Springpoint hosted its final Master Class of the school year for design teams participating in Barr Foundation’s Engage New England initiative during the last week of May. We welcomed four teams to the Master Class, which is Springpoint’s monthly design experience for partners who are developing new school models. We engaged participants in designing and building systems to norm and calibrate around student work by introducing them to and practicing a “Looking at Student Work” (LASW) protocol.
At Springpoint, we ground our design process in the belief that schools with strong instructional models thrive when leaders: 1) develop competencies grounded in the most critical skills students need for college and beyond; 2) create transformative learning experiences; and 3) concretize the role of the primary person to ensure that every single student is known and progressing toward their goals. Competencies allow leaders to create a shared language around success and what valuable learning looks like; but a shared language is only valuable if it is understood by all, especially students who receive feedback on their work. To align all stakeholders behind the shared language of competencies and rubrics, it must be both elucidated by strong examples of student work and tethered to high expectations.
Many schools have a mechanism to collectively review student work to ensure that the instructional vision is shared by all—but maximizing the time devoted to this important practice is key. Often, practitioners may norm around student work in a vacuum without calibrating to high expectations. In order to calibrate and not just norm, practitioners need a benchmark that is grounded in what they want student work to exemplify and the learning they want the work products to demonstrate. That is why we believe that LASW protocols should include not only a rubric but an “anchor paper” or an exemplar of strong student work. Terms in a rubric can be subjective but seeing demonstrations of learning play out in student work can be deeply elucidating.
We kicked off the Master Class by thinking about what makes a good professional development experience, asking participants to create a “recipe” for the perfect professional development. Ingredients included agreed-upon norms, time-focused agendas, follow up, relevance, purposeful engagement, and more. A student on the Roger Williams design team, Nancy, spoke about how her team is working to “change PD to respect people’s learning styles…stick to the core elements of the school, practice what we are preaching, and [focus on] what we are trying to build.”
ENE partners at Springpoint’s May Master Class
We then started digging into and practicing the LASW protocol. As teams began to think about designing their own systems, we outlined three phases that can allow school communities to build a robust, self-perpetuating LASW system. In the first phase, one team of “early adopters” will participate in rounds of LASW with the sole purpose of getting calibrating and refining the school’s shared tools (the rubrics, the glossary of terms) to make sure they are sufficiently strong and clear to start rolling out to other members of the community. In phase two, a core group of facilitators shift the LASW protocol from an emphasis on calibration to a focus on where the student work needs to go next and how to improving instruction, including processes for students to evaluate their own work against the rubrics and anchor papers, in order to improve student work products. Finally, in the last stage, schools aim to have string core documents and a deeply embedded protocol that helps practitioners collects and share transferable “moves” that help improve instruction across the school.
As part of the Master Class, Springpoint produced a set of videos that show four Springpoint facilitators modeling a LASW protocol. The videos were used in the Master Class as a tool to demonstrate the elements of a LASW protocol. In the first video we watched*, the group states their purpose and develops norms, such as: being evidence-based, holding students to high expectations, and looking for places for healthy disagreement and debate. Participants watched and noted that the lead facilitator in the video reinforced the norms, demonstrated vulnerability about the process, and grounded the protocol in the stated purpose. Jan Doyle, from Resiliency Prep Academy in Fall River, MA noted that when the simulated conversation got off-track the facilitator, “reframe[ed] the conversation by using the language from the norms, like high expectations and that everyone is coming from a positive place.”
The design team from Resiliency Prep Academy in Fall River, MA sketch out their norms for a ‘Looking At Student Work’ protocol at Springpoint’s May Master Class
Participants then practiced introducing the LASW concept and developing their own norms. Next Wave/Full Circle practiced a norm development cycle, where they kept themselves grounded in their true purpose of focusing on student work. “Looking at student work can be personal and sometimes scary so we should agree upon norms in order to create a safe and supportive environment to keep student achievement at the center,” said Tim Dunphy from Next Wave/Full Circle in Somerville, MA. The Resiliency Prep Academy team included norms like: having a safe space for sharing, equity of voice, and assigning a moderator who can keep the team focused. Everyone engaged deeply, took a learner mindset, pushed each other’s thinking, and gave great feedback.
The next video showed Springpoint facilitators actively engaging in the LASW protocol*, norming and calibrating around a specific piece of student work. Participants identified effective facilitation moves by the lead facilitator, such as ensuring equity of voice, pushing the group’s thinking, and unearthing what causes tension and disagreement. The lead facilitator in the video also calibrated the group to the rubric with a deep dive into both the student work and the rubric, probing and asking for specific evidence.
Participants then practiced the protocol by looking at a piece of student work in real time using an accompanying rubric. They started to discover why the LASW protocol is not only a way to strengthen instructional rigor but a model for how to give feedback to students. Grounding observations in evidence, for example, is best practice when conducting feedback conversations with students as well. Participants practiced norming and calibrating; the Roger Williams University design team, for instance, normed on the difference between summarizing and synthesizing while another group outlined a truly complex sentence to dig into the difference between a simple and complex argument. Participants also developed shared understandings of what quality evidence looks like and how they identify it.
We also talked about how to pause on student work, reset using norms, and take a learner mindset. Tamara Soraluz from Phoenix Chelsea observed that teams can hit roadblocks when “people think of feedback as criticism and not growth [which] contributes to the reticence of giving feedback,” and noted the importance of thinking of feedback as “not evaluative [but] about learning.”
The Next Wave/Full Circle design team from Somerville, MA plan their ‘Looking At Student Work’ protocol at Springpoint’s May Master Class
As participants began planning, they were encouraged to think deeply about who should be in the initial LASW group. Springpoint facilitators led teams in deciding how to create the right mix of people to efficaciously engage, help create proof points, and work out the kinks before bringing the protocol to the wider community. Partners also thought through what pitfalls they might encounter as they engage in this practice. Some key concerns included:
- Staff might not take pre-work seriously or engage in it robustly
- A fear of conflict could lead to “soft” feedback that does not help norm or calibrate
- A lack of student voice in the process
- Scheduling issues and not having enough time in the day
- Difficulty in ensuring that the right student work is selected for discussion
- A lack of self-awareness around privilege, prejudice, and power dynamics
- Blaming systems or outside factors instead of having a growth mindset oriented toward taking accountability and making changes
Once participants thought about stakeholders and identified watch-outs, they started planning and prioritizing. For example, Phoenix Chelsea spoke in great detail about how they will make time for the right staff members to come together and have time to prepare to engage and maximize their LASW time best. Next Wave/Full Circle talked extensively about how to reorganize schedules to ensure an ideal frequency of LASW meetings, including separate debriefs and inflection points. Other teams talked about how they will source anchor papers to use as benchmarks for conversations and the way that they will communicate with the wider school community about the LASW work stream.
We’re so excited to continue working with partners as they design and implement this protocol when they launch their new school models in the fall!
*If you need a subtitled version of these videos, please reach out to info@SpringpointSchools.org