Exploring the Core Podcast

Doris Heinrich is currently in her 15th year of teaching, currently teach Kindergarten at Tulita Elementary School in Redondo Beach, California. Her career has included years spent teaching multiple grade levels and Special Education in Pre-School and Child Development. Having been awarded the 2020-2021 Teacher of the Year award for her district, she is currently teaching Kindergarten while completing her Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education and Administration. During her free time, she enjoys spending time with her dogs, taking walks by the beach, camping, and dirt bike riding. For more information about Doris and her work in education, contact: dheinrich@rbusd.org 

Guest in this episode: Laura J. Link, Ed.D., is an Assistant Professor of Teaching & Leadership and Director of the Master of Science in Teaching & Leadership program at the University of North Dakota. She holds a doctorate in Leadership & Policy Studies from the University of Memphis, and her research focuses on developing and supporting highly effective leaders and organizational cultures that prioritize effective grading practices, collaboration, and meaningful assessment. She is the co-author of Cornerstones of Strong Schools: Practices for Purposeful Leadership (with J. Zoul, 2007), and author of Leadership in Grading Reform in What We Know About Grading (Guskey, T. R., & Brookhart, S. M., Eds., 2019) as well as multiple book chapters and articles such as Is Standards-Based Grading Effective? (2022), Are Your Grading Policies Legally Sound? (2021), How Traditional Grading Contributes to Student Inequalities and How to Fix It (2019), and Teachers' Perceptions of Grading Practices: How Pre-service Training Makes a Difference (2018). Dr. Link also leads K-12 assessment and grading academies and has led an array of other professional development efforts, classes, and initiatives over her career. Since 2002, Dr. Link has presented locally and nationally on the topics of high-impact leadership, K-12 grading, mastery learning, research-practice partnerships, teacher support, and more.Before joining UND, Dr. Link served as Associate Dean of the College of Public Service at the University of Houston-Downtown in Texas. At UHD, she created the university's first-ever Educational Leadership graduate programs, including a Foundations of Educational Leadership Certificate that is the only one of its kind in the state of Texas, and she facilitated an array of K-12 district partnerships. She also created the UHD's first Urban Education Advisory Board, which involves superintendents and executive leaders from across the greater Houston region. Additionally, Dr. Link was an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Purdue University Fort Wayne in Indiana. At PFW, she was an active member of the CAEP Assessment Steering Committee, led various local K-12 assessment and grading academies, co-facilitated PFW's University Leadership Academy, and directed the Professors in Partnership K-16 collaborative. Prior to her higher education experience, Dr. Link served as Chief Academic Officer at Jackson-Madison County Schools in Jackson, TN, and was Assistant Superintendent of Teaching & Learning as well as Chief of Talent Management in Shelby County Schools in Memphis, TN. She was 1 of 7 Transition Steering Committee members charged with leading the largest school district merger in United States' history. Additionally, Dr. Link has served in an array of central office and school-based administrative roles (in both urban and suburban settings) and has taught elementary, middle, high school and college students over her 32 years in public and private education. Dr. Link also served a long-standing state Board Member of Learning Forward Tennessee and President of Learning Forward Indiana, a professional association devoted exclusively to those who work in K-16 professional development.You can contact Dr. Laura Link at www.GradingRX.com or https://und.edu/directory/laura.link Read the published article discussed in this episode, "Is Standards-Based Grading Effective?" here -> https://gradingrx.com/is-standards-based-grading-effective/*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

Guest in this episode: Anna May Drake (B.A./M.S.) is a high school English teacher with nearly two decades of full-time teaching experience. She currently teaches International Baccalaureate classes at the International School of Panama and works as a remote online content editor for a national magazine in the U.S. Anna is fascinated with instructional design and inquiry-based learning strategies, and is always on a path toward continuous learning and self-improvement. Her most recent learning journey was to earn a professional development certificate in learner experience design through Oregon State University.  AnnaMayDrake1@gmail.com  Tim Kokotovich has taught high school math for eight years. He has taught at the International School of Panama for three years, and currently serves as Head of Department. He loves finding ways to make math more accessible to different types of learners, especially those who have struggled in the past. Before Panama, he taught for five years in public schools in California. Tim graduated from the Stanford Teacher Education Program and is a National Board Certified Teacher.  tkokotovich@gmail.comJames has worked in US public/private schools as well as international schools for 25 years as an IB Economics & International Relations teacher,  Assistant Principal, Principal, and MUN Director in Oregon, Morocco, Panama, and Taiwan. His interest in assessment reform started early in his career, but was kicked into high gear when a student asked a very simple question about an assignment's value. Since then, he has continued to ask questions about the value of assignments and assessment in general. Most recently he was featured in Ken O'Connor's "A Repair Kit for Grading; 3rd Ed". jamesmattiace@yahoo.com*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

Guest in this episode: Allen Gunderson is an educator and visitor in L'KWUNGEN & W'SANEC traditional territories who is involved with schools, youth, and sustainability issues. Through a Green MBA in Sustainable Enterprise, BA in Asian Studies, Bachelor of Education, Certified eduScrum Trainer, Advanced Systems Thinking Facilitator, and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he brings a unique perspective and passion towards cultivating holistic student-centred education systems, helping youth discover their greatness as they learn to create a better world. He measures success through action and celebrating failures. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Life is an experiment”, let's treat it as such.You can reach Allen Gunderson at allen@allengunderson.com *Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

Guest in this episode: Emmanuel Ponchon, graduate in English Philology and trilingual translation from the Université Catholique de l'Ouest (France). Throughout his professional career, he has lived in various countries, accumulating extensive teaching experience, and has subsequently worked as a language teacher and Effective Communication trainer in companies both in Madrid and in Asturias (Spain), where he was director of the Summer Course for 9 years. From 2018 to 2020 he was the Director of Lifelong Learning and Project Department at the Padre Ossó Faculty in Oviedo, Spain.From his main professional point of view, what stands out the most is his demonstrated passion for educational innovation as shown by his many training projects where children and teenagers have found a framework of responsible and free learning. Likewise, he has been able to create synergies between different projects, either locally or internationally. It is worth mentioning his collaboration with schools of democratic education and agile methodologies, as well as his position as representative and official trainer of eduScrum in Spain and France. He now works for ThinkingWithYou, a consulting company, which purpose is to humanize organizations as well as personal growth and development. They are currently working on the creation of a lifelong learning ecosystem to build bridges between the world of education and organizations.*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

Guest in this episode: Dr. Conley Hathorn is a professor of education at Louisiana State University of Alexandria. He has spent thirty six years teaching and coaching as well as administration and management of school activities. For the past 7 years he served as an education consultant for companies restructuring education in the United Arab Emirates. His greatest strengths are in his ability to develop strong work relationships with his colleagues/stakeholders and to communicate effectively in a professional setting. You can reach Dr. Hathorn at chathorn@lsua.edu *Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

Guest in this episode: SJ Barakony is an American small business champion with a boundless appreciation for people, entrepreneurship, liberty, & lifelong learning. He has ties to multiple business ventures: He started the Education Sherpa in late 2011; over the next 11 years, he's been offered a number of opportunities to partner with others, including the H7 Network, Econ Impact Catalyst, The Entrepreneurial Leap, Bee Konnected, and Web Strategy + / Social Media Enthusiasts. He's a thought leader, futurist, guest blogger, super-connector, speaker, historian, and soft skills specialist. You can reach SJ at sj@sbsl.education, theeducationsherpa.com or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sbslsfoundersj and  Instagram at www.instagram.com/the.education.sherpaLindsey Blackburn has been an educator and trainer for over 17 years. Her areas of expertise include curriculum, instruction, assessment, data, and Project Based Learning. She most well-known for her workshops and consulting focused on school improvement and student growth. Her experience working across public districts, charter schools, private schools, consortiums, and educational service centers makes her uniquely poised to deliver impactful professional development, strategic planning, coaching and on-going support. You can reach Lindsey at inpartnershipllc@gmail.com or on LinkedIn at bit.ly/lindseyblackburn_linkedin*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling 

In this episode:I celebrate the work of two educators who are each consulting a vision for empowering schools to adopt and adapt a more flexible teaching and learning environment, one focusing on co-constructing learning ecosystems via UDL that benefit teachers as well as their students, the other focusing on an approach to UDL that utilizes an Agile/Scrum perspective.Guest in this episode: - Fanny Passeport, Educator & Education Consultant, NoBordersLearning.com (Tarn, France)- Heather Cowap, Educator & Education Consultant, SciEdScrumming.com (Lincoln, MA, USA)*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I make a case for the Five Factor Model of personality traits being at the core of my framework for who we are and how we learn. I also share segments of my conversation with Heather Abreu, a teacher and parent who shares her thoughts on personality traits, the value of introspection, and the importance of meeting students where they're at, with a vision for student-first change to our education system.Guest in this episode: - Heather Abreu, Teacher and Parent (Denver, CO) *Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I share conversations with Doni Iraheta, a behavior analyst who talks about his approach for addressing challenging behaviors in children, and Dr. Anton Tolman, a professor of psychology at Utah Valley University, who talks about behavior change from his perspective as a clinical psychologist as well as a research professor working with models of behavior change that actually have strong connections to what we call a Growth Mindset, which is very popular concept in education. Guests in this episode: - Doni Iraheta, Behavior Therapist (Southern California)- Dr. Anton Tolman, Professor of Psychology @ Utah Valley University (Orem, Utah)*Music: Greg MullenNow streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I share my conversation with Liz Keable, student success coach and social psychologist, with a focus on a social and emotional approach to learning which I argue is key to understanding who we are and how we learn. Guests in this episode: - Liz Keable, Success Coach & Social Psychologist (Greater Norwich, UK)*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I continue my presentation on Values - what they are, and how we perceive them in a learning environment, specifically exploring the value of Trust, as a third value in an essential layer of my framework for understanding who we are and how we learn. Guests in this episode: - Doug Thompson, DPT Candidate (Azusa, CA) - Allison Dillard, Author, Podcast Host, Math Professor (Irvine, CA) *Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I present Values - what they are, and how we perceive them in a learning environment,specifically exploring two values, Responsibility and Respect, as two values in an essential layer of my framework for understanding who we are and how we learn. Guests in this episode: - Amanda Presutto, School Teacher (Santa Ana, CA)- Brian Morris, Learning Support Teacher (Tokyo, Japan)*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I present the elements of a learning environment which represent a critical layer to understanding who we are and how we learn.Guests in this episode: - Cassi Clausen, Founder @ The Open School (Santa Ana, CA) openschooloc.com- Megan Grieco, Lead Mentor @ PETALS Learning Community (Topanga, CA) petalslearningcommunity.org*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I present the anatomy of a belief and highlight leaders with strong beliefs toward self-directed learning. Guests in this episode: - Ken Danford, co-founder @ North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens (Sunderland, MA) northstarteens.org- Alexis Burgess, co-founder @ Alcove Self-Directed Learning Cooperative (Los Angeles, CA) alcoveteens.org*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:I present the phrase "Self-Directed Schooling" and highlight leaders in education that are connecting self-directed learning with conventional schooling. Guests in this episode: - David Levis, Principal @ Meraki High (Fair Oaks, CA) sanjuan.edu- Catherine Gobron, Co-Founder @ Lighthouse (Holyoke, MA) lighthouseholyoke.org*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisors: Will Slocum and Alma Jongewaard. Now streaming on most podcast platforms. Podcast Link: https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling

In this episode:Host Greg Mullen introduces the ideas and and topics behind the second season of The Exploring the Core Podcast. Guests in Season Two include: - David Levis, Principal @ Meraki High (Fair Oaks, CA)- Catherine Gobron, Co-Founder @ Lighthouse (Holyoke, MA)- Ken Danford, Co-Founder @ North Star SDL (Sunderland, MA)- Alexis Burgess, Co-Founder @ Alcove SDL (Los Angeles, CA)- Megan Grieco, Lead Mentor @ PETALS (Topanga, CA)- Cassi Clausen, Founder @ The Open School (Santa Ana, CA)- Amanda Presutto, Classroom Teachers (Santa Ana, CA)- Brian Morris, Learning Support Teacher (Tokyo, Japan)- Allison Dillar, Math Professor & Author (Irvine, CA)- Doug Thompson, Doctor of Physical Therapy Candidate (Azusa, CA)- Liz Keable, Success Coach (Greater Norwich Area, UK)- Anton Tolman, Psychology Professor (Orem, UT)- Doni Iraheta, Behavioral Therapist (Torrance, CA)- Heather Abreu, Visual Arts Teachers (Denver, CO)- Fanny Passeport, Education Consultant (Tarn, France)- Heather Cowap, Education Consultant (Lincoln, MA)*Music: Greg Mullen*Pre-Production Advisor: Will Slocum.Podcast Link --> https://exploring-the-core-podcast.simplecast.com/#ExploringTheCore #SelfDirectedSchooling 

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: January 27, 2020"Mullen: For me, the last decade of teaching has created a lot of great memories, single moments, snippits of random days where a student did or said something that really struck me, made me think about what I’m doing as a teacher, what they were doing as a student, and what we were all really trying to do together in that classroom." - Greg Mullen"What I had come to realize is that the reason this whole idea of self-directed learning seems so overwhelming is that the current systems are not created to place ownership of learning on the students." - Greg Mullen"It’s been a long journey for me and I am hoping that this episode highlights the importance of shifting not only the practices and methods in schools today but, more importantly, in shifting the philosophies and visions of how we approach the education system not just for teachers and admin in the schools, but for teacher candidates, teacher mentors, instructional coaches, and even families, students, and communities." - Greg MullenInterview: Starr Sackstein, https://www.mssackstein.com/"It has always been my belief that you should do the projects that you expect your students to do..." - Starr Sackstein"The best person to be creating the test are the people who are doing the teaching, so we, you know, we know what we taught, we know what students were supposed to have learned and what they should be able to do, and since all of our curriculum isn’t aligned nationally like from room to room it’s not often exactly the same…" - Starr Sackstein"And the students that are in our schools now really do have rich contexts that they can draw on to connect to different themes and ideas and characters that are happening in literature, and we have to give them the space to ask those questions, dig into those topics that they think are important..." - Starr Sackstein

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: December 20, 2019"This social and emotional approach to identifying a student’s strengths allows me to highlight which competencies I will need to incorporate into my classroom management." - Greg Mullen"The need for an inclusive classroom environment, in my opinion, begins with a developmental mindset that looks at how each individual student is developing..." - Greg Mullen"[A Developmental Mindset] is an awareness that a classroom full of students around the same age may actually be working through a wide range of certain social, emotional, and even cognitive and psychosocial stages of human development." - Greg MullenInterview: Meg Bristow, Special Education Coordinator"I don’t consider myself the expert, I consider us all experts, and so kind of figuring out what teachers already know about kids and what they’re bringing into the classroom that we can utilize to support different students - so that’s kind of fun. That creativity is really what I love about this job." - Meg Bristow"I mean, to me, it’s less of a placement option and more of just a belief that everyone belongs regardless of their perceived need or ability... it’s the idea that everyone does belong and can contribute maybe in different ways." - Meg Bristow"So the kids with the services and IEPs are getting that service but so is everyone else in the classroom and they can all practice together and reinforce throughout the day versus just this one kid getting one-on-one instruction thirty-minutes a week. So, ya, a great use of resources and it [inclusion] really just makes sense." - Meg Bristow 

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: January 13, 2020"Change can get pretty complicated and at times quite uncomfortable so an organized framework can be very helpful." - Greg Mullen"What I mean is, when challenges arise from changes to a system, even though a role may be contractually defined by a general set of expectations, boundaries and responsibilities often overlap." - Greg Mullen"As more schools embark on this evolution of system change of our education system, I am excited to see, hear, and experience school and community improvements, especially as we improve our ability to identify with a developmental mindset the desired changes we want in our communities of students, teachers, administrators, and families." - Greg MullenInterview: Nikki Roorda, https://www.johnstoncsd.org/departments/teaching-learning/pol/"I think Iowa has been very fortunate in the fact that we’ve had our eye on social-emotional learning for the past several years, and just with the apex of it being this release of our social-emotional learning standard last month, and as a result I think across the country social-emotional learning is becoming more and more prevalent, so I have seen in my current position of companies offering their services to help social-emotional learning not only at the student level but also at the adult level within our district to help support those folks." - Nikki Roorda"The Portrait of a Learner was developed a few years ago and it really tried to identify what are those 21st century skills and executive skills that students need to be successful in a post-secondary endeavour, whether that is college or career, and how we interact with each other as human beings, and I’m really proud of that work." - Nikki Roorda"...there’s value in getting out and vetting within your local community their values and perceptions and that way it’s everybody’s document. " - Nikki Roorda

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: January 6, 2020"[Grades] They’ve become the bills and coins for buying passage to the next grade level, participation in sports, extracurricular activities, even college admission." - Greg Mullen"The amount of work that a student must go through for such an explanation of an academic concept is like a three-dollar price tag for something that a student is likely used to getting for one-dollar down the street." - Greg Mullen"The critical question here becomes: What must the student give their teacher in order to receive a grade that is valued equal to our expectations for that student moving forward?  This is where we get at the heart of redefining the value of what a grade is worth." - Greg Mullen"What I am proposing is that we recognize the value of improving ourselves more than we value the rewards we receive for completing tasks intended for self-improvement. " - Greg MullenInterview: Matt Townsley, http://mctownsley.net/"What happens over time is... as the [grading] system improves... [students] start to realize there once again is value in completing that [homework] practice." - Matt Townsley"I really do believe that when schools implement standards-based grading, that there’s more of a co-ownership in the learning process." - Matt Townsley"Sometimes I’ll ask teachers I work with, “hey, do you believe kids learn the same way on the same day?” and everyone says, “no way!” Well, that’s because anyone in the classroom knows that students do indeed learn differently. " - Matt Townsley"I think one [benefit of standards-based learning] is clarity of understanding. " - Matt TownsleyShow Less

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: December 30, 2019"In a previous episode, I spoke to the development of SEL and the competencies created by CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. In this episode, I’d like to build on what we know and dive into SEL programs available to schools today." - Greg Mullen"This in-depth study explores 15 SEL programs, comparing them with 12 practical elements, and (the best part) does not claim any one program to be superior to the other fourteen programs; rather, each program is highlighted as addressing particular competencies, many of which are common across all of the sampled programs." - Greg Mullen"The first big takeaway from this study is that all fourteen SEL programs share at least some of these elements. Of the fourteen SEL programs, four of the programs share eleven of the twelve elements." - Greg MullenInterview: Dr. Jennifer Rogers, https://rogerstrainingsolutions.com/"...and that is the paradigm change that we are going to have to think about in the future. How do we gear up those that are already in the field to understand that this is the new lens we have to look out of, and how do we use that same lens and provide that for our pre-service teachers who are learning what it’s like to be a teacher now." - Jennifer Rogers"...it’s a process to transition from [a traditional] model into what we’re understanding about the brain and the way we learn and about growth mindset, and all of those great things that are coming out of science. If we can really just look at the trauma lens, from the late 1990s when that [ACEs] study initially started, and now thirty years later, about what does that look like - and not everyone is necessarily on board with that either. So all of these practices and understanding takes generations of teachers to become regularly practiced in the building." - Jennifer Rogers"If we know that everybody understands the WHY [of adopting SEL] and we have a community understanding of what SEL is and what our role is in that SEL, our next logical step is to consider a framework." - Jennifer Rogers

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.comEpisode Release Date: December 22, 2019Mullen: "This first step being introduced in this episode is part of a larger shift that we must recognize as more than just a grading policy. This standards-based approach will change the way we address what skills, which plans, how we motivate, and create the incentives involved in teaching and learning."Mullen: "This kind of skill alignment across grade levels will improve instruction and assessment of such a third grade fraction standard. When you begin defining what is proficient, and you look at your assessments for these specific standards, you’ll need to consider whether it’s more important that your students communicate a rationale for that understanding or if answering a multiple-choice quiz gets you what you need."Mullen: "What the standards are doing here is allowing teachers to do what they intuitively know they have to do to help a student learn a skill by reviewing a student’s prior knowledge and connecting that to current academic expectations; but we are now doing so with an intention that allows us to reflect and record exactly which skills our students have mastered, identify where in that skill’s development students are stuck, so that students, their teachers, and their families can help them work through related skills that may additionally support concepts behind what they’re learning."Interview: Karin Hess, https://www.karin-hess.com/Hess: "A problem in the beginning was, that you could assess the standard once, the student did well, and you said they mastered that standard. We know that wasn’t true - if that were true, sports teams who could show that they could pass a ball, they’ll do it perfectly because you’ve mastered it, but there are a lot of conditions on how you pass a ball, when you pass a ball, so I think with the standards-based being what you have to learn, it’s how do you have to demonstrate it.  "Hess: "A school has to be really thoughtful and I think the first thing they have to look at with standards-based grading is, are they still using a hundred-point scale to determine a percent? Because that’s a scale where 60 of the points describe failure and 40 of the points describe some learning is taking place."Hess: "Before the common core, every state was developing standards and most states would use bloom’s taxonomy to describe what the students were doing at each grade level. I was working with a state committee in 2003 / 2004, and I suggested to them, because I had come across Webb’s work and this work was only really being used in alignment studies."Hess: "The matrix was the best way to show that you could have analysis light, or analysis deep. Evaluation light, which I call an “ug” - an unsubstantial generalization, an opinion that has no support for it, which is something I had a professor write on our papers and handed them back, and if we made claims and didn’t support them, he called them “ugs”. Kids understand an “ug”!"Hess' Cognitive Rigor Matrix Resources:https://www.karin-hess.com/cognitive-rigor-and-dok

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode Release Date: December 10, 2019What makes social-emotional learning so important in today’s schools - haven’t we always addressed the social and emotional development in students? It’s this kind of question I get from parents and educators more often than I’d like to admit, but the answer is buried in the historical development of cognitive and psychological theories in the last century. "I begin this historical briefing at the start of the 20th century.""Consider the political unrest at the time.""Think about that first half of the 20th century, all the discoveries and cultural development related to psychology. Consider how those ideas impacted policy and media in the second half of the 20th century. It took nearly the entire one-hundred year span for these ideas to be integrated into our society as common knowledge."Interview: Clark McKown, http://xsel-labs.com/"...there are ways in which these organizations that speak to and serve multiple districts are trying to help them pull together resources given that there is one-stop shop.""I do think that states that have adopted some form of standards have a leg up because... they have a common framework to be working from... [and] give the educators in those states a lot in terms of how they should proceed and towards what aim.""Because we're focused on the measurement part with school districts, what I want to be able to do is help our partners link what they learn about their students from our assessment to what they plan to teach. "

Podcast and Episode Copyright 2019 Exploring the Core LLC* www.ExploringTheCore.com * #ExploringTheCore *Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.com Episode Release Date: December 10, 2019"Standards are tools, and like any other tool, they must be used with intention." - Greg Mullen"It's not that standards don't belong in classrooms. It's that the skills and knowledge included in academic standards likely already exist in those teachers’ classrooms." - Greg Mullen"Let me be clear: As I describe the value and importance of standards, it is imperative to note that without a solid understanding of how standards develop skills in and across grade levels, teachers will struggle to assist their colleagues in identifying ways to help students with particular gaps in learning." - Greg MullenInterview: Ken O'Connor, https://www.oconnorgrading.com/"You can't do competency-based without doing standards-based, but you can be standards-based without being competency-based." - Ken O'Connor"I think, yes, often [grades] have, in a sense, a greater impact on the way students behave than the way they learn..." - Ken O'Connor"...what we really want to develop in students is responsibility, and responsibility is doing what you should be doing when you have a choice; compliance in a sense is doing what you should do, or what you must do, when you don't really have a choice." - Ken O'Connor