Susan Dugle, chief academic officer of Kentucky’s Shelby County Schools, oversees a system in which all students have personalized learning plans that monitor progress and celebrate accomplishments. PHOTO COURTESY OF SHELBY COUNTY, KY., PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The parking lot was full with vehicles parked along both sides of the main street and in every grassy area available. It was a typical Thursday night at Painted Stone Elementary School in Shelbyville, Ky., before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was neither a basketball game going on in the gym nor a school play being performed on the stage.

This was Exhibition Night at Painted Stone, serving 464 kindergarten through 5th-grade pupils. This night was the opportunity for the 2nd graders to show the community how they were growing in their abilities to become effective communicators and responsible collaborators. They were pcortraying these competencies through exhibitions of learning. The content was centered around animal habitats, but the enduring skills of communication and collaboration were on display for parents, grandparents and community leaders.

Each 2nd grader wore a name tag that said, “Hello, my name is ____. Ask me how I am an effective communicator.”

When 2nd-grade teacher Rosalie Rogers reflects on those first exhibitions, she can remember the mess of cardboard, hot glue, construction paper and toilet paper rolls, but what stands out is the confidence these tiny experts displayed throughout the preparation and presentation of the exhibition.

Another Painted Stone teacher, Brittany Akin, admits when teachers give up control and let students co-plan a project, amazing things happen in the world of performance assessment.

Tapping into Passions

Just down the road at Shelby County West Middle School, 6th and 7th graders were displaying their growth in the competency of global citizenship. The students had been learning research skills through projects on subjects they were passionate about.

In their preparation for exhibition night, the middle schoolers had been given feedback by peers and teachers around the specific indicators for effective communication and global citizenship. The response to the feedback was evident as they kept eye contact, used effective gestures and spoke clearly about their contributions to the community.

When first introduced in the district’s 14 schools, exhibitions provided an avenue for reluctant learners to share their learning in multiple ways, Stephanie Walker, an exceptional learning teacher in The Rock Academy at West Middle School, says. Students who hesitated to speak up in groups found confidence in preparation for the exhibition due to a feeling of expertise about a subject of personal interest.

One student who often was anxious about classroom discussions and traditional assessments presented a flawless exhibition on “The History of Nintendo.” Community audience members did not detect any anxiety during the exhibition due to the student agency provided by the opportunity to demonstrate learning through performance assessment.

Public Exhibitions

These are examples of planned exhibition nights that were common among Shelby County’s school campuses during the 2018-19 school year when we embarked on a journey in performance assessment. As educators, we know parents and grandparents flood into schools when the students are performing, whether for a choral concert or a sports event. We were seeing the same turnout for performance assessment through exhibitions of learning.

Early on, teachers were apprehensive about their students being ready for an audience. Principal Artavia Acklin, at Painted Stone Elementary School, decided to just set a date for all teachers and students to exhibit learning. This leadership action forced teachers to relinquish some control and see what kids could do when given the opportunity.

Acklin admits she was pleasantly surprised with the results. Her colleague, Adam Hicks, principal of Simpsonville Elementary School, had a similar experience. His teacher leadership team also set a schedule for exhibitions at the school and at the local outlet mall. While it raised unintended anxiety in some, it was just the push teachers needed to see the benefits of student ownership and agency in the performance assessment process.

Jointly Designed

Shelby County Public Schools has begun to implement a second four-year Strategic Leadership Plan that focuses on personalized, student-centered learning. The foundation of the current plan is a community-created Profile of a Graduate, or PoG, which describes the expectations our community holds for successful students who graduate from Shelby County Public Schools.

The PoG was created in 2017 through a design-thinking process involving school and community stakeholders. The key to the success of our Profile of a Graduate was the initial and ongoing involvement of business, industry, parents, civic organizations, educators and students in the decisions about “what a Shelby County graduate needs to know and be able to do.”

During the 2018-19 school year, the first step in our performance assessment system was to develop tools to measure the competencies of the PoG: communication, collaboration, global citizenship, innovation, life-long learning and critical thinking. Through consultation with Envision Learning Partners, Rebecca Martin, the district’s director of curriculum personnel, led teacher leaders in the creation of performance outcomes for each of the competencies with appropriate grade-band expectations for each.

As teachers began using these tools, they soon realized that these competencies could not be taught or measured in traditional, standardized ways. In order for students to provide evidence of mastery, teachers had to design learning experiences and assessment tasks that allowed for acquisition and demonstration of the competencies.

Teachers responded creatively. Erika Darin, a 3rd-grade teacher at Simpsonville Elementary School, began teaching the competencies while leading a literary unit on character traits. The students compared their “roles in the world” to a character in a book. They explored how to build the habits of such competencies through constant reflection. They even developed simplified rubrics to display on anchor charts so they could easily assess their growth in the competencies.

At the high school level, teachers increased the use of innovative learning structures through the use of project-based learning. PBL not only integrates content, it also provides opportunities for integration of content with the PoG competencies.

A pair of Shelby County High School social studies teachers, Katie Johnson and Jeff Bracken, collaborated on several project-based learning units that allowed students to explore foundational beliefs in the formation of our country. One such unit culminated in group displays at the annual Light Up Shelbyville community event. Student work in the form of wooden flags depicting group learning was on display for the whole community to view.



Opening Defenses

Teacher efficacy and agency around performance assessment began to grow through the first two years of the Strategic Leadership Plan, which is designed to lead toward a competency-based education system.

The 2019-20 school year was set to be our first year for defenses of learning for students transitioning to the next level. The defenses are designed to allow students to show growth in specific Profile of a Graduate competencies, mastery of enduring content standards and a preparedness for the next phase of life.

All Shelby County students have personalized learning plans that are used during a structured daily advisory time in which they set goals, monitor progress and celebrate accomplishments.

In March 2020, students were deep into the process of selecting artifacts and receiving feedback for defenses when in-person learning was shut down due to the pandemic. Shelby County East Middle School decided to forge ahead and attempt these defenses of learning in a virtual platform. Instructional coach Robyn Marcum and Dean Abbi Long led the charge along with a group of dedicated 8th-grade teachers.

Because of the intentional planning and personal supports used in the advisory period, students were able to continue with the process in the virtual world. Each 8th grader defended her or his readiness for high school with academic and Profile of a Graduate evidence. A panel of peers, teachers and administrators provided feedback through a teleconferencing platform.

The success of the virtual defenses led to an even more intentional, structured plan to support students in their preparation with advisers for this spring’s defenses.

Forging Onward

As the pandemic lingered on, principals and teachers saw the need to continue the intentional instruction of the Profile of a Graduate competencies in a virtual and blended world. Teachers shifted the focus of instruction to provide opportunities for students to learn and practice these competencies through video conferencing platforms, digital learning tools, learning management systems and intermittent in-person learning.

Once again, the resiliency of teachers and students led to amazing exhibitions of learning in a new and different venue. Clear Creek Elementary teachers began to see the value of one-on-one conferring in breakout rooms to allow students to justify and de-fend their thinking to provide evidence of learning.

Fox DeMoisey, an instructional coach, took on the extra duty of teaching two English IV classes to further support teachers during the pandemic. His focus has been around increasing the authenticity of learning. Along with other teachers in the district, he has prioritized the Profile of a Graduate competencies for all students while providing authentic learning and assessment opportunities.

During the development of the Strategic Leadership Plan, we knew we were preparing our students, teachers and community for an ever-changing world. We had no idea that our preparation would be tested as early as 2020. Even though schooling has been challenging during this pandemic, our stakeholders have shown strong evidence of growth in the competencies of our Profile of a Graduate. As we forge ahead, we will explore new ways to prepare our students to be leaders in our community and world.

SUSAN DUGLE is chief academic officer of Shelby County Public Schools in Shelbyville, Ky. Twitter: @DugleSusan