University High School’s curriculum committee and Dave Vesper visited Culver Academies on Nov. 29 and 30 to examine how the culture encourages faculty collaboration through scheduling, grading, and performance feedback. Here are some reactions from the UHS faculty on that visit:
Scheduling
What Culver Does:
Block scheduling. Students take just four classes per term, and there are two terms in a semester. Classes are 90 minutes, and all four classes meet each day.
One term at Culver equals a semester at University, so a year-long class at University is completed in one semester at Culver.
Teachers teach two classes each term. The teaching load is 30-40 students at once, and there’s plenty of meeting time.
What We Thought:
“I was reintrigued by the idea of blocks. I had looked at it in terms of what it means for students, not what it means for teachers, like being able to reduce your student load at a particular time and opening up more prep time and time to talk with other teachers.” – Carolyn Bradley
“We [at University] all teach 60-80 students over the course of a year, but to teach them 30-40 at a time seems pretty intriguing.” – Alicia LaMagdeleine
“The chair of the department seems to be happy with how it’s working for world languages, but I still don’t see how it would work for us. Leaving that much time in between sequential classes makes me nervous.” – Moises Gomez-Pastor
Feedback & Promotive Structure
What Culver Does:
Folio Collaborative is used to track a teacher’s student evaluations, monitor progress toward goals, and share observations and feedback from the department chair.
Culver has an established system for teacher promotion that includes four levels — instructor, senior instructor, master instructor, and mentor instructor. There are requirements that must be met to move up a level, and a teacher’s pay is based on their level.
What We Thought:
“The reality of these [levels] being labels induces anxiety. You can’t be a teacher there without having that in the back of your head. One of the things I love most about teaching here is that I don’t feel anxiety when I come to work because I feel like the accountability comes from students [not from a classification or title].” – Collin Lawrence
“How do you create a feedback loop that captures the right things, and then how do we administratively get better at having these conversations? We should explore the feedback loop before looking at any kind of promotive structure.” – Alicia LaMagdeleine
Grading
What Culver Does:
Students are graded on “process” as well as “performance.” The performance grade measures a student’s scores on projects, papers or tests. The process grade measures studentship. It reflects how hard a student worked in class and how a student applied feedback.
What We Thought:
“I like what they are doing to differentiate ‘learning’ from ‘learner.’ I like how they do it across different levels, too. For example, in French 1, process and performance were each worth 50% of the grade. As they go through French 2, 3, and 4, the performance grade becomes a bigger percentage.” – Moises Gomez-Pastor
“Before making changes, we should evaluate how teachers are currently grading. And we should ask a much bigger question: What do we believe the purpose of grades are?” – Kirstin Northenscold