Q and A on New Curriculum and SS9

Recently, I was asked some great questions about my draft/sample Social Studies 9 outline that I am using at the moment to pilot the new BCED curriculum. I've been asked "where's the French Revolution" by a few teachers, "where's the competencies" by another, and so on. I've gathered the various tweets, texts, and response emails in what I hope is a useful summary below.

Reference: an outline for Social Studies 9

Q1. Are there topics that have to be included in the new curriculum? Some expected topics are missing from your outline, like the French Revolution and Napoleon. 

A1. No, there are no required topics beyond the "topic areas" that are listed in the content learning standards. Although some teachers could conceivably structure a course that had no firm topics, perhaps around approaches to the study of society, completely based on competencies, or daily analysis of current events, we can be quite confident that many "familiar" topics will remain in BC Social Studies courses. Out of courtesy to fellow teachers, I think most course outlines will not stray too far or too often beyond the new course bookends of 1750-1919. Yes, my new SS9 outline does not include the French Rev and Napoleon (nor the American Revolution per se). These topics, like all the other content, are now optional. Teachers can pick and choose as many of the "old topics" as they wish to tell the story they want, to explore the themes/big ideas, and work out the competencies. Teachers can also add new content, such as other global revolutions or conflicts, if that helps them with their goals. I have explained this in some detail on the 11x17 "content shifting" planning documents posted at http://www.thielmann.ca/new-bc-curriculum.html. 

Q2. How should teachers decide what to include, or how to set up a SS9 course?

A2. Much of the content will naturally be suggested by the course bookends of 1750-1919. However, the decision to focus more on Canada vs Canada/Europe or Canada/World or just World is up to the teacher. Teachers can pick four favourite or important topics and build a course from there, or they could take on forty topics if they want. Teachers may add topics from outside the bookends (e,g, current events) or from outside of formal history altogether, such as architecture, political science, or sociology. Teachers can work through content (and competencies) through talk-and-chalk, worksheets & assignments, press play on the dvd, project-based-learning, debate & discussion, whatever. Some teachers will have core content, and optional content to be explored by students (e.g. project topics). Some teachers will align topics to themes, the content learning standards, or the competencies themselves, others will stick with a sequential outline powered by the topics themselves. Say farewell to common department exams, unless your dep't has a solid history of doing things the same way. There will be good, bad, and ugly all over the place, not much different than now, really, but I think eventually there will be some consistency and productive models to follow. I intend to work towards that, anyways. 

Q3. Why drop French Revolution and Napoleon, but keep the Industrial Revolution? 

A3. My Grade 9 course has a Canadian focus, so, with the exception of the Industrial Revolution, I've dropped topics that don't directly involve or take place in Canada. The French Revolution is interesting, and so very important to European and World history (as are so many other events), but something has to go. I don't  want to teach a fast-paced, low-depth survey course. Ironically, by extending the historical bookends, the new curriculum does more to encourage "survey" vs" depth" than the old curriculum -- although that was not the intention. Our grade 8 teachers will probably not pick up the French Revolution, although it may be an optional area of study for either Grade 8 or Grade 9. A bit later in the course I plan to a short American vs French Revolution activity; more for the competencies, though, and less about the content, e.g. deconstruct some images and sources that either glorify or condemn revolutionaries from each country. I have included the Industrial Revolution because it is part of a truly global story, it is related to Canadian migration, ties to WWI, and is often ranked by historians as one of the top 5 influential events in history. Almost every object and many of the ideas that govern our society, gender roles, environmental issues, labour conditions, and way of life have a link to the Industrial Revolution. Students can wrap their mind around those kind of connections, far more so than some of the nuanced lessons of the Tennis Court Oath and the Reign of Terror. I started the course with the Industrial Revolution as the backdrop to a "skills bootcamp" -- using invention, factory age, results of enclosure, social conditions, and environmental change as ways of introducing competencies and getting students used to interpreting documents and sources, especially images but also graphs and maps. I keep copies of an aged little text around almost exclusively for these lessons - "Thinking about our Heritage: a Hosford Study Atlas" (example here). I also had a student teacher with me for these lessons and he produced some very effective activities and critical thinking prompts, and used some great media.

Q4. Why so you include virtually every other "Canadian" topic (in some form) from 1750-1919 carried over from existing courses? 

A4. The rest of my course is decidedly Canadian (with plenty on and about British Columbia) because I believe it is important in the few short years of Gr. 8-10 to leave students with a sense of the Canadian story, their place in it, and their agency in regards to its future. All other topics are interesting to me as a Socials teacher, but not mission critical for building active, empathetic, and informed Canadian citizens. It is also the Canadian topics that will help me provide an arc and consistency in the use of themes such as Aboriginal content and perspectives. Students can get plenty of world history and culture in Gr. 11 and 12 if they want it, plus some in Grade 8. I have truncated some Canadian topics and left others alone, mainly a reflection of which of my past lessons resonated with students and were fun to teach, or had good class activities to go with them. The topics in my course are also a reflection of the print resources and media that I like to use with students and that our school already owns. We have been, no doubt most school have been told, that there are very little funds for new learning resources. I try to build a course-long narrative that has a point to it; in the past it was part of our job in the class to decide together what the point was. Now we have "big ideas" to frame that discussion. Perhaps we need a new term to describe the blend of narrative, discovery, and repetition that form some kind of class goal. What is it that we actually expect from a successful Social Studies student? Beyond the ability to apply critical/historical thinking to problems and evidence, and the development of good Canadians (itself a problem worth deconstructing), I think we are well served by stirring students to become storytellers. The objective is as simple as students being able to talk about Canada's past, present, or future using emotion, humour, insight, and authenticity. Part of that ability is ease with which students can look at fresh material (like what's on the daily news) and have something interesting to say about it, something that connects with what they learned in the course. In my mind, that is as solid an indicator of readiness to move on to the next grade as is a test score. 

Q5. Why don't you include other (new) topics that fit the time period and big ideas? 

A5. For SS9 I have not yet planned for entirely new topics, Canadian or otherwise. This is my first time through so I will be recycling many old lessons and focusing more on designing new competency exercises and class activities than I will on new content. I am a busy guy with a 1000 interests and a beautiful family, so crisp topics will have to wait their turn. One of the interests I have, however, is developing curriculum. I am currently working with a group of teachers from the Pacific Slope Consortium on curriculum projects, but that is more a long term thing and does not help me out this semester. I find that without quality resources in place, taking on new topics involves too much internet surfing and photocopied materials. One topic that doesn't come up too much in the old or new curriculum is local history and geography. This is passion of mine and an area that I want to spend more time with in my courses. I am also loathe to add more content to an already full roster because I have designed a large chunk of my SS9 course to include project-based learning - a Heritage Connections project that involves ongoing inquiry, source work, interviews, and multiple classes for student presentation. Three other factors influence my choice of topics and will probably drive any further reduction of content in my SS9 outline: increased use of role-play/simulations and the added presence of WWI -- the kinds of things teachers and students can do with this time period could fill a whole course. The last is more practical; I have arranged my units so that I can use the "Crossroads" text for the first part of the course and make a clean switch to the "Horizons" test for the next part. I figure we can do the handoff with the Social Studies 8 teachers who will use the Crossroads text for the second part of their course, thus we don't need to purchase new class sets of texts while they are still useful and current.

Q6. Any suggestions for including Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge? 

A6. We have a few decent local learning resources in SD#57 related to Indigenous culture, issues, and worldview. We have a large and well-funded Ab-Ed Dep't with many staff that are available to advise or visit classes. They recently put on a successful Ab-Ed Symposium that gave over 700 local educators a sense of the challenges and possibilities ahead. FNESC http://www.fnesc.ca; and BCTF have produced some great resources in the last couple of years. Check out this Project of Heart site http://bctf.ca/HiddenHistory/ and also this one: http://projectofheart.ca/. Like others, I have many existing lessons or lesson elements in various states of development on the Aboriginal cultures of North America (or Canada, or BC), Indian Act/Potlatch ban, residential schools (historical, modern i.e. TRC), land claims (process, results, protests), environmental issues that relate to First Nations, Aboriginal self-government, Aboriginal soldiers in WWI/WWII, 1960 vote, etc., etc. That's where I'll start -- include as much of that as makes sense, keep my eye open for critical thinking activities and continue becoming familiar with the First Peoples Principles of Learning and their implication for my classroom and students. Our union local's Aboriginal Education rep has also posted some resources here: http://www.pgdta.ca/aboriginal.html.

Q7. What's your take on the curricular competencies?

A7. I have been using the Seixas et al Six Historical Thinking concepts (significance, evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, perspectives, ethical dimensions) in one way or another for years, so they are not strangers within my lessons, although it has been hit and miss. While they were as good a place as any for the Ministry K-9 team to build their competencies, I feel as if they have squeezed geography in the process and go straight to the complex stuff at the expense of a few old-fashioned Social Studies skills like map-making, charting and graphing, making, and simply learning from a variety of sources and voices (as opposed to decoding them for bias, significance, etc.). I suppose if you teach/learn the core competencies alongside the curricular competencies, you can do it all. The Big 6 can be scaled, too, so that the process/outcome for students is basic... more like "thinking" than "critical thinking." The Gr. 10-12 Ministry team is working on some unique competencies for Geography 11/12 -- these will likely be similar to the six historical thinking concepts and will be useful for Gr. 8-10 Social Studies in the future, perhaps even incorporated in later edits (if that happens). Another area that seems to be missing from the core and curricular competencies is authenticity. Making personal connections to course material, using personal strengths to express learning should be considered a skill that can be developed, refined, and perhaps assessed (or at least self-assessed). Authenticity relates to quality of research, depth of inquiry, choice of strategies, plagiarism education, and acceptance in the learning community. Maybe that's just an extension of the three core competencies.

Q8. How will you use the competencies and how will they be assessed?

A8. It may not obvious from looking at my course outline how competencies fit in. My plan is to be more regular about using at least one competency-driven activity in each of my lesson. This could mean comparison of disparate sources, having students identify and explain turning point, do cause-and-effect webs, pick a position and defend it, debate issues involving ethics, etc. Some of this stuff I can just wing it -- there is enough of it in my lessons already, but some of it needs to be more deliberate, such as dropping direct/specific questions from lesson handouts and having more open-ended inquiry, perhaps around the image on the screen or an object in the classroom. Towards this end, the project I mentioned in A4 above will be useful -- one of the products we hope to end up with are "assessment boxes" with many source documents, laminated photos, and maybe some 3D objects that are meant to provoke thought, center discussion, and be the subject of competency-driven questions and activities. For example, the class gets a series of images of inventions and artifacts from the Industrial Revolution, with enough time or background info to figure out what they did, why they were important or what impact they had. These could be used for so many learning and assessment purposes, group or individual. Arrange in a timeline. Arrange in order of significance, based on criteria developed by your group. Guess (or find out) what technology this invention replaced and what specifically was improved. Predict the social or environmental consequences of the invention. Explain why YOUR invention should be on the cover of a museum exhibit brochure on the industrial revolution. Find one other invention that is related to yours and, with your new partner, explain the connection to the class. You see how this list could go on and on. Instead of having a test bank, we'll have a source bank that can generate fresh assessments simply by changing up the order or the activity. Combined with simple instructions and a couple of different assessment rubrics (e.g. formative, summative, self, peer), we think this method could actually simplify assessment and not take up any more time than the standard test. In our experience, we learn much more about a student's progress from these open-ended "explain your understanding" assessments than we do from ye olde multiple choice tests. I haven't dug into the TC2 http://tc2.ca resources in a while, or had a chance to read The Big 6, but there one can find many more ideas to drive work with competencies.

I wish all schools and colleagues the best as they wrestle with the many issues that come up with the new curriculum. Historical content remains important, and is a great hearth on which to spin a "Social Studies" narrative with your students and practice both critical and creative thinking, but it is not the only thing that matters in Social Studies. In addition to competencies, tend to the geography, tend to the broad themes of the Humanities and other disciplines that make Social Studies more than a history course. For those that are unfamiliar with the "elements of historical thinking" -- learn more at http://historicalthinking.ca or sign up for their summer institute http://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/historical-thinking-summer-institute/. For those that use them all the time, challenge the notion that competencies begin and end with these elements. I encourage BC teachers to experiment with diverse course outlines and find a way to compare notes afterwards. Social media works fine for this. The word will eventually seep out to teachers who don't use social media.

School Plans

Our school's annual "Plan for Student Success" is at a crossroads.

Now a post about school data and goals might seem a bit dull for most, but I wanted to do a bit of work here to clarify my own thoughts about school growth cycles and lay out some history for my school's staff, some of whom are new to the process.

I want to begin by differentiating between the ongoing work we do to affect students learning, to make connections with students, to hone our craft as educators and so on, from the reports we file about how our school, as a whole, does this. I have read about thirty of these official School Plans in our school district (we call the School Plan for Student Success or SPSS), as well as the overall District Plans over the last few years, and have crafted or helped write five of them at my own school. These shelves full of plans are read by few, but are nonetheless required documents in British Columbia. They sometimes tell the story about how professional learning, reflection on data, and strategic actions translate into student success, but more often these documents contain shifty data, goals too broad to be useful or too complex to ever gain traction, and usually hinge on assumptions that teachers find themselves too busy to fully explore. I would also say that elementary school plans are generally simpler (more elegant?) than the secondary ones, and enjoy a higher level of buy-in from staff (and probably impact on students).

Here's what we've seen at my school:
2012 no formal plan?; used compiled feedback from staff
2011 diverse department goals
2010 diverse department goals
2009 break out school-wide literacy goal into dep't goals
2008 school-wide goal: cross-curricular literacy
2007 school-wide goal: cross-curricular literacy
2006 wrap up dep't goals & prioritize for school-wide goal
2005 department goals
2004 departmental and small group strategies responding to school-wide data
2003 departmental strategies responding to school-wide data
before 2002 the "Accreditation process" was used

The SPSS is a School Achievement Contract or Growth Plan (ie. ensuring student learning needs are met) that was introduced provincially in 2002 along with the School Planning Council (SPC) -- a team consisting of the principal, three parents elected by PAC, and a teacher elected by staff. The inclusion of teachers on SPCs has been boycotted by the BCTF since 2006. According to the BC School Act, the SPSS requires annual consultation, review, and approval by the SPC, and when this does not happen it defaults to the principal to submit the plan. The only references I could find to the School Plan in the School Act were in Section 8.3 (p. C-22). The defacto local policy until recently was to have a paid teacher position (usually one block) that includes SPSS-writing duties (secondary level), or a team of teachers/admin with varying levels of release time (elementary).

The SPSS looks different from school to school, district to district, is sometimes group-based (e.g. department) or school-based (common goal/s) although there is no policy about this at the school, district 57, or provincial level. Elementary schools, particularly those with small staffs, have often had an easier time focusing on school-wide goals (and collective problem-solving), while secondary schools are all over the place. Fragmentation of goals seems to result from diverse subjects, complex student needs, and the nature of departments (e.g dep't of one, some dep'ts have leadership time, some do not, some teachers work across dep'ts), and the tasks of administrators (more discipline focus in secondary). Some schools rotate through goals according to theme or custom, some are tied to collaborative groups or PLCs. Some are quite obviously "owned" by staff (again, more common in elementary), and others range from perfunctory to practical. A former Director of Instruction described her view of the plan as "a record of the conversations about learning that take place at each school." She thought this was the only way to make the plans useful, otherwise they appeared to be mere exercises.

When I've interacted with other SPSS writers, the elementary/secondary split was significant, and the level of disengagement over the planning process reported at the secondary level was stunning. That doesn't shock me, the disconnect between the goals-setting and what actually takes place in classrooms is not a secret in our education system.  When people are thrown together arbitrarily, because they happen to work at the same place or teach the same subject, their efforts at goal-setting tend to sink to the lowest common denominators, or acquiesce to the loudest voice in the room. What does shock me is that when teachers and principals find themselves midst a dysfunctional process they continue to press on and do a rush job with it just to get it done without too much complaining, and then complain about it as soon as it is done. That's a special form of cynicism that can rot school culture. I've got a bunch of ideas for fixing this but this post is long enough as it is (recurring problem!).

In other districts, the story at secondary schools is not always so bleak. One exemplary case stands out for me -- the School Improvement work done at South Kamloops Secondary: inclusive, practical, thorough, innovative, and appears to have won the respect of staff or least takes their engagement very seriously. Their planning also makes use of novel technology (see the list of skills they aim to model) -- e.g. google docs for collaboration and social media for staff development. Scroll back on the Dipity Timeline at the top (or here) to the beginning of their process to see how it was designed for success from the start.  The SKSS principal Cale Birk (blog/twitter) is very open to questions about the plan and process. I'm sure there are other examples of engaging school plans in BC -- please leave a comment if you can share a story or if you want to challenge my perspective.

In contrast to the arbitrary nature of school plans, the district's achievement contract is guided by the School Act and has many parts that respond to regulation. Locally, it used to have a mandate to build on what came out of the school plans, but this never really happened -- one can imagine how difficult it would be to consolidate themes and potentially incongruent goals from 48 plans, let alone use this composite to set direction and allocate funds. As a result there has not been a high degree of congruency between the school and district plan. Typically the district plan sets out one or more broad goals, finds data to support the goals, and reports on progress in provincially required categories (e.g. literacy) and local areas of concern (e.g. numeracy). It is in part a reflection of what is already happening to affect student achievement and in part a look ahead -- in this respect it is similar to the SPSS. The district plan also takes on flavours depending on hot topics from the Ministry of Education. For example, in 2006 it was PLCs, 2007-08 it was Success for All, in 2009-10 it was AFL, in 2011-12 it was 21st century learning. Alongside these are persistent goals related to literacy, numeracy, social responsibility, and Aboriginal achievement. The guided process and provincial requirements do not ensure that district plans are great -- the ones I've seen span the spectrum, but they do make them more predictable.

Back to the school plans. Our district encourages one of two types of SPSS: some goal/s with strategies, methods & assessment, or inquiry-based (centred around one or more questions and a plan for action research). Up to 2007 the plan was submitted to the board office using a web-based program with standard fields to fill in. In 2008 it took on the format of a written report. Plans can be written by administration, by teachers, or by both, but in theory are the work of the SPC. Goals can be set by administration, by teachers, or by both (again the SPC is supposed to have a role). Planning and work on goals can take place on the required administrative non-instructional day and voluntarily at any other time (e.g. department meetings or optional collaborative time). Some schools have developed structures to allow time for planning, facilitation, and goals within the work schedule (e.g. collaboration/tutorial models, release time, leadership blocks, positions of special responsibility). Some schools use staff meeting time for this.

According to the official district planning process, the SPSS is supposed to use a staff self-assessment tool and then sent in June for review by the board, with feedback and follow-up to take place in September and a final plan approved at a board meeting in October. This no longer happens -- for years the review has been tasked to senior staff, typically an assistant superintendent and/or a curriculum & instruction administrator. From 2003 until 2007, our plans were formally evaluated (e.g. rubric) and followed up with suggestions for changes from senior staff. The 2008, 2009, and 2011 plans were reviewed with minimal feedback. The 2010 plan was not reviewed at all (explanation given was board office retirements) and 2012 was affected by job action -- plans appear to have been optional. Throughout this period the deep purpose of the SPSS and explanation about what was to be done with the contents has never been fully communicated to staff. Most teachers spend an hour or two on the process and don't think about it again until it comes up again the following year.

This leads us to the crossroads. There are a number of steps in both the district and school planning process (locally determined, contained in past district achievement contracts up until 2009) and steps involving the SPC which have not been followed in the last number of years. The school and department leadership blocks have all but disappeared in our district, an easy target for funding cuts.  The awkward planning process and disinterest by teachers speaks to a need to change the approach.

The model was cumbersome by all accounts, but we should be mindful that changing it up or even preserving select elements from a partially abandoned method should be done with an understanding of process and a sense of purpose. We should recognize the costs, time, and structures associated with group, department, or school-based planning. We should also weigh the balance and impact on student success between traditional mandatory goal setting and work done by freely associated groups (individuals working interdependently with others). For example, the end of department structures as we have know them in the past and the rise of personal learning networks (often across teaching areas and jurisdictions via social media) presents some challenges to the status quo.

Links:
Past District Achievement Contracts: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/schools/sdinfo/acc_contracts/
Past D.P. Todd SPSS reports (2008-2012): http://dpts.sd57.bc.ca/~gthielmann/share/SPSS/
Other SD57 SPSS reports: http://www.sd57.bc.ca/index.php?id=532

Questions to ask:

• What value do we see in the current school improvement (SPSS) planning process?
• What "total cost" value for students do we see in the time put into a School Plan (e.g. pros & cons)? 
• Outside of the classroom setting, where are the deepest needs and desires for goal-setting, group inquiry, or projects for school improvements? 
• What process can be used to translate needs and desires into meaningful goals and inquiries that will benefit students? 
• How much time and passion is staff willing to commit to work on common goals, inquiry, or school improvement? 
• What form would this take (people, scale, timeline, format) and how could a School Plan support these endeavours? 
• What kind of preparation, data, and support/leadership structures would allow successful school planning and inquiry to take place? 
• What kind of process, support/leadership structures, and follow-up would allow the School Plan to translate into action, ie. student success? 
• How do we avoid "lowest common denominator" goals that often accompany whole-school and departmental planning? 
• How can we leverage personal learning networks or alternate freely-associated groupings to develop goals, conduct inquiry, and provide accountability? 
• Are there some new skills and technologies (ones we hope our students will learn and use) that we can model in the school improvement planning process? 
• What are some ways we can challenge the dysfunctional aspects of the process at the school, district, and provincial level?

concerns with planning process

Open letter on concerns with the School District 57 District Planning Process from which the District Plan for Student Success (DPSS) and the School Plans for Student Success (SPSS) owe their origins.

The 2010-2011 DPSS, our annual achievement contract required by the Ministry of Education, has significant problems and needs to be challenged if the school district wants to take improvement plans seriously and if it actually wants staff at schools to consider the goal(s). The DPSS is not without merit -- many parts simply report what is happening around the district -- actions worth celebrating, as they involve the hard work of educators who are passionate about their subjects and care about the progress of their students. Other parts, such as the preamble, have been carried over from previous plans with few edits DPSS_2006-2007.pdf and DPSS_2007-2010.pdf. The core of the DPSS document (the goal and what is to be done with it) has some alarming deficits. As a backgrounder to these observations, I'd suggest taking a close look at the plan first DPSS_2010-2011.pdf, and maybe one or two of the SPSS documents (probably archived at sd57.bc.ca, if not, some samples: PGSS, Duchess Park, Kelly Road)

The District Planning Process describes the planning cycle that involves school plans and district plans for student success. It was laid out in the previous DPSS but was not mentioned in the 2010-11 DPSS. What has happened -- has the process changed? Has it been dropped as part of cutbacks (a reduced capacity to follow the process)? Has anything replaced it? Will anything meaningful be done with the new SPSS? Is it fruitful to submit a plan for which the recipient has given no indication that the plan will be used as intended? Specifically, what happened to the feedback cycle for the SPSS and its use in building the DPSS, neither of which has occurred as described or scheduled? While it may be difficult to answer all these questions, it will help to understand the context for the plans and problems with the planning cycle.

The SPSS on its own has not proven necessary to inform teacher practice or departmental collaboration, although it might serve other beneficial functions such as recording teacher practice and departmental collaboration. This was the direction taken in the last few plans at D.P. Todd and elsewhere -- to capture the dialogue among educators for the benefit of the plan's audience and the reflection of staff. These functions are not held in high esteem when they are not read or reviewed by the SBO that has asked for them as part of a Ministry requirement. Like those of most teachers I know, my own cycle of praxis draws from a deep well of professional literature and supportive colleagues at school and elsewhere; there is nothing explicit in the school plan that I need to complete this cycle. I believe there are strong possibilities for the power an SPSS can have, but when it becomes an obligation and is not useful either to the teacher or the school district, it is time to revisit individual department contributions that are a tradition rather than a requirement.

There was never any clear expectation that all departments would write a plan, nor in the absence of dep't plans that there should be one single school plan. The plans are also different from school to school. Some schools did not submit an SPSS last year -- Carney/ACS and Heather Park did not submit plans (understandably), but neither did CHSS. D.P. Todd, for example, started around 2004 with a few years of department-based plans, in 2006-2009 we had school-wide plans, and in 2009-present is back to dep't-based plans, so we have no standard model to follow. The only required aspect of the SPSS is that the principal must submit one, although administrators, too, may want to ask at the SBO why they should submit a plan that has limited usefulness for staff and what appears to be of no use at the SBO.

Our understanding of professional learning communities and the role of legitimate performance standards has come too far for us to simply disengage from critical thinking when asked to complete perfunctory exercises. Does administration have plans to address concerns with abandonment of the District Planning Process and the significant deficits of the DPSS? As teachers, we can offer a knowledgeable critique of plans and data, etc., but it is better suited for administration to ask difficult and necessary questions at the board office related to the DPSS. This is a great opportunity for administration to lead change by insisting that the SBO wake up on the DPSS/SPSS process and shorten the "knowing/doing gap" we hear about when theory does not meet with practice.

Here's what seems fairly clear to me having read the DPSS and the other SPSS documents that were posted last July, and having participated in and watched closely the district planning process for the last 9 years:

1. The DPSS contains a number of logical fallacies. The first is the inclusion of what should be two paths of inquiry in the same goal statement. Both independent learning and formative assessment are meaningful and complimentary goals, but are not mutually assured. Logical fallacies in the document also include the choice of data, confusing reference for rationale, mistaking correlation for causality, mismatching of the goal to objectives and strategies, and an unclear focus. The cover suggests the focus is independent learning, the puzzle pieces suggest a 4-part focus, the second page suggests the focus is a paradigm shift from teaching strategies to improved learning, and the footer suggests the focus is personalized learning. Again, complimentary, but not necessarily correlative. Additionally, there are some false statements in the District Strengths section such as "this distributed responsibility has led to a great degree of staff and partner group engagement in all aspects of decision making." Many of these errors could have been cleared up at the editing phase.

2. The DPSS goal is incorrectly matched to data. How should the wide-spread use of formative assessment should be measured? Uptake of concepts promoted through district pro-d (registration data)? Survey responses from teachers about their methods of instruction and assessment? External evaluation by experts in assessment? Anything qualitative or quantitative to do with formative assessment? None of the above -- the plan acknowledges how difficult this is to measure and instead displays the same statistics the SBO uses in all its reports: a panoply of summative assessments including success rates, grade transitions, FSAs, and provincial exam scores. It is ironic that while the district uses provincial exam scores to indicate the success of formative assessment, PGSS admin uses the same data to indicate the success of an attendance program, and the Fraser Institute uses the same data to rank schools and so on. Data can't be stretched like that and remain valid.

3. The desire to embed formative assessment everywhere is hollow. It is as productive to say "we want all of our teachers to be in the business of educating students and doing things that help students learn" -- that's not a goal, that's a condition for employment. Formative assessment has come to mean so many things, although the DPSS connects it to 5 principles, a definition of AFL, and 6 strategies for AFL. Anyone who has spent time with these ideas will recognize that assessment and instruction are intertwined and that FA, AFL, and inquiry are all tools to examine classroom practice, steer away from stoic or rigid delivery and focus on what/how students are learning -- these are very flexible ideas and are not new to the scene. When I started teaching in 1995 we called it "checking for understanding" and began our courses with "what do you know" assessments that we'd use to shape instruction. My dad Walt Thielmann talks about designing his English classes and curriculum at Connaught Jr. in the 1960s around the passions, problems, and questions of his students -- virtually all of the learning was formative and inquiry-based. They contracted for grades based on the projects and inquiry they chose (very 21st century!). At most we can say that formative assessment is a gathering of various educational philosophies under a banner defined by its users. The choice of words in the goal is also of note: to "embed" is to lodge something firmly in place, to make it part of the habit or environment. This will look different in every classroom (user-defined) and makes the goal more of a mantra or vision than something practical. With a distinct area of inquiry thrown in ("create independent student learners"), this plan doesn't know what it is or what it wants.

4. The Objectives are largely unrelated to the goal itself. These include: address unique needs of aboriginal learners, increase play-based learning, using the "UDL" strategy with special-needs students, and offering joint teacher-admin pro-d (please tell me where and when this is happening, I have not seen one of these for many years). These are great objectives, but do not depend on or flow from the goal -- without a context they appear quite random.

5. The Support Structures are not really support structures. The list includes "Families of Schools" -- this is simply a rebranding of Zones as a result of school closures last year -- this is not a support structure, it is a description of catchments. The possibility for improved communication between schools as a result of changing the name from zones to families is cynical, especially given the reduced capacity for district-wide communication in the wake of "right-sizing." The second structure listed is "Learning Teams" followed by a highly arguable narrative of how they came into being. The learning teams pre-date the goal and involve a small fraction of the district; they may be useful or positive but they are not substantive instruments driving change towards the stated goal. The third structure "Working Meetings" is mysterious as it describes unknown presenters and unknown ideas and/or strategies. Maybe there will be snacks at these meetings.

6. The Strategies are simply a list of projects already underway in the district and largely independent of the SBO. Seven of the objectives relate to Aboriginal learning and inner city schools, four relate to early childhood learning & literacy, three relate to special education resources, two relate to math education, one relates to writing, one relates to teacher mentorship, one to administrator pro-d, and one relates to AFL. So, only one of the twenty objectives is directly connected to the goal; the rest are projects, highly commendable, but would probably exist no matter what the goal stated. Imagine if we set out to teach a learning outcome and chose twenty activities to do this but only one related to the learning outcome.

7. The SBO's recent track record on implementing district-wide goals is not strong. To use a relevant past example, last year the SBO (superintendent, a trustee, and the tech support coordinator) publicly committed to having and following a real plan for supporting teachers in a changing technology service scenario that included a transition to single-platform PC. Almost a year later there is no plan, no district support mechanisms (e.g. in-service, replacement specs, timeline for transition), and no points of contact to even dialogue about the issue. This work has been left to schools -- perhaps as it should be -- but then why bother with the commitment for district-wide support? There is less collaboration and follow-through on tech planning and direction than at any time in the last 13 years. The disbanding of the District Tech Team was one of the final strokes, with impacts including the rejection of at least five project proposals this year involving "21st Century Learning" technologies. The lesson is that published goals are not useful if the walk doesn't follow the talk. This need not be seen as a criticism -- one of the consequences to the "right-sizing" at the SBO was surely to be some lack of capacity or even a total hiatus on goal-setting, decision-making, and follow-up. Perhaps we shouldn't expect more from the SBO unless we're willing to see more money taken from school allocations.

8. It is doubtful the SBO will take its part of the DPSS too seriously when it has not done the same for the School Plans for Student Success. They have apparently not been read by SBO staff, let alone assessed using their SPSS rubric or handled according to their own District Planning Process described in the previous DPSS. I've polled the staff reps at every elementary and secondary school and have yet to find one that has received feedback of any kind on its SPSS. If some schools are extracting value from their SPSS, fantastic, because the SBO is not. Although the SPSS exists as a school growth plan and accountability contract for submission to and review by the school board (this is in the School Act), it seems that SPSS feedback was a higher priority for the previous C&I department and that there are no known plans to review the current SPSS documents. There does not appear to be any plans to align the DPSS with the SPSSs, something required as part of the District Planning Process.

9. The SPSS/DPSS model is broken. Some of the SPSS documents contain their own contradictions and comical ironies, some schools did not submit an SPSS. Around 2008, the director of school services told a meeting of "POSRs" that after 5 years of District Plans for Student Success, they had produced no measurable results -- no impact!. I had to ask her to repeat that twice, and asked if I could quote her. She said that planning was still important as it provided a chance to discuss common goals, etc., but there was no illusion about these being anything but compliance documents. To her credit, she hoped that the SPSS would become a record of what teachers talked about in schools regarding student learning ("living documents"), and not so much a perfunctory collection of goals and data. The move towards inquiry-based SPSS documents was meant to address this, although many of the inquiries in the SPSS documents are indistinguishable from the old "data dumps" other than stating goals in the form of questions (like Jeopardy responses). A survey of school plans reveals many challenges to overcome: some looked slapped together, confuse correlation with causality, mash up bits of educational ideas or data types with the hopes that they are congruent, lack editing, and use backwards-engineered goals to describe ordinary activities in the school. This last characteristic is at least close to "recording the conversation about learning at your school." Again, those schools who take inquiry seriously (e.g. they leverage the best of what the Network of Performance Based Schools offers) should be commended; what they're doing is closer to what the SPSS could have been.

10. A report is a report. Having written a few SPSS documents, I probably feel more put out than I need to be that the last SPSS was "shelved" but I should not be surprised. Didn't we have the same concerns about the Accreditation process and documents? Isn't this common in bureaucracies? We hear far often that reports and plans are a waste of time, but it behooves us to move beyond derision and either abandon perfunctory exercises or redeem the process. I think we should take the DPSS for what it is worth, a compliment on the good work done by educators and students, and an encouragement to keep thinking about how your practice can improve. Actually, if one crossed out the whole goal part, the rest of the DPSS would make more sense as a living description of what is already happening in the district. I've read some excellent SPSS and school growth plans from our district and others, and many poor ones, but sensible, inspiring district-level growth plans are quite rare. Imagine how hard it is to built a tent over the diversity of teaching and learning that occurs across an entire district. We would be better off having a wiki, forum, or annual gathering in which to share successes and challenges than we are with the present format.

These are observations and, of course, opinions, but I believe they are factual and documentary evidence for all ten of these points are widely available (as well as suggestions for improvement and alternate models). These are not blunt criticisms (which are perhaps not appropriate for a blog post), but they are nonetheless critical in nature, as in "critical inquiry." I believe we work in organizational contexts that produces these kind of results regularly and perhaps inescapably, and so critical inquiry is needed if wish to improve public education. Any one of these ten observations should be enough to raise questions about the District Planning Process; the fact that there are ten (which is where I chose to stop), tells me the problem is endemic to a culture for which we are all responsible as public educators. These observations centre on processes used by our SBO, but should be owned by the whole district as we are all asked to contribute to the SPSS/DPSS cycle and have many opportunities to stop the comical parts in their tracks if we so choose. I would recommend starting this by ensuring that each of our own school's SPSS have goals that are legitimate and logical,  data that matches the problem, and inquiry that is worthwhile and engaging. I think we have ended up with reasonable SPSS documents at my school in the past, but our plan needs to change if the context in which they are received no longer complies with the District Planning Process. In particular, a survey of SPSS documents shows that there is confusion over what constitutes valid data and inquiry. This is a wide-spread problem that requires attention.

Again, I applaud the schools who use their SPSS to truly reflect the best of what they do, and I applaud the parts of the DPSS that recognize success where is it due. My motivation for sharing these thoughts is that school and district plans are published on the internet and reflect on all educators and can be linked to individual schools, administration, departments, and teaching staff. I consider myself responsible for a part of the "plan -writing culture" in our district as I was paid some money and time for five years to be, among other things, a plan author. As it stands now, the contradictions in the DPSS are embarrassing. SBO staff have talked about data-driven decisions and the knowing/doing gap; the first place these become an issue are in their own published plans. I really hope that trustees, school administrators, or SBO staff can take the time and form the resolve to let the writers of our DPSS know that their plan-writing is in need of some formative assessment.

why I quit my tech committee

Sent to my school tech committee today...

I have already supplied the committee with some suggested agenda items: listed Apr 29 for meeting on May 25; meeting postponed and virtual agenda itemized May 25, meeting rescheduled for June 15. The committee is free to add or subtract from that list for tomorrow's meeting. You may also wish to postpone your meeting until such time as the district supplies it's "informational/FAQ note" that is meant to address our needs regarding a transition and support strategy -- without this your work may be speculative. I had thought that being proactive with some of our own transition plan was possible (explained Apr 29 email), but it was correctly pointed out that "it would be prudent to wait until the final document is out and approved in regards to what and what can be bought and supported at the school level before we start making plans." Without this action from the district, my position as chair is counterproductive and requires me to withdraw from the committee (explained May 25), and so you will need to select a new chair.

I have agreed to attend tomorrow's meeting as an observer (set expectations May 27 re: "where's the district plan?"), and will try to limit my involvement to sharing some thoughts and questions in advance about the district decision-making process that could undermine many successful educational technology adaptations at D.P. Todd and elsewhere. These impacts are, of course, avoidable and could be absorbed but to date the district has not supplied the necessary plan, assurances, or information that should have accompanied their decision to consolidate platforms and engage on an unspecified change in tech direction for our district (requested numerous times including May 21 email). It is acceptable and normal for the district to make decisions that some of us disagree with, but it is less than satisfactory for the district to have pulled the plug on an integrated set of teaching and learning resources without having worked through even a few of the tough questions that must accompany this level of decision-making (see questions below). It is just as problematic to promote structured collaboration and meaningful assessment at the district level and then skip this when given a relatively straight-forward opportunity to do so, not even a response to the many offers by teachers to work cooperatively for efficiency on tech budgets. I understand the board office has had a very busy Spring, but an established mechanism (the DTT) exists for the very purpose of providing collaboration and assessment for technology decisions, and would have been (could still be) one way for the district to meet expectations. If I am incorrect, and some of this work has been done in secret, then I beg (have begged) the board office for some transparency and answers to questions.

To repeat what I've said elsewhere (May 26), a negative outcome of the district's decision is not a foregone conclusion, but is much more probable if they do not follow up with the kind of planning that should have accompanied their decision to consolidate platforms and embark on unspecific changes in tech direction for our district. Indeed, the district may very well be considering some of the solutions to the problems we face at our school, but if so this is not yet public. This planning has been requested, described, modeled, and explained to the district before and after the April 27th decision to become a single-platform district. The board and board office staff at that meeting did not appear confused by what was being asked for, and indeed committed to making decisions according to a plan and that a plan would be forthcoming. As a final attempt to elicit the "mind of the district" on this matter, I have attached a list of questions below that the tech committee is encouraged to consider and pass on in some appropriate manner or format to the district. Many of these items and follow-up questions may be useful for the school tech committee as well.

I realize this may appear didactic in tone, and not particularly succinct, but I am truly interested in holding myself, my students, my colleagues, and the institutional structures in which I work to a high standard of planning, provision of evidence, rationale of decisions, and affected behaviour. My comments are not a blunt criticism of a decision or decision-makers, they are an assessment of a decision-making process, call for reflection, and some information for our school tech commitee. These sentiments and similar concerns were expressed by many others in the lead-up to the April 27th decision; as one colleague put it: "this process of asking parties what they think AFTER the ball has been put into motion is the sort that breeds disenchantment and disengagement." I think a timely analysis of the decision is needed to avoid disengagement. Just as the district's financial challenges can be framed alternatingly with fearful scenarios and also opportunities for growth, the district's tech planning has a similar "worlds" to sort out. I have confidence in the ability of school-based planning and our staff to fill the gap and turn from uncertainty to growth, but this would benefit greatly from a district context that opens the process with a clear plan for support. In the absence of a plan, even a clear statement of what is being left up to schools to figure out would be productive for our school's (next) tech committee.

Unfortunately, it has become quite clear that no district tech plan exists, not is it likely we will see one again. The DTT appears to be dead, it was May of 2009 when we last saw minutes published from a DTT meeting. Maybe I shouldn't complain, though, this is perhaps just a symptom of a larger trend. I think the model for how these things happen is changing, a function of cutbacks among other things. I know I'm guilty of expecting more than can be born by the resources at hand, and must lower my expectations for what the district provides in support of my educational practice. We have to accept that district will no longer be equipped to have a teacher-involved, collaborative mechanism for developing a vision of technology for learning. At any rate we haven't seen this for a while, and perhaps it never really functioned as intended. This is not necessarily negative, it just means that we'll be more of a "community of communities" than a collective. If I think of it that way its actually quite positive.

Not having a "invested core" (teacher-involved DTT, District Tech Plan, tech coaching/leadership/coordinators, tech-based pro-d, Key Tech Contacts, ICT goals, etc.) means teachers and schools will need to become more self-sufficient, and it may be a sign that we have differing needs that can't be met by central planning. I think teachers and schools were more self-sufficient in the 1990s and the centralizing trends of the 2000s were necessary to cross the digital divide. Teachers and district staff needed common ground to make sense of emergent technologies and the many gaps in basic computing skills among teachers and students. Perhaps we've cleared these hurdles... the era of tech-specific workshops, TLITE, questions about how/when to use technology with students, increased reliance on servers and tech support, teachers getting a handle on what their computers can or can't do, etc.

Maybe we should just accept that the district (SBO, administration) as a managing and collaborative entity is out of the "tech for learning" paradigm. This "calling" is now in the hands of schools and teachers within the prescriptions of security, stability, and purchasing restrictions (which appear significant). This ground does not appear fertile at the moment, but it does show a path towards self-sufficiency that is begged for when the district bows out of its role as coordinator. Have we passed through the heady days of the digital divide? Is technology still a stand-alone focus area?

My school's tech committee, such as it will become without a table of teachers, knows where to find me... right across the hall in room 180.  I resign from the tech committee after 7 years of work, 4 years as chair.  This time has seen amazing change at D.P. Todd, with educators and students entering the 21st century of digital technology. I'd like to think the vision started with teaching and learning in mind, and included plans for networks, lab environments, desktops, laptops, screen projectors, scanners, video cameras, software for everything, tech support, teacher training, student orientation, renewal, and so on.  Our evergreen plan was cost effective (we spent less per student on technology than PGSS, for example), and had a focus on staff development and student use, digital literacy, creativity, and purpose.  We may well have entered a new era of technology, one in which school-purchased equipment will increasingly play a background role, and so I leave the tech committee at a good time.

I am also resigning my role as P.O.S.R. (Position of Special Responsibility), a formal teacher-leader position I've held for 4 years, Key Tech Contact (6 years), and the Pro-D Committee (4 years, 2 as chair).

The 2010s will be interesting for sure. I think I've got a handle on what I need to make technology and learning work in my classroom, I know the people that can help me and what I can do to help others. I can also dial down my expectations and adjust the way my students and I use technology if there is less money or planning to support my needs & wants. I can look for mutual accountability among colleagues and try to see the silver lining -- when the organization stops providing vehicles for leadership and innovation, a very creative and wild landscape opens up in which we can practice self-reliance.

I have raised these recent concerns about the lack of technology planning and support at every level from tech committee, principal, district technology coordinator, senior administration, and trustees.  Having received nothing more substantial than "thanks for sharing your concerns" I should feel burned out but I also realize that others are counting on me to continue as an advocate for a funded, supported, thoughtfully planned and managed public education system.  And so I leave you with questions that  need to be discussed if this school district wants student learning to benefit from the creative potential of well-used, pedagogically sound digital technology.

District 57 Tech Process: what’s missing?

1. needs assessment, e.g. what do we use and why, what do we need, what do we expect, why students benefit from our tech choices? 
2. detailed/accurate total cost accounting, e.g. is there any factoring in of software replacement or training requirements, short-term cost of induced greening? 
3. meaningful consultation, e.g. under pressure, a consultation period was initiated but no forums were provided by the DSC excepting a presentation slot at a finance meeting... is this the new model for change? 
4. impact analysis, e.g. what value is placed on the time invested by teachers and others for platform and software specific course learning objects and lesson material? 
5. statement of intent, e.g. should we expect a reduction in service or quality of teaching tools, or should we expect reasonable replacement? how? when? by whom? 
6. transition plan, e.g. how long for emacs? imacs? when do macs have to go off network? grandfathering? role of mini-labs? exceptions? 
7. innovation plan, e.g. macs have been a key piece of adaptations for transformative learning... what's next? school-bought or teacher-bought? sandbox options? 
8. consider social/human capital, e.g. some of the district’s mac experts have spearheaded district initiatives and tech pro-d in part because they were supported on their macs, what’s the message to them? 
9. assessment timeline, e.g. no sense of whether this decision will receive further scrutiny... what process will be used to measure results and when will this happen? 
10. engage in inclusive discourse, e.g. no acknowledgement of cost analyses that challenged district numbers, nor formal discussion or answers to questions, specifically invitation or use of existing structures such DTT, KTCs, or school tech committees... why not?

District 57 Tech Process: some discussion questions

1. Do you plan a needs assessment for future district tech planning? Brainstorm some questions that could be used. 
2. Are you ready to take savings seriously and use detailed/accurate total cost accounting? Think of ways an asset inventory could move beyond just hardware and software. 
3. Will the district employ regular meaningful consultation on its future tech plans and decisions? Describe some methods of doing this, and groups that might be involved. 
4. Will an impact analysis have any bearing on the expectations placed on teachers? List some professional engagements that can come off of teachers’ plates so that they have time to mitigate district decisions. 
5. What is the district’s statement of intent concerning future levels of service and options for educational technology? Base your response on the premise that many answers to this question will be acceptable, but there needs to at least be an answer. 
6. What is the district’s transition plan, including some specifics on existing configurations and unique educational programs? Identify some programs at risk given reduced tech capacity. 
7. What is the district’s specific innovation plan and expected support for some of our rich-media adaptations? Decide what degree of program loss or failure is an acceptable outcome. 
8. Will the district consider social/human capital for its tech future? Think of ways to rebuild the bridges with tech practitioners in the district. 
9. Has an assessment timeline been developed? Discuss what future indicators or data would suggest another tech plan change is necessary. 
10. Will the district engage in inclusive discourse on its transition plan or mitigation for affected programs? In your response, compare the pros and cons of a collaborative decision-making model, and consider to what extent the DTT has a role in developing ed-tech vision in the district.