Episode 92: From The Archive: Backwards Planning in a Modern Classroom Voiceover: 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. Hi Modern Classroom family. Welcome to our 61st podcast episode where we talk about backwards planning. So in this episode, I've actually had the pleasure of getting to know Lindsay Armbrucester through our MCP Facebook group. So we have a special treat for you this episode. Lindsay is a middle school health teacher in New York and a recent Distinguished Modern Classroom educator. And again, my name is Tony Rosen and she her pronouns and I am a Modern Classroom Program manager. So let's get this started. Lindsay, tell us more about who you are and how you started your MCP journey. Absolutely. So, as Tony Rose said, I am a middle school health teacher. This is my 18th year as a teacher and I spent most of my time in the middle school level. But I have taught K through Twelve Health and I also teach Graduate School Teacher Education program, so I'm kind of run the gamut of education. Middle school is definitely my love. Those wonderful weirdos are just absolutely the best human beings out there. And I have always taught health education. I don't teach anything else. That's really where my love is as well. I love to be able to teach the kids the skills that they need to lead a healthy life so that they can do everything that they want to do. In terms of my MCP journey, I was playing around with the idea of self pacing for a long time before Covan 19 pandemic hit us. And I was struggling. So I was playing around with that idea of self pacing and then I was also struggling in the world of education and also kind of considering leaving the classroom because it just wasn't like it just wasn't loving it anymore. And then as the pandemic hit and we had to start working from home and engaging kids in different ways, I kind of found my mojo and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. This is what I want to do. I love this self pacing and I love making videos and how do I put this all together? And lo and behold, I found the Modern Classrooms Project and it was like an AHA moment for me. And it was amazing because it pulled together self pacing, mastery based learning, blood and instruction, all of these things that I was like wanting to do in my class, but I didn't know how to pull it together. And so I did. And I have been implementing the MCP model since March of 2020. And like Tony Row said, I just became a Distinguished Modern Classrooms educator. And I love this model, and I share it with as many people as I possibly can. And it is an ongoing journey of transitioning and tweaking and changing and adjusting. But it has renewed my love for teaching because I feel like I'm doing what is right for me as a teacher and what is right for kids as learners. So that's me. Thank you so much for that. Just like you, we know all these buzzwords of blended learning, self paced and mastery based grading, and just like you, I didn't know how to put all of that together. So finding modern classroom for me was such a nice surprise. They just kind of glued everything together. And so thank you for sharing that. And also, Lindsay, again, congratulations on becoming a distinguished modern classroom educator. And you recently applied for it, and you got accepted, and you are one, which is really exciting. And so we're in the second year of our pandemic, and with all the uncertainties and everything that's happening in our education system, what motivated you to apply to become one? Because I've heard that it takes a long time to apply, but for the most part, when you and I were talking about it previously, it just seems like you really enjoyed the process. So can you tell us more about that? Yeah, I'm totally a teacher nerd, and so I love to explore the things that I do in my classroom and why I do it and have validation for it. And so that was really why I loved the process of applying to become a distinguished modern classrooms educator. I am super excited about the possibility of becoming a mentor, which was really my really big motivation to apply, because I love to teach teachers. I do a lot of professional development in my district. I teach graduate students who are future teachers. So teaching teachers is a really big passion of mine, and that was really the big push to apply for the biggest distinguished modern classrooms educator. And I love thinking about why I do the things that I do. And yeah, I guess that's it. I would have to say, like, Zach and I really, truly enjoyed getting to know teachers all over the country and all over the world and, like, different content areas and grade levels as well. So we're excited to have you as a DMcE. We're excited to see your journey with us. So thank you again. And also just want to name the fact that thank you for saying yes to this podcast and being a part of this and just spending some time with us today. So before we get started with the rest of our questions, how are you doing? How are you feeling? How's the school year going for you? Well, I'm good overall. I am an eternal optimist in general, so things are good. However, I feel like this is your number one as a teacher all over again. And this is really your number 18 for me, but it feels like a first year. This is probably maybe even harder than my first year of teaching. Living in post, not even post pandemic world, but living in mid pandemic world where education is trying to go back to what it was. But I don't know if it really should go back to what it was because we learned so much when we were not doing school as we traditionally have done it. So I feel like a first year teacher, but I have experience, lots of experience on my side. And I also have the Modern Classrooms Project, which includes lots of instructional videos that I've created over time, which really helps me feel like not a first year teacher because I can just utilize a lot of the resources that I've had in the past. But overall things are good. I'm happy for experience and we will get through this. Yeah, we kind of have to, right? Like we don't have an option. We kind of just have to get through it. And it's interesting to see schools and districts are really trying to go back to that normal what it was before and it's such a struggle. And I know that when I speak to teachers, it's a lot more stressful at this school year than anything. I appreciate your optimism, I appreciate your motivation to continue doing what's best for our students. And you naming the fact with the instructional videos really helped out with your planning and helped out alleviate your stress as well. That's really good to hear. And something that I noticed in your DMcE application too, is that you said something that stood out to me about instructional videos and that was you stating the video is not the lesson, it is part of the lesson. And I was just like, wow, that's like a really, really good point. So again, thank you for stating that and sharing that. I kind of already knew it, but I needed to actually read it and see it from someone else's perspective. Yes, I heard that somebody else said it. Someone associated with Modern Classrooms Project. I can't remember who it was, but it really resonated with me that that's just one little piece. But it's a powerful piece, but it is one little piece of implementing this whole model. Yeah. And you and I have talked about the misconceptions of a modern classroom being just all in front of a screen, looking at a screen, but really that's not it. Right? Like the instructional video is just maybe five, six minutes and then you can make everything else paper based or collaborative or anything like that. But the lessons itself is on a computer where students are watching the video and they can access it whenever. Shout out to who said that? I wish I could remember who it was, but I don't know. I listened to a lot of things. Yeah, and we have a great community as well. We have a great modern classroom family who constantly are providing support and resources and all of that. So that's really awesome to hear. Thanks Lindsay. Let's talk about our planning process for MCP. A lot of the times their teachers feel a little bit overwhelmed, right, with the front loading and starting off the modern classroom model only because you really do need to backwards plan and basically you have to have what your unit looks like, right? You need to know how many lessons you have, you need to know what your summative assessment is. And the thing is, teachers already know this, but with modern classroom you kind of have to front load it, all right? And so it's a little bit overwhelming sometimes. So can you tell us a little bit about your planning process? Awesome. Yes. So my planning process is really designed from the backwards planning model. I love Stephen Covey's book. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are of highly effective teenagers, and one of those habits is begin with the end in mind. And so I always begin with the end in mind. And in my mind the end is the standards. What do kids need to be able to do when they leave my classroom? So in a health education classroom, kids need to be able to communicate about health topics. They need to plan and set health goals, they need to make healthy decisions, they need to advocate for their own and their peers and their families and their community health. All of these skills, this is what they need to be able to do. And so I begin with the end in mind. So we'll take one unit, and then we come up with a summative assessment. I'm so lucky in my district. Well, some people may not think of it as lucky, but I get to design my own summative assessments, which is challenging and time consuming, but it gives me the opportunity to really make sure that I'm assessing my kids on the skills and performance indicators that they are being taught. So we create a design that summative assessment and then I create those learning targets or the objectives for the whole unit. So we're still looking big picture right now. We've got standards, summative assessment, how they're going to show what they know, their objectives and their learning targets and then I associate the mastery checks. So in the MCP model, I take each of those learning targets and I create a mastery check before I've even done anything with lesson planning because that shows me that's the end point for each lesson which if they can achieve on the mastery checks and they're going to be able to ideally achieve on the summative assessment when they pull it all together. So after I create or design those mastery checks, which are usually really short and targeted, then I move into creating learning activities and I try to make a balance of computer based and not computer based and a balance of collaborative and non collaborative, making sure that everything kind of balances out. And I think balance is a really important part of instructional planning that we're not always doing the same things over and over again. So I balance all out those learning activities, whatever the kids are going to be doing to ultimately achieve the objectives and then finally towards the end, I create the instructional videos. So the instructional videos get all the kind of attention for Modern Classrooms project, but in my planning process it's actually one of the last steps that I use when I'm creating planning for a class or for a unit. So those instructional videos with the associated guided notes, I then create and then I pull it all together and do all the organizational logistical stuff of posting it and scheduling things to post and getting all the materials together. But it all starts with beginning with the end in mind. I like to analogize the way I think of planning to a knitting project. So I'm a huge knitter. My mother got me into knitting when I was like six years old and the way my mom knits is she sees yarn that she likes and she just buys the yarn and she figures out what she's going to make with it at some point later on and so she has a closet full of yarn waiting to be turned into something. However, when I see something that I want to create, I see the end product and then I get the pattern and then I get the yarn and then I do the creation. So I have not a huge stash of yarn because I am not just seeing things and hoping that someday it will all pull together. So that's backwards planning from the school perspective and the knitting perspective. I really love that analogy and kudos to you for learning how to knit. I am not very good. It's a great analogy and I really like what you said right? Like making sure that you have basically the end in mind. We'll have Lindsay's planning process in the show notes as well so you can kind of see the different steps that she takes when she's planning her lesson for modern classroom. And it is really interesting to know that the instructional videos come last. And I know, like, when I was planning at first, the instructional videos was what I focused on and it took me forever because I just didn't have everything else planned out. So don't do that part. And so when we're talking about instructional videos, this could be the most time consuming part of creating a modern classroom. And I noticed that in Lindsay's application. Right, Lindsay, you did say that, like, step five and six, which is like, creating the learning activity materials, and instructional videos are the ones that are the most time consuming and thoughtprovoking. And I think this is really good to name as well for our teachers who are trying out this model and who gets overwhelmed thinking about front loading for the unit. And so I appreciate you being able to name that as well. Yes, definitely. It's a lot. It's a lot to plan for, but then you get to once it's all planned out, then you get to kind of sit back and watch the magic happen and work with the kids and the way that I plan, also, I do like units by chunks, so it works for me, but it also works for my middle school kids. So a unit in my class would probably have like, tenish lessons. And I'll put out unit three A, which will have three lessons in it, and then three B, which will have the next few lessons in it. And so that gives me some time to do those bigger, longer things, instructional videos and learning activities, like pull all that together. It gives me a little bit of extra time. And it also is not so overwhelming for my students to see ten lessons worth of work popping up on Google Classroom. So that really helps me with planning, it gives me the time, and it also helps my kiddos brains from exploding when they see a huge list of stuff popping up on Google Classroom. And I think that's key, right? Like chunking it out for you as a teacher as well as for your students. Because you're right, our students get overwhelmed. Like, for example. So let's say the communication unit. I say, okay, we're going to plan this communication unit. I decide what are the, I know what the standards are, I don't come up with those performance indicators, what skills and what functional knowledge. In the world of health education, functional knowledge is content like the traditional health topics, that's functional knowledge. So all of that gets decided how that's going to piece together and that's the end. That's what we need our kids to be able to do. So I decide that or we as a department perhaps decide that it's exciting to know, okay, we have this many lessons in our unit, but also at the same time, keeping in mind that we don't want to release all of those resources all at once just because our students get overwhelmed. And so following that statement, how many lessons do you release at a time for your students? It really depends on the depth of the lessons. I would say on average, three to four lessons are released at a time, and then I'll release the next section once a bunch of kids are ready for the next group. And so I let those kids who are working, like, far ahead of pace, they can do other things. I have a bunch of, like, puzzles in my classroom. They can work as a teacher's assistant with me. So those kids who are really far ahead of pace. They can kind of take on a different role in the classroom as they're waiting for other peers to catch up. We definitely are self pacing in my class, but we kind of stay within the same chunk within a unit as we're progressing on. So three to four lessons per chunk is what I typically do, and I like that too. I just had a conversation with another teacher about self pacing and making sure that not a lot of students are getting behind. And so one thing that I said was, you can release one lesson a week. And so the student has one week to finish that lesson, but then they know the following week they move on to the second lesson. So they have that whole entire time. So it's still kind of self pacing, right? Like some students will take a day or two to finish that lesson. Some students will take all week to finish that lesson. So it's still self pacing. Yeah, but like I said, you have three to four lessons at a time, so that way your students are not getting behind like five lessons or like six lessons behind. Then you get frustrated and then your students get frustrated and then everyone is frustrated and that's not what we want. When I first started MCP, I released everything and that's the instance that we got into where people were spanning ten lessons different. And I was like, this is just not good. This is not what I want. So chunking it down helps me plan and it helps the kids. It just helps the kids. Yeah. And so when you have, let's say, ten lessons in a unit, do you typically have all of your videos created already or how do you plan that out? I have them created out in my head already, but as of right now, I would say I'm pretty comfortable with all of my videos for all of my units. Some of them definitely need tweaking, but if I was to create a whole new unit on something completely fresh when I release a unit, I would not have all the videos recorded and ready to go when I release the first three lessons. I just don't think that I would have the capacity to do that. And so I give myself that buffer by chunking it out. But they're all planned and I have an outline of what's going to go into the videos because it all relates back to the objectives which ultimately connect to the summative assessment, which ultimately connect to the standard. So it's all drafted in my head, and often on paper that probably I'm the only one who could understand, but I would not probably have all the videos created ready to go when I release the first chunk of lessons now. And that's also good to know and to name as well, right? Sometimes teachers feel like they need to have all the resources done in the beginning, but it's really just backwards planning. You need to know what you're going to have on your video, not necessarily having your video ready by then. Yeah, that's really good to know. So when you started creating videos, whenever that was, how long did it take for you to create those videos? Oh my gosh, in the beginning, my videos were terrible. I hated them and they took me forever. I feel like I spent hours and hours on one video that I really wasn't even that proud of and I was kind of stressing about them. But it would take a couple of hours for a video because I would plan it all out and then I would realize I'm putting way too much into one video. And also when I started this process, I was doing instructional like you, Tony Rose, I was doing instructional videos first and not last. Once I made that switch to doing instructional videos last, when everything else was done and ready to go, it's like one take and I'm done. And if my cat jumps up or if the announcements come on in the school, I don't even care because it's best life and it's totally fine. But since I do this backwards planning, the instructional video process is so much quicker now and so much better. And that's really good to hear because again, I've heard some teachers say the instructional videos, that's what takes the longest time. And I know we had a Facebook, we had a poll on our Facebook group about what takes up the most time and a lot of people said it was instructional videos. And I've shared this before. When I created my first instructional video, it took me all day and it was just such a waste of time. And I don't recommend to anyone because I was such a perfectionist and I didn't know what I wanted to say, right. I wanted it to be genuine and authentic. But then I kept messing up. So then I had to create a script. But knowing that I can veer off of that script sometimes, not all the time, to keep the content and the video short. Because I'm an English teacher, I love telling stories, so I could talk all day. And then when I was recording my video, I was like, you know what, there's no need for that at all. You can cut that off. The more you practice with instructional videos, the better you'll get, right. And you'll kind of get the flow. You'll know what you want to say. You'll have bullet points. It doesn't have to be a full script. While some teachers do create a full script just so that they can do it in one take and it's also with the script, you can also use that for your captions, which is also a positive thing. So if you want to do a script, that would be great, you can do that for your captions. For your videos. Or you can do bullet points. I did bullet points. And you can just autogenerate the captions as well. Yes, all of those are super wonderful, fabulous tips. Because I think instructional videos are an important part of the planning process and important part of the whole learning experience. But they're not everything. And we have to remember that us talking to kids is probably in terms of learning, the least powerful then the practice that they're going to do with what we said during the instructional video. So that's where I feel like my focus is more on making sure that that practice is robust and challenging, but that they're able to do it with the instructional video that I created. One thing that really with instructional videos was challenging for me and why I had such trouble in the beginning was me repeating myself. Because as teachers, we repeat ourselves all the time. And with an instructional video, you don't have to do that. You can just cut out all that repeating and shorten your video and make it less challenging. Yeah. And even in real life, right, like during classes when I was doing live lectures, I had to repeat myself 15 times and I hated it. Yeah. Now with the videos, it's just like, yo, rewatch the video, rewatch the video. And I really learned to embrace making mistakes. And so if there's a noise in the background or your cat or your dog pops up, the kids actually really enjoy that because it shows that we're human and we're not perfectionist. Which is always great to see. So important to see. Yeah. And the kids, they end up giggling. And if you upload it on Ed puzzle, you can leave notes like, oh, my audio is back. The next 10 seconds are like, oh, you'll see my dog, my dog's name is Latte. Whatever it may be, you can embed those notes, which is really cool, so students can see that part of your life. One of my first instructional videos for my 6th grade students, so I teach 6th and 8th grade and my 6th graders, I only have for eight weeks. So we kind of like jump right in. We don't really get to know each other very much before we jump into content. And one of the first instructional videos, my cat like steps on my computer, my keyboard or something, and I put a little note in there about oh, my cat stepped on my computer. And it's the first instructional video and inevitably every single day, every single time kids watch it, they're like, wait, is that real? Did your cat really step on the video on the computer? I was like, Yeah, the cat really stepped. And then it starts this conversation of oh my gosh, you have a cat, I have a cat. And then it turns into a whole conversation about pets and we get to know each other really well. Yeah. And that's something too, that Zach would always say the beauty of the model is that you have time to have those conversations, right. To really embrace those authentic conversations, to deepen that relationship with your students. So I am all for that. And so when we talk about planning for instructional videos, right, we really want to be able to backwards plan so we know where we are going. One thing that I did, I don't know if you do this, Lindsay, but I put a timer on so that I'm not spending more than like 30 minutes creating a video. And that doesn't even like your slides don't have to be fancy, right? You don't have to have the best visuals ever. I think that as long as you have the information, the most important information that students need to take away, that's what matters with the instructional videos. Absolutely. I 100% agree. I found that I used to spend a lot of time creating slides and using all sorts of cool backgrounds and templates. And what I've really gotten down to is the kids are more interested in that. It's me talking with them and they can pause me and remind me of whatever they need to do and my slides. I have a very simple template now where I always use the same two fonts and I use very simple graphics from the Noun project, which I absolutely adore. And my slides are super, super simple. I don't put a timer on, but that's a really cool idea. But I know I'm just a very like I've worked on this long enough. It's good enough. In my 18 years, I finally am accepting good enough and moving on. Because in a live lecture, in a live conversation with students, nothing's going to be perfect. So if it's good enough, it's good enough. Yeah, because that was my problem was that I was like, oh, I didn't say that correctly. Let me start over. Oh, I didn't say that correctly. So then 2 hours go by and I'm like, oh crap. Like it's 2 hours. And so with a timer, it keeps me focused. And so when it goes off, I'm like, okay, I know that I've spent 25 minutes. I need to move forward. I need to move on. Sometimes teachers kind of focus on the design of the slides when you really don't have to, right? Yeah. We get fancy and creative and all that good stuff and do transitions, which is really cool. But the great thing about Google Sites and Microsoft PowerPoint is that you could just highlight the entire thing and click on animations and it'll do it for you. Yes. I was like, Oh, this is beautiful. So you no longer have to do it like one by one, right. You can make it really quick. So when you're planning for instructional videos, make sure that you're not spending too much time on the design, just making sure the transitions are there and anything like that, just making sure your content is clear. Like Lindsay says, it's really great that students, they pay more attention, that it's you that's teaching them and what you're teaching as well. Hi, everyone. This is Tony Rose Dana, one of the co hosts of the podcast and have something exciting to share. I will be attending ISTI 2022 from June 26 to 29th in New Orleans, and I would love to connect in person with any implementers who are attending ISC this year possibly an MCP meet up in person? More details to come. So cool. What are some challenges and differences with planning for an MCP class versus a traditional class? So, as I was thinking about this question, I came up with a lot of differences, but really only one challenge. And the challenge we've already mentioned was being that you have to really plan the whole unit beforehand. But I really think backwards design, whether you're doing it in an MCP model or not, backwards design, you really do plan your whole unit out beforehand before you dive into it. So that is definitely a challenge of backwards planning, but not specific to the Modern Classrooms Project. But there's a lot of working pieces in the Modern Classrooms Project model, so that's doing the whole unit beforehand is challenging. Differences, though, I find that I am much more able to be creative in my planning as a result of using Modern Classrooms Project than I was when I was teaching. Traditionally, I don't have any behavior okay? I have some behavior issues in my class and classroom management, like discipline stuff. But since switching to Modern Classrooms Project Model, I can be so much more creative because I really don't have to worry about the management stuff. That has decreased dramatically. Kids are so engaged, and they're working at their own pace, and I allow for a lot of collaboration in my class. I let kids work on anything together. The only thing they can't do collaboratively is mastery checks so they get to work with their friends or they get to work with somebody we call the pacing tracker, the grouper, so they can work with somebody who's at the same pace that they're at and they can work together, and all those management things have gone away. A difference for planning in Modern Classrooms Project Model is that I can be super creative, and I can let kids do all of my activities, and learning activities are so much more robust and meaningful because I don't have to worry about managing student behavior anymore. And that has been, like, the most wonderful thing in the world because I am a terrible classroom manager. I just am. It's not one of my strong suits, and Modern Classrooms Project has totally helped me with that. Yeah, and I've heard that so many times before, right, of like, oh, with this model, you don't actually have to worry about managing your class because your students are now taking ownership and accountability with their learning, which is beautiful. I think for me, the main difference with planning for an MCP class in a traditional class is that all teachers know what backwards planning is. They know what it is. It's just that a lot of us don't really have the time and the capacity to do it right and the energy to do it. And so with Modern Classroom, you're kind of forced to do it like you have to do it. Yes, I agree. Yeah, right? There's no other option, because prior to Modern Classroom, I could tell you about backwards planning. Right? I've read texts about it. I can tell you definition. I could tell you how it looks like. But then you go into my classroom and you look at my plans, and it's like, wait, but you're not doing what you've been talking about. Right? Yeah. And so I feel like that's a huge difference, is that in Modern Classroom, you can't not backwards plan. You have to do it. And so we talked about managing our time, and so Lindsay right, like, this is our second year in a pandemic school year. You're implementing Modern Classroom, and then you also applied to be a DMcE. How are you managing your time planning for all of this? I am an exceptional time manager. And I mean, I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but I really am very good at it. And I think it's because it's what I teach. I teach my students stress management, and a major portion of that is time management. And so I really do practice what I preach. I haven't always been a good time manager, but as I have had to teach it, I have gotten better and better at it to fit all of this in. I'm also a mom of two young kids who are involved in stuff, and I'm a little stressed and stretched out right now, kind of too many things going on in my life. But when it comes to school, I work at school, and I protect my planning periods like crazy. I close my door, it's always locked, and people don't bother me. They don't just pop right in. So I feel kind of, like, antisocial. But I'm protecting my time. And when I'm at school, I use my planning time to plan. And the Modern Classroom project has really given me that planning time is now for planning because all of my assessment and feedback is happening in real time with my students during class. And so my planning time, I'm not grading, I'm not looking at student work. I'm planning and preparing for what's to come next. And I protect that time like crazy. I don't take on extra duties. I say no as much as I possibly can, and I do school work at school. And once I leave school, I don't do school tasks outside of my school hours. I know everybody doesn't have that luxury because I know there's a lot of teachers who are forced to do things during their planning periods. I'm lucky that I am able to protect those planning periods. I definitely think about school when I'm not in school and I make plans and I come up with ideas, and I have a notebook that's pretty much always with me, that I just jot down my notes and my ideas so that I can get them out of my head. But I don't do any planning at home or outside of school because I use my planning time and I protect it. Lindsey, I needed to hear that for my own being. I really like the whole protecting your time. Right? I mean, especially with everything that's happening now, it's really just protecting yourself and protecting your time. I know. For me, I use planning as a way to go and socialize with other teachers because that's kind of how I debrief, right? Like, Oh, I've been teaching so many classes, I need to have adult conversations, and then that's okay. Right? That's okay. If that is the type of teacher that you are, where you need to debrief and have a conversation with an adult, please do so. Absolutely. Yeah. And I do think that there is a beauty of also protecting your time when it is planning, you plan, and when you're not at school, you're not doing school stuff. And I think this is something that a lot of teachers struggle with. I know. I definitely struggled with it. It's just that I was always constantly working. I would be so proud of myself if I left the school at 06:00 p.m.. And I was just like, what is that? Like? School ends at 330. Why am I here 3 hours after? This is ridiculous. Right. And so protecting your time because we do have lives outside of teaching. We have lives outside of teaching. I know that's shocking for everyone. And this is something I always try and tell my teachers as well, that I work with, is that, you know what? Don't take anything home, because we'll always have work to do. Our work never finishes. And like you said, with this model, as an English teacher, I would have to take home essays all the time. And with this model, I never took anything home. Right. My students were writing chunks of their essays, and I was able to provide real time feedback and really grade and assess how they're doing during class time, which I was never able to do before. It's so amazing, and it's so much more pedagogically beneficial to do that in real time. And the kids, they're learning benefits so much, and it's such a time saver as a teacher. Yes. Yes, I agree. And then students also know, hey, if I use this class time to do the work that I need to do, I don't have homework. Yes. That I think is beautiful. Like students know, like, oh, if I don't finish this and I got to take this home and do it at home, but if I do it now, right, like, natural consequences is that you can enjoy your life outside of school because you don't have homework for this class. And so I think sometimes teachers think about, like, flip learning when it comes to modern classroom. That's really not the case because they're doing the learning in that class time period that we have. Yeah. The model, I think, is really one of the benefits that I've seen from the model from a curriculum standpoint, is that I've been able to really narrow down and prioritize objectives and learning targets and know really what is a must do, what's a should do, what's an Aspire to do. So if I can prioritize what needs to be done, hopefully that is getting also, that idea is being pushed on to my students as well so that they can learn the essential life skill of prioritizing. From a curriculum standpoint, I prioritize, but also from a planning standpoint, I prioritize, and hopefully the kids will too. And that's another thing, too, that I really enjoyed with. What you are saying, too, is the fact that you practice what you preach, right? Like, you're teaching stress management, so you're teaching time management, and then you're actually doing what you are telling students to do, which I think is absolutely beautiful. Yeah. And so I think we've already talked about the impact of modern classroom you're teaching and learning is how it's evolved, which is great. So we could skip that question. How have your students responded to modern classroom, especially in a health class? Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to be talking about this today. This happens. So, as I said, I teach 8th grade and 6th grade. My 8th graders, I have for 20 weeks. I'll talk about them in a minute, but I want to talk about my 6th graders for a moment. So my 6th grade class is an eight week class, and it's exploratory. So there's no grades. It's just like, come and get a taste of what a health class is. And we don't really dive deep into any content. It's really very surface level exploratory. And so today was my first day with my new 6th graders. We're eight weeks into school, which is what that means to me. It feels like way more than eight weeks, but we're eight weeks into school, and I got brand new kids today. And this happens every time I get new kids. And I explain the model very briefly. Like, you get to be here just to learn. You don't have to worry about grades. You don't have to worry about homework. You don't have what you get done. You get done. And I really amp everything up. And I'm so excited and really focusing on the point of this class is for you to learn. And then the kids cheer and clap and holler. And it's so exciting because they get to be in a class where they're just there for the sake of learning. So when I explain this model, they are pumped because it's at their own pace. They get to choose what they want to do with the must you should do aspire to do. And it just like it seems to them, and they're so excited and they love it. You know what, it really does have everything to do with how the teacher rolls it out, right? So I've talked about this in the podcast before. If you're excited about this, your students will be excited about it. Of course, you're working with middle school children. They're going to roll their eyes and sigh and be middle schoolers at the same time. They feed off of your energy. So if you're excited about it, they'll be excited about it. If you are stressed about it, they will be stressed about it. My 8th graders, so the 8th graders, I've had for now eight weeks, and they're more mature. There's a huge difference between 6th graders and 8th graders. And so the 8th graders really love the model for the most part, because it is just everything about it. They just really love it. And so sometimes we take a break from self pacing and do whole class activities. Like right now, we're watching the movie Inside Out in class as we're exploring mental health and stress management and self management. And so we haven't done self pacing. And they're kind of itching to get back into self pacing mode where they can get back onto working. Not like everybody doing the same thing all the time. It's kind of bothering them to be doing this for a couple of days now. So the 8th graders don't cheer like the 6th graders do. Not that I would expect them to, because they're 8th graders, but they really do love it. And they come into class, we do a quick check in, we do a healthy behavior together as a whole group. And then I'm like, all right, kids, go to work and they just pick up and go to work. And the comment that I hear most from my students, both 6th and 8th grade, is, holy cow, that class went by so fast because they're loving that they get to work at their own pace and they're not waiting for somebody, or they're not waiting or they're not being pushed too fast. It's just my kids love it. My students really love it. Yeah. I don't know how you do 8th graders. They are different. But I think that's the beauty of this model, right? When students know that they are able to do it on their own pace, they're more excited and more, like, invested in their learning, which I absolutely love. Yeah. So let's wrap up. What is one piece of advice that you would give to teachers who are hesitant or struggling with MCP. My advice would be, one, listen to the podcast. Like absolutely every episode because you're going to get tons of ideas. So you asked for one piece of advice, but I think I'm going to say, like, three, sorry, I'm not bad at following directions, apparently. So listen to the podcast. And two, start with just one component. So in my case, I started with self pacing, and that really set me up for success. And it worked for me and it worked for my students. Obviously, I'm going to say backwards plan. That's what this episode is all about. And it works for me. It has worked for me as a non MCP teacher, but it works even better as I'm utilizing the MCP model. And I would also say to somebody who's hesitant or struggling with MCP, we've all been there. We've all struggled through various different things. And that every expert. And I by no means consider myself an expert in this model, but I'm experienced in the model and every single expert was once a beginner and you have to begin somewhere. That's what I tell my students all the time. And I think it's important for us to remember as teachers as well. Lindsey, you dropped a lot of gems this episode, and I'm literally taking all the notes, aka Zach is taking all the notes. And so we are so, so happy that you are part of the Modern Classroom family and we're excited to continue learning from you. So, again, thank you for saying yes, and thank you for just sharing your expertise and your knowledge and your excitement for our model. Thank you so much, Lindsay. I am so thankful that you asked me to be a part of this. I love this model and I loved being here and I love this podcast. So thank you, Tony Rose, for asking and being a part of this family, too. Yeah. And so we'll see everyone next week. Thank you. Voiceover: 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 at modernclassproj, that's P-R-O-J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students and schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast.