Engaging Teachers: Jodi Keith
Are you looking for a cutting edge program that combines complex problem solving, community involvement, skills acquisition, and performance based assessment? If so, take a peek at The EAST Initiative. EAST, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, aims “to provide an environment that fosters relevant, individualized life-changing experiences through service and technology.” EAST programs exist in 257 schools, the majority of which are in Arkansas.
EAST teachers call themselves facilitators because that word best captures the work they do. In EAST, students are responsible for making the whole thing go. They work with community clients who need assistance to solve a community problem. The students frame and research the issue, produce and execute the plan to solve the response, and hold themselves accountable as they proceed. The teachers? Well, they facilitate. EAST facilitators are among the most skilled problem-based learning practitioners we’ve ever met.
We had the chance recently to chat with Jodi Keith, who for the last four years has served as an EAST facilitator at Northeast Tech in Claremore, Oklahoma. By our measure, Jodi is one of the most engaging teachers in the country, working with juniors, seniors and adults in her community as they work with the people of Claremore to strengthen their community.
Rob: What led you to this field in the first place?
Jodi: I was kind of that kid that I just never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I'm not that magical story of a person who just had a heart for teaching since I was a kid. I changed my major five times in college.
I ended up getting my bachelor's degree in business information systems. I had gotten hired at Indian Capital Technology Center as a secretary in the nursing program. So I was a secretary for the Practical Nursing. And they just raised me, basically. I was a baby when I started working there. I was 23, 24 maybe. And then an opening came up in the district I.T. department. And so I jumped over and did that for a few years. And then a teaching job came open for a Microsoft Academy. So I was like, hey, I, I should go try that. So I tried that. and then we eventually turned that over to become an EAST program. And then EAST just had my heart. So that's that.
Rob: Why do you think your students find your class engaging?
Jodi: I asked them this question this morning because I said, hey, I'm going to be interviewed and this is what they gave me: We can learn what we want. And if we if we don't like it, we can switch. We have options within reason. There's definitely a structure in place, but inside that structure, it's really up to us. More important, though, we have to show self-reliability. We have to take care of our client. Ms. Keith sets some deadlines and parameters. But within that, how we get to that goal is really kind of up to us. One other thing my kids said was they like to be able to test drive a career. I think that’s great.
Rob: Could you give a description about how the work goes?
Jodi: We do a lot of work for the community. So we are basically a small business that operates out of a classroom, and we offer technology services to the greater community at large. So anybody in our community, an individual, a nonprofit, a church, another school, a small business can send in job request to my students. We review those. If it's something we think we can do, we'll take it on as a job. Students pick which ones they want to tackle
Rob: And so when you talk about clients, they are actual clients?
Jodi: Oh yes. They are real people in the community that are coming to us saying, hey, can you build me a website? Can you make an app for me? Can you fly your drone and collect this imagery for my tree farm? all kinds of things.
Rob: Can you give me a word about how the course is structured?
Jodi: We have a morning session and an afternoon session. We run busses to and from their high schools. They jump on the bus, come here, and then they're in class for three hours, and then we take them back. So they spend half their day here and half their day at their other school. Our adult students, can just drive. Um, I have some that are finishing up their second year of EAST and also dually enrolled over at the university, which luckily is just across the street.
Rob: What would you say is your teaching philosophy?
Jodi: It's all about relationships, trust and respect. We spend the first week of class each year just getting to know each other and the way our school is designed. We're pulling students from nine local high schools. So many of these students that apply for EAST and get accepted are from different schools, and they don't even know each other. So we have to get to know and trust each other because they're going to need to lean on each other, because the things that we're asking them to do in EAST are not things that they do at the high school. They have to call clients. They want to sound professional. They need each other to help figure it out. We spend a lot of time in the beginning tearing down barriers and building relationships. We're all human, including me. And so it's important for them to know that we need to have grace for each other. We learn to trust one another. And through this process, we become a pretty tight knit group who trusts and respects each other. If students know you care about them, they'll rope the moon for you.
Rob: How is that you lead your students to love the work?
Jodi: I think it goes back to them having that opportunity to choose what they want to do. If you choose a project and you've already started talking to that client, and somewhere in the middle you decide you don't like that anymore and you want to jump ship. I'm going to say, too bad you have to stick it out. We'll plug other students in to help pick up some pieces, but it's still your baby. You're still the one responsible for seeing it through to the end. We have a lot of resources. And so we help you get there, but you can't quit. I think that they respect that even though they don't always like it. I think they love the work because they experience responsibility even when responsibility is hard.
Rob: Students also achieve professional certifications in your class. Can you describe those?
Jodi: I have a set that they can choose from. The set includes certifications in any of the Adobe software products. There is an FAA certification in drone piloting, also, a fundamental foundation in mapping software called ArcGIS, cybersecurity, and others. I check their progress at the end of the week. We call it Cert Prep. All of that work has specific use in the projects they are running. Of course, they are also present on the progress of those projects. They really love doing those presentations. So it's really not like work.
Rob: They must be proud of their work!
Jodi: They are. They create a vault of photos for documentation. And we have found that to be very useful for social media for telling our story. Telling our story is part of the work we do too. They're just getting stronger and stronger in those presentation skills. It amazes me the difference in getting them up to speak in front of people, even when it's just fun. They don't realize that how much better they're getting at speaking, keeping good eye contact and those types of things. And they have fun. We try to rope in learning and call it fun.
Rob: Are you aware of your own engagement data and do you make any use of it?
Jodi: Yes, I keep an eye on it. My students are really engaged. And if you're not, my other students will get on to you.
Rob: So there's a positive peer culture?
Jodi: Yes. My second year students serve as supervisors, and they are really able to set the right tone.
They're mentors. So I have supervisors that have 3 to 4 students under each one of them, and it's their job to make sure their people are on task, getting their work done, communicating with their client and doing what they can to push their project forward. So the project movement aspect is off of my shoulders. My supervisors are shouldering that. There is a real culture of responsibility. Their leadership skills are phenomenal because they really take it to heart when they get chosen to be the leader of that group.
Rob: And what makes you hopeful about education?
Jodi: The students. I think kids get a bad rap these days because all we ever see on mainstream media is what they're doing wrong. But since we have that three hour block schedule, I spend 15 hours a week with my students. If my kids have a job after school, I see them more than any adult in their life. It's pretty crazy.
These kids are intelligent. They're passionate, they're technologically savvy, and they're going to do great things. They just need opportunity. Part of this passion comes from this format in which they can learn in an authentic way, they can make decisions about their work. They have to be responsible for real things. These kids make me hopeful. They're smart. And they have such great tools and resources at their disposal. And if we don't teach them to use them to their advantage, then the failure is on us, right?
Rob: I'm looking for your favorite moment.
Jodi: One year we were working with a little rural hospital. They had this big vision for marketing, and had no budget to make the video they wanted. We took it on. We interviewed staff and also patients who had agreed to be interviewed for this video. And so we made a video. It took months for us to get all of these shots. We shot at the hospital, at the home health, at a doctor's office that were all tied into this hospital. Pretty much everyone throughout the process had worked on it in some capacity.
The project manager was a lion and as we were working on the projects many of her co-students had a really hard time with her, but We were dedicated to the project’s success. By the end, the product they produced was top notch. So about a 3 or 4 weeks after we made delivery, the hospital director called. She wanted to come bring donuts to my class and, and just talk to them. And she came in and she told them, “Gosh, we dreamed of having something like this for ten years,” and she started to cry, “but we could never afford to make it happen. And you did it. I just want you guys to know that. Last week I walked into a meeting with the hospital staff. There were about 30 of them in there, and I showed this video when we turned the lights on afterward, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.” That changes kids. That was a favorite moment.