by Scott McLeod | Feb 16, 2023 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts |
John Mikton and Dan Taylor were kind enough to invite me on the International Schools Podcast. John and Dan do a fantastic job of highlighting interesting things that are happening in the international schools space and they always have awesome guests on the podcast. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out!
I was incredibly honored to be on the show for Episode 89. We talked about deeper learning, technology integration, leadership, and lots of other fun stuff…
Happy listening!
by Scott McLeod | Feb 14, 2023 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Podcasts |
Episode 002 of the Redesigning for Deeper Learning podcast is now available. Lori and I redesigned an elementary school writing lesson that aims to help students learn about natural disasters.
Redesigning for Deeper Learning is a podcast in which we redesign lessons and units for deeper learning LIVE. Our goal is to model how we can start shifting our day-to-day instruction toward student agency, voice, and choice; critical thinking, problem solving, and depth of understanding; more real-world authentic work; and rich technology infusion. We believe that this might be the first podcast that actually redesigns lessons ON AIR.
After our first four episodes we are inviting teachers, coaches, and other instructional leaders to bring us lessons or units and redesign them with us on the show! If you are a classroom educator, coach, or curriculum designer, please use our guest sign-up form or contact one of the hosts if you are interested in joining us. We promise to treat you kindly and look forward to brainstorming some learning shifts with you!
Episodes are available at redesigningfordeeperlearning.org and on all major podcast platforms. Thanks for listening, and please let us know what suggestions you have for improvement. We want this to be useful to folks!
by Scott McLeod | Feb 6, 2023 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Podcasts |
I am pleased to announce the launch of my second new podcast, Redesigning for Deeper Learning (R4DL), co-hosted with Lori McEwen and Julie Graber.
Redesigning for Deeper Learning is a podcast in which we redesign lessons and units for deeper learning LIVE. Our goal is to model how we can start shifting our day-to-day instruction toward student agency, voice, and choice; critical thinking, problem solving, and depth of understanding; more real-world authentic work; and rich technology infusion. We believe that this might be the first podcast that actually redesigns lessons ON AIR.
Episode 001 is now available. We redesigned a high school English Language Arts lesson on annotation. Episode 002 will drop soon. We focused on an elementary school writing lesson about natural disasters. Episodes 003 and 004 are on elementary math (place value) and middle school social studies (The Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution), respectively.
After these first four episodes, we are inviting teachers, coaches, and other school leaders to bring us lessons or units and redesign them with us on the show! If you are a classroom educator, coach, or curriculum designer, please use our guest sign-up form or contact one of the hosts if you are interested in joining us. We promise to treat you kindly and look forward to brainstorming some learning shifts with you!
Episodes are available at redesigningfordeeperlearning.org and on all major podcast platforms. Thanks for listening, and please let us know what suggestions you have for improvement. We want this to be useful to folks!
by Scott McLeod | Nov 8, 2022 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Tech Integration |
The Commonwealth of Kentucky has leaned hard into the 4 Shifts Protocol to support its schools’ technology integration and instructional redesign work. Over 650(!) Digital Learning Coaches (DLCs) across the state have received a copy of Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning and are working with their local educators to use the protocol to redesign lessons and units for deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion.
Although many thousands of educators and schools across the globe are using the 4 Shifts Protocol, I believe that Kentucky currently is the largest single deployment of this redesign work. Kentucky also is investing heavily in project-based learning, and the protocol is a nice bridging mechanism and support for that complex work.
Julie Graber and I are grateful that the protocol has been useful to so many educators in so many places. Kentucky (and others), please let me know what I can do to support this work. Happy to chat or visit anytime!
by Scott McLeod | Nov 4, 2022 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Tech Integration |
It’s always gratifying to see your resources being used by educators. I’ve worked with the Bismarck Public Schools multiple times on leadership, vision, and instructional design for deeper learning (and we featured Legacy High School in Leadership for Deeper Learning). They’ve got an amazing group of educators there and I always love to see what they’re up to… Thanks for sharing, Tanna!
by Scott McLeod | Jul 22, 2020 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events |
I have a new 4 Shifts Video Series. I am trying to replicate – as best as I can virtually while sitting in my office chair! – a half-day workshop with me around the 4 Shifts Protocol.
The series consists of 7 self-paced modules and includes 38 videos, 7 lesson redesign opportunities, 6 additional instructional redesign scenarios, and other suggestions, strategies, and resources. The modules are intentionally designed to be granular, allowing for busy educators to work on them when convenient. The vast majority of individual videos and activities are 7 minutes or less. Estimated time for completion of the entire set of activities is about 3.5 hours total.
The 4 Shifts Video Series overview page has more information and describes further what I’m trying to make happen. The overview page includes an outline of the whole series and also has a few example videos. My goal is to help educators and school systems design for higher student engagement, whether they’re face-to-face, blended, or wholly online this coming school year. This video series will be a complement to the other professional learning supports that Julie Graber and I are providing.
I am looking for a handful of pilot schools or districts that will find 4 to 5 educators each to give me feedback on some key questions I provide. In exchange for the feedback, I’ll provide the series to the entire school or district for free. If this is of interest to you, please get in touch. First come, first serve!
by Scott McLeod | Jan 4, 2020 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
Julie Graber and I often get asked if the order of the 4 Shifts Protocol is important. Our answer? Absolutely.
Note that the protocol begins with Deeper Thinking and Learning (Section A), followed by Authentic Work (Section B). We have found that starting with one or both of those dimensions tends to raise the level of learning for students much more than starting with Student Agency and Personalization (Section C) or Technology Infusion (Section D). Given that Julie and I are strong advocates for student agency, this may seem a little counterintuitive. The reason is because there are numerous ways to give students ‘agency’ or integrate technology that are fairly low-level. Imagine, for instance, adaptive learning software modules or a set of teacher-created classroom centers in which students have some ‘choice’ about content and pathways but the learning is still shallow rather than deep. We also can point to numerous examples of ‘technology for technology’s sake’ in which, again, student learning could be much more robust. Starting with Sections A or B helps us center our instructional work on deeper, meaningful learning.
Note also that the very first questions in Section A pertain to Domain Knowledge and Deeper Learning. Whatever instructional transformations we are working on, we should try as best we can to make sure that we’re meeting content and procedural goals, and that whatever skills and knowledge we’re addressing are focused on big, important concepts, not just trivia. This is particularly true as long as state standards, testing, and accountability mandates dominate our educational landscapes. Deeper learning work should not be contentless. [AND students also deserve some say in what they get to learn…]
In sum, while Julie and I advocate that teachers start with whatever sections and items make sense for them (and focus on just a few), we also recognize that some of the sections and items of the protocol are more transformative than others. We encourage you to lean into Sections A and B!
by Scott McLeod | Sep 17, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts, Tech Integration |
Last week my conversation with Richard Byrne went live on the Practical Ed Tech Podcast. Many of you know Richard from his primary site, Free Technology for Teachers, one of the most widely-read education blogs in the world. Richard and I have known each other for a long time. Maybe he’ll come see me in Colorado sometime. He’s an outdoorsy type – he’d love it out here!
Richard and I talked about a wide range of things, including Tik Tok, building leaders’ capacity to foster school innovation, keeping up with changing technologies, redesigning lessons with the 4 Shifts Protocol, filtering and blocking students, and so on…
Hope you enjoy the discussion. Happy listening!
by Scott McLeod | Aug 1, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts, Tech Integration |
Last week my interview with Tom Vander Ark went live on the Getting Smart podcast. Tom grilled me about my law degree(!) and then we got to the core of the interview.
Tom and I talked about school transformation and instructional redesign, during which I uttered this immortal line:
Hope you enjoy the discussion. Happy listening!
by Scott McLeod | Jul 8, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to infuse technology more robustly, consider these 12 questions from Section D* of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Adults Outside of This School instead of Students In This School). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward richer technology integration. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
D. Technology Infusion
- Communication. How are students communicating?
- Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
- If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
- Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
- Communication Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate the communication processes?
- Yes / No
- If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
- Writing, photos and images, charts and graphs, infographics, audio, video, multimedia, transmedia
- Collaboration. How are students working?
- Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
- If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
- Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
- If with others, who is managing collaborative processes (planning, management, monitoring, etc.)?
- Students / teachers / both
- Collaboration Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate collaborative processes?
- Yes / No / Somewhat
- If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
- Online office suites, email, texting, wikis, blogs, videoconferencing, mind mapping, curation tools, project planning tools, other
- Technology Adds Value. Does technology add value so that students can do their work in better or different ways than are possible without the technology?
- Technology as Means, Not End. When digital technologies are utilized, do the tools overshadow, mask, or otherwise draw the focus away from important learning?
- Digital Citizenship. Are digital technologies utilized by students in both appropriate and empowering ways?***
* Actually, the very best ways to integrate technology into your lessons, units, or instructional activities would be to focus on some items from Sections A, B, and C of the 4 Shifts Protocol. Section D just contains some additional technology-related questions to think about. Sections A, B, and C help you focus on the learning, not just the technology, and thus better address the Technology Adds Value and Technology as Means, Not End questions in Section D.
** Working in isolation (no communication with others) or perhaps just communicating with teacher (e.g., call and response)
*** Effective digital citizenship conversations focus on both safe, responsible use AND empowering, participating use. Digital citizenship discussions ideally are natural extensions of and accompaniments to students’ ongoing, technology-enabled work rather than separate conversations or curricula.
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., technology adds value), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Let me know what questions you have. Hope the protocol is useful to you!
See also
