I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Missouri Powerful Learning Conference this week at the lake. It was a great learning experience and I had a chance to reconnect with educators that I had met before and with whom I was meeting for the first time. Much of what I am going to talk about below was information that we learned from the keynote speaker Bill Daggett. Daggett is the founder and chairman of the International Center for Leadership in Education and is the creator of the Rigor/Relevance Framework. Mr. Daggett has held a variety of positions in education which has provided him the opportunity to travel across the world.
From his speech, I had two big “take-aways.” First was his comment when he was discussing the rigor/relevance quadrant. While discussing the framework, he said that relevance is what makes rigor possible. That pretty much sums up the entire framework in one statement. Without relevance, it has been and will be difficult to engage students in meaningful and rigorous learning activities. I think that today more than ever, educators are experiencing this within their schools. I believe the biggest problem with student engagement is that we have raised the standards and expectations for students, but some teachers have not changed how they introduce new material and provided learning activities that students what to engage in. We need to do a better job of providing Quadrant D learning activities and experiences for our students.
The 2nd “take-away” I had was when he talked about how a primary function of a quality PLC is the need to support a culture of change. He went into great detail how other countries are embracing changes to the primary, secondary and college level programs that are offered and how these other countries are graduating a greater number of skilled college graduates. And while we at Excelsior Springs Middle School are unable to make policy changes in higher education, we can make changes that will benefit our students as they continue their journey to college and career readiness. As a district PLC, we decided the need for our students to have access to technology. As a building, we need to make it a priority to provide our students with the skills and knowledge as well as learning experiences that provide them the opportunities to make a difference in our community. As individuals, we need to work together to create these opportunities and experiences for our students. As a PLC, we can support one another in finding opportunities and sharing successes and failures.
From his speech, I had two big “take-aways.” First was his comment when he was discussing the rigor/relevance quadrant. While discussing the framework, he said that relevance is what makes rigor possible. That pretty much sums up the entire framework in one statement. Without relevance, it has been and will be difficult to engage students in meaningful and rigorous learning activities. I think that today more than ever, educators are experiencing this within their schools. I believe the biggest problem with student engagement is that we have raised the standards and expectations for students, but some teachers have not changed how they introduce new material and provided learning activities that students what to engage in. We need to do a better job of providing Quadrant D learning activities and experiences for our students.
The 2nd “take-away” I had was when he talked about how a primary function of a quality PLC is the need to support a culture of change. He went into great detail how other countries are embracing changes to the primary, secondary and college level programs that are offered and how these other countries are graduating a greater number of skilled college graduates. And while we at Excelsior Springs Middle School are unable to make policy changes in higher education, we can make changes that will benefit our students as they continue their journey to college and career readiness. As a district PLC, we decided the need for our students to have access to technology. As a building, we need to make it a priority to provide our students with the skills and knowledge as well as learning experiences that provide them the opportunities to make a difference in our community. As individuals, we need to work together to create these opportunities and experiences for our students. As a PLC, we can support one another in finding opportunities and sharing successes and failures.