To an accomplished principal in a thriving school, what makes DEEDS worth doing?
Why would an award-winning principal with a successful school record want to evolve her instructional model? We sat down to interview Dr. Alexa Sorden who is in her 10th year as principal at Concourse Village Elementary School to find out. The short answer — her reason is rooted in a specific ingredient: real-world learning.
“It’s no secret our learners at Concourse Village do exceptionally well on the state tests, but this is not the sole purpose of education. I had to ask myself, am I preparing scholars to thrive in the world? And the answer was, I can do more.”
What does “more” look like?
I want scholars to apply their learning. I want them to engage more with the community, and discover emerging interests. I want them to do real work at the K-5 level so that they believe they can do anything when they get older.
Is this style similar to what’s happening in private, project-based learning environments?
Nothing in our desired outcomes from learners is new, but what we are doing is putting it together in a unique way. Our scholars take on a real-life challenge and create a real solution using career skills, tech, etc., all while working alongside experts and professionals. They own the learning and then share it back with the community to make positive change.
I guess the big difference is that other learning models don’t always ask scholars to apply their knowledge to make a real-time impact in their community, and frankly that’s our goal. That’s the bar of success. We ask ourselves — did scholars put in real effort and did their solution have a chance at actually solving the problem? That’s a completely different purpose to education.
In this kind of collaborative learning, we’re reconfiguring time, space, and class size, introducing partnerships where the kids can apply their skills in the real world so that all this excellent learning actually sticks. It’s not just learning for a test and then dumping the information afterward. We’re creating opportunities for the students to apply this learning and build natural connections in a meaningful way with their community.
The added benefit is that they’re also taking on a mindset that they can positively impact their community. They have control over their space, so they’re not waiting for someone outside to come in and do something; they can take hold of the situation and say, “We live here, we understand the issue, and we’re going to fix it.”
Tell us more about DEEDS. What is the purpose, and how was it created?
We knew we needed a framework and I love acronyms! In order to have something efficient, effective, and that can be tested, there has to be a framework that you can hold it against, right? It took us a while, and we used a LOT of post-its, but we came up with DEEDS: Discover, Examine, Engineer, Do, and Share.
Since our learning approach is real world, we even messed around with “DEEDS for the collective good” as a tagline. That iteration didn’t really stick, but DEEDS has certainly taken root. It’s our framework for designing and implementing instruction, our guide for creating all of our modules.
How is that learning journey different from most learning journeys?
The DEEDS learning journey is different from most learning journeys that I’ve personally experienced, primarily when you get to the Engineer, Do, and Share aspect… and I would even argue the Discover piece.
In your traditional implementation of a unit of study or a module, at the onset the teacher may tell you what you’re studying, the documents you’ll use, and the questions you need to be able to answer by the end of the unit through either an essay or some other form. With DEEDS, our primary goal is to create situations where students feel like this is something they want to be a part of because it struck a chord or ignited a sense of passion.
We intentionally place Discover at the beginning in order to create this scenario in the most organic way possible. We present a condition: a video or a community walk, maybe the learners are looking at photos, doing a simulation, or a site visit. All of a sudden, the conversation starts. Somebody says, “What’s going on here? There seems to be a problem. Something isn’t right.” This conversation sparks that Discover moment.
Folks may describe that as a hook, but the key is that it’s experiential and students come to it on their own by identifying what’s meaningful to them. That’s why you have to be very strategic in designing and presenting to them. This process is what makes DEEDS unique.
Yes, we learn, and in all schools, children are learning, but our students get an opportunity to apply their learning in a real-world situation, not a simulation. They meet with folks who could help them understand and later try to solve a current or long-standing problem in their community.
I can see how a student would feel uniquely empowered by this process, but does it always feel worth doing?
As a principal, you have to decide what is worth doing, and I’ve never seen motivation like this. The students take this seriously and see themselves as changemakers. Our most recent module, focused on community clean-up, was particularly compelling. After recognizing how poor our school’s recycling compliance was, our learners became deeply involved in the implementation of new strategies for the school community.
At one point, I was placed in the hot seat and needed to explain why I put the pizza box in the wrong recycling bin. The learners became comfortable holding adults and the school community accountable. They made the connection to larger issues like ocean pollution and the atmosphere–they loved talking about the “atmosphere” — they felt so empowered by their discoveries and what they could do about it. They took the information home to their families and implemented solutions; they knew they had a voice–that’s the ultimate vision and goal.
If creating so much student agency wasn’t powerful enough, we are seeing even more growth in literacy and math scores, and learners are finding interest in things they never knew about. I have parents asking me when the next module is because they want their kids to experience this real-world learning again!
I should mention, we didn’t throw out everything we used to do, we took what worked and integrated it into our DEEDS model so we have rigorous research-based practices embedded within our process. When you make space for learners to be in control, they thrive. So I would say, it’s 100% worth it.
