Merging Math and Project-Based Learning in a Virtual Environment

repost from: greenschoolsnetwork.org By: Sanch Lawrence, Sep 29, 2020

I vividly remember my last in-person class before COVID-19 upended school as we know it. It was March 13, 2020, the day before Pi day.

I was teaching a lesson on simplifying a rational expression to my eleventh-grade Algebra 2 students at Clara Barton High School in New York City.

Students were casually discussing a Facebook post about COVID-19 as they worked in groups practicing problems in preparation for the upcoming Algebra 2 regents exam. Meanwhile, my coworkers and I were discussing the possibility of school being canceled for a few weeks or possibly the rest of the school year.

No one fully understood the health implications of COVID-19 and the impact it would have on in-person learning. And no one could’ve anticipated how the shift to remote learning would change the landscape of education, specifically how educational technology (ed-tech) would become essential to learning. Like water shapes itself to a vessel, educators had to transition from the traditional “chalk and talk” way of instruction to become smart-board, tech-savvy teachers. While challenging, this transition provided an opportunity for educators like myself to experiment with synchronous and asynchronous methods of teaching, as well as test out a host of ed-tech tools. For example, Zoom became a favorite among educators because of its breakout rooms, polling, and security features. Ed-tech tools quickly transformed the laptop screen into a classroom, where teachers, students, and parents could co-create a productive and collaborative online learning community.

I faced a couple of key challenges in transitioning my math classroom to a remote learning environment. My top priority was establishing a virtual classroom that accommodated multiple learning styles to ensure all my students had access to and could complete their assignments. Then came the challenge of covering what remained of the eleventh-grade math content for that year. I was personally challenged to find a way to deliver that content so it connected students to current events. The death of George Floyd, coupled with COVID-19, touched a nerve in students and stirred up strong feelings that needed to be expressed. Many of my students are aware of police violence in their neighborhoods and have experienced it themselves. How could I give my students an opportunity and an outlet to explore these issues while teaching math and meeting their multiple learning styles? The answer was project-based learning (PBL). PBL was a natural way to address these challenges; however, I had never used PBL in a virtual environment before.

I became a PBL Practitioner after attending hours of training offered by the New York City Department of Education’s Academic Integration Network and the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education. I turned to these organizations again as I began to think more deeply about how I could facilitate authentic learning experiences in a virtual classroom that were personalized, interest-based, student-designed, and self-directed, all components of good PBL. Together, we designed interdisciplinary projects with themes that were designed to offer student choice. My class ultimately… [continued at: greenschoolsnationalnetwork.org/merging-math-and-project-based-learning-in-a-virtual-classroom]

Summer Newsletter | Social Justice and Education for Sustainability

What to Preserve and What to Transform
Over time, life on Earth has experienced times of relative stability and has seen great disruptions like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and global pandemics. Evolution, devolution, five near extinctions and yet some form of life has prevailed, so far. In fact, it is those very disruptions that make life possible on “Spaceship Earth”. Life organizes towards life. We can learn from both our social and physical history to invent our future as we build the capability to thrive over time. Appropriate disturbances create the next cycle of life. So how do we disrupt systemic racism, inequities and injustices?

• Here you can find our Starter Unit Planner to respond to the unacceptable things people have been saying and doing in the U.S. because of racism, sexism and xenophobia.

• Cultural Competency and EfS Alignment PowerPoint

• Cultural Competency and EfS Alignment Handout

• Cultural Competency Aligned EfS Standards and Indicators

• Webinar: Moving Forward Together - What to Preserve & What to Transform

---

This special, single-day offering is designed to increase participants’ awareness, knowledge, and understanding of the core concepts, content, and habits of mind that characterize Sustainability and Education for Sustainability (EfS). 
Cost: $149

In this curriculum design studio, we use backwards design, or Understanding by Design, to reorient, innovate, build, and map curricula designed to meet academic standards and EfS standards, performance indicators, and enduring understandings.
Cost: $495

---

July 22nd 10am est.

NJSBA I-Steam and Sustainable Lessons John Henry and Jaimie P. Cloud will discuss why short-term, unsustainable thinking during COVID-19 could lead to long-term unsustainable schools. Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we used to create them”. Now, more than ever, is the time to think about reopening schools with the long term health of our school communities and every system and function of the school in mind. We know that sustainable actions create healthier schools at lower operational costs. Taking courageous steps now and solving problems by thinking differently, instead of taking actions driven by fear, could make a big difference in the health and well-being of our students and schools.

---

The Cloud Commons EfS Digital Library houses Cloud Institute units and lessons, templates, assessment protocols, enduring workshop materials, videos, podcasts, and tools aligned to EfS Standards and Performance Indicators.

Purchase a 1 year pass and get access to all of our digital downloads, plus exclusive access to videos and podcasts by Jaimie Cloud.

---

Remote Leadership Consulting and Curriculum Coaching

• Leadership Consulting: We provide consulting and leadership development to help administrators develop, implement and monitor a strategic plan for Education for Sustainability.

• Curriculum Coaching: We offer faculty coaching for curriculum design to support the development of lesson plans and units that are mapped and documented in a curriculum database, aligned to EfS and Common Core Standards, and that include assessments that measure meaningful learning.

---

Employment Opportunity | Director of Youth Education Are you passionate about working towards a healthy planet that will sustain humans in harmony with the complex ecosystems we depend on? Do you like working with remote teams of impassioned individuals and partner organizations to achieve world-changing goals? Join the team! Apply by July 17, 2020

Educating for Sustainability: Case Studies from the Field, PreK-12

The Cloud Institute and The Derryfield School contributed to the newly released Educating for Sustainability: Case Studies from the Field, PreK-12.  Jaimie Cloud and Brentnall M. Powell were two of the authors selected for the e-book, which showcases inspiring stories of Education for Sustainability (EFS) in action across the country. The case study, Inventing the Future: The Teaching of Environmental Studies, features Jaimie's work with Powell, the course instructor and Dean of Faculty and Academic Programs at The Derryfield School in Manchester NH. The two worked together to "sustainablize" Derryfield's year long, humanities based environmental studies course.

“When we were first growing the field of Education for Sustainability, all we had were aspirations,” states Jaimie.  “Now we have case studies, research and student work as evidence. It is joyful work and it improves lives. Not bad.”  

Educating for Sustainability: Case Studies from the Field, PreK-12 is a publication of Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, Vermont. Shelburne Farms is a nonprofit organization educating for a sustainable future. The Farm collaborates with educators, schools, and other partners to advance education for sustainability in Vermont, nationally, and internationally. Shelburne Farms’ campus for learning is a 1,400-acre working landscape and National Historic Landmark. Shelburne Farms serves over 150,000 program participants and visitors annually on-site alone.   

To access the FREE e-book, Educating for Sustainability: Case Studies from the Field, PreK-12 please visit Shelburne Farms website. 

Photo Credit: The Derryfield School: A digital poster made by a student as part of the Consumption/Waste/Design Unit. 

Embracing Education for Sustainability (EfS) with Jaimie Cloud

This post, written by James Gast, was originally published on The Willow School website, 9/9/16.

“What kind of future do we want?” That’s the central question that Jaimie Cloud poses to educators and students.

As president of The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, Cloud has since 1993 worked with schools to “sustainable-ize” their curricula. It’s her contribution to the kind of future she wants – one where human beings thrive all over planet Earth, without undermining the fundamental support systems of Nature and Society.

On August 30 – 31, 2016, Cloud worked with Willow’s teachers to align elements of their curriculum with the “enduring understandings” associated with educating for sustainability and its nine core content standards: Cultural Preservation & Transformation; Responsible Local & Global Leadership; The Dynamics of Systems & Change; Sustainable Economics; Healthy Commons; Natural Laws & Ecological Principles; Inventing & Affecting the Future; Multiple Perspectives; and Strong Sense of Place.

Over the coming school year, Cloud will continue to consult with Willow and to coach faculty to deepen our understanding and delivery of sustainable education, and to more effectively document and map the curriculum as a whole.

“We had two goals in bringing Jaimie in this summer,” said Willow’s Head of School, Jerry Loewen. “One was to become more focused and more effective in our delivery of sustainability education. The other was to provide the entire faculty with a totally shared experience and totally shared definitions and expectations.”

The workshop marks Cloud’s third round of work with Willow in the last decade. Over that time, she has noticed a maturing of the school and a deepening sense of grounded-ness.

“I am glad to be back,” said Cloud, who collaborated closely with Loewen and Assistant Head of School Amy Swenson to customize her two 2-day workshop for Willow’s needs.  “I look forward to working with Jerry, Amy and the faculty to build a regenerative curriculum to match the buildings!”

For Willow’s veteran teachers, the workshop offered a chance to more fully map their courses in relationship to one another, and to document what’s been working. For new hires, it was a chance to learn more about the Willow brand of education.

“Jaimie Cloud’s work on developing the whole child through a lens that appreciates the interconnectedness of all things is incredibly inspiring,” enthused Willow’s new third grade teacher Amy Arnold. “The EfS curriculum is just one more reason I am thrilled to be part of Willow. I cannot wait to see our students in action—working together toward their greatest purpose!”

Throughout the coming school year, teachers will document and map aspects of their curricula online.  Cloud will serve as a coach, visiting Willow monthly to work with teacher-leaders as they embed appropriate knowledge, skills and dispositions of Education for Sustainability into exemplary curriculum units to share with their colleagues.

“The habits of mind we are developing for our students through these efforts are vital not only for them and their future, but for the broader community,” explained Loewen, “so we are examining ways to spread this work much more widely this year.”

The end goal of all this effort is to truly teach our students in ways that make them agents of effective and sustainable change for themselves, and ultimately for the world.

EFS in Schools: Compass Charter School

Photo Credit: CCS Website

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Compass Charter School,  a new progressive elementary school located in Brooklyn, NY. The school, which opened in 2014, currently offers kindergarten through second grade, but plans to serve children in grades K-5 at full capacity. Compass Charter School is the result of a 2012-13 journey by three Brooklyn teachers who traveled the nation in search of what is working well in the American education system. Brooke Peters, Michelle Healy, and Todd Sutler called their expedition The Odyssey Initiative (OI) and returned home to establish a school using lessons learned along the road.  “ From our experience on the trip, we decided to start a new school that was progressive, inquiry based and one that connected with authentic experiences in the real world,” explains Healy.  It soon became clear that a charter school was the best fit for the trio’s innovative philosophy, which required a departure from the traditional public school structure of leadership and budgeting.  

A Mission is Born

Upon their return, the travelers noticedthat a number of the schools encountered on their journey were using Education for Sustainability (EfS) as a unifying framework and ultimately connected with The Cloud Institute.  “It turned out that some of the schools we visited were partners with The Cloud Institute so we got to see the program firsthand and how they worked with Jaimie,” describes Healy.  EfS seemed to connect many of the ideas the trio wanted to focus on for their new school.  “We found that it brought everything together for us.  We wanted it to be natural and have a social justice and economic side,” says Peters.  “EfS helped us get the vocabulary and the framework. It lead us to Jaimie and the mission was born.”

The Road Map Emerges

Intrigued by the EfS standards,  Healy and Peters first attended The Cloud Institute’s Summer Design Studio (SDS) in 2014.  They immediately noticed the SDS was not a typical Professional Development (PD).  “It really was a design studio,” says Healy.  “Jaimie was there and flexible when we needed it, but she was also able to step out if we wanted to do some work designing.”  The two spent the week exploring how to vertically align the EfS standards with K-5 curriculum and integrate Science and Social Studies standards in a meaningful way. “ Even though our school wasn’t approved yet, we just paid for the studio to help us develop what we wanted and where we wanted to go,” explains Healy.  “We added very special foundational things, like overnight camping, a trip to see civil rights things and more, all depending on the units and years.  That was the road map.” Another benefit of participating in the SDS was the opportunity to connect with others doing this work. “We also met some other people while we were there and we got to visit and learn from educators in NJ and other places. So it was a nice networking event as well, “ describes Peters. Once the school opened, the two returned to the SDS to work on unit design, this time accompanied by the school’s new Sustainability Coordinator, Kristen Beneke and a few founding faculty.  Jaimie began monthly on-site coaching to support school leadership and faculty to help build the school, refine the units and focus on content skills and assessment. The team is planning to return to SDS this summer to continue to document and map their curriculum.

An Integrated EfS Curriculum

The Compass Charter School created a curriculum that aims to connect children with the natural world and the systems that sustain communities. Located in one of the most racially and culturally diverse places in New York City, the school takes advantage oflocal resources, such as people, green spaces, architecture and history.  Sustainability is woven throughout the entire curriculum, including a twice weekly Sustainability Studio and ongoing classroom units at least three times a week. Teachers and staff meet every week to plan the integrated sustainability lessons. All curriculum is aligned with EfS standards as well as Common Core and Next Generation Science standards. In grades K-2, students immerse themselves in the natural world and begin scientific inquiry through play, exploration, and hands-on activities. Once grades 3-5 are added, students will participate in civic engagement by researching natural and built environments, and designing and implementing service projects within their own community.

Walking the Talk

At Compass Charter School, sustainability education doesn’t end at the classroom door. Green practices are implemented throughout the school such as vermiculture, composting, recycling and even CSA (community supported agriculture) shares distributed at the student-run farmer’s market in the schoolyard. Community members help to provide healthy snacks, cleaning products, and water bottles for the students. The classrooms at Compass offer natural environments that contain wood furniture, plants, and signs made by the students and teachers. Students transfer what they learn in the studio throughout their day at school and at home. Families donate recycled materials for arts and crafts projects and students recycle and reuse materials by transforming them into new objects. Everyday a student comes into school with a new object from nature that they must share or use as inspiration for a piece of writing about the Earth.

The Odyssey Continues

Creating a school from the ground up is as energizing as it is daunting.  “We are riding the bicycle and building the bicycle at the same time,” explains Beneke.  “It’s a challenge, but from it we will create something beautiful.” And they are not doing it alone.  The Cloud Institute’s partnership has been vital to Compass Charter School’s early progress.  “I don’t know where we would be without the dedicated assistance from The Cloud Institute.  It’s the centerpiece.“ says Peters. ”EfS brings it all together.”

For more on Compass Charter School, visit their website.

Sustainability In Schools: What Kind Of Future Do We Want

Originally published on April 1, 2016 By Vicki So, Rubicon International on the Rubicon PD Update.

Jaimie Cloud, founder and president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, begins most projects with the following questions:

"What kind of future do we want? What do we want to sustain? For whom? For how long? .... And what does education have to do with it? 

 A fundamental part of the Cloud Institute’s mission is to inspire young people to think deeply about their relationship with the environment and to empower them to influence it. The Cloud Institute’s Framework for Education for Sustainability demonstrates the interdependence between students, educators, school systems, and communities at large. In order to achieve its mission, the Cloud Institute has embedded research-driven knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits of mind into the Education for Sustainability (EfS) Standards and Performance Indicators.

In the three-part webinar series below, Jaimie discusses her work in partnership with the Rubicon-Atlas Curriculum Mapping software team and the NYC Department of Education. In particular, she explains why the curriculum mapping process is so important for bringing the EfS Standards to life [Download Jaimie’s top 10 reasons here].

“Aligned to national and state educational standards, each EfS Standard has a set of coded Performance Indicators used to guide educators as they infuse their school culture, curriculum, instruction and assessment practices with Education for Sustainability. We believe that by meeting these EfS standards, young people will be prepared to participate in, and lead with us, the shift toward a sustainable future.”

• Download the commencement edition here
• Download the PreK-2 edition here
• Contact the Cloud Institute if your school is using Atlas and would like access, or email atlas@rubicon.com for support.

 In the first video, Jaimie defines sustainability and her work with the Cloud Institute [Click here to download presentation slides].

The second video highlights how the EfS standards come to life in the Atlas Curriculum Software and explains why the curriculum mapping process is important [Note: an open Q&A is included at the end of this video].

The third video provides an in-depth case study how the NYC-DOE has transformed their Career & Technical (CTE) program through the global Sustainable Development Goals created by the United Nations [Click here to download presentation slides].

Do you have a sustainability program at your school? Shoot us an email at pd@rubicon.com and share your story. If you are interested in learning more about trends in environmental education, click HERE! 

Education for Sustainability: A Trendsetter in Assessment

Tiger by Bud BlakeFrom classrooms to coffee shops, it seems that everywhere you turn these days, people are expressing frustration about the role that standardized tests play in our educational system.  Parents, teachers, administrators and now even the US government are pushing back on the amount of time our schools spend preparing for and administering this type of assessment. In October 2015, President Obama and the U.S. Department of Education released a new testing action plan, acknowledging that, “In too many schools, there is unnecessary testing and not enough clarity of purpose applied to the task of assessing students, consuming too much instructional time and creating undue stress for educators and students.” This action plan recommends capping the amount of class time devoted to standardized testing at no more than 2 percent and promotes high-quality and innovative assessment practices. In response to public opinion and in anticipation of changes in educational policy, many school districts have already started prioritizing formative and performance-based assessments over standardized testing.

Getting Smarter about Assessment

In the District Administration article, Outlook: Schools push for sensible testing, Jennifer Fink explores this phenomenon, making the case that most people have no objection to some form of assessment, as long as it is aligned to meaningful learning and that it provides useful feedback.  Fink quotes Vicki Phillips, Director of Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as saying, “The question now is, how do we get smarter about assessment?  How do we make standards and assessments more useful, more meaningful to teachers and kids?”

Formative assessments help students and teachers track progress over time, providing ongoing  instructional feedback. “I think a trend that will continue to grow is formative assessments that teachers can access on an ongoing basis, which tell them where kids are so they can adjust practice in real time,” describes Phillips. Performance assessments and portfolio reviews can be designed to give students many ways to demonstrate learning by showing us what they can do and what they create.

Educating (and Assessing) for Sustainability

Education for Sustainability (EfS) is a great fit for this trend since it is all about combining big ideas, knowledge and skill development, with being intentional about the difference we make through our actions. The good news is that we have strong data that shows that EfS improves student achievement, even on standardized tests. However, the sheer panic in public schools over test scores and the related employment implications coupled with the enormous amount of time people have devoted to test prep has severely distracted too many public school educators from being able to focus on educating for the future we want. And that’s bad news—if we want education to contribute to our ability to thrive over time. What is education for if not a healthy and sustainable future?

The District Administrator, the Gates Foundation and others would be very happy to know that Educators for Sustainability already have excellent assessment practices to share.  Here are just a few exemplars from elementary and middle schools:

Compass Charter School, Brooklyn, NY : First graders build, learn, monitor and teach about terrariums to demonstrate understanding of how living systems meet their needs.

Kapalama Middle School, Honolulu, HI: Seventh Graders write extensive research papers and create biomimetic designs that demonstrate their understanding of the science and the design principles of Biomimicry--designs that solve human problems by mimicking the way nature has already solved them-- i.e.,  Water purification, eliminating toxic chemicals [in everyday household items], generating renewable, clean, green sources of energy, eliminating waste, constructing self-repairable buildings, clearing invasive species & cleaning up oil spills.

Marin Country Day School, Corte Madera, CA: Fourth Graders participating in a “Council of All Beings” (they each make a mask and then wear it to council meeting-- to “become” the animal they want to represent) to demonstrate their ability to truly empathize with another living being.

An Invitation

We invite those of you who have (or are looking for) high quality and innovative assessments for learning that authentically measure the extent to which you are educating for sustainability, to keep your eyes peeled and respond to our call for exemplars at the end of June. In partnership with The Journal for Sustainability Education, we are inviting educators worldwide to submit exemplars of curriculum units, courses, assessments, rubrics and other forms of explicit performance criteria, as well as student work samples (with aligned performance criteria) that meet the soon to be published EfS Benchmarks for Individual and Social Learning.  At the end of the day, Education for Sustainability is all about performance, because thinking drives behavior and behaviors causes results. EfS is not an intellectual exercise but rather, to human and other life in perpetuity--a means to a non-end.  The stakes are high and we need to know we are getting the results we need in order to turn “Spaceship Earth” around and head it toward the future we want.

- Jaimie Cloud, Founder, The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education