Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 138: Ready for What’s Next: How Canyons Is Preparing Students for Life
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What does it take to prepare a student for the future?
Strong academic skills matter. But success in college, the workplace, and life also depends on qualities that aren't always captured by a test score: the ability to solve problems, work with others, generate ideas, persist through challenges, and contribute to a community.
Those skills are at the heart of Canyons School District’s Portrait of a Canyons Scholar, a framework that defines the habits every student should develop by the time they graduate from high school. Canyons is now piloting an effort in its middle schools to intentionally embed these competencies into everyday learning.
Welcome
Welcome To Connect Canyons
SPEAKER_00to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach, and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great. Students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections. So connect with us.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm
Future Ready And Scholar Portrait
SPEAKER_03your host today, Kirsten Stewart, and we are here to talk about what does it really mean to prepare a child for the future. Now, academic knowledge matters, of course, but success in college, the workplace, and life also depends on skills that aren't always captured by a test score. The ability to think critically, solve problems, communicate, collaborate, create, and persevere when things get difficult. That's the thinking behind Canyon School District's Portrait of a Canyon Scholar, a framework that defines the durable skills or habits that we want every Canyon student to develop by the time they graduate. But a portrait on paper is one thing. Bringing it to life in classrooms is another, and Canyons is now piloting an effort in its middle schools to intentionally embed these competencies into the everyday learning experience and importantly to find meaningful ways to measure whether students are developing them. Joining us today are Assistant Superintendent Mindy Robison and the Director of Middle Schools, Angie Holden. Let's just dig right in. So, Mindy, maybe you can start. We'll talk about the big picture. What is the portrait of a Canyon scholar and what prompted Canyons to define the skills and attributes we want students to have when they leave us?
SPEAKER_02In 2019, the Utah State Office of Education put together Utah's Portrait of a Graduate. And as we became more familiar with it, the strategic plan in 2022, we used that as a guiding document to help us define the durable skills. So in our high-quality learning, there's two impact statements that are directly aligned to that. But even more exciting is we really recognize that in order for our students to be successful, we needed to focus on these durable skills. And so as we develop the five characteristics that are now in Canyon's portrait of a scholar, we really want this to be a part of our students'
The Five Durable Skills Explained
SPEAKER_02experience because we know it will help them be more successful both in college and in the workplace.
SPEAKER_03We hear the term durable skills. What does that mean? Maybe describe some of the examples that we've embedded into our strategic plan here in Canyon School District.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, it's interesting. If you look at durable skills, there's lots of definitions on the internet. I actually was doing some research yesterday just thinking about it. But these are really those skills that make us be successful. It's those skills that allow us to work through challenges, to be productive. And as we narrowed it down in Canyon as a portrait scholar, we came down to five. And those five are innovator, critical thinker, resilient learner, collaborator, and impactful citizen. And we found that those five really qualify and quantify different behaviors that we can work through so our students can feel success.
SPEAKER_03Love it. And those are feel intangible, but also very meaningful. Academic achievement has traditionally been measured through things like grades and test scores. It sounds to me like this is sort of an effort to broaden our definition of what it means for a student to be successful in school.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I think the best experience I had when I was principal at Midvell Middle School, we were looking for something to celebrate the strengths of our students. And this really, when it was adopted at Midvell Middle School, what we found is many of our students didn't understand how impressive they were, how much resilience they had, their ability to critical think. And by highlighting those durable skills, we actually were able to show them that those help you with your academics because we know how important the academics are, but academics are hard if you're not a critical thinker, if you don't know how to collaborate. But what we really found is that students all of a sudden started realizing they had these incredible characteristics that had just never been pointed out to them.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's neat. I love that feedback loop and that and resilience, right? That's a big one too, right? Like just keep at it, you're gonna get better at this. Angie, let's talk about middle school.
Why Middle School Is The Focus
SPEAKER_03Why middle school, why make what makes these years in particular such a great time to be thinking about this intentionally?
SPEAKER_01Middle school is kind of that sweet spot between elementary and high school, right? And it's this time where we in education have set the map for where our students start and where we want them to go. And we want to embed these skills into middle school now so that students have that ownership, that they own their journey, that they own the opportunity to start recognizing that they're not just learning academics, but they're learning behaviors and those durable skills that Mindy mentioned, that they have ownership over that and how those connections can be made in middle school and how they can progress to be successful in high school. Because our end goal is that they we want them to graduate and then we want them to be successful and grow in life.
SPEAKER_03It's interesting that you talk about ownership because we were actually at Indian Hills Middle School today, right, for a fun school spotlight, just to visit. And what was I'm not an educator, right? I come from communications background, but for me, what was impressive was to see the work that they're doing to draw out these habits and skills, right? Whether it's just through having conversations about what we're learning or because what we had talked about, like you come from elementary and you're in very restricted, confined, like these are the things we're learning, and then you get into middle school and you have a little freedom all of a sudden, right? You have some choices to make.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03And so really this is kind of helping them make those choices and, like you said, own their learning. So
How Schools Bring The Portrait Alive
SPEAKER_03maybe give me some examples of what this looks like in the classroom. Like, what would you actually be doing to help students understand what resilience looks like? Or, you know, if I walked into one of these pilot schools, what would I be seeing?
SPEAKER_01Right. It's exciting. We kind of gave a basic framework of our portrait of what a scholar is, the five characteristics and some guidelines. And now our middle schools with the pilot are adopting it to what fits for their school into the systems that they already have. So what we're hoping to see, and what we've been seeing, is that we're developing and creating this progression for students that it's educator and student supported at the beginning, that students and teachers are having conversations, that teachers are giving feedback to our students about what it means to be a resilient learner, and then they're using positive feedback to recognize those characteristics and skills in their classroom. So it's just not in the past, citizenship has always just been kind of an afterthought, but now we're embedding the feedback, embedding the skills while they're learning academics, and the teachers are giving feedback, students are reflecting and learning what it those skills are, what it means, and how they're doing with that on their own.
SPEAKER_03And this is happening now. Okay.
SPEAKER_01If you walk into, let's say, Butler Middle School, you're gonna see student-friendly posters up in the classrooms aligned with their classroom expectations. Same at Midville, they picked collaborator, and so they're really focusing on showing up to school, we need you here, and then how to be a collaborator. So you'll see school-wide posters, you'll hear it on the daily announcements, they're reminding students what those skills look like. At Albion Middle School, teachers are meeting weekly in Kid Talk PLCs and they're talking about what this looks like in their classroom. What did you say? What are you using as evidence to measure this in your classroom? And so they're generating ideas and collaborating and sharing those ideas.
SPEAKER_03And for the uninitiated, PLC means professional learning community.
SPEAKER_01Yes, community. Community. You got it.
SPEAKER_03Which are teachers come together to team and talk about how students are progressing and looking at student data and right, having these conversations with them.
SPEAKER_01Which are modeling those skills that we're wanting students to learn, right? So we know that these skills that that are that we're sharing with our students and having them self-reflect or skills that they're gonna need in adults whenever they get out into real life. And so we're talking about it, teachers are modeling it and showing that to their students. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_03One thing that seems to be a little bit important is you know, this isn't intended as you've described it, to be another thing that we squeeze into the school day, right? That you're embedding it in everything English, language, arts, history, math. Are you getting good feedback from teachers? Are they welcoming it? Are they taking the ball and running with it? I mean, what are you hearing from them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, you know, change is always different for different people, but I think the middle school educators see the need for this, especially as students like you mentioned before, they're a little bit more controlled in elementary, and then there's this progression of independence, right? And so they get to experiment and they're trying to develop consistent behaviors, and so yeah, teachers are excited finding ways on a science class in a lab, there's these great opportunities to collaborate. And so, what does a collaborator do in a science lab? And what does an innovator do in an art class, right? What does that look like? So, educators are finding certain areas that fit into their already outlined standards and curriculum, and then embedding those important characteristic skills with the learning. Okay.
SPEAKER_03And students too, I assume they're probably also reflecting on what their personal goals are and how that they can get better at some of these skills.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Union Middle School has created student-friendly language rubrics, and every Friday in their advisory classes, they're doing student reflections on Canvas of how they showed up as a critical thinker that week and what is an example. And so when they're meeting an advisory with their teacher, they're having time to self-reflect, ask questions, what does this mean? I don't understand. And then that helps again us develop that independence where they can become consistent with their behavior and those skills.
Durable Skills For College And Work
SPEAKER_03I know that you talked a little bit about teachers have been wanting this as well, asking for it. I know that we've talked in been in discussion with employers too in the area about what they're wanting. I assume that we're hearing it from everybody, right? This is what we want from young people.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we're hearing it from everyone, including us that serve as parents, too. It's been interesting as we've been working to open our innovation center. We've had more time to talk to industry partners than I've been aware of ever in my career. And I love that they're saying these are really important. We know that kids can learn content, but their ability to be creative with the content, to think critically, our industry partners, especially in the Innovation Center, but I also think our college students, as they go through, oftentimes we find the University of Utah said that most of our students feel more prepared for college than they do the workforce, and it's because of some of these durable skills that they haven't quite yet developed. And having three of my kids in college right now, you can see that. Like, there's some of them that have developed the collaborator, some of them like, oh no, it's a great project. I'm like, oh, you're still in college, there's still group projects, you have to get through that. And I think in this idea of I even look at adults, the adults that have the most success are the ones that can do this, no matter what industry you're in, no matter what educational background, if you can be resilient, if you can work with other people, and I really also like we haven't talked much about it, that impactful citizen. There's so many ways that you can impact your community in a positive way. And I love seeing some of the service that our middle schools and all of our schools are doing that they're really actually seeing that they're a part of a community, and I think that's another thing that these durable skills really help you see a little bit beyond yourself.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_03And there's a difference, right, between sort of like piloting this, embedding it in schools, having students and teachers talking about it, and then kind of measuring how it's evolving and how it's succeeding. How are we gonna
Measuring Growth Without A Test
SPEAKER_03measure this?
SPEAKER_01That is a good question. That's why we volunteered to pilot, right? Before we roll it out, K-12. We need some time to try it out and get feedback from educators, get feedback from students, get feedback from our parents, right? Creating this common language of how we're supporting our students in these five areas. And so I think right now we're just getting that feedback from teachers. We provided a teacher toolkit with examples of evidence resources that they could implement in their schools. We asked them to choose one, right? We don't have to do everything, but what's something you're already doing, and how can you measure student growth and progression within your classroom? And so I think that's one of the benefits of doing a pilot is just being able to get all of our stakeholders' feedback into what really works and how do we know students are becoming a scholar in these five areas. And so we're looking at every month with our principals checking in, what are you learning? What are your teachers sharing? At the end of every quarter, we're gonna get feedback from our educators of what is this looking like and and what do we need to adapt or change.
SPEAKER_02And I think in addition to that, we had done a pre-pilot at Midvell Middle School when we were doing this, and we had actually done this for a couple of years. And the one thing that I really loved, and I think from Utah Portraits are graduate when we started there is not every one of these skills is meant to be measured in a traditional sense, and there's evidence that it's working. I think parents will see this at home, like, oh, my student got stuck on a problem and they tried again. They were working by themselves and they called a friend and said, Hey, can you help me? And so I love that when Portraits are graduate just reminds us that not every one of these is measurable, and there are some ways to really measure some of these as we're looking long-term, looking at chords in our high schools and working on learning skills in the elementary. We do want this to have a flow K to 12 and recognize there will be some pieces that will be very noticeable that we can tell, and other pieces that will be more reflective. And I think we'll see it in the workforce in college when our kids choose what they're gonna do. I think employers and parents are gonna really see these differences that might not be as you know, letter grade. It's very there are rubrics for these, but some of this is really these kids developing it and seeing them as real life situations where they're actually doing these things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's kind of like this flywheel effect, right? Like you find success here and then you see it start to spread. Because I would imagine as our middle school embrace this, they're gonna be talking about it. You're gonna have champions that are championing it, and you're gonna start to see it even bleed into other schools before, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think Mindy hit on a good point. I think growth and progression is way more impactful and more important than a score, right? Or a mark or whatever that we want our students to be able to see that they may be stronger in one of these areas than another. And that's okay because even us as adults, as we go into the workforce and change our positions, we're continually reflecting on where we can improve in those skills. So if we can create that mindset of growth and progression and consistency, I think that sets our students up for success as they leave us in the education system and out into the real world. Yeah, that's so true. When you reflect back on your own life, right?
SPEAKER_03Like just as you start getting your first job and then you get another job, and you're learning a lot of these skills over again in a different context, or reminding yourself, yeah. The learning continues.
Parent Prompts Beyond How Was School
SPEAKER_03You mentioned parents being part of this equation. So maybe for a parent listening to this, kind of what are some takeaways for them? I don't know that there's anything they can do to sort of reinforce this at home, or what should they understand about how this is going to enrich their child's time in school?
SPEAKER_02I think the most important thing is for parents listening to know that we're working together with this. This is just like our literacy that we're working on early literacy, this is a community working together to support our students. We will have published by next fall our completely drafted Portrait of Canyon Scholar brochure. And one of the pages that I love, and a huge shout out to Katie Gephardt, who from ISD who has spent hours helping us get it in a place that it's close to publishing. Hundreds of hours have been spent on this, the workplace that's close to publishing. But there's a page that just has some simple questions that you can ask your students. So, for example, we've been talking about resilient learner, and one of the questions is how would you have worked through a challenge even when it was difficult? So those are the kinds of questions that educators, friends, parents, you know, I think sometimes I have fallen into the trap of asking my kids how was school today? Fine, Mom. It's not really the best answer, and I love when they actually give you real answers, but some of these are like, did you think of anything creative today? Like, how cool would that be if my kids, when they were young, especially, I was asking those questions because then as the parents were reinforcing, I don't think there's any parent who doesn't want their child to have these characteristics because we know these are really the characteristics that help them persevere through both the academics but life in general. And so I love these questions, and that's something we'll get ready for our parents so they can be a part of it. And you know, as Anji mentioned, we're looking for feedback from our educational students, but also the parents. Like we are excited to see when you see the citizenship grade, for example, let's say they're doing a collaborator, ask your child, why do you think you got the highest one? Why is it or why is it emerging? How can we work on that together? So I think getting feedback and just opening those conversations is going to really help our parents and students together.
SPEAKER_03I love that. Like the dinner time conversation prompts. Yes, and it's totally different than how was your day?
unknownI love that.
SPEAKER_03That
Reading Culture And Book Recommendations
SPEAKER_03seems like a good pivot point to talk about another initiative that we're really pushing here in Canyons, and that is course literacy and reading skills, because readers are lifelong learners, right? So a little bit of a dinner conversation among us. What are some uh books that each of you are reading? And we can start with you, Mindy.
SPEAKER_02This is my favorite question because I absolutely love to read. The hardest part was actually thinking through a little bit how I want to narrow this down. So I'm just gonna say recently, some of my very favorite ones that I've read are The Correspondent, Atomic Habits, Theo of Golden, My Friends, and then probably my all-time favorite children adult story is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So love reading. Love the Correspondent and Theo of Golden. I do. They're amazing. I think of Theo of Golden. They will be so good.
SPEAKER_02I just think they're very heartfelt, and for me, right time in my life to read those and very meaningful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Angie.
SPEAKER_01I always stress when people ask me what my favorite thing is. It doesn't matter. So in favorite books, oh my goodness, I have so many that I love. So, like Mindy, I was just thinking about like currently, professionally in my role, always Brene Brown, right? Dare to lead, and just some of the key things that I learned from reading that book that have made me a leader that I am now. Of course, atomic habits, that we can always improve and get 1% better each day is a good reminder for me. We were talking, I haven't read a lot of fiction lately. So I have started The Things We Cannot Say. So it's a historical fiction book, which I'm super okay. Keep reading really good recommendations. Yeah. And then just rereading Impact Players by Liz Wiseman. And then, of course, this morning, Controlling My Dogs, Thinking About Where the Wild Things Are is probably one of my favorite children's books this morning. So you have a new plan. Yeah. So I think I think that's the power of reading and literacy is that no matter what you read or what you love, it applies to your life. And the power that that gives people, I think, is so important.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and atomic habits. That seems very apropos for what we're talking about. It does, these well, thank you both for taking time to explain this fundamental initiative and I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, CanyonsDistrict.org.
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