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MBLC SUMMER INSTITUTE 2024

WED-THURS, AUGUST 7-8, 9:30 am-3:30 pm

In person at Green River College, Auburn

For MBLC member school teams and school staff, and (space allowing!) for Friends of MBLC. Member schools, please invite additional staff who may be interested.

Volume 2, Issue 5 | June, 2024

Greetings, MBLC Community:

As we round the bend toward finishing out this school year, our sincere THANKS for working in community with grace, dedication, and inspiration to support wellbeing and academic growth/success for students we love and serve across Washington State. 

We look forward to seeing many of you at MBLC Summer Institute, August 7-8 at Green River College in Auburn. You’ve shared a wish list for what would be most useful—thanks, and we are on it!

Please register now, put these dates in your calendar, and let others know about this opportunity to learn and plan together. There will be plenty of room at Green River College, so please invite interested school colleagues to join you at Summer Institute. 

Wishing you an absolutely wonderful summer break—

Professional Learning Coaches: Amanda, Clyde, Emily, Joy, Kate, Katie, and Melanie

WA SBE: Alissa and Seema

UPCOMING MBLC EVENTS

You can register and get more info at the MBLC Site: bit.ly/MBLCsite or check out our Google Calendar of Events: bit.ly/MBLC_Eventcalendar.  

For events open to Friends of MBLC, look for this symbol:  💟

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Wednesday-Thursday, August 7-8 | 9:30 am-3:30 pm

MBLC Summer Institute | Grand Hall, Green River College, Auburn
For all Cohort 1 & 2 MBLC school teams and interested staff
Friends of the MBLC,  please register if you’re interested in attending; we would be happy to see you, space allowing.  💟

The agenda will include presentations by educators from successful Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Mastery-Based schools, workshops on CRS MBL practice in the classroom and across the school, and chances to connect and share ideas with educators from other schools.

We strongly encourage teams to attend together. Register your team today! 

Cohort 1 & Cohort 2 member schools, please note: Expenses related to travel to Summer Institute will be approved as part of your FY25 MBLC grant funding.

Workshops on:

• Bringing the pillars of CRSE to life in your school and classroom
• Helping students envision and produce high quality work
• Crafting rubrics and common scoring criteria to support mastery-based systems & project-based learning
• Nuts and bolts of mastery-based systems in schools
• Using scoring calibration to build shared efficacy among teachers
• Creating a culture of belonging in your school

Tuesday, August 6, 2024 | 10 am-3:15 pm OPTIONAL PRE-SUMMER INSTITUTE WORKSHOP Culturally Responsive Indigenous Sustaining Practices (CRISP)  Green River College, Auburn (optional but strongly recommended workshop designed for the MBLC community)

Exciting opportunity! This daylong, place-based experience will be led by Native and Indigenous practitioners who bring forward Indigenous ways of knowing and being (epistemologies). This immersion experience is especially for MBLC educators, to begin looking at how to work alongside communities from diverse knowledge backgrounds and incorporate that within their learning environments. Participants will begin to understand how to incorporate, as a learner and a teacher, traditional ecological knowledge practices that address environmental, social, racial, food, health, and wellness issues in our education systems today. You can expect to be moving around outdoors, having hands-on experiences, and engaging your senses. Please wear comfortable clothing and outdoor shoes. You can expect to leave with an action step, understanding that this is a practice.

The workshop is coordinated and offered by Winds and Waters LLC. Participants will be able to select from breakout workshops delivered by a diverse array of presenters, including:

1. Sui-Lan Ho’okano, Founder and director Winds & Waters LLC. Community Cultural Practitioner/Educator
2. Willard Bill Junior, Office of Native Education
3. Cinnamon Bear, Educator and Forestry Guide
4. Leslie LaFountaine, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Cultural Food Practitioner
5. Rachel Heaton, Founder of Earth Gym
6. Wayne Buchanan, Muckleshoot Historian
7. Britney Kamai, Astrophysicist, educator, cultural practitioner

This event will be accessible for people with mobility challenges. It will also be a family and child-friendly space—if you would like to attend but cannot find childcare, your children are welcome (you will just need to care for them as you navigate the day). 

Workshop cost is $350.00. Register by June 30 for the early bird price of $300.00. MBLC schools that register by June 30 may use funds from their '23-’24 grant funds to receive the early bird rate. 

Cohort 1 & Cohort 2 member schools, please note: Expenses for travel/registration for this workshop will be approved as part of your FY24 or FY25 MBLC grant funding.

✅   Click here to register 

✅  Click here to pay the workshop fee. (Registration NOT confirmed until payment is made)

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST

Friday, June 7 (yes, today!) | 10-11:15 am

Managing Instructional Change: Summer Planning to Help Teachers Close the Knowing-Doing Gap in the Fall
For all interested participants  💟

This free online master class with Zaretta Hammond will focus on “how to build students’ capacity to take on more rigor or how to help them grow their ability to carry more of the cognitive load.” For those who cannot attend live, everyone who registers will get the recording.

READ THIS, WATCH THAT

Here are resources for your use. Enjoy, and let us know your wish list for next time!

WVSD #208 Mastery based Learning  This video comes from the West Valley District in Yakima, where three MBLC member teams are working on learner-centered changes. “We’ve had learning standards for a really long time. MBL is a way to make sure students are really achieving those learning standards, and ready to move on.” —Principal Amber Stiles-Gill, West Valley Junior High School ____________________________

Transforming Futures: The Success Story of Innovation Heights  This short video comes from Innovation Heights Academy, our very own Cohort 1 member school! “They’re very big on helping you find what works for you,” says a student featured here. ____________________________ Connecting Grading and Learning DId you know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received a C in Public Speaking while in seminary school? His transcript is in this Assessment for Learning Project blog post, which looks at the “disconnect” between grades and learning. ____________________________ Dr. Thomas Guskey on Grading “There's not another area of education where there's a larger gap between our knowledge base and our practice than in the area of grading. We seem to be bound by tradition.” —Dr. Thomas Guskey, who leads the field in explaining problems with traditional grading, and offering clear and useful guidance for grading that does better. In this compelling interview (listen or read!), titled “Breaking the Curve,” Guskey surfaces problems of traditional grading —and solutions that are possible with competency-based grading. Giving Retakes Their Best Chance to Improve Learning In this article, Guskey explains how retakes can improve learning—and debunks many myths about retakes. In Addressing Inconsistencies in Grading Practices, Guskey lights the path for schools that want to grade more fairly and consistently.  ____________________________ Cultivating Project-Based Learning Alongside Language Development  in Schools: How Is It Done? This learning brief from the Internationals Network features many Competency Collaborative educators and schools.  ____________________________ 12 vital questions to ask when designing curriculum “How will you make it impossible for students to fail?”  asks Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, who offers 12 important questions for curriculum writers. ____________________________

Student Perspectives: Belonging, Culture, & Mastery We’re resharing this eye-opening video by request. It features two students at Harvest Collegiate HS, a Competency Collaborative Living Lab school. Kaitlyn & Tyriq are two students who might or might not ever say a word in your class—but have an incredible wealth to share about learning, their experience of school, teacher beliefs, and more. What are your students seeing, hearing, feeling? This video will offer some insight.

RECENT HAPPENINGS

Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to lately.

Also check out the MBLC EVENT ARCHIVE,
a treasure trove of recordings and resources from past events.
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Tuesday, June 4 | Webinar 18: The Power of Co-Teaching

Tuesday, May 21 | Cohort 1 PLC, Session 5 of 5

Our final sessions for interest-driven PLCs for Cohort 1:

1. Project-based Unit/Assessment Design for MBL
2. Grading for Accuracy and Equity
3. CRSE Foundations

Monday, May 20 | Cohort 2 PLC, Session 5 of 5

School teams shared out to each other about key aspects of their plans for next school year.

Tuesday, May 7 | MBLC Spring Gathering in Ellensburg, WA

Our full community gathered at Central Washington University. Highlights of the day included a youth advisor panel, mini-electives, school team reflections and team-to-team share outs. It was an amazing day!

Love, respect, and appreciations to our youth advisors for sharing with wisdom, honesty, brilliance, and humor. And big thanks to all adult allies who brought students with them for the day.

Youth advisors from La Conner Middle School, Envision Career Academy, Methow Valley Independent Learning Center, Innovation Heights Academy, and Bush Middle School in Tumwater—along with panel facilitators Aneth Naranjo and Matt Gonzales

A sampling of school reflection and share out posters created at the gathering—they offer insight into what some member schools have been up to this year, and their plans for the future.

A sampling of slides from some of the mini-electives offered at the gathering.

ADVICE FROM EMBEE ELSIE (MBLC)

Dear Embee Elsie:

In the fall, we plan to create a Profile of a Graduate that names schoolwide learning outcomes all our graduating students will learn and demonstrate in their time with us. In planning this work, we have two big questions for you.

1. We have good models in the Washington State Profile of a Graduate and other examples from around the MBLC—but how should we make a profile that is unique to our school community?
2. After we identify and define the outcomes that will comprise our profile, how should we use these desired outcomes in all our classes—and how will grading these work?

Sincerely—Outcomes Bound!

Dear Outcomes Bound—

Creating a Profile/Portrait of a Graduate is a wonderful big step into your MBLC work. How exciting that you feel ready to name the big life skills and awarenesses you want all your students to gain in their time with you. Here are some thoughts!

1) Your school’s MBLC coach will be a great support for this project. You’ll need to invite meaningful input—and at least one round of feedback later—from staff, students, families, community members, and perhaps district personnel. Then you’ll categorize and streamline all the ideas you get, using professional judgment to create a draft of a balanced set of what the WA State Board of Education calls, “the skills, knowledge, attributes, and competencies necessary for a successful transition to life after high school.” You will develop definitions, and eventually create rubrics that name what success looks like for each outcome.

It’s wise to make a project plan for this work with your MBLC team. Who will lead the effort? What’s the time frame? What outreach and discussions need to happen? What roles will everyone take? How will you get feedback on drafts, from whom? This photo shows first ideas for schoolwide outcomes, from staff at a Competency Collaborative high school in Brooklyn, NY.

Here’s a planning template and some Portrait of a Graduate tips from Great School Partnership that could be helpful as you begin project planning. 

2) For your second question, talk with your coach to determine the best steps toward using your profile outcomes in all your classes. One school we love, The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria (a Competency Collaborative Living Lab School in Queens, NY), has 10 schoolwide outcomes that are the basis of all teaching and learning for grades 6-12. Each of the outcomes (Create, Discern, Collaborate, Communicate, and more) has standards-aligned learning targets in each discipline, and that’s what students are graded on. Other schools have two sets of outcomes, academic outcomes based on state standards, and schoolwide outcomes based on their profile. Your MBLC coach will help you make a plan that works well for your school community.

Please circle back in a few months and share what you’ve done—we’d love to hear all about it!

Wishing you a wonderful summer break—Embie

Reader, do you have a question for our advice columnist Embie Elsie (aka M-B-L-C)? Please reach her here!

The contents of this resource were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

About us

The Mastery-based Learning Collaborative is a community of Washington State schools that are using youth-centered, mastery/competency-based, culturally responsive-sustaining practices and approaches. Our program is an initiative of Washington State Board of Education, in collaboration with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Professional Educator Standards Board.

Contact

Mastery Based Learning Collaborative
State Board of Education
Olympia, Washington