Defining Our Own Brand of Learning

Brand D E F I N I N G OUR OWN OF LEARNING

A redesigned focus around specific academic pillars

STORY BY SUZANNE ROMERO DEWEY

ILLUSTRATION BY K A T S C H N E I D E R

SHE WAS AT THE TIPPING POINT and she knew something had to be done. Iowa-born, an engineering mind, and a masterful problem-solver, Academic Dean Meredith Legg, PhD could plainly see the disappointment in her advisee’s face. There was just no way to do it. Her advisee completed a practicum at Albany Med where she spent enough time learning about brain functions that she knew she wanted to take neuroscience in her twelfth grade year but it wasn’t an AP and she needed to have as many APs as possible to get into college. Nope, her advisee left her office, resigned to taking AP Economics instead.

Dr. Legg has been at Emma Willard since 2010 and has served as the academic dean since 2016. She holds the Sara Lee Schupf Family Chair in Instructional Technology.

Meredith sat back in her chair. This wasn’t an isolated conversation. Teachers and students were sharing thinking and frustration around the rigid Advanced Placement™ curriculum. Students felt pressure to do more for their college applications, often stifling a budding curiosity. The inevitable and tenacious question re-surfaced: what if we don’t offer AP courses?

What Could Teaching and Learning Look Like?

Fast-forward two years. Meredith, the administration, the faculty, the admissions team, and most importantly, the students are answering that question. The entering class of 2024 will be the first Emma Willard School students to fully benefit from a unique advanced curriculum, created by Emma Willard School faculty, that emphasizes curiosity and enduring learning.

Fresh from a webinar announcing the new program to current families, Meredith offers a relieved smile. “I am so thrilled that we are making this change. After announcing the change to our students and then meeting with advisees, I know we are moving in the best direction. The students are excited, too!”

If students are feeling pressure to take more AP courses to get into colleges, one wonders how it makes sense to do away with APs altogether. “Oh we did our homework,” enthuses Meredith. “The college counseling team looked at the colleges where our students apply and surveyed over 25 of those colleges. The response, shared multiple times by almost every college: If Emma Willard School could make it clear —via transcripts, its profile, and recommendations— what advanced learning looks like, its reputation as an academically rigorous school would remain intact. There would be no detrimental impact to the reputation of

the school or how applicants are assessed. Essentially, we don’t need APs to define our excellence!”

“She makes this change sound easy,” shares Head of School Jenny Rao. “Meredith and the faculty have grappled with this question for months. They realized early on that they didn’t want to just do away with APs. They wanted teaching as well as learning to be invigorated. They knew they had to be moving toward something, not just away. Through all of the discussions, the central element came back to: What is best for our students? What do today’s girls need now more, than ever?”

Meredith explains further. “Not everyone on the faculty was comfortable with this idea. We had

Faculty members in one of the many planning meetings focused on invigorating learning and innovative teaching.

many discussions at faculty meetings, in departments, and around the lunch table. Focusing on the ‘what if’ and the skills necessary for today’s learners combined with our research with colleges and other schools who had established their own advanced learning helped align our thinking. Late in the fall, at an evening faculty meeting, I decided to conduct a visual survey and handed out red, yellow, and green cards. I then asked the faculty to hold up the card that reflected their feelings best. Red for worry. Yellow for caution. Green for go! After 18 months of consideration and ideation, we needed to have this gut-check.

“Seeing so many green cards made my heart sing! I knew then that we were making the change!”

History Instructor and Department Chair Josh Hatala has worked closely with Meredith making the program vision come to life. Almost as a mantra, they have focused on the reality of a rapidly changing world and the need for today’s learners to be equipped to meet the challenges of their time. In faculty conversations, the focus has been on what matters most in learning—relevance, multidisciplinary connection, and comprehension. Josh firmly states, “Our students need to think deeply and we want to fuel their love of learning.

“Moving beyond the AP will allow us to offer a greater diversity of upper level courses, or to add new and timely features to ‘traditional’ courses that continued reliance Moving beyond the AP will allow us to offer a greater diversity of upper level courses, or to add new and timely features to “traditional” courses that continued reliance on the College Board framework would have made impossible or challenging.

JOSH HATALA

Students study the brain in a neuroscience class, an example of advanced learning that can be accomplished outside of the AP structure.

on the College Board framework would have made impossible or challenging. We might still continue to offer a US Government and Politics course that is as rigorous or more rigorous than the AP. We now have the freedom to include additional opportunities for sustained projects that engage students deeply in the political process. For example, we now have time and space in the curriculum to connect students with legislators and grassroots political organizations in our state’s capital. Opportunities like this will allow our students to combine theory and practice and dig into solving real world problems.”

“Some of our new programming will grow from existing successful curriculum. For example, Dr.

Naeher’s US Experiential History course brings students into the capital region, using it as a microcosm to understand macro level changes and phenomena in US History. In the field, students learn to ‘read’ architecture, ask and research big questions and engage with local primary sources to answer those questions. Students participate in projects writing and revising literature for local historic sites. We want to develop and hone this kind of work.”

Instructor Erin Hatton, who chairs the science department, is also excited about these changes. “This new program is going to allow teachers to focus on making classes more student-centered. As we move beyond the AP, instead of using prescribed labs, I envision implementing labs where students are designing an experiment, critically analyzing the data, and drawing conclusions.

“Instead of lecturing students on content in order to fit in as much as possible, I imagine presenting students with a diagram or model and having students ask questions to figure out the underlying concept on their own. In essence, class will be even more engaging and fun!

“We are thinking of providing more inquiry-based classes that include student choice. For example, our neuroscience class scaffolds student learning so by the end of the year the students are comfortable reading peer-reviewed journal articles and teaching the class about the research scientists are performing about the brain!”

Program pillars

The faculty has spent time identifying three central principles that are guiding curriculum revision: intellectual flexibility, a sense of purpose & community, and an understanding of equity & justice:

• During their time at Emma

Willard School, students should develop the intellectual flexibility to consider big questions and work to solve big problems.

• Fundamental to personal wellbeing is the life-long exploration of one’s self and one’s contribution to the world. The curriculum should foster a sense of purpose in each student by emphasizing relevance, impact, and community connection.

• Living and learning in a global and inclusive community should require persistent and purposeful practice, exposure to and understanding of the global community, and the skills necessary to build and sustain equity and justice in the world.

As the school works to realize this programmatic goal, they will gradually phase out the AP courses. For the 2020–21 academic year, a full catalog of AP courses will be offered with progressively fewer AP courses offered in the subsequent two years. Meredith shares, “In our effort to allow our students to follow their interests and explore their personal definitions of success, there will be an AP enrollment cap for the classes of 2022 and 2023. The AP enrollment cap is designed to relieve the pressure students feel to choose an AP course over pursuing an area of deep interest.”

Next steps

What will next year look like for the new ninth graders? That planning is ongoing. Josh shares some of the outcomes of those planning sessions by detailing a new course: “Next year, as a way of beginning to move towards implementation of the new program pillars, we’ll be offering an interdisciplinary course called Environmental Justice. The history course will be cross-listed with English and address, head on, what is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time: climate change. This course will engage students in a service learning project designed to foster a deeper connection to our local landscape and those who call it home. Through the course students will gain a clearer understanding of how environmental imagination shapes laws, power relations, and as well as everyday experience.”

Meredith draws our thinking back to the strategic rationale for this new program, “Phasing out AP courses and the new advanced learning courses we create are designed to relieve the pressure that students feel in choosing to enroll in an AP course over pursuing an area of deep interest. We don’t want students to forgo elective courses or capstone Signature project opportunities in favor of meeting a quota of AP courses on their transcript. Ultimately, students have greater freedom to explore their interests and distinguish themselves in ways other than through the accumulation of AP credits. Our program should support each Emma Willard student as she writes her own unique, personal definition of what success will look like in her life.”

LEARNING GOES ONLINE AS RESPONSE TO COVID-19

Hours and hours of planning and preparation went into the online learning program that launched on April 6. Platforms had to be tested and selected, the general frame had to be determined, the mix of asynchronous and synchronous sessions considered, website properties were created (for faculty, students, and parents), course planning was completely reconsidered, standards were discussed, and finally the students concluded their spring recess to begin online learning with the idea that the campus is closed but the learning continues.

Welcome to the academic program of Virtually Emma!

All classes were asynchronous. Weekly office hours, advisor meetings, one-on-one sessions, learning support, and many community events were synchronous. The new teaching and learning format excelled with student feedback and actual experience with the delivery. Teachers built feedback and reflection tools into each week. An open mindset and the willingness to tweak and adjust were markers toward learning success.

“What has been re-imagined by our faculty is remarkable,” shared Head of School Jenny Rao. “They have poured creativity, thoughtfulness, and knowledge of their students into all of their new lesson planning. Their intention and care was demonstrated!”

Everyone agreed that being together on-campus was very much missed, and yet there are many silver linings. There was a vitality and a determination by the entire community to make Virtually Emma a success. All signals point to “WE’VE GOT THIS!”