A Teacher's View of "Skills For Today"

April 24th - 28th is P21’s "Skills for Today" Week, sponsored by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21).  The celebratory week was designed to showcase how the P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning and the 4Cs — Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, & Creativity — can empower all learners to gain the skills they need for success.

“If we want to set our children up for success in college, career, and life, opportunities to learn 21st century skills are essential,” says David Ross, CEO of P21. “The "Skills for Today" week will not only help shine a national spotlight on the importance of these skills for our students but also highlight the critical elements of a successful education in the 21st century and the resources, research, and best practices that bring these skills to the classroom.”

Bullis Charter School is one of 79 schools and school districts nationwide to be named a P21 Exemplar School. All BCS students are given numerous opportunities to develop the 4Cs and acquire the 21st Century skills they need to thrive in a world where change is constant and learning never stops.

In honor of P21’s “Skills For Today” week, BCS 5th grade teacher Jessica Morgan shared the following observations of her students exhibiting the 4Cs in the classroom, as well as her belief in the value of 21st Century skills for all students:

I had a moment this week that emphasized how much I love the creativity and drive in our students. I was doing one circle of the classroom toward the end of an assessment period in order to check how many students were still working on the test and to monitor the choices students were making if they finished early. In that one period, I saw:

• one student working on some handwriting exercises for a behavioral FLG (Focused Learning Goal)

• one student silently rehearsing percussion patterns for the “BCS Fight Song” and some other music he had to memorize for band

• one student studying lines for an upcoming musical performance

• two students practicing drawing for personal FLGs

• one student crafting an email to a parent to take responsibility for something that happened that day

• one student working on a Math exemplar to practice critical thinking and multi-step problem solving before tomorrow’s test

• one student writing up Spanish notes for practice

All of these students were completing these tasks without any prompting from me. They were thinking carefully about what they needed to do as individuals to keep making progress, and they took steps to make it happen. This is a priceless skill that will inevitably help them in all areas of life!

-- Jessica Morgan (@jessreedmorgan), April 26, 2017

Cultivating Creativity Through Choice

At Bullis Charter School, creativity and curiosity are considered vital 21st Century skills. To help students unlock and pursue their individual dreams and passions, we offer a rich array of co- and extra- curricular classes. These ‘choice’ activities allow students to explore their own talents and interests and help to develop the whole child. Co-curriculars are held once per week during the regular school day. Each child participates in two co-curricular activities per semester and every BCS teacher is required to develop and lead two of these activities. This year, students were offered an incredible array of co-curricular courses, including picture book writing, advanced Lego robotics, ceramics, public speaking in Mandarin, and web design. Extra-curriculars are also taught by BCS’s homeroom and specialist teachers and are available to every student, but they are optional, after school activities. Extra-curriculars include everything from sports, color guard, and dance lessons to math games, chess club, and fine art classes.

A brand new co-curricular offered to BCS first and second grade students this year is called “Engineering Design with Wood Blocks.” First grade teacher Mrs. Ly created this activity and begins the class each week by telling a story about a harmonious town in a far away land called Peace Town. Everyone in this town lives together in harmony and everyone helps each other out.  However, to integrate engineering design into this activity, the story always ends with a problem that the students need to solve for the people of Peace Town. This type of problem solving develops the students’ design thinking skills. It also helps them to build empathy since they need to emphasize with the people of Peace Town and to understand the problem before they can begin to devise solutions. For example, when challenged to create ways to let visitors into the town, the students created a musical buzzer that when rung, makes beautiful music. As the children explained, “the people of Peace Town are peaceful people and want to hear beautiful and peaceful sounds.”

In Mrs. Ly’s classroom there is a dedicated “Construction Zone” where students use wooden blocks to build their solution prototypes. Although they can choose to work collaboratively or alone, once one or two students begin to construct something other kids often join in, sharing their ideas and expertise. Some of the students ask if there are more blocks they can use or other materials they can add to their creations, but just like engineers in the real world, they are instructed to create their design using the supplies on hand. The students must talk through their ideas, collaborate with their partners or teams, and include lots of detail in their planning. Using this active learning model, these young students have built some amazing structures. Their creations remain unaffected inside the construction zone throughout the week and every Friday the students clean up the area and start all over again on a new structure. The students also write in

their journals about what they have built and why, and they can refer to pictures Ms. Ly has taken during their building session to help remind them of what they built. This encourages them to include lots details in their writing and reflections.

The students have developed a real passion for their design and building co-curricular and it is obvious that they are having a great time working with friends, collaborating, and problem solving. After the first session, students asked Mrs. Ly if they could stay after school and keep building. One student even asked if it would be possible to stay and build if his mom came in to supervise. Clearly, these young engineers are just getting started!

BCS Middle School 8th Grade “Design Challenge” Intersession

Imagine an environmentally sustainable school that includes a roof top garden where crops are harvested for school lunch, a grey water system to flush toilets, and solar panels that harness the sun’s energy for electricity. Picture buildings with expansive windows that invite in an abundance of natural light, moveable walls to create multi-purpose educational spaces, interactive furniture that encourages high energy students to focus, and ramps leading to every classroom to accommodate students and staff with disabilities.

You would expect this utopian learning environment to be the work of an experienced architectural design firm, but these are the innovative features Bullis Charter School eighth graders incorporated into their school designs during their recently completed “Design Challenge” Intersession. For three weeks,
students worked in small groups to develop comprehensive “School of the Future” designs. They were instructed to use green design elements, to incorporate educational philosophy, and to leverage community connections. Students interviewed various
experts in the fields of architecture, interior design, and education, and visited a zero-waste home in Palo Alto. Upon the completion of the Intersession, these same experts sat on a panel to hear the students’ presentations, look over their models, provide constructive feedback, and select the most innovative school design. The winning group will submit their digital designs, laser-cut models, presentations, and essays about their design to a competition called SchoolsNEXT, run by the Association for Learning Environments. Last year, the winning BCS team advanced all the way to the final round of this international competition.


"Eighth graders are at an age when they are forming strong opinions about how society should function," says eighth grade teacher Rebecca Witmer. "Creating the ideal school engages them because they enjoy critically examining school, breaking down institutions as they currently know them, and designing a place where they want to spend their time."


This year, the students were tasked with the special focus to create a campus that would meet the needs of underserved students, who make up one in five children in our larger community. The students mapped out areas of poverty in the Bay Area and studied struggling school districts. Students discovered that not everyone learns in the same way and that some students have different needs, whether physical or mental. Empathy-building is a critical element in the design thinking process, and conducting this research opened the students’ eyes to different learning styles as well as to the experiences of others.

The Design Challenge Intersession supports the development of 21st century skills, including critical thinking, creativity, time management and perseverance. Students are challenged to work collaboratively in groups and produce concrete results in a short time frame. When they
enter the classroom or the Fablab, they know what they need to do and on which aspect of their project they need to focus. The students conquered a variety of real world challenges, such as technical difficulties, and yet every group met the tight deadline. BCS eighth grader, Kat, learned something powerful about her own capabilities, “It really is possible to get this done in three weeks and it was amazing to see it all come together in the end.”

Bullis Charter Middle School Intersessions

Intersessions are one of the most unique tenets of the BCS middle school program. During these three-week sessions, students move beyond the classroom and engage in active learning in the real world. Students develop real life skills as they work through problems, helping them to become well-rounded students with the 21st century abilities needed to be successful in university and in the modern workplace.

For three weeks each trimester, the daily schedule is suspended while students engage in an extended inquiry process of an assigned focus area. Projects are organized around a driving question, requiring students to investigate, collaborate, design, and construct actual solutions to real-life problems. 21st century skills are more than academic, and hands-on Intersessions provide students the opportunity to practice and refine important ‘life’ skills such as empathy, creativity, rationality, determination, and resourcefulness.

The first seventh grade Intersession combines sewing, cooking, and woodworking. While not typical middle school content, these pursuits integrate math, design, problem solving, and fine motor skills.  “At BCS, we expose all, not just some, of our students to the arts, to making, to taking risks, and to trying things that they might not attempt to learn on their own,” explains Lisa Stone, a BCS seventh grade teacher.

In the second seventh grade Intersession, students tackle Engineering & Design in the school’s

FabLab, where they have access to a variety of technology and tools including 3D printers, laser cutters, design programs, power drills and more. As part of this intersession, students interview staff members and peers to learn more about real problems found in the school. They then choose which issue they want to work on and begin to devise solutions for this problem.  Solving a problem at this level encourages students to use their critical thinking skills and to continuously plan and reevaluate, as they tackle different issues that arise along way. For example, one group of students was tasked with how to transport rolling backpacks across wood chips. As a solution, the students designed and built a “backpack gondola.” These projects are what Intersessions are all about: finding solutions and working through problems, just as one does in real life.

For their third and final Intersession, seventh graders are asked to stage a 100% student-led performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In addition to learning Shakespearean history and dialogue while performing the play, the students serve as the directors, casting crew, and light and sound engineers. They also build upon their previous Intersessions by sewing the costumes and designing and constructing the sets. Teachers are on-hand as advisors only and are part of the audience when the students perform their production on a professional stage at the Bus Barn Theater in Los Altos.

“Intersessions reinforce the students’ full year studies”, explains Ms. Stone. “At BCS, we focus on the interconnectedness of subject matter and integration. Even though students aren't going to their "regular classes" during this time, they can see that there are components of math, writing, and science in constructing a device to solve a problem. Intersessions help students understand the interconnectedness between the subjects.”

In addition to reinforcing regular studies, Intersessions extend the learning of skills and concepts through authentic, real-world applications.  For example, seventh graders learn composition in weekly music classes and are then required to score The Midsummer Night’s Dream production during Intersession.  Eight graders learn coding as part of the core curriculum and then apply those skills when designing educational apps at Intersession.  Students are encouraged to consult with industry experts as they seek to refine and improve their outcomes, and these same experts often provide feedback at the end of a project.

Intersessions are a critical part of the BCS curriculum. They offer the middle school students the opportunity to gain exposure, interact with experts and audiences, and be accountable for their ideas and projects. 



BCS Founding Principal/Superintendent Wanny Hersey explains the thinking behind these authentic learning opportunities, “We believe that in creating connections, relevance and meaning are discovered, and the rate of retention improves dramatically. Our students are empowered to design and lead their own education, thereby developing adult leaders with the ability to thrive in an ever-changing world.”

Middle School Clubs Day at BCI

BCS Middle School students shared 

the amazing work they have done this year on the clubs they initiated at the Clubs Fair this week.  

Students in grades 6-8 collaborated to design and develop club programs based on their interests - this year's clubs included Girls Learn International, Woodworking, Web/App Design, Parody, Cooking Around the World, and several others.

Check out the photos below to see some of the great work students produced in their clubs this year!

Wanny's Words: Global Innovation Summit

By Wanny Hersey
Superintendent/Principal at Bullis Charter School

In February, I was invited to serve on a panel at the Global Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley, where I joined leaders from around the world who were also committed to building ecosystems where entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation can thrive.

During the panel discussion I was asked how BCS is able to create ecosystems within the public education model that foster creative confidence and inspire students.  

I have always believed that the secret to our success is in hiring great teachers and continually providing the necessary support systems so that they can model the very skills we hope to instill in our students.

Therefore, at BCS I ensure that our teachers also inhabit an environment in which to model and inspire students by providing them dedicated time to collaborate and innovate.  

Unlike school systems where teachers only meet with those within their own departments, BCS teachers are encouraged to work with their peers across disciplines to create units that integrate all subject areas.  

In addition to providing the time and the opportunity to collaborate, I shared the extensive training all staff members receive before the school year begins as well as the professional learning communities that they are a part of throughout the year with mentors, boot camps, and extra support in areas they seek to improve on individually and within grade level teams.

A graphic representation from the panel discussion
"Educated Insight: The Reinvention of Learning" at the 

Global Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley, February 2015

Digital Citizenship at BCS

By Jessica Lura

Director of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at BCS

At BCS, we strive to empower students to become digital citizens; students who think critically, behave safely and ethically, and participate responsibility in the digital world. This means giving students opportunities to use technology in a variety of ways as well as teaching explicitly about certain topics. 

Like all BCS programs, digital citizenship is integrated into what we teach every day. It is a part of our character education strand, it is woven into technology use, and it is part of our core content. 

Being a digital citizen today doesn't just mean being safe online but also entails thinking critically and participating responsibly. All Bullis students, regardless of grade level, learn about online safety, how to be responsible online, and how to be creators of creators of content, not just consumers. In addition to explicit classroom lessons, there are many opportunities for students to explore what it means to be a digital citizen.

Ms. Cheng teaches best practices to her
fourth graders before they begin using
their school email accounts.

To support our digital citizenship strand, Bullis Charter School and Intel Security are hosting three online safety presentations--two for students and one for adults.  Please read the latest Bear Essentials Newsletter for dates and times.

Parent Resources & Information on Technology, Being Safe Online, and Digital Citizenship

Common Sense Media, website (We rate, educate, and advocate for kids, families, and schools)

Think Before You Link Online Tips Website, Intel Security 

Mimi Ito on Learning in Social Media Spaces, video, Big Thinker Series

Stay Safe Online, website, National Cyber Security Alliance

Articles and Books on Character & Digital Citizenship

Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, book, by Carrie James

Teaching Respect and Responsibility — Even to Digital Natives 

Holly Korbey  (Mind/Shift May 24, 2013)

What if the Secret of Success Is Failure? By Paul Tough, September 14, 2011

Intersessions are Underway at BCI!

Seventh and eighth graders started their first round of intersessions, and the excitement from the students is palpable on the BCI campus!  

Intersessions are a unique tenant of the middle school program at BCS -  regular instruction (with the exception of math) is suspended for three weeks, allowing students and staff to take a deep dive into a particular area of study.  

Students participate in three 3-week intersessions during the year, designed to engage students and maximize their learning in a real world environment.

Students plant bamboo at Panda Valley

Here’s a look at what the two grade levels are engaged in these next few weeks:

Seventh Grade: Engineering and Design Challenge

• Students are tasked with solving a real world problems ranging from how to stop the crows from digging through trash cans near the lunch tables at BCI to designing a landing pod and lunar buggy for space exploration

• Seventh graders are using the FabLab@BCS and guidance from our FabLab Director David Malpica and FabLab Assistant Nafiisah Renshaw to design, prototype, test and finalize their models

Click here to see what one student made in woodworking!

 

Seventh Grade: Cooking/Woodworking/Sewing

• Students rotate through three workshop style classes in cooking, woodworking, and sewing,  throughout the day. These classes are led by experts in their respective fields

• All students complete a finished product by the end of the intersession in each class, and students use these skills again at the end of the year when they put on a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which students are responsible for creating everything including the set design (woodworking) and costumes (sewing), and and refreshments (cooking)

Eighth Grade: Civic Responsibility, Animal Enrichment, Organic Gardening

• Students began by participating in a design thinking challenge to create animal enrichment devices for moon bears - an endangered species in China that are often inhumanely treated and hunted for their body parts

• Students traveling to China will take these designs to Animals Asia moon bear sanctuary and work with Animals Asia staff to implement them. Students will record the results and use their experiences to increase awareness about moon bears upon their return. They will work collaboratively with the students who studied animal enrichment at Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose.

• Students also engaged in learning about organic gardening and sustainable agriculture practices by meeting with various groups in the community, and also taught BCS second graders about organic gardening

• Students will regenerate the BCI garden with donations from Orchard Supply Hardware to be able to grow organic food to donate to Mountain View CSA

Eighth graders teach BCS second graders about organic gardening

Student Perspective: 6th Grade Survey Project

Written by Guest Blogger and 6th Grade Student Elena A.

On the last week of March, the sixth grade started a survey project. Even though it wasn’t a PBL, it was an add-on for one of our math units about statistics and graphs. Dr. Gross, Mr. Gross’s wife, is a former senior research director at GfK - a company who gave us the opportunity to send out a survey they had already invested money in. GfK is a survey company that surveys people from all over the US. The sixth grade was responsible for coming up with two topics to survey people on, then picking four subcategories for each overall topic.

After a whole grade discussion with Dr. Gross, we were able to brainstorm and pick main topics and sub-categories. After writing up all our ideas on the board, we started ruling out the ones that seemed impractical. Dr. Gross came to the decision that our survey itself would be in an entertainment category. The two main ideas we chose were movies and music. Our subcategories for music were frequency of listening, types of music, how you listen to music, and live music performances. Our underlying questions for movies were types of movies, frequency of watching, people you watch movies with, and how you watch movies.

Taking these sub topics, each class split into groups of around three people to make a survey question for each sub topic. After we finished that, Dr. Gross would check them and send them “into the field.” People that are on the survey list who didn’t receive a survey in March were sent one class’s survey questions. The people on the list range from 13 year-olds to 105 year-olds from different ethnic backgrounds.

We were successfully able to send them out, and once we got our survey answers back, all three classes were able to compare their data and come to conclusions about America’s music and movie culture.

Survey Results:

• A total of 1085 respondents completed the survey
• Most people watch action/adventure movies- about 25%
• Most people watched movies with family or romantic partners- about 40%
• Most people watched movies on their home TV- about 80%
• Most people listen to pop or rock music- about 35%
• Most  people have been to a live music performance (depends on definition)- about 80%
• The number of Hispanics who responded to the survey was high- 45%
• Mostly women responded to the survey - 70%
• The answers were affected by how the question was written

Wanny's Words: Preparing Our Students for the 21st Century

By Wanny Hersey

Superintendent/Principal at Bullis Charter School

In the recent New York Times article “How To Get a Job at Google” Thomas Friedman explains that GPAs and test scores are no longer high on the list of criteria that innovative companies like Google look for when hiring employees.  Friedman interviewed Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google - and proud BCS parent! - Laszlo Bock for the article.

Laszlo explained the five attributes Google looks for in their employees company-wide, including the ability to process information on the fly and the ability to successfully collaborate with a team.  At BCS, our focus is to prepare all of our students to be successful, contributing citizens in the 21st century by providing them with the tools they will need in life - many of which were referenced in this piece.  In spite of being the highest performing school in Los Altos, I have always said that what we do at our school is not about test scores.  Friedman put it best when he wrote:

“And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.”

After reading the article, I asked Laszlo for his thoughts on how our programs help foster the skills needed to compete in the 21st century, based on his own family’s experience at our school.  Here is what he said:

"I've been impressed by the educational model at BCS.  The children at BCS benefit not just from a specific curriculum or technology lab but rather from a culture steeped in the idea that learning is a lifelong process of discovery as well as mastery.  I've seen them encouraged to take risks, learn from failure, and become leaders both in formal and informal ways. Collaboration and teamwork happen everyday here. These students are well positioned to become the leaders of tomorrow."

Students learn 21st century skills like collaboration and adaptability during their Engineering Design Intersession that is part of the core middle school curriculum at BCS

National Board Certified Teachers at BCS!

First grade teacher Colleen Farley was recognized at a recent BCS Board Meeting for becoming Nationally Board Certified this year - an honor that has been achieved by less than 3% of teachers nationwide.  At BCS, we are proud to have 10% of our teaching faculty with this prestigious status, and several more are completing the process this year.

National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) are an elite group of educators who must pass a rigorous certification process that includes in depth lesson planning and analysis, several tests based on pedagogy and content, videos of lessons, and student work samples that demonstrate growth and achievement.  As Colleen shared with the BCS Board, the entire process is tied to student learning and advancement in all aspects of the teaching profession, not just a single lesson or unit of study.

The National Board mission aligns so closely with our school’s vision that our staff has committed to making this distinguished certification an expected part of the role of a BCS educator.  Every staff member who is eligible to begin the process (teaching for 3 or more years) is supported with mentors, time, and equipment needed to succeed and become Board certified.

Congratulations to Colleen and all of our teachers at BCS on their commitment to excellence in education!

Ms. Farley, who recently became Nationally Board Certified, helps a first grade student write a draft for her Turtle Blog