Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching but actually thrive. One aspect of teaching that pretty much
every teacher struggles with is being able to reach all learners, especially when you
have learners that are on grade level, learners that are ahead, and definitely
learners that are behind or frequently absent. Parents and administrators and districts and the
states. They all want us to somehow create individualized learning plans for all of
our students and differentiate for all of the multiple levels that sit in front of
us every single day. But how are we supposed to do that? Which
is part one of a two part series about differentiation and the Modern Classroom Project.
I'm interviewing Kareem Farah about how to set up a modern classroom where all
students needs are met. Yes, all students needs are met. Not only
has his method with the Modern Classrooms Project been tested by tens of thousands of
teachers across the country and the world, it also has been studied to have
actual improvements in student learning and outcomes. It helps to build student teacher relationships
and definitely closes learning gaps. If you've just been struggling with trying to reach
all of your learners and feel like a failure, then this episode is definitely
for you. The Modern Classrooms Project is a model where teachers are no longer
standing in front of their students and just being the gatekeepers and information. It's
not just us that delivers the information in front of students in real time.
Rather, it's sort of a flipped model, where can we deliver the lessons
via video lessons. Sometimes we record it, sometimes we use other people's recordings,
like on YouTube or something like that, and then students are going to
watch that video either in class or on their own time, and the great
part is that they can rewatch it if they didn't understand it. The model
also allows you to create supplemental videos for students that are behind and also extension
videos for students that move pretty fast or already ahead of level and need to
be stretched and challenged. The main part of the Modern Classrooms Project is the
fact that this is a student centered model meeting that is not based on teachers
and on what we need to teach and in terms of what we need as
teachers, but rather it's going to meet the needs of every single student,
no matter where they're at, and I think that this is something that pretty
much every teacher hopes that they can do. Kareem Vera, who is a
former math teacher, co founded the Modern Classrooms Project as a way of sharing
his model with teachers because he knew that this was the future of education.
So, if you want to know more about how the Modern Classrooms Project actually
works, and I encourage you to check out our website, modern classrooms dot
org, which I'll link below so that you can learn about the actual model.
But today Kareim and I are going to be talking about how to reframe
our mindset as teachers, especially when we've been teaching in a traditional lecture based
classroom, so that we can embrace this model that really benefits our students.
Here we go, Well, thanks for being on the show, Cream,
I really appreciate you taking the time to do this or turn your busy schedule.
Happy to be here, excited. So, as I mentioned in the
introduction, you were a math teacher and you started the Modern Classroom Project,
which I'm really really excited to talk to my audience about. Can you briefly
explain the concept and principles behind it? And how it's different than just like
traditional lecture style teaching. Yeah, I mean you started the explanation for me
by saying that this is an alternative to sort of a traditional lectured approach based
to instruction. I actually think where it's most different, it's that it's a
way to transform from a fixed based learning environment to a self based learning environment
that's competency or mastery based. So the way that it essentially works is that
instead of educators standing at the front of the room and delivering live lectures in
many ways the way that we all probably learn when we were students, but
also the way that you're often taught to teach, educators replace those live lectures
with bite sized instructional videos that they actually create and or leverage other digital resources
when appropriate. Right, not every single lesson needs to start with a kind
of instruction done through a videos. So once you've gotten into those live lectures,
that is the bottleneck that forces fixed based learning. So then you can
actually let students work at their own pace, but in bursts one or two
weeks at a time, be usually given a game board or pacing structure allows
them to know what they need to accomplish over a set of days or weeks,
and then it's mastery based grading. So you got that kind of blended
component, which is the getting rid of live lectures. You got the self
pacing component allowing students grow based in Chunson. Then finally that mastery based grading
component, which is really determining that a student should move on from one skill
to the next, not based on the day of the week, but based
on their understanding of the skill. So this what I like is that there
are two deems that I struggle with every year. One of them is that
as a secondary t I'm tired of teaching the same lesson five times a day.
So the idea of just like prerecording it and having the students watch it
it means that I don't have to do that. And then, of course,
you know what your model leaned itself to is that I feel like I'm
leaving kids behind. But at the same time, I also feel that kids
are bored, you know. But the thing that I'm struggling with wrapping my
brain around is the fact that I part of what I do when I'm lecturing
is I have a lot of interaction with the kids. It's how they get
to know me, and I really like that aspect of it. So,
you know, one thing that I'm sure a lot of people who want to
do something like this in terms of especially with differentiation, is they're used to
lecturing. What are some challenges that they might face and trying to transition and
how can they overcome those? Well, I mean, I think you talked
about one in your question. I mean the first thing to keep in mind
is just because you're not lecturing doesn't mean you're not doing whole group activities and
discussions. It's a frequent kind of misconception about the model. Just because I
don't talk at students and they take notes does not mean that I don't open
class with an activity, that we don't have a discussion about how you maximize
your time and built twenty first century skills, or that I don't stop the
class at any point in time and say let's talk about this. I've seen
six kids already struggle with this, let's do a quick discussion about that.
So there's a lot of opportunities to have that kind of whole group experience.
But the key is using whole group experience for connection and conversation and not just
I talk at EU take notes, right. So I think that's the first
thing to keep in mind. The second thing is, you know, our
whole idea and the data shows, is that when you run a modern classroom,
you have increased interaction with students. Those interactions are now going to be
in one on one in small group settings as opposed to whole group settings.
The idea is it's in those small group settings and in the one on one
settings when you're engaging in data driven instruction, which are also just getting no
students, that that's actually where you're building the strongest relationships. That's where you're
moving students across the continuent mastery. So I think that addresses one just kind
of related question, which is when you kind of think about, oh,
no, am I gonna lose this kind of community based feeling when I'm at
the front of the room, Am I gonna lose some of that kind of
fun performing developments, It's like, no, it just looks a little different,
and you're going to use that time differently. I think the other things
that folks struggle with is first, releasing control. I think it's you know,
being at the front of the room is both convenient and it's an easy
way to create a very rigid learning environment where you are in control of every
minute, and it's very difficult, and I was I can be the first
to say this, to release that control, to wake up and suddenly go
wait a minute. Students are have enough agency to be the driver's cy of
the learning experience. They are going to be the folks that decide, you
know, how much kind of urgency they put into the next steps. And
my job is to help facilitate and support them to that journey. And that
really freaks educators out in there, actually, and I get it. But
it's also such an important skill for students to build, so it's critical.
The other piece is just the lee orientation of time. I mean, one
of the things we've seen now that we've trained thousands of teachers is some edvocators
totally knows to do when you unlashed in the classroom. They totally think,
immediately, I'm going to go into this kind of teacher station. I'm gonna
be pulling students in small groups and individually, we're gonna be talking about their
mastery checks, figure out where they've understood the skill. We're gonna be building
relationships. Other teachers are like, what do I do with all this time?
Because you teach your prep programs, they don actually teach you how to
run a classroom that's students entered, a classroom that's kind of designed through the
leves of differentiation. They teach you how to run a classroom from the front
of the room usually, and so you know, figuring out how to use
that time effectively conceal uncomfortable And then there's obviously a plain in component. I
mean, you're planning differently and in some ways you have to add a little
bit more on the front end for the gains in varying the classroom from a
much less stressful, enjoyable and data driven classroom experience, and always poses a
challenge because it's a new skill to plan this way, and there's also a
little bit more upfront work well. And I think that for teachers that are
already seeking out your model, it's sort of self selective. These are teachers
that are open minded about it, and you know they already see that there's
something that they need to change in the way that they teach. But I
can also see that it can be difficult for a lot of teachers, especially
veteran teachers I mean I've been teaching. This will be my twenty second year
to shift from a I am. I mean, no one wants to admit
that they are the center of their classroom. But a lot of time teachers
see themselves as like, you know, the center of the classroom around which
everything revolves. But now it's student focused. So have you had a lot
of teachers that had to grapple with that and how did they get past?
I mean it's almost eco eccentric. I hate to say that, but you
know, we're just so used to being about us, like being the gatekeepers.
How do we release that need to be the gatekeeper? Yeah? Well,
I mean the interesting fat So you know, we put fifty three thousand
teachers to our free course and ten thousand through Verture Mendership program. The average
educator who opts into a virtual mendership program, and it is an opt and
only program, meaning no one's being forced to do our model. Everyone's choosing
too. The average educator who joins our virtual Menadership program is fourteen years of
classroom experience. So this is actually a model that generally is first most attractive
to veteran teachers, and the reason why it's often first attractive to veteran teachers
is I think veteran teachers over time really do want to shift the learning experience
to the students. Right. It's both exhausting to be in the driver's seat
as the teacher, but it's also something you learn over time that that's not
what's best for students. That they're going to leave you the classroom and leave
the school building and suddenly like they have to engage in a lot of self
directed behaviors to navigate the real world. And if we don't create those conditions
early on, then they get blindsided by those realities. So I think one
thing that is critical going into a modern classrooms experience is to have that first
to shift a large percentage of responsibility from educator to student. If you aren't
built, if you haven't bought it on that vision, you shouldn't do our
model right, because it's core to what we do. The second piece is
to really understand and internalize that when a student isn't using their time effectively,
the solution isn't then to take freedom away from them, it's to teach them
how to use that freedom effectively. And that is really hard for folks.
I often say a phrase to the ad and we support where we need to
spend less time focusing on disengagement and more time focusing on re engagement. A
lot of educators will become obsessed with this idea that seven students are disengaged and
we just need to get them back to being engaged, and a lot of
techniques we use is to actually either call them out or kind of come up
with systems and structures to get them to be engaged instead of giving them the
time to re engage and then building that skill so that students can self regulate
on their own, and that piece. I think that's probably the hardest for
veteran teachers because often veteran teachers create incredibly structured classrooms with super high levels of
students on task. But they're on task and somewhat reliant on the teacher to
be on task, and suddenly when that teacher is no longer going to withhold
that much structure for them, they will go off to task a little bit
and need to self correct. And that's a little freaky, that's true,
because I think there's also the fear of you know, if one student isn't
focused, then it's like a domino effect. So if you know, all
of these students are kind of doing their own thing and we can't control every
single step, then if one student falls out a line, then automatically everybody
else will. And I think that's a fear, especially with the I don't
know if you've heard horror stories about last year's student population where there was just
a lot of behavior your problems. I think it seems like it would be
easier to have everyone at the exact same spot, because all you have to
do is just see someone who's not in that spot to catch the person who's
you know, not in line, as opposed to well, maybe they're not
in line because they didn't understand, and so now they're going to check out
for the rest of the lesson. But it sounds like with your model,
because they didn't understand, if we teach them how to self direct, now
they go back or we redirect them. Okay, you didn't understand this step,
watch this video, or we work together in this step so that every
and everyone else just keeps chugging along and it's just that one or maybe five
students that they have to worry about rather than trying to range all the cats.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple really important points in
that. So the first is, I think the most high risk model of
teaching is one where one student can disrupt the entire learning. I found live
lectures to be so tense because it took one student to get really frustrated and
then everything stops, and if other students jump on board with them, then
you got a real problem on your hands. And your only solution at that
point is to get more stern And if the students aren't responding to that,
well you're in big trouble, right, And that's when like you start sweating
and your art starts racing, and you're like, this is a disaster,
right, there's no out there. It really is disasters. In our model,
students have greater control over their learning and less control over their peers learning.
You could actually have a total crisis happened in your classroom and the rest
of the learning will not stop. That happened to me frequently. I mean
I taught an environment where certainly there were a lot of challenging discipline circumstances,
and the year that we've built this, there was a lot of violence that
year in the community, And I mean you could have a situation where a
student is literally actively getting removed from the classroom for a reason that you know
is really tough to deal with, and the rest of the students you're just
working. Sure there maybe a little bit more distracted because something's going on,
but it doesn't stop the learning experience, and it certainly doesn't mean that when
you have to go take care of an issue, no one else can keep
move And I think that that's really really hard. I think the second thing
to keep in mind is a lot of times when you're working on de escalating
a challenging behavior issue, you're always real solution if you want to achieve any
level of success is to kind of shrink that problem to a one on one
interaction. The only way you can do that is if you're afford of the
time too. If you're busy delivering some sort of performative lecture, you don't
have that option. The moment you go choose to make it a one on
one interaction, it's a one on one interaction that the whole group is watching.
Right. That's a terrible way to de escalate, right. So I
think it's really key as well for teachers to kind of internalize the fact that
de escalation is really hard and it's nearly impossible when you're doing it in a
whole group setting. So when we think about a lot of those behavior at
shoots, they frequently stem from the student who needs to be de escalated,
and you don't actually have the time or the capacity to do the steps necessary
to de escalate them, so you resort to what you would normally do in
an old group setting, and frequently it has the reverse effect and escalates the
situation and makes it much more challenging to deal with. That's a good point
because I'm you know, I hear about teachers who have a lot of problems
with one student, especially who kind of sets everybody off. If the teacher
had the opportunity to have a lot of one on one time and have a
lot of relationship building, which you obviously it's difficult to do in a whole
class setting, they could probably knit that in the bud early on, you
know, like if that student is testing them from the beginning of the year
and has been notoriously difficult, but there are previous teachers I could see that
just having that relationship that student, having a relationship with that at least one
teacher in their day could that could also echo into their other classes as well
if they see that, like school isn't a threatening place anymore, and so
your model would actually afford them that time. I mean, I had students
come to my classroom when they weren't in my class period, just because it
was a less tense environment. Right, Like when you walk into a modern
classroom, if you're late to school, everyone isn't going to turn their head
and stare at you as you interrupt the lecture. Instead, you're walking in,
you're gonna be able to pick up where you left off if you want
to have a conversation with the teacher because something really hard happened and you just
need to let them know that, Like you're going to do your best that
day, but you're probably gonna put your head down a few times. You
can just walk straight up to the teacher and do that and the whole class
isn't watching. So there's a lot of reasons why students are in going to
naturally feel much more safe and comfortable in a setting where it doesn't feel like
there's constantly a spotlight on them. And there were a number of class periods
that I had when I was implementing this model. Implemented it for three straight
years before I left the classrooms around the organization, and a lot of times
the students that struggled them most with behavior would just sit next to me for
the entirety of the class period. I don't sit on my desk anymore.
The desk has no purpose. I'm sitting in like a little table in the
middle of the in the middle of the classroom. And I might have a
student just sit with me for two straight weeks, and you're gonna sit with
me until you can show me that you're using your time effectively. And you
create this fascinating dynamic where now a student who was normally using their time ineffectively
was eager to use their time effectively to show me that they didn't need to
sit with me. There's a lot of kind of interesting techniques you can suddenly
introduce in the classroom when again, you're not your tool belt isn't like suddenly
restricted by this. I'm at the front of the room, and this is
where I deliver all the kind of disciplinary tactics that I've been taught. And
I can see since you mentioned that you are circulating in the classroom more that
itself lends itself to fewer behaviors because they know that you're going to be over
there and then you're gonna be over there, And we all know that presence
is like a big thing in terms of keeping the calm in the classroom.
So the fact that you're kind of everywhere means it's harder to get away with
things. I'm assuming totally, and I mean, in some ways, it's
harder. In some ways. It's easier, right, in some ways when
the entire classrooms silent because you're at the front of the room, then maybe
it's all easier to get away with stuff. But it's harder in that you
know that the educator is going to actually interact with you every single day,
yeah, and that they are paying very close attention to your progress. Like
one of the things that you'll learn when you talk to a modern classroom educator
is they feel very comfortable articulating what a student does and does not know in
the scope over learning sequence. Like they can almost tell you perfectly, like
that students on less than three they struggled with this skill they're working on a
next class period. Because the whole idea of data driven instruction that is a
buzzword that no one actually executes. Usually is or to what our educators do,
because it's the rationale behind why they're spending time with certain students during class.
So I, as a student may have greater freedom over my time than
a sixteen minute period, But what I don't have is a feeling like I
can just slip through the cracks and then bomb a test and then the teacher
only realizes at the end of that unit the back student actually learned nothing,
right, you know, I had a bunch of times it's it's like gut
wrenching to teach and you're like, I thought that kid was paying attention and
then they take a test and they got a forty percent. You're like,
you literally learned almost nothing, and I didn't really know that until the end
of this unit. That have word happens in a modern classroom. Um,
it's just literally impossible based on the way that the model runs. So if
a teacher wanted to just kind of like test drive it, their toes in
it, what initial changes would you make if they're if they're not ready to
go, like, you know, head first into this. Yeah, I
mean it's hard to people ask this question all the time. I think it's
really interesting. Sorry. I think first of all, it's about doing it
for just one unit or one little group of skills, right, So like,
do it for three straight lessons. Say, hey, students, like
these three lessons, we're gonna be learning self pace. I put a video
on your Google classroom or your schools or your canvas. I have your assignments,
you have this little exit ticket, and that's going to be your mastery
check. And you're supposed to complete these three lessons on Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday, and then we're gonna take a mini quiz on Thursday. You
know, you don't really need that long as self pasting infect many of our
educators. All is self pace for one week at a time. If you're
really anxious about building instructional videos, you can obviously pull videos externally. You
will find that generally speaking, that produces it's a more challenging engagement technique.
Students are going to be less engaged when they hear a voice. Stay don't
know a teacher, they don't know. They're gonna feel like there's this kind
of gap between my educator and my learning experience. But it's not. I
mean, it's certainly a way to start testing it, but I encourage folks
to do that part right, to just build three solid lessons. It's not
that hard to create instructional video, you know, educators. We're doing it
all through COVID. You just hit record on any screencasting software and you're done
and just kind of run it and see what happens. And I think the
most shocking thing that educators frequently experiences they realize just how much less stressful the
class period is and how much more time they have to connect with students.
And if you've never done it, go ahead. It seems like then for
new teachers, like because they don't have anything to fall back on because this
is their first time, it would actually be an ideal time for them to
jump into this and test this out. Especially what I trick. I tell
a lot of new teachers, you should practice things like practice routines, you
know, as if it's actually happening, because that way you're not winging it.
But here I can deliver a lesson and if I mess up, I
get a do over because I'm recording it. And I really like that the
idea that you can record it ahead of time, and then if I don't
like it, or if I find that video isn't working, then I can
just fix it. But I don't have to keep reteaching that same thing over
and over again. I mean, I totally agree with you. We have
had a debate internally of modern class motions some time now around this idea of
new teachers and implementation, because on one hand, it's perfect. You don't
know the alternative of me, and aside from that's what you probably learned in
so you're not on learning new methodology. You're not on learning a traditional methodology
of teaching and then relearning a new one. You can start out of the
gates. Alternatively, they don't know the limitations of traditional instruction. New educators
have not seen how hard it is to differentiate to an extraordinary diversity of learning
levels and social emotional needs by standing at the front of the room. So
in some ways it might feel like why am I doing this? Like I
think we as educators who've been in the classroom for years, understand very very
clearly how limited we are and meeting every student's needs. You are teachers may
not truly understand that. So the driving force behind the why is a little
bit less sticky, So there's some costs and benefits. One why that I
can think of because I pay attention a lot to how new teachers are feeling.
I used to be a new teacher mentor, but a lot of times
there's a fear of having their contract not be renewed because they're not meeting the
needs or they're not hitting those standards and test scores. And this directly addresses
that because if you know you're not fulfilling someone's IEP, or you're not catching
up these students that are behind, what better way than to have this set
up. Because it's actual built in differentiation. You can prove to your administrator,
yes, you should renew my contract because I'm one of the only teachers
actually truly differentiating. There's no doubt about that. I also think when you
think about the kind of broader supports that a school may have to offer MTS
at, special education supports, language supports, our educators just tend to be
much more coherent about making those requests because they have really clear understanding of the
data. This student has only mattered for the last ten skills, they need
more support, they need after school support. All those things. So I
certainly think when it's implemented correctly, any administrator understands that this is a way
to achieve some of those big buzzwords that we know are necessary and don't actually
get them right. So I hope that you guys can see how this could
really revolutionize your teaching. I am really excited to test this out. It's
been something I've been wanting to do, and now I have a clear framework
and a really good reason in terms of why I should do this. I
am really excited to give this a try, and I hope that you'll join
me on this journey. Now, if you want to know how to implement
this, and maybe you still have some reservations in terms of things like assessment
and collaboration and things like that, then be sure to subscribe to this podcast
so that you can get notified for the next episode, where Kareem and I
dig even deeper into the Modern Classrooms project. Thanks for hanging out with me
today, you guys, and have a great week.