Episode 117: Student centred decision making in schools

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Robin Potter

Hi, I'm Robin Potter.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is the School of School Podcast. Welcome to the School of School Podcast.

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Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the School of School Podcast. And like usual, we've got Adam and Robin, say hi, guys.

Adam Gifford

Hi, Andy.

Robin Potter

Hi.

Andy Psarianos

You both failed the test. I said, say, "Hi, guys." And you didn't say it.

Robin Potter

I knew you wanted me to say, "Hi, guys." [inaudible 00:00:56].

Adam Gifford

I thought I was doing well saying hi. I thought I was sticking to the script.

Robin Potter

I know.

Andy Psarianos

We'll forgive you this time. So, we got a special guest today. We've got Jennifer Dousett from Collingwood School in West Vancouver in Canada. Hi, Jen. Jen, can you tell us a bit about yourself for our audience?

Jen Dousett

I would love to. Hi, everyone. Nice to see you. My name's Jennifer Dousett. I work at Collingwood School in West Vancouver and I'm the director of teaching, learning and innovation. And so, what does that mean? It means that I have a job that is focused directly on student learning and working with teachers and students and communicating with parents to make sure that student learning is front and centre of all we do at Collingwood.

Andy Psarianos

Exciting.

Jen Dousett

It is.

Andy Psarianos

How long have you been at Collingwood?

Jen Dousett

Well, I've been at Collingwood for a long time, over 20 years, but I did leave for a little window in between. So, overall, about 20 years. Long time.

Andy Psarianos

Well, the one thing I will say about Collingwood, I mean, I spend a lot of time visiting schools and I've visited lots of schools. I remember the first time I went to Collingwood, it was several years ago and I went to the elementary school, the primary school, because you guys have two campuses, one for elementary and one for secondary. And I was blown away by you guys. I thought you guys were doing such a fantastic job.

So, well done to you guys. I think it's a great school. My daughter goes to Collingwood and I'm really proud to say that my daughter goes to Collingwood. So, thank you, Jen, for what you do. Listen, today we're here to talk about student-centred decision-making in schools. That sounds dangerous. What is it?

Jen Dousett

It can be dangerous, but it's actually really interesting and inspiring. So, we are a school that like most schools, had always done what everybody did. You set your schedule up the way it's always been. You have your students in activities the way they've always been. And when we rolled out a new curriculum in BC, we were noticing a lot of things. We were noticing student wellbeing was not what it used to be. Students were really struggling. And this was just before the pandemic, actually. And it's just been exacerbated since.

We noticed our students were, well oversubscribed, they're really highly engaged, they're really highly engaged academically and they love their co-curriculars, and they just couldn't keep up. And we found that sometimes students would get into their schedule and they would maybe not be able to focus on all their courses and they wouldn't do as well in some of them and they'd focus on the ones they loved. And we didn't know what to do.

And so, when the pandemic came along, we actually formed some committees and we'd made some decisions. So, instead of just adapting then, we thought, "What can we do if we put student learning at the centre of our decisions? We have a little window of opportunity where people might not push back as hard, and how can we come about and do those things?"

And so, we involved a lot of teachers in those decisions because teachers are important because if you're going to make a student-centred decision, you have to have your teachers on side for that. And so, we got together and made a new timetable. So, that's our first example. Do you want me to just explain the timetable?

Andy Psarianos

Yes, please.

Adam Gifford

Yes, please.

Jen Dousett

Or did you want-

Robin Potter

Yes, please.

Jen Dousett

Okay. And I'm actually kind of excited because the pandemic opened up this window of opportunity and we jumped through it and we'd left a lot of baggage behind and we've rolled with it. So, in the past, our students used to take eight courses. So, everybody at Collingwood in grade eight through 12 would have five classes a day for an hour. They'd have a 45-minute lunch and they'd have about a 20-minute recess break.

And so, every hour they would listen to a math teacher, close their books. Five minutes later they would be sitting in an English class, they would be doing their English work, close their books. Five minutes later they would show up in a different class. And it became, the kids would use the word like a grind. "School is a grind." And so what we did, instead of having students take all those eight courses, we broke up our schedule to run a trimester system. We nicknamed it the 2-5-1.

So, students from September to November, they take two courses. Those are two-and-a-half hours long. They happen every day. And at the end of those two months, the students are completed those two courses. Then starting in November until mid-May, students are in five courses. You can think of this like an elongated semester system. So, it's a little bit longer, one extra course over a longer period of time. And then at the very end of the year, students are in one single experiential education, deep dive course.

And so, what's happened that's been really beneficial is our students have fewer concurrent courses and it's really allowed them to explore and delve into their co-curriculars, which bring them a lot of joy. So, if you can get more joy out of your co-curriculars, you get a little bit more joy out of school. And overall, we're seeing our students are a little bit more engaged. They're doing better in their classes. And yeah, it's been an interesting journey putting student learning at the centre.

Robin Potter

Wow.

Adam Gifford

Jen-

Robin Potter

So many questions now from that.

Adam Gifford

Honestly.

Robin Potter

Yeah. Adam, you start us off. Yeah.

Adam Gifford

I was just thinking, that first year must have been terrifying as a teacher, because you must just be thinking, "Man, are we going to make..." I've never heard a teacher say, "Oh my goodness, I've done everything really well on the curriculum and I've got all this time at the end of the year that I just don't know how to fill." And I've worked with probably hundreds, possibly thousands of teachers now.

So, to flip that on its head and say, "I'll tell you what, we'll do less at the beginning." It must have been scary thinking, "Are we going to make it?" Was it like that?

Jen Dousett

Oh, absolutely. Well, and also, if you think about the fact that they had no professional learning. The school closed down in March. We had our committees meeting online during that school closure when all of us were closed till June. We rolled out our decision. We did some online training, like the groups. So, we had one from each department about scheduling. And then, we've really focused on our backwards design. So, "What do you want students to understand at the end of the course? How are you going to plan backwards?" So, our teachers planned backwards for the following year.

But yeah, it was scary because two-and-a-half hours is a lot. You can't do what you did before. You can't talk to them for two-and-a-half hours. They have to be doing more work than you when they're in the room. So, we had this little saying and it was like, "If you can do it with a computer or a tutor, don't do it when they're in front of you." So, "What are kids doing in this space when they're in front of you? And how do you reframe your thinking?" So yes, it was absolutely ... It's still scary, to be honest. We're only in our third year of it. And the teachers here are unbelievable, the students love their classes, but it's a lot of learning work for teachers.

Adam Gifford

My brain is literally going about 8 billion miles an hour thinking, "Right, I'm coming to work at Collingwood in September. Here we go." Wow, that is a massive shift. That's a really significant shift.

Robin Potter

What's the feedback from the students? I would just think, two-and-a-half hours, that first trimester, is that what you're calling them?

Jen Dousett

Yeah, trimester. Yeah.

Robin Potter

Yeah. So, they've got two-and-a-half hours of two classes every day. And I'm thinking, how as a student, am I going to stay focused during that two-an-a-half hours? That's long. I mean, look at their attention span nowadays. I mean, it's a millisecond.

So, how do you keep them engaged for that first trimester before jumping to five courses that are obviously a much shorter length of time, but a lot more ... I mean, I'm just blown away with this. So, I'm curious, what's their feedback about it? Is there a trimester they enjoy more than another or are they okay with the change up?

Jen Dousett

I think they enjoy the two and the one the most. So, because it's less like school. And so, in our first year it was hard. Some courses were great and some courses weren't. But their attention is short if you're talking to them, but their attention isn't short if you give them instruction and you give them something really meaningful to do.

And so, we found our students love the bonding that they get as a class at the beginning of the year. That was surprising feedback for us. So, they would actually say they feel the tightest as a community in the first trimester, and they will go back to that teacher as a trusted adult in the building more often than they'll go to others. So, that's really cool.

The other thing that's really beneficial is our teachers, actually, most of them, unless they chose to have two, they only teach one block. So, they have the afternoon to prep and plan and collaborate and think about how they're going to approach that learning. And they also like the two because you have, we call it the first trimester, because you can go out on field trips, you can bring in guest speakers, you're doing all kinds of things. And they have a flex period to get their homework done in that system as well. So, they still have a 45-minute break where they do what we call get what you need. "Do you need to get some exercise? Do you need to sit down and get your homework done? Do you need to find a teacher for help?"

So, they do find the pace of certain courses really hard. But what we changed this last year is there's courses that are opt in to first trimester. So, if you love math and you want to take math twice in the year, you opt in to math in the first trimester. You could take math later. If you really, really love it ... And in the beginning with COVID, we actually just scheduled everyone. So, for some students math in the first trimester was the worst thing that ever happened to them. And now it's the best thing that ever happened to a lot of our kids, because now they get to take two math courses in a year rather than take one and then wait a whole year to take the next one. And then, Adam, I'm going to blow your mind. Are you ready for this?

Adam Gifford

Yeah. I'm bracing myself, Jen.

Jen Dousett

This is going to be crazy.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, go on. Go on.

Jen Dousett

Okay. So, this year, the reason our students like the final trimester so much is because it's becomes truly experiential. So, a required course in British Columbia, everyone has to take is socials 10, and socials 10 is World War I, and it includes Canadian government. And so this year, we opted into our families and we said, "We're going to offer a few courses that involve travel." And so right now, this week, we've got 27 grade 10 students in Ottawa studying the Canadian government. Well, somebody got to meet the Prime Minister apparently, which I thought was really exciting. But they're having tours through government, they're having walking tours, then they're reflecting. They're doing their assignments while they're there. And so, the students that could choose that, opted in to that.

We also had new media 11, which is an elective English course. So, you study English through film and you create film. Last week they were in New York for a week, and a really big highlight of that was they actually went to a movie. They came out, someone from the New York Times came out, gave them a lesson on how to write a movie review, and then they wrote a movie review. And so, in New York City, in Central Park on a sunny day. So, those kinds of experiences for us, they're so memorable. We want students to, in years go back, "I remember learning how to do this. I remember putting in the hard hours, but they were enjoyable." So, that's where we are with those two trimesters.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, and-

Robin Potter

Sign me up for that course, please.

Andy Psarianos

Well, so hey, Artemis just came back from the New York trip.

Jen Dousett

Oh, great.

Robin Potter

Oh, fun.

Andy Psarianos

I picked her up from the airport and oh my goodness, she was buzzing. She was just buzzing. She just loved it. She was talking about it like it's one of the greatest experiences of her life. She'll never forget that trip. She was so taken by, I guess, the generosity of everyone that they got to speak to and all the experiences that they had together as a group. And also, surprisingly, had nothing but great things to say about the teachers. I mean, that-

Jen Dousett

I'm not surprised.

Andy Psarianos

Well, they are great teachers, but it's building those bonds and relationships and those real world experiences. And this kind of trimester system opens that up. Right? It opens those possibilities.

Not every child is going to go to New York, but it's not really even about going to New York. I mean, going to New York is a fascinating thing, but if you're in a public school system there may be all kinds of restrictions or reasons why you can't do that, but it's not about going far necessarily. It's just about having that opportunity to spend that intense time together and bond and see the world in a much more, I don't know, experiential, am I even saying that right? Way. It's being able to see the world in that ... Experience it, basically, experience the world and see maybe how they could fit into it. Right?

Jen Dousett

Well, a good example is law. So, when you do a mock trial in law in regular school, the thing drags out for two weeks. You got an hour, pack it up. But we do our mock trials in a day in the H block. And that's our third trimester. And in our first trimester, they happen over two days. So, kids get really into it.

We've got our BC First Peoples history class going on right now for the first time, and they're doing place-based learning. So, if they're talking about the impact of the cedar trees, we've got a dam right next to us with a forest. They're out there in a circle, talking about the history of the First Peoples of British Columbia. And so, that's why it's really cool to be in these programmes. I could name them, sports science, you're geared up on all this equipment. You're tracking your body. It's really leveraged for us a world where kids can have two experiential learning experiences and then they can have still some traditional classes that happen in that elongated semester time.

Adam Gifford

Jen, is this 2-5-1 model, is it widely used, Canada, somewhere else? I'm just wondering, when you're discussing and thinking about these things, if there were models that existed that perhaps formed a bit of a basis? Or, were you totally on your own when you're doing this?

Jen Dousett

Well, we think we're the only people doing it, but we took the ideas from the block schedule method, which is the two period, when you only have two, is actually really popular in some places and it's really effective for learning. And then teaching one course at a time, there's universities that actually do teach one course at a time as well.

And we looked into certain schools. There's a school called the Hawkins School in Ohio that is unbelievable. They do what they call that intensives. They do them twice a year. We do ours once a year. And so, there are schools doing versions of it, but I don't think anybody's combined it in the way we have. But we did route it in, "What's best for learning? How do we get longer classes? How do we build classes that allow transfer learning, not just knowledge of things that you just kind of live in a silo?" And so, we used all that research, but I think our combination is unique.

Adam Gifford

And as long as I've understood it right, are you seeing that the attainment and all of the separate areas has some form of parity across the year? Or are there-

Jen Dousett

Yeah. So, we have really inflexible achievement standards and inflexible learning goals, but really flexible means to achieve them. So, your law class, it happens three times. It happens in the first trimester, the second trimester and the third. The way you experience the learning is going to be totally different. But what you have to learn is exactly the same.

Another question that people might wonder about is, "Well, aren't kids going to forget everything? So, if they learned it in first trimester and then they don't take it again until the next year, how are they going to remember?" And our answer to that is, they didn't remember anyways. And then the second answer to that is, when you promote deeper learning, there's actually been a greater chance that the students will remember. So, we were finding, kids would forget over the summer. So, that's why we moved our math into ... All math classes, unless you opt in, are scheduled that elongated semester, the second trimester.

But even in COVID, when we had no choice but to schedule them because of restrictions, students who took, let's say, math 10 in the first trimester and didn't take math again till the second trimester the next year, we still found that they did well. So, we tracked all of that just to make sure that students were learning. But it is a natural fear, right? Because students think they remember everything, but they don't necessarily.

Adam Gifford

And I've got another thing that's burning, and I know I should probably stop and let Andy and Robin go, but I'm just not going to at this stage, Jen. What do your elementary, we'd call it primary, colleagues think of this? Has this piqued their interest? Are they seeing that perhaps there's a version that can be done in an elementary, primary setup?

Jen Dousett

Well, I think they do this really well. So, when you're the homeroom teacher of a class and you're realising, our students, they're in flow. A grade six kid is loving that thing that they're working on in their English class, because they're also the math teacher, usually, they can actually elongate that period of time and then rearrange, "Oh, we're going to do more math later on in the day." And so, I would actually say, elementary teachers are almost inspiration for something like this, because they do that interdisciplinary so well and they draw things in.

It would be harder to schedule because they're not really specialists then, we want everything to be interconnected in elementary just to promote ... For me, elementary is about foundational skill building and joy of learning. We want to make sure there's no fear of subjects, kids really love everything, but they do it very well.

I mean, it's hard. I mean, I'm saying it's all wonderful, but there's teachers that still say like, "Oh my goodness, I'm doing things differently, how do I know the kids are doing well?" And so, we just keep checking in on all our data and taking student feedback and tracking them year to year in those courses that are so important that you've built skills, and just making sure that our students are engaged.

But once you hit grade 10 and you have an area of interest, like, "I'm in math and the first trimester, well, then I have two really high level sciences that have math in them." So, the students are pulling all that along all the way through.

Andy Psarianos

So different, Adam, right, than England? So different.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, it really is. And I know we have to wrap it up, but I think that this is the interesting thing about when you accept that you can have a level of autonomy in a school, you then have to ask the question is, "Will I use it?" And I think that that's where these things become really interesting, because that takes a certain amount of courage, right? Because there's always risk, even if you research it and look at different models and all of those sorts of things. Yeah. Fascinating.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. But there's one thing though, right? And this is a little bit of user beware. I mean, Collingwood was an outstanding school before it started doing this. Right? And Adam, you and I have had a lot of experience working with schools that are not outstanding schools. And sometimes the culture and the school is poisonous for one reason or another, or there are challenges that make it almost impossible. And I could see that in those instances, maybe this wouldn't work. I mean, you need to fix that first, right?

But I think what's interesting about this is it's something to aim for, right? It's something to work towards. I just don't know if you'd get away with it in England. Maybe the political system wouldn't let you do it. That's something that we can discuss another time. But, how would Ofsted respond to this in England?

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

I think you could do it in New Zealand. You could do it in New Zealand. I think New Zealand would be very open to this.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, there's certainly that degree of, yeah, we get left ... Well, I say we, I've been in the UK 20 years. But yeah, there is that degree of autonomy that's expected. Yeah. Fascinating. Fascinating. It's got my brain going.

Robin Potter

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

And I think New Zealand's got a lot in common with British Columbia in how they approached education as well, right? So, anyway, look, Jennifer, wow, wow. I think you just blew everybody's mind again.

Jen Dousett

Yes, absolutely.

Andy Psarianos

So, thank you so much for sharing that experience with us. We'll have to get you back on and talk more about this.

Jen Dousett

You need to get the students on to talk about this.

Andy Psarianos

Let's do it.

Robin Potter

Yeah. Let's do it.

Andy Psarianos

If you can round up students to talk about it, we'd love to do a podcast. Oh, wouldn't that be fun?

Jen Dousett

Yeah, absolutely.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Jen Dousett

They're great. And another student-centred thing that we didn't even talk about is I have students on interview panels. We have student interview panels for new teachers, because they play an important role in those decisions. Right? So, our students are really good at articulating learning here. So, I could very easily get you some great students to speak to you.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, let's do it. Because you guys teach in some of your media classes, you teach podcasting and stuff, so maybe we can work that in to make them do some of the work, right?

Jen Dousett

Yeah, exactly.

Andy Psarianos

Okay, great. Fantastic. Wow. I'm so excited now. Thanks, Jen.

Jen Dousett

No, my pleasure. It was really exciting to talk about what we're doing. So, thank you for having me.

Andy Psarianos

Thank you for joining us on the School of School Podcast.