Chris is to Collegiate Renewal as thinking is to brain- ISTE 2010, Day 3

My first morning session this Wed. is called Beyond Tools: Thoughtful 21st Century School Reform. It is presented by Chris Lehmann. Chris starts by reinforcing that pedagogy drives technology not the other way around.

He says the push for him comes from watching his elder son go from loving learning to hating learning, especially reading, in kindergarten. He also says being trusted with other people's children makes him want to be better everyday. Students are able to do more than ever before, but this creates a madden paradox of education in 2010. Kids are learning all the time digitally, and then the go to the school where the learning stops. This was basically the last thing he said that related to technology.

Next Cris moves to the difference between change and innovation. Change is just differently and innovation is completely new. In most schools, we have school plus computers. Technology needs to be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. It can be transformative because we can create, research, collaboration, presentation and network, but these all existed. We may just be doing them better.

In order to tell a better story, we must have vision.  There is a profound difference between "I teach Math" and "I teach kids Math". Students should never be the objects of their own education. Schools need to be inquiry given and student-centered. It must be about their learning not our teaching. That doesn't mean we don't need teachers - we need them more than ever because they need strong mentors. Schools need to be collaborative and students need to engage at the synthesis level. The work needs to mater, so schools are a place of passion. Schools should not be preparation for life, it should be life. One way to do this is change how many classes we have and see them as lenses not silos. That means we have common themes and content is integrated across curriculum. More than anything else our students need to reflect and be metacognitive. They need to know how they learn. 

As I listen to Chris, I hear all the basic tenants of Collegiate Renewal. Our goal "All collegiate students will be engaged in their learning so they will graduate as active participants in lifelong learning and as responsible and caring citizens in the community, nation, and world" has much in common with the vision Chris is articulating. It's like his thinking is a part of the overall structure we have developed to guide everything.

Chris asked us to talk to a partner about our vision, and my partner was Tim from New York. Tim works as a professional developer for 22 schools, and his main vision is student engagement. Tim is hoping to change his professional development practice so that teachers pick one main goal connected to engagement and go after it, rather than attending sit and get sessions and getting a point or credit for them. Sounds like the shift in our professional learning practice over the last 5 years. Tim and I talked about the strengths and pitfalls of our approach.

Once we got back in the big group, Chris talked about some ways you know when you are getting to your vision (here is Chris' vision):

• Your vision exists in the structure of the classrooms, not in the practice of a few teachers
• We use common language intentionally
• We use a common process of planning and assessment
• The thing you use to assess at the end is the measure of the real focus of the class and articulate the most important learning in the class

These would be good ways of framing evidence around Collegiate Renewal. On thing I have noticed, is that some of the things Chris is talking about are givens in my teaching. He talked about releasing their grade 12 students to work on an independent inquiry, for example. I taught that same class last year to grade 11s - it was called Inquiry 20. However, to Chris' point, my teaching opportunities have not been standard, nor is the resulting learning students experience.

The next question Chris asked was "What is one structure you would change and how would you change it?" If I could pick one thing to change would be the rigidity of class structures. Although I have taught integrated classes, classes with community time, etc., I think few teachers have the opportunity to structure the learning so it is about what you learn not the time spent in the seat. One of the teachers stood up and talked about his experience in Maine, which works in that direction.

One of Chris' points in that each of the great changes we make also has problems. His goal is empowerment and his demon in entitlement. He asked us to think about some hard questions:

• What is the worst consequence of your best idea and how will you mitigate it?
• What are the obstacles to the change and how can you overcome them?
• If you make these changes, how will the lives of teachers be different?
• How will the lives of students be different?
• How will you deal with the change?

Chris notes that at his school, students work really hard because of the projects. However, there needs to be balance. When you do real work, you need to do less of it, because it is much more demanding.

Schools must be transformative for students, and for teachers. Being willing to be transformed means that we have so much left to learn. That is the critical element of Collegiate Renewal for me is just that, engagement for both students and teachers through a growth mindset. Want to read more about Chris' ideas? Check out his site or follow him on twitter.

Innovation and the Impossible - ISTE Day 1

"It always seems impossible until it's done..." Nelson Mandela

One of my favorite Mandela quotations is one of the series of banners about excellence throughout the Conference Center for ISTE 2010. The session I am attending now is called Innovative Leadership: 21st Century Innovations that Mater. Its main focus is how leaders set up environments to create the opportunity for innovation. The presenter is Cheryl Lemke, and for those of you who like to see all the information:

• The background
• The backchannel (a way that the audience in a session talks to each other while the session happens)
• On Twitter (#metirigroup)

Cheryl started by talking about how students learn and noted that attending school is a small part of students' learning. Students also use peers and home as they always have. Relatively new are the networked public, work and distributed resources. Cheryl argues that we need to tap into their interests and use them in school in order to have the opportunity to have most powerful impact of students' learning. We'll only get 18.5% of their life time to help them learn so we want to set them up to keep learning in the post powerful way possible.

Cheryl's big focuses for Innovative Leaders:

1. Own the innovation - don't delegate it to the right people, lead it. CEOs in top innovative countries don't delegate creative work, they do it themselves (The Innovator's DNA). Technology, social media, multimedia and eCommunication should inform every decision. They should be a factor via digital content, implementation, student voice, environmental scanning, expectations for teachers etc. The technology facilitator should be at all tables and be an advocate for the ways students learn best.
2. Drive the change through creativity and knowledge - be creative, informed, tolerant and critical of digital technologies and our youth driving changes.  Our customer, our students, are digital natives. There are three basic was of thinking of learning: as acquisition, as participation, or as knowledge creation. As we focus on knowledge creation, we need to design our technology and our assessments to support creation. Knowledge creation doesn't happen in a vacuum - it uses teaming, Internet etc. We pull students out of this when we assess them and it doesn't make sense. Our structures are also set up to support acquisition not creation. Top innovators do some key things. They associate with things outside their sphere of influence and bring two different things together in new ways. The implications for the education is the need for more integration. Innovators ask questions all the time, and they asks the unaskable questions. Observing is another key trait of innovators. They watch the clients and users (students) and have student voice in what they do. We need much more student voice in education. Innovators are also experimenters. They believe failure is an essential part of success. We can do this with teachers around action research. Finally, they are networkers who bring people together and build effective groups. I think the role of Learning Leader is designed with this in mind - obviously a good thing that this is a main focus for us.
3. Shift from Rules to Shared Principles - actively facilitate the development and adoption of guiding principles for 21st Century Learning. This one has big implication for how my division might approach things.
4. Establishment of a Professional Learning System - includes observation, virtual and face to face work. Involves less student contact time, lesson study, and classroom observations. Doing there walk-throughs is very helpful for principals in particular, but for all leaders. We have been shifting our professional learning pretty dramatically in the last few years with these exact ideas in mind. We are still learning how to do this most effectively.
5. Shape culture - the leaders establishes the culture of openness, collegiality, honesty, and adaptability, all focused on standards or goals. Leaders should look for positive deviants, who are those working outside the rules to make something work for students. This is a topic that is really on the radar of the Collegiate Renewal team.
6. Ensure Digital Access and Infrastructure - including networks, devices, data systems, applications (web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0), instructional, business and technical support, policy). She noted that the system needs to be open enough to allow blogging, twitter etc. I think our filtering changes, use of online communities and use of web 2.0 tools are starting to make inroads here.
7. Data, Assessment, trends and accountability- it needs to be focused on student engagement, not just metrics on competence. This whole section was closely correlated to our work, complete with diagrams of flow, like the one in the Collegiate Renewal data from this year. I think we need to keep working on a systematic approach to evidence collection, and I know that is a major focus of learning for next year in administrative professional learning.

Many of the principles Cheryl talked about next are those of Collegiate Renewal. We spent time talking about the value to motivation for staff and students and how to create engagement. One thing she highlighted was the shift to lesson study as a form of professional learning for teachers in schools where students are the most successful. Some interesting achievement statistics related to teaching:

• Teacher effectiveness has the number one effect on student learning, and professional learning must be sustained over time, content based, focused on concrete tasks, in community etc.
• 3 effective teachers in a row = +50 percentile
• Single ineffective teacher is detectable 4 years later
• A minimum of 6 days focused professional learning is necessary to make a substantial change in student performance.

My favorite quotations from the session:

"We defined the school system to make it the way it is, and we are the people with the power to redefine it. It is us."

"Business and industry are asking us turn education on its head. Let's go after that and do it."

"Sometimes behavior comes first and belief comes second. You can create change with resistance if you are doing something people will be able to see the impact of. Progress is the biggest motivator."

"People tell me that older teachers are stuck in time, but they came into teaching because they wanted to move things forward for kids. We need to give them real permission to go after 21st Century Learning."

I enjoyed this session quite a bit and it has lots of implications for the Collegiate Renewal work. Some we are working hard on, like professional learning systems and assessment and accountability. Others need more attention as we move forwards. I am leaving with lots to think about and record a fraction of what Cheryl said. I always enjoy a session like that. I left the session refocused on continuing to push for innovation.

A Good Day

Every once in a while you have a really good day because you know the work you are doing is making a difference. Last year when I was teaching, I'd have a student come in once every couple of weeks to tell me that or have a class go so well that I felt wonderful. In this PD role, that happens less often.

A big push of my work this year has been to support SITLs and TLs is working with teachers on how and why to use technology in their classrooms. Part way through the year, I started getting unsolicited feedback. Two of my SITLs started sending me links to share out with the division. I watched the hits on various web applications I was teaching climb, and I saw our libraries develop virtual presence. The most significant thing was the number of teachers who were trying digital storytelling, mindmapping and more effective research methods with students, thanks to the support of the SITLs and TLs. I also got invited to work with large groups of teachers, like English teachers.  Each of theses things was part of evidence that the learning I was working on was making a difference in Collegiates - my big reason for wanting to do it. However, the really exciting thing was an email I got this morning:

I just found out (from what I understand about my teaching assignment next year) that I'll have every other morning in semester 1 free of classes. This means I can spend a morning working with teachers in either school. I'm looking forward to this great opportunity to transform classroom practice. I shall be going over the book club selection you chose this summer.
I hope that we can send someone else to IT Summit next year. It was really exhausting after two days of that conference - I was wondering how I could even get started. Get started I did. I started my personal blog on May 3rd and opened up Delicious and Evernote accounts. I've been using Twitter more now and I use all of these tools in my classes this semester (except for Comp Sci). I now realise what power these tools bring and how they relate to AFL. Blogs and wikis are an ideal way to allow students to practise continuous improvement. The power of sharing things in a social network might be a way to build community (not limited to just the classroom). It occurred to me that I could RSS feed my Delicious bookmarks in a virtual classroom like this on the bottom of my AFL Science portal. Instead of cutting out newspaper articles, this is an easy way to create a bulletin board of current events in science or history. I'm just wondering about how to segregate the feeds now.
This year was the most useful for PD in technology I've ever had. I now understand more of your question to me last year about the "why" rather than the "how". Thank you for all your great work this year.

Thanks Leslie, for that uplifting email. I am so delighted to see all the great things you are thinking about as you connected them to your life in your blog. And as you start to work with teachers in a support role in mornings next year, I think you'll get the pleasure of seeing other teachers learn as you learned this year.

Sometimes as a facilitator of teacher learning, it is easy to feel like you don't have much to offer. Leslie knows was more about programing, networks, and computer repair than I do - how could I possibly offer him something in the area of technology? The answer lies in the fact that great people are always growing, sharing ideas, and looking for possibilities to make a difference for others. So I can make a difference with Leslie this year, and he'll make a difference for others next. Every bit of feedback, especially the feedback designed to help me grow, is useful in getting closer to making that difference.

Our Technology Story - Water and Sun

I have been working on a draft version of the story of the work around technology that happened this year in Collegiate Renewal. Yesterday, the SITLs and TLs looked at it and made some revisions as we prepare to add it to the board report. I am also working a wix page (in progress) to go with it an augment the story with background information.

As I sift through evidence, I am always thinking about what it is telling me about what went well and what next steps we need to take. In particular, I am thinking about what we need to do to grow the seeds we planted this year. I had just finished a personal blog post on all the perennials I am excited about in my yard, when the following serendipitous video came up on my blog feed:

As I watched it, I thought that it embodies many of the things I'd like to be able to say next year about Collegiate Renewal and Technology after I have looked at our evidence of growth.

As I sifted through the evidence from this year, I was excited all the possibilities created by the learning our SITLs and TLs did this year, and by the initial work of the technology grants. I continue to see the potential for a rich harvest, but I am also worried.

As I watched this video, I waited and waited, because community net (the way in which Saskatchewan schools get Internet) started throttling our streamed video access last week, causing the video to lag. I wanted to send the video to others and extend the conversation the group had yesterday about how we will grow the learning in Collegiates next year. But I didn't, because of a basic barrier like connectivity.

In order to grow technology use, we need to address pedagogy and understanding to shed light on what we can do. We also need the flow of hardware, software and connectivity to allow that light to turn into fuel in our classrooms. Water and sun are basic necessities for a good story of growing our learning.

I feel like the classic Saskatchewan farmer - even as I am excited about the bumper crop I am shoveling into bins, I am worried about what the weather may bring next year. I don't have control of the weather, so I need to make my best predictions about the things I can control and continue to be hopeful. As I am revising the story and planning for next year, I am excited that I am from Saskatchewan, and have a good cooperative of fellow planning and instructional leaders to work with. It's nice celebrate to have a community harvest.

Look who is coming to dinner

In my last post, Like planning a flash mob, I was talking about the complexities of planning an upcoming professional learning opportunity. I will have that "opportunity" tomorrow and I am excited about it. I was very nervous we'd only have a few people, but we are over 30 now, and I have had to add spaces to present.

The day, which is about 21st Century Literacy, has attracted a pretty wide group of teachers, most of whom will be presenting about what they are doing this year. It is designed to be a conversation between professional learners about what they are trying and how it is going. Some of those coming will present for an hour, some for a half hour. I like the fact that some will talk about co-teaching experiences as well.

We are going to have a very diverse group of people who are coming to share what they have been doing to meet student needs. They are sharing their learning along 1 or 2 of the themes of the day: assessment for learning, struggling readers, learner engagement, differentiation, and digital learners. Here is a look at who will be there.

• READ teachers - teachers who work with reluctant or even no-readers on acquiring literacy skills. These teachers are a part of our division's priority of Literacy for Life.
• EAL teachers - teachers whose students speak English as a second or additional language. These teachers are working on language acquisition in addition to literacy skills.
• Pod and Grant teachers - teachers who have been given different or additional technologies to meet a specific instructional need. In the case of the grant teachers, presenting about their action-research is a required part of the grant process.
• Secondary teacher-librarians - are teachers who manage our learning resource centers/libraries, and work with teachers and students to support learning. Our TLs are typically full-time in the library. This year our TLs have been working on creating a digital presence for our libraries.
• SITLs - some of our Secondary Instructional Technology leaders will be present. They work with teachers in individual collegiates through planning, instructional and technical support. Almost all collegiates have an SITL, some of which have release time to work with teachers.
• Classroom teachers - a number of classroom teachers, particularly English/Language Arts teachers are coming to present what they have been trying in their classrooms.

Throughout the course of tomorrow and the next day, some teachers and our professional development team will be documenting their experiences learning. I'll be posting on this blog, others will capture video, build digital stories and use other web 2.0 tool. Expect to hear a lot from us.

Just like Parallel Play

Every time I think I need something, Wes Fryer finds it somewhere. I was working with teachers on social networking in the classroom last week. I showed them Clay Shirky's TED talk on social networking and had them categorize their own learning traits as digitally immigrant or native so they could think about providing digital learners opportunity to engage.


As we were doing it, I wished that I had a good interactive visual that provided facts on who our students are digitally. Today as I was checking my RSS feeds, Wes' blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity linked me to an interactive image full of interesting facts about digital learners.


I keep trying to persuade others that it is really worth their time to develop some form of on-line learning network. RSS is great for those who aren't really ready to talk to others yet and just want to lurk. In the workshop I lead on Friday, one of the teachers remarked that seeing teenagers in a circle texting each other is a lot like watching toddlers when they are at the parallel play stage. For me, watching others get information by searching but not use a digital PGN is the same thing. They are all playing near each other, but no one is playing or learning together. Anyway, thanks to Wes for being a great digital play-date and PBS for another great toy.

Teacher as learner

We always say that if we want deeply engaged learners, we need deeply engaged teachers. Growth mindset, commitment to renewal, a focus on each learner - these are all things that we value. I recently came across a power point by Wes Fryer on Slideshare that articulates many of the things I aspire to be and hope that my children have.

Things I Want To Model As Your Teacher

View more documents from Wesley Fryer.

The problem is, Wes picks so many things. I'd have a hard time picking ones I don't think are important, and I know that teachers are busy people and we are always adding to the list of things we want them to be and do. And they can't do them because we compel them too, it has to be because they really want to or it is not enough. Teachers have to really want it.

What can I do to create the conditions where teachers want to engage in the way Wes suggests? What barriers do we need to address?

Choice as pain killer

Patterson (et al) argue that there is a critical difference between punishment and sacrifice. They both have pain, but you have no choice with punishment and choice with sacrifice. That's the nugget, Patterson argues, that leads to personal engagement.

I first encountered Paterson reading an article in December's issue of Teacher Librarian. The whole issue is about teaching and learning with technology. My favorite article is by Vicki Davis, whose blog I have followed for a while. Davis ask, "How do we unleash the intrinsic desire of teachers to help students learn and help teachers make the sacrifices it will take to get there? "(p. 9). Yup, sacrifices. She argues we want to teachers to act as teacherpreneurs: "someone who organizes a classroom venture for learning and assumes the risk for it" (p. 8). Sounds a lot like Collegiate Renewal.

When discussing Collegiate Renewal, we also talk about how engaged learners need engaged teachers. We know what we are asking is actually a really big shift. Sometimes I think we forget about how painful it is.

I think we always need to come back to that intrinsic desire to help kids learn. That's why we are teachers - we make the decision to do things with that desire in mind. Ask two teachers with opposite practices why they do things, and they will both tell you they do it for the learning.

So if choice is the pain killer we need, we have a problem. It is antithetical to "prescribe" choice. And yet, choice in a vacuum is often uninformed or outright wrong.

I have been willing to do a lot of gruelling, devastating and tedious things when I see results for my students. I'm even more willing to do these things when other teachers encourage me to do so. I got my copy of this article from a teacher librarian friend of mine, on the recommendation of another TL. I've shared it with 5 other educators. I went out today to interview a teacher and he talked about why Collegiate Renewal was the only way to go, and then he talked about how hard it is. The choices he is making in his classroom sacrifice his time and energy, but in talking to him, I was reminded that I was prepared to engage, even knowing the pain.

Patterson is right that choice is key, and it is really hard to make a change . Davis quotes Herold et al in the article: "There is no such thing as an 'organizational change...'. When we say an organization has made the transition from 'point A' to 'point B', we really mean individuals within the organization have changed their behaviour, so that collectively the organization now reflects these changes" (p. 70). I guess that means we need to keep talking about what is happening in our classrooms, and about what difference it made for our students. That choice to engage is the only balm.

Of course we believe collaboration is a good idea – right?

For the last two decades, education journals have been publishing studies that extol the virtues of professional collaboration. In fact, creating a collaborative culture has been identified by some educational researchers as the most important factor in successful school renewal.

Research is clear that, for teachers, working collaboratively:

· inspires the desire to renew professional practices,
· increases instructional competence and confidence,
· makes complex professional tasks more manageable,
· promotes coherence and consistency in instructional practices

Together, teachers have more energy, skills, resources and ideas than an individual teacher and their synergy leads to higher quality planning and instruction.

Thus it is not surprising that we are all familiar with Professional Learning Communities, inquiry teams, PGN’s, teacher learning groups and many other structures designed to promote collaboration. Also, countless sub-days are provided and many detailed facilitation plans are developed so that teachers can work together. These are prevalent in our schools because we want to realize the benefits of collaboration in our division.

However effective these structures and expenditures are, I do wonder if collaboration - an idea with such wide acceptance - requires so many extra efforts and supports. If collaborating is such a good idea, it seems to me that planning and teaching together would occur naturally as a part of our day-to-day work. Does it?

Do we plan instruction together on a regular basis? Is team-teaching common in our schools? Do we develop common assessments with colleagues? Do we invite other teachers into our classrooms as an extra set of eyes and ears to provide feedback on something we can’t take note of while we are teaching? Are our actions evidence of our belief in and commitment to collaboration?

If the answer is yes, let’s share examples of teachers collaborating and the benefits of their work together – to reinforce this as a core element of our professional culture. If the answer is no, let’s find out how to grow a collaborative culture in our division.

Based on what I have read and experienced, I know that time and courage are required for meaningful collaboration. Collaborative planning and instruction take more time and deprivatizing our practice is a professional risk that may be uncomfortable.

To realize the benefits of collaboration we can overcome those two factors:
· Do we already have time built into our work lives that we could use for collaboration?
· Do we have trusted colleagues with whom we can establish a more collaborative professional relationship?

To enhance the quality of our instruction and our students’ learning, we can find the time and the courage required to collaborate.

We believe that collaboration is a good idea – right?


More: Read an “old school” DuFour perspective on collaboration.