I have been enjoyed reading Jim Knight's books relating professional learning and instructional coaching. His books were well-structured and easy to follow. He often provides concrete examples and useful practical strategies to implement coaching conversations. This blog post records my visual notes and personal reflections from Jim Knight's work, Better Conversations, published in 2016.    

Dialogue is not going to occur without asking effective questions. The two habits go hand in hand. When reading books relating to cognitive coaching, the definitions of dialogue are often deeply explored. In this book, Better Conversations, the author explained that dialogue is a learning conversation, in which participants listen with empathy and they respect and encourage others' views. The most important idea for me is Paulo Freire's idea (1970) that "dialogue cannot exist without humility."

The reminds me of what's mentioned in The Adaptive School. "Dialogue honors the social-emotional brain, building a sense of connections, it connects us to our underlying motivations and mental models. This way of talking forms a foundation for coherent, sustained effort and community building. In a dialogue we hear phrases like: 

• An assumption I have is...
• I'd be curious to hear what other are thinking about this issue." (Garmston and Wellman, 2016) 

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Simply put, in dialogue, interlocutors who hold equal status take time to listen to other voices and possibilities. It's an opportunity for us to invite collective intelligence, build relationships, and engage intentionally to achieve mutual understanding. It's a caring behaviour. Our assumptions, however, often prevent us from having dialogue. They reflect our worldview, emotions, moral perspectives, culture, and beliefs. Once our assumptions are challenged, we feel threatened and activate our fight-or-flight response. Therefore, dialogue is also a process for us to discover our unknown assumptions. 

The author explained that we can foster dialogue by balancing advocacy and inquiry. As stated in the book on page 78: 

• Advocacy means speaking what you think, speaking from a point of view. 
• Inquiry means looking into what you do not yet understanding, or seeking to discover what others see and understand that may be different from you point of view. 

"Balancing advocacy and inquiry means stating clearly and confidently what one thinks and why one thinks it, while at the same time being open to be wrong. It means encouraging others to challenge our views, and to explore what might stop them from doing so." 

This highlights the benefit of using protocols to encourage participants in sharing their voices and ask questions to clarify, probe, and reparaphrase. 

To build relationship though dialogue, we ask better questions. Through questions, we listen other ideas and opinions which is a way for us to understand other people's worldview, and discover our own assumptions. 

I made a close connections with Bréne Brown's Dare to Lead. In dialogue, we need to prepare to be wrong and embrace our fear, and have courage to ask better questions. She created a cheatsheet to show one can be brave and keep their mind open for productive conversations in her blog post, Let's Rumble. I personally found this cheatsheet very useful. ​

If we want our relationships to flourish, we need to reach out to connect by responding positively to the bids received (turning toward). By the same token, we also want to express our bides to others in order to make connections to the people we care. In this process, we pay attention to verbal (e.g.a question, an invitation, a response...) and nonverbal bids (e.g. a smile, a hug, a gesture, a physical touch...). To practice this habit, we can observe how people interact with these bids. As the book mentioned, this strategy is best practiced by sitting in the coffee shop for people watch. Have our eyes, hears and heart open and pay attentions to subtle verbal and nonverbal communication.  

We all like to feel motivated, encouraged, validated, and boosted when we hear positive comments about the word we do. I think being a witness to the good is one way for us to show our gratitude and respect to other people. When sharing positive information with others, we do have to be mindful of the language we use; otherwise, our comment will sound phony. Show our appreciation through detailing our experiences with them by using intentional language. In terms of sharing positive information with others, where do we start? We make an effort to find strength of others and keep a journal to record what positive behaviors observed. For example, at KIS, our staff participate in What Wonderful Work (W.W.W). Toward the end of each term, teachers write to nominate their thankfulness and appreciation to colleagues they have interaction with.    

To start a connection, we can also focusing on finding healthy common ground. I found the acronym ICARE (Interests, Convictions, Activities, Roles, and Experiences) is easy to remember and provides good entry points to find the common ground. I think this is also a way to show others that we want to get to know them and hear their interesting stories and experiences. Having identifying the common ground, it is easy for people to identify the similarities and differences. It's provide an opportunity for us to hear stories and worldviews of others. 

I enjoy tremendously in supporting students in completing their MYP personal projects. Through the process of completing a personal project, I feel the biggest growth that students develop is GRIT. The MYP personal project is essentially a design challenge that engages students in the process of ideation, prototyping and testing the viability of their ideas. This kind of experimental iteration allows students to exercise their agency, ownership, and entrepreneurship. It is an inspiring inquiry cycle that allows students to stretch their learning capacities and capabilities through the guidance of experienced adults. Throughout the process, not only their intellectual curiosity is satisfied, but they also become grittier. Students constantly encounter failures and they need to come up with solutions to fix their obstacles in order to make their project. Meanwhile, they also need to learn how to manage their time in completing their other assignments and duties. It can be a very stressful process for some students. I want to highlight the perseverance and resilience that students have developed through this trial and error process in making their personal project, and this is not something that can be measured quantitatively. We need to help them to recognize and celebrate their potential. It is paramount that that we guide them to understand how becoming grittier can help them succeed later in their life.     

After finishing making their projects, students showcase their project/outcome in the MYP personal project exhibition. It is an opportunity for them to share their learning process and tell their stories. It is a story that tells how they develop courage, embrace vulnerability, make connections and seek meaning. All supervisors knew it is far more than just completing a product or achieving an outcome. I want to scaffold students to explain the process they go through in details when they share their projects with the audience in the exhibition. When the audience walk away, they will appreciate students' perseverance and recognize their bravery in completing their project. 

2015-16
Three years ago, when I was the personal project coordinator, I asked my students "How are you going to tell your story in the exhibition?" They did not quite understand what I meant. In the previous years, students presented their project in the exhibition and often the focus was on the product rather than the process. Students introduced what they made but they did not always market their story and connect with the audience emotionally. 
 
At KIS, our vision is inspiring individuals. Our aim is to inspire individuals, while we hope that our students and other members of the community in return can go out into the world and inspire others. I feel the exhibition is a perfect opportunity for students to inform, educate and/or inspire the audience. To help students visualize how to share their story more effectively, I share Jake Andraka's TED talk with students (00:00-01:54).       

We focused on the first two-minute of his storytelling and examined how Jack shared with the audience his project. So, viola! Students in that year presented their story in TED talk style and everyone curated their story for a two-minute talk or less. Some students did not feel conformable talking on the stage, they made a video to share their project. The audience responded positively and students felt so proud of themselves. I reflected on the way I supported students. Students were more actively involved with the planning, but I knew there was not enough agency, choice, and voice. 

2016-17
The first year I did not really know what I was doing. I only knew that I would like to create an opportunity for students to inspire others and for the audience to have an insight of the personal project process. The second year, I asked the students again, "How are you going to tell your story?" Students who had attended the previous exhibition, and this cohort did not want to give a speech. So they organized themselves into different committees and created job descriptions to plan for their exhibition. I was truly amazed. Then I asked them how they were going to advertise the event. They created a promotional poster and 6-word memoir video to invite people to visit their exhibition. Next, we discussed how the exhibition should be organized and how the audience might interact with the presenters and the exhibition space. Students took one step further and they came up with an exhibition theme, accompanying with a floor plan and a brochure to introduce the presenters. They also selected MCs to host their own events and curated a music playlist for the exhibition. I reminded them that a good exhibition requires rehearsals. They wrote key ideas about what they wanted to share with the audience and they rehearsed with each other a couple of times before the exhibition. It was an excellent exhibition and students developed an ownership of this event. Working with this group of students, I experienced the power of providing students choice and voice, which are the two important ingredients to develop student agency and therefore develop inspiring individuals.  

Here are some exhibition planning artifacts of the 2016-17 class.  

2017-18
Having seeing the great exemplar, students followed similar process and forming their task force teams. The theme that students decided on was Metro. They used different subway lines to represent six different global contexts. There were several artists and designers in this chord, and they even decided the color scheme for their exhibition. The video students made was excellent and captured the essence of the personal project. The audience were so impressed and one of the parent who worked for Dior actually awarded internship opportunities to two students! 

2018-19
Students keep raising the bar. The theme students decided on was Monopoly. The reason that students had chose the Monopoly theme was because they felt the personal project itself is a game of wit and tack, and also filled with opportunities popping up left and right. Sometimes, it also felt like being in jail. The teams had worked together to plan and curate their exhibition by working out the following: 

• Music playlist 
• Monoproject logo 
• Floor plan 
• Group equipment & material request 
• MCs & scripts 
• Advertising poster 
• Exhibition brochures 
• QR codes for their products 
• Introduction video ​

Individually, students also create a poster to explain their project. We discuss what a good poster look like and how we can use the poster to engage with the audience. 

I feel compelled to documented this journey that I have gone through with my students, and look forward to continuing to work with the young adults to make their project and celebrate their achievement by involving them in planing and curating their exhibition. I treat them as designers and I am always amazed what they produced. I told my students that learning does not stop after they complete their personal project. They are encouraged to approach problems and projects by utilizing design thinking as a strategy for innovation. The process of creating a project is messy and starts with stories. Throughout the process, students create their narrative and share how they develop courage, embrace vulnerability, make connections and seek meaning. This type of learning can prepare them for life, but not just for work. I created this diagram to highlight the storytelling process and emphasize design thinking is like an infinity loop, not a straight line, as there is continuity and it is a mindset for life. 

To help our grade 5 parents understand how the PYP and MYP are connected, I have designed this infographic to explain the continuum of the two programmes. This is just a brief overview of how the two programmes are aligned with each other. Not all of our parents who speak fluent English. Taking this into consideration, I try to make the information easy and accessible to our parents. Four key aspects are identified: 

• curriculum approach; 
• curriculum content; 
• assessment; 
• approaches to learning skills.  

In the upcoming parent forum to help PYP parents understand the MYP, I hope to use this infographic as an entry point of discussion. The MYP is a very ambitious curriculum framework and it is important to prfioritize the information to share with parents and avoid overwhelming them. 

If you like this resource, please consider donating. Money received will be used to support refugee scholars who attend my school.

KIS International School, together with the KIS community, developed a 5 year strategic plan which runs from 2015-2020. One of our goals is to further develop the programmes to support and meet the needs of all students in preparation for them to be proud of themselves and their place in the world. We have identified two objectives in reaching this goal:

1. Further develop visible learning (Hattie, 2009);
2. Further enhance assessment tools and strategies to support and promote student progress and ensure student are assessment capable learners.

In order to develop self-regulated learners, we know we want to involve students in taking more responsibility for their own learning and become assessment capable. Professor Hattie’s research emphasizes the learners’ engagement with the feedback process and its role in developing assessment-capable learners who are able to regulate their own learning. Hattie notes that developing assessment capable students who know the learning intention for what is being taught can describe where they are in relation to the success criteria and can then use that information to determine the best learning strategies to improve their work and performance is the number one factor for improving student achievement (Hattie, 2009). 

These insights have lead me to reflect on our feedback process with our students as well as the reporting process. 

• Students do not see the value of formative tasks.
• Teachers spend many hours giving feedback and students are not always engaged with the feedback received to move forward for improvement. The workload of teachers often causes burnout and has an impact on their well-being. 
• KIS reports four times a year. In March and October, narrative reports are issued. The feedback on the narrative report cards has not always been useful to our students and parents because it is summative rather than formative. Students have not had an opportunity to construct meaning from the feedback to make subsequent improvement. 
• The language used for narrative reports is usually academic and based on the published MYP assessment criteria descriptors, which makes it difficult to decipher. The feedback is inaccessible to some students. 

With this mind, I invited a group of teachers to work with me and launch the formative feedback project in an effort to  foster self-regulation. We worked with only grade 10 students and teachers in our first year (2017-2018), and the result of the student improvement was significant. The participating subject was English language and literature and students were measured against MYP Year 5 criteria for grade 9 and 10. Students were taught by the same teacher in grade 9 and grade 10. I compared their grade 9 and grade 10 English achievement levels, and the result in the second semester in 2018, after one year of piloting, showed great improvement. In the same year, I also followed the same process to provide students feedback for their personal project reports, our students' average grade of their personal project reports compared to the IBMYP worldwide average grade was remarkable. 

The result gave us lots of confidence and we decided to invite more teachers in participating in this project in the academic year of 2018-19. We did not really know how it would actually work in our first year. We were lucky to have an excellent English language teacher, she worked effortlessly trying out different ways to provide feedback and making time to conference with students. After one year of piloting and observation, I came up with a model to support teachers in testing out the feedback practice and hope to conduct an action research to test the viability of our ideas. I am very grateful to work with a group of talent and passionate teachers who are risk takers and want to test a new feedback approach to make an impact on student learning.  

The aim of this action research project is to investigate how implementing a systematized formative assessment and feedback process model can engage students proactively with feedback and simultaneously promote teacher agency. It is a communication framework that promotes teachers and students being intentional, fostering craftsmanship, and developing collaborative partnerships. Intentionality, craftsmanship, and collaboration are the cornerstones of development. It is a process that involves learners with inquiry, action, and reflection. The diagram is presented below to visually illustrate the feedback model proposed.

The Theoretical Framework of Interactive Feedback Model  

Through this project, we hope to cultivate a coaching culture by providing actionable  feedback through frequent formative assessment and to foster positive and collaborative interactions between students, colleagues, and parents. The Feed up, Feed back and Feed forward system developed by Professor Hattie will also be implemented to develop student assessment literacy and encourage them to reflect critically for personal development. Questions are designed to engage students in thinking critically about their learning, monitoring development, interacting with feedback, identifying strategies and actionable steps in order to reach their desired learning goals.

In the interactive formative feedback model,

1. teachers collaborate and design summative assessment that allows students to demonstrate their conceptual understanding, knowledge and skills of the unit.
   
2. Next, teachers communicate and explain task-specific clarification to students. Exemplars of different achievement levels are provided to help students understand the task requirements and expectations. Teachers can also co-construct task-specific clarification with students.
   
3. Teachers consider the nature of the summative assessment and assessment objectives, and they design a series of formative assessment tasks that provide opportunities for students to practice knowledge, concepts and skills required for the summative assessment.
   
4. After teachers communicate the learning targets with students, they interpret the task, refer to task-specific clarification, and set desired learning goals.
   
5. Students perform the formative task and receive feedback from their teachers. Teachers provide feedback based on the student’s learning goal by using the GRIT framework. They point out positive attitudes and growth that students have demonstrated. They also note down any risk-taking behaviors observed. Moreover, they make their judgement of what students need to improve and then provide tactics (strategies and/or resources) to guide students to regulate their performance. Teacher feedback can be communicated through dialogue and other modalities.
   
6. Students construct meaning of the feedback received and clarify with teachers. Lastly, students use the feedback received to develop actionable steps that can help them to complete the summative assessment with success and confidence.

• Continue to reflect and revise the process 
• Our action research plan received the grant from EARCOS and we will formally conduct this action research in the year of 2019-2020. 

The resources included are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. In short, you can copy, distribute and transmit the work, but you must attribute the work to KIS International School. The work is not for commercial purposes.  

• A practice guide to action research for literacy educators 
• Developing engagement with feedback toolkit (16-19) ​

• Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analysis Relating to Student Achievement. London, Routledge.
• Winstone, N.E., Nash, R. A., Parker, M., & rOWNTREE, j. (2016). Supporting learners’ agentic engagement with feedback: A systematic review and a taxonomy of recipience process. Educational Psychologist, doi: 10.1080/00461520.2016.1207538

If you like this resource, please consider donating. Money received will be used to support refugee scholars who attend my school.

This upcoming Friday, March 15, there will be 11 teachers out for the IB MYP training. With these many teachers are out, it makes it very difficult to organize any sub. I always remind myself that any challenge is an opportunity. So here is an opportunity for students to explore an area of their interest and do some wondering. We call it KIS Wonder Day as this was inspired by Jonh Spencer's Wonder Day project. 

In my current school, teachers have begun to explore ways to promote student agency, increase student choice and integrate student voice. We have also discussed different ways that teachers could (and can) develop the KIS Quality Learning Behaviors (QLB) of our students:  

• striving for understanding;  
• taking action ethically; 
• nurturing passion in self and others. 

Our next step is to engage students in thinking about these quality learning behaviors. It will be very unnatural and contrived if we ask students to show us what they will do in responding to each of the quality learning behaviors mentioned above. Finally, we decided to involve students in conducting an inquiry project based on their personal interest. We intentionally do not want to call it a Passion Project. I think passion is a very heavy and strong word. The reality is that many students have not discovered their passion yet and they need more time to explore their interests before finding their passion. Therefore, we follow John Spencer's idea and call it Wonder Day. ​

Through the process of implementing Wonder Day, we also would like to remind teachers and students that inquiry can be fun and it should be based on research. Since we only have one day, we set up some guidelines to support this process. Students are reminded that: 

• Their project could be an extension from their MYP subject study or a completely different area that they are interested in. 
• They aim to complete the project within 4-5 hours. 
• They follow the inquiry process: Wonder, Research, Create, Share, and Consolidate. (Consolidate is essential to reflect. We want to try to use a different word for reflection to avoid possible negative feeling toward reflection. We do not want students to think that they will have to write a long reflective essay at the end of their Wonder Day project.)    
• Their project is approved by their supervisor first to ensure the scope of the work is achievable within 4-5 hours. 
• They can work individually or with a group of 2-3 people with defining roles and responsibilities. 
• They record the inquiry process in their learning portfolio and share their learning with a wider community. 

This is the first time KIS launches Wonder Day project. To facilitate this process, I have put together a Wonder Day student workbook. Most of the information is built upon John Spencer's wonderful work. You can subscribe to his blog to receive Wonder Day and Wonder Week classroom resources. The purpose of this workbook is to guide students through the inquiry process: Wonder, Research, Create, Share and Consolidate. 

• “Using a Wonder Week to Spark Student Inquiry.” www.spencerauthor.com/wonder-week/. John Spencer guided learners through clear steps to conduct an inquiry project in a fun and relaxing manner. You can subscribe to his blog to receive classroom resources for Wonder Day or Wonder Week. 
• Steps to your inquiry research project This is a wonderful graphic organizer that guide students through the inquiry steps. It is suitable for MYP year 1 and 2 students. 
• MISO research method developed by Cathryn Berger Kaye. This is easy for students to remember and easy to use. It also encourage students to consider both primary and secondary sources.  

We had received positive feedback from students and teachers about our first KIS wonder day. Students were excited they got to design their own learning and explored the topic that they were genuinely interested. Lots of topics were generated by our students. Students asked can we do this again? Of course!