The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

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Ross Romano: Welcome in, everybody. You are listening once again to the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks, as always, for being with us today. We are going to talk about a lot of great topics related to student centered learning environments, co-designing learning, and more.

My guest is Kyle Wagner. Kyle is the founder and CEO. Co Learning Experience Designer for Transform Educational Consulting Limited, an organization that empowers forward thinking schools and educators to create globally, socially, and emotionally aware citizens through project based experiences and 12 shifts for student centered environments.

Kyle has taken this passion global, founding MicroSchools, authoring two books, and helping over a thousand educators develop more than a thousand [00:01:00] transformative learning experiences and the student centered environments to support them. His new book is Where is the Teacher? The 12 Shifts for Student Centered Environments.

That's what we're talking about today. Kyle, welcome to the show.

Kyle Wagner: Thanks so much for having me, Ross.

Ross Romano: I wanted to start with that, the, the piece about student centered environments and digging into it a little bit and and kind of, I think, facing it head on, right? You know, I think there's a lot of schools and classrooms that are not designed in this fashion, but. They might say it sounds, sounds nice, or yes, we're student centered, but, but not in any particular sort of way.

So I, I kind of wanted to ask, what are some of the hard truths about student centered learning environments? What are the, you know, the, the hard realities that educators need to look in the [00:02:00] mirror in determining, are we really committed? to taking the steps to create the types of student centered environments that we're going to talk about more in this episode.

Kyle Wagner: Yeah, I think that's a great, great question. I like that you said it's hard truths because It's not easy, right? It's challenging, right? And we, we talk a lot about student centered learning, and I think we have a vision, potentially, of what that might look like. I mean, I have, my virtual background is set to a student centered environment.

I'm sure you're probably not gonna, this will be audio, but you know, if you look behind me in this background, it's kind of hard to find where the teacher is, you know, and that's what I think is a hard truth. is that we are not necessarily the authority figure in the room. I mean, we certainly have an area of expertise in terms of our content, in terms of our insights, in terms of our lived experience, but so do our students.

And how do we honor that? And how do we set up an environment that has them active, right? And that's what we want to see in a student centered environment. Not [00:03:00] the teacher standing at the front of the room with a teacher desk and some kind of presentation they prepared and all kids doing the same thing, but kids doing different things, you know, students being able to choose to a certain degree of autonomy, what kind of work they're completing, having some choice and some say and voice in, in what they're learning questions that they are coming with the way that they actually like to work within the room.

Most student centered environments. It's very interesting. I've, I've looked. all throughout schools, throughout the world, and you'd be hard pressed to find a student centered environment where all the students are sitting down. I mean, quite often, if you see this environment, we have chairs. Very, very seldomly are students wanting to use those.

So, I think the hard truth is, for us as educators to realize that, yes, we do have an area of content expertise. And we do have some insights and we do have a pathway that we want to create for students to get to the learning outcomes we'd hope to achieve. [00:04:00] But we are not necessarily the central figure in the room.

There's plenty of teachers especially now in today's day and age with technology, AI at our fingertips, it's a matter for us to design the environments that allow for that to happen.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Can you, can you talk a little bit more about what's difficult about creating? Students in our environments, maybe practically and logistically, but maybe emotionally, maybe you know, in terms of that kind of release of responsibility and, you know, in some of those aspects, but you know, for the educators who are thinking yeah.

I see the benefits of this, right? I see what this can do to enhance student learning. I want to do it. What are the challenges I'm going to have to work through to really make it happen?

Kyle Wagner: Yeah, I mean, the number one challenges that I usually hear are, Hey, I got a packed curriculum. It's pretty intense. I've got some kind of pacing guide I got to be. I don't have that level of autonomy. So [00:05:00] that's usually, you know, a challenge that educators face. I think in terms of the actual classroom itself.

and how they set up that environment. Maybe they have a very small space. They have already furniture that's kind of already been, you know, purchased that's already in there. That's, you know, public school where you got these very hard fastened desks. You know, that's going to be a challenge as well.

I think the amount of time that it takes to plan. The, the actual learning experiences themselves in different pathways for students. That does take a lot more looking at your curriculum than simply if you had a textbook and you're on a certain page, you know, or you had some kind of pacing guide and you're going from lesson to lesson to get there.

So these are, Definitely some of the challenges. I don't know if you wanted me to talk about how they overcome those, but these are certainly, certainly challenges that educators are going to face. The assessment model, right? They go, how do I assess this kind of learning if the students are going different directions?

And I have these learning outcomes I have to achieve. So, you know, how do I still get to those [00:06:00] outcomes, but have this kind of flexible space? So, they're definitely, these are challenges that educators face. (ad here)

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And let, let's definitely talk about overcoming them because we, we want to demonstrate what's possible. And, and there's a, you know, a question that we often ask of students and about students and their learning goals which is, You know, what do they need to, to know and know how to do, right?

And I, I think that that question here we can apply to teachers as well, right? In the modern classroom, in the type of learning environments that we want to create, what do teachers need to know and know how to do? How might that be different from what they were necessarily taught in pre service, right?

Or what what traditionally have been the role and, and how did those, competencies help them to overcome some of those challenges and create a new type [00:07:00] of learning environment.

Kyle Wagner: Yeah, good question. And I think, you know, there is definitely preparation that we have as teachers and educators that when it comes to structuring lessons, when it comes to designing units of study, right, we have, I think most of us and most people listening to this have that understanding. Right? You, you know, you might organize a unit around a topic or some kind of theme or a particular chapter in the textbook.

There's an outcome you're hoping learners to get to. There's lessons that you organize and activities to get to that particular outcome. I think the shift then is how you look at the organization of those experiences. Are we, you know, are we starting that with, here's the content we have to, to get through.

Here's some experiments, maybe it's a science class that we're going to run, or here's some lessons we're going to go through, and if it's a language class to get to that outcome of you being able to have a proficiency in this language. And I think the shift is looking at how do we restructure that so it's more inquiry based.

[00:08:00] It starts out with a bigger question and there's a particular gap. You know, you talked about the need to know or the, you know, the gap that maybe teachers need to know. There's going to be a gap in terms of what students need to know to answer that kind of big question. So, case in point. You know, one of the shifts that teachers are going to need to make is how do you structure that kind of learning?

There was a class that was doing a literature study, a novel study in The Great Gatsby, and the simple shifts that she made is instead of saying, we're going to go through this, we're going to look at the themes, and they're You know, application to life and then write an essay at the end. She just shifted to start out with a big question.

Does the American dream still exist? And what does that look like in today's you know, modern society compared to what it was in the great Gatsby, the kids then produced a podcast with each episode featuring a different community story, but relating it back to the vision that was presented in the novel.

And all that took was restructuring around a big question, giving students a little choice in terms of what they produce. and, you know, how they're [00:09:00] sharing that work. So I think that's, you know, to be able to design learning. And make those shifts is one thing. And then the environment. So in this particular case study that I'm, you know, referencing, you know, how then if you have that question, you have more choice, how do you design your environment?

So it's not just individual seat work and students doing that, you know, independently, but in groups, you know, each group was producing a different episode of that particular podcast that they were creating. And, you know, that's going to involve some writing, some interview questions. You know, conducting the interview, she, she found out that some students had some background in production.

And so, you know, that's, that's then creating these, these groups of tables, as opposed to, you know, individual seats, and then structuring how they're going about that experience where the novel comes in. And so it's a little bit more dynamic, but you can still, you can still design things according to how we, We, we have, what we have learned, you know, [00:10:00] when it came back to, you know, teacher teacher credentialing and getting our, you know, our, our, our degree and our ability to, to lead classrooms.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering about the the role of school leadership and and the, the, you know, the relationship between school leadership and teachers. And I imagine like one of the potentially disorienting things about the making some of these shifts is understanding what, What is accountability and just in, not in the, the, you know, high stakes testing sense, but in the sense of what is the teacher accountable for doing, and how do I. practically do that, right? And, and, you know, on one far end of the spectrum the most traditional lecture based approach, you know, which you would probably see more in a higher ed setting, although I'm [00:11:00] sure it exists here and there in K 12, is I taught. Right? I taught what I was supposed to teach, whether or not they learned is up to them, whether or not students showed up, whether they listened, whether they, all right.

And, you know, and, and again, like that's. That's one far end. And then, you know, as we move down the spectrum to maybe a purely student centered way, it's like I've designed the environment, but I may, I don't feel like I'm teaching at all, or it's so different from what I'm used to. And, and of course there's a lot in between there and a lot of things that teachers do to, to adapt students and, and to really play a role in ensuring that students are having opportunities to learn and develop.

But, but, you know, as far as like going about the process of, of designing that, as far as if leadership wants this to be the learning culture and wants it to [00:12:00] happen, you know, Quickly and effectively, right? Wants, wants to kind of accelerate the shifts. How does kind of the leadership go about creating that culture?

And then, how does that help teachers, like, understand that they are, they have clarity, and they also have support in going about doing things in a new way? Mm

Kyle Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great question. I think there's two words you use is clarity and support, right? Teachers, we espouse from a leadership soapbox a lot. Like, here's the new direction, and gung ho, we're all going to go to student centered direction, or project based learning, or inquiry, whatever that is, and they don't necessarily lay out a pathway, and of course, it's necessary what teachers want, and also, there's a disconnect between how we're assessing and measuring the outcomes, and what we're asking teachers do, because if we've got a standardized test at the end, and we're asking, You know, them to give students more voice and choice, but yet we only have one way of measurement.

It's not necessarily aligning. So I think [00:13:00] leadership needs to have that clarity. That's why I think the framework, I can at least speak from that, has supported schools in having that clarity. And from a leadership perspective, it's a matter of saying, Hey, what are we all agreeing to here? What are we wanting to achieve when it comes to outcomes?

And you'd be hard pressed to find many teachers that didn't want students to show engagement and empowerment in the classroom, right? So I think once you agree on that higher level outcome, you know, and then it's a matter of, okay, what's the framework to kind of get there? And so these shifts. One I talked about is moving from a content based to inquiry based approach.

One's moving from independent to collaborative types of structures in your classrooms. One moving from a teacher audience to a public audience. One's about assessment. Is it all teacher assessed or is there self assessment, peer assessment? So once you have that framework of these shifts, it's a matter of, okay, which particular shifts do you want to target for growth within your own classroom?

And you know, one school I'm working with, the leadership, that's [00:14:00] what they said. Look, we're kind of going the student centered direction. We're all in agreement to it. Everyone said yes. And they really appreciated having this framework. And teachers had autonomy in terms of how they went about doing that.

But they had a framework that allowed for it. Even the math teacher who initially, you know, was kind of pulled, you know, kicking and screaming to this whole idea, as you find sometimes with it. Because it's harder, right? In math, maybe math, say, you say, look, I've, These kids definitely need a certain degree of competency in math that is harder to get if I just let my classroom loose.

They said, look, here are the outcomes we have to achieve, here's the assessments that we have to take, but turn that over to the students and have the students leaders in teaching each of these particular concepts. And, you know, those tables were set up so that when it came to particular exponential functions, right, or statistics, whether teaching, there are the peers who are teaching those different concepts.

Teacher then acted [00:15:00] as facilitator moving around to the different groups to support them and to support those leaders. The test scores, he said, jumped up dramatically by doing that, making that shift. So I think the fear and trepidation with, Oh, well, I've got all this assessment that we've got to do, and how am I going to get to these outcomes?

You still have those outcomes. You still have the content you teach. You're just going about it in a bit of a different way. And leadership supported them in allowing them to choose that shift. That shift that that teacher made was from more of a peer feedback. was one of the shifts, rather than just teachers giving feedback to students, and also the independent to collaborative structures.

So, Hopefully that answers your question.

Ross Romano: Yeah, what else? Because we're going to get into, like, what, you know, the framework and some of the shifts. Are there other things that need to be in place in a school for this transformation of student centered learning to take place? Let's say, you know, we're at, we have a starting point of a committed leadership and, [00:16:00] and teachers, right, who are, who have the vision for this and want to see it happen.

What else needs to be in place to? To allow that to actually happen,

Kyle Wagner: Yeah. So, so great question. I mean, we talked a bit about the assessment model. Like we have to be a little bit more open in terms of how we are assessing students. So if, if standardized tests are the only measurement of learning, that's going to be hard pressed to, to make these shifts happen. So I say one thing needs to be in place.

You have to have kind of like A varied assessment model. I think also needs to be in place is how you schedule and go about your day. You know, if you've got 40 minute classes and you got six, seven classes a day and kids are jumping around from place to place and there's not really a commitment to kind of deeper learning it's kind of hard to make these, these shifts really stick.

So I think that's also something to look at from a leadership perspective is, You know, how much are you putting on your teachers in terms of how many different preps and how many different classes that they're teaching. So I think that's something that, that needs [00:17:00] to be in place. You know, there's got to be a bit of a collaborative structure.

Most schools will have department level meetings, which is great, but a lot of times at the department level meetings, You know, you're, you're maybe talking about curriculum or some kind of student intervention plan. And a lot of times you're not necessarily talking about the actual instructional practice that's happening in the classroom.

I think that it's important to have peers in and out of each other's classroom. So you've got to set a culture up where people are reflective and that's tough to do if everyone's kind of in their own silo, you know, operating on their island. So I think you need that collaborative culture in place, whatever teams you use.

How you're reflecting on, like, bringing evidence to the table. Here's what I'm trying out in my classroom. Here's, here's what it's looking like. Having those, talk to other peers who are maybe serving as critical friends to each other. So, so those are some of the pieces that have to be in place.

Ross Romano: so let's talk about the 12 shifts 12 shifts [00:18:00] framework. Generally what is it and what was the inspiration behind it?

Kyle Wagner: Sure. So, yeah, I mean, we've seen a lot of frameworks in education. I think this, this framework, first of all, what it is, is just a starting point for teachers to be able to identify how to shift to a more student empowered, student owned learning space. I always start the conversation with teachers as, What if you are going to walk in a student centered space, what are some of the things you think you would see?

And I think most teachers are in agreement what some of those things are. You know, that there's, you know, students engaged in multiple tasks happening potentially simultaneously. You hear a lot of student voices as opposed to teacher voices. So, you know, student talk is really trumping teacher talk.

You also see students, in terms of technology integration, that's just, you see some students who might be on a computer, some students might be building something in a corner, some [00:19:00] students might be sitting in a small circle discussing something, some students might be giving peer feedback to each other and have whiteboards in which they're doing that.

And the inspiration for this and what these shifts are came from High Tech High, from working at High Tech High and, you know, maybe some listeners are familiar with that. You know, highly suggest you check that out. Most likely succeed featured this school in this environment. Now they take a very project based approach to learning, but You know, having taught there and worked at that school for three years and talked to the co founder, he said they'd rather not be known as a project based school, but really a dialogue school, and a school that really fosters a continuous dialogue for teaching and learning.

You know, listeners might be like, well, what does that mean? What does that look like? And really what it looks like is learning is continuously negotiated. It's co designed. It's asking learners what they're interested in when you're introducing a unit [00:20:00] of study or topic. What kind of questions do learners have?

And I saw that every time I first walked into a classroom at high tech high before I became a teacher there, you know, I watched students working on a unit in year six in ancient Egypt. And I saw some students pulling up this block on a ramp to study simple machines. But then there's, you know, some of these other students are into fashion, in Egyptian fashion, and they're, they're trying to find out what were kind of the sustainable fashion measures they used then, and what does that look like maybe today.

And they're getting to similar outcomes, because they have to teach the concepts around ancient civilizations, but they're really giving, you know, students more ownership. So, seeing that, I wanted to know the mystery behind it. As a teacher there, I got fascinated with leading this myself, understanding the challenges.

It took three years to say, oh, I think I have a student centered environment. A lot of mentorship and, you know, working with the co founder there, he handed [00:21:00] me a piece of paper and said, when I come into your classroom, I This is what I'm looking for. And it was, I still remember it. It was in handwritten, it was on a white piece of paper, it had arrows going from one way to the other, and it had some of these words.

written on it teacher led discussion, student discussion, arrow going to the student way. It had also, when it came to reflection, the arrow going both ways, reflecting the process of learning and the product of learning. And that kind of was so supportive of me, in terms of what I was trying to do in my classroom, that, that, you know, I wanted to be able to disseminate that and share that on a much wider scale.

Ross Romano: Yeah, and what you said about the dialogue is it's so valuable because really what, you know, what better way to enhance and, and

retain learning, right? Than by being able to actively engage in dialogue about what you are learning. have learned what you are learning. It's the difference [00:22:00] between if you read a book at home and then you get a chance to talk about it with somebody the next day or you never get to talk about it and you know that it leaves your head pretty quickly because you haven't had, you know, you haven't actively utilized and accessed that information and gotten somebody to ask you some questions about it and had some back and forth, you know, same as anything else.

And if you watch a football game on TV and then you talk about it with a friend, like you remember what happened a lot more than if you watch it yourself, you never talk about it. Oh, I don't, I don't really remember. I remember the final score. That's it. Right. And that can apply to learning as well.

And I'm sure it can apply to teaching too, because in your intro, To the book, you write about when you first joined High Tech High and this model was already in place and you were coming in, you know, without having seen it before and, and in a case like that, a teacher who's not ready for it [00:23:00] can even impede what that learning process looks like.

And there's fine lines between each, you know, application of the teaching practice, I would imagine, between, you know, micromanaging, right? Or, or getting kind of, In the middle of a student's engagement and kind of pulling them out of that to what facilitating would look like when it's happening effectively to on the other end, not really doing much at all right to facilitate and being able to have those colleagues that you can be checking in with and learning from one another and kind of, have, have a reality check on your own questions when you're thinking, okay, right.

Cause the default for most people in most fields, teachers or otherwise, is going to be like, when I'm not entirely [00:24:00] sure how things are going, let me just do something. Let me, I think jump in here and, you know, and try to, you know, do something that at least I know that I took some action. And I'm sure there's times when you're getting used to this, this model and you're trying to evaluate, okay, like, I see the students engaging.

Are they, you know, working toward the learning outcomes? You know, I'm sure there's times when students are, are more or less effective at what they're doing, right? Where you're trying to determine, okay, what do I need to do here? That that dialogue. not only teacher to student and student to student, but teacher to teacher can be really supportive to those times when you're, you're trying to make those calculations about what's the, what's the best way for me to support this.

Kyle Wagner: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. 100 percent And what you mentioned with that teacher to teacher thing, it just doesn't happen enough at schools. You know, we don't have enough of these professional [00:25:00] conversations. I just ran one of these cohorts all year long. And I assumed because we were doing strategies around each of the shifts, I was like, I asked them what was most beneficial.

And I assumed, you know, little bit I, you know, I'm a little bit embarrassed to say this, but I assumed, Oh, the shift strategies, you know, what Kyle presented on how you can make these in your classroom. And they said, no, it was, it was the dialogue and discussion we had amongst our other professional colleagues around what they're doing in their classroom.

And like, that was most beneficial for them immediately doing something in their classroom. And one of those conversations That was brought up and like, hey, how can we get our students to present their work to someone beyond just me? One teacher for a DP psychology class, the kids ran their experiments around the different kind of concepts.

You know, they ran according to the fidelity of, you know, the actual experiment and process itself. And [00:26:00] then she said, Hey, what if you shared this with a wider audience? You know, we had peers coming in and there were some trepidation, but the kids got excited about it. Kids, you know, spent their own money to produce this very professional display, came in in lunch hours and other things.

And You know, she said that completely changed the onus of the learning. That was a dialogue she had with her students, but there's a dialogue too at that discussion table around, Hey, what are you doing in your classroom? And she talked about that and that inspired others to try to do the same thing. So I think that dialogue is really, is really kind of the magic sauce to, to, to allow this to take place in the school.

Ross Romano: So I have some questions here related to, you know, what's happening inside these shifts. And if you want to highlight kind of the language of what the shifts are to contextualize, please, please feel free to do so. And, you know, the first one is about the, the design of learning. Who, who designs learning in student centered [00:27:00] environment?

Kyle Wagner: Yeah. So that's it. And that's you, when you mentioned the language, I'm glad you did because it's a spectrum. Right. There's some of us don't necessarily have the freedom or the, or even the, I guess the competence myself included, especially when I first started to say, okay, we're going to co design everything you know, and make decisions about what you want to learn and connected to that and somehow connected to my curriculum.

So the language around co design is, You know, on the very one side of the spectrum, on the very teacher design, it's like teacher designs everything. Teacher designs everything in isolation around their curriculum or the content. There's no student input at all. To the other end of the spectrum, do students have input on how they're assessed, on what kind of pathway they take to the learning outcomes, what kind of questions that they're asking?

that they're, you know, they're creating, what kind of products that they're creating as well to demonstrate their learning. So that's on the other end of the spectrum. And somewhere in between is, you know, some [00:28:00] negotiation. But really with what we're looking at with co design is what input am I giving, you know, learners?

into the ownership of the learning experience themselves. So one example, you know, because I think teachers like to see that is, well, where is the starting point for that? Well, you got a topic or a particular unit is coming up, a survey to students or even asking them, Hey, out of this particular topic, you know, what is, what is of interest to you?

What questions do you have? What do you already kind of know? And a teacher did that with what she said was her most This is her quote, hated standards. And it's not that she hated the standards, just that the kids didn't see application in their lives. And these were around ancient civilizations, which is hard for me because I'm a history guy and those would never be my most hated standards.

But. You know, for kids, they didn't necessarily see that application. So she just reframed it and said, okay, let's have a bigger question around what kind of application do we see for ancient civilizations in their [00:29:00] advancements in our modern day lives? She asked students what kind of questions they had or what advancements they wanted to look at.

And immediately, she said the engagement, empowerment went up. Students were still getting into the actual components of civilization, but in a much deeper level. And that was simply about her just asking the students to give their input, you know? So that's one way. Co design could also look like, you know, in terms of how students are assessed, or how they demonstrate their learning.

You know, opening up to be more than just a presentation, or an essay that they write, or a test that they take, but giving them choice boards. You know, one, one particular teacher, They were learning about habitats, and the students did not want to write about these habitats, even though that was part of what she was going to have them do.

The students hated writing, so she said, well, what, what, what's some alternatives you guys can think of? I know you're into Minecraft, and the kid said, yeah, well, we like Minecraft. Well, what if you, you know, designed the whole thing, this habitat, in [00:30:00] Minecraft, and then kind of talked through it? And they suddenly sprung to life.

She said they're coming in lunch to do this and after school and they put together one of the best demonstrations of learning about habitats, but she just simply offered them a little bit more input in co design into how they're showing, demonstrating their learning. So that kind of unpacks a little bit of what that shift is.

Ross Romano: Yeah. What relationship have you observed, heard about, talked about? I guess, how does, how does the, the co design of the actual learning and potentially even the way it's assessed, but affect students relationship to their learning outcomes? Like, not, not necessarily how the outcomes change, right?

Grades are better, same, worse. Okay. I mean, and it's great if, if they're better. Bye. It's like, you know, there's a different relationship that people would have in two [00:31:00] scenarios if one person won the lottery for a million dollars and the other person worked hard and earned half a million dollars, right?

I mean, on the one hand, the one, the one has more money. On the other hand, the other person had a different one. process to getting that they're going to have a different relationship to that outcome, right? Then, and so I'm wondering for students how it maybe changes the way that they understand and perceive the work that they did or the skills that they gained to achieve the outcomes they achieved when they are more deeply involved in that process.

Kyle Wagner: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think you already kind of hit on it. I think we're in agreement that having that agency over the outcome. is going to make you a lot more. I think you want to share it with more people. You know, I've seen that with learners. They want to articulate what they've [00:32:00] learned.

And the, the level of ownership over that outcome, they want to get it right. You know, they want, and I don't, not necessarily right, but they, they, they really have, they're invested in the outcome and they, there's these three components to talk about with motivation because I think it's appropriate here.

And what is going to motivate students? It's the same thing that motivates adults. You know, it's the same thing that motivates everybody. Daniel Pink talks about it in Drive. And it's also talked about with self determination theorists. Three components. Competence, autonomy, and relatedness. And, you know, you touched on one.

You know, when students have ownership over the outcome, the autonomy in terms of how they get there, that's going to motivate them. Competence, they've actually produced something that is worth sharing. You know, that is something that is not like a one shot. Like teacher gave me 30, 45 minutes to put something together.

I put it together and I share it. No, they need to have like the level of competence where they, it's over extended period of time that they're able to develop something that really [00:33:00] infuses something they're good at. I talked about that Minecraft, you know, kids were coming in many different sessions to really get that right.

So there's that competence and the relatedness is it related to the things they care about? Is it related to. doing something that is of a bigger cause and giving them purpose and also is related to us sharing together in creating something. So, You know, I think that those three components are those, those three components that you don't necessarily have when a teacher is given an assignment or worksheet or something else and asking the students to do something.

You don't have the autonomy. Oftentimes, you don't have the competence because they're doing 200 of these things, whether they're worksheets, you know, dittos, you know, quick questions and answers at the teacher's device. And then the relatedness, it's usually seat work, you know, so those are kind of those three components that you get.

When you take this kind of approach.

Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, I would certainly speculate that, you know, with respect to long term motivation and, you know, sustained [00:34:00] interest in continuing to use those skills and knowledge to, to build whatever comes next that, you know, It certainly would tap into, you know, a lot of those intrinsic motivation with, as opposed to the extrinsic, right?

If I just can kind of roll out of bed, show up in class, not really do any of the work, take a test, get an A, I don't, that, I don't really attach any value to that other than what somebody else says. tells me, so I've been told that A's are good, and so, okay, I did good, even though I don't, you know, it's, it was something that was super easy for me, or whatever if I had to, Work hard and, and, and work throughout, you know, the entire learning process.

And I got a B or whatever. But I understand like what it required to learn that, what that knowledge is, what its applications are, that dialogue about what I can now do with that. I'm probably more likely to be interested in doing more with [00:35:00] it. And. You know, and that's, like, again, why, yes, it's a good thing if we're also seeing corresponding increases in student achievement, proficiency scores, et cetera, but of course, the purpose of schools doesn't end with what are our test scores right?

And you know, like,

Kyle Wagner: Sorry, sorry, were you finished?

Ross Romano: I was gonna say, yeah, unfortunately, you know, there's, there's certain cases where those things maybe matter more than they should as far as, you know, the opportunities students might have. But you know, in a shifting, changing economy and things where there's more opportunities for students to be in the future creating what the jobs of the future are and different pathways and things like certainly having skills that they deeply understand and, and are passionate about and know how to use to make something new [00:36:00] is going to probably be you know, valued beyond just the basics of what we can know and achieve during their time while they're in our school.

Kyle Wagner: Yeah, yeah, 100%. And you touched on grades. That, that's, that's a challenge is what if, what if we remove the grade? What if we said, you know what, I'm not going to grade you at the end of this. You're going to demonstrate to me what you've learned and how you've learned these particular things, these six or seven objectives, whatever it was.

And now all of a sudden that puts the onus on the students. And one teacher did that and removed grades. And the feedback that you got from the students, the amount of learning they're able to articulate shot actually through the roof. And because it's based on research, I mean, grades will motivate you to a certain extent.

They'll motivate you to do well on that, you know, next test or to jump through that hoop. But long term retention, as you're mentioning, that, that doesn't [00:37:00] happen. And no employer is going to ask you, maybe some will, but it's probably not the place you want to work. Like, show me your high school transcript, you know, and your, I don't know, your 25.

And you're, you know, they need a programmer or marketing communications director, right? Nobody's going to say, show your eyes the transcript. Show can do. And the more we can have the narrative of school be about learners showing what they can do and not necessarily jump through the hoops to get an A or whatever that desired outcome is.

Yeah, the more value they're going to be able to offer and meaning they're going to find outside of school.

Ross Romano: Yeah. How about content? What, what is the role of content in student centered learning?

Kyle Wagner: I think the role of content is to still, you know, you're going to be hard pressed To ask any science teacher if it's not important to go through a scientific process or use data to back up the results. So the content is a good starting point, I think, for how we're designing these [00:38:00] learning experiences.

So the role that content plays is going to be significant. in terms of, of what students are going to need to learn to get to whatever that outcome is. That's a very student centered outcome. So students who are building a green space in this year two classroom, okay, they're going to need to learn about living, non living things.

You know, this is the content that's part of the actual course itself. So the content is a good starting point to design around. And so, but it serves, it serves a higher purpose of the outcome. The outcome is not necessarily regurgitation of the content. It's using the content. To do something novel, you know, with it.

So the, the examples I gave you earlier around the American Dream and the podcast around that, I mean, the content has to do a lot with looking at historical analysis. The one I just gave with this live and non live things, there's a lot of science content involved in that, that psychology course where the students are presenting their results to another class.

The content's still there in terms of the experiments they ran and how they shared the results [00:39:00] and was it peer reviewed. So, the content is, will always be there, but it's now just shifting in terms of how we look at that content. It's serving a larger outcome, answering a bigger question as a result.

So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah

Ross Romano: we've talked, you know, this has definitely been part of our discussion, but evaluation versus motivation, right? And the things, you know, the teachers are making these shifts maybe to do, but I, I'm thinking about it too, in terms of so on my other Podcast sideline sessions. I interview coaches and so sometimes I'll be talking to a high school football coach, for example, right.

And they might be kind of in a position where they have like the dual role of being the most expert person at being able to give one of their student athletes some accurate and honest guidance on. [00:40:00] What types of opportunities may be available to them at the college level, right? Well, you know, you should be looking at programs at this level.

This is going to be a good fit for you while at the same time being their coach. Now, and needing to like demonstrate belief in them and motivate, right? Like, and sometimes those things can feel like they're in conflict. Okay. I I'm trying to show you how much I believe in you and how good I think you are.

On the other hand, I have to be honest with you and tell you that you're not going to be able to play at this division one level or whatever the case may be. Right. And You know, whereas students futures, like, in general, there's maybe more open ended and there's a lot more things that can happen.

They're also evaluation is, is more than grades and assessments, right? And it's, like, how do I prepare my students [00:41:00] for the future? And how do I show them that they have You know, they don't have limits on what they can do and achieve, but also contextualize it in terms of the real world and those kind of things.

So I don't know if any of that lines up to your thought process, but I'd be curious.

Kyle Wagner: and I think what you're getting at is just the, the delicate relationship right between the coach in this situation that you're mentioning right in the player. And I think that's a kind of a good analogy for the classroom as well. You know, we've got, coach. And you know, we've got different players and they all have their individual needs.

And when it comes to evaluation, we, you're right, we can't just have a grade based evaluation, right? We've got to make it personalized for each of them. But I challenge anyone who's listening to this, is taking a coach relationship is how do we develop our players? How do we develop our students, right?

And what is going to be very significant is, For [00:42:00] one particular student might not be meaningful or significant at all to another. You know, grades might be something that's motivating a few of your students, your top achievers, but for that one who barely shows up to class, you know, every day you know, sits in the back of the rooms, got their head down.

The minute they come in, you know, there's going to be an entirely different relationship. And that's what You know, that's what really it comes down to in the same way coach develops individual players. We're developing relationships with each of our students when it comes to evaluation. I'd like to call it a demonstration, not an evaluation and demonstration.

So, you know, for that coach who's coaching their players, you know, like, let's start from a strengths based model, not a deficit model. Hey, you're not gonna be playing division one. What's your alternative pathway? More like, hey, where are your strengths? Thanks. You know, where are those things that we can really highlight?

Where can we really build off of those things? Taking that strengths based approach with our learners as well. So, you know, having that conversation with them. Hey, [00:43:00] here's some particular concepts that are a little, you're struggling with. Let's, you know, work through those. But hey, here's where, here's where you're shining.

And I think that coming from that strengths based place, As an evaluation is really going to empower these learners because it's the same way when it comes to outside of school, you know, we're not necessarily working at our jobs. Like I would never be an accountant. I'm terrible at that. Like my doing my tax returns every year.

I begrudge it, you know, and so I think we got to take the same approach in our classrooms as well when it comes to evaluation is more like let's demonstrate in terms of what you are able to do and what you're able to show and work through those strengths for those kind of things that maybe might be a little bit more difficult.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm thinking in this mindset, I'm thinking it was a different analogy to, to how something would be done in the sports world, but it's kind of how, you know, a baseball scout has grades, the different skills of a player and there's a present grade [00:44:00] and a future grade, right? And there's, okay, like, this is how developed these skills are right now, but this is what I project this player can develop into in the future.

So that, you know, it could be, okay, you're a student and you're graduating next year and you're telling me you want to go to Harvard and right now based on you know your current profile like they're probably that's probably not going to happen but you're capable of that and more and if you continue to strengthen this this and this right you can work but maybe a different contextualization for some of the some of that dialogue again to say okay like I'm not helping you if I'm not giving you any kind of accurate guidance.

But it's also strengths based, asset based as far as let's keep working on these things. You have, you're fully capable of doing that. And if you understand what those things are, then you can fulfill that [00:45:00] capability. You know, versus not having that clarity again. There's one more piece related to the shifts that I wanted to ask about, and that is, and this relates to project based.

Learning and other similar forms of learning is that the concept of the authentic audience, right, creating work that's not for the teacher, but it's for whoever that audience would be in the real world and That's what it means. My question relates to the teacher's role in this of gaining an understanding of and then helping students understand who that authentic audience is and particularly like really being able to explore projects for whom the audience is not really familiar to the teacher, right?

It speaks to part of that, you know, How this is a new opportunity for teachers to learn about things because then they can help students understand as well.

Kyle Wagner: So, so is your question [00:46:00] around the how to how to be comfortable with that role in terms of who the audience is or how to find that audience or how to help students find that audience?

Ross Romano: How to find it and how to help students find it. How to do it particularly when, you know, you're wanting to help students really understand and reach an authentic audience that is outside of your own your own lived experience, right?

Kyle Wagner: Sure, sure. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great question. There's many different starting points for that. You know, the audience could be literally the classroom next door. So that might be an authentic audience, especially if they're designing, you know, when it comes to cafeteria or waste free campus, like that actually is going to be a more relevant audience.

So, you know, starting with the audience that the kids are most familiar with and can work most integrally with is a great starting point. I would say for teachers and for kids. as well. That green spaces that I was mentioning, you know, their audience was [00:47:00] literally their year level because that green space was going in, in a shared common space.

And, you know, so that's, that's a good starting point for teachers who go, I don't know, like, how do I get the students creating for this real world audience that exists outside of school? Like that's a tall, big ask. So I'd say maybe that's a good starting point for them. And I think too, when you're chatting with your students and about the work, that they might want to take on, it's always just a good thing to ask.

Okay, who, you know, who are you considering sharing this with? So if you're starting really open ended and you're giving students a lot of choice in terms of how they're showing their and demonstrating their learning, you know, that might be one of your questions is like, who do you, who, who might benefit from what you're producing besides just sharing that as something that you learn and giving students a little ownership over that.

And oftentimes, You know, they'll get really excited that they have that opportunity, and it might be challenging for them, and you can support them, you know, in the same way coaches support their player and giving them some potential suggestions. I saw one [00:48:00] particular unit of study at this grade five class was doing around heroes.

And, you know, a lot of classrooms do this unit around heroes. And, you know, what heroes are worth celebrating? And the teacher helps support them and say, who are, who from our community would you like to celebrate? Who are some heroes? And they, you know, went through this kind of inquiry. The teacher brought in some people that they already had, like, you know, firefighters you know, people who have started.

You know, small businesses and, you know, people organize these youth centers, anyone who they might think of a hero, and they ask the students themselves to kind of look at heroes. And having that conversation with the kids, you know, the kids then came up with these heroes that they would have never maybe thought about themselves.

They found heroes in their own family, right? And the audience then became that aunt or uncle or grandfather they don't really keep in contact with, but they learned more about and learned about that that person was a pediatrician. and was a hero in their mind after having that [00:49:00] conversation. And then they created these little narrative stories about that hero, and they presented that book, you know, to that person, whoever that was.

So, you know, that was facilitated by a conversation that the teacher was having with the kids around who is worth sharing this with. I'd say that teachers can start with asking that question to their learners. Also look at what is a potential audience within your own school, within the classroom next door in terms of what kids are producing.

And, you know, those, those are maybe some starting points to look at making things more authentic and find a public audience. (ad gere)

Ross Romano: When you're helping a school to use the 12 shifts framework to transform their practice, what, like, and they're getting started, starting to get the ball rolling, what are some of the indicators you're looking for to tell that it's starting to take hold?

Kyle Wagner: Yeah. I, I think the indicators usually are what they set themselves. So the action steps. So I always start them with a goal. [00:50:00] Where do you, you know, where do you want to get to? So, for example, this teacher that wanted to make an audience more public, the indicators were, you know, are students presenting to an audience outside of the classroom?

And what impact is that having on learning? And they're tracking that and giving evidence of that, and then coming back to these sessions and sharing that. Some that do the Socratic discussion, student led discussion. Rather than the discussion, we're going to look at this text, this piece of writing, whatever it is.

There's going to be a circle where students are going to be talking. Some of the evidences are, are more students speaking up, you know, are, are more of them taking initiative in terms of actual fulfillment of the assignments, you know, is that going up, you know, so, so I usually will task teachers to show what, what kind of evidence are you going to bring that shows this shift in action and the impact that it's having on learning.

And I think just the whole engagement piece. You know, in general you know, how, how engaged are your learners and how do we measure that engagement? [00:51:00] And I think that's participatory, you know, and sometimes that's, you know, also evaluative as well. And through these surveys through asking for the feedback from their learners, from getting observed also.

So they run observations. We'll have a cohort and they they get observed by their. You know, coordinator, the one who's, who's kind of overseeing this whole thing that I liaison with and you know, she's looking for these evidence and she's put together this one. I'm looking for a classroom. You know, I'm looking for more.

You said you want more student led discussion. You know, are there students chatting a lot more? You said you want more collaborative. When I come into your classroom, where am I seeing these teams and what are they talking about? How are they negotiating their roles? So, I like to put kind of the, allow the same agency for teachers to talk about what evidence they're going to collect and how they're going to share that.

And then also from a more evaluative side, having the supervisor, coordinator be able to go into each of those classrooms through these learning walks.

Ross Romano: Yeah, [00:52:00] amazing. Well, listeners, the book, Where is the Teacher?, is published by Rutledge. It's available from them or wherever you get your books. We'll also put the links below to where you can find it directly on Kyle's website. Kyle, anything else listeners should check out on your site or elsewhere?

Kyle Wagner: Well, they should check out more of your podcasts. Yeah, I, I just wanted to say I really appreciate this opportunity. As a fellow podcaster as well, I, I think it's amazing how prolific your episodes have been. And you know, the value that you're offering in terms of leadership and the coaching kind of mindset that you take I think is is, is very valuable and, you know, I think it also aligns hopefully with the shifts that we're trying to make in the classroom as well.

Connect on, with me on LinkedIn if you want. Anyone who's listening to this, you can look me up. Kyle Wagner, I'm pretty active there as a main space to kind of provoke this thought. And I also have a newsletter that I put out as well. And you can get in touch with me by just reaching out via email, kylewagner at transformschool.

com.

Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, we will put the links [00:53:00] below to Kyle's website, transformschool. com. There's a 12 shift scorecard there you can take if you want to get a sense of how you might do some of these things in your school. You can get the book, you can learn about his other work, podcasts, and more. We'll also put the social media links, so listeners Check out all of that.

We'll make it very easy for you. So just go below and click. Please also do subscribe to the authority if you're not already. We will continue, as Kyle said, prolifically to bring you more episodes. You can even let me know if you want it to be less prolific. If this is just too much send us a note.

And but we'll continue to talk to lots of great educator authors and authors in the leadership realm. Please also do visit. bpodcast. network to learn about 40 plus shows in the network designed for school leaders, teachers, special educators, parents, and a lot more. So do check that out if you're interested in finding more content.

Kyle, thanks again [00:54:00] for being here.

Kyle Wagner: Thanks so much, Ross, for having me.