The SHIFT Blog

We were sent to High Tech High and the Deeper Learning Conference with questions, and we brought back a heap of answers. You can read our on the ground impression here after Day 1 , Day 2 and Day 3 of the conference. Before we headed to the conference we also asked others who had seen the documentary “ Most Likely to Succeed ” to provide us with their own questions.  We tried as best we could to answer them, splitting the work up between our Principal Nicholas Varricchio and ourselves.  You can read our answers here . If you haven’t seen the film, and would like to, you can still see the film here . And of course, if what you’ve read about our visit sparks new questions, feel free to leave us something in the comments

HTH Daily Schedule, complete with some flex time On our last day at the Deeper Learning conference, we took the time to soak in and appreciate High Tech High itself: the school, the students and teachers.  We gained insight into school life from both teachers and students, walked the hallways and marvelled at the beautiful work that students create that breathes life and energy into all spaces (even the bathrooms!). Reflecting and comparing their school to Halton schools , we noted that there were many similarities.  Despite what we say in the film Most Likely to Succeed, students still learn about specific subjects in specific periods.  High Tech High and High Tech Middle still have students with special education needs. Their are Individual Education Plans and mental health concerns.  Teachers still worry about if what they are doing for their students is good enough. The big differences come from two areas, the projects that students are asked to complete...

That’s the prompt we were asked to think about during day one of the 2018 Deeper Learning Conference.  We were expecting to learn about Project Based Learning and High Tech High when we signed up for this conference.  We were caught off guard by the tone of the day. High Tech High played second fiddle to a much bigger idea, Deeper Learning. The day started with 1200 educators in the High Tech High forum, with a salsa band playing energetic Latin-influenced grooves.  When they started to cover “Descpacito” and educators cut loose and started dancing, Jamie asked “is this Woodstock for teachers?”.  There was definitely an energy and buzz right from the beginning of the day. So what is Deeper Learning? Deeper Learning is... modelling the growth we want to see in our students.   Carlos R. Moreno , in his Keynote, stated that “Vulnerability is a part of good pedagogy”.  If we believe in teaching students the soft skills that they need to be successful in ...