difficult to get them to Learn cause they couldn’t sit still because they’ve had a whole bunch of other situations happen to them before they got to me. So the first thing is it’s all about safety and in the classroom in Dr. Dan Siegel has written many books on this topic with Tina, umm, you know, making sure your environment is predictable and structured to have posters of whatever rules you want written. 

And then you verbally say to them out loud, doctor Laurie Dessa Tel is another one who does amazing work with schools. She taught me the idea of an amygdala for a state station. And I was when I was first a working with some of my schools with a level of material. And I would, I created an a Magilla for a state station for these high school students. Cause that would be in there, I’d be in the classroom and I would be teaching this to them and always something would happen. Some sort of bite would happen in the teacher was like, you know, don’t talk when miss Samadi he’s talking and someone would get kicked out. 

And I’m like, instead of that, could we just have the student go to the amygdala for a state of station where there was like some lotions or something calming for them to do to just break whatever was happening. Cause usually it’s just something silly and it’s not worth kicking the Student out of the whole class to in this whole thing happens. They go down and they lose all these points. They get in trouble. So just having a place for student to calm themselves is another strategy. 

And then also research shows a slower calmer voice helps reduce the stress in the classroom and increased positivity to students Brain. So there’s a lot we can do from the teacher side of, of it as well. These are things I definitely did not know when I was a classroom teacher because I was always yelling at my students and you know, sit down and stop that. I still remember their names because I yelled at him out so many times and my screaming voice definitely escalated their behavior and made them worse. 

So all these strategies or things that I wish they had taught me in teacher training class, but none of them were there at the time. So, 

Ti-Fen (19m 46s): Well I think these are really, really practical tips to using in the classroom. It’s really a pretty easy to implement, like just to control your voice in, have a safe place for kids to calm down. Now let’s talk about self-aware awareness. One that when the competency and self-awareness is the ability to see ourselves clearly understand who we are, how we fit in to the world and Andrea, your podcasts podcast, you get a lots of great tips for being more self-aware and I will, I will also link in the podcast episode to the show notes so people can find out. 

Now let’s assume we incorporate the team’s usage testing to our lives. How can we help our students to practice self-awareness any active thinks we can do in the classroom? Definitely. So, 

Andrea (20m 48s): So being a self-aware or you know yourself, like self-awareness no thyself. So the first thing I would suggest is to be able to identify your emotions, whether they’re positive or negative, like no, what frustrates you? What overwhelms you? So you are aware of those types of scenarios so that you name it like, Oh, doing math overwhelms me so that we can go step by, step in, break down a math problem and not get overwhelmed. 

We have probably still will, but you know, just by scaffolding and breaking it down, taking it a smaller steps, it makes it less frustrating for you to no. What makes you happy as well? Marc Brackett from the Yale center of emotional intelligence, he has an app called the emotion meter and you can measure, you are on your own emotions and he wrote the book permission to feel. And I think this is the most important for step to being self-aware is just knowing yourself what frustrates you, what makes you happy and having strategies to be able to self-regulate when you get out of your, your emotions, take over, know how to bring yourself back. 

That’s one step. Another one would be knowing like how to deal with the emotions. Like, like when you get stressed out like a, a, a student should have a strategy for like knowing how to calm your brain when you’re stressed. And for me, I use exercise. It’s like if a fight didn’t exercise in the morning, there’s no way I could deal with the stressors that come up and stay calm. I know I would probably lose it if I had not had my exercise or being outdoors. 

And so you have to have your students knowing how to bring their balance back. Maybe they need to get up in the middle of the class and go get a drink of water or go to the amygdala for a state station that everyone should have a strategy for how they deal with their stress to bring them back. And another one would be being clear on your values and beliefs. And I think this is something that develops over a whole lifetime. If you were to ask me when I was in sixth grade, you know, what are your values and beliefs? 

I would be like, what, what, what do you mean by that? You know, but over time as we are, self-awareness develops, I think it is from what I’ve learned from Mark Waldman, it’s age 30, that we, that we really have this level of self-awareness that develops over time. We get to know who we are. And over time we can finally know who we are and know what are our values are on our beliefs. And then we can start challenging our beliefs. Like why do I believe that? Is that a belief that works for me now? 

Like I know some of my beliefs from a, you know, when I was in my late twenties, I’ve completely blown them up. Like I, I would never have eaten butter at all. Butter is like something that I would say, Oh, butter makes you fat because its high in fat. And now I have learned that putting butter in SA in my coffee is something that keeps me lean. But I would, if you have told me that in my late twenties, I would be like, no way, I’m not touching them. 

And I got that from interviewing some of these people that talk about intermittent fasting and the importance of like healthy fats, don’t make you fat. What makes you fat? Is that the breads and in the carbs, they’re the things that make you that, but you know, it’s changing some of your beliefs as you go through life. You, you start to question like, why do I believe that? Is that really true? And that’s like, another part of self-awareness is just knowing and challenging yourself and seeing what works for you. 

Maybe like maybe back in the day, I like like to a certain exercise, I used to do a certain thing and you know, maybe like 20 years later and no, I don’t like that thing anymore. I want to change it and have a different belief. So you’ve just got to be challenging yourself. Always. Is that working for me or not? And that self-awareness 

Ti-Fen (25m 8s): Right. And Andrea, you just mentioned about the strategies, the importance of strategies to deal with the emotions. And I think that is congruence with self-management and so ability to match our motions and behaviors in court, in to the demands of the situation. So what kind of way you would suggest that teacher to help students to figure out how they can manage themselves? 

Andrea (25m 42s): I would definitely. And I think about for students in the classroom, I think have them sitting at their desks, you know, it’s, it’s just the way that schools are and I’m not sure where, what schools are like, where were you are? But you know, it’s not a lot of getting up and walking around and I know my daughter needs to get up and walk around. So when we have the pandemic here and there we’re being homeschooled and they had to sit at their desk, she would stand up and go and pet the cat. 

And when she got frustrated with her school and so all these things I learned, If wow, if she was in the classroom, there’s no cat to pet, you know, how did he take that out now and learn how to calm or self-sooth herself when she’s stressed out. So just knowing to identify feelings, first of all, like, Oh, this problem is frustrating me. Like be able to name the emotion and, and then, you know, maybe the teacher could come and start to find strategies to scaffold one. 

The students are having a problem, but instead of keeping it inside, like I hear a lot of students will not say, Oh, I’m frustrated because they don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of the class. Like they don’t know, but just to start saying like, everybody doesn’t have to be perfect. We can sometimes not know the answer and it’s okay. And then the teacher models that, and they say sometimes when they don’t know something like maybe when they have to use zoom or maybe zoom, they have no idea how to use zoom or how to use certain technology. 

And then just sharing that with the students. And then the students realize, Oh wow, the teachers have, or things that they don’t no as well. And so just identifying, when did we get stressed out and what are ways that we can calm ourselves down with the resources we have before in a classroom? How can we help our students work through the problem? Maybe get up, maybe have a, a, an amygdala for a state station where they could walk to. I think my daughter would do really well in the classroom that had maybe a pillow instead of a cat, the cat’s in schools, but may be a nice soft pillow. 

She could go and touch or do something like that to just calm herself down. When she gets frustrated. Those types of things I think would work really well in the elementary 

Ti-Fen (28m 8s): <inaudible> and given that our brains develop differently in a different age, this is the approach or go East self-awareness and self-regulation the for, for different age groups. 

Andrea (28m 31s): Definitely. And as a, as I was looking at that question, I, I did some research on it because I just know self-awareness is something that we developed through a whole lifetime. And from what I’ve been told from Mark Waldman, who I studied with at age 30, we should have a good idea of who we are, but I found something in national geographic that really talks about that. It begins when we’re an infant, where are you see a mirror? And that’s like, Level one of self-awareness. Oh, I see myself. There is a person in it, Level two, as you get older, Oh, you recognize that person is me a level three. 

That persons going to be with me forever Level for someone else can see that person in me. And then we start to develop like, who is that person? What are my beliefs and values? What am I needs? What are my feelings? What makes me happy? What makes me sad? So, yeah, it absolutely evolves over time. The self-awareness and I think we could see it. Like I looked at some television shows that were popular when I was doing this work with students in the high school level, in the classroom. 

And there was a show that was on Netflix. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it was called stranger things. It was like the scary show on Netflix that, well, there’s this character in stranger things. His name was Jonathan and he was in high school and he used to carry around his, his camera with him. He was really into photography. And my question to the students were, was Jonathan self aware or not? And the students were all able to pick up that. 

Jonathan was self-aware and there was this other character, Stephen that had no idea who he was, was not self-aware. He was always getting into fights and arguments. And so I can give them an example of a TV show that they all had watched and pick out a character and say, well, Jonathan knew himself that he liked photography. He was pretty sure of who he was like, if someone came up to him and took his camera and smashed it to the ground, that would really bother him. He was really, really into his photography. 

Whereas someone like Steven had no idea what he was passionate about. So that kind of helps students to, to see, well, who am I, what, what’s my purpose in this world, which are all trying to figure out as we were in high school and even beyond until we figure it out and there’s that aha moment, Oh, this is what I meant to do. And then that’s what you dedicate your life to doing. 

Ti-Fen (31m 10s): Mm that’s a really great activity to do a talk about something the, on the, of the kids, most of the kids are watching and discuss the Emotional development or emotional expression in the TV show. So Andrea, our last question about the brain based research, there are so many research or papers out there. How did you find the practical resource in this giant pool of knowledge?  Like, is there any particular journal Website or organization you tap into constantly? 

Andrea (31m 51s): Yes, definitely. And there’s no way I could of done this without Mark Robert Waldman. So he was the first person that I started to learn about the Brain from. And you know, you got you, if you had seen me, Tufin when he was teaching this to me, I I’m coming from no knowledge about the Brain and my face. He would probably have looked at me and thought, there’s no way she’s understanding this. But with time you, you really get to understand from, you know, putting your head down and trying to understand something. 

Anybody can understand it. And then when the educator said, I want you to write Level Up. And he, you know, he’s like, he didn’t name it Level Up, but he said, I want you to write a brain-based book. And he started all these books off his shelf. I started to study Dave or David. Sousas how the brain learns. So how the brain learns to read, to write the special ed brain, how the brain does math and these books when you open them. 

And I’m not a neuroscience. So I did not study neuroscience in school. I just, every weekend would read these books and start to figure it out on my own. And then such a way that I would want to explain it to other people in an easy way. And so it’s just taking the time to go through and see what interests you. So it started with the Mark Waldman and, and now I’ve actually joined his certification program because there were so many times I would have to contact him and say, Oh, you know, I don’t understand this. 

Can you make sure I have this correct? Cause I want to present it. And I don’t want to say anything wrong. Right? You don’t want to be standing in front of an audience and you’re, you’re quoting something that’s not accurate. And so I used to have to pay him for every session. And so when I joined his certification program, now I have access to everything that he teaches for forever. And I can get him whenever I need him, but I’m in the beginning. It wasn’t like that. And there’s lots of certification programs that you can do. 

People are out there and that you can see who, you know, would meet your needs, but that’s really where it started. And then through Mark Waldman, he taught me that you have to go to a reputable sources for studies that you’re citing like pub med.gov. You cannot just go to YouTube or Google and then start saying, well, here’s how stress impacts the Brain from like an article. Or you might find you have to have a study. And so within his program, he taught us how to find studies, how to quote studies. 

How do you know if you are presenting something or how to quote the research properly from pub med and be sure that your citing accurate information and not just pseudoscience, which has not been proven in a study. 

Ti-Fen (34m 49s): So Andrea, in the past few years, any books that influenced your core values or thinking a lot. 

Andrea (35m 0s): Yeah, definitely. One is, is the one I’ve already mentioned. It was Bob Proctor’s. You were born rich and it’s not rich in finances. That’s, that’s not the meaning that I put behind it. It’s that we all are born rich and potential. And it’s a up to us to use this potential, like UT found. I know that it’s not easy to create these podcasts to reach out, to edit, but you have some desire in you that makes you do this. 

That makes you contact people that makes you follow through and edit and release and that’s your potential. And so for me, it was a Amazing to see, like I can recognize the potential in other people. And then I just look at people and I’m like, wow, that person is gonna Skyrocket. They are going to flow it up. I can just recognize it in, in people really through starting to have a look at that book. And so that’s where it helps me to see that the, you know, I can really do the things that I want to do. 

And you know, you might have these voices in your head sometimes to say, well, who are you to do this? And they all go away. And when you start to make an impact in the world with whatever you’re doing and you start to see that there’s something more than, than you it’s how are you helping other people with, with your talents and abilities? So that I’d say that was like the first book. And then the second book, it’s always on my desk, it’s the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. 

And I don’t know if you heard of the four agreements or, you know, if you just Google four agreements, the first agreement is being impeccable with your word. And I don’t know where that came from for me. I’ve always like, if I say, Oh, I’m going to go to the gym today, or I say, I’m going to do something. I do it. It’s like be impeccable with what you say is just how can people trust you if you’re giving, you know, Oh, I’ll get that emailed to you, or I will send that to you and you never send it. 

It’s like a, so it’s like an agreement with myself that when I say something, I’d do it. Another thing is, don’t take anything personally. And that’s a big one because remember if I had taken that administrators, a criticism personally like, Oh, he doesn’t like my book. And, and then I went home and cried and then cold on my friends and said, What that guy he’s, he’s a moron. He doesn’t like you, my stuff. And, or, you know, I could of said, well, it’s not about me. 

What can I learn from it? So that was a big lesson. Like, don’t take anything personally, or we can miss huge opportunities in life. Another one don’t make assumptions. Like, you know, you could assume something was completely wrong and lose friendships over it, or it’s just not worth making assumptions. And then the last one is always do your best. And I’m sure you are the same TFN with your interviews. You researched extremely well. 

The questions you get to know people ahead of time. Do you want to put your best effort in to everything to make an impact on the world? And so the I’d say that the four agreements and born rich from two books that have influenced my thinking 

Ti-Fen (38m 25s): Amazing. And Andrea, I know that you were a teacher in Canada, but now you are Based in the US so kind of explore post you both education system in these countries. So if you have a super power, super woman power to change the education, given what you observed, what would it be? 

Andrea (38m 53s): Well, definitely. I think like, I’ve, I’ve put a lot of thought into this because you know, you go into teaching and you think that you’re going to make this incredible impact. And then what happened with me was I didn’t even last a year. And so I just really like my, I give all of my respect to those in the classroom, because it is really difficult, especially since the pandemic and people all over the world have already made such an impact with where things are going at our schools. But the change that I know a lot of us want to see would be, we want, we want stuff to happen faster, but that would mean that belief systems need to change. 

Like I’m talking about, you know, having my daughter able to stand up and go pet a cushion in an amygdala first aid station, you know, think about when I was a teacher, there is no way we would have done anything like that. You know, it’s like changing beliefs takes time. And so I don’t know if the impact or the change that I see is going to happen in my lifetime, but I just hope that this is a beginning for the next generation to have a better in the classroom with being, having this understanding of our brain, how our brains work, how our teachers’ brains work. 

Umm, you know, knowing that, that if I was stressed and yelling at my students, it increased the student cortisol and made them behave poorly. So just that understanding, that changes teacher training. And so there’s a lot of like moving pieces that I see in the us. And I know that the changes going to probably takes some time, but I do see that a lot of these are starting to impact schools in different pockets. Different schools are starting to implement this and it starts at the teacher training level and it starts at just starting one idea at a time in a school, in a district. 

And, and then that’s really how it begins. And then the publisher is on that side because I did also, when I left the classroom, I did go into the publishing industry and I got to see how the curriculum is made from the top publishers in Canada and the us and these little neuroscience tips could be put into the curriculum. So let’s just say you’ve got a math sheet and the students are working on the math problem. There could be like a little breakout box that says, you know, if you’re overwhelmed or fee feeling frustrated to take some deep breaths, something like that from the curriculum side. 

So there’s a lot of different places and ideas. And, and I just think that the, the people are doing a lot of great things all over the country in the world and that eventually the change will happen, but I’m not sure when yeah, it’s a, it’s, it’s a slow process. Andrea last spend the least. So if our listeners to want to know more about your work, how they can, how can they find you online? 

Yeah. My website is Achievement three sixty.com and they can go there and they can click on the links. They can learn about the program Level Up. They can learn about the podcast and really where we began and where we’re going, because we’re always looking at improving and doing different things with neuroscience as we’re learning more over here. And thank you so much for Andrea. You put so much great work out there. Thank you. Thank you so much for all your doing. 

Ti-Fen  (0s): Hi, everyone. Welcome to Compass. Teachers show I’m your host Ti-Fen. My job is to interview Teachers around the globe and teach out their teaching tactics, education, research, or tools they use. Hopefully this show can offer ideas for you to  experiments in your classrooms.

In this episode, we are going to dig, dive into how to infuse social, emotional learning into your own classroom. Today, we are really honored to have Wendy Turner joining us. Wendy is a second grade teacher in 2017 or 18 Delaware Teacher of the Year. She teaches at Pleasant Elementary.  a large suburban school in Delaware with over 750 students and a diverse population Wendy is interested in trauma informed practices, global education, social, emotional learning, and empathy in education. 

And she loved every moment spans with her seven or eight years old. And without further ado, let’s  enjoy our conversation with Wendy. Welcome to the show. Wendy 

Wendy (1m 27s): Hi, I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to join your show. I’m I’m thrilled. 

Ti-Fen  (1m 33s): So, first of all, I know that you have a really different trajectory into teaching after 17 years in the business world and you decided you become a teacher, a curse. What is the story or motivation that drove you to make these big transitions? 

Wendy (1m 53s): Oh, it’s such a great question. Thanks for asking that. Yes, I a was a business major in college. I worked for 17 years in finance and accounting, and we had a daughter in 2005. And when my daughter was about six months old, I remember the So clearly I was sitting in my cubicle at the big company I worked for here in Wilmington. I just sat there and I thought to myself, I can’t do this for 20 more years. I had really enjoyed spending time with my daughter. I had some nieces at this point and I felt like I could relate really well to children. 

So I called my husband and I said, hi, do you mind if I go to school at night to become a teacher? And he was like, sure, he didn’t drop the phone or hang up on me, which is good news. And I, I began to go to school at night and it took me about three years of working full time, going to school at night, taking care of our daughter. And I had our son another baby during the same time. So it was exciting, challenging, but wonderful. And it was absolutely the right choice for me. 

I, it, to start working in a profession where I could have more human impact, I could make a difference. And I always tell people that my very worst day in teaching is far better than my best day in my old job. 

Ti-Fen  (3m 15s): Wow. So do you find your previous business experience add on a different color into your teaching in an unexpected ways, or like how does the shape you differently in teaching compared to other educators? 

Wendy (3m 31s): So that’s a great question. And it has been an enormous advantage in my opinion, to have all those years in the business world, in my experience. So during that time I worked for many large companies, I worked for Disney, I worked for Pricewaterhouse. I worked for a fragrance company in New York city. And when I worked for Disney, I traveled around the world and that added to my personal experience helped me broaden my horizons and come in contact with all the different people. And I even worked in environments that were terrible. I worked in environments where people screamed and yelled at, try to make people cry, literally and navigating those types of environments and coming out of them stronger, learning how to be resilient and ultimately saying no to those types of environments gave me confidence. 

And I truly feel like becoming a teacher at eight 40. I was more prepared to work with different kinds of people in my students and my families that I support and just people in the district, because of all those years of experience, I don’t think I would of been anywhere near as effective if I have become a teacher right out of college at age 22. 

Ti-Fen  (4m 33s): So we know like you put lots of work into social, emotional learning, what inspired you to poop so much ever to emphasize these areas? 

Wendy (4m 47s): Mmm, that’s a great question. So this area isn’t even talked about very often and teacher preparation programs, it’s, it’s something you have to kind of figure out. And when I wrote, I have to write my teaching philosophy when I was a teaching students and I wrote a long time ago. It’s probably, you know, 15 years ago now that I wanted to teach my students how to be successful human beings. And that was just something I felt inside me. And so I had a little bit of an instinct to do this, and then really what crystallize this for me was something that happened in my first year of teaching. 

I started my job teaching second grade and on about the seventh day of class, the second week of class, one of the students in my class lost their mom to cancer. So it was very worrisome for me because here I was a new teacher and I have to figure out how to support my students, how to support the other students in second grade I’m at this time, because they were starting to experience fears around losing a parent and then how to like he’ll and come together as a community, a Classroom communities through this very difficult time. 

And, and I really remember her being at home crying, literally because they didn’t know what to do, but I just asked for help. I started talking to our principal and our counselor about what I can do. And I knew very, very clearly that we couldn’t just come back into school and like open up the math book and start teaching would be like open up to page 20. We were going to start a lesson. We had to talk about what happened. We had to share our feelings. We had to share a messy, uncomfortable feelings and work our way through them. We couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. 

We had to embrace what, what hap what did happen. And we work our way through it. And ultimately we ended up doing a really big charity project where we were able to make a large donation to a charitable foundation at the end of the year, kind of like as a way to conclude this experience together. So that told me right then and there, if we don’t do social, emotional learning, we’re not even going to get to the academic stuff. 

Ti-Fen  (6m 43s): Yeah. That’s really wonderful. So I think it’s a good way. We can talk more about the way we can Infuse Social Emotional, Learning in Classroom. So from my research, I know  you believe the best way to do that is to be a model for our students by identifying what we need to work on and engaging that work right before our students’ eyes. So I’m curious if there’s any story behind or your observation from the students or progression that it comes to these realizations. 

Wendy (7m 20s): Sure. I’m you know, what can I define social, emotional learning for you first? Cause I think that will be helpful. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great. So social, emotional learning is to me, it’s everything, it’s the foundation of everything that we do in education. And if we don’t do it, we’re, we’re not going to be successful. So a lot of people know that social, emotional learning is very important now with the trauma that everyone is enduring with, COVID-19 in schools being closed and open. And, but I think that a lot of people, if you ask them what it is, they are just not sure they’re like, was it mindfulness or gratitude or it’s something about getting along with people? 

I don’t know. So I like to really use a framework for social, emotional learning. There is a very popular one out there. And I explain that to my students and that helps us all stay grounded in what we’re doing. So CASEL is the collaborative for academic and social, emotional learning. They are the, you know, the leader and thought around social, emotional learning and providing resources and space around social, emotional learning. And they have a model and is known as the Capitol five and it’s five competencies. 

And if you go to their website, you will find this graphic, it’s a wheel and it’s got five parts to it. And the different competencies that are social, emotional learning are five things that are self-awareness self-management social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. So as you work to bring these things to your students, you have to define the things for your students. And then you have to give them ways to develop strength and skill in them. And I think if we, as adults do that side by side with our, we are, you know, walking the walk and talking the talk that we say we’re going to do, and we’re modeling it for them in real time. 

And there’s a struggle. Some people find, they say like, why can’t I can’t fit social, emotional learning. And I have to cover all this content, or, you know, I have a math teacher, I don’t do this, this isn’t my job. But what we need to do ultimately is yes, define these things. And yes, talk about some vocabulary that kids need to understand like emotions or, you know, what’s a relationship with empathy. And then we have to understand what it is to infuse them into our academic activities and it’s absolutely possible to do so. I think that there’s a great case study out there. 

And it was put up by San Jose state and it talked about how to prepare teachers to do this. And that piece really speaks to my heart about social, emotional learning. But the piece talks about in order to prepare teachers to do this, number one, you have to have them work on their own adult. SEL so work on their social, emotional competence in terms of developing self-awareness self-management social awareness, relationship skills and decision-making skills. And then you have to teach them how to integrate it 

Ti-Fen  (10m 7s): how you engage your personnel work in progress SEL while teaching them social, emotional learning and their needs. 

Wendy (10m 32s): Sure. So a great one right now, one, this is really important is around self management and self awareness. And that is really the process of identifying our emotions. And right now we’re all going through many, many emotions because the world is going through many, many challenges right now. And I feel like the world is in survival mode. And as a result, lots of human beings are to So something that I can do is I can ask the kids to do an emotion. Check-in I can say, how are you feeling today? Are you feeling good, a ready to learn? 

Or do you feel a little uneasy or worried about something or are you mad or scared or angry? And I can also share my emotional state to write. So when I do that, then I can kind of quickly assess who might have trouble Today Learning who might need a little bit more compassion or support. And when we, before school closed, I used this rubber bracelet system. Every day, the kids would come in and put on a bracelet, red, green, or yellow on their wrist quietly, and to show me and their classmates how they were feeling. And we talked about the fact that if a student was wearing a yellow or a red bracelet, we might need to support them better. 

And what would it look like to support them? And I would also wear a bracelet too. So there might be mornings, you know, a lot of times they come in on green. I’m really excited to see my students, but Hey, I am a human being too. And if I’ve gotten into a fight with one of my kids on the way to school or something like that, I might come in and put on a yellow bracelet. So I’m modeling my honesty was sharing my emotions and I’m fostering a safe environment where students can share their emotions. You know, if you come in every day and put it on the red bracelet, you’re never in trouble. Thank you. In fact, for doing that and how can I help you? 

How can I help you get to a place of learning? And so that’s something that can be integrated into the fabric of your classroom. I am a remote or hybrid. I’ve been on a year. So the kids figure out a Google form to share this information. So that’s one way. And then once we realized that we do have emotions that we’ll call it uncomfortable, maybe yellow or red, we have to teach resilience strategies. So when you feel uncomfortable and your having a mad, sad, or angry day, what do you do? So we teach children explicit, calming strategies. 

We talk about the power of our breath. It’s always with us. It’s something we can go back to. We talk about finding joy and the good things. Even in the hardest days, one of Castle’s signature plays. They have a signature playbook with three signature SEL moves. One of them is an optimistic closing. So every day we do an activity, that’s an optimistic closing on Monday, it’s called three good things. And I asked the kids to share three good things. And it might have been the worst day or the most challenging day, but we share things like the sun is out. 

Or I snuggled with my dog Today or I have a hot dog for a lunch, or I say, I’ve got to go out and walk around the block. So you just celebrate the good things, even on the hardest day. And that’s something that I do kind of concurrently with my students, because whenever I ask them to share or something like that, I do the same thing. I share my emotion, I share three good things, et cetera. Another one that I really like is reframing negative thoughts. And that also comes into play with self-awareness and self-management human beings are wired to have a negativity bias, which means that they focus on negative thoughts, more than positive thoughts. 

And if you think about a day, maybe you’ve gone through a day and 10 things have happened to you. None of them were good and one was bad. All you remember is that one bad thing and reframing is where you take a situation and you look for the positive in it. It’s not like pretending that everything’s great ’cause we don’t want to do that, but its looking for something good. And an example was, you know, last spring schools and you’re in the U S closed in March and we had to do a lot of reframing. So school closed, we weren’t really good at remote learning yet. 

We were struggling a lot, but we reframed and said things like, well, the school is closed, but I get more time because I don’t have to commute to work right now. Or your school is closed, but I’m learning a lot of new technology. And that’s a good thing for me in my students or school is closed and I get to spend more time with my family. So by teaching explicitly how to reframe negative thoughts and find the good thing in a situation you gift, you’re introducing another resilience strategy. 

Ti-Fen (14m 47s): Yeah. I really loved the reframing one, but I also found that 

Ti-Fen  (14m 52s): The bracelet is really interesting. How many colors  do, can you then choose for a, the bracelets and also ldo they make the bracelets themselves? Or you just like distribute some bracelet to them. 

Wendy (15m 8s): So yeah, they are right now with my bracelet model, I have three colors, green, yellow, and red, and I just buy plastic rubber bracelets that can be reused now with COVID. I may start using ones with the kids who were in person in my classroom. We’ll have some hybrid learners and I’ll just give them like a little plastic bag that has three bracelets in it that they can choose from that are always there. And we named on the first day of school, actually I put up a chart and we name emotions and we sort them into green emotions, yellow emotions and red emotions. So they have some language around what’s What I think you could add other colors for even young kids, but certainly for older people I’ve, I’ve had blue be represented as sad. 

I’ve seen orange represented for exciting I’m or pink could be an exciting and purple could be kind of calm. So you can really add whatever you want. I do just focus on the three right now, but you could, we can really be great if you can have the kids to design a system. So if you’re going to have bracelets and you want it to have colors represent emotions, what would you want each of them to be in? That can be so powerful because they can have a part in it. And I have to say, I wish that sometimes adults had such a system because how amazing would it be to walk into your workplace and just know who’s struggling a little bit of who might need some help or a check-in. 

Ti-Fen  (16m 22s): Yeah, that’s true. And you don’t need to struggle to read their minds so you can just, See how they are feeling. So there is the one thing that you just mentioned. I also really want to ask is the emotion though checks in Jamboard that would you mind sharing with us how you do this activity in your classroom? 

Wendy (16m 44s): Yeah. And I’m happy to share some templates with you too. So I’ve noticed over time that Monday is really a hard day for my students. So even when we were in school, when school is open kids coming in on Monday and they’re very tired because they usually stay up later than normal and Friday and Saturday night and then sleep in later. And they may spend a lot of times playing video games, especially in the cold weather, you know, and that can just make you feel tired and sluggish, that kind of thing. So I tried something two Mondays ago that I just loved and it was a huge success. 

I’m going to keep doing it. I created a jam board. So we use Google jam board. And on that jam board, the, it just says, please share an emotion that you’re feeling right now. And the students, if your familiar with Jim, where they can actually click on a sticky note and they just type something on it. So whether your students are at home or in the classroom, everyone can engage and collaborate on that at once, which is I think a very powerful too, when we’re all split up and separate from each other. So I did it two Mondays ago and kids were writing things like tired. I have a headache I’m okay. 

I’m excited. I’m pretty good. But it was more unpleasant emotions than Pleasant emotions I noticed. And one had written that they felt calm. Now, after that, I asked the kids to just take a look at the screen I was sharing and I was said, I was going to show them some pictures. And I went on to show them 18, really beautiful pictures of winter scenes in Sweden. And I think I found them in the New York times and I’d put them on the jam board and I just went through them. And I think I quietly count to five for each picture was like a five count. 

So they can look at each picture for a five count and went through and they were just beautiful in Northern lights were a Borealis campfires. There was a dog flood picture, a wild reindeer. They were, you know, from trees. Icicles is just absolutely beautiful. And then on the 20th side of the jam board, I said, okay, please check in again, write in a motion. Well, they checked in again and 10, not one, but 10 students wrote down that they were feeling calm. Several students wrote down that they were feeling better and more students said they were excited. 

So I had seen the incidents of a student, a sharing, a common motion rise tenfold just from showing a series of pictures of winter scenes. And that just really blew me away because data is data, data doesn’t lie, and data can inform what you’re doing. So that told me that if I could show my pictures that created a positive, happy chemicals and the brain every Monday morning, that was going to allow us to go into our lesson in a better place mentally. And I did it again this week, except instead of winter scenes, I use pictures of cute baby animals. 

And basically I have the same result. So right after this, I hadn’t told the students about the activity. I hadn’t told them they are going to do a second check-in I just said, what do you notice? And they were like, wow, a lot of people feel better. I feel good. That’s nice. And then they came. I said, well, what do you think this means? What, what is this telling us? And they said, if I look at pictures, nice pictures, I’m going to feel better. They basically came up with that understanding themselves. And I said, yes. So if you’re stressed during an academic task or you’re feeling upset, could you go to a window and look at nature in that might make you feel better? 

And they said, absolutely it will. So it was incredible to me to just go through that activity. 

Ti-Fen  (19m 56s): That’s really powerful. Like, Oh, I like the ways that you are not only helping them to identify, identify the emotion, but you also give them the tools that they can flip that emotion to a positive one. So our, then in this an example, is there any other tools that you find useful for useful for students to help them do any like self-management 

Wendy (20m 27s): Yeah. So I want to share, let me share another activity that we do. So something that’s really critical in this environment is creating ways that the students can work together even in the world in separate locations. So we do use zoom for our video conferences and if I was in the classroom, I would have a lot of collaborative groups. A few years ago. I used have long rectangle tables in my classroom. And a few years ago I did a donors choose project to get funding for round tables because I realized that the collaboration communication with my students would be so much more if they were sitting at round tables facing each other. 

Because when you’re sitting at a long rectangle table, the, to people at the end will never speak to each other basically, right, because there’s too much space and it’s not easy, but I instead got all round tables from my classroom so they can look up and be sitting and looking at each other. So in the classroom, I would change seats. Often I would have activities for each table. I’d have people work in pairs. And I had to figure out a way to do that in a virtual environment. So we do use them for video conferences and I create discussions that kids do in break out rooms. And every day I have a topic in a five minute discussion and it might be something silly. 

Like if you could have any food all day for one day, what would you have? If you can travel anywhere, where would you go? What’s something you enjoy doing with your family. They’re all just connection questions that are designed to help us get to know each other and bond and find our commonalities. So in the beginning of the year, they were having a little trouble with a breakout rooms. Like some kids were talking too much. Some kids were not talking enough. Kids said, well, I don’t like to talk. I just want to use the chat. And so we have to kind of talk about what was going on. And some kids were coming back from the breakout rooms and they were like giving the thumbs down side. 

Like the breakout room is terrible. So I said, okay, where are we going to do with this? So I have something called an empathy meter and it’s a visual and picture or a rainbow. And on one side of the rainbow, it’s a beautiful orange color. That’s actually my favorite color. I feel like it’s exudes positivity. There’s this orange color. And there’s these hearts. And it says, I’m using empathy. I’m thinking about others. I’m thinking with others, I’m caring for others. And on the other side of the rainbow arc, its kind of gray and it says, I’m not thinking of others. 

I might be hurting others. Or I’m just thinking of myself in the middle of your kind of neutral. So what I do is once a week, I pull that out on a, again on a jam board and I ask the kids to have a sticky note. So where do you think we are in this empathy meter? How are we being empathetic or are we not being empathetic? And one of the times I did it, there were a lot of sticky notes, just kind of in the middle, like people weren’t putting them over towards the empathetic side of the orange side. And I said, what’s going on with us? And they said, well, it’s really the breakout rooms. Like we’re doing badly. And the breakout rooms and people are getting mad and they’re coming back mad and we need to do better. 

So I just said, how can we do breakout rooms better? And they shared ideas. Like let people be in the chat, create an order for people participating like use alphabetical order or something or someone try and be in charge to make sure everyone gets to talk. They ask me to put in a chat warning, like when there’s one or two minutes left. So they knew they had to wrap it up to get everyone to, to, to chat. And so we did those things and breakout rooms started to get better. And so then usually every Friday ask them to do the Mt check-in and we started to see more people were moving their sticky over to the side of the, a jam where the empathy side was. 

So that’s a way to think really concretely about using empathy in your everyday life. We read lots of stories about empathy. We talk about what empathy looks like, but we, I think when teaching SEL skills, you have to talk about what it looks like when that skill is missing. So in these examples, we learned what it was like when empathy was not present. And I think that’s very powerful for talking about what it looks like, what it is there for them 

Ti-Fen  (24m 11s):  And so I feel like, Oh, these are really, really great tools in our midst. Make sure that they are in our show notes so our listeners can check it out, and experiment in their classrooms. So S E L is a very abstract Learning compared to all their traditional subjects, which is relatively easy to assess progress. 

So for you, how do you know your students are making progress in these competencies? 

Wendy (24m 55s): So I’m like the example I just gave you. I realized that the students we’re making progress with the breakout rooms, which meant that they were more self aware of what they were doing in staying in the breakout rooms. And they were developing relationships with other kids by saying we’re able to do better in the breakout rooms. And so it’s your right. You don’t want to give an assessment about that. You’re never going to give your students a worksheet and ask them how to make responsible decisions you’re actually going to do. Also, I’ve had a, So a little girl came up to me last week and she just almost had tears in her eyes. 

And I said, what’s wrong? And she said, I miss my friend. I miss my friends and I don’t know what I’m going to see you are. And I hate COVID. And I said, okay. So I said, lets try to get something to do. And I said, can you walk down the hall? There’s a long hall. Can you work for the hole and just hold this and squeeze it. And it was actually just a roll of paper towels because I can’t have all the things I used to share a little stuffies or a squishy balls and things like that because of COVID and germs. And she said, okay, I can do that. And so she walked down the hall and came back and when she came back, she was able to get back to her work. So right there that tells me that that student was completely in tune with her negative emotion. 

She knew to ask for something. And when I provided her with a tool or an idea, she embraced it and she did it. And then she came back and said, thank you. I feel better. And I can go finish my math now. So you kind of have to be aware of it in moments. So I feel so proud when I can see it happening in moments last year, another quick story we had our tables were working in groups of four and this one student got very upset and he started to cry and stomp his feet. 

And we have these benches in my classroom. We actually called them like the cool-down bench or the breathing bench. And he was getting upset and stomping his feet, but he stomped his feet right over to the cool-down bench. He knew what to do and where to go. And then two or three other students from his group that he’d been working with, went over to him and said, you’re okay. You’re going to be okay, good job. You know, you’re going to feel better soon. You’re on the breathing bench. And that, that was one of those moments, right? So I observed a child losing control of their emotions or having difficult emotions. I observed them in bracing, a strategy we introduced in the classroom. 

And then I observed other students being empathetic and checking in with that child and complimenting them on doing just that. I was like, mic drop moment. I was like, I love it. It’s happening. They’re doing, and I didn’t tell anyone to do any of these things and it’s it’s happening 

Ti-Fen  (27m 17s): Well. So yeah, I got you. So basically it’s really hard to use data, to know their progress but  we can use our observation from their behaviors to know the, they are improving. 

Wendy (27m 33s): Yeah, you can’t. I would say too, you can do surveys and you could use little formative assessments, like say you are a really teaching kids about the definition of something like empathy or a growth mindset. You can certainly give them like little quizzes to see if they have an understanding of those terms and concepts. I do think you have to spend a couple of weeks teaching some terms to the kids, some actual content. So they’re familiar with a language and they can use it. 

Ti-Fen  (27m 57s): Last question  we know that there were lots of things happening in the States from black lives matter to today’s Capitol riots for the Capitol riot. Do you have any conversation with your students? And it’s a such a hard topic. 

Wendy (28m 20s): Yes. Thank you. So I teach seven and eight year olds and this is a tender age, right? So on Wednesday evening, as I was watching the Capitol riots, all I can think about was what am I going to do tomorrow? So I determined that I would create space for whoever needed it, because I knew that at this age, some kids wouldn’t know what happened. They wouldn’t of been watching the news. Their parents may have chosen to not show them the news or tell him about it, to keep them insulated from it. And that is reasonable for a young child. 

So what I did the next day is I started our day as we always do. We have a morning meeting. I said, we’re going to do a morning meeting exactly the same as we do every day. And then I said, I’m going to talk about something that happened yesterday. That was kind of hard. And I told them factually what happened? And then I have the kids do a, check-in a again on a jam board. Do you want to have a class conversation about this? Or do you want to go work independently? Like you don’t need to have a conversation. And so the kids move their sticky notes and it turned out that five students want it to have a conversation. So I placed every one in individual break out rooms who wasn’t going to be part of it because that’s fair. 

And that’s their choice. They worked on some independent tasks. And then with those five students, I said, you know, again, factually here’s what happened? Do you have any questions? What are you thinking? And one student shared that he had watched the news with his family, his father talked to them about it, that kind of thing, or another girl was scared that shared that she was experiencing worry and anxiety watching the news. You know, it’s upsetting to see people fighting to see, seen, hear about violence, those kinds of things. And one girl just said, well, what happened? Can you tell me more about what happened? 

I think I know what happens. She had older brothers and she just wanted to know a little bit more. And we went through that conversation for about 20 minutes and that’s it. I just held space for who needed it, which I think was the right thing to do. Hopefully. 

Ti-Fen  (30m 9s): Yeah, that sounds, that sounds right. And great to me. So the last section is some random and big questions. First, is there any one to two books that influence a lot of your thinking or value systems in these past few years? 

Wendy (30m 25s): Yes. So I, I always love when people ask this question, a book that I love and is near to my heart and will be forever, is called fostering resilient learners and it’s strategies for creating a trauma sensitive classroom. And it’s written by Kristen sours and Pete hall. And I actually am friends with them now and I work for them. I consult I’m with them, teaching and training people and how to create a trauma sensitive environment. And when I was at Delaware Teacher of the Year, I had to have a platform or something to talk about when I visited at different schools and communities. And I always talked about this need to provide a trauma sensitive classroom. 

I believe that it’s a moral imperative and it is what we need to do to support students because students can help what happens to them, but they come in with the effects of what happened to them and it’s our job to support them. So I love that book and it’s a quick read. You can read it on a weekend and then you can go into your classroom or your learning environment on the next Monday and do something differently. So I’m, I really recommend it fostering resilient learners. And then in this book, the second book I’ll mention is not an education book, but it’s spoke to me in such a wonderful way. 

A friend gave it to me, it’s called rest. And the subtitle is why you get more done when you do less. And it’s by Alex, Sue, John Kim Pang. And it just talks about how we rest and how we can be really productive when we rest. And that rest may look different for everyone. So I’m a very active and driven person. I’m a morning person. I do a lot, even on the weekends, you always find me doing some kind of work because I’m pursuing like a side interest or we have another project going. And the book justifies for me that rest doesn’t always have to be like sitting silently, not moving rest can be hiking where your deep in thought or rest can be organizing, are doing a project where you are just coming away from your professional craft, because that’s often where we get ideas and figure out innovation, an innovative things that we can bring back to our professional craft. 

So I love that book called rest. 

Ti-Fen  (32m 24s): So if you have a super power to change education system in America, what would it be ?

Wendy (32m 31s): So? It would be to immediately and all of the systemic racism that exists and our education system, it would be to have everyone immediately be culturally responsive and to have a more representation of educators of color in the system to support our students of color. And that’s what a lot of people are working on. That’s one of my goals that I pursue in addition to advocating for and teaching about social, emotional learning. This is something we need to do a So we do no harm to any student and we help them achieve their greatness. 

It’s our job. 

Ti-Fen  (33m 5s): Right. So before we close up Wendy do you have any other thoughts that you want to share with our listeners? 

Wendy (33m 13s): So I just want to say to all the educators out there, Thank you every day for all you do thank you for being in the field of education. Thank you for supporting students. Thank you for working to grow and be better. We are in a difficult, difficult time, but in a way it’s one of the most exciting times and education because there’s a lot of innovation taking place. There is a lot of people who are tackling these really hard issues around racism and things like that. And the last thing I want to say is listen to your students. 

Your students can tell you what’s hard for them. Your students can tell you what their hopes and dreams are. Your students can tell you when they’re disengaged or they’re struggling. What the problem is. Just listen to them. If you place your classroom’s a student’s at the center of your classrooms and at the center of your own heart in education. And that’s where we can do great things for, for the people that we need to know. 

Ti-Fen  (34m 12s): Great. That’s really well-said. And the last, last thing I really appreciate Wendy you share so much great resource and activities for an hour.. And if our listeners want to know more about your work, how they can find you online. 

Wendy (34m 36s): Oh, great. Yeah. Please contact me if you have questions or you need support. So I’m active on Twitter. My Twitter handle is at Mrs. Wendy Turner. I also have a Teacher Facebook page. It’s a Wendy Turner 2017. Delaware Teacher of the Year. And just like you contacted me through Twitter and through Facebook, please reach out. And my email is Wendy Turner at gmail.com. If you go into my Twitter profile, there’s a link there for our website. And that website is a wake lit collection, a curated collection of all the different articles. 

I’ve written podcasts that I’ve been on presentations that I’ve made. So if you’re wondering about me or you’re looking for ideas, or just to understand how I think, please check out that collection of my work and then, and do reach out. I, I shared at the beginning of this broadcast that I am a global learning fellow, and I truly love to be connected to educators around the world. I’ve done presentations and trainings in Africa. I have replied to teachers in Asia and Europe about questions that they have. I’m friends with a teacher from South Africa because of my trip there with NEA foundation. 

And So please do reach out because the common language is that language. That’s at the heart of all educators, that language of love. And I’d love to help you if I could. So thank you for joining me today. Thank you to fed. I had a wonderful time and I really appreciate being asked, and please do let me know if you and your listeners need anything and keep doing a wonderful job. 

Ti-Fen (1m 21s):

From Digital Citizenship to Digital Leadership Jennifer she’s passionate about showing teachers and students how they can use technology and social media to make the world a better place. Now lets enjoy our conversation with amazing Jennifer hello Jennifer will come to our show.

Jennifer (1m 45s):

Hello and thank you so much for having me.

Ti-Fen (1m 49s):

So Jennifer you have ample knowledge, ink, social media in the K-12 context. What is the story behind that you decided to dedicate your life in this area?

Jennifer (2m 3s):

Well, I had a sudden realization and there were many things that happened at, at that time in my life. The first of which being that I had a job interview, my daughter was asked, what social media are you on? And what will I learn about you if I go there? And it really prompted me to think critically about the way in which I myself was using social media in the context of teaching and learning and connecting with others. But that I had spent very little time mentoring my own daughter around the use of social media so that she could answer that question effectively.

Jennifer (2m 43s):

And then by extension, I thought about the ways in which we constantly tell our students or what not to do on social media, but I really didn’t help equip them to answer that question either. And so I began to think about that a great aye, then met a or gotten to know a George Corose a little bit better. And he was talking about the idea of digital leadership as using the vast reach of technology and social media to improve the lives and wellbeing in circumstances of others. And that really radically changed the way I started to look at things. And as a result, it, it sort of forced me into the trajectory that I now find myself.

Jennifer (3m 29s):

So I was seeking out students who were using social media positively and began to found spine. So many of them and recognize that there was always either a caring adult mentor or even sometimes a student mentor in their lives that allowed them to use social media differently. And so I continue to challenge the idea that social media doesn’t have a place in education because it’s so as you just said, so ubiquitous for students in our world right now

Ti-Fen (4m 1s):

For educators who have a really negative impression on social media for our kids. How do you think that as educators, you rethink social media in your education?

Jennifer (4m 16s):

Well, certainly there are lots of negative aspects to social media. That’s the absolute reality, right? But if we are going to educate our students to graduate with the still skills that they need to function in our world to not use social media is doing our kids have great, a great disservice. So first of all, I think we need to understand that social media does play a role in our lives and we have to teach knowing that it does for me, I think it’s about not just harping on what students can’t do. I advocate for class social media accounts in the power of a class social media account is that you could very much engage in digital citizenship lessons in context, but you could also model for students how to use social media positively all while staying within the confines of our, of the law.

Jennifer (5m 16s):

Because as we know that students under the age of 13, shouldn’t be on those platforms anyway, even though they are in great, great, great numbers, right? So I always talk to teachers about, you know, where is it that your students are primarily and what about creating a social media class account where students can participate in posting. But if you could have those conversations about notifications or blocking somebody or, you know, lets use our social media account to make a positive difference in someone’s life today. Right? So you can do all of that in context through a class social media account.

Ti-Fen (5m 58s):

That’s right. So I’m really so Jennifer you mentioned that by law, like Kids can not use social media under their 13.  It it  only in Canada or that other

Jennifer (6m 11s):

It’s mostly, I think it’s a regulatory law in place. There are lots of like there’s FERPA and COPPA. These are a regulatory laws that talk about privacy of young people. But most social media accounts have 13, not, not as a magical number because suddenly when you’re 13, you’ll know how to navigate it well, but just in terms of being able to regulate the, the age of students who are on the platform, most of the big ones, your Snapchat, your, your Snapchat, your Twitter, your Facebook, your Instagram, those all have 13 as a And even Tik have 13 as the age of 18.

Ti-Fen (7m 2s):

Yeah. I think when you register, when you sign out, they will ask you your date of birth and then they will see if they, they were like, let you choose or not. Right?

Jennifer (7m 14s):

Yeah, absolutely. And in my experience, students or kids lie about their age so they can get into platforms, right. And even in that conversation is really important. So you’re not allowed to be on these platforms cause we’re not, you are not 13, but I asked the teacher we’ll have a class account so that we’re abiding by the law, but that you can learn how some of this use is being used and certainly communication with parents around. Why might you have a social media account? You have these students who are, there’s an incredible chasm between students who use it well and who don’t. There’s an incredible chasm between parents who sort of model and, and stay involved in their students’ social media accounts and those who don’t.

Jennifer (7m 58s):

So we have this, this whole group, this whole generation of kids who really are playing in these spaces by themselves. And, and I think that’s a real concern. And in some teachers might say, well, clearly there’s no place. I mean, we have enough to do in teaching and learning without engaging in social media. But then you hear things like, you know, 96% of high school students can’t tell the difference between a credible news article and one that has sponsored content. And when you recognize that students consume much, if not all of their news from social media outlets, then you wonder, well, where does that media literacy come in?

Jennifer (8m 43s):

And then if parents aren’t engaging in these conversations at home and teachers are not engaging in these conversations at school where, you know, what’s happening here and And, you know, given so many of the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, I think that we really need to re re-emphasize what it is or how it is that we’re teaching using social media and how we’re looking at media literacy in our classes too.

Ti-Fen (9m 12s):

And before we dive deeper into Digital leadership, I do want  to touch on digital citizenship so for you, like what is digital citizenship?.

Jennifer (9m 24s):

So for the most part, we define digital citizenship as using technology in responsible ways, you know, being appropriate and being safe. And thankfully some of that has changed since I began this work, but for the most part, we still confine our digital Citizenship ideas and lessons around what not to do, keep your password safe, you know, don’t cyber bullied, those kinds of things, all very, very important, like I said, but certainly important in the context of using some of the skills. And so mostly, unfortunately our approach has been, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.

Jennifer (10m 9s):

That hasn’t been about how are we using this? What are the nuances of this? And how can we, how can we change it for the better one?

Ti-Fen (10m 19s):

The way a teacher can teach Digital citizenship in their classroom.

Jennifer (10m 24s):

So there are lots of really effective resources out there for digital citizenship per se. So common sense, media has an incredible program and common sense. Media is great because they’ve sort of moved away from not entirely, but they have, they’ve moved away from the, no, don’t do this to, you know, what are ways in which you can connect with others and positive and meaningful ways. If you’re a younger students, a B internet, awesome by Google is an effective resource as well. Again, it focuses very much on, you know, safe passwords and not cyber bullying, et cetera, but it is both of those resources are incredible ways to start, but like anything Digital Citizenship is not a checklist.

Jennifer (11m 13s):

Okay. At the beginning of the year, I, you know, I taught this, there you go check. Right? The, the true impact and power is when you engage in ongoing conversations about how social media impacts the way in which we communicate with others, the way in which we consume our news, the things that we create, the, the way, the time that we spend, like certainly an aspect of digital citizenship is, you know, that, that balance piece, right? So the time that we spend online, you know, taking a look at that,

Ti-Fen (11m 46s):

For example, if a teacher light, they would use some, ah, digital tools in the classroom. And when the students are engaging, they can just like bring up, Oh, by the way, we have to be my foe for all the words, et cetera. Right. Is not. And, and in this conversation, is a way keep happening in the classroom. And it’s not like just like one time and I’m turning it off. You just like keep reminding our students, what are the goop behaviors, the digital world.

Jennifer (12m 22s):

Yes, exactly. One of the tools that I use ’em and I can share it with you to add to your notes is the media triangle. And so for me, just having, you know, a digital citizenship lessons at the beginning of the year, without on an ongoing conversation, as you say about media literacy. So how are we ha how is media constructed? And in, in what ways can we impact or, or create messages. But these are really, really, really important. Having kids understand that there are there’s the media texts, and then there’s an audience in terms of how people receive it, as well as a production value.

Jennifer (13m 6s):

So, you know, a Snapchat is going to a post is going to be very different from an Instagram post is going to be different from a blog is going to be different than a journal article. So understanding the way media works and engaging in these ongoing conversations about how they work and then creating media techs for an audience, or are also really, really important ways that we can start to move Way from just those digital citizenship lessons that tell us to meet online <inaudible>

Ti-Fen (13m 51s):

Digital leadership is the fast reach of technology and social media to improve the life circumstances and wellbeing of others and Jennifer for you. What is digital leadership specifically about and why do you think we should not only be a digital Citizenship also digital leadership?

Jennifer (14m 13s):

So I began with that working definition. And so much of my work in social media is around George corrosives definition. But more recently, I just finished my master’s in curriculum and technology with a focus on social media and education. And I took a deep dive into a program at the time it was called the Ontario educational Student Chat. Now it’s called the Global Education Student Chat we’ve morphed it. And I looked at the student’s within that program. And the way it works is we have students who decide on topics and then they create a, a monthly topic and a Twitter chat, which alongside of that is a YouTube Chat.

Jennifer (14m 57s):

So the students, the student leaders essentially are talking about topics that are important to other students. They are using YouTube live, they are using a whole bunch of other digital tools to create graphics. We co-construct norms of behavior. So one of the things that we talk about is how you may disagree with someone’s opinion, but you don’t disagree with the person. So we have to be very careful about how we use our words when we’re talking to one another. And so in doing this deep dive for my master’s project, I started to recognize that the students who were sometimes leaders in person really became leaders in online spaces.

Jennifer (15m 42s):

And, and what did I see them doing? I saw that they were using their online voices to network and participate in and create communities and inspire change. So digital leadership is really the ability to use technology, especially social media, to develop a model, a positive digital identity. That’s what I saw in the students when I was doing my research. And it was amazing to me to see the extent to which the us Teachers, but also other students within the leadership team, mentor one another.

Jennifer (16m 23s):

And, and really, really these students by the end of even one year of being together in the Chat with this ongoing mentorship, we’re using social media very, very differently than, than other students. And so to me, that’s the ideal that we help model for our students so that they can use social media to develop a positive digital identity, understand audience, use their voices for change, use their voices to connect with others. And that, that, that study, it was, it was so powerful because it share, it showed me that I was in, I was going to the right direction.

Jennifer (17m 6s):

So all of the literature review, all of the, all of the things that I had researched really did reinvigorate the need for this work and the importance of a shift for us in education.

Ti-Fen (17m 23s):

From your book. You mentioned how to make this transition is by finding a passion and start influencing Arthur’s to make a positive change. So could you give as an example of how you nurture digital leadership in your own class?

Jennifer (17m 42s):

Well, so I am a teacher Librarian, so I don’t have my own classroom per se. I did teach summer school. And so, so many of these ideas when we talked to students about their online identity, right? What are the conversations, having conversations and explicit lessons around their online identity modeling for students, even in the clubs and the councils that I, that I monitor, you know, having, Student having conversations about what your creating and what your putting out there, and what impact do you want it to have? You know, these are all really important things that, again, we, whenever it’s possible in the context of our class or our club or our committee, but also certainly as I continue to be an adult mentor for the Global Education Student Chat.

Jennifer (18m 33s):

And I feel like that’s such an incredible opportunity for students all over the world to be able to have to jump in on this conversation, to see other students in acting as digital leaders, to be able to respond and a very different way than what they might be used to. Because so many of our students used social media for entertainment. I would, I would argue so many of our adults do too. So in continuing to work with the Global Education Student Chat team, I feel like, you know, this is a good segue for any students, you know, K-12, I guess most of our students are from grade four to grade 12, to be able to come in and recognize that there was so much more they could be doing online.

Ti-Fen (19m 23s):

Got it. So Jennifer, if a teacher  comes to you and says that, Hey, I really want to create a lesson plan that to digital leadership, how would you guide them to do this lesson plan?

Jennifer (19m 45s):

So as much as I would love to say this, you know, step number one, is this a step number two? Is this step number three? Is this, I think it’s a little bit more complex than that. I think that what, what we need, what you need to do is you need to talk to students first and foremost, about the way in which they use media and the impact that it has on them. And then secondly, there’s a really good a lesson I use with my high school students in the Google Digital applied skills, and it talks about their online identity. And so I use that as a basis for talking about your digital footprint and your online identity.

Jennifer (20m 26s):

And then from there we talk about what are the weight, how is it that you’re using social media right now? And then asking that question, what social media are you on? And what will I learn about you? If I go there and having a sense with students or having conversations, and then engaging in activities around how could you use your online presence positively for your future? And you’d be amazed when you engage in those conversations and in the high school, that there are some students who will share while I have a blog and I have this website, I have this business ’cause, we, we, we don’t often listened to how students are using media in their own lives.

Jennifer (21m 12s):

So, so I would say it’s not a great when with younger students, it’s begin a class, social media account, seek out opportunities to connect with parents and other classes, and then to use your social media presence together, to engage in questions like, you know, who are the kinds of people that we should follow and how, when people look at our account, what do they, what do we want them to know about us? Right. So, so to have an online presence together as a class for younger students, but then as we get older to really sort of reemphasize, how are you using social media?

Jennifer (21m 56s):

How might you use it for your future? How might you use it to create a positive influence and really, really engaging in conversations with kids and dialogue? So your listening and, and, but also doing positively so that they have a mentor, or they have, they have someone who is doing things that they may be, are not used to seeing. Does that make sense?

Ti-Fen (22m 23s):

Yes. And that’s great. So basically they are three bullet points that I, I heard, like the first one is to talk to see you, then How like, what’s the impact in social media? And the, for the second one would be, what is the digital identity for then? And the third one is how could they use these platform to introduce a positive impact, like using blogs or a website for the business, et cetera. And so Jennifer, and I have seen, there is a keyword, a brow the next, like who, for younger students, who should they connect with, who she is a follow.

Ti-Fen (23m 9s):

So in your book, I think there’s a chapter talking about connection, which is very interesting. We know like most social media is to try to do the connection with people without boundaries and any tips that the teacher can connect with you then with me, no meaningful projects or a PPO to facilitate ditto. Leadership

Jennifer (23m 34s):

For sure. So the first bit of advice I would offer would be to leverage your own networks. I know on Twitter, I’ve created a list of international educators. So I want my students who may be from a very homogeneous group. You know, they know everyone in their own community. I want those students to connect with other classes in the world who might have a different perspective than them. And so one of the, you know, with the global read aloud, I know this is the last year for the global read aloud, but you actually don’t even need a global read aloud. You just need to be able to connect with leverage your own network, to connect with another grade to Teacher.

Jennifer (24m 17s):

Some are in the world and say, Hey, would you be willing to read the story? And could we, our two classes talk about it? You know, and maybe the connection begins on social media, you know, because it’s one of your own connections, but then you can take it to Flipgrid or you can take it to Google docs, you know, and then bring it back to social media. So students also recognize that social media has a place, but that sometimes ongoing conversations need to happen in different platforms, right? That’s an important lesson for kids. And, and another lesson that comes through for that is that you could use social media to connect with people and ideas that are different than your own, because I think that’s really important in our world today.

Jennifer (25m 4s):

The other thing I would suggest, so that was first to leverage your own connections in order to, to meet people from other places and using my Twitter list is a great idea. I’m Adam Hill, the person he’s a Teacher from Singapore with whom I facilitated an empowered Digital leaders course where starting a new cohort in the fall at the end of October. But one of the things he did was he created a list of his Student questions. They were engaging in an inquiry. And so he just created a spreadsheet and the student I want to learn more about, and then the students build out what they wanted to learn more about.

Jennifer (25m 47s):

And then he had a column for anyone online, again, leveraging his own social media network who had expertise in that area to be able to help mentor that student, because we are kidding ourselves. If we think that we’re the only experts, right? So to show students that you could use social media to connect with experts around the world, such a powerful thing. So, so you, you leverage connections in your in-person communities, but also in your online communities and directly respond to what the students are thinking about.

Jennifer (26m 29s):

The digital human library is another really great place to find experts to connect with. That’s something that my friendly castle created many years ago that I do highlight in social media, but it’s just being creative about how we can use social media platforms to reach out to experts. Certainly with COVID. I was amazed at the number of artists, the number of museums and zoos, and you name it that started to create programs, virtual programs for us to learn, right. Connecting with some of those, you know, those communities, those organizations, so that you could bring them into the classroom and then students can see, Oh my goodness, like Facebook live is a tool that’s being used by, you know, the children’s museum.

Jennifer (27m 24s):

And I’m learning so much the aquarium. I can’t remember the name of the aquarium. Oh, but they had a program regularly. I don’t know if they still do that anymore, where they were teaching us about sharks and jellyfish. So, so just being open to the fact that learning doesn’t necessarily need to come from our textbooks, but that there is a whole world of learning out there. Is that we just need to speak out on social media is one way in which we can connect our students to that a lot around the middle

Ti-Fen (28m 16s):

To remind students when, after we can now with some experts And or influential people. So I’m curious is like, how do we, how do they, how do these people mentor the students? Are you folks working with them for the mentorship program or, or even just like when they follow , this kind of the mentor is happening there organically?

Jennifer (28m 46s):

Well, I think have, and so with Global ed Student, Chat, we’re actually, we meet monthly with the students. So we’re, we’re, we’re engaged in, you know, what should we do? What should our questions be like? You know, how would someone interpret this? Right? So that’s our role. That’s my role as an adult mentor in Global ed Student Chat. But as a teacher, I am a mentor. Like if you look at Albert Bandura is a theory of observational Leadership students pay attention to the role models. So again, if they see their Teacher, you know, always picking up their phone and being online, or, you know, interrupting everything in order to take a picture of, to put it on their Twitter accounts that sends, ah, you know, a, a very interesting message to kids where as if they see their teacher saying, we only check our class social media account once in a while, or it’s Friday, let’s reach to someone and make a positive difference, you know, send out a quotation, you know, why we do this weekly?

Jennifer (29m 48s):

One of the things that I found fascinating when I was starting to look at teachers who had class accounts and in particular, one of my former students, Robert <inaudible>, who I mentioned in the book quite a bit, his mentorship. So they have a class account, their students are engaged in communities. So they have a public relations committee. He’s not in the classroom anymore now, unfortunately, but he had a classroom, a community. He had a public relations committee rather who created the class blog and who posted to social media. It was fascinating. And it was a grade six class when those students were 13 and creating their own accounts, those accounts very much resembled what they had seen, Mr.

Jennifer (30m 33s):

Conone do with his own account. Right. So we cannot underestimate the power that we have to impact our students. And, and that’s just frightening. And, you know, in some ways that’s so, you know, ah, you know, the, the impact that we have as teachers can sometimes feel like an incredible responsibility, but it’s true, right? Our students watch what we do and they, they learn so much from us, not just in terms of the content we teach, but the things that we, that, that, that we have, the things that we help them experience and the, the actions that we take in our classrooms.

Jennifer (31m 14s):

So I would argue that were all, we can all be media mentors for our students, depending on how we approach the topic of social media and education.

Ti-Fen (31m 27s):

Great. So gear every teacher’s around the world, you are the role model that was for your students. Jennifer, and let’s go to our random questions part. So what are the one or two books that have influenced your thinking? Well, in the past few years,

Jennifer (31m 53s):

So with regards to this topic in particular, I would say a participatory culture and a network to era by Henry Jenkins and Dana Boyd and <inaudible>, and it’s complicated by Dana Boyd. But more recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how sometimes social media could be almost an echo chamber, right? So depending on who you follow, or you have the same ideas, you know, the same new stories you think that everyone in the world has the same ideas that you do. And so I’ve been a reading, a book called a blind spot, a good intent, a blind spot, the implicit bias have good people.

Jennifer (32m 36s):

And it has really made me think about how we can use social to interrupt our perspective, to, to make sure that we aren’t always in that sort of filter bubble and how sometimes when we consume media, it is with a bias and, and an understanding that bias and looking at a variety of different perspectives is really important. So that, that is one book that’s more recently been really making me think about the way in which I interact on my social media channels.

Ti-Fen (33m 8s):

That was pretty interesting. So if you have a super woman power to change one thing, the Education, See saying Canada, what would it be?

Jennifer (33m 19s):

I wish I could sort of take a magic wand and, and, and, and help educators to move away from teaching content and more of a move towards teaching students and understanding the way in which our world today is impacting so many things. So I just, I just feel like sometimes we’re so bound by tradition and our quote unquote curriculum that we don’t take a step back to really think flexibly about what we’re teaching in, how we’re teaching it.

Jennifer (34m 1s):

And, and I know there’s so many obstacles, there’s time. There’s, you know, the, the restrictions that we feel like our, that are placed on us. But if I had a magic wand, I would just say, you know, let’s, let’s get rid of all of that traditional stuff. And let’s really rethink the What. It is that were teaching in how we’re teaching It so that when our students graduate, they, they are better equipped to deal with the world into which they’re graduating.

Ti-Fen (34m 30s):

Yeah, that’s great. I think a lot of teachers, sometimes we would be really constrained by the standardized tests and is, is it takes time is really hard to change these paradigms. So Jennifer do, before we close up, do you have any other thoughts? 

Jennifer (34m 56s):

Sure. I I’m. Can I, can I at risk of sounding like an advertisement here, I have two books coming out. One is coauthored with Lee castle, who was the founder of Digital a human library, and it’s illustrated by a former student, a Sahara for a farmer. And it’s a book called Aubrey bright stories that connect us, its a children’s book and it’s published by edgy match. And it’s an intergenerational story of a young girl and her relationship with her grandmother and really taking a look at technology and how it connects us. So very much in line with this conversation.

Jennifer (35m 36s):

And I also have a companion book to Social LEADia raising Digital leaders, which is, is, is going to be for parents that, that parents, a gap that we sometimes see. And how do we promote digital leadership? You know, from that point of view, from that perspective of a parent, I also would invite you to check out Global ed Student Chat. So it’s Global ed S S chats I’m on Twitter, on Instagram or on our website. Global ed Student chat.com because I really, really passionately believe that when students start to see something different, they will start to behave differently.

Jennifer (36m 21s):

And it’s a great opportunity for your kids to meet other students in the world who we are talking about, the same things that they are

Ti-Fen (36m 30s):

Amazing. I will make sure they are on our show notes. So if people want to learn more about your work, how can they find you online?

Jennifer (36m 41s):

My I blog@jcasatodd.com and you can find me on Twitter at, at J Casa Todd and certainly through my blog. If you wanted to contact me for further information to have me come out and speak or just because you have a question and there’s a contact form on J Casa todd.com.

Ti-Fen (9s): Welcome to Compass Teachers show I’m your host Ti-Fen.  My job is to interview Teachers around on the road and tease out their teaching practice, education research, or tools they use. Hopefully this show can offer us ideas for you to experiment in your classroom. Hey, this episode is all about Hacking Assessment. If you have been thinking about changing your assessment but don’t know how to do it, I hope in this episode, you can get some practical action to take. 

If you have never thought about changing this episode will give you totally different insights. Today. We are really excited to have Starr Sackstein to share with her Amazing hacks for transforming these paradigms. Starr Sackstein has been an educator since 2001 and left her role as the director of humanities in the West Hempstead Union Free School District to become a full-time consultant with the Core Collaborative. Starr was named an ASCD “Emerging Leader” class of 2016 and gave a TEDx Talk called “A Recovering Perfectionist’s Journey to Give Up Grades.” 

She has authored many books for teachers. For example , Teaching Students to Self-Assess,  Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School, Peer Feedback in the Classroom and the list goes on. Starr has traveled the world sharing ideas about assessment reform in Dubai and South Korea and is hoping to continue changing the system for kids everywhere. Now let’s enjoy our conversation with Starr. Starr will come to our show. 

Star: Thanks so much for having me.

Ti-Fen: So Starr from your word. We know that you put tan, so we were to help teach her changing how they Assess. But before we dive deeper into data, I guess, before you do all these endeavors or to change this paradigm, you might have been three or something wrong with you for a while. I’m curious what really triggered or you have to take action.

Star:  So for the first few years of my career, I would save it. It was pretty business as usual I did. Assess the wave that it was done to me when I was a student.  And, you know, I thought that gradeswere basically supposed to, to communicate what students knew, but there were a lot of other factors involved, like how well they were able to follow my rules and other compliance measures like late work and following directions, all of those different things kind of played in. And when I had my son and he got to middle and elementary school, those School used a standards based approach to learning and report card gave 

Star: (3m 0s): A lot of very specific information about what he knew and could do. And I was thinking about the AP students in my 12th grade English class and how ineffective report cards were. And the way that I was assessing really was because there was such little precision in the kind of feedback my students were getting in terms of their grades that I really started to rethink things. 

And at that point I started to read a bunch of books. The one that really got me going on this path would be Ken O’Connor’s book, a tool kit for broken grading, 15 fixes. And when I read that book, I really reflected deeply on the things that I was doing, that he claimed were the best practices. And the more I thought about it, the more I could see what he was talking about. 

For example, for group projects, grading group projects, and then giving that grade to everyone in the group, which is definitely something I did in my early career. And, and really what I learned was that grade was not necessarily representative of the contribution of each child in that group. So what did the grade actually represent? How well the product met the Mark, but it wasn’t necessarily fair or equitable or even close to communicating what each child’s contribution was. 

So I started to realize things needed to shift at that point. And once you could see something as not being as good as it could be, all of a sudden, you start to question all the practices that you’re doing, and that’s sort of where my journey started. Just not grading as much, giving better, more specific feedback, changing the way that I assessed both formatively and summatively. I stopped giving Traditional kinds of tests and started moving towards a student centered approach where students had a part and a voice in the kind of assessments they were engaging in. 

And then they also had a roll in, in how that assessment was then assessed after the fact, whether, you know, just making sure, but it was along with standards, but more importantly, that I wasn’t missing anything in their learning, through the use of reflection. 

Ti-Fen (5m 43s): Wonderful. So I think it’s a good time we dig into the alternative of assessment that optimizes you. This learning, first of all, I bet we need to change our perception of Assessment before doing any. And Starr, I think you have mentioned before in your story, how it triggers you to take action. So, sorry. How did you convey these to your students or parents, or even your school administrators? 

Starr (6m 14s): So that’s a, it’s a tricky question. I think when I first started doing this, I was the only teacher in my six to 12. Schools doing something that was so far outside of the normal New York city, public schools still required a grade at the end of each marking period. And so I had to find loopholes that were going to suit what I was trying to do and also fit what my school expected me to do. 

I don’t know if I really asked permission of my principal and the administration on my team. I think that I wanted to make sure I could get the results I was looking for before I had formal permission to do it, because it would have been harder to try what a, what I wanted to do and then Ask and get a no, and then have to find another way around it. So the, the first thing I sort of started to do was stop grading, everything that didn’t mean I stopped giving feedback. 

If anything, I kind of ramped up the feedback, but I didn’t actually put a grade on the formative aspects of the learning. So if my students were writing drafts, even if I was tracking the draft’s in our online communications system, rather than put a grade on the draft, they got specific feedback that aligned with the success criteria for the assignment. And they also got specific feedback that aligned with the goals they were working on individually. 

And that was the first major change I made. I made sure to reach out to parents via email and also by building a YouTube channel so that they can see what’s actually happening in the classroom and kind of explain some of the differences between what was happening in our classroom than other classrooms. And then I also tried to keep myself open if parents contacted me to answer their questions and concerns, because as the teacher of 12th grade students who were on their way into college, obviously a lot of AP students are concerned about their transcript and parents are worried that changing the approach or model at this point in a student’s career could somehow negatively affect their ability to get into college. 

So just really finding ways to alleviate concern, have parents and students that the learning would still be there, if not better and more communication about the specifics of what Students knew and could do. 

Ti-Fen (8m 58s): Right. So how did you explain to them that this way of giving feedback is a better way? 

Starr: So I’m sure, you know, and, and sort of your listeners that sometimes the proof is in the pudding as they say. So it took a little convincing at first, and there were conversations that I had with my Students very Frank and transparent about how we were going to be making the shift in. This was something new for me, but transparently explaining why we were doing it and then helping them understand how the Feedback they would get and the opportunities they would have to make revisions and spend more time with their work would increase their level of knowing. 

And the school itself was a portfolio School. So they were tracking their progress anyway, in the portfolio’s for all the classes that they were in. So this idea of using your learning as benchmarks and then tracking your progress through individual assignments was an opportunity for us to sort of say, you know, you’re going to keep working on something until your proficiency who are masterful at it. And you’re going to know if you’re proficient, who are masterful at it, because we’re going to have really clear expectations, success criteria is going to be visible. 

And then you’re going to have opportunities for, to advocate for help make revisions based on the feedback that you get, whether it’s pure feedback or feedback from me. And then you’re going to think about you’re learning over the course of that entire experience, the formative aspects of it, and then the summative, once you turn that project or a paper, and at the end, based on the feedback that you gave, you are going to write a really clear standards, aligned reflection that speaks about your process, so that you know, that I see the full picture and then your being assessed on something more completely. 

And I think when they started to see that and that they were getting so much more information than just agreed, most of my students actually really liked the fact that I took so much time to really make sure, but they were successful. And, you know, we were really using what they were learning and it, it was helping us kind of benchmark where we, where we were and where we needed to go. And again, that process just became a lot more transparent because it was their needs that were dictating how projects were developed and how quickly, or how slowly we are. 

Ti-Fen (11m 59s): All right.  Now we have talked about Feedback. So I think that’s a good segway. We can chat more about How teachers can construct the Feedback? In your blog. If you say that you will give oral and written feedback, besides one-to-one conferences with students become very important. So when you’re giving students written  Feedback, or talking with the, you know, one to one conference, what are your strategies for constructing feedback that’s helpful for students?

Starr: So, because my students were 11th and 12th graders, mostly the feedback was teaching them how to ask for the kind of help and Feedback they needed. I think a lot of students walk up to a teacher and say, is this good? Which is a pretty generic and subjective kind of question. So the first part of giving really effective feedback is teaching students to ask really good questions about what they want feedback about. 

So you’re structuring your classes like a workshop, and you have your mini lessons each day, and you see that students are struggling with specific things. The first and easiest way to determine how you’re gonna give feedback is based on the very specific skills your teaching them. So if we are learning about thesis statements or developing contexts and an introductory paragraph, or we are talking about transitions and cohesion, or we’re talking about development, any of those things, that’s where we’re going to start with the Feedback looking at what students do really well, because we want to make sure that we’re kind of building the Feedback out of their strengths and not out of their deficits. 

And we want to communicate to them why, what they’re doing is really good and how they could build on it. And then the areas of challenge we really want to make sure, but they understand, first of all, what it should look like. So there should be models and exemplars ready to point them to, there should be at least one or two strategies you could provide for them, if you want them to grow in a particular way. And then you need to give them time to ask more questions and practice the different things. 

And then come back to again and say, I tried strategies, and this is what I was able to achieve or strategy didn’t work for me. So I went to strategy be, and then I linked up with one of my friends and, you know, try to get some feedback from a peer seemed to be doing better with this area than I did. And you know, that kind of helped me try a different way. And that’s also how you get kids to start building their own goals as well, based on the feedback that we’re giving. 

So we wanna start first with were the whole class, his, and then as we are taking the status of the class before, there was one on one conferences, really trying to get a good idea of where the kids are as a group and where they are individually, so that you can really tailor the feedback that you’re giving to something more specific to this, to the student who is sitting in front of you.

Ti-Fen: That’s really great. Let’s review it first.  We know we need to teach them to act effective Feedback and in the Feedback for us, we need to ask you to why and how an O so some really practical examples that student and then give them some time to experiment and try to reflect with more questions. And I bet that Starr, you might get some questions or doubts from Teachers like saying, Hey, it sounds like it might take lots of time after day changing the letter Grades. And for that kind of question, how do you respond to Teachers or any tips that you would give them so they can keep Feedback in a more effective fashion? 

Starr: Okay. So this is also kind of a tough thing, and I do want to preface it by saying I did teach high school English in New York city schools. So I had a course load of 150 students in my five classes, or more than that, because classes were capped at 34. 

So it is possible to give really good specific feedback to that many students. It does take a lot of time. And as you’re building structures on the front end, you have to find things that are going to work for your kids. So whether you’re developing Google forms that align with the standards and what you are actually, what you’re actually Teaching, and you’re teaching students to reflect and think about learning through those forms. As you scaffold the process by midyear, it does become a lot less clunky. 

Then it is in the beginning of the year, when you are getting to know your students and your also building those structures that your going to be using, but it, but it is time consuming. And, and I would argue though, that Grades are a very efficient means of, of, of assessing students. It’s quick, it’s not terribly helpful, and it’s also not very accurate, but it is fast. So it’s a question of effectiveness versus a efficiency. 

And I think we would all agree that it’s more important that students get effective Feedback than it is for us to be efficient in the way that we’re giving them the feedback. So even another thing my teachers could consider as that, we need to relinquish the control in the space. And if we train students to be really good givers of Feedback as well, and that students need to get, get feedback from their peers before they get feedback from us, then we’re putting structures in place that diminishes the amount of time we have to spend on the front end, giving that first level of Feedback to our students, because we have made them really, really prepared to first of all, be independent in checking for their own Feedback, whether its with checklists or a success criteria or a clear rubrics. 

And then they’re going to peers who have fresh eyes who could look and give them the feedback as well. And when they decide to come to us on, let’s say the third ground, then they’ve gotten feedback from more than one person already. And those systems in itself take some of the burden off of us as teachers to make sure that every child is, is getting the Feedback they need. I will also say that you will not be able to give every child Feedback specifically every single day. 

I would think of it in terms of week long chunks instead of, you know, daily, especially if you walk around with like either an iPad or a M you know, some kind of sadness of the class where your carrying your clipboard and you’re just jotting down what you overhear, student’s talking about it and what you see them doing while you’re observing. And then you’re taking that information that you’re, that you’re gathering while you’re getting the status of the class to make some good decisions about how to adjust, adjust your lesson plans to, to really speak to where kids needs are. 

Ti-Fen: Hmm. I see. So Starr I said, I mentioned earlier in our conversation that I have read your book Hacking Assessment ,  there are two hacks, particularly stood out for me. The first one is Teaching reflection and inks do that for me, because I believe that it is useful for a lifelong. So would you mind giving us an overview about how you implement the lesson plan of teaching reflection? 

Starr: So to me, the most valuable gift I have given my students over the years is the gift of reflection and in purposeful reflection, because I think when students hear reflection, sometimes what they’ve been expected to do is maybe think about if they enjoyed a project, what they thought they got out of it, something really basic and maybe like a paragraph, but nothing that’s actually gonna speak to they’re learning and their process, but the metacognitive process, they went through to complete an assignment. 

So when I’m teaching students how to reflect effectively, there’s a whole process that I go through. The first thing that students have to do is that they have to restate what the assignment was asking them to do in their own words, not cutting and pasting from the document, but really articulating what they thought they had to do. And the reason I ask them to do this is I’m sure your listeners and your Self can empathize with sometimes thinking you created a very clear assignment and when you get the student work back, it doesn’t look anything like what you were expecting. 

And what I have learned over the time working in high school classes is it’s not always the student’s fault for, for having that miscommunication. Sometimes my directions weren’t as clear as they could be. So by asking students to tell me what they thought they had to do, it gives me an opportunity to really assess what they planned on doing. Instead of just assessing what I thought I asked them to do, which are always the same thing. 

So that’s step one paragraph where they’re talking about what the assignment was asking them to do. And then from there, they talk about how they completed the assignment. What steps did they take from start to beginning? Where did they struggle in the learning? How did they overcome those struggles? And then beyond that, they think about the standards were in the world. Do they exhibit the level of proficiency mastery around particular standards that the assignment was addressing and almost like writing an argument paper, they then have to go back to their project and find the evidence from the text that supports where they are on a particular standard. 

And Y from there they then give themselves, they give themselves a grade based on their level of mastery for the assignment. And they then also talk about what they would do differently next time, based on the experience they had with this particular assignment. So there’s a lot going on there. And if a teacher reads the student’s reflections prior to assessing the work, you can really get inside the head of the student and see what feedback you’ve given them along the way, because that will be a part of their process implementing the Feedback and then provide them more specific Feedback with their final product, or were they successful in the things they were working on? 

What should they be working on next? So those reflections really become integral in how you’re providing additional feedback and also assessing their learning because that reflection also fills a lot of gaps before I started inviting students into the process of developing the assessments as well. A lot of times what I was asking students to show me, didn’t always show everything they know. So having these reflections also gave me an opportunity to kinda see in the blind spots

Starr (24m 21s): that the Assessment  Itself didn’t really Assess the first step, What Assessment is asking them to do

Ti-Fen (24m 37s):. So is this a step before or after doing the Assessment there?

Starr: This reflection is after. So they completed the assignment and then before they submit the assignment, their doing this reflection as well, God, they are so own these a lesson plan will be implementing after they doing the Assessment right. It, it would be more goal setting before the Assessment. 

Ti-Fen: I see, I see. So the first step we’re asking them what assessments asking them to do. And the second would be how they accomplish this assessment is there any struggles in what kind of standard they accomplish and any evidence that can support that.  The final state would be a reflection on what  they can do differently next time. So the second hack impressed me a self-Grades. You said that when they’re, so report card crier, you ask your students to grade themselves, given they’re learning progress. Why do you think that we should empower students in valuing it themselves?

Starr: I think kids should know a lot more about themselves as learners. Then we give them credit for, I think a lot of the times they’ve never actually been taught to articulate with a vocabulary, the kind of things we want them to tell us, which is what the struggle is. 

Starr: But if we teach them about standards and we use the language of standards in our classes, and we align learning targets with the standards that we’re using, and then we co-construct success criteria together. So that the language is very much baked into what we’re doing. Students can then articulate how well they’re doing the, the, the other thing teachers can do that could make that easier as to, to develop progressions based on the standards so that students can really identify where on a progression they are based on the skill set that they have and the things they need to continue working on. 

So if we have student friendly progressions and Students can identify that they are at a specific spot on those progressions, then they know what they are shooting for as they move forward. And they know where they currently are based on that same theory. So we really just need to give kids language so that they could talk about their own learning. I know a lot of folks have asked me in the past, well, you know, won’t kids over grade themselves. 

Like, would they give themselves in a way, just because, and you’d be surprised to know that most kids are harder on themselves than we’d even be on them. There’s a really, really small percentage of students who would over, you know, that we would shoot for the delusions of grand jury. And even though they have no evidence to support where they are in those conversations, they might assess themselves higher. And really the only thing to do from there is just through, you know, turn it around and ask them again, what evidence do you have to support that assessment of yourself and then really make it a point for them to be able to demonstrate that understanding in a way that is tangible with real evidence. 

Ti-Fen: So what did you observe the changes in your students before and after you deploy gradeless Assessment or any story that you can share with us around the moment you realize your hacks are working?

Starr: Oh my God. First of all, the, the level of commitment to learning was increased completely. You know, everybody was like, well, if there were no Grades kids, aren’t going to work as hard. That was definitely not my experience. As a matter of fact, once the Grades were removed, even the students who weren’t your typical, your typical high achieving students, because they didn’t play the game of School had a much better opportunity to be successful because it wasn’t a matter of how many hoops could you jump through. 

It was a matter of how can you demonstrate what you know, and can do. And if I was being more flexible in the kind of Assessment that was going on, and students actually had a voice in the way they were assessed, some of those challenges, especially with the more School averse students, you know, became less because I wasn’t forcing them to do what I wanted them to do. I was listening to what they were saying, and I was giving them an opportunity to make decisions about how they showed they’re learning. 

And as long as their ideas were viable, I allowed them to move forward with them. And I think really over time, it became less about the Grades and more about improvement. That was the biggest shift. The conversations in class were less about, you know, what did I get on that? And more about I’m really struggling with this, or I really improved a lot on that. 

And the fact that they had the language to really articulate those things, made it even easier for me to adjust instruction when I needed too. And it really helps me see them as partners in the developing process in terms of, you know, instructionally, what was happening in the classroom. So there was more of a reciprocal relationship between me and the Students and there was a first and I wasn’t the only arbiter of what was good and great and what we learned. 

And I think that made the space a better learning environment, not just for the students, but for me also,

Ti-Fen:  That’s amazing. I think it’s definitely a win-win situation with deploying these new form or of Assessment. And thank you, Starr for sharing so much amazing ideas in a really clear steps, too, how a teacher,can take in their classroom. So the last few questions I have for you are there any books that have influenced your thinking a lot in the past few years? 

Starr: So like I mentioned before, the book by Ken O’Connor 15 fixes for broken grades, Rick Wormeli is a fair, isn’t always equal is another really good. One more recently, Joe Feldman’s grading for equity is really good. Mark barns is Assessment three point O and role reversal. Also a really good texts. Paul Bloomberg in parks and Barb Pitchfords impact team book, which is all about protocols for more specific PLC conversations around student learning. 

And, you know, I I’ve had a bunch of my, my own books, but there’s certainly a community Alfie cone also has great resources and he has been doing this work, you know, long before I was. And he’s a tremendous resource as well as somebody who knows a lot about helping kids learn without labeling their learning. 

Ti-Fen: That’s a really great list.. I will make sure that they are all in the show notes with also your books as well, to you personally, what is your a core value in education? 

Starr: I believe that every child has something valuable to add to a learning environment. And I believe that we need to honor every child and what those strengths are so that we can all grow as a group. And I think for too long education has segregated kids sort of sorted them into different categories and then ask them to play this game that often favors kids, kids with a lot, you know, whether it’s kids with money or a privileged kids of other kinds that set a lot of other students apart. 

So I think it’s really important that we know our students really well. And we create really inclusive environments that take into consideration the human beings that are sitting in front of us. And Assessment, shouldn’t make kids feel badly about the learning process. It should do the opposite. It should encourage and engage them to want to be a better learners from whatever their starting point is without judgment and without labels. 

Ti-Fen (33m 52s): So before we close up, do you have any other thoughts, programs or workshops? Do you want to share with our listeners? 

Starr (34m 0s): So there’s a lot of stuff going on right now. I work for the Core Collaborative right now. So would I do is I often coach teams through their assessment process? That’s that’s one thing I do on Fridays on Facebook. I do like a Q and a around Hacking Assessment and that one’s Free they could just show up and participate, ask questions while that’s happening. I have a new book coming out with ASCD in March, which is all about the intersection it’s called assessing with respect and its all about taking into consideration the social emotional needs of students when we make decisions about Assessment and there are also a bunch of online conferences that are going to be happening over the next six months that folks could participate in as well. I have all that stuff on my website 

Ti-Fen (9s): Welcome to compass teachers show I’m your host Ti-Fen. My job is to interview teachers around the world and tease out their teaching tactics, education, research, or tools they use. Hopefully this show can offer ideas for you to experiments in your classroom. This episode is all about phenomenon based learning, according to Finnish education sites in phenomena based learning and teaching holistic real world phenomenon provides the starting point for learning the phenomenon started yes, complete entities in their real context and information and skills relate you to them all study by crossing the boundaries between subjects today, we are really lucky to have Ilona Taimela joining us, who is specialized in phenomenon based learning design thinking party’s about torturing processes and sustainability Ilana has seen over 25 years of experience from training teachers in Finland national wide, and now more internationally.

Ti-Fen (1m 17s): She’s the CEO of Helsinki education consulting group. She provides consulting services to these in schools, in implementing the new Finnish national curriculum with her long experience from being a classroom and subject teacher, a university researcher to an executive director and an administrator. She’s no doubt in engaging and energizing and sought after speaker. Now let’s enjoy our conversation with Ilona.

Ti-Fen: Ilona thank you to join me today.

Ilona: Thank you for inviting them. I’m very happy to be with you here. Talking about phenomenon based learning

Ti-Fen: Before we dive into phenomena based learning, could you give us a little bit of background? Why financial to use the ne this new way of learning in Finland?

Ilona: We have national curriculum for the basic education, and it’s always for 10 years, the new curriculum that we have started in 2016 and actually 2014 already. It was given from the education board in this basic curriculum. It was introduced that we need to have more of these holistic interdisciplinary study units. That is also because we need to be teaching our students about the world holistically in the curriculum It says, or there to be these interdisciplinary Units. And the phenomenon based learning itself is really from Helsinki kind of an initiative on the more kind of on the pedagogy and how to help implement this interdisciplinary.

Ti-Fen (3m 14s) Ilona. Why focuses on inter-disciplinary?

Ilona (3m 20s): Well, like, like a little bit, I was already saying that, that we, we have real world phenomenon and, and sometimes, you know, when the student goes, according to the timetable from, especially in those grades where, where there, there is different subject teachers also that you go from from one subject to another subject and so forth, you get to kind of maybe a narrow understanding of the, of the world, because we have at the moment, really big holistic and these kind of world, we get problems that we need to be able to as a, as a human kind that we need to be able to solve.

And they are all intertwined and connected to each other. And that’s why we also need to start teaching our students how the world functions and, and how these real world phenomenons are intertwined and how different subjects sort of support each other. And especially in Finland, we have very much autonomy for the teachers at school that they are able to, to, you know, sort of plan their plan, their own lessons. It means that if, if the curriculum wouldn’t in a way, even force them to collaborate, sometimes then they would just do their own planning and, and teach their own subjects and know nothing about what the other teachers are doing about.

So this sort of, in a way also forces the subject subject teachers to, to, to join the plan and then also implement the lessons together.

Ti-Fen (4m 54s): Got it. It sounds like we want more connection and relation between each subjects so we can provide more Holy stake experience for the students. So how do you define phenomenon based learning personally? What are the key ingredients there?

Ilona (5m 14s): The key ingredients is really this, this interdisciplinary. So sometimes, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been said that phenomenon based learning is like project based learning or problem based learning or inquiry based learning. I have been an IB teacher previously and IB, the international baccalaureate organization, which is world known almost in every country. There’s IB, IB schools, and IB is inquiry based. So, so that is something that, you know, the students have to inquire into the different kind of maybe phenomenons and so forth.

But, but these are done usually also by subject teachers on their own only IB has also started to, to, to say that there has to be these transdisciplinary units, project based learning. Then it can also be done only by, by one subject teacher on, on their own and even problem-based. So, so that, so the nominal based learning is really different from this that it always requires in the disciplinary planning and execution.

So that’s like, I think number one kind of key ingredients that is different from, from other, and then also in a way that the phenomenon based learning how we have now been starting to implement it in some of the schools, is that even the, the grade levels can be mixed up so that the students can be of different ages in the same study group. And, and they also, you know, work together so that it doesn’t have to be only, only like, you know, for one, for one grade.

And that is because also if you think about it, when the students come into to study phenomena, they, they might have different kinds of earlier understandings of, of, of what it is. And basically the phenomenon based learning starts from the student’s own question that what do I already know about it? And that is why, you know, there can be different age groups, students, because some people, some students might have other, other things that they know as some other things so that they can be also experts by themselves.

And then they start making it get going into the inquiry in a way as well. That, what do I want to know about this phenomenon based learning? It’s really more about the process and not really about the product so that the teacher and the students don’t really know what comes out of it after, because there needs to be the flexibility and openness of curiosity and creativity during the process, but that what comes out of it. And then they have learned really these kind of test firs or skills that will be talking about what other features that the student needs to know.

Ti-Fen (8m 18s): Would you mind sharing us one of your favorites and I’m the one face, their new project and you designed the score so that we can understand more how he looks

Ilona (8m 29s): It’s got to do with ethics. I used to be an ethics teacher a long, long time ago, because in Finland, we also have a compulsory religion that is being taught. So there was different religion teachers and me as an ethics teacher doing a project together with biology teacher and also like a health education teacher. The phenomenon was really about the kind of ethical dilemmas that we have in, in, in, in our society with, you know, that has kind of a biological or health angle.

Ilona (9m 4s): And the students were able to then start making their different kinds of, you know, inquiries into what are the kinds of ethical dilemmas that they know that exists. And what do they know about them already? And what do they want to then there was really, really excellent kind of studies made by the made by the students. And the thing is that we never would have been able to design the whole thing by teachers or, you know, by, by ourselves.

Ilona (9m 34s): So there needs to be this openness for, for student activity and creativity. And some of the students were more interested for example, about genetically modified foods, or some of the students were more interested in the designer, babies, the babies kind of DNA and everything is designed. And so these are the kinds of things that I think give much, much more to the students once they, once they start learning about, you know, the process and how then if, if somebody would be just telling them about it or, or if they were just reading about it in a textbook in one of the schools, cause I’ve worked on the school level much more on as an, when I wasn’t in the administration of the city of Helsinki, there was also one school that made, made an inquiry into all of the parents off the 500 plus students that they have, that if there is anybody in the parents that would be sort of willing to share their knowledge with the students when they’re doing the phenomenon based learning unit.

Ilona (10m 45s): And it’s amazing that how many parents also want to engage with the, with the students or invite them maybe to their own workplaces or come to the school and, and tell and show. So, so that is something that is really, really, I think the phenomenon based learning at least in Finland has, has given the school and kind of made a bit of bridge with the, with also with the parents.

Ti-Fen (11m 11s): So in these ethical dilemma projects, the first step is teachers to introduce this issue or phenomenon to students and the students, what would they do after that?

Ilona (11m 26s): Yeah. So how the phenomenon based learning it actually goes is that there needs to be kind of planning phase first with, among the different subject teachers. And if there, if it’s on the, on the grade level where there’s a classroom teacher, of course also the classroom teacher can, can plan it with, with other subject teachers. So the planning phase is really important in a way that that is when you, of course, you’re looking look into the content that is in the curriculum that has to be kind of studies during, during, during that phenomenon.

Ilona (11m 59s): But then it cannot be so much designed by the teachers that the teacher is sort of, because sometimes, you know, the teachers plan it too much, you know, whether they, they plan all these kinds of tasks and assignments that, that, that the students have to do. And that is then, you know, we are then taking, taking control from the students’ own learning path that they have to themselves design it. But then what did the teachers do in the planning phase is also to look at what are the transformational skills that actually the students need to learn during this phenomenon.

Ilona (12m 37s): In, in, in Finland, we have been ranked number one in, in the world to, to teach future skills. And the thing is that the future skills, what we have said that that are in, in our curriculum are for example, critical thinking, taking care of oneself. And then there’s this kind of cultural identity cultural aspects.

Ilona (13m 7s): There’s also the communication skills and not only Lang writing or, or speaking or reading or these kinds of things, but also in the communication, it’s really important to look into the videos or, or the photographs and understanding that how they can be manipulated. And also there’s kind of skills for, of course, the ICT skills as well, but then also entrepreneurial skills in a way that how, how you are able to carry out a project, then there’s also skills on participation, how you participate and how you participate in to, in the society and how you are building sustainable future for, you know, these kind of what we call is the eco social skills.

Ilona (13m 57s): So these are the kinds of skills that the needs to be thought in every subject, but also in, in, in every phenomena. But they cannot be taught in, in every phenomena during that, you know, so that they have to be chosen that this particular phenomenon, this, this unit, maybe we choose two of them and we concentrate on that. And that is something that then the teacher has to facilitate. And, and to make, to tell that, to tell the students that when you are doing your own inquiry and you have, you are going to present, are you going to do some kind of a product afterwards?

Ilona (14m 34s): So these are the kinds of skills that you, you will be maybe also assessed because the assessment then it’s also, that is continuous as for formative assessment, what we talk about it. And so they can be a pre-assessment. What do you know already about the phenomena? What are the kinds of skills that you already have? And then what are the skills and the content that you’re learning during, during the whole, you know, the unit let’s say the unit is maybe about seven or eight weeks.

Ilona (15m 5s): So this is the planning phase then comes kind of a tuning in that you tune in to the phenomena or you, how would I say kind of motivate the teacher, the students into it. And that can be, you know, you visited museums or you read a book or you watch a video, or are you already, already in, that’s why you can already engage with an expert from outside. So it can be very, very many different ways of how to, how to motivate the students into, well, let, let’s look into this phenomena phenomena, what is it all about?

Ilona (15m 43s): And after that, then the students sort of come into this concept validation session that they have to think about it. What do I already know? They might do a mind map for example, and that can be a kind of a pre-assessment of it, or, or, you know, discussions or whatever, or even a quiz, if you want to give you an, a test so that the test, usually we give it as a summative test, but there could be a test already straight away.

Ilona (16m 16s): So what do you already know? And then after that, they can make the questions. What do I want to know? And you can make the students into groups of that kind of groups who have similar interests, and then they go into the inquiry and then they, you know, kind of ask other experts again about it, or make interviews or, or research, or, or visits to different places and so forth. What is required in order to, to, to get more information about the phenomena and worrying all this stuff that needs to be a lot of, a lot of talking discussion, formative assessment, the teachers are like facilitators.

Ilona (17m 3s): And then at the end, you know, sometimes we have no idea, like what comes out there can be a products. There can be presentations that can be even a play or, or, or, or a debate or whatever. I remember when I was a teacher also, you know, sometimes my, my students, they did some of them, they did even a Minecraft kind of a game or some of them, they did an animation. So, so there can be a lot of different things that they can teach, teach each other, even.

Ilona (17m 37s): And, and, and then at the end, you know, sometimes a lot of them schools also in Finland nowadays have, for example, open houses or exhibitions Or events where they then invite the parents or the even wider society to come and see what the students have been learning.

Ti-Fen (18m 2s): Let me review the process a little bit. So the planning phases would be first narrowed down the future skills you want to targeting in phenomena based learning and also the relevant topic. Right? And then after that, you would be planning the formative assessment along the way for different scales that align with the issue we are targeting. We are embedding in the phenomenon based learning. So the, I curious the first step, like narrowing down the scale with different subject teachers, how do you have any tips and tools that you would give for people who collaborate between different subject teachers and trying to narrow down the things they want to targeting? It?

Ilona (18m 58s): The thing is what I have been doing, because I’ve been teaching a lot of like on the school level, the, the teachers and, and so forth is that, of course, every, every school has their own kind of how they organize the whole school, the timetable, the, you know, the who teaches what and so forth. But the thing is that what usually I have been doing with them is really what I call, like mining the curriculum and mining the timetables and so forth.

Ilona (19m 29s): So that, so that it is a big, really big process to look at it first on a, on a big picture, that when we start in Finland, we start, the school will actually, tomorrow is the day in August. And then we start in August and then we go up to up to June, beginning of June. So you need to look at the whole year. Okay. And then during the whole year, how many different kinds of phenomenons do we have in some schools?

Ilona: They have maybe two in some schools, three, I know a school that has four or six during the whole year. So then you need to, you know, per student, if you look at it on a student level, and then, then you need to look at what are the kinds of skills and content that they need to learn during that particular year. And then you divide those, you look into the, you look into the curriculum, what are the kinds of subjects that go together?

Ilona (20m 30s): What are the kind of thematic phenomenons that come from different, different subjects together? And then they are making those plans on a, on a year, on a, on for the year. And then it’s easier to look into the whole, like one unit only you look it, okay, because these are the, these are the subjects teachers that are collaborating in this unit. Maybe in that next unit, it’s different. One can be more kind of cited on, on mathematics and science.

Ilona (21m 1s): The other unit can be more leaning towards former creative and artistic or, or these kinds of, so then of course, the skills that we have, these transformational skills for the future, we also then look at it, look it up so that what are the ones that are needed in that particular unit, or what is product more natural to learn during that particular unit? For example, in, in one phenomena, if they are looking into all kinds of, you know, leading things, and there may be growing, growing plants and making studies about the plants and, and about nature and so forth, then of course, they need to be learning more about these eco social skills and, and how to be, how to be more sustainable and, and so forth, and how, how, what kind of actions that they are doing in their own life actually build us a better future.

Ilona (22m 1s): So, so they really, they really go with the unit in a way that, you know, once you start looking at the whole bigger picture, then it’s easier to see that, okay, actually, these are these skill we need to do during this year. It goes automatically to two, one of the, one of the uterus, maybe coding goes into the one that has more mathematical mathematical skills and so forth. Great.

Ti-Fen (22m 26s): Could you give us a few examples that you have seen schools picked as their phenomenon topic, what phenomenon they picks

Ilona (22m 38s): Nowadays? And also like last year, there was more and more, these kinds of phenomenons that are very topical and which are, you know, kind of, you know, comes from, from our society. And we need to think about, so, so the climate change, sustainability, circular economy, you know, plastic in our oceans, these are the kind of things are, are, are all the time, very current. And, and of course now at the moment, what we’ve been having is, is the, the COVID 19 in the way that what are the pandemics and what are the kind of, you know, how do they start and how do they, so, so often these current phenomenons that are happening around us are something that are also triggers the curiosity of the students very easily.

Ilona (23m 31s): Or for example, the black lives matter movement that even from the USA came all the way up to Finland, we had even demonstration. So, so these are the kinds of things that the students are very motivated into, into researching. And thinking about that, how does it affect their life and what kind of a future we are building, because why the students are in the school in the first place, they are there in order to become active citizens later, later in their life, or you’re already during their school time.

Ilona (24m 5s): So, so we need to, you know, involve their kind of understanding of the world already. And, and, and, and that, that motivates them and also to research and, and to, to learn more about the different topics. Also the sustainable development goals that the United nations have set up for 2030, the SDGs, like we talk about them, the agenda 2030, it’s something that has a lot of different kinds of things that can be implemented in, in different phenomenons.

Ilona (24m 39s): And that is something that some of our schools have taken also like last, last year, I remember that some schools only looked into, into those and were looking at ’em and asking also that their, their students, about the phenomena in, in high schools, we also have schools that only, you know, sort of plan the phenomenons from the students so that their students are able to vote and, and kind of introduce the different phenomenons that they want to, they want to be studying it’s, it’s not, it doesn’t only come from like top down.

Ilona (25m 16s): It also needs to be involving the students and their own interests and curiosity.

Ti-Fen (25m 34s): Also Ilona you mentioned about after the planning and the student, the teacher would tune into phenomenon by providing some media, or even invite experts to give a speech to the student, to introduce the phenomenon. And then the students will have to think about it and having a mind map. I’m curious what this mind map look like

Ilona (26m 11s): The mind map, of course, in the beginning, it’s really for the students to make a mind about off what they already know about the phenomena, because sometimes, you know, if we talk about, for example, the second world war or the, or the, the Holocaust, for example, of what happened to the Jewish people in, in Finnish curriculum, it comes in the eighth grade and that the students need to learn about these things. But then if we actually, you know, talking already about, let’s say, black lives matter for the sixth graders or seventh graders and so forth, they might be interested into, into looking at injustice in history or injustice in our society already previously.

Ilona (26m 57s): So they might start looking into it. And, and the thing is that, like, what do they already know about it before going into any kind of inquiry? So it’s kind of, kind of a test or something that they do the mind map without using any books or without, you know, reading, reading about more or, so forth. And that is, then that can be then taken again as a tool at the very end of the unit.:

Ilona: Let’s look into the mind map that you did six, seven weeks ago. What did you write on it? Or what did you draw on it that, what did you know about the phenomenon when you started the process? And then they realized that, Hey, I know so much more, and then you can maybe even take a different color and draw and write on it more than what have I learned during this phenomenon based learning unit. And it can be also digital, you know, there’s a lot of different digital tools to make, and these mind maps, and that’s kind of a one way of really showing that that, Hey, this is what you knew in the beginning without reading and without inquiry.

Ilona (28m 14s): And then this is the thing, something that you have been able to put on top and to show that how much you have learned after, or during the, during the unit.

Ti-Fen (28m 25s): So after the, mind map and teacher or student would group together with the same interests, and then they will do inquiry based learning in this phase, how teacher can guide them to do the inquiry based learning.

Ilona (28m 47s): It has to, again, come, they don’t go into the groups before they have actually done the questions that, what do I want to know about the phenomena? And then, then only that, that then they can go into the groups of similar interests, but it doesn’t necessarily always have to be even group, but they can also be individual or pairs or whatever it depends, but how does the teacher then go about it? Is that because they have the, the students have set their own questions, what do they want to know?

Ilona (29m 18s): And then the questions can be looked at on a class level or in the student group level, even anonymously in a whether these are the kinds of questions that came out. And, and then, you know, let’s look into the, what, which, which ones are kind of the ones that we go into and start doing the inquiry and research, or it can be, it doesn’t always have to be an inquiry. It can be a, a building of something, or try and trying out kind of a piloting of, of, of, of some kind of a construction.

Ilona (29m 49s): But then, then that is when the teacher, because she knows, and she has shown also, and told the students that while you are doing this inquiry or research, or, or construction or piloting or something experimentation, these are the skills that you have to be, you know, sort of learning. So these are the transformational skills, and that is where the objectives come out. That that is kind of also assisting so that the teacher becomes then a facilitator facilitating that kind of a process and assisting those students to go further and to, to, to be able to target those objectives, that they have to learn these particular skills during this process.

Ilona (30m 41s): And that is, you know, sort of pushing, pushing the students forward and what sometimes it’s called also also like scaffolding. And so the objectives always have to be there in order for the students to go further. Otherwise, you know, some, because I’ve had like, you know, teachers tell me that, well, how do they motivate the students to go for further? Or how do they assist them? But the thing is that when the inquiry questions and those kinds of research questions, or the experimentation ideas, they come out from the students themselves.

Ilona (31m 20s): So that already motivates them to go further, but then you need to be able to facilitate them to vote those skills, not all of the content, because often they, you know, they start only looking into the content, but they also need to be remembering that these are the skills that we at the same time learning during, during. So, like I said, phenomenon based learning. It’s more about the process, not so much about the product ending, kind of like how much content have you found out, or how much have you learned?

Ilona (31m 54s): It’s not that it’s not assessing kind of that so much because that comes automatically, but then it’s re really pushing towards learning new transformational skills, the skills for the future. And that is something that, you know, feeling that is proud about being number one in the world. And that is something that we need to be all the time pushing and showing the students that these are the skills we’re learning at the same time.

Ti-Fen (32m 22s): Wonderful. So I want to dive a little bit deeper around the facilitation, a process a teacher plays in, in this role. So I’m curious when you were a teacher, how do you facilitate the process, for example, would you like having one to one conversation with student regularly to make sure they’re developing the right track aligned with the skills learning objectives, or you would ask specific questions that can help them to think more deeply,

Ilona (33m 2s): Actually all, all of that and even more in a way that yeah, the, the teacher’s role is, is to be the person who is asking that kind of questions that make the students think further. And, and also to have the student ask more questions in a way, you know, too often in a classroom, the teacher asks, asks questions, or the exercise book asks the questions for content knowledge in a way that the students need to answer, what is the goal?

Ilona (33m 37s): What is the kind of the subject content? What is the knowledge or so forth, but, but this is not the case in phenomenon based learning. The thing is that you need to be making them think, making them think critically, and to understand where to find more knowledge sometimes for a teacher. You know, for example, when I was, I was ethics, but also civics and history teacher, of course, I have a lot of knowledge about history or civics and how the society works, but I can’t be telling them about it so much.

Ilona (34m 10s): I need to be showing an and guiding them to those sources that so that they themselves have the kind of aha moment that, you know, that they find the information. So the teacher needs to be knowledgeable about the sources of information that there is there’s libraries. So I would take, they take them to the libraries. I would take them to the museums. I would give them, you know, the experts on Skype or in writing, you know, also even asking the students themselves to, to contact experts or, you know, asking them to, to, to come and visit, or even asking the students themselves, to come up with an idea that way, where would they want to go and visit, and also in a way that the T the students themselves are teaching each other.

Ilona (35m 0s): And that is really important because what has been John had the, I don’t know if, you know, John Hattie from Australia has made this kind of meta analysis of different kinds of educational theories or, and research. And, and what has been found out is that, that when the student themselves, they are the ones telling about the phenomena, for example, that is when they are actually learning not to during the time that they are inquiring, but when they are and showing, presenting to other people.

Ilona (35m 41s): And, and that is why I often at the very end of the phenomenon based learning units, sort of even more step out and step on the side, giving them the space to teach each other and to show. And, and the students are more motivated to listen to their own friend telling something than, you know, just me talking in the front. So my, my expertise has to be in it to give them kind of maybe kind of checklists or showing them how different kind of issues I may be categorized, you know, kind of giving them the kind of tools for research or for, for finding out, you know, but, and also encouraging them in order to, to speak for themselves.

Ilona (36m 34s): And, and that’s something that then you can see that they, you know, they grow because they become more autonomous as well as, as, as learners. So they’re learning what has been found out by, but we have some PhD studies being made and that the students actually learn to learn. And that is something that they, it will carry with them for the, you know, for the rest of their lives that they learned to learn how, how learning happens.

Ti-Fen (37m 1s): Right. I’m a big fan of learn how to learn, right. So for teacher who wants to try out phenomenon based learning, what is one piece of advice you would give?

Ilona (37m 14s): Yeah, because I think this is kind of a, it’s a, it’s a big pedagogical DNA. I think that has to, has to kind of a little bit change in, in some more traditional teachers that they have to step aside. They have to step, but not total, like, because sometimes the teachers have been telling me that, Oh, so I’m not needed anymore. No you’re needed, but you need to be able to create space for curiosity and creativity. And the most important is that if you are able to have the students ask those two questions, what do I know already about it?

Ilona (37m 53s): And then somehow show it what they know. And then the second question, what do I want to know about it? So when they make that question, what do I want to know about it? And then, you know, sometimes the students have been asking, so can I ask any question? Is that they are like, baffled, like, so sometimes we don’t provide this space for the students enough, you know, we need to provide them space for, for, for, for curiosity. And what do I want to know about it?

Ilona (38m 24s): And these are the most, if, if a teacher is able to do this, then it will carry on because then, then, you know, you won’t be able to, in a way, stop it anymore. You won’t be able to say that, no, no, you’re not allowed to go and go and research or anymore. Cause then, then the children will because the children are curious, you know, when they come, if you think about a very young child, three years old, or four years old or five, you know, they’re all about questions. They’re only about questions. Like, how does that work?

Ilona (38m 55s): And what is this like, and why does it, why does that person do this? Or, you know, they’re all about questions. And then suddenly when they come to school, you know, do we kill that curiosity? And that is something that we can’t kill it. We cannot kill the curiosity in the child and the child, and the students need to be curious about the world. How does it function? You know, what makes the world go around? And I remember my, my own son who is nowadays 13, but almost 14, but he was maybe five or six and he was sitting on a table and he asked me a question that the earth can, can it be, can it be counted and measured?

Ilona (39m 38s): How, how, you know, why it is it and, and so forth. And I was like, wow, this is a fantastic question from a little boy thinking about that. First of all, that there’s a kind of a, you know, round ball the earth and can it be measured and so forth. And it’s fascinating that they can think, you know, they think so widely. And so we need to give space. And I think that’s number one thing for the teacher to be able to do that. There are this holistic phenomena in the world, give space for the students to sink.

Ilona (40m 12s): What do they know and what do they want to know, and then give space for them to, to make their own research. And it will be fascinating to see like what they come up with and what I’ve also been, you know, because my husband is a doctor in, you know, men in medicine and, and they’re in surgery. And luckily teachers really don’t, we are not in surgery. We are not in brain surgeons. You know, we’re not surgery, we’re not going deep into the flesh.

Ilona (40m 47s): So in a way that we cannot make that kind of mistakes with the children, if we give them more space for, for curiosity, it can, it cannot harm. Then it will give them more joy and, and it can be more playful and, you know, more creative. So, so if, if there’s nothing bad, you know, if you’re six, seven weeks off the one whole year, if you make this kind of a phenomenon based learning unit and that after that you are thinking about it, what came out of it, even though nothing, no productive came out, but I’m sure that there was more joy and more creative things.

Ilona (41m 29s): And the students were able to learn how to learn and that it will help, you know, the rest of the year as well.

Ti-Fen (41m 36s): Yeah. Wonderful. So to you personally, what is your core value in teaching and learning or education?

Ilona (41m 46s): Well, I think I’ve, I’ve, I’ve said quite a lot already. And, and my, my core value is, is that the students are in the school in order to become, you know, active citizens. And what kind of active said, active citizens. We ha we need in our society are the kind of student, you know, S see the sense that, that have an understanding how the world works and can be critical about things, because what was really concerning for me in the, in the last piece of results of the always CD is that one out of 10 of the eighth graders were able to actually distinguish between fact and fiction and a, you know, kind of fake.

Ilona (42m 36s): And in fact, that is something that if you are more critical and if you do research and you are, you’re able to understand that there is that you are able to also manipulate information, you’re able to even yourself go into Wikipedia, right? It that’s something that I’ve done also with my students. Sometimes they go themselves or write it, not only to take it, but they go on, you know, log in the thing is that we need curious minds, we need critical minds, and we need people who are able to build us sustainable future.

Ilona (43m 11s): So that is something that is really, really, you know, school is, is an education is in a, kind of a critical role of what kind of a society and a world we are, we are building.

Ti-Fen (43m 22s): So if people wants to learn more about your work, how they can find you online,

Ilona (43m 29s): Well, they can find me, for example, is Helsinki education.com. So our website, and then my email is, is also Ilana dot time, a lot at, and education.com. So that’s very easy to, to then contact me or, you know, some people have also contact me through Twitter or Facebook messenger or different. So I’m in a different on LinkedIn. So, yeah.

Ti-Fen (43m 57s): Okay. I will make sure they are on including in the shirt show now, so people can find you and also go to your Helsinki education consulting group, to know more about the word shop around. Not only phenomenon based learning but other great materials. All right. Thank you so much. You will now thank you for listening. We will put the things mentioned in the interview to the show notes. If you enjoy our show, welcome to share and don’t forget to subscribe.