Many Experts in the Classroom: Redirecting Authority

Many Experts in the Classroom: Redirecting Authority

Picture of Practice with Agency by Design Oakland 2017-2018 Teacher Fellow Mallory Moser

Mallory Moser is the 11th Grade Graphic Design Teacher & Media Academy Director at Oakland International High School, which serves English language learners from around the world. She completed her second year as a Teacher Fellow with Agency by Design Oakland this school year, and decided to focus on the instructional practice of redirecting authority to drive her inquiry and learn how it would affect the dynamics of her classroom. To learn more about maker-centered learning instructional practices read more in Chapter 2 of Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape Their Worlds. 

Mallory showing her students around a camera at Oakland International High School

Ask any educator who teaches a class of 25 or 30 students what their biggest challenge is, and they will most likely point to the fact that they cannot possibly reach every student with the individualized instruction or support they need. How can we change this?

My inquiry question into this issue was “How can I set up structures in the classroom that will help me redirect authority and promote an ethic of knowledge sharing?” The goal was to eliminate the many voices calling for my help, and instead have:

1) A group of students who were trained to be co-teachers
2) A place in the classroom where struggling students could see who they could ask for help
3) Language frames to support both the experts and those in need of help

Students at OIHS working together on an interview. 

I began by training a small group of students in each period to learn specific skills so they could help other students film interviews. Filming an interview requires many technical skills - from the setup of cameras with full batteries, empty SD cards and charged microphones, to location scouting and making sure the video was in focus with good composition, lighting and background. I took the time to train 4-5 students in each of my classes who could circulate to help the 3 or 4 groups that would be out at a time. I put their names on the board in an “Experts This Week” table, and would put helpful language frames in slides that I would leave up during work time.

Students self-selected to be experts in each class. Some of the students who volunteered were not the students I expected (mostly because they weren't the highest level English speakers), but all of them wanted to deepen their understanding of how to use cameras and help other groups in that process.

After the small sessions, these experts had a much deeper understanding of how to set up interviews than their classmates. My classroom went from the image on the left below, to the image on the right. 

The classroom went from this....

...to this!

You can see a classroom of frustrated students and an overwhelmed teacher in the first picture. After the intervention and inquiry, students were helping one another, learning from each other, and ultimately mastering content through the act of explaining and teaching each other.

Through this experience I learned that training a few experts means that there are more teachers in the room - which was a huge relief! I felt like I was able to help students individually with their messages and the content because the experts were helping with set up. Additionally, having experts move around and support other groups led to much better final products, and I was able to focus on the groups of students that were struggling and really needed my support.

Putting in the little bit of extra time and energy to establish systems that redirected authority away from me and back to the students was well worth it. This inquiry was a total success for me (minus a couple of students that didn’t take the role as seriously as I would have liked), and I’m already thinking about how I can teach experts in every unit to help with the lift of technical support and skills.

"Encouraging students to engage in the making process teaches them problem-solving skills that go beyond the discrete (and quickly obsolete) technical proficiencies of any given software program. I think failure, communication skills, teamwork, and problem solving are universal criteria for building successful teams and products, so I try to support the process of making as much as the development of a final product."

-Mallory Moser
11th Grade Graphic Design Teacher & Media Academy Director, Oakland International High School, OUSD

Mallory Moser is a Bay Area native and is passionate about art, education (policy and practice) and activism. After working internationally in education microfinance and education technology, Mallory decided to change careers and step into the classroom. She loves teaching and working with teenagers, and finds this work to be highly creative because there is always a new challenge around the corner. This is her fourth year teaching at Oakland International High School, which serves newcomer refugees and immigrants, representing over 30 countries from around the world. Mallory teaches media skills to 11th graders - from basic computer skills to photography, graphic design, video game development, coding, and movie making - and is  also the Media Academy Director.

A Maker Mindset Identity

A Maker Mindset Identity

A Picture of Practice by Agency by Design Oakland 2017-2018 Teacher Fellow Lillian Ortiz

Lillian Ortiz is the Making/Arts/Design Teacher at Lodestar, a Lighthouse Charter School in Oakland. Lillian participated in the Maker Identity inquiry group in this year's Agency by Design Oakland fellowship. Below she shares with us the core tenets of her classroom practice that develop students' mindsets and identities. 

Just as traditions and ethnic cultures bring rightness and meaning to our lives, an education that offers opportunities to develop a maker-mindset and practice can solidify a student's relationship between making meaning and applying oneself towards achieving a goal. Making meaning (at the most profound human level) is where purpose and values take form, and the development of personal responsibility is where focus and productivity are practiced and sharpened. If you imagine a school environment where students are invited to engage in what matters most to them, developing this relationship between purpose and autonomy can bring enrichment, harmony, and happiness to the lives of every student at their schools, in their homes, and out into their communities. Add to it a creative process by which students can solve real-world-human-centered problems that reflect personal choice; the outcome is a maker-mindset identity.

The qualities of a Maker-Mindset includes tinkering, exploration, creativity and discovery — all of which can happen anytime a student is faced with a problem. The problem can be about solving something simple (e.g. drawing what’s in your imagination or telling a story) or complex (e.g. designing an ecosystem, redesigning your room or making a model of a robot). The value that they are creating something better is inherent in this problem-solving process; thereby catalyzing a student’s optimism and engagement!

The process can start out very abstract with ambiguous discoveries along the way. When a student engages abstract thinking and is not always certain what the process might reveal next, they are strengthening their intuition muscles and capacity for intellectual and emotional expansion. Did you know intuition is a skill? Of course, there are analytical ways to find out if you are moving in the right direction if you pay close attention and notice changes in patterns.

A student may create different versions of an idea — iterate and innovate — by asking more questions. During this process, a student may also master tools and strategies while developing a point-of-view. A Maker-Mindset is a creative process that expands intelligence, deepens connections and promotes a love for life and learning! Creativity is a human learning process that promotes critical thinking, collaboration, investigative skills, visual and oral skills and physical skills. From my perspective, when a student develops a Maker-Mindset they are cultivating their capacity for creativity and agency by sharing inspirations, appreciating beauty and diverse thought. In my classroom, we call this Maker-Mindset “Make, Break and Celebrate” where students create solutions to problems that matter most to them, create generative dialogue, deepen relationships with others and with themselves and build a better world. 

As a teacher fellow with Agency by Design Oakland, I learned skills to add to my Design Educator toolbox and honed strategies that support students to develop their Maker-Mindset through collaboration with peers and the encouragement of
co-critique and co-inspiration. 

"I lead with a 'making mindset.' I set up prompts to discover what students are curious about and what matters most to them. Once I learn about their interests and inquiries, the stage is set to identify themes, patterns and probe further into dialogue around their curiosities and ideas."

Lillian Ortiz
Making/Arts/Design Teacher, Lodestar, a Lighthouse Charter School, Oakland

Lillian Ortiz became interested in education when her child was born and she saw making as a natural inclination and ability within all of us. She leveraged her background in industrial design toward facilitating her child’s love of learning, discovery and agency through making. Lillian eventually found her way into her current role at Lodestar as the K-3 Making/Art/Design teacher. Lodestar serves the needs of English Language Development to support immigrant/refugee families and is also a microcosm of the beauty and challenges that stem from within the community. She believes that her community has learned that in order to be successful, they need to include learning needs that cultivate learning, empathy, understanding and connection across race and cultural difference.

Redirecting Authority to Develop Independent Learners

REDirecting Authority to develop independent learners

A Digital Picture of Practice by Agency by Design Oakland 2017-2018 Teacher Fellow Theresa Sanders

Students work together in Theresa Sanders' 3rd grade classroom at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland. 

I am a third grade teacher at Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland. I am very excited about integrating new ideas and technologies into my classroom to enhance my practice and to reach all learners. I use a “STEAM workshop” approach which includes alternative seating, maker-centered learning, blended learning, and individualized instruction to promote student agency and achievement.  I also integrate several Agency by Design thinking routines into my practice to promote critical thinking and agency in my third graders.

This year, as a part of Agency by Design’s Oakland Fellowship, my objective was to work on my instructional practice during making experiences. A number of instructional strategies are outlined in Chapter Two of the book, Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape their Worlds, which we read during the fellowship experience.  My area of inquiry focused on “Redirecting Authority," and my driving question was: How can I redirect the authority in my maker-centered classroom so students access knowledge from many sources—not just from the teacher?

To get an idea of how much kids relied on me to answer their questions, we made graphs.  Each day during STEAM workshop, they recorded data by putting stickers on a chart: “I asked the teacher” or “I asked another student.”  At the beginning of the inquiry, the chart showed that my students were coming to me about 20 times during the 2-hour workshop. They asked questions about how to solve math problems, how to maneuver different websites, where to find tools and materials, how to use tools in the makerspace, how to spell words...you name it.  Kids were also asking each other for help, but not as much as I wanted to see.

"Real agency comes from students knowing that there are many sources of information that they can use to learn what they need to learn, including each other. I wanted them to realize that they have the power to figure things out on their own." 

By the end of the trimester, kids were working together to solve problems and help each other learn. On day 30, there were 83 requests for help or questions asked and only 14 were for me!

Next, I made an “Expert Board” for students to designate themselves as resources for others.  This supported and added to our classroom culture of helping and teamwork. They also used the board to “ask 3 before me,” which means that they needed to ask three other people their question before they approached me. They know that none of us is as smart as all of us because it’s something we talk about and practice every day.

The "Expert Board" full of student contributions.

Whenever someone showed expertise in anything—from how to start a Google Site or change the margin size in Google Docs, to how to draw a dolphin or find the area of irregular figures—I reminded them to add their name to the “Expert Board” so they could be a resource for others.  

"Students teaching each other is important because it promotes agency—it IS agency.  When students have a sense of agency and competency, they learn more, and they are more likely to advocate for themselves and for their learning." 

Students figuring it out together in the classroom.

The learners in room 25 are now spending more time figuring things out on their own or with partners rather than just asking me directly.  There is a lot of on-task talk and troubleshooting happening in our room. And, while my students are teaching and learning with each other, I can work with small groups, document student work, or assess knowledge.  I can spend time listening and talking to my kids when I am not the sole provider of direct instruction!

Click Here for a video that explores more Redirecting Authority and hear how my students feel about our classroom now.

"I started making in the classroom to help the boys in my class to become more engaged in school, but I found the girls to be just as interested in making as the boys. Making encourages agency, problem-solving, collaboration and so many other 21st century skills."

-Theresa Sanders
Third Grade Teacher, Redwood Heights Elementary School, OUSD

Theresa Sanders is in her 32nd year of teaching in Oakland and is more excited than ever to see what her students will create and learn. She jumped into Maker Education three years ago and has been been learning by doing. Theresa currently teaches third grade at Redwood Heights. Every iteration of her classroom is so exciting to her and to her students. This year she has 30 very squirrelly, creative and sweet students.