Empowering Teachers and Their Students with Teach FX

Empowering Teachers and Their Students with Teach FX

11:52
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Well, hello, Ruckus Makers. Today we’re joined actually by not one, but two exceptional guests, and I’m looking forward to speaking with both of them. We have Dr. Horton and Joseph Hyun. Dr. Horton began her career in education at Navajo Mountain Community School. As a teacher in a multi age classroom, Dr. Horton has a commitment to supporting students and teachers through collective educator agency and relational capacity. Dr. Horton currently serves as principal of Continental Colony Elementary School and is a founder of Leeds. She understands support for teachers Will sustain her. Why every day? To increase life chances for students. Joseph Young started his educator journey at UCSD when he signed up to tutor local high school students and discovered his passion for teaching math and commitment to fighting for social justice. Today, Joseph serves as the Head of Partner Success at TeachFX.

12:53
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
You might have heard of that name before. They’re a great sponsor of our podcast and where he supports teachers increasing equitable opportunities for their students to participate and engage in learning. Dr. Horton and Joseph, welcome to this show.

13:11
KristenVaughn
Thank you for having me.

13:13
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Pleasure. So fantastic. Well, hey, I want to start with you, Dr. Horton. And it’s so important, right, to see educators and to see leaders who look just like you in your K twelve experience that included two leaders, right? That looked just like you. And can you tell me a bit about them in that stoRy?

13:37
KristenVaughn
Yes. So in my K twelve experience, they actually were teachers. So I never really experienced having a leader who was African American. But in the classroom, actually K twelve, my first time experiencing having a teacher that looked like me was in fourth grade and again in 7th grade. So I just knew that was, I had always wanted to be a teacher, but I knew that was one of the biggest things that I wanted to just be a representation of for students of color.

14:12
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
You said you always wanted to be a teacher. Is that right?

14:16
KristenVaughn
Well, I kind of went back and forth between interior design, because I love to do that, and also education. But my heart is really in education, just being around students, developing people. And so this is my passion.

14:33
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
I know you’ve mentioned to me that you were a reluctant leader. So how did you find yourself to be a principal?

14:42
KristenVaughn
So this was not the path that I planned on taking. When I started teaching, I taught for about eight years, and then I became an instructional coach for mathematics. And I loved working with the curriculum. I love working with teachers and students. And so I really wanted to stay on the professional learning side. But then I went to the district level, and my supervisor there told me that I think you need to try being a building leader. It’s a different experience. It’s not like the experience you have with coaching. You just need to try it out. I was very reluctant and I became an assistant principal. And I have to admit I did not like it at all that first year.

15:21
KristenVaughn
But then I was under a principal that really showed me if you put the right systems in place, then you can be focused on instruction in students versus just operational stuff. So she really kind of showed me like, yeah, being an administrator, you kind of make the path for your school and you own the work. So that’s what changed my mind to go into leadership and why, I should say, to stay in leadership because of that experience.

15:49
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
You make that practical for the Ruckus maker listEning, because when you talk about systems or making the work your own and that kind of thing, conceptually, I get it. But what does that look like? Maybe there is an example you can give?

16:03
KristenVaughn
A lot of times as a leader, you have a lot of people, especially I’m in a district. So you have certain mandates, you have certain things, you have to do certain PD that you have to follow. But at the end of the day, you have to go into your building and make it your own. And you have to really look at your demographic, look at the teachers you’re working with because they’re all different and you have to shape it to make it fit your building. Because I don’t believe, just like in the classroom, we tell teachers there has to be differentiation. You have to do the same on a building level.

16:36
KristenVaughn
So although we may be a part of a district, yes, we’re going to follow the mandates that are required, but we can definitely make it our own to ensure that we are first of all comfortable with it and disabled. Because I think when you believe in something and you own it and you’ve created it, then there’s so much more buy in for that particular. I just think it’s really about, okay, you have a school, you have to run, you have these things that you have to do, but how can you shape it and make it, like we say, the continental Colony way, right?

17:12
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Yes, the continental Colony way. And I heard you talking about shared ownership and distributed leadership, that kind of thing. But if people feel a part of the process, I can only imagine how much more they want to accomplish the goals.

17:27
KristenVaughn
Right? And you definitely look at what your staff needs, what your students need, and actually look into products and professional learning that will shape that need. Not this is what our district goal is for. PL is for the year. But what do your teachers need in order to move the needle at your school?

17:49
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
I don’t know if that’s how TeachFX fits into the larger story. I’m sure we’ll get to that. Joseph, I want to talk about how the universe loves to play jokes on you. And one of them maybe was that you were a teacher who hated PD, but here you are now, leading professional learning. What’s going on there?

18:15
Joseph Hyun
Yeah, I never could have imagined this is the seat I would find myself in. I taught for eleven years and I think in the eleven years, maybe like two or three PDs, I felt like I made a difference in my mindset or my instruction, and the rest were just checking boxes, things that were being done to us. In fact, the word professional development, I think that’s baked into the term. And yeah, it’s the universe’s cruel joke that now I get to lead professional learning and try to create experiences for teachers. That is everything. That’s not what I experienced. And it’s a tough challenge, but I’m honored to be able to work with Dr. Horton and her amazing staff at Continental and with schools and districts around the country.

19:03
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
I’m curious. I have an idea of what professional development done to teachers could feel like. But is there an example of the absolute worst day of PD that you experienced?

19:21
Joseph Hyun
Oh, man, that’s a great question.

19:23
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
And you don’t have to name who did it?

19:28
Joseph Hyun
Here’s the person’s name and email. Just kidding. Honestly, I think back on a lot of curriculum, PDS where the district makes a choice on what we are going to be teaching and how we need to do it, and the PDS for new curriculum just feel like, well, we have the answers. Here now is how you need to do it and let’s practice it together. Let’s go through your questions. And there’s no agency for the teacher there. It’s almost like you’re struggling to just try to fit what you know is happening in your classroom with your students to this outside entity that is now kind of forcing something on you. So I think that might be an example. I have a couple in mind, but that’s the generic answer.

20:14
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Okay. And what makes it work?

20:18
Joseph Hyun
Professional learning.

20:19
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
When you do it right and you know it’s landing. So as somebody who’s out there sharing, and I’m sure it’s got to be sometimes nerve wracking and a bit of the imposter syndrome, like standing in front of a staff and will this work? Might be a question going through your mind, but there you are, and you’re sharing what seems to land. How does it work?

20:44
Joseph Hyun
There’s a couple things that I think have helped me, and I will admit right now that I am still very much on this journey of trying to grow my own practice as a facilitator. But number one is just being really honest. I think it’s helpful for me to be able to draw on my own experience in the classroom and to share the challenges that I faced and to be openly vulnerable with the people I work with. I think that is really important just for me personally and even with the work that we do with TeachFX. But the second one, I’ll actually just borrow Dr. Horton’s phrase about making it your own. It’s not me making it my own.

21:22
Joseph Hyun
It’s trying to create a scenario or an environment where teachers are able to apply their own expertise and to share their expertise and have it celebrated and to be able to learn from each other. Those types of professional learning environments where it’s noisy and there’s productive conversation and there’s good tangents, relevant tangents, and even ones that aren’t always relevant. Things that will get people drawn into the conversation and being part of it. That’s, to me, what an amazing PL.

21:53
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Is like, yeah, it’s real, right? It’s authentic. Kristen, let’s pull on the thread and connect some dots with this idea of ownership. I know how awesome TeachFX is. I’ve been around the team and have known the service for years. But I’d love to hear from your experience as a principal who sort of hears about it, sees it, decide, okay, this is something that will elevate student achievement on campus. But how did you go about deciding to bring it in? And then, more importantly, how did it become like an us, a we, right. Ownership type of thing, versus, hey, y’all, we’re doing.

22:45
KristenVaughn
Literally, like, right before I heard the representative from TeachFX Speak, I was at a conference. We had finished our school improvement plan, and our big focus was going to be around student academic ownership. That was a place that were struggling to see consistently in every classroom. And I’m at this conference, and she’s talking about this app, and I’m like, oh, my goodness, that sounds great. So we kind of talked about it, and it was just a way for teachers to own, like, were just saying PL to own it because they’re looking at their data, they’re looking at their recordings. And I thought it was a great way just to give them insight first insight that we did have a challenge with releasing students. Right. So looking at your data, you can see if you have a 90% student talk. I mean, teacher talk.

23:37
KristenVaughn
There is a challenge with academic ownership on the behalf of students. So really being able, I like the program because I thought that we could actually first have somebody in where we see that there’s an issue, and then when we meet about it’s the teacher reflecting. So I had to get over. This was a big hurdle for me, the fact that I can’t look at the recordings without a teacher sharing it with me, because it is a reflection tool. And I think that makes it even more valuable for a teacher because it’s not a program that we’re putting on you, but it’s a tool to help you reflect on your practice. So we brought it in, and we started small with a small group, and then TeachFX came in face to face and did some work around just modeling.

24:23
KristenVaughn
And it’s not just the app, but actually modeling in the classroom for our teachers. And it was very valuable and then teachers were able during the professional learning to actually listen to their recording. So again weren’t giving them a program to go do. But you’re actually looking at your data, listening to your lesson and having a reflection and setting a goal for yourself. So the reflection in it and then the value in teachers being able to during these professional learnings to really focus on what’s happening in my classroom. Not this is a program that is evidence basEd. We’ve done this and this but they’re actually looking at what’s happening in their classroom and being able to reflect and move the needle forward.

25:06
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Yeah, I appreciate how it’s not like an evaluative tool, it’s a reflection tool. I think that’s a real key distinction. Maybe difficult for school leaders, principals, ruckus makers to let go a bit of control. Right. But reflection is an amazing thing and I think of know in terms of scaling the Dr. Horton within the building, multiplying know, providing objective feedback like no, this is what happened. I’m not judging it, this is just what happened and what’s the meaning that you make out of it. And so that’s a really interesting and important and key feature there. The pilot. How many people did you pilot with? Because I think that was a smart move in terms of introducing the program compared to the number of staff. So how many people piloted and how many teachers are on the staff.

26:04
KristenVaughn
So we piloted with about seven teachers first there was a representative from each grade level. People that I thought are very, they kind of jump on and want to try new things and then we took it whole staff maybe a couple of months later introducing it first just allowing teachers to record when they wanted to record. And now it becomes a part of our coaching where we’re asking teachers to record during the week and when you come to your coaching conversation just kind of share. One of the things I start off with is share a proud moment. I got this from Joseph. Share a proud moment from your recording this week. So they know kind of reflect and work towards a goal for their, you.

26:50
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Know, the human brain and probably in our DNA. It’s so easy to focus on negative. So pausing, slowing things down. Celebrating the know I think is a really smart move. I want to turn the mic back to you, Joseph, and I’m just curious when you’re working with the right like how have you seen them grow as you put on these professional learning experiences and help them with how they utilize teach effects?

27:21
Joseph Hyun
Yeah, there’s a couple examples that I’m thinking about one was from last year, a member of our team who came and actually did a model lesson in one of the classrooms. There’s one thing to talk about pedagogy, to talk about instructional practices. It’s a completely other thing to actually have us look at it in real time and to have that culture where there was no evaluation, it was not critique. It was a lot of praise and celebration. But specifically looking at in what ways did student discourse appear through the strategies that we had been talking about. The other example that I would pull from is from this year. We put the teachers in a scenario where they were much like our students. We gave them a challenging math problem to actually work through.

28:09
Joseph Hyun
And the goal was to try to unpack some of the state standards around mathematical modeling. But modeling is not something that you just tell somebody what it is and how to do it. You really do have to have that lived experience through it. And then Dr. Horton’s staff, they’re incredible. They not only participated and dove in as learners, but they were also able to pull themselves out and reflect on that experience of, hey, when we took the time to think through this or when we paired up to have this discussion, like, they were able to reflect on their confidence levels and their ability to participate. And to me, that’s a magical thing when a teacher makes that connection, oh, I do this for my own students or I can do this for my own kids.

28:50
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Yeah. What I’m hearing you say, if I got it right on that last know, there you are facilitating and modeling. And one of the AHA’s is a sort of meta moment. Oh, what we just did, I could bring that back immediately to the classroom and use it with my students. Is that correct?

29:07
Joseph Hyun
Exactly. Yeah.

29:09
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
All right, great. Well, Kristen, I want to ask you a similar question, but we’re going to do a quick pause to get some messages in from our sponsors like TeachFX. And when we get back, I want to hear from you what was teaching and learning like before TeachFX and what was it like after? All right, and we’re back with Dr. Horton, who serves as principal of Continental Colony Elementary School, and also Joseph Young, who is a partner, head of partner success, Excuse me, at TeaChFX. So, Kristen, before the know, Joseph was sharing how he’s seen your staff grow and change. But I’m curious from the principals seat, the ruckus maker seat, or what was teaching and learning like right before using TeachFX and what’s it like now?

30:12
KristenVaughn
So before I’ll start with just leadership, I think it was very eye opening. We started to record ourselves. So my coaches, they record their collaborative planning sessions, things like that. And what we saw were, we’re asking teachers to create this wait time and this space for student discourse, but weren’t doing it as leaders. So we’re leading teachers expecting something, but as leaders, weren’t doing the same thing. So I think even the way we lead in our professional learning, our collaborative planning, even our coaching conversations are a lot different because before it was more, okay, this is what I saw, these are the next steps, let’s go. Or this is the data. And so now actually listening to yourself and the fact that you don’t stop to even give wait time to teachers, we had to reevaluate the way were meeting.

31:02
KristenVaughn
So before it was more, like I said, I’m going to give you all of this, and now let’s go. Versus now when were able to hear ourselves, we’re able to ask more questions and give that wait time, and it’s more of a reflection. And then in the classroom side, and we’re really not where we want to be with this yet. But I’ve seen major strides is the student voice. So we’re really trying to value the process of meaning making through student discourse. So we want to be able to hear the learning. We want to be able to see the learning. And I think it has come a long way. You do hear, like, I was in a classroom just today and there was so much wait time, and I even kind of got a little uncomforTable.

31:48
KristenVaughn
But the students are now getting used to it, to where they were really thinking. And then more hands were going up, more students were able to talk, and students that you may not hear speak last year, you see them volunteering a lot more because they do have time in the process. Or when there’s wait time, if there’s a long calls and still no one is talking, then we’re throwing in those collaborative talk structures to give kids a chance to talk to each other before we come together. So I definitely think we’re hearing the student voice like we’re hearing the learning. We’re making it visible on the walls as well as hearing it a lot more than there was before. It was a lot of teacher talk before. Which teacher talk is not bad. We’ve learned that.

32:31
KristenVaughn
But there is space where there needs to be much more student talk or group talk and even silence to ensure that we are valuing the process of.

32:41
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Meeting, making sure, I like to consider myself the king of wait time. And when I’m working with leaders who are so used to go. That silence can become very uncomfortable for them. But I know that they’re thinking right. They’re processing. And so I’m glad that you shared, at least I think I heard you share that. The leadership team, one of the AHA’s, is, are we providing wait time for the faculty. So that was really cool, and I appreciate you sharing. Know, something else I’m curious about is just. Well, actually, I’ll get to you in a second. Kristen, something you mentioned was that collaborative talk structure. I actually don’t really know what that is, and so I want to ask Joseph what that’s all about, because as the king of wait time, I just use silence. Know, Bend. Right.

33:35
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Like, you will answer, you will think. Right. And I do not talk until they think. I don’t have a tool like a collaborative talk structure. I have no idea what that is. I have a guess, but can you tell me?

33:48
Joseph Hyun
Sure. I’ll actually give a nod to some of Dr. Horton’s staff. Wait time is really powerful, but at the same time, we know that students process information differently and they’re thinking differently. And so while some students can benefit from having that time to process, other students actually need to be able to speak to someone. Our external processors benefit from being able to pair up. So there’s no one size fits all move that you could ever do in a classroom that will equitably support every kid in the same way. But a collaborative structure is a great way to shake up that routine. And you could do something as simple as a think pair, share type of activity. And then there’s some really fun ones. Depends on probably the age group and the culture of a classroom.

34:31
Joseph Hyun
But one of my favorite ones is stand up, pair up, stand up, pair up, share up, I believe it is. And essentially, students will all stand up, will all raise their hands, and until you pair up with somebody, you keep your hand raised, which ensures that every kid finds a partner as a partner and they have some kind of prompt, then they do it again, and they get to talk with multiple people, kids that they don’t normally talk to every day, kids who don’t sit next to them. And it really gets kids more active and engaged in a learning experience.

35:02
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Got it. Okay, so back to the question I had for you, Kristen, and I wanted to talk to Joseph. Really just, I’m wondering what surprised you, right when you brought TeachFX in and it could know personally from your leadership chair or just something you saw on the staff.

35:19
KristenVaughn
But what surprised you what surprised me was the buy in from, because we previously used a product that was more video recording, and teachers were very reluctant or it just was hard to get them on board. So with Teach FX, some of my teachers are recording, like I said, multiple times a week. One teacher I coach, she’s constantly sending me her. Now you get an image of your lesson, and she’s sharing that with students. And so just the reflective piece on how powerful it is for teachers to change their practice. Right. Instead of, like you said, it’s feedback on a daily basis. If you report every day, it’s feedback every time you report. Not coming from an administrator, not coming from a coach, but you just looking at the reports and the insights and having that reflection time.

36:11
KristenVaughn
So I think just a buy in from the teachers who are constantly recording and the change in their practice so quickly because of just the ownership and the reflection piece.

36:25
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
My last question for you before we sort of round down this conversation, I want to hear about the student experience. You just mentioned a teacher sharing something with the students. Right. A snapshot or an image of the lesson. And obviously, I bet the kids are, like, seeing, oh, we actually have more ownership now, right within the class. But, yeah. Do teachers actually share the data and look at it with the kids and make meaning of that as well? I don’t know. What does that look like?

36:58
KristenVaughn
I said, share the image and just ask students to connect. What did we talk about yesterday? Where do you think we’re going today?

37:04
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
What’s the image?

37:06
KristenVaughn
So it just depends on the images. A teacher was teaching about narrative writing, and it looked like a whole storyboard, like kind of an alice in Wonderland. That was the image. Summarize the lesson. So it just depends on the lesson, and it gives you an image to kind of summarize the big idea of the particular lesson.

37:30
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Okay, so the image is sort of like a graphical representation of what was taught, like what was discussed. Is that correct?

37:40
KristenVaughn
Okay.

37:41
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
It’s like a picture. Got it. Joseph, anything to add to that in terms of the image stuff? I don’t know from a teacher FX perspective? Just curious.

37:51
Joseph Hyun
This is my favorite part of hearing our teachers and what they do when they start talking about ways that they’ve brought their students into this process. It’s incredible. So the image is one another teacher actually will read the summary of the lesson from the previous day to the students because there’s a written summary as well. And the students will be like, wait, what? Oh, wait, we did talk about that, and it’s a great way to Just tap into prior knowledge, but also kind of acknowledge, like, your voice helped guide our learning yesterday. So let’s take a moment to revisit that. And we’ve heard a lot of teachers love the word cloud, so they’ll share the top 30 words that they use as a teacher. But the kids get really excited when they see the top 30 words that they used.

38:33
Joseph Hyun
Can become a game where they want to see certain words appear in their word cloud. Words of the day that they want to make sure that they see in their word cloud.

38:42
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Brilliant. All right, well, let’s move on to the last few questions I ask all my guests as we finish up our conversation. So, Kristen, first to you, if you could put a message on all school marquees for just one day, what would your message.

38:58
KristenVaughn
Is? I saw this on Instagram. I don’t know who wrote it, but now that I have it all the time, just as a reminder to me and the staff, the scariest place to be in is the same place as last year. Period, grow, period.

39:13
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Got it. Joseph, same question to you.

39:17
Joseph Hyun
I’m assuming that teachers, parents, everybody in the community would see it. So mine is, listen to your kids.

39:26
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Great. And now, if you were building your dream school, I guess, collaboratively, and you weren’t constrained by any sort of resources, your only limitation was your ability to imagine, how would you go about building this dream school? What would be the one most important principle? Kristen, I’ll ask you first.

39:50
KristenVaughn
I think the biggest principle would be the curriculum is grounded in what students believe their purpose is. So a curriculum around what students, their purpose, their interest, versus we’re not school. So we do a lot of inquiry where students are able to ask questions, but of course, we’re making it fit into a certain curriculum. But a school where everything was based around student purpose. Right. Especially in fourth and fifth grade, you may have these pods where certain time of the day you’re going to a different pod based on what you feel, your purpose, what you’re driven to do. And I think starting that young, we would just have so many people living purpose driven lives.

40:33
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Yes. Joseph, what would your principle be?

40:37
Joseph Hyun
I think I would lean toward something Kristen said earlier, but it’s around growth and reflection. So something around how not just our teachers, but everyone in our school community grows when we reflect. And so just to be able to have a school that engages in that honest and data informed reflection regularly and to know that we have a growth mindset and that we’re all professionals here and that we have that capacity to grow, I would want everyone who signs up to be at our school to have that mindset with us.

41:09
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
Brilliant. Last question is going to Dr. Horton only. So we’ve discussed a lot on this podcast today. So everything we talked about, what’s the one thing you want a ruckus maker to remember?

41:25
KristenVaughn
Let’s see. Well, I would say leaders in general that just keep growing. Like you want your staff to grow. Kind of what Joseph just said, but never stop growing yourself.

41:42
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
The recording has stopped. Brilliant. And I love the guests having the last word. I won’t add anything to it. Great. How was that for you too?

41:51
KristenVaughn
It was good.

41:53
Joseph Hyun
Felt a little nervous, but once we got in the flow, you did a great job just kind of keeping things moving. So thank you, Danny.

42:01
Chief Ruckus Maker: Danny
At this point, I should count, but it’s probably like 1000 interviews or something. You know what I mean? I’ve been doing this since 2015 episode every single week. It’s kind of crazy. But thank you. Thank you both for just showing up, for bringing your full selves and your perspective that will really benefit the audience. And if there’s anything I can do to be of service, please let me know.

42:25
KristenVaughn
Right. Thank you so much.

42:28
Joseph Hyun
Appreciate you both. Good to see you. Bye.