I am teaching a Leadership for Deeper Learning elective for one of our doctoral cohorts this summer and thought that I would share what is happening each week. It is my first time designing and teaching this course, and we only have eight weeks. I have had a blast pulling this course together!
Before the class started, I gave my students two pre-assignments. Last November, I encouraged them to purchase and start reading In Search of Deeper Learning by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine. We are working through all 400-ish pages this summer, and I hoped that they might try and get ahead of that heavy reading load, particularly since we have such a compressed semester in June and July. Some students have, others haven’t. Including other readings, we will be averaging about 75-80 pages each week.
The second pre-assignment was to add five slides to a collective online slide deck. This spring, before the school year ended, I asked each student in the cohort to take five photos of P-12 students engaged in deeper learning, describe what is happening in the photograph, and include the grade level and subject area. PhotoVoice is a participatory photography strategy that allows community members to observe their inhabited spaces, document lived experiences, analyze issues of interest, and raise critical consciousness. We used my list of nine key elements for definitional purposes, and the student who works for an airline, not a school organization, included some fascinating photos of adult learning. We will be using these photos for a class session later in the summer.
I am including cinematic lenses in this course, and the main event for our first class was an in-class screening of The First Class, the documentary from XQ of the first group of students to attend and graduate from Crosstown High in Memphis, Tennessee. I have included the movie trailer below, and I believe that you can see the entire film online by signing up on the documentary website. I created a film screening poster, printed movie tickets, and brought popcorn, movie popcorn buckets, and theater candy to class. We had some time to debrief the documentary afterward, even though the movie took up two-thirds of our class time. My students loved the film, and it was a great springboard into our summer class discussions!
One of our course assignments is our Deeper Learning Film Fest. In addition to The First Class, each student will watch Most Likely to Succeed and at least one of the following: Race to Nowhere, Beyond Measure, and/or All Who Dare. Students then will submit an audio or video response in July, reflecting on what they saw in the films and responding to some prompts that I gave them. Additionally, I am including one or more shorter videos each week that show deeper learning (or the opposite) in action in schools across the country.
End-of-class evaluations for the first week were overwhelmingly positive. I feel like we are off to a good start and am looking forward to a fun summer talking about deeper learning!
Our readings / viewings for Class 01 are listed below. The theme for the evening was Cracks in the Foundation.
Love this course and that you’re sharing a glimpse of the learning activites!
Man! I wish I could be one of your students. This looks fantastic, Scott!
I have FOMO! It would be so inspiring to be a part of the discussions with you, Scott. Thank you for sharing the experience. No doubt the participants will create ripples of deeper learning in their worlds as a result of this class!