INITIAL IDEA: The lesson was based on our problem of practice, which was originally: "How do we make writing meaningful for students while also teaching them how to write for future college and professional work?" That wasn't very popular or streamlined enough for a singular lesson. I came up with some ideas based on creating writing centered around using technology to create some form of digital literature that implemented HTML coding. Again, not very popular and not quick enough to observe students in the act of learning. There were other ideas thrown around that I can't rightly remember at the moment but they all were too broad and/or we were getting hung up on whether or not it was beneficial to teach students certain elements of writing for future success. So, the problem of practice evolved/devolved into just: "How do we make writing more meaningful for students?"

 

THE LESSON TAKES SHAPE: After careful deliberation amongst everyone in the group, we were able to come to an agreement on the lesson being centered around Chet Flaum's 9th-grade class at the original High Tech High in Point Loma and their postcard-making that had been happening since the beginning of the semester. The scaffolding was pre-baked so we were going in with the knowledge that the only thing changing was going to be both the method of inspiration and the recipients of the postcards. Both Felicia Acosta and Zak Sanders work at High Tech High Media Arts across the street from Chet Flaum's class, so in order to incorporate all of the students from the three out of the five of us who had a classroom with students (myself and Krys Deming do not) it was decided that Chet Flaum's 9th-grade class would write postcards to Felicia Acosta's 9th-grade class across the street and on replying to the postcards received, Zak Sander's 10th-grade class would do the job of editing the writing portion of the reply for Felicia Acosta's 9th-grade class. Next, it was decided that the lesson would start with Chet Flaum's 9th-grade class taking a "mini-field trip" to High Tech High Media Arts in order to get inspiration on what to draw and write on their postcards.

 

THE WORK IN BETWEEN: Both Dr. Curtis Taylor and Dr. Kirstin Northenscold gave us individual and group work to help us capture our ideas and what would eventually become the lesson. Our group was essentially the "High School English" group, so writing was built into our group assignment. Firstly, we were asked to complete a Read-Ask-Reflect (linked below) where we had to read one article, interview one person as kind of a mentor who can have a conversation about our problem of practice, and then reflect on both the reading and the interview. Next was a Read-Read-Reflect (linked below), which as the name implies was a reflection on two articles of our choice that we connected to our problem of practice. Then, an annotated bibliography (linked below) with all of the articles from the previous assignments and a few new ones of our choosing, making sure to connect the annotations/summarizations with the problem of practice. We were then given a Memorialization Document (linked below) to take us step-by-step through the process of creating, implementing, and studying the lesson we were going to teach. Next, of course, was the Lesson Plan (linked below) to hone in and focus on the steps of planning the lesson.

 

Lesson Plan

Memorialization Document

Read-Ask-Reflect

Read-Read-Reflect

Annotated Bibliography

THE PREPARATION: The members of my group and I set up a time and date to teach the lesson in Chet Flaum's class. A set of student ambassadors from High Tech High Media Arts were also informed that they would be of service for a guided tour of their campus in the "pre-launch" mini-field trip that we would be taking before the lesson proper.

 

THE FIRST HALF: Krys Deming and I arrived at our set time in Chet Flaum's class at the original High Tech High in Point Loma while Felicia Acosta and Zak Sanders began their work day at High Tech High Media. Chet Flaum began class by asking the students to take their seats and listen as he gave them instructions for what would be happening. A couple of the Focal Students we had chosen in previous lessons from Chet Flaum's class immediately made themselves known by interrupting the class as Chet Flaum continued to give instructions. The students were given a disclaimer that the lesson they were being given was part of Chet Flaum's M.Ed. program and that mine and Kry Deming's being in the classroom was part of that. Chet Flaum then told the students that as a group we would be touring High Tech High Media Arts in the hope that the students would find inspiration for their postcard to students from Felicia Acosta's class. Chet Flaum broke the class up into two groups (Old School and New School), told them they were allowed to use their phones instead of drawing the art piece that intrigued them as was previously planned, and we were off. As we ascended the stairs into High Tech High Media Arts, I went with the Old School group as the student ambassadors assigned to us took us around the school and showed us the various artwork that the students would be using for inspiration. The students never got unruly or too loud, which spoke volumes about the relationship that Chet Flaum had with his students. The students seemed very intrigued by the different artworks around the school and had many interesting discussions as we toured the campus. After the tour, we returned to the original High Tech High in Point Loma and Chet Flaum's classroom.

 

THE SECOND HALF: Once back in the classroom, Chet Flaum told his 9th-grade class that they would be beginning the drawing and writing of their postcards. The caveat of the entire affair was that Chet Flaum and Felicia Acosta had traded student rosters and they had matched students up as pen pals. Chet Flaum introduced this and the option that if students wished to trade or change their pen pals it needed to be approved by Chet Flaum. This caused a bit of a stir, as most of the students in Chet Flaum's class knew students in Felicia Acosta's class. Once the stir subsided the class was back to working on the postcards. Chet Flaum had given them an example of what a satisfactory postcard looked like and what they would be writing to their pen pal. The grand majority of students spent the time perfecting their art, as you'll see in the few examples (linked below), while a noticeable few were focused solely on getting their writing finished before the art. One girl was typing her postcard text out first to make sure everything was error-free grammatically and spelled correctly. The students were given ample time and resources to get their postcard done that class.

 

Student Work - Postcards

THE GOOD:

My reflection would have to take into account the fact that communication between the team was top-notch! We were able to get almost the entire Lesson Study cycle planned out and finished at a relatively smooth and quick pace. I was astonished by this since three of us had full-time teaching jobs with High Tech High and two of us didn't. I thought that perhaps there would be some disconnect between scheduling and our workflow. I thought wrong. 

I loved the art that the students created and it only goes to show how much art education they're getting from Chet Flaum. I appreciate how every student took the assignment seriously and did their best to make their postcard look and sound as authentic as humanly possible.

 

THE BAD:

With all of that said, there were a few things that I didn't think went as well as they could have during the lesson or after. I'll start with the beginning of the planning stage when the problem of practice changed from "meaning in writing with implications for future college and professional writing" to just "meaning in writing." I didn't necessarily agree with dropping the emphasis on college or professional work but I understood that this was only a one-off lesson and not a complete lesson cycle...however, I do feel like we could have figured something out.

The amount of freedom given to the students in terms of the use of phones and the ability to switch which pen pal they had took a lot out of the authenticity of the work. While the students who were authentic absolutely deserve praise, some of the students chose their friends to write to and I felt like the authenticity suffered because of that. Next time I would make pen pals anonymous and give no ability to switch pen pals. Also, no phones. I saw some students just take a picture of the first thing they saw and go back to messing about on their phones. I appreciated the art, however...

...the writing was not up to par for me. I expected more from freshmen in high school. I'm not going to say I was surprised since I realize that COVID has stunted some students' ability to write at the grade level they're currently in. I wanted more instruction when it came to writing at a 9th-grade level. It didn't happen and I know I should have spoken up but I felt like the lesson would have suffered had too many of us disagreed on the lesson's intention.

THE PRESHOW: This trimester began with the professors, Dr. Curtis Taylor and Matt Sheelan M.Ed., informing the cohort that we would be choosing our groups based on the ideas of our peers. So, a group of students stepped up with problems they had in their practice and pitched them to the rest of the class. We then had a Google form we were tasked with filling out to choose the group we wanted to be in. Chet Flaum and I have been good buddies since the beginning of the program so when he went up and talked about how he was having trouble with differentiation in his classroom he was my first pick. Why? I am currently working as a Long-Term Substitute Teacher at a K-12 special education school. Any way for me to get some pointers on how to support students with diverse learning needs helps me immensely. Ella Darvas rounded out our group of three and we were off to the races.

 

MEETINGS OF THE MINDS: Our group had several meetings about our problem of practice and how we should approach it for our lesson study. As you can see in the meeting documents (linked below), we had a huge task on our hands. It would be easier for Chet and Ella because they were currently teaching at comprehensive school sites whereas I was not. I could not realistically implement the same lesson plans that my group was creating because, while my students’ abilities varied, the abstraction of whatever we came up with would create more confusion than data. That said, I made sure to put my entire effort into making sure both Chet and Ella had the means to gather as much data about their students as they could. I also took on the role of “resource hunter” and I scoured EBSCO for as many papers on differentiation as I could find.

 

THE WORK IN BETWEEN PART TWO: Dr. Curtis Taylor and Matt Sheelan M.Ed. assigned both individual and group work to assist us in capturing our ideas for what would eventually become the lesson. Our group was given the task of "Differentiated Instruction," and that entailed individualized tasks as a component of our lesson study assignment. Firstly, we completed a Read-Read-Reflect assignment (linked below), where we reflected on two articles, one of our choice and one assigned by Dr. Curtis Taylor, that were connected to our problem of practice. Then, we completed a Read-Ask-Reflect assignment (linked below) where we had to read one article, interview a mentor who could speak about our problem of practice, and then reflect on both the reading and the interview. This was followed by an Annotated Bibliography (linked below), which included all of the articles from the previous assignments, along with a few new ones of our choosing. We were required to connect the annotations/summarizations with the problem of practice. We were provided with a Memorialization Document (linked below), which took us through the process of creating, implementing, and studying the lesson we were going to teach. Lastly, we were told to do a Literature Synthesis (linked below) of five articles from our previous assignments, making sure we connected it all to our problem of practice.

 

Meeting #1: Hopes and Dreams for Students

Meeting #2: Street Data Prep

Meeting #3: Unpacking Street Data & Drafting an Equity-Based Research Theme

Memorialization Document

Read-Read-Reflect

Read-Ask-Reflect

Annotated Bibliography

Literature Synthesis

THE PREPARATION: Our group began by fleshing out our schedules in terms of how we would be approaching our problem of practice and at what point we would doing the lesson. Once again, Chet Flaum’s classroom at High Tech High OG in Point Loma would be where the lesson would be taking place and Chet would be the one teaching it. From the previous meetings, we had decided that the differentiation should be connected to reading and analysis. This would leave Ella Darvas in a pickle because she teaches Math but we soon discovered through those previous meetings and her focal students’ data on comprehension of word problems that we were on the right track. Chet Flaum told us that he had been having the students read a book called The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton and that he wanted to incorporate that book into the lesson we were going to study. We agreed on a section called “A More Normal Normality” which looked at how the term “normal” is perceived by those who believe they know what it is or how to be it. We thought it would resonate with a 9th-grade classroom. The next question was the HOW in differentiating it for the students. Again, during one of our meetings, we decided to use AI to create differentiated levels of writing using the entire section of the book. Creating a simple version, a medium version, a difficult version, and an advanced version. There was also a pro version but that is just the section itself from the book. We then decided to use some California Standards to pad the lesson. Specifically those about analyzing text to understand an author’s argument or meaning.

 

DAY OF THE LESSON: Ella Darvas and I had the privilege of attending Chet Flaum's inaugural morning class, finding our seats at the back with anticipation. During the journal session, students were encouraged to maintain silence, although some chose to engage in conversation without facing repercussions. When given the option between using a computer or paper, the majority preferred the former, showcasing their technological comfort. While the class moved through the initial reading and writing time with a sense of urgency, a few students were genuinely immersed in the assignment, demonstrating genuine interest. The assignment, titled "A More Normal Normality" (linked below), was distributed via Google Classroom, emphasizing the concept of differentiation through choice. Though some students returned to casual conversation, many embraced the opportunity to explore the task in their preferred manner. In the subsequent table group discussion, Chet Flaum actively sought students' opinions, creating a dynamic exchange of emotional and scientific perspectives. The brief concern about sharing thoughts at random tables prompted students to strategize, showcasing their enthusiasm for thoughtful participation. Despite challenges in addressing every table during the discussion, Chet Flaum's attempt to hold students accountable for their ideas was evident. However, there was room for improvement in fostering diverse perspectives, aligning with the Critically Responsive Teaching (CRT) element discussed at the trimester's outset. As the class transitioned to the second half of the lesson, students delved back into their reading assignments with periods of focused silence. Chet Flaum's engagement added occasional excitement, questioning students and identifying those making notable progress. While the lesson concluded without a formal discussion or reflection on the material covered, the learning experience, as detailed in the Memorialization Document (linked in PART ONE - PLANNING above), provided valuable insights.

 

A More Normal Normality

Lesson Slides

THE GOOD: As previously stated, Chet Flaum is a good colleague and I enjoyed working with him this trimester. The same with Ella Darvas, whom I had not previously worked with but brought her A game to the group. The purposeful group selection, as it were, that Dr. Curtis Taylor and Matt Sheelan M.Ed. had the cohort engage in was something I will undoubtedly use in my teaching practice. I love the idea of students “campaigning” or “lobbying” for group members. It would work well in a Humanities class. I thought that the inclusion of documents to take notes on our various meetings helped immensely. Of course, the RRR and RAR were also beneficial in the lesson study strategy. Chet Flaum’s insistence on using the material from School of Life showed his passion and his outside knowledge of what could be a hit for 9th-graders during a lesson. Lastly, the fact we were able to align our lesson with state standards helped me feel like we were doing more than just a lackadaisical lesson for the lesson’s sake.

 

THE BAD: As I am a student of Education first and foremost, I believe that there may not be one right answer for how to approach a lesson. Project-Based, Inquiry-Based, Programmed Instruction, Direct Instruction, Montessori, Waldorf, etc.. should perhaps be used interchangeably. At least that’s the conclusion I am beginning to see in my tenure in Education. That said, watching some teachers fumble with what could be beautiful learning because they are sticking to a script connected to their preferred teaching method is disheartening. Even more so when that method becomes the very identity and ideal of the teacher. I am all for passion. I have a great deal of it when it comes to teaching but I would never take a side when it comes to the prospect of losing a student’s attention in a classroom. I feel like our problem of differentiation was too broad and also too narrow. Much like a riddle from a sphynx. Because of this, the group had trouble implementing any kind of lesson at the initial onset. I would love to say we were not confused as a collective, but at multiple times we were. Some more than others. We needed to hunker down and provide each other with clarity. Unfortunately, by the time the lessons were finished, it was too late. And now I look back on the murkiness of differentiation and hope that one day it will be solved by bigger and better minds than I.