SLA History teachers Gamal Sherif and Joshua Block were featured in the national publication Education Week in a story, "Historic Election and New Tech Tools Yield Promising Vistas for Learning " talking about how the SLA history teachers are using the 21st century tools to examine the Presidental election.

As the Nov. 4 election approaches, Mr. Sherif's students will continue blogging about the issues, and start creating their own campaign ads that promote the candidates' platforms.

Those kinds of activities have gone a long way toward getting students' attention for election-related lessons, said Joshua Block, a humanities teacher at the same school, the Science Leadership Academy. He set up an online discussion group about election issues after his students spent most of one period in a heated debate about the economy and the candidates' plans to address the nation's financial ills.

"I want to make sure they can discuss [the issues] in a sustained manner without getting annoyed, without attacking each other," Mr. Block said.

"Often on these forums you hear from students who don't necessarily speak up in verbal discussions," he said, "but they will when they have a chance to think and compose their ideas online."

They can also continue the discussion far beyond the confines of the classroom, he added. One recent debate, Mr. Block said, continued over the weekend and ended with dozens of online posts from students, some of whom suggested readings and other resources for their classmates.

Read the whole article!

Tags: sla, ed_week

Last week, four of our upperclassmen raced each other down a very public flight of stairs. I smiled and waved them on, despite the many important eyes that turned to follow their movement. There would be no stopping them anyway — these students were drawn by the irresistible light of celebrity. When they reached the bottom, they gathered around the special guest and, giddy for autographs, attempted conversation. One asked for his phone number. She received it, and two of the kids got warm bear hugs.

The guest was renowned intellectual and author Cornel West. The stairs were in the newly renovated Franklin Theater, part of Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. The students were juniors at the Science Leadership Academy. They were invited to serve as hosts for the Institute’s “Politics of Slavery and Race in America” lecture. As a bonus for taking tickets and guiding people to their seats, they were given free admission to the event.

This comes from Matt Kay's latest post on the New York Times Lesson Plans site -- The New Village. In it, he speaks to the need for the adults of a community to step up and work with kids to give them the role models they need. He does this in the context of our Franklin Institute partnership, our Individualized Learning Plans and the experiences that our students have through those programs -- including meeting Cornell West last week.

It's a fantastic piece of writing, and he speaks to the transformative nature of these partnerships -- and how important they are for our kids. I just want to add that it is my hope that the adults who work with the students of SLA feel, in some way, transformed and enriched by their interaction with the kids too.

I start this post with an apology to Zac Chase -- who I gave a lot of (mostly good-natured) grief to as I worried about whether or not a new idea would work.

Last night, we had our 9th Grade Back to School Night. Zac had the idea of splitting up Back to School Night so that the 9th Grade parents could do a potluck dinner where they could sit with the other families in their advisory and eat and talk with them. They could meet with their advisors for the first time where it's not a report card conference. It was all fantastic theory, but it as it got closer, I kept seeing all the things that could go wrong -- parents might not bring food.... the conversations may not happen... it meant two Back to School Nights, which is taxing for staff... it was more planning at the start of a school year with a million things going on... new parents often are looking for a Back to School that feels like something they recognize... the list goes on. It's a classic administrator trap -- which is looking for all the reasons you shouldn't do something, rather than looking for the reasons to do something.

But we'd committed to doing it, and while I was worried about it, we were going to make it as special as possible. A lot of people, from Zac to me to Home and School parents did a lot of planning. Upper class students ran around after school to make sure the place looked great. We got the schedule of events to everyone. And I worried.

And then the funny thing happened -- parents came. They bought food. They sat together and shared stories of the first few weeks. They talked about why they came to SLA... or how they found out about it... and advisors talked and listened and learned about the families their students came from.

In short -- it was the best part of the evening. I'm sure the parents loved following their students' schedules, and I know how passionate and inspiring SLA teachers are when they talk about their classes, but as lovely as that part of the evening was (and I did manage to hear most of our teachers talking about their classes), the highlight was watching our new families make themselves part of our community along side students, teachers and returning parents. And the food was amazing too.

So, at a time in the school year when it would probably be really easy to fall back on what we know works -- and the time of SLA where we are starting to be able to say, "We've done it this way in the past" -- it's important to remember to keep trying new ideas. And it's important to be able to see the best reasons to do things, not just think of all the reasons not to. And it's important to have people on faculty who are willing to experiment and dream big and see ideas throught. And it's important to know how to nurture those people and their ideas. And it's also important to remember when, as principal, you just get out of the way and let the moment happen, even when you're worried.

And the best thing is that by doing that, I got yet another reminder of how much I love the community of SLA... and how much I can believe in the strengthen of this community we've built, and how everyone -- teachers, students, parents -- are so invested in bringing in the new class of SLA teachers and students into that culture.

Tags: SLA, leadership, innovation, community

Just have to pass along the wonderful blog post -- Teaching Without a Script -- by SLA English teacher / Athletic Director / Boys Basketball Coach / Slam Poetry Club Sponsor Matthew Kay. Matt has been asked to take part in the NY Times Online Blog "Lesson Plans," and his first blog entry shows the world what we at SLA have known since the inception of the school -- Mr. Kay has some serious chops.

On a personal level, I love this piece because -- on a very different level that the one I usually write about -- Matt has captured an amazing piece of what makes SLA so very special. And Matt is kind enough to share his class with me from time to time, although more and more, I wonder why the kids put up with me taking away from their time with a masterful young teacher like Mr. Kay.

Here's an excerpt:

So it is with the inquiry based learning that we model for the other schools in Philadelphia. Our ninth graders come to us shy about asking questions that are often scattered and incoherent. When encouraged, they open up, and then incessantly offer their ideas. (I illustrate this for all classes on the first full day of every year, when I put a big rubber ball under my shirt and pretend to give laborious birth to it. We name this child “my idea.” I pass it around nervously, and when someone drops it, I snatch it up and curl into the fetal position. They laugh. I eventually get over my shock and learn to trust again, slowly passing it, then throwing it around the room for everyone to touch. There are two morals: first, you can’t protect your idea forever, and second, our ideas grow when, by dialogue and debate, others are allowed to get their fingerprints on them.)

Go read the rest.

Tags: sla, matt kay, NYTimes

[O.k. -- this too is an insanely geeky post. I promise, I'll write about education theory or EduCon or something like that soon. But for now, I've got my geek on.]

This is a very simple block in Moodle -- my first custom-designed Moodle block -- that makes it very easy to put a link on a Moodle course directly to the related DrupalEd course/group. As with before, this uses the Moodle variable "Shortname" and corresponds that with the "URL Alias" in Drupal. Those have to correspond or this doesn't work. 

And if you are into learning how to make custom blocks in Moodle, this page of Block Documentation on the Moodle.org site was incredibly helpful and important, and I really just used their template.

In <site>/moodle/blocks, create a directory called drupal_link. Then create a file block_drupal_link.php -- here is that code:

Then, create a file called config_global.html -- this is what will allow you to have global settings for the block. The global setting we create here is the root of the drupaled site, so that it's the same for all courses. (You could make this editable, course by course, but I didn't want to because we only have one drupal site.) Here's that code:

Once you do this, you may need to go to main moodle admin page for moodle to recognize the block, but otherwise, you should see the block in the Administration -> Blocks page. Edit the Settings with the root of your DrupalEd install (include the trailing slash), and you should be able to just add the block to any course and have the link show up. It will show up as the name of the course, rather than the URL. I thought that looked prettier.

Also... one silly issue that I'm wondering about. For some reason, the Block name is enclosed in [[ ]] brackets. I don't know why. Any ideas?

Tags: moodle, killer app, drupal, killerapp, programming

[Be aware -- this is by FAR the geekiest post I've written in a long, long time.]

Thought I'd share this for anyone who is trying to use both Moodle and Drupal. We just figured out a quick way to create a link on a DrupalEd Group page to a corresponding Moodle course.

Here's how:

This assumes that a) you have CCK and Computed Field installed

First, give every DrupalEd course an automatic alias that is the same as your Moodle short-course name. (Yes, right now, we have to do that by hand. That needs to change eventually.)

Then, in Content Management -> Content Types -> Course -- create a new field called field_moodle_link (or something like that) and select Field Type -- Computed and create the field.

In the next page that pops up, fill in the Label with whatever you want the label to be on the Drupal Group page. Then I chose "Required" under data settings, but I'm not 100% sure that's necessary. And under Computed Code, enter this:

Make sure "Display this field" is checked, and I use this as my display format:

And then save it.

Once it's saved, click "Manage Fields" and make sure that your new field has a lower numerical value than the Highlighted Content Field, so that it's at the top of the Drupal page.

What I'd like to do eventually, is figure out how to make that link appear in the Group Details block, but I haven't figured out how to edit that. Anyone who knows, I'd love to know.

In the meantime, drop me a note if you find this useful... or make it better.

(And now, off to figure out Moodle blocks. And yes, I'm still a principal, why do you ask?)

Tags: killerapp, drupal, programming

I've really enjoying playing with Drupal the past few weeks. We've done a site redesign at SLA, and now our DrupalEd install is our front page. I've learned a ton about Drupal, and while it does have a steeper learning curve than a lot of other systems, it is insanely flexible and powerful.

I've learned how to configure menus, ported the homework checker from Moodle (the first piece of real interactivity between Moodle and Drupal at SLA), configured a Upcoming Events calendar so that we can have that as a sidebar on the side of our page, posted our Student Handbook in wiki-style format, created a private faculty handbook wiki that we will continue to build together over time, and generally tweaked the site so that it closer and closer to what I want our web site to be. (And as soon as we have a student who is willing to take a stab at designing a sleek custom theme, we'll redesign the look, too.)

As we continue our work with SchoolTool, and as both SchoolTool and I play with interoperability between SchoolTool, Moodle and Drupal, we will move closer and closer to the Killer App that I've been dreaming about. I've no doubt now that Drupal is the absolute right pick as the content management system for that app.

(oh... and just a huge shout-out to Bill Fitzgerald of FunnyMonkey. He is as patient and available mentor as a person could want with Drupal. If you need a consultant or you have specific needs for a DrupalEd install, hire him. He is a teacher first which means that a) he can teach how to use this stuff, and b) his solutions make sense for schools and the classroom. Without the changes in Drupal that he has made by creating DrupalEd, there's no way I would have seen the power of Drupal in schools. And without his patient mentoring, there's no way we would have been ready to move Drupal to be the front of our website. Thank you, Bill!)

Tags: SLA, drupal, open source, killer app

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the passing of Andrea Collins-Smith. Andrea's son Jesse is one of my advisees at SLA, and he's an amazing, kind, wonderful kid who I look forward to seeing every day. All year long, he's dealt with the illness of his mother, and for the past several months, we had a sense it probably wasn't going to end well. Through it all, Jesse handled it with a grace that few adults would have. There were tough times for him throughout this year, as we all would expect, and there were times when I had to remind him just how well he was holding up, given all that his family was going through. As the father of two boys, I can say that I'd be thrilled if Jakob and Theo ended up as good and kind-hearted and thoughtful as Jesse is. His mom always took a justifiable pride about the amazing spirit and sense that her son has.

Andrea defied stereotypes, and she enjoyed doing that, I think. She was, as her blog is titled, a punk rock mommy. The first time I met her, she and her husband were sitting in the second row in Meredith Elementary School as I presented to the 8th grade class about this school we were starting. They were the only parents in an auditorium full of 12 year olds, and they were the toughest audience I think I had on the recruitment trail that planning year. Afterward, Andrea came up and introduced herself to me and had some of the toughest and on-point questions about SLA that I remember getting from anyone anywhere that year. She wanted a school for her son that would not try to put him into a box, but rather would allow him to be himself. I think there was a moment in that conversation where we both realized we were talking about education the same way, and Jesse, of course, did come to SLA. And, of course, Jesse ended up in my advisory.

The biggest mistake that you could make was to underestimate her... to assume that "punk" and "pierced" meant... well... anything negative you might think it meant. She was a smart, dedicated woman who was beloved by her friends and her family. She took so much joy from being a mom, and -- as she was dying -- she made sure that her oldest son was set up to go to Rochester in the fall, her two twin boys going into high school got full scholarships to St. Joe's Prep, and her daughter got a full scholarship to Penn Charter. We at SLA get to keep Jesse, and we're a better community for his presence. (Clay is still too young for Andrea to have set up his education, but he's got a whole lot of folks looking out for him.)

Over the past two years, Andrea and I had countless phone conversations, a bunch of emails, four "official" parent-advisor-student conferences, and a bunch of unofficial conferences since then, and part of this blog entry is to say that I'll miss those conferences. Andrea was a presence, and she was a fierce advocate for her child, and no matter if Jess was having a good quarter or perhaps a less-than-good quarter, I always looked forward to the conversations. I'm going to miss her for the two years we've got left with Jesse.

And Jesse is going to be o.k. He is his mother's son, and the best thing throughout this entire process is that he could let his mother go with no regrets about his relationship with her. They were so very close, and he has known every moment of his life that he was fiercely loved. And he knows that she passed knowing how much she meant to him, and they really did -- even before she fell ill -- tell each other that every day.

And in addition to the family and friends she leaves behind, let that be Andrea Collins-Smith's legacy. The people she loved always knew. Because of the way she lived her life, there is more love and care in the world. So today, be sure to tell the people in your life you love that you love them. Tell them that a punk-rock mommy who can't do that anymore reminded you to.

Tuesday was my session at NECC: Progressive Pedagogy and the 21st Century. This was a way to teach folks about Understanding by Design and how we use it to create the curriculum at SLA. A lot of the keynotes and workshops and sessions I've been doing lately have been sort of a "birds-eye" view of school... I've been talking a lot about school reform, and the big ideas that I think we need to consider when we think about schools, but even back in October, I was feeling that we also would need to talk about how those big ideas turned into concrete practice.

But I was also really struggling with how to do it. I wasn't sure how to structure the balance of talking about tools and talking about structure... I wasn't sure how to set up the "why" of the session with the "what" of the session. I wasn't sure how to strike the balance between making this about large pedagogical ideas and making this about Understanding by Design. And I had no idea what the room was going to look like, and whether or not I could do anything but talk at people.

Moreover, perhaps because we don't see many sessions with a specific pedagogical focus, I really felt that this was high stakes for me. I wanted this to be something that gave people something concrete but also thoughtful that they could take away and use. Practical theory, if you will.

So this was one of those presentations where I had gone through ten different slide decks and thought about fifteen different ways to present it before realizing that I had to decide on one concept because, well, the presentation was in a few hours. Fortunately, it was also one of those times that once I finally came to a structure in my head, I was able to really put it together in a way that I liked. (It always helps to have Bud The Teacher sitting next to you to bounce ideas off of too.)

In the end, I was really pleased with the way the session went. The folks in the session did an amazing job of creating a first pass at a very rich unit plan on Natural Disasters on the fly. And I felt good that I had framed both how this can lead to better schools and how it can be used to make technology infusion and integrate rich and deep and meaningful. This is the kind of stuff that really is the meat of what makes us at SLA able to talk about curriculum, and I think I honored the work that the SLA teachers do every day.

Wes Fryer was kind enough to uStream the whole session and some reactions after the session and blog about it too. So here's everything from the session:

UbD21C -- the wiki

The uStream of the Session:

The uStream with reactions:

The backchannel

And the slidedeck:

| View | Upload your own

Tags: sla, necc, necc08, understandingbydesign

Today is the "Staff Only" day for the end of our second year at SLA. There's a few dozen reflective posts for me to write about this year, but to start, I wanted to share my answers to the questions we all answered.

• What are three things I'm proud of in my own teaching?

1. I was pleased that I was able to map out a PD / Workshop plan for several month stretches. I feel like when I was able to get a sense of the whole of what we wanted to do with our workshops, there was a much more powerful sense of purpose to the meetings.
2. I'm pleased with the way I managed the changes above us. This could have been a more difficult year, given the changes at SDP and TFI, and I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the craziness around us away from the school.
3. I think I did a pretty good job of knowing when to step back and let folks go and when to step in and shift course. That's the hardest one to know what that looks like from where I sit, but I think I gave folks chances to really run things or really take things in directions I didn't see. I liked how many times this year I had to tell kids, "Go see [teacher] about that, because I don't know.

• What are three goals for my teaching next year?
1. As we grow, I want to keep working to see every kid and every teacher every day. I think that next year, I'm going to have to block out two periods a day where my "schedule" is to be walking around the building, seeing what is going on. I see that as something that keeps me very connected in the building, and I don't want to lose that. I already felt this year that there were days I didn't get into classrooms, and already, without planning when those times happened, it seemed there were people I saw teach more than others.
2. I think I need to have more times where we have a sense of where our PD is going. The more I can plan, the more I can give away big pieces of the planning to others, bring in outside folks (for example, we never did schedule David Jakes to do his digital storytelling workshop -- that's a loss.), and the more other people can own pieces of the puzzle. That requires me to be more organized and more forward thinking. That's a struggle.
3. A goal for me next year is to find the time to do a more formal style of observations / feedback. I do like the pre-meeting, meeting, post-meeting forward, but one of my private goals for this year was to be able to give every teacher a letter this week that was about what I saw from them / in them this year as an educator, and I just didn't get to that.
• What are three school-wide pride moments?
1. We doubled this year and kept -- and grew -- our culture. Year Two is one of the hardest years in new school development because it's the only year you double in size. I think we should be really proud of how we brought in a whole new group of kids and got them on-board with what it means to be at SLA. That's not easy.
2. I'm, honestly, in awe of the sheer amount and high quality of the work of everyone involved in SLA. The kids did a TON of really good work, and that only happened because of the care and dedication of the adults. A related pride moment is that we had, literally, hundreds, if not over a thousand, visitors this year, and we remained a transparent school. People could walk into any classroom on any day and see active, engaged learning. The feedback we got from all our visitors is important for us, because it reminds us of the bar we set for ourselves.
3. I'm really proud of the fact that two years in, we are becoming a true R&D facility, not just for the district, but for a much larger community. Whether it was EduCon, School of the Future, FLC, Lead in Philly, Penn PhD folks, etc.... we had so many people who come here to learn from and with us. We forget -- we're two years into this experiment. We should be really proud that people think we are worthy of study.
• Three school-wide goals:
1. Integrating nine (eep!) new teachers into our culture next year -- and I think one of those challenges is going to be to start to figure out how to "differentiate (BINGO!) instruction" in our own workshops. How do we teach teachers who have never used UbD to use it while allowing those who have been doing it for one or two years to continue to get better? (for example.)
2. Anticipating senior year. I think we have to really look forward this coming year so that we don't run into the "Oh, God, we've got seniors!" moment. (I've seen that in other places.) This means being able to give kids a roadmap for Capstone, this means ramping up college now.
3. Setting up more time and structure for stream teachers to find ways to make more deliberate interdisciplinary connections. This is something that, if we want it to happen, we have to find a way to make time for it in PD workshops. As our schedule gets more complex, that will get harder and harder, but it's still really important.
4. Keeping a sense of humility before the enormity of the task in front of us.

Reflecting on the reflection -- so we all answered these questions in a Moodle journal and then spent the next hour reading each other's work and then talking about the work. I'm not going to post other people's private writing here, but I will say that it's amazing to read the work of a group of dedicated educators all pulling in the same direction who have walked a walk together to build a school.

Tags: SLA, reflection, school_reform