A Conversation About...

A Conversation about
Student-Centric Approaches

Episode Description

This week, Heather, Makayla, and Ann take on the challenge of what it really means to put students at the center of learning. Beyond strategies, standards, and lesson plans, how do we show up in ways that make students want to learn with us?

From patience and trust-building, to honest communication and co-learning moments, this conversation explores the human side of teaching—the part where relationships, respect, and humility matter just as much as any instructional tool.

Key Points and Takeaways

  • Student-centered learning has become increasingly essential due to the different backgrounds and skill sets students possess post-Covid.
  • Open communication is crucial; educators should empower students to admit when they do not understand something and vice versa.
  • Patience and maintaining a positive atmosphere in classrooms encourage students to engage and seek assistance when needed.
  • Teachers effectively communicate expectations and create trust by revealing their limits and showing dedication to guide students without directly providing answers.
  • Group work among students is beneficial as it allows for peer-to-peer learning and collaborative problem resolution.
Podcast Guest

Ann Potter,
MSM, MEd

Ann Potter is an instructional coach specializing in early childhood development, play-based instruction, and early elementary instructional practices. She has been a reading specialist, general education co-teacher, inclusion teacher for students with emotional disorders, extended school day lead teacher, grade-level technology lead, and paraprofessional supporting elementary technology instruction, but she started her career as a software engineer for a computer consulting firm. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys traveling and has continued to support her community as a reading tutor and daycare provider. Ann is an Instructional Coach for Early Learners with her Bachelors in Business Administration, Master of Science in Management, and Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction.
Podcast Guest

Miss Makayla

Miss Makayla is TLC’s Tiny Little Consultant, specializing in reminding the team to take care of themselves. She is highly skilled in making the team laugh through her use of sarcasm and blunt observation, reminding the team to eat (especially if burgers or pizza are nearby), teaching the team pop culture references / slang / and trending dances, and posing thought-provoking questions about what’s going on in the world. Outside of her TLC responsibilities, she enjoys spending time with family, watching TikTok, listening to K-pop, and getting creative with fashion. Makayla is almost a middle school student with interests in human history, science experiments, and writing.
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Host: Heather Volchko

Guest: Ann Potter and Miss Makayla

Welcome back for another week. I’ve got Makayla and Ann here, and this week we are talking about when we are positioned to have to help other people learn. So, again, March has been all about growth and change and learning and kind of like moving on from where we are to wherever is next.

And we started off in the first week kind of talking about ourselves and how we decide, kind of what sits with us and what we’re okay with and not okay with, and kind of how we make those decisions. And then the second week, we started talking about, well, then how do we apply that to learning, and how do we choose what to be curious about, and kind of what we are learning about, and then how we’re doing that? Are we learning with other people? Are we learning by accessing resources?

And so this week, we’re going to take both of those conversations, put it together, and look at it as though now we need to help other people process through their own experiences if they’re learning or they’re trying to figure themselves out. And so, in education, one of the vocab pieces that is used for that is something called student centric learning or student centric classrooms or student centered learning, if free in special education, student centered planning, when you’re writing IEPs and trying to kind of do some of that future projection, are we really just rooting it and grounding it into that individual?

In behavior analysis, there’s a lot of things that saying client-centered. And so whatever the language is for you, that’s the conversation that we’re having today. So I’m excited to kick this off because, kind of in between recordings here, we’ve been having some conversations, and we had this kind of aha moment that saying student-centered learning is not a new thing that has been around for quite a while.

And me kind of in the middle of the three of us, I can say that’s been around since my undergrad. So my entire professional career has been an expectation that anything that I’m doing in my classroom or in my practice is focused on and centered on the people that I’m serving, the people that I’m trying to help. So, for me, that’s not new. And I think for Ann, that isn’t necessarily new either, although it has looked a whole lot of different ways, but kind of what we sort of had this collective aha is that in the last five years, it has looked five different ways and then some as we’ve walked through the worldwide pandemic and just the infusion and expectation of a lot of technology being leveraged in instructional spaces and just kind of the learning curve that everybody jumped on immediately and together.

So, just like the conversation we were having last week, when we’re learning things together and being able to share ideas, this week now we’re doing that as professionals, but we’re also doing that as students. And we’re kind of having that experience in such a way that we ourselves are learning, but we’re also helping other people learn as well. So that’s the conversation for this week. I want to start off with you, Ann, and say, what are some of those things that you’ve seen shift?

There’s been a lot of change in just even the last five years, let alone the many years of your career. So what are some of those things that you have noticed that is just simply different or changing?

Ann: One of the things I found most striking in post-COVID times is the skills and backgrounds that the students I work with are coming into the classroom with. And I’ve found that it’s not just the littles that I encounter at preschools and kinders, but it also extends up through high school levels with the amount of time that students were out of classrooms, out of social settings, the amount of skills that we used to assume that they came to us with, those are poor assumptions at this point.

So, as an older, established teacher who had pre-COVID experience, if you told a child, Recess is over, it’s time to clean up, children started putting things away. They don’t understand, now, in many cases, when you first get them what that means, they don’t have a frame of reference for what those words mean in terms of the skill you’re asking them to perform. And I use that as sort of a baseline example, but I can extend that all the way through the high school people, in that I used to be able to say, go home and do your homework.

Well, in Covid times, they didn’t necessarily have homework, and if they didn’t understand it, they didn’t necessarily have to complete it or figure out how to persevere and get through it. So at all levels, across the educational spectrum, things we used to assume students knew, they don’t and that has reframed a lot of the conversations I have with little students, middle aged students, older students, even with the peers with whom I work, so that I no longer assume that somebody understands whatever my direction is, whatever my concept is, whatever my thought is.

So I’m much more likely these days to go as a follow-up to that, do you know what I meant? And then try to empower whoever I’m working with to have the courage, and it does take courage, a degree of courage, to tell someone you perceive as an authority figure, I just don’t understand what you mean. So that I then reframe the directions and the interactions to presume that who I’m talking to has no idea what I’m talking about.

At a preschool level, instead of saying clean up, I say, Everybody get two blocks and put them in that bin. So it’s very specific, very directed, and then at the end, tie it back together, says, so when we clean up, that means we take all of the stuff that’s on the floor and put it into the bin where it belongs. So you set up that translation mode, and when you send students home with homework that they may not understand, you front-end load them to say, This is what I’m going to try to get you to do when you’re at home and on your own.

If it doesn’t work for you, if you can’t figure it out, then tomorrow morning when you come in, this is what we’re going to try to do to redress it. But what I’ve had to do in my own mind, at whatever level or complement I’m working with, is I need to absolutely reframe my own brain that says all of those old school, traditional assumptions about skills students had, I need to not assume that they’re there.

And by the same token, when they come to me with technical stuff that I don’t know, I need to be very willing and open to say, I don’t get it. Explain that to me in a different way. Show me. It’s your turn to teach the teacher so that that flow of assumptions goes both ways. My students can’t assume that I’m tech savvy, and I can’t assume that they are a complement of life skills savvy that they used to be, because the experiences across the board have so changed over the last five years.

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Have patience, because we're all different, basically. Just be patient.

miss makayla

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Yeah, I love the way you’re sharing this. It’s making me think of two stories in particular. One was in Covid, kind of in that transition. Some places were calling it return to learn, but we’re shifting from all at home to maybe some at home and some at school, and then getting ready to get back to all at school. And it was in that interim, it was a high school team that I was working with, and the staff was frustrated.

“These students, they don’t know how to walk in the halls, they don’t know how to remember their locker combinations”, all these things. And we kind of had this moment where I was able to say, they’ve never done that, right? Like the expectations in elementary school, where you line up and you walk in the hall at certain times, guided by your staff, you keep your stuff in a cubby or in your desk. You don’t have lockers, and if you do, they don’t really have locks on them.

All that stuff you learn, you learn in middle school. Like, you learn that, okay, the bell rings and then it’s a chaos free-for-all until the bell rings again and you’re going to get in trouble for not being where you’re supposed to be, right? Or you keep your stuff in a certain place, but you lock it up, and in order to lock it up, you need to remember some stuff, that is a very middle school experience, and that is what then sets people up for high school. So it wasn’t that these kids didn’t know, and they were just, they’re such a problem.

They truly didn’t know that they had never had a locker combination before. They had never really dealt with passing periods and especially not in Covid. Even with a partial return to learn and you’re spending some time in school, there’s half the building there or know, very structured because you have to have social distancing and all these things. It was just very different. And so it was this conversation with the high school going, oh, gosh, yeah. It’s like if you took 6th graders and dropped them in as 9th graders and went, Why don’t you understand?

Right? And so it was just kind of this aha. Of going, yes, in some ways they’re further ahead, right? Like they were better at navigating their social calendars, they were better at understanding deadlines and a lot of the executive functioning skills for organizing themselves and staying on top of different things, because they had to, right? Like, if you wanted to be successful as a student in COVID, you had to kind of push some of those skills. And as staff, we really supported students in learning those skills and growing those skills, because that level of independence that was just automatically and immediately kind of placed on people, it just was what it was.

So in some ways, they were more advanced, and they had other skills that most freshmen didn’t have. And then in these ways, it just wasn’t. And the other story that you’re reminding me of was just like, what skills? And how is that sort of situated? I was working in a kindergarten classroom, and they were just doing, How are you feeling? Are you happy? Are you sad? Can you recognize emotions? And we had this conversation where so many young little students right now, a lot of when you’re a newborn and before talking and all of this, you’re relying on the reaction that you receive to kind of feed your response, too, right? Like a kid falls over and they kind of look at you, am I supposed to cry or am I okay?

Right? Like, they’re kind of relying on people around them to give them that social feedback, to know how to kind of process through. And it was all behind masks, so you couldn’t necessarily see if a smile was happening on the face, if a frown was happening on a face, right? You had to read eyebrows and eyeballs, which is a tiny part of the entire face. How many people only saw each other in masks for the first time, and then later, when we’re not allowed, we don’t have to wear masks, then all of a sudden, oh, that’s what the rest of your face looks like?

You have these moments, but it was just like, wow, how has that kind of positioned us as learners, as students coming in, that this would be a no-brainer? Like, this is obvious. This is just, like, part of development, and this is a common experience. And so as staff, we’re kind of putting out those assumptions or those maybe unstated expectations that this is what it should be, and this is where they should already have skills or already have understanding or awareness.

And the reality is that the environment, and not just like their house, their community, their whatever, literally the world, like, there was just a massive shift. And it’s maybe no longer an accurate assumption or expectation to hold in some spaces anymore.

Ann: In a classroom setting, I have found I have to be much more attuned and adept at reading the room so that the nuances and the breadth of nuances across the groups with whom I’m working is just very much… has evolved. So it has to be student-centered, or I’m talking in one plane where I don’t have a lot of students coexisting with me, so that the idea of being student-centric has become increasingly necessary so that I can help whoever I’m working with get from wherever they are to whatever comes next.
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I'm much more likely these days to empower whoever I'm working with to have the courage to tell someone 'I just don't understand what you mean.

Ann potter

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Well, I mean, that’s got to be frustrating, right? Especially with teachers who have been in this and they are good at it and they’ve got some amazing skills, and then to realize, shoot, they don’t work, right? Like, I need other skills, or I’ve never had to teach that before. I don’t even know how to teach that. I’m thinking of even just like upper elementary and having to walk through things that are typically taken care of in preschool and kindergarten, and all of a sudden showing up in third and fourth grade, and those staff, being like, I’ve never had to deal with this. And I think there’s a frustration professionally of going, I don’t have the skills to do this. This is not something I’ve had to do before.

But there’s also sort of like an anger and frustration at the situation. Like, I shouldn’t have to do these things, these kids should already know these things, they should already be doing this or that or whatever. So I think for me, what’s coming up right now as we’re talking is, so how do we choose, how do we choose to work with someone that doesn’t, right? Whether we like it or not, that they’re not where we need them to be, we want them to be, we would hope they would be, that they would be.

But how do we make that choice to say, regardless, it is what it is, we are where we are, and we’re going to make that choice to invest in either that student and their learning and figure them out, kind of our own thoughts aside, or know, Makayla, like another peer, right? Like someone else whom other people don’t want to work with. So, how do I choose to know I’m going to make that choice to work with that person?

Makayla: Even in the beginning, when you’re choosing to be a teacher, you have to know that you have to have patience with a kid. That’s kind of the start that you have to know. If you’re not patient with kids, then don’t be a teacher. Yeah, just starting off there, but just be nice to the kid. Really try to understand what they think of the situation, try to figure out their progress and where they are and try to build it up from there.

And just don’t be so harsh on the kid, to be honest. Have patience, because we’re all different, basically. Just be patient.

I don’t know. Is that speaking to you, Ann?

Ann: Well, every now and again, I will get a very confused look from whoever I’m working with, where I’ve hit my frustration point because I can’t figure out exactly where we are, what’s going on, and how to take care of something. So I’ll just look at whoever I’m working with and said, Please help me. Explain this to me. This is what I’m trying to get you to do. Clearly, we’re not meeting together so we can have a conversation.

So I need you to help me and help me understand. And after whoever I’m working with gets over the shock of that question, then we go on from there. Admittedly, a little bit off topic, but when I’ve got a runner and I need them to not run from here to wherever they want to go, I have frequently said, Can you just help me, please? Hold my hand so you make sure I don’t get lost. And now I’m not telling the student to stop running.

I’m asking them for help, and we'll move on. But some of that is empowering whoever you’re working with to say, help me help you by understanding what you need.

Yeah. And, I mean, I supported a whole bunch of different kinds of staff and students through, what was that? Like, two ish years of distance learning and pandemic teaching and all the most buzz words around it. And the people who made it through in terms of the staff, the staff who had the best rapport and were able to make learning happen, were not the staff that were the most tech savvy, that they had all the apps and the bells and whistles and the cute bitmojis and all those things.

Sure, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. But what they did have was, I don’t know, can you help me? Or, like, this isn’t working. I’m so sorry. Does anyone know how this works? Right? And they could rely on, collectively, the group, to help get them through. And I love that because in my world, I usually work with students that are maybe more challenging or staff are more frustrated by, and they kind of rose to the occasion because they’re like, oh, you need help, I can help you. I got, like, I know those skills.

And so in distance learning, they really showed up, and they could share what they knew in a way that in a classroom, it wouldn’t have shown up that way. But I think, Makayla, that really speaks to what you were saying, too, is just like being patient and being understanding, and that’s with the people that we are tasked with supporting. So if that’s with our colleagues, if it’s with our students, or if it’s with people that we’re stuck working with, like in project groups, right?

Can we be patient? Can we be understanding? So if we are going to do and be all these things, I know sometimes it can sound kind of this idealistic “this isn’t reality. Do you understand I have 30 students, and do you understand I have 35 students every 45 minutes? Like, how am I supposed to look at every single student at every single moment and be patient and be understanding? While, at the same time, I have to meet all these standards and they have to do all these things, and we have this big test coming up,” and all these things, right?

So I’m curious, Makayla, from your perspective as a student, what are some of those things that either you have had teachers do or you think teachers should do that really help make the classroom a good learning space, somewhere that students can learn and they can grow?

Makayla: I think that when they work in groups, they really get to ask questions to other teammates and see where… kind of learn from them and stuff. It’s kind of just like connecting with the other people and seeing what they know and trying to add that to your own knowledge, and kind of also being taught, but also being the teacher in a way.

Oh, that’s cool. So you get to share the learning, right? Like, I know what I got, you know what you got, and put all the pieces together as opposed to just having to figure it out and show that you figured it out. Yeah.

Makayla: Instead of, like, copying each other.

Yeah.

Makayla: So I think that’s a pretty good way of being able to see each other and really try to soak it up in a way.

So, how do you think a teacher can set that up, right? Because think of it like, from an adult perspective, “man, I’ve got all these kids, and they’re all doing all these different things. How do I keep track of what they’re doing? And are they doing what they’re supposed to be doing?” So what can a teacher do to make you feel comfortable to talk with your peers and figure things out together, and be able to ask questions and learn from each other?

Makayla: I think maybe putting certain kids in certain spots, if they’re all around the same level, then you can put them in this space, and then being able to go over there and just be able to help them. So you know, which ones are more advanced to the ones that need a little bit more help. So just being able to go over there and then ask them, Do you need help? And then being able to go with the other ones, and be like, are you guys doing good?

That’s what I think would probably work out really well.

So it sounds like then as a student, you like it when a teacher is kind of walking through and checking in on you and kind of offering support. But I think I’m going to guess that maybe not all teachers, not all students receive all teachers the same way, right? I may show up, and this student is like, “Yes, I’m so thankful you’re here! Oh, my gosh, can you help me?” And then I show up somewhere else, and the students’ like, “I don’t want you. Leave me alone. I’m fine.”

Is there something or anything that teachers can do that would kind of make students want to work with them? So if I show up and I’m like, “Hey, I’m here and I’m happy to help.” What do I need to do? Or how do I need to act so that I can make a student feel like they could ask me a question or they could learn from me?

Makayla: I think in the beginning of the year, it’s like when they really get to know you. So it’s just trying to get a comfortable mood during the first few weeks and seeing how they act when you go near them and stuff, just kind of acknowledging that and being like, do you feel comfortable with me looking around, seeing what you’re doing? Or if you don’t feel comfortable, then that’s fine. I just won’t show up as much.

So if you and I already know each other really well, and I’m still going to help you learn something, I don’t need to figure you out as a learner, right? I might already kind of have an idea. So what do I need to do to make you want to keep coming back to me, so it’s not just the first time, like, oh, okay, Heather’s chill, she’ll be helpful. But what do I need to do to make you keep thinkingthat?

Makayla: Just keep the good mood happening. Just be chill. Don’t give such… After the first few weeks, don’t be like, okay, you all saw my good side, now let’s get into the real things and be all snarky and stuff. Just try to keep the good mood, and I get everybody gets frustrated. But make sure to communicate that with your students in a way, just keep the good mood, and then just try to work it out with them in a way.

Does that make sense?

Heather: Yeah. I mean, you’re saying communicate it well, right? Do you have a couple of examples of, like, this teacher really communicated well? I always felt like I knew what was coming. I knew what was expected. I knew how they would help. I knew when they wouldn’t. Was there any way that they communicated that really worked for you?

Makayla: Well, I had this one teacher, and he was always like, I will try to help you as much as I can, but there will be a point where I can’t help you. And he would tell certain parts, like, oh, I might not be able to help you in this, like in these tests, but I might be able to help you in this. And just things like that. It was really well to know because then you would ask a question and he would try his best to answer.

So, how did you know that he was trying his best and he wasn’t just like making it up?

Makayla: Because he tried to point back at other lessons without telling you the lesson, but he was hinting at what lesson it was, but trying not to give you the answer to the thing, but more like telling you what to do, but not telling you with what things to do what, you know?

Cool. So, I mean, that kind of goes back to that puzzle analogy, right? You kind of knew he was saying like, hey, here’s the piece. Hey, here’s another piece, right? Have you put it together? I love that. Because that means that you saw him in a helpful way, not that he’s like, oh, he’s holding information back from me. He should just be helping me. He should just be telling me. That’s like, no, he’s leading me where I need to go, and he’s like walking with me through the pieces to get me there.

Makayla: Yeah, he’s like giving you a little push, and then you could work it out from there, is basically what I’m trying to say.

Yeah, that’s really neat. So I’m wondering, Ann, as you’re listening to all of these recommendations and suggestions on how, as staff, as adults, can we show up and be, embody, kind of that student-centered approach if that’s how we’re running our lessons or if that’s just how we’re interacting with them. Is there any of this stuff that’s really sitting with you right now?

Ann: You continue to touch base with your students at whatever level they happen to be and we all have bad days. So I may have a student with which I’ve had a really good rapport for the last six months, and now all of a sudden I go up to them and it’s buzz off, I have no time for you. I will be respectful and honor that and say, I get it, we’re just not going to have a connection today. I’ll cycle back tomorrow and just be respectful at meeting whoever I’m working with at whatever level they are today.

And yes, I do have 30 different kids at 30 different levels that I need to keep track of. But if I’m not meeting them at a personal level, at least close to where they are, it does not matter what my standards are; they’re never going to hit them anyway. So, adapting and adjusting to say, I may not kick the 50-yard field goal, but if today I can get to 38, that’s better than my 36 yesterday. So just keep advancing the people with whom I’m working from wherever they are as best as I can, understanding that, yes, these are the standards to which I have to hold myself and everybody else accountable.

And no, we’re not all going to meet them, but we’re all going to come as close as we possibly can.

Yeah, just get the ball down the field somehow. Well, I love this conversation. A lot of times, when educators or school people have conversations around how do we do student-centered, client-centered learning or planning, there’s always a lot of strategies, right? Like this is how I do differentiated instruction, and this is how I do leveled grouping,s and this is how I do all those strategies. But I love that our conversation today was, yes, you need to have some skills to throw at those things. But even if you have those skills and you’re using those strategies, if you’re not interacting in a certain kind of way, it doesn’t really matter. If your students don’t see you as a helper, if you aren’t positioning yourself as a co-learner, it really doesn’t matter what strategies we use because it’s not going to go anywhere.

We won’t be able to actually have the student in that with us. And in essence, we kind of end up leaving them behind, even though all the strategies say that we’re doing things that are student-centered. So I love this conversation. Thank you for having it with me, and I’ll catch you again next week.

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