Episode 70: What to Expect in 2022


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. 


Hello, and welcome to episode 70 of the Modern Classrooms Project Podcast. My name is Tony Rostiana, and she her pronouns. And I am a program manager at Modern Classroom. So this episode is going to be a little bit different. We have two conversations, one with Allison, and you'll learn more about scholarships, and then the other one is about Jack, where we basically just share with you some of the updates that are happening for this podcast. We have some really exciting news, and so a couple of updates that I wanted to share with you, our listeners, and our implementers, and anyone else is curious about Modern Classroom Model. So in 2022, we will be hosting our second Virtual Summer Institute, and our dates are actually going to be released on January 3. So that is tomorrow. So definitely check out our website to see those dates so that you can sign up because our seats do fill up pretty quickly. So we are planning on more than doubling the size of teachers that we train for that summer. And so please make sure to check out those dates to see which ones that you would be interested in participating in. And because we are talking about Virtual Summer Institute, we also want you to continue applying for a DMcE. So continue to apply to become a distinguished modern classroom educator because this is the pipeline for you to become a mentor. So because we are planning on training a lot more educators, we are looking for mentors who are effectively implementing the model in their classroom. So please apply to become a DMcE, and then you'll be able to have the opportunity to apply to become a mentor. And if you are interested in mentoring this summer, we would really, really appreciate highly encourage you to apply before January 31. But that being said, we can give you the type of training that you would need before you start mentoring in the summer. Please apply to become a DMcE if you are interested in becoming part of our mentor family, as well as just getting those credentials and the perks of being a DMcE. Another thing that we are launching is a referral form for someone who might be excited to do this learning with you. So if you really want to do this and you have a colleague that you are really close with and you know that they would enjoy it as much as you, we have a referral form for you, and that will be in the Show Notes. And I think Alison also covers this a little bit in our conversations. So those are just a couple of things to look forward to. Again, just kind of as a wrap up, we have our VSI dates being released on January 3. So take a look at that on our website and then, of course, apply to become a DMC by January 31. If you are planning on becoming a mentor for our VSI, if you are planning on participating in our VSI and you have a colleague best friend, a teacher best friend that you think would love the model, we have a referral form for that as well. So Happy New Year. We are so excited about 2022 and what all it entails for us. And so thank you again for being such amazing listeners and just continuing to support everything we do as an organization. And we hope that we continue providing resources and support for you as well. We are joined today by our very own MCP's teacher recruitment manager, Alison Venturepool. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for saying yes to being a podcast guest today. And so before we get started, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to MCP. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. So I'm on our staff as a teacher recruitment manager. I'm fairly new. I just started here in October and I've been going through the mentorship program myself in October cohort. So shout out to my mentor, Shannon. I appreciate you. She's done a really incredible job with feedback. She's really helped me to apply the model to adult learning. I actually heard about Modern Classrooms Project when I was working in teacher hiring and recruitment for a large district in DC. So it was my job to recruit and lead elementary teachers through a hiring process. I worked really closely with principals there, and earlier this year, I kept seeing teachers I worked with and principals who supported them just really struggling. A lot of quarantines severe shortage of subs teachers were feeling like they were doing more than any other year and just not seeing that work really make a dent in the challenges that kids were facing. So Principal and I were just chatting one day. She said, we just have to figure out something different. I don't know what it is, but something has got to happen. So I started doing some digging just to see what exists out there. And I came across Modern Classrooms Project that way. I watched that video that I think a lot of people have seen of Korean high school class, and I was a high school science teacher myself, and it just gave me chills. So I tried some of the strategies in my classroom. Like, way back in the early 2010s, I didn't feel like I was doing any of it really well. To be honest, I couldn't really figure out how to put all the pieces together. So that five minute video really made something that I tried years ago instantly click and then I saw one day on LinkedIn that modern classrooms had a recruiter position open, so I just went for it. I really love talking to teachers. I love connecting with them and making sure that they see opportunities to help them grow in the career the way they want to. So I really jumped at this opportunity to work here. Yeah. And we're so happy to have you here, Allison. Just the work that you've done a couple of weeks, even a couple of months. Right. Like, it's been so fascinating. So we really appreciate and just love the fact that you're here with us. So welcome and thank you for sharing that. I know for me, I also knew the different pieces, like the self paced, the blended learning and mastery based grading, but I couldn't put it all together. And so when Kareem reached out or kind of introduced us to the motto, I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. So I'm glad to hear that there's some similarities there. We wrapped up our 20 21. 20 21 is done. I can't believe it. I haven't even processed 2020. So it's 2022 now. And so what are some of modern classrooms plans for 2022? Well, I'm so excited for 2022 because we are growing our community right from the start, thanks to all the incredible work that our educators have been doing and implementing the model. They share it with their colleagues and on social. We've really had a ton of interest in people learning our model. So all of that excitement fed into, obviously, excitement from education advocates across the country. And so now we can actually fund more than 650 new scholarships for our Summer Virtual Institute. And that number will likely grow by a few hundred between now and then. So I'm just really excited about that. I love some good scholarships, so I know I always have teachers reach out to me and asking about opportunities and ways to kind of take the virtual mentorship program course. And so tell us more about the scholarships for the Summer Virtual Institute. Yeah, we had some really excited local philanthropists, so we're able to fund new scholarships at the statewide level in Indiana and in Connecticut. And then we also have scholarships at the city level in DC, New York City, the Twin Cities, Chicago, Seattle, and Tulsa County. So our hope is that educators who have heard about us through their colleagues or maybe they've been implementing the approach. Anybody who's been in the free course really wants a mentorship program to see the model in their classrooms. And maybe even schools where leaders have wanted to send their teachers into training can get that summer Institute for free. So on top of the training itself, our scholarships for these locations come with a $500 stipend attached and a full year of support for that 22, 23 school year. We really want educators to feel compensated for the time they put into that training over the summer. And we also really want them to feel like they have a community and they can lean on them when the school year starts and they start to implement the model in their classrooms. I really love all of that. I love the ongoing support for that school year, especially your first year, really implementing it with the mentorship and then just a 500 stipend. That's incredible. I am so excited about these opportunities for our educators because we never want the cost of our mentorship. Right. To be a barrier for our teachers to really get to know a whole new instructional model that will be equitable and accessible for all their students when it comes to learning. So I'm excited about that. Thank you for sharing that. And so how will that work exactly? Yeah. So we're launching all of the scholarships on our website starting January 3, so we can go to modernclassrooms. Orgscholarships, and then anyone in Connecticut, Indiana, DC, New York City, Chicago, Tulsa, Twin Cities in Seattle can go to the website and submit an application there. Now, we do have a limited number of scholarships, and we're planning to accept applications on a rolling basis starting in January. So that means anyone who completes the application early probably more likely to get that full scholarship. We do have to close the scholarship at April 11, but we do encourage anyone who is interested to apply early. We think scholarships could be full by mid to late March, just based on the amount of interest we already have in those areas. Okay, that's all good to know. And we'll definitely put the link in the show notes as well, so people can access it so our listeners can access it. So clarifying question. As soon as the scholarships launch on January 3, people can start applying for it, right, Alison? Yeah, that's right. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. So that means listeners, tomorrow you can start applying for these scholarships. So keep that in mind. All right. So then what if there's not a scholarship in a particular area and someone wants to get the same training? That's definitely possible. We work with schools and districts across the country to provide training for their educators. We right now have partnerships with Ed Puzzle for Florida and Texas, school leaders in central Illinois for educators there kept schools have a scholarship for their educators nationwide. And we have many other district specific partners as well. And if you have one of those partnerships, you probably heard about it from an email from your administrator or your district administrator. And if we don't have a partnership yet in a specific area, anyone who wants a scholarship is still welcome to join our Waitlist online. We sometimes have partners who will give us funding for any educator. And knowing who's interested in a specific area helps us to follow up with leaders in that school or district to see if we can get their educators fully funded for training. Thank you so much. So, listeners, if there is not a specific scholarship for a particular area, you still have an opportunity to get a scholarship somewhere else. So don't lose hope on that. Okay. So for someone who's already been through training or is a DMcE or a mentor in one of the areas where we have scholarships, how can they help us to build a community? There great question. There are so many ways to plug in and spread the word in an area. We know that we are based off of word of mouth. We see teachers really wanting to get their friends involved. And so we have a referral form at modernclassrooms. Orgrefer that anyone can fill out with friends that they think might be interested in the scholarship. We'll always share these with our free course users as well, and anyone who's been referred on that form first. But we also know that our community is ready for opportunities like this. So if you've been using the model in your school, maybe you have colleagues, administrators who really want to get a scholarship. The best way to share that with us is to actually submit that referral in that form. We also work with schools directly to reserve blocks of scholarships for their educators. So, for example, in St. Louis this year, we had a scholarship for schools in that County, St. Louis Public Schools actually requested a block of scholarships. They knew they'd have educators who would be interested. They felt like they didn't want to lose the opportunity to have the training fully funded. So if you're a leader and really want to get in touch with us to reserve blocks of scholarships, even as low as three to five teachers, you can contact our team directly. Awesome. That's another good thing to know, right? And I absolutely always talk about so positively our community, our modern classroom family, and our community is just so fascinating. And so I was very supportive. It's just very amazing. Right. And so do we think that there will be more scholarships coming out? Yes, it is always likely. So our community of educators are just such strong Champions of our work. So when they share us with their peers, their admin, or on social, that's usually how we get new interest in new scholarships funded. Our team is also really focused on how we can grow in cities and States that we haven't mentioned today. And we do our best to find funding for scholarships so that our members of our community can get the full mentorship experience at no cost to them. So keep staying tuned to our social. That's usually where we announce new funding. Awesome. So thank you again so much for joining us. And as a teacher, a former teacher as well, I'm all about just not having to pay for something. So scholarships are always a good thing. And so thank you so much, Allison. For providing all of this info for us. And I hope that our listeners, if you have any questions, just please reach out to us. And again, thank you so much, Alison, for your time. Yeah, thanks, Tony Rose. Really appreciate it. Hey, listeners, we do have 2021 wrapped up. And so now we're looking forward to our 2022. And Zach and I have some exciting news to share with you. So first of all, we were really thinking about how you as listeners can get in touch with me and Zach directly. And so we want to hear from you. We want to hear your thoughts. We want to hear your feedback. We want to build community because we do know that we have a lot of loyal listeners who listen to us every Sunday. Thank you so much for that. So here are some ways that you can get a hold of me and Zach. Zach, do you want to list it out for them? Yeah, sure. So first of all, hey, listeners, I'll list them out in a SEC. But I also just want to Echo what Tony Rose said. I'm really into the idea of this becoming a little community and hearing from you all. And we're going to touch on this again in a minute. But the first and probably best way to get in touch with us that we're rolling out is an email address for the podcast. So this is actually a really easy way to get in touch with us. And I'm going to be linking it on all of our stuff on our web page in our show notes for every episode. And the email address is simply podcast@modernclassrooms.org. So podcast@modernclassrooms.org, you can email us with questions. You can email us with feedback. You can email us with your thoughts on the meaning of life on modern classrooms, anything. We will read that email, and sometimes we'll bring that back up on the show. So I'm really excited about this. I feel like this is something we maybe should have done a long time ago, but we're doing it now. Yeah, I completely agree, Zack. I don't know why we just thought of it now, but Zach and I will be managing this email. So you'll hear from us directly. And again, like Zach says, if you have any ideas as well, if there's something that we're missing and you're like, hey, you should really do an episode on this. Please let us know. We are really responsive to your feedback, and we really appreciate your feedback. Yes, this is like a direct line to us. And both Tony Rose and I like, like you said, we'll be reading this. So that's awesome. Definitely hit us up with that email address, which, again, was podcast@modernclassrooms.org. So there are some other ways to get in touch with us as well that we've had in place for a while. You may remember that if you have questions for our Q and A episodes, you can tweet with the hashtag Ask MCP. And if you tweet with that hashtag, it goes into a spreadsheet automatically that I keep track of. And so when we have our Q and A episodes, we'll pull from that spreadsheet and we can ask those questions on the air. Yeah. And so if you're a huge social media user like I am, definitely utilize that Twitter account and to ask us questions and just to reach out to me and Zach as well. And then another platform, as well as a Facebook group. So we now have about 8.5 thousand educators in our group, which is so exciting. Yeah. It's amazing. Yes, I know, right, Zach, like, who would have thought? And so we're going to start also having discussions in the Facebook group just so that we can continue having conversations about the podcast, because I do realize after talking to so many guests that our podcast does create community in a way. And I think it would be even more impactful if we can continue having conversations with people who have listened to the podcast in case there was a strategy or if there was something that I need a thought partner for this and I need to kind of debrief this or whatever it may be, we're going to start having those discussions on Facebook as well. And so we will create a plan for that. But we just want to make sure that the learning continues. Yeah. That's really where all this thinking about developing this community and opening more channels for feedback from you all from the listeners. That's where this really came about is Tony Rose, you and I talking about how we can continue this discussion beyond the 45 minutes of the podcast. We've always said that there is no one right way to run a modern classroom. Modern classrooms are so diverse and so different. And modern classrooms in kindergarten are completely different from modern classrooms in 12th grade. And they're different in ours classrooms and math classrooms. So there's just so much that we can't talk about all of that in 140 minutes episode. So if you respond to our episode, if something makes you think about something in a new way, but you want to tell us how you do it. That's why we wanted to open these channels. Yeah. And then another way as well. For our mentees. We've gone through the virtual mentorship program. We have a Slack channel for Modern Classroom. And we're also going to add Zach and I are going to add an extra channel just specifically or podcast. And so, again, if you want to continue having those conversations, if you have questions, if you have ideas, suggestions, whatever it may be, going into our Slack channel and just asking those questions. And again, this is just a way to build community, to continue conversations, have discourse about what they've learned, and even just share resources. And so, as you'll see, we have created a new podcast schedule structure that Zach is going to cover. We were really intentional with how we wanted to approach our podcast episodes and how to create a community within our podcast world. Yeah. And again, it's about opening channels of communication, both with us but also amongst the listeners. If you want to talk about something that a guest brings up on some episode of the podcast, that Slack Channel or the Facebook group is a great place to do it. I like the idea of the Slack channels, especially because it's like a dedicated place to talk about what you've heard on the podcast and also a place to raise ideas to our attention so that we can talk about them on the podcast or guests can, or we can find potential guests that way. Right. It's a discussion. I feel like it adds more life to the podcast by sort of like letting the discussion continue beyond us and beyond the recording. And I really like that idea. So I hope that people will really jump in there and make use of that. So you want to talk about the new schedule. So Zach and I have been working so hard these past couple of months to try and figure out how 2022 is going to look like for our podcasts. So we created a structure. We really wanted, again, to be intentional and to continue providing resources for listeners for implementers or just for people who are interested in implementing this model. Yeah, that's right. And one of the things we've noticed is that some of our most popular episodes are the ones where we actually describe sort of mechanically how to implement this model. And so we really wanted to build that into our schedule in a more intentional way. And the way that we've decided to do that is by dedicating entire seasons of our podcast to a particular topic or aspect of the model and looking at it from a bunch of different perspectives with different types of guests and different people who can bring those different perspectives to the table. So our first season will run from January to May. And Tony Rose, why don't you tell our listeners what our first topic will be? Yes. First season for 2022 is going to be about self pacing. Now, the reasoning behind this is because we have noticed that self pacing is a really challenging component of our model. Implementers are still trying to figure out what the best way to do self pacing in their classrooms. And just like what me and Zach have always said, there is no right or wrong way to do our model right. But we also understand that self pacing is really difficult. Therefore, we are dedicating our first season to self pacing. Yeah, self pacing. And I just want to add on to what you were saying. We've talked about this before. Self pacing, to me, is also sort of like the most fundamental aspect of a modern classroom, because everything else that we do sort of serve self pacing, at least in my classroom. And so we wanted to really do a lot of deep dives on sort of different aspects of self pacing. Okay. So now you're thinking we have self pacing from January to May. There may be a lot of episodes about specifically for self pacing. However, we did think about how this could look like. So Zach will go over exactly what we had in mind. Yes. So the seasons are going to last for those five months. Right. But it's not going to be every single episode. So every other week we're going to have what we're calling our feature episodes, our feature length episodes, our 45 minutes episodes, and those will be relating to content in that season. So in this case, self pacing. So we'll have two feature episodes each month relating to the season. But every other week we're going to have other kinds of episodes. So we're going to have what we're calling spotlight episodes or implementer spotlights, which is sort of what you're used to hearing from us. We'll have a guest on to talk about their modern classroom. We'll have an administrator on, we'll have a teacher on. We'll have a caregiver on. We'll have different kinds of guests to talk about, different kinds of modern classrooms. And that's sort of what we've been doing up until now, just sort of letting our guests kind of guide the conversation and having their teaching situation be the topic. And then at the end of the month, the last episode, the second off week of each month, we're going to have Q and A and feedback episodes. So we saw in the feedback that you all gave us that people like the Q and A episode, and we've kind of moved away from them, but we're going to bring them back every month now. And the idea with putting the Q and A and feedback episodes at the end of the month is that it gives you all a chance to listen to all the content that we've put out and then respond to it so that we can respond to your feedback on those episodes. So if you're using the podcast email address, if you're using the social media accounts to get in touch with us, or if you're using the new Slack channel, we can look through all that and pull your questions and talk about them on the air. And it gives us the chance to see how you're responding in your own teacher ways. Right to our discussions on the feature episodes. And then we can put in feedback that we think adds new and different and interesting perspectives that maybe we didn't talk about on the original episodes. So I'm actually really excited for these Q and A and feedback episodes. And yeah, I'm definitely excited to reading more questions and feedback and responding to it on the air more than what we've done in the past. Yeah. And just to keep in mind, too, based on the feedback that we've received, we are going to keep our Spotlight episodes and our Q and A episodes about 30 minutes. So it's a little bit shorter, it's short and sweet, and you'll be able to enjoy it and a quicker pace than our feature episodes. Another feedback that we received was that our listeners actually wanted to have more elementary voices. So Zach and I are going to be, again, super intentional with having elementary voices in our feature episode. So not only are you gaining more information about self pacing, but you're also going to gain more information, resources and how self pacing looks in secondary and elementary setting. And so we are really excited about these new changes. We are excited to hear from you. We're excited to create a community with you. And so we're just looking forward to 2022 and making sure that we are providing you with everything that you wanted. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really excited for this new format. I feel like it helps me to think about sort of the trajectory of the podcast. And I'm also really excited to reading those emails, honestly, which is not something I ever thought that I would say that I'm excited to read more email, but this is the email that I am excited to get. And also, if you are interested in becoming or joining us as a guest for our podcast, we'll be linking a form in our show Notes that you can fill out and let us know. So again, you can fill out the form, you can email us whatever is easiest for you. But we are just excited to have you share your experiences and to really just get to know more of our implementers in our community. Yes, this is one of the big reasons I really personally wanted to keep those sort of spotlight episodes with guests. If you're enthusiastic about sharing your modern classroom, we would love to hear from you. And so we have those episodes every month to hear from teachers, hear what they're doing, hear different perspectives, and learn from other teachers who are implementing MCP in different ways. Yeah. So Zach, I am so excited to continue working with you on our podcast. I know we can only get better. So I appreciate everything that you do. I appreciate you, and I've been really enjoying this. So I guess onward and upward. Here we go. 2022.


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.