Zach Diamond 0:03 Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. Toni Rose Deanon 0:28 Hello, and welcome to episode 139 of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. My name is Toni Rose Deanon, she/they pronouns, a Community Engagement Manager at Modern Classrooms, and I am joined by a DMCE and English Department Chair Head from Abraham Lincoln High School in the San Francisco Unified School District, Avery Balasbas, he/him pronouns. Welcome, Avery. Avery Balasbas 0:47 Hi. Toni Rose Deanon 0:48 It's so exciting to be in this space with you and thank you so much for saying yes to the podcast. I am a little bit out of breath because I thought it was a good idea to work out before this recording. So for all my peloton lovers out there, y'all I get it, I get why it's so addicting. But before we get started, Avery, what is bringing you joy lately? Avery Balasbas 1:09 I will say what is bringing me joy. Me and my partner are long distance. So whatever time that we get to spend together is great. And then our puppy that we have is in my current care right now. So that and also being here. I'm really excited. I'm a very avid listener of the podcast, and I'm super excited. I feel like very starstruck right now. Toni Rose Deanon 1:33 Yay. I mean, I'm also pretty starstruck and you're doing some really cool stuff, too. And the first time we connected I was just like, oh my gosh, Avery. Yes. And also listeners, you all know I talk about being Filipino all the time. So Avery is Filipino as well, which I'm so excited about. So fellow Pinoys here. Yay. And I'm sure long distance is hard. I have done long distance before. And that's always a fun time. Always a fun time. So kudos to you and your partner for making it all work. Okay, so let's get it started. Tell us more about who you are and how you started your MCP journey. Avery Balasbas 2:13 Yeah, so I feel like my MCP journey started before finding MCP. And I've heard a couple of teachers kind of describe that where they've started playing around with blended learning or mastery based assessment or standards based grading, and self pacing, before coming across foreign classroom, and I think I was in a similar boat. When COVID hit, I was finishing clearing my credential. And my original goal was actually how to get physical space and designed to foster collaboration and increase like engagement. And then pandemic hate. We went to lockdown. And my mentor was like, Okay, we're not gonna be able to do this anymore. We can't come back in person. So you need to think of something else. And I was like, Okay, how can I make let's just change the jargon? How can I make digital spaces more engaging and foster collaboration. And the first, well, San Francisco went into lockdown, like in March of 2020. And so I think it was like one of the earlier cities to do it, from what I recall. And so immediately, I was like, Okay, I have my slides, I'm going to make a video, self paced video version of my slides, and align it with linked Google Forms to do checks for understanding. And that was kind of like my final project to clear my credential. At the same time, my district actually, like invested, I think, into Nearpod. And I wasn't aware of it. At the time, I was like, Who has time to learn a new edtech tool right now? You know, everyone was in chaos with lockdown, and just trying to transition to online teaching. come the next school year, when we were all online. I checked out Nearpod. And I was like, Wow, all the hard work I put into making a self paced video Nearpod could have done it for me. And I was just like, great. Like, why didn't I do this? You know, four months ago, when I was stressing out about it. I was like, wow. So that whole year online, I was able to increase engagement using Nearpod. And sorry, like fast forward to the part of where the MCP journey starts. Facebook was feeding me an algorithm of like, articles, and there's this I don't remember what it was. It was an article talking about self pacing. And modern classroom came up as like the fourth or fifth option about here's this thing that does self pacing. And like, for whatever reason, the blurb caught my attention and caused me to click and open the links and I just like went into a rabbit hole, learning about Kareem seeing the Edutopia video and this was this all happened after syllabus day of returning in person in fall 2021. And so that same week, like I already gave my syllabus to the kids, I was like, This is what we're doing. And then four days later, I was like, Hey guys, I found this thing called modern classrooms and here's how Kareem's PD version have all the data and the kids are like, cool, Mr. B, like you do you? And I was like, I was like, wow, that did that did not land. I was like so embarrassed. I was so hyped and they weren't. And then the following week, I listened to episode like two of the podcast with Kareem and Zach. And they were like, the best way to, for students to learn the models to do the model. And then I started building out a unit zero. And I think that's when everything like started taking place. I like use the podcast as my like, teacher. Because I was like trying to figure out what is modern classroom. Toni Rose Deanon 5:37 I love that I just kind of chuckled when you said you were on Facebook, and then the algorithms got you. And it makes me think of my dad, the algorithms always get him he just clicks on the things and I'm like, Pops, you can't. Now I'll get his pop up all the time. And it's funny that you did that. And thank goodness that you did and you're able to find us. And that's that's a really cool story. And also just very real, right of like, Oh, I'm so excited about it. And then I shared it with the kids. And they're like, womp womp. I love kids so much like they just, they keep it so real. Avery Balasbas 6:14 They really do. Toni Rose Deanon 6:16 Well, thank you for sharing that. It's always so exciting to hear how our educators find modern classroom, it's also different and yet still the same, right? And so, again, thank you so much for joining us. I know that this month, I told you that we're going to be focusing on reflections. So in a modern classroom, one of my favorite things to have my learners do is reflect. It could be after lesson after week of instruction after unit honestly, whenever I felt the need for feedback, which I feel like as educators, we always need feedback. So how does classroom like learners reflection or classroom reflection look like in your class or look in your class? Avery Balasbas 6:51 I think reflection takes shape in many different forms, especially in in an English classroom. I think earlier on it was very much like I did free writes. And I was a really big fan of just setting a time to write for kids to express their feelings. Like there's that one like meme or drawing or like the character's face is like really red. And then as they're writing, the red goes down into the paper. And it's like transitioning what's you know, their thoughts onto onto the paper as they're writing. And I thought that was a really cool illustration. And that's where kind of why I thought that like writing is a powerful tool for students to express and reflect their feelings. And also because I didn't know as like a first year teacher like what to do. So I was like, I'm not going to do free writes every day as I do now until I find something else that's like more tangible. Toni Rose Deanon 7:38 Oh, my gosh, sorry, Avery I did that to my first year. So yes, I understand. Avery Balasbas 7:40 Cool. I'm glad that's very validating. And, yeah, that's kind of how I started with reflections until I kind of transitioned into trying to incorporate one on ones. But in like a, when I was teaching traditionally, there wasn't enough room for just one on one check ins all the time. Some other forms of reflection. I have like this metacognitive way of doing literary analysis that my master teacher taught me to get students to think about what they're doing when they're annotating so that I feel like that's another aspect of reflection. I definitely have like self assessments after like larger projects that students had to do like a write up. And like what went well, what didn't go well. And I think the most consistent form of reflection that I have is a end of unit reflection. And I'll ask like five questions to the students. Like, what was your favorite activity? What did you learn from this unit? What helps you understand or learn the most in this unit, have them reflect on their work habits, like again, what went well, and what didn't go well. And then like any suggestions for the next time that I do this unit, so like to improve it for the next generation of students? Or what is something that you want me to improve in our next unit that didn't, you know, fly this time around. And then now, the modern classroom like daily check in. Since that thing has been revamped so many times, it's so useful. I feel like that's one of my biggest forms of reflection now. Because students are like goal setting every day. And they're just writing about how they're feeling or how they're doing and, yeah, I think reflection is a huge aspect of my classroom. Because, uh, you know, they get to look back on what they did and what they learned and then just kind of improve from there. Toni Rose Deanon 9:30 I mean, all of those things, right? And it's, it's really interesting, because I know that when my students are always reflecting, we they come up with, like, the greatest things to say when they're really into it, right. And sometimes it'd be like, Oh, this lesson was actually trash in my opinion, but then they really enjoyed it. And I'd be like, what? It's so wild, but it's really nice to have student voice in right. And so every Have you ever had a student come up to you and be like, You know what, thank cue for actually implementing the suggestion that I recommended off of like the reflection that you had. Because you know, you're asking, you're asking students all the time like, hey, what What's your suggestion? How would you make this better? And then you did it right? Did they ever notice? Do they ever kind of compliment you on that or felt heard valued all of that? Avery Balasbas 10:20 I'm trying to think I feel like students have vocalized it. But it maybe came in like a different form where it was through like another feedback form. I feel like it wasn't so one on one or in person, because especially when I started doing like modern classroom stuff, I think a lot of the feedback that came in was, I don't want to call it logistical, maybe like structural on the LMS, and stuff like that. And it helps students. And I think the way that it was communicated to me was there was less complaining from them, about what what didn't, what wasn't going well. But when I think back to my first year of teaching, I was very much like, still in that transition going from student to the teacher. And so I don't have that classroom management down yet. And I remember I was teaching ninth graders, and class was just getting out of hand. And a ninth grader was like, hey, like, I really need you to like, step in and ask them to be quiet. And so when I had students giving you immediate feedback like that, telling me how they needed their classroom environment to be so that they could focus. And then when I implemented, you know, or did something about it, I do recall, like, the times, really, thank you for doing that. That means a lot that you stuck up for me. And I'm like, Oh, you're welcome. And I'm glad that helped. And that kind of helps me, you know, grow as an as a young teacher, because like, I'm still trying to find my backbone, and stop kids from, you know, pushing that boundary of like, how much can I test you? Because you're a young teacher, you know? Toni Rose Deanon 11:41 Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And when you got that feedback, right, because I hear a lot of reflection, self reflection from you, as well, like, Oh, yeah. You know, first year teaching classroom management is always a challenge for anyone who's coming into teaching, right? And you had your students say, like, hey, like, please get this together. Did that? Did you take offense to that? Like, what was your visceral reaction? When your student gave you that feedback? Avery Balasbas 12:04 I think I was more scared of anything feels like oh, no, I have to be an adult. I need to be the teacher like. And, yeah, when I started teaching, I think like, This is my fifth year teaching. That was when I was like, 23-24. And so like, it's just very young. And I was like, I am not ready to be the adults, but I am because I'm working here. And yeah, I think I was more scared than anything. Now when it happens. Like I see something happened in the classroom. Like, that is not okay. What Why is this happening? Yeah, I think, I don't think I was angry. But I think I had more fear of, am I going to be able to do this? Am I going to be able to, I guess, set the rules or the expectations of the classroom, and stick by it and not budge by it? Because let's say yeah, when if I do give a certain student, a set of instructions or something, and they're just like, No, I don't want to do that. It's like, usually, if something like that does happen, I like to find the middle ground and have a conversation with my students. I really liked for them to tell me what they need. And then how can we find a middle ground between everybody? Toni Rose Deanon 13:09 Yeah, and I again, I appreciate you saying that, because I think this is something that I know that I don't talk about often. Just the whole transition from, you know, being in college to being a quote unquote, adult, right? And just the the changes that happen of like, oh, my gosh, how do I transition to an adult now where I have a class of students? And I am, you know, I'm in charge? And how does this look? And how does this sound? And how does this feel? And so, I really liked that you named it because it's definitely something that I'm having conversations with my sister about. She's about to graduate college, and her biggest concern is, how do I shift from being a college student to a young adult? And I can't even imagine how it's been so long for me since my first year of teaching. And so it's really interesting to hear about that experience. And, and kind of funny to that you're like, I was just scared. Right? Like, oh, my god, like, I'm an adult. Now. This is on me. What do I do? Oh, my goodness. So thank you, thank you for for sharing that. So okay, so I taught middle school learners, right, so I had sixth grade babies. And when I didn't teach them explicitly this skill, like reflect reflecting, and I just kind of assumed that they knew how to reflect, I would get a lot of IDK, nothing or like blank responses to open ended questions. And I had to quickly realize like, oh, they need an example they need from you to model they need for me to teach them the skills and I know that sometimes our educators get a little bit flustered, right, because our students put idk and nothing on reflections. And so educators are like, You know what, I don't have time for that. They're not going to do it anyway. So how do you guide your learner's to reflect appropriately and deeply? Avery Balasbas 14:52 Yeah, like I would really like for teachers to think that we're thinking about reflection being as an important part of the classroom. In terms of goal setting, and everything, I think like, I know a lot of teachers who might not value it as much, because it doesn't necessarily relate to what the standards are asking for, it's not going to, you know, it's not part of that they need to learn this math equation or write this thesis statement or something. So not to say that teachers don't have different forms of reflection, like creating a writing writers portfolio or reflecting after like doing some sort of a self assessment. But I feel like reflection definitely goes beyond just the self assessment. And thinking about, yeah, again, like metacognitive, thinking, like, how are you growing as a learner as a human to become scholars you want to be and the IDKs have definitely come up. With the age of high school? I think like, there, yes, there's a difference between middle and high school. But I also feel like, especially ninth graders, that they're still they're just big middle schoolers, to be honest. And a lot of students I think, at the high school age very much feel like they don't, they will answer I don't know, because there's kind of like an insecurity with, like, I remember being a high school student. And when it came time to write about, say, my college essays, I just didn't feel confident about writing about myself. I recall like my essays being pretty bad. And when I look back at it, I'm like, I could have wrote about so much, I did so many leadership things and extracurricular stuff, but I just didn't leverage it. Because as a high schooler, you don't really you're not your biggest cheerleader yet. You're not very confident in yourself. And I think that's where it kind of were students struggle with reflection. And then I think that's also why I did the free writes very early on, when I was a first year teacher, I would give students just well prompts to just Okay, write about your day, how was second period, you know, just to get your feelings out on the paper. But then if I transitioned over to like a writing unit, when I got to creative writing, I would say like, write about a first like the first time something happened in your life, or write about in arguments or write about a confession or a place you consider home. And just giving students the opportunity to write freely where it's low stakes, it's not going to be criticized, I think it was a good first place to get students reflecting, without telling them that they're reflecting, and kind of getting them into that mindset. During like, my undergrad, I was a part of a nonprofit known as Pinoy, Pinay, educational partnerships, shout out San Francisco State, and Ate Allyson, they run the organization and also my credentialing program at the University of San Francisco. Simultaneously, they required me to journal and reflect on the day or the week of teaching that I was doing, and I still have my notebook. And now, in my fifth year, I realize, okay, I don't reflect as much anymore as it used to if it wasn't required. And now I really do understand what my mentors, were telling me when, as you get further into this career, you need to have intentional time to reflect. And so the way that I get my students to reflect is to also model that it taught me a lot as an educator to look at the ups and downs of what happened to the lesson, to reflect on what happened in the classroom, and, you know, shaped the teacher who I am now, and it all and that kind of all led me to lie, like I'll blog about stuff or, you know, try to express my experiences as a first year, second through fifth year teacher and just talk about those early stages in our career. Because like, I feel like, those things don't get talked about as a young teacher. And there's a huge expert blind spot for our seasoned and veteran teachers later on when they kind of look back, or at least from what I'm seeing, like, folks will look back and say, Oh, this new teachers well equipped, it's like, but we were all there one day, and we should also reflect to you know, help them out. I know that was less about students and more about teachers. But I think modeling how to reflect has helped my students figure out how to reflect. Toni Rose Deanon 18:49 And I think that's really important to say to every it's not downplaying it, it is really important that students see that you are doing the same thing. Right? I know that sometimes. I mean, especially worked with middle school, and I'm sure high schoolers do this as well, is that I can't just say do this and not do it with them. Because students don't understand like, Oh, you've never done this, you're just telling me what to do, just because you have all the control and power, right. And so I like if I have an assignment or anything that I expect for my students to complete, or master or whatever, I always made sure that I did that assignment as well, just so that I kind of know what I wanted them to create. And there's like a better I think it's just more transparent, right. And so modeling is really important. I mean, especially with all the work that we're doing now, as individuals really like for us to make a difference in our world, we really have to look deep within us. Right? And so you naming the fact that okay, this was really a lot about me reflecting but that's That in itself is really powerful that your students are able to see that and actually feel that and say like Okay, Mr. B is actually really genuine about the reflection. So we also want to take this seriously because Mr. B also does too. You know, one thing that I really liked that you That was that there you have to be intentional or create like an intentional time to reflect right? One of the things that I really love about this model is that you can create that time and space for every single student to reflect. When prior when I was teaching, traditionally, I didn't have that time, it was just like, Go Go, go go go all the time and trying to cover as many standards and I just, I was one of those teachers, I kind of put the reflections in the back burner, because we just didn't have time for it. And like you said, it was just not part of the standards. And so now there's just a lot more time and space to be intentional with reflecting. And we don't, I feel like it really does help us learn and improve as human beings as individuals, when we take a step to reflect when we, when we take that moment to reflect right? You were talking about free, right. And that was something that I did, because when I went to a when I went through teacher training, that was another thing that they also said was like do dialogue journals, or free writes for your students to really increase their confidence in writing, because for whatever reason, our school system has really just made our students feel bad as writers. And so I did the dialogue journal, and I had about I want to say, like 80 students my first year, and I was doing dialogue journals with every single one of them. And so what that meant was my students were free writing in the beginning of class, and then I would take the time to read every single one of my students responses and respond back. And so it was a dialogue that was happening. And it was just so beautiful. But that was a way for them to get to writing to see themselves as writers and also do a lot of these metacognitive work and reflecting and, and seeing how they changed from like day one from the first day of seventh grade to the last day of seventh grade. And I also write every single morning because then I can kind of write down everything that went well for me and and things that I want to continue improving. And it's just such a powerful tool. And so I'm just really excited to talk to just continue talking about this. And you mentioned a blog, a ray, do you mind sharing that with us so that we can put it in the show notes? So if we have some teachers who are brand new to this profession, maybe it'll help them out a little bit? Avery Balasbas 22:11 Yeah, I can definitely share that later on. And that's definitely why like, I started doing stuff like that, because I felt like there wasn't anything out there for newer teachers, or I at least just wanted to share my experience and like if it could help someone, that'd be great. And the more that I've entered the space of education, the more that I've learned, many teachers, like newer teachers have been doing the same thing trying to talk about what they've experienced in the classroom, what's happening. And I think especially now, there's like a very pre pandemic post pandemic kind of teaching, like more now than ever, I think teachers need to speak out about what's going on, so that we can help our new generation of teachers build capacity and stay in the industry, and that they become lifelong teachers and not leave because of you know, the five year teacher burnout. Toni Rose Deanon 22:56 Yeah, and that's a whole other topic. Yah. Yah hoo, who? And then what was that organization that you mentioned, the Pinoy and Pinay. Avery Balasbas 23:07 Yeah, Pinoy Pinay Educational Partnerships, or PEP for short. It was a it's a program through San Francisco State University, nonprofit that, Allison, I hope I don't butcher name Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. She started with her other colleagues to teach Filipino American Studies at certain schools within San Francisco Unified. And I was fortunate enough to get into the program. And basically, college students are teaching a Filipino American studies course at the K through 12 levels, depending if you choose to work at the elementary, middle or high school sites. And actually one of the other kind of reflection tools or I guess, things that I use to get students to be vulnerable and break open is something that they taught me and I do this at the start of my school year with the syllabus day. It's called the Talang Buhay, which translates the life story in Tagalog, and the presentation or whatever art piece you make just consists of three core components, your past, present, and future. And so I have this whole like minds evolve that used to be like a newspaper article turned into a Google slide turned into a keynote and then now can be an instructional video that I put up for back to school night, or I just present it and it's a lot of myself who I was before who I am right now and and who I want to be in where I'm going. And just that's how I open up the school year to show students this is me, this is how vulnerable I am being with all of you so that they know that I'm not just there's there's just weird line or wall between me and them as the teacher and student. And then that actually builds into well, now there's a unit zero for my classroom, but I have a community building unit that I kind of start off with listening to like some podcast episodes to talk about mental health, transitioning into Some activities that I stole from my passion planner that has like a goal setting and self care reflection stuff in there. And then that all leads into students doing some reflection activities. And they have to do their own column. Whoo, hi, by the end of the first quarter, and that's how they introduce officially introduce themselves to all of their classmates, by the end of that unit. Before we like, really get into the first English unit that I do. Toni Rose Deanon 23:07 Oh, that's so beautiful. Avery, I am googling it right now. And this looks so dope, actually, this is wow, this is really, really, really cool. I'm actually leaving to go to the Philippines next week. So. So I'm excited to just continue getting to know Filipino history and my ancestry and all of that good stuff. So this is I love it. And to hear you speak something I look to just make make my heart smile. Oh my gosh, this is so great. I'm so happy right now. I'm so so happy. Thank you for sharing this, we're definitely gonna put this in the show notes just so that folks can check this out too. Because I think this is really dope. I know that there's been a push in California about like Filipino American History, right? Or just Filipino history. And so I really appreciate that even like speaking to teachers in Hawaii, where there's like a huge population of Filipinos, their interest, trying to have Filipino history classes and literature and all of that. It's really, really cool. Thank you for sharing this. Okay, we're gonna get right back on track. That was really great. I mean, not we really weren't off track, because it's still tied in with the reflection piece that you're able to share with your students and what they're creating as well. And so let's kind of transition to another thing that I hear. I don't wanna say often, but I've heard more than I want to hear, right. And so I've heard educators say, like, how do you motivate learners, I don't know how to make blank, whatever that blank is work for my learners, or they just don't know how to whatever, right. And so my biggest, my biggest thing that I always say, and like my number one go to response is ask your learners. Right, so they're a part of this process. And it is their learning. We are we are facilitators, we are the guides, and this is their learning journey. And I always say like, Oh, you don't know how to motivate your students have a conversation with them figure it out. Right? So how do you invite your learners to be part of their learning? Avery Balasbas 27:24 Yeah, and I think reflection is a huge part of that the metacognitive aspect that I was talking about earlier. And having students to feel motivated. I think maybe it's just because I'm in California and San Francisco, there's a huge push for ethnic studies to be implemented. And the three pillars of like ethnic studies for SF USD focuses on knowledge of self solidarity and, and self determination. And it's a cycle, and they feed into each other. And so how I try to get my students motivated, at least, I feel like is really related through some sort of cultural relevancy, having them feel represented in the classroom. And that's kind of where I leaned on. And then when I found like watering classroom, I feel like, now I'm trying to combine both of those, because it's like, modern classroom, does encourage students and empowers them to have agency to take control of their learning. And then through something like with this ethnic studies model, it's like, through academia, you know, it's your, through learning about your identity, and your culture, like, you know, fuels your knowledge of self, you know, has you connect with the community, and then you do feel self determined. And I think a big part of how I try to motivate students is to bridge what we do in English, which you know, oftentimes can be some old canonical thing that nobody likes, and then trying to make it relevant, which is what I really enjoy about English as a subject is that, you know, I have the ability as a teacher to help students draw the connections between why this age old thing exists, and how it's relevant to today. And then the reflection aspect to just having students really think about who am I as a learner, am I capable of doing this, which they are, and encouraging them to do so. And the part that I love about writing reflection in general, is that students and teachers alike often dismiss it as, like, not formative or summative types of writing. But to your point earlier, like with your seventh graders at the beginning, and at the end of the year, you see how much they've grown as a writer and how much they can write. And even just practicing that muscle of writing, you did the same thing as you would practicing for swim or for you know, your your music instrument. So like, Can we do the same for writing? And I think, you know, educators that few are feeling students not being motivated. I think like, writing just has to be reading, writing and English in general just has to be reframed into something that can be more accessible for the students. I think that's where like low stakes stuff really comes in because allowing the students to feel safe and attempt something so they know they're not being criticized eyes. And then when they constantly keep practicing that muscle, then it's like, oh, I'm actually capable of writing. And it's funny because like, I learned that in college, like I took a creative writing class, and the professor, creative writing nonfiction class, and I was like, I'm not a creative writer, I'm a lit major, you know, but I had to take it to graduate. And by the end, I felt confident in my writing, because every single day, he gave us a writing prompts and write this, do that. And it just proves that with some practice and routine, you can grow as a writer, and I feel like educators, we do have the ability to make change. It's just about us thinking, how can we rethink the way that we're presenting the activity or assignment to the students so that they feel like they can connect to the instructions we're giving them? Toni Rose Deanon 30:47 Yes, yes. And yes. And another thing that I want to add on to is that it's not just up to the English teachers to teach reading and writing, right? Every single educator out there is a reading and writing educator. I know that as an English teacher, I would get so frustrated that English teachers were the only ones who needed to go to PD that talked about how to teach writing. And it's like, No, everyone needs to go to this PD, because every single student writes in every single content. So it's not just us. And so I really liked that push to have like, you know, what, it's on us as educators to just kind of reflect and see how can we make this relatable and engaging for our students? Because like you said, right, I've often had students who would come in and be like, Oh, I hate English, English is my least favorite subject. It's boring. I don't want to do this and all of that. And so really trying to figure out what they're interested in. And again, like welcoming them in right, like, Okay, this may be boring. But can you think of something that could represent this book that we're reading in media, and they come up with, like, some of the coolest things and if you're doing Park, the standardized test, and there's common core standards, compare and contrast, that's a skill, right of like, here's a written work and a, like a media for it. So it could be like music or video. And so I knew that my students really loved doing that comparison. And also like incorporating the technology to write like I knew before the pandemic, hit my students really love tick tock. And so I said, You know what, we're gonna welcome it, instead of me fighting it, create a tick, talk about the book that we're reading, and what are some character traits of the main character and they just had like, such a blast with that, and I, they were learning, so they were doing the thing that they're used to doing, and they were learning and educating other folks, too. So those are all good points that you shared with us. Okay, so we're listeners, we're going to take a quick break for an announcement. And when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about Avery stories. Hi, listeners, this is Tony rose, Deanna. And we are now offering two scholarships opportunities available to educators looking to create blended, self paced mastery based classrooms. One of them is a learning differences scholarship, open to special education and ELL educators. The other one is a Minnesota educators of color scholarship and open to all Minnesota educators of color. We'll be linking the scholarships page in the show notes. So please check that out. All right, and now we're back with Avery. And so Avery, how can educators be more intentional with creating reflection questions that learners can gain a better understanding of themselves as learners? You kind of talked about this a little bit. But I guess my question would be like, What do you typically do with the reflections? So as, as you're aware, right, data driven thing is something that we're always talking about. And typically, it's grades. And so when we look at grades that informs how we teach the next lesson, or informs us if we need to go back and reteach something, right. Do you use your reflections as a way to plan for your next lessons? And I think you've kind of answered this already. But we'll talk a little bit more about it. And how do the learner reflections impact? How have you moved, how you've moved forward the curriculum and how you teach? Avery Balasbas 34:08 For Yeah, 100% with reflections, I used to do kind of like a fishbowl discussion, almost, I think it's really important to have, like you were saying earlier students to be the stakeholders and to be active in their learning, and to be a part of the planning. And that's how I get students to be a part of the planning. It's a lot through reflection and feedback that they give me before in my very early years, like I would sit with my computer, and just have the students talk to me through the five questions that I mentioned earlier of my unit and of unit feedback. And I just take a bunch of notes, and then try to synthesize it, and then integrate it into my classroom. And that kind of is how I really built my first set of curriculum. And what I teach now, and now it's more, I'll look at the student feedback and I'll kind of synthesize it and see what are the common things that students want change and then present All those things are the classic. And I'll say, Hey, this is what was common across all our 10th grade classes, not just this period. Do you all think this should be implemented like this? And then I'll kind of like, almost workshop with them, through the most, you know, highly requested feedback and see how can we implement it. And with my site uses Google Classroom, as its LMS. And Google Classroom is not the best in terms of sorting things. I think like you really have to be intentional with Google Classroom, because it's not like I would say canvas and some other things where you can have drop down menus and a little fancier things. And so I was trying to figure out why wasn't actually the students were, their feedback was, hey, like, can you put this? Can you put a student example? Or can you put the videos here? Can you link this here, and they really the students that I had last year particularly really helped me build out the way things were structured. When it comes to using reflection as a form of data. I find that very fascinating to inform how I teach the next lesson, for me, and maybe it is because I'm an English teacher, depending on like the student responses, I'll be reading them and I'll realize, okay, no one read the instructions. They're not citing properly, even though I put an example of how to cite the passage. But it's clear that if they didn't see it, that means I need to do something, I need to fix the instructions. Maybe it wasn't clear, or they missed it in the instructional video. And that's the kind of like, what I love about modern classroom is that it's become so reflexive for me to look back on what's what I did wrong, and then try to tweak it and fix it instead of kind of victimizing myself. And so using the student feedback, now feedback, using their reflections to facilitate the next lesson, or even just whatever they write in their assignments is huge for me. And I've actually been doing interviews lately for like bringing hiring new teachers. And I have this question asking them, how do they use data to inform the way they teach? And it's, it's pretty often, like you said, everyone talks about grades or assessment scores, and no one really talks about how do we use reflection to inform how to make the next unit better? Or how to better support our students, and I think, a written format, and a letter from the students even I love it, when the students write me a letter. I feel like they're more authentic. Instead of asking, like, even the five questions I asked, when I asked them to write a letter instead, I feel like it's more of them than it is that I'm trying to answer your questions that I assigned, Toni Rose Deanon 37:32 huh? Yeah, I mean, I really, I really liked that you also kind of, not kind of you do notice nonverbal cues as well. Right. So I mean, you said this earlier, too, is like, oh, when they're not complaining, that's kind of their feedback that I'm doing something that you know, that they recommended. And even when you're talking about like, oh, you know, students are getting a lot of students are getting this wrong. So then something needs to change. So I think that I really liked that you're looking at the nonverbal cues as well of just like how the structure is working out for your students. Another thing too, that just popped up for me, and this is something that I just learned, I think like a month ago or something, I was doing a coaching for equity workshop with Elena Aguilar. And they talked about how emotions are data. And I completely agree with that, right? So it doesn't necessarily have to be grades, because I feel like sometimes when our students are not feeling well, they're not in there. They're not showing up as their best self. Of course, they're not going to do well on whatever it is that we're giving them, right. And so definitely, like taking another step back, and not just the grades, but also like thinking about how the culture the classroom culture is thinking about what, how and how students are behaving, because behavior is a way of communicating, right. And so I, it's interesting, it's interesting now that you say, like, Hey, I'm part of hiring new teachers, and we do have conversations about data. And it is solely focused on grades. And that's something that I didn't even like, recognize up until I was writing these questions out to ask you. So it's just, it's really, it's really interesting to see that we can utilize like anecdotes and reflections from students to make our teaching and learning practice that much better for them. So thank you for sharing that. And you know, earlier you also said Avery that you had this opportunity to create this learning environment for your learners to increase engagement, right. And so how did you decide to revamp and innovate your classroom space, even though I know that you kind of had to shift that to a digital space, and that's also really exciting and interesting. So and I've seen some of the videos that you create, you've created and I'm just so amazed and it's just so cool. And I think there was one that you emailed me and I'm going to put that in the show notes if you don't mind just so that our listeners can see but it. Can you tell us more about this process for you? Avery Balasbas 40:03 Yeah. So when I finally got my own classroom, my first year was spent traveling as a traveling teacher. So I did have my own classroom. Each period was a different veteran teacher. And so I think I had a lot of reflection through that on my own. Because I had different types of teachers assessing the way that I taught English. It was very nerve wracking. But so and being in those different spaces, they all had different furniture, they had different setups. And so that really impacted me to think about how could I make my own classroom when I finally got it, maximize the long wooden tables that I had to facilitate collaboration. And my coworker homies and I, we were trying to develop a program that supported our black and brown students, those that were truant, or kind of in like the DNF area, because they gravitated to our classrooms. And we were thinking, how can we leverage these relationships that we have with them, to get them to succeed? And so it led to thinking about how can we create, you know, and create an environment that nurtures these students success, essentially, this led into trying to create like a CTE Academy, we have a certain academies at our school with the CTE teachers, like Teacher Academy and green Academy and Business Academy. And so we wanted to create a social justice one that pretty much served our our underrepresented groups, because those other academies, when you look at the data, it's just like, oh, there's only certain kinds of students who are in those academies, especially whether it's grade wise, or even ethnically. And we were told, we can't have a social justice group. So we, we renamed it public health. And this led to us finding a program that actually incorporated the classroom design, which was the video you mentioned earlier, we were recorded into a program and then that they really made us think about physical space. And this was in between, actually, pre pandemic all the way till now, because it got postponed in terms of the project. And so in between all of that, I was able to focus on how can I make a digital space learning better. So then when I returned to the classroom, I was learning and setting up the MCP model, while also me and my colleagues were building and designing how we wanted our classrooms to look. And so it was kind of just this parallel thing, if you like, it was like a blessing that I found a modern classroom. And then now I have this newly designed classroom with the same time. And we were really thinking about, not only just, you know, can we get cool furniture, because teachers love getting new things and stuff like that. But being really intentional about the stuff that we were choosing, like for my classroom, specifically, I really wanted to have different spaces in the room, because I knew that's what the modern classroom model kind of asks for. Can I have a space dedicated for mastery checks? And could it be a quieter space? So students can go over there? Can I have like a high table where students can I can call them over and say, like, hey, students, one, two, and three, your names are orange on the Progress Tracker, let's come to the middle high table, and I'm going to reteach lesson four, and then the whiteboard tables for collaboration, etc. And I was able to really create, like, in the physical space, different pockets of the room to allow for different types of learning collaboration. And, yeah, I think like when it was the digital space during COVID, it was just really trying to think about how can we get students engaged because of the Zoom fatigue that they were experiencing. And they just needed something interactive. And so Nearpod saved me with that, because it had interactive game gamified things and quizzes. And so that when they were looking at a slide, and I changed on the teacher facing side, and I changed the slide, a question would come up, and they would have to answer it. And students really appreciated that. And I do see that when we returned from online learning. And students were in my class again, they're like, Thank you for really putting in the time that you did, because it made learning at least somewhat engaging, overall stuck at home on Zoom. Toni Rose Deanon 44:00 Yeah, the whole digital, the digital space part was so difficult for a lot of educators. I was actually an instructional coach during that time. And I had no idea what I was doing as an instructional coach. Because I was like, I don't know, hybrid. I've never done this before. So it was such an interesting time. And, and that's really nice for your students to come back and just be like, I we realize we notice and we know and we want to acknowledge all the work that you've done to make this a little bit more engaging for us. And thank you and I think that in itself is just really, really powerful. But I you know, kudos to you for always just keeping your students in the center, right? Like it's very much a student centered space that you've created. You have kept your students at the center of every decision that you've made in your teaching career so far, and I'm just really excited to see how, how it continues for you, right, like you said, this is your fifth year of teaching, so I feel like you're just going to continue You just being amazing. And so when we're looking at future wives, right, like every What do you hope to see in the future? And what goals do you have? Speaker 2 45:09 Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I tell students that I don't know if I'm going to be teaching forever. Like in my taleng buhay that's part of like my future slide, I leave it open to show that like, there's room for growth and change. And I feel very fortunate to have had the five years of teaching that I've had so far to bring me all this experience and knowledge. And I hope to, you know, help other teachers like think about redesigning their classrooms and intentionality behind that, or even implementing implementing a model like Modern Classrooms, and I'm very passionate about those things. I hope that I can help other teachers do that. And like, I'm just manifesting it because like, ever since like, well, you know, this isn't really anything. But I definitely, like, have a huge passion for boring classrooms. And I think after getting the DMCE and like seeing that there's mentorship opportunities, just like I would love to, whether it's work with Modern Classrooms, or find ways to implement it into, like San Francisco Unified, just to help other teachers, like, level up their teaching. I know this isn't a model that is supposed to be like, Okay, everyone, we're all going to do the same thing. But what I love about the model is that you can take bits and pieces of it and make it fit your needs. And I've been, and I want teachers in you would think, in the Bay Area, or San Francisco, place near Silicon Valley, that's huge on technology, there would be more teachers, you know, using modern classrooms are getting into blended learning and self pacing. And I just hope that I can help teachers see this stuff, and that they can help reinvent and rethink what learning curves look like for their students. Toni Rose Deanon 46:50 And I love that Avery, I have definitely felt your passion since the first day that we've interacted and so I'm, you know, I'm gonna push for you to be a mentor just so that we can have you in that space. Because I think that you're definitely going to be so impactful. And just very engaged with just teaching teachers, right. And so, yeah, you just let us know what we can do to better support you. But I mean, you're doing all the things every and we're gonna manifest all of these things that you want in the future, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. So Avery, how can our listeners connect with you? Speaker 2 47:26 There's definitely multiple ways to connect with me. I think the easiest thing is on Instagram. I'm an Instagram user. So my Instagram is Balasbasays, but it's my last name. And then a y s. We'll put that I think we'll put that in the show notes. If you can't spell it. It was like it was like a play on words, because those are my initials. And I was like, Oh, looks like it says I'm saying something. So I don't know. I thought it was cool. But if you Google, if you Google Balasbasays like the first thing that should show up is like my blog. I've been trying to build like a curriculum resource website of just stuff that I do. And hopefully it helps teachers. Because I know one of the biggest things is like the paywall behind teacher resources. And that was so frustrating as a first year teacher because like, I just need a worksheet Someone please help me out. And if you want to listen to me somewhere else, I do have a podcast with my partner and our friends on Spotify. Wine Thursday podcast. Toni Rose Deanon 48:23 Yes! Avery Balasbas 48:25 Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, we just talk about life. And you can get to know me better there. Toni Rose mentioned the video that I have, and I'm trying to actually get, I guess another goal is like, I'm trying to get my instructional videos, just like on a playlist on YouTube. So if other teachers are like, how do I do an instructional video, they can just see how it's laid out. And then the final thing, sorry, this is a lot, I stream on Twitch. And that actually was birthed out of the pandemic, where I was trying to find a way to connect with students and I know they all play video games. It's like, okay, I'm gonna make co working streams on Twitch, and I've kind of just stuck with it ever since it's been a great way to connect with my students that have graduated because they're all still using social media like that. And I don't use Tik Tok. So I can't connect with them in that way. But I was like, I can connect here because I also play video games. But I do have a link that has all that stuff I just mentioned. So you don't have to google all these multiple things. Toni Rose Deanon 49:21 Yeah, and we'll have that on the show notes. And also before we get off, Avery just go ahead and spell out your last name to Avery Balasbas 49:29 Oh, yeah, it's B as in boy, a l a s B as in boy as Toni Rose Deanon 49:35 perfect and yeah, that's how I knew that Avery was Filipino. Last name, it's so bad. I love it. I love it so much. Every year doing some again you're doing incredible things and I'm excited to even be a much bigger stalker now that you've provided all of these ways to access and get to know you. So thank you so much. I just recently heard of Twitch, which is wild, because I know it's been around for a while. So I'm glad that you're doing that to even just continue connecting with your students. My heart is really happy Avery. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and energy Avery, I'm really again, just like at awe of you and just continue to do all the great things and we're going to manifest all the things that you want, it's all going to happen. And so, listeners remember, you can always email us at podcast@modernclassrooms.org And you can find the show notes for this episode at podcast.modernclassrooms.org/139. We'll have this episode's recap and transcripts uploaded to the modern classrooms blog on Friday, so be sure to check their check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday. Zach Diamond 50:53 Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at www.modernclassrooms.org. And you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @modernclassproj. That's p r o j we are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast.