What has to shift for a group of learners to become a learning community? What is different about a school for which this shift takes first priority?

Let’s step back a little bit to think about what each of these words means. As many educators and theorists have proposed, a useful way to think of learning is as the construction of knowledge. With what we already know in hand, we then build new structures that represent and contain new knowledge. When we learn in community, we do this work together.

Like “communication,” the word community is rooted in the idea of sharing; in community, individuals are not independent, but interdependent….

Community Conversation Recap (Nov. 2023)

Across the year on a handful of Fridays, we schedule time for “Community Conversations” — the aim of these conversations is to help the adults in our community come together to discuss ways we can support our learners. Our first Community Conversation of the 2023-24 year occurred last week. We created a reel on Instagram highlighting a few key points, and we hope, paired with this blog, those who were there can reflect more on the discussion and those who were not can feel included in the conversation.

We began with Claire Rudden (math content leader for Gold Band) giving an overview of the personal finance series we are in the midst of during Monday morning Campfires. We are working to make sure all learners have exposure to aspects of personal finance through this teacher-led Campfire series, which spans three weeks. Last week, the four options for Campfire centered around saving money. Yesterday, the four options taught about various aspects of spending money. And the week after Thanksgiving break, we plan to have four options teaching about investing….

generalLisa ZapalacNovember 14, 2023Long-View Micro Schoolparents, community, campfire, financial literacy, challenge

Assessment at Long-View: To “Assess” is to“Sit Beside”

The word “assess” comes from a Latin word meaning “to sit beside.” While the concept of assessment has taken on a life of its own, especially in the world of education, the word’s etymology reminds us of the true intent. As a teacher, if you are not sitting beside a learner when you set out to assess, you are actually grading, not assessing. The difference matters.

As discussed in our recent post on conferring, much of our culture at Long-View centers around talk. Across the day, learners are expected to say more about their thinking. It is not enough, for example, to say that you think that the midpoint between 8 and 46 is 27. There’s always the follow-up question: “How did you think about that?” Early on, learners may respond by saying, “I am not sure,” or “It just seems like it should be.” As teachers, we lean into these responses and support learners in developing their metacognitive processes so that they can articulate the thinking by which they arrive at understanding….

generalLisa ZapalacNovember 10, 2023Long-View Micro Schoolassessment, conferring, understanding thinking

Conferring: A Dialogic Teaching Practice from Literacy Block

“Talking in class.” For many adults, this charged phrase may conjure up memories of times when we were asked to be quiet in a classroom so that we (and others) could focus on our individual work. But at Long-View, as in many schools that lift up the practices of dialogic teaching and inquiry learning, “talking in class” – in larger group conversations, with partners, and between individual learners and teachers – is foundational to the way we learn.

One place where this ethic manifests is in the way that Literacy teachers at Long-View most frequently give feedback: individual “conferences” between a learner and a teacher. Our reading and writing conferences aren’t a once-a-semester affair, but happen in the course of every day. These brief interactions provide timely, individualized, holistic feedback on what’s happening at a particular moment in a child’s reading or writing life – and do so, critically, in a way that permits the child to engage dialogically with that feedback in real time….

generalLisa ZapalacNovember 3, 2023Long-View Micro Schoolliteracy, dialogic teaching, feedback, pedagogy

Experts Come In To Help Us See Out

When many of us went off to college, we had little perspective on “what we wanted to be” or careers beyond what we saw our parents or close relatives doing. Why didn’t our K-12 experiences help us to better see the possibilities? Why shouldn’t school help to give that perspective? At Long-View, we decided to do that.

To outline this effort and belief, a few years ago we wrote a blog post titled Learning Within a Larger Ecosystem. It explains “we think of Long-View as a porous organization, and work to use and be part of the wider ecosystem of learning that exists around us.” Further, ”Learning is precipitated on openness, opportunity, connections, depth, and curiosity. At Long-View, we don’t wait for these to find us, but actively seek them out. Interacting with professionals and specialists helps us gain perspective as we learn about a high-level topic.”

But in this post, we want to tell you more about the experts who have come to us recently. Returning to our more regular cadence of hosting experts (after covid-related disruptions), last school year we welcomed many fascinating visitors both in person and virtually. Dr. Jenna Moore told scientists about her “library” of worm specimens in the natural history museum in Hamburg….

Learn More About Long-View: An Interview With Lisa Zapalac

Last week, one of our Co-Founders sat down with Voyage Magazine to answer questions about Long-View. Read the article online here and find out how Long-View started, what is unique about our school and our business model, and important lessons Lisa and team learned along the journey from idea to reality….

generalLisa ZapalacDecember 13, 2022Long-View Micro Schoolinterview

Building Culture for a New Year

After a summer of exciting work with colleagues from Long-View and other educators from beyond, some invigorating sessions of Open Math, and some down time too, we’re now fully immersed in our new year at the micro school.

We kicked things off with Launch Camp, when our newest learners spent two days diving right in to the Long-View way of life – building pendulums from scratch to learn about momentum (and collaboration), choosing the first just-right books for their personal book bins (and understanding that THEY are taking charge of their reading lives), and even figuring out how much is too much in one’s backpack on the walk to the park at lunch time (while realizing that the adults at Long-View trust them to manage all of these details)….

generalLisa ZapalacAugust 30, 2022Long-View Micro Schoolculture, new year, launch camp

Learning for the Long-View

It's time to start Learning for the Long-View. We wanted to share an exciting project we have been working on this summer. We have created a new platform to support educators (and interested parents!) called “Learning for the Long-View.”

Learning for the Long-View is a subscription-based website focused on elevating learning and transforming thinking in mathematics. Members will have access to a dynamic library of videos, guides, graphics, scripts, as well as weekly chats and live events with the Long-View team. This is all in addition to weekly lesson plans.

Our math team is continuously working to spread the Long-View approach. In this new web platform, subscribers have an innovative way to develop content knowledge for the teaching of mathematics, while also exploring how advanced pedagogy can elevate and impact learning….

generalLisa ZapalacAugust 3, 2022Long-View Micro Schooleducators, math, professional development

Campfire

Just before 9:00, when it is time for the day to begin, the sound of the singing bowl fills the main hallway. This low hum alerts that it’s time to begin Campfire and everyone quickly begins to tidy up from the before school projects, workshops, and other happenings, and check the Campfire calendar to choose which of the three discussions to join. Campfire topics and ideas are ignited in a variety of ways. They could be centered around a current event, a personal passion, a historical figure, a question sparked from a podcast, a desire to analyze an intriguing graph, an interesting NPR article, or wonderings about a science investigation….

generalLisa ZapalacSeptember 29, 2021Long-View Micro Schoolcampfire, morning

Back to School, Back to (Almost) Normal

Today marked the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, and we are all excited to be back together! Typically the summer gives us all a chance to rest and ready ourselves for the year ahead, but this wasn’t exactly the case this summer. After all the changes that encompassed the 2020-21 school year due to the pandemic, we weren’t quite ready to go our separate ways at the end of May. Things were finally running more smoothly, and we were enjoying all being back in person together after many days of a mix of virtual and in-person learning. Still, summer came and we welcomed the warm weather, but when the calendar turned to August, we were thrilled to be back at school.

It’s Long-View’s 7th year, and we plan to make it the best ever….

generalLisa ZapalacAugust 30, 2021Long-View Micro Schoolback to school, 7th year, new year