Using Smashboard Edu to Increase Student Voice

One of our goals in DC Public Schools is to increase student engagement and youth voice.  My Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team leads our initiatives that provide additional supports and opportunities for students of color in our district. Two of these key initiatives, Reign and EMOC (Educating Males of Color), provide leadership and enrichment opportunities to help increase student engagement and youth voice. 

I recently come across a technology tool that I believe could really increase our student engagement, as well as, youth voice.  The tool is Smashboard Edu and I recently learned about this tool at the Equity and Excellence in Education Conference at North Carolina A&T University.  Smashboard Edu is branded as a “problem-based learning and design-thinking process smashed into a gamified experience!”  (https://smashboardedu.com/, 2019) This tool provides an opportunity for participants to use their creativity and innovation to solve a real problem. Some of the real problems that are offered for consideration Smashboard Edu include personal conflict, disruptive behavior, tardiness, bullying, inequity, boredom, waste, pollution, sickness/disease, poverty, violence, language barriers, unsustainability, homelessness and hunger.  Many of these issues have a disproportionate impact on youth, however they are often not engaged when solutions are being designed.  This type of tool helps to make education more engaging and relevant.  Smashboard Edu could be a great resource to help teachers connect content . real life and therefore answer the question that students often ask, “Why am I learning this?”  Here is a video to provide more insight to this technology product. 

 Smashboard Edu is timed game with the goal being the team can come up with a great solution to the problem within the team constraints.  The example below shows an accelerate time line with phase being give only one to three minutes.  There are six steps in the game and you can decide on the time for each step.  The SOS card is a card that can be used to when the team needs help.  The card can only be used one time and once used the team loses the card.  It’s a reminder of the importance of collaboration and critical thinking. 

Step 1 of Smashboard Edu is “Problem”.  In the game, you will find instructions listed for each step.  When you click on the card, specific questions appear.  For example, if you click on the “Problem” card the following three questions appear: (1) What is the problem?; (2) Who does it affect?; and (3) Why is it important to you?
The game begins when the teacher/facilitator gives the class or groups a "problem to smash."

Each step also includes instruction for optional or advanced activities to make it more engaging.  For example, in step 2, “Research”, the facilitator may need to provide additional instruction in research techniques such as advanced online search methods or evaluating source credibility.   What I like about this feature, it that it allows the teacher to integrate additional content as the game is being placed.  The teacher can provide an opportunity for students to gather research online, to use their notes from class or rely on their memory.

 Step 3, the participants are focused on solving their dilemmas. This part of the game typically requires the greatest amount of time, as students should be thinking through a few options before landing on the best solution for the challenge. One option to make this step more challenging it to required the teams to use some creative app to design their solution, again providing for additional use of technology.  

Another important feature of Smashboard is that it allows teams to share their solutions with others. The "Share" step, which is the fourth step in the game, makes it easy for teams to share their ideas electronically with their teacher and their peers. So, while one part of the game is to see which team can complete the challenge, i.e. solve the problem the fastest, the most valuable feature is the opportunity to assess the quality of the solutions and for students to share and discuss potential solutions to real world problems that directly impact their quality of life.  An advanced feature recommendation for this step is for students to post their solutions on social media and to tag as many relevant companies, support groups, or individuals on social media to campaign for change”.  This would be a great way to engage students during Bullying Prevention Month or as part of drug prevention campaigns.

The final step in the game is “Reflect”.  I also really like this step, because I believe that reflection is essential to sustaining deep learning.  During Reflect, the teacher can decide to have the students reflect individually, in teams or as a class.  Additional option is to have teams record their reflections and share in a short video.  One resource that is recommend to share the video reflections is Flipgrid.  Teams could also develop a rubric to assess the quality of their solution as part of their reflection.

Smashboard has a Twitter page and here is an example of how students are being engaged in providing innovative solutions to real world problems. 

I am excited about Smashboard Edu and its applications to the work that I have influence and responsibility.  I believe that our students’ expertise is one of our most underutilized resources.  In the Office of Equity at DCPS, we are working diligently to find solutions to many challenges including bullying, homelessness, violence, drug use, and racism.  I will be encouraging my teams to use Smashboard Edu as a tool to enage our students in designing solutions!

Reference
Smashboard Edu (2019, April 16) Retrieved from https://smashboardedu.com/

The Use of Twitter to Build Your Organization's Brand

In October of 2017, I was hired to lead two of DC Public Schools' new initiatives - equity and social-emotional learning.  I wanted to take full advantage of social media's ability to increase awareness of the the new work happening in these two areas.  In January 2018, my team established a Twitter page for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team and in September 2018, we established a Twitter page for the Social-Emotional Learning Team.

DCPS has a very robust Twitter page and a vast audience.  Currently the DCPS Twitter page has more than 67,000 followers.  We believe that most of the followers are DCPS employees, families and students, whom use our Twitter page obtain the most up-to-date information about what is happening in the school district.  However, there are also a significant number of DC citizens, both friends and foes of the district, that also access our Twitter page.

In the March 30, 2017 edition of eSchool News:  Daily Tech News & Innovation, the article "How school districts are leveraging Twitter to become rock stars" highlighted the following four strategies to increase the impact of your Twitter feed:  1. By Hash(tag)ing Out Ideas; 2. Jump into a Larger Convo; 3. Meet Your Work Spouse; and 4. Get a Little Informal.

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team uses "DCPS Equity" as their Twitter handle.  "DCPS Equity" currently has only 250 followers.  The team set as a goal as least one tweet per day, which could be highly important equity work that is happening centrally or a school, retweeting important equity content or sharing information regarding upcoming events or training.  The staff member that currently oversees the DCPS Equity Twitter page has the following to say about the page, "It provides a great opportunity to share our work with more people across the district.  Through this platform, we are able to share our work more broadly, as well as, stay more connected to equity work that is happening across the city and in other school districts.  The post to the left, highlights one of the district's principals that actually responded to a post from NASSP, National Association of Secondary School Principals, regarding what equity means to him.  What a great way to highlight our commitment to equity, as well as, build relationships with a local school principal and a national educational organization. 

The "DCPS-Social Emotional Learning" Twitter handle was established in September 2018.  This page has more than 500 followers and is maintained by the Director for Social Emotional Learning (SEL).  The SEL team represents the newest team in the office.  The Director is a millennial and a techie and is a strong advocate for and user of social media.  The Director tweets at least two times a day and initiative seeks to link the site to work that is happening in schools, as well as, across the nation.

SBT (Student Behavior Tracker) Discipline Management System

In my role as the Chief Equity Officer for District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), I have responsibility for managing our student discipline system. In July of 2018, DC City Council passed the Student Fair Access to Schools Act of 2017, increased the reporting requirements for student discipline data.  DCPS has taken a very proactive approach to ensure that the new discipline legislation is successfully implemented. In addition, the district is working to address the disproportionate representation of black students and particularly black males in its discipline data (Lacoe and Steinberg, 2018).  Some of the key ways that the district is working to support the implementation of the Act can be found on the DCPS website.

What is the Student Behavior Tracker (SBT)?

Student Behavior Tracker (SBT) is the mandatory district-wide system for documenting all inappropriate behavior actions and for the proper recording, tracking and provision of due process. DCPS began using SBT in 2016.  The graphic to the right shows the dashboard for the SBT system.  SBT allows district and school leaders to easily pull data charts using a number of drop-down menus.  The SBT data system provides the following benefits: 

• Simplifies documentation process for Chapter 25 (DCPS Discipline Policy)
• Tracks and provides updates for due process requirements
• Sends e-mails to appropriate parties (school leader, district leader, LEA/504/IEP)
• Tracks manifestation determination processes
• Generates letters to parents (proposed and final)
• Attaches documents to incidents

How does the Student Behavior Tracker (SBT) work?

Principals and/or Assistant Principals in DCPS are responsible for ensuring that all off-site and on-site suspensions are documented in SBT. W hen an incident happens on a school campus that requires a suspension, school staff the enter the data in SBT.  The school’s designed student behavior POC is required to check data for accuracy.  On a weekly basis, the Student Culture team provides reports a district-level report to student behavior POCs.  The report, which is part of the district’s Continuous Improvement Monitoring Framework, provides feedback regarding data accuracy.  Principals are provided a similar report on a monthly basis.  The report compares data trends from the previous year and also allows schools to see how their data compares to other schools. Three reports are provide: (1) A report that compares how dates for suspensions match the absentee code in the attendance data base; (2) A report that shares the number of students that have suspensions totaling more than 5, more than 10 and more than 15 days; and (3) A report that disaggregates the data by race and ability.

What training is required?

Annually all school leaders and at least one designated student behavior point of contact (POC) are required to attend SBT training.   Staff members new to using the SBT system are required to attend a 3.5 hour training.  A staff member previously served in this role is only required to a 2 hour annual update/refresher training.  The School Culture team provides onsite and remote technical assistance by request and if they notice schools with trends that are significant outliers.

What type of data is generated by SBT?

The chart to the right highlights one of the many data graphs that can be quickly and easily generated in the SBT.  Here, one is able to compare month-by-month suspension trend data for the past three school years. A school leader could easily create this report for their individual school or an Instructional Superintendent could create this report for their subset of schools.  One could chose to pull data for all suspension or only one type of suspension, like in-school suspension. 

The charts to the left represents another ways that SBT allows users to examine student discipline data.  In the bar graph to the left, one is able to examine the changes in the type of suspension over the past three years.  In the bar graph below, one is able to examine the differences in the number of suspension when in the data is disaggregated by students accessing the general education curriculum, students accessing special education and students with 504 plans. 

What are others saying about SBT?

The feedback from school leaders and staff regarding the easy of use of SBT is mixed. Several large high schools with a high number of discipline issues, suggest that the data entry is too time intensive.  Other schools find the system useful in monitoring the effective of student behavior interventions and data trends.  Instructional Superintendents who have responsibility for monitoring school discipline goals, are just beginning to build their capacity to use the platform to lean into conversations with their principals regarding discipline trends.

Last year, the district contracted for an audit to examine our school-level practices regarding documenting student discipline data.  Many issues were identify and spoke to the need for better training, clearer expectation and consistent oversight. My team is working to develop a variety of training (virtual/web-based, face-to-face, and interactive) to support end-users in developing the skills and capacity to effectively capture and use student discipline data.  Below is a high-level overview of our plan to improve our discipline data reporting.  

Bren's Final Thoughts.....

Overall, the SBT system does an excellent job of providing useful data to examine trends and to ensure compliance with DC mandated reporting criteria.  And when school staff are well-trained and participate in technical assistance, they find the system easy to use.  Like most system that require end users to input data, the output is only as good as the input.

If you are helping your district to manage its discipline data systems and have found ways to support training for large groups of stakeholders with varying roles and expertise, I would love to hear from you!

References

B22-0584-Student Fair Access to School Act of 2017. (2019, February 1).  Retrieved from http://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B22-0594

Johanna Locoe and Matthew P. Steinberg (2018).  Rolling Back Zero Tolerance:  The Effect of Discipline Policy Reform on Suspension Usage and Student Outcomes.  Peabody Journal of Education, 93:2, 207-227, DOI 10.1080/0161956X.2018.1435047

Student Fair Access to School Act and DCMR – Chapter 25 Title 5:  Student Discipline.  (2019, February 1).  Retrieved from https://dcps.dc.gov/chapter25

Thanks for all that you do to positively impact students!

Bren