Zach Diamond  0:03  
Steve, welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast.

Toni Rose Deanon  0:28  
Hello and welcome to episode 213, of the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Tony rose Dean, and they them pronouns, a designated hype person here at MCP, and I am joined today by this rock star elementary school teacher, Drea Seaford, welcome, Drea,

Drea Siford  0:42  
hello. Yes, and that's, you know, I, like I said at the very beginning, I just had a Friday, and these were, like, some of the discussions that I was having with my students, you know, like that. We can't take forever, you know, on this and reminding them that today was was a deadline and that we didn't make it, you know, like, so I gave them, like, one more day, and then it's like a for sure, for sure. But I, I don't know, I'm very fluid with it, you know what I mean, because, like, for me in the fourth grade, and also because, you know, 75 to 80% of my students are multilingual learners. Like, I'm always like, I'll say this like to my admin, and luckily I have like, cool admin that I can be like, real with is like, I can be on pace, or I can have them learn and like, sometimes I can't do both. And now again, this is my third year of full implementation. And, yeah, no, that very first year, the data, the data, the data showed it that very first year, like I said, My My classroom is 75 to 80% multilingual learners, and so even though I am not a English Development Teacher, like an English and ELD teacher, I I still feel responsible for that, especially because I'm a language language arts teacher, and I'm I'm teaching so closely with my English language development teacher that, like I, I look at the WIDA scores, and I care about the WIDA scores, you know. And that very first year, we noticed a huge difference in our WIDA scores that very first year. And then, in addition, my MCP scores were better than they'd ever been.

Toni Rose Deanon  2:42  
Oh my gosh. And that's the first year that you were that you

Drea Siford  2:45  
implemented, yes, and then I saw the same thing again last year. I'm upfront with people like, this is work. You know what I mean? On the front end, this is a lot of work. And even my third year in, it's still a lot of work. It's not, you know, it's less work than it was the first year or the second year, but it's still a lot of work. But like my, you know, thinking behind that is, like, it was a lot of work before too, and for me, it was inefficient and it wasn't working, but now is still a lot of work, but it's working better. You know, could it be better? Absolutely, it always could be, you know what I mean, but, like, it is better. And so I don't mind putting in the extra work then. So I think that's usually to me, kind of what, like, some teachers are always hesitant, like they just, they see, like they see, they can tell that work is going to go into this, you know. And I don't blame them, you know, like we already have a lot on our plates, so I think that's the biggest hurdle always for me to try to get people over. I Oh,

Toni Rose Deanon  4:03  
yeah. And that's what, again, what I've been hearing often is when students complain about game board, the self pacing, right? And then they go back to whole group, and then they were actually, then they go, no, no, actually, I don't want that.

Drea Siford  4:16  
So it's always like, a good reminder, you know, for me, this time of year, for the kids who aren't still, still fully on board. And I'm like, Okay, we're into whole group for a little bit. And then they're just like, Wait a second. I don't know if I like this anymore. Yeah,

Toni Rose Deanon  4:29  
and I like that you're mixing it up, right? Because it doesn't mean that you have to self pace the entire time either. So and we don't get rid of whole group at all. It's just like our whole group is just so much more intentional. Yeah,

Drea Siford  4:41  
there's places for all the different models and types of teaching. And I always just look at it as a tool in my belt and like, I'm going to use whatever tool is best for the job.

Toni Rose Deanon  4:54  
And he was like, which you know, what teacher do you hear say they want to move up with our students? And. I was like, gosh, me one

Drea Siford  5:02  
of these years, just because I want to see, like, what it's like, and I want to get the data for what it's like with a group of kids to hit the ground running, because there is, like, some, some time lost to like, learning how to implement and so, like, if you don't have teachers in grades younger than you that are already doing this, there is some, like, heavy lifting for you to do to get them used to this idea. And there's like, some unlearning for them to do as well. And that can be painful sometimes, because, like, it's them going from a very like passive form of learning to a much more active form of learning and and there's a mindset change for them.

Toni Rose Deanon  5:51  
You brought up the blue signs that said, or you brought up level up. And when I went into your classroom and observed you like I already knew you were a rock star teacher based on, like all of my colleagues saying that you were and so it was really great to see you in action, or rather, see the students in action. And so as I was walking around, there were blue signs that said, level up. Can you tell us more about

Drea Siford  6:15  
that? So I tried to, like, gamify everything as much as possible. So, like their game board, when they get to, like, a quote, unquote, like mastery check, I that's, I call them level ups because, like, that's like, what it is like in a video game, right? They level up like, they understand that language. As fourth graders, they understand what it means to level up. And so when they do level up, they have these little signs that, when they're working on on a mastery check, they have, like, little signs that say level up on them that they put on their desk so that other people know not to talk to them, and also so that I can see that that's what they're doing, so that, like, if a student is talking to them, I can kind of be like, hey, you know, we're not supposed to do that right now.

Toni Rose Deanon  7:05  
Yeah, and it's such a it's a great visual thing for you, like you said, right? And so this is just kind of saying, like listeners, Drea didn't have a mastery check space where students got up and took their mastery checks in that corner, or a setup in the classroom. It was just, I was walking around and there were a couple of students with a level up signs, and I in my head, I was thinking, Oh, they're doing, like, something really cool. I mean, mastery checks are cool.

Zach Diamond  7:34  
Hey there, listeners. This is Zach. Just got some quick announcements for you. Want to start building your own modern classroom. Sign up for our virtual summer mentorship program from June 23 to July 27 work with one of our expert educators to build materials for your own classroom. We have scholarships all over the country so you can enroll for free if you teach in Chicago, Alabama, Oakland, LA, Minnesota and more, to see if there's an opportunity for you, check out modern classrooms.org/apply. Now. That's modern classrooms.org/apply-now. And second, Tony Rose and I are planning out the upcoming season of this podcast, and we would love to hear from students. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have a student that you would like to elevate their voice and have them come on the podcast and tell their story, it could be a student at any level of school, elementary, middle, high, college, adult education, the student experience is so central to a modern classroom, and we would love to hear from more students. So please pitch your student stories to us. You can email us at podcast at modern classrooms.org, of course, that link is in the show notes. And pitch your student story to us. We would love to see if we can get more students on the podcast. But let's get back into the short cast. You know, I cut out a lot of really great stuff to keep this short cast short. So go and listen to the full episode if you want some more gems from Drea

Drea Siford  9:07  
playing a game, you know, and it's like learning, and that's like, one of the things that I really love about it is that, like for fourth graders, especially, it makes their learning this very tangible thing on the game board that they can see. They can see that they're doing these things to get to this, this place where then they can prove what they know, and if they can prove what they know, then, you know, then they level up, and then they get to go learn something new. They're on a new mission, you know, or a new task, a new, you know, fight the dragon, whatever it is. And you know, that's just like the way their brains think

Toni Rose Deanon  9:48  
your student, every single student had a QR code, and they would just, like, bring up the QR code and put it in front of the camera, and then they were able to access the their learning materials that way. Okay, well,

Drea Siford  10:00  
that just like, that's clever. That's the clever, yeah, that's the clever login they so clever gives like, QR codes, like that way, so that they can, like, log in to their computers, basically, so like, they could have like, and because I have like, fourth graders with varying abilities, like, some of them use QR codes, and some of them, like, know their passwords, and so they'll log in that way, although today we just, I said, You're in fourth grade. Now, you know, we got to start, like, remembering passwords and like, you know what our email addresses are. So we had a little like, let's see who can remember their email address and login passwords today, and they were all very proud to show me that, like 90% of them are there now. So QR codes might be going, although there's still, it's still good, like for, for, you know, if I need them to log in to like, say, a quizzes or something like that, like to use like, QR codes that way. And I just learned this from my current ESOL, like CO teacher that, like, I can print those QR codes onto stickers that I can then, like, put on to, like index cards and stuff.

Toni Rose Deanon  11:14  
Oh, that's it's brilliant. It's brilliant. I absolutely love it. And it's even better with your explanation, too? Drea, of like, No, that was just a it was an option.

Drea Siford  11:27  
There's plenty of other lessons that I know that only my like, most proficient students are going to get to that lesson, and they're getting that extension that they need, and they don't feel like they're doing extra work,

Toni Rose Deanon  11:41  
right, right? And that's and that's the thing that I've been telling educators to Drea, is like, Hey, you really you have permission to not label any of your lessons, any of your tasks, if you don't want students to skip the should do and aspire to don't label them, everything is a must do. And then you have those one on one conversations, because that's still really personalizing learning, right? It's like, oh, yeah, cool. I know that the student's able to do this right now. Keep going. I know that the student will probably really struggle and may take a lot of time. We're going to pause off on that. We're going to pause on that real quick, right? Yeah. And I also just wanted to point out too, that just because some students are skipping lessons doesn't mean that our our expectations are lower, right? Like, that's not what it means at all, at all. It just means that we are creating this space where it is all the must do assignments that will really help them right, master the concepts that we really want them to know. And yes, we would like for all of our students to do all of the things. And in reality, that's not. It's just not real. It's not it's not possible. I mean, especially as adults, right? Like I would love to do all the things I don't have the energy or the knowledge or the capacity or the ability to do all of the things. And so again, just keeping in mind too that it does not mean you're lowering your expectations. It just means that you are just creating this space where students have the time to master the skills that they need to master at that time exactly.

Drea Siford  13:10  
You know, some kids don't need to see me. They got it, and they're okay with that. You know, they'll come and see me when they need me, but some kids might need to sit with me for the entire day, and you know, that's just where it is. That's where we are, right? And that's also okay. And, yeah, exactly. But I feel like everybody's getting what they need. Yeah. I

Toni Rose Deanon  13:36  
mean, I like, I like what you said about being intentional with it, right? There's a lot more intentionality behind it, and it's also data informed, because you're looking at the mastery checks, you're looking at, you know what, they're struggling with, their misconception, and you can do it right away. It's not like, oh, last week we did this thing, and now I'm going to pull y'all in, because I know that that's typically what happens, right? It's like a very delayed process of pulling students out based on, like, the mastery checks or the formative assessments that they did not master.

Drea Siford  14:03  
Yeah, this is a lot of catching misconceptions in the moment of misconception and correcting it right away. For some students, yes, I need them to write that sentence. And for some students, it might be like, here's three choices, which one, and I'm leaving those three choices to them, and then they're pointing to the one that it is. Because, again, I have students that have just arrived into this country, to students who have grown up here their entire lives and only know one language, you know. So it's a big variety in my classroom.

Toni Rose Deanon  14:38  
Yes, I mean, like you said, very much individualized, personalized, like all of these things, so students can feel successful in their learning journey. And that's really what we want for our students to feel they want to feel good. I want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like they can actually do the stuff that you're asking them to do. So I love that

Zach Diamond  14:59  
you. Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode, and remember. You can learn more about our work@www.modernclassrooms.org and you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course@learn.modernclassrooms.org you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. At modern class proj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast. You

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