When I think about student engagement, I always try to compare where I was most engaged (anything with problems and critical thinking) to where I was least engaged - Math. That's interesting, because I had some engaging teachers who taught me math, and a number of my friends are Math teachers. There must be something there when so many people I like and respect use so much of their time and energy to work on it...
For years, I pegged my low potency in Math to my dyslexia. How can you feel able when 6 and 9 or 3 and 8 look the same and you are always getting basic arithmetic wrong? When you are always making mistakes, I told myself, it is hard to be engaged. Yet as the same time, I actually sought out other things because they weren't easy. I loved English and History, although my writing was full of spelling mistakes that never failed to illicit comments from my teachers about how I did it wrong. I also really liked all the sciences, and liked the applied Math I found in them.
I have been reading Dan Meyer's blog dy/dan since meandthedoor sent it to me. She sent out another link to Dan's TEDx talk and I watched it. I think Dan has it right on the money. I have been gradually realizing that I didn't hate Math because I made computational errors, I hated it because I didn't see it as problems or creative thinking. This is a little ironic, as my father (yup, mathematician) and one of my best friends (physicist), are always "going on" about how math is the language of all the interesting questions in the world.
I use my mathematics education all the time - basic arithmetic, but also geometry when I build things and statistics because they interest me. Permutations and combinations were my favorite unit in all of my K-12 math education because they were about prediction and I could see how I was using them to problem solve choices I was making playing cards. I guess every time my math is problem solving I like it, but in my education it rarely was. Even word problems were just identifying the formula and subbing in the variables.
I know the many good math teachers I know are not surprised that students don't feel they can do it and just want a formula. I was always way better at memorizing the formula and doing the evens or odds in the text than I was at understanding the why. But understanding the why is what would have made Math relevant for me, and I would have persevered through lack of potency if I was really thinking critically. I just wasn't doing much thinking most of the time.
Dan talks early on in the video about how textbooks are a big part of the problem. They were for me. Since they gave me only the variables I needed, they were like a badly written mystery. You know, the kind where the only minor characters you meet will be significant later? You don't do any thinking there, you just sub in Mr. Scott in as the murder. If I had been figuring out what I needed to know and excluding irrelevant information, the why would have been automatic, as would my sense of engagement. I have always liked a challenge, but math just seemed to be low level thinking.
As my husband is teaching math to our daughters, I can see that texts are starting to change, but the problems Dan identifies are still firmly in place. I'd sure welcome some insights from my math loving friends on this one. Is Dan right in your experience? How do you think we should teach math? I have always liked a good problem - and maybe it is worth starting to do the math.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Replacing grading
Joe Bower has an interesting Prezi about how he replaced grading with feedback. I like it because it used the progression of Prezi well and he is clearly thinking deeply about how he structures his class and why.
Joe's blog is about his quest to make his Red Deer, Alberta classroom more engaging for his students. He is also hard at work challenging educational practice, sometime in a constructive way and, sometimes in an aggressive one. However, since Joe is thinking about why his classroom is the way it is, he often holds my interest, and I think he is worth adding to blogs you follow.
On Sunday, Joe diverted from his usual topics to post on a video that irritated him. Having recently posted on a video that irritated me, I thought I should humour him. Despite Joe's focus on removing judgement in his feedback, his blog title of Taylor Mali is a Joke seemed just a tad evaluative to me.In watching the video, I re-focused on what it is in the grading conversation that bothers me so much. It is the control.
Teachers measuring students and declaring them bad or good is really a problem if we want learning to occur. Plus, who wants to learn when someone is watching to catch you making a mistake so they can put a big red X on in and report it to everyone? Mali is all about the control. He talks about enforced silence, students feeling like failures when given an A-.
That's it right there - teaching as tyranny. It actually isn't the marks at all. I didn't mind having to give or receive them, but the part where marks were a weapon in the struggle for dominance is an issue for me.
Having said that, I would not describe myself as a flexible, open, and spontaneous teacher. I'm a structured person and my classroom reflects it. And students didn't just get to hand things in whenever or have no consequences for anything. It's just that really bad choices always have their own consequences in the end, so I know you will face the consequences. My role is to help you learn - measuring your learning is a very small part of what I do.
By the end of last year, I was using an evaluation method that was essentially portfolio based. Students used various assignments as evidence of learning to move up on a mastery rubric. I didn't grade particular work, but I did say what learning I could see in it and I asked my students to do that for each other and themselves. Although we negotiated the marks, it was rarely a struggle and never for control. You have the evidence to show you have acquired the learning or you don't, and most students see that easily.
Every year I ask my students for feedback - I use specific questions designed to assess competence, autonomy, relevance and belonging. I also ask what they would get rid of and why, and what is critical to keep. Other teachers always ask me how I keep control without the marks, and the answer always consistently up in that feedback. Kids always say my class was tough, but they almost always say it is relevant to them. My favorite parts is this: the things they learn about through the assessment are always about how they learn well, not about the hoops they need to jump though for me. That means the control (and the grade) both sit with them. We replace grading with responsibility.
Joe's blog is about his quest to make his Red Deer, Alberta classroom more engaging for his students. He is also hard at work challenging educational practice, sometime in a constructive way and, sometimes in an aggressive one. However, since Joe is thinking about why his classroom is the way it is, he often holds my interest, and I think he is worth adding to blogs you follow.
On Sunday, Joe diverted from his usual topics to post on a video that irritated him. Having recently posted on a video that irritated me, I thought I should humour him. Despite Joe's focus on removing judgement in his feedback, his blog title of Taylor Mali is a Joke seemed just a tad evaluative to me.In watching the video, I re-focused on what it is in the grading conversation that bothers me so much. It is the control.
Teachers measuring students and declaring them bad or good is really a problem if we want learning to occur. Plus, who wants to learn when someone is watching to catch you making a mistake so they can put a big red X on in and report it to everyone? Mali is all about the control. He talks about enforced silence, students feeling like failures when given an A-.
That's it right there - teaching as tyranny. It actually isn't the marks at all. I didn't mind having to give or receive them, but the part where marks were a weapon in the struggle for dominance is an issue for me.
Having said that, I would not describe myself as a flexible, open, and spontaneous teacher. I'm a structured person and my classroom reflects it. And students didn't just get to hand things in whenever or have no consequences for anything. It's just that really bad choices always have their own consequences in the end, so I know you will face the consequences. My role is to help you learn - measuring your learning is a very small part of what I do.
By the end of last year, I was using an evaluation method that was essentially portfolio based. Students used various assignments as evidence of learning to move up on a mastery rubric. I didn't grade particular work, but I did say what learning I could see in it and I asked my students to do that for each other and themselves. Although we negotiated the marks, it was rarely a struggle and never for control. You have the evidence to show you have acquired the learning or you don't, and most students see that easily.
Every year I ask my students for feedback - I use specific questions designed to assess competence, autonomy, relevance and belonging. I also ask what they would get rid of and why, and what is critical to keep. Other teachers always ask me how I keep control without the marks, and the answer always consistently up in that feedback. Kids always say my class was tough, but they almost always say it is relevant to them. My favorite parts is this: the things they learn about through the assessment are always about how they learn well, not about the hoops they need to jump though for me. That means the control (and the grade) both sit with them. We replace grading with responsibility.
What is a Learning Leader?
As we move into the third year of Collegiate Renewal, people who have been Learning Leaders and administrators are starting to offer a vision of what this form of distributed, teacher leadership looks like. Marshall Whelan cc-d me on his version. He says that as a leader he tried to do these things and was not always successful, but he figures this is what the the job needs:
Marshall retires this year and he says the white hairs in his beard are stress highlights. He also says that the work of Collegiate Renewal has been the richest work of his career. I think it is the richest because of what Marshall brings to the work. He is a linchpin as Godin describes them, and his growth mindset is in all his suggestions. Adaptation, learning by looking at what is working and what isn't, and being the change you want in world are all a part of what Marshall recommends. Marshall's ideas are similar to my own, if more eloquently expressed, and I know some people find them daunting. They ask how anyone can be all that and be a full time teacher. I think maybe we miss the point. We want you strive to be these things - it isn't a destination, it is a way of thinking.
Whether you are Right Brained or Left Brained or double dominant, learn to enjoy the practice of holding yourself professionally responsible in a widely divergent community of thinking that seeks to converge into the most engaging conversations about learning that you are likely to experience. This could be and must be a mix of the Philosophical and Practical - a steady diet of one and not the other makes for frustration.
Sincerely believe in the power of WE: a We staff, a We school, and WE classrooms.
Be prepared to learn from your fellow Learning Leaders, staff and students. You have something to contribute, but it may be at times no more or less important than that of anyone else. The real power is in Group Thinking.
Believe that Excellence is a process and not a state. We are never finished/fixed products, we will never "arrive", and we can only get better if/when we decide it is for everyone's progress.
Be prepared to see messy change: always ask people to explain their version of change , as they may be on to something that you in your omniscience may just have not realized.
Recognize that we are not just changing practice for the betterment of students, but also for ourselves. Collegiate Renewal is first and foremost about changing/ empowering teachers.
Know that you are not and will never be the ONLY fount of all wisdom and knowledge on the staff.
Listen often, ask questions, do not pontificate (This is a hard one for me, or so my wife and daughter tell me.)
Demonstrate a willingness to be judgmental: about practice, but not about people. (This is the starkest change for those who have never had THOSE conversations about people behind closed doors. And yet, it is reality!)
Do not seek this job if you are thinking that this is about ladder climbing to the higher echelons of power: others will reject your motives as base. Instead, roll up your sleeves and get at it! There is beauty and worth in this noble cause in and of itself.
Be critically minded: about reading and points-of-view: Always ask "Does this make sense?" "Who could use this?" "Who needs this?" "How much of a change is this from OUR collective philosophy or practice?" "Is this something I can be the first to try?" Don't be a bandwagon leader. Remember: you not only sipped the Kool Aid; you mixed it! So drink deeply!
Lead by example....Be consistent in all your practices and schedules. Inconsistency is perceived at best as lack of organization; at worst, it is seen as lack of conviction.
Be a detective when it comes to trying to understand people's reasons BEHIND the reasons they give. Everyone is an individual and comes with a learned set of experiences and ideas and situations. Yours are not theirs.
Always be willing to look forward in both vision (where are we going?) and immediate steps in the process ( where are we headed tomorrow/ next week/month? and HOW do we get there?)
Never be afraid to look back and check if you have gone off course or gotten sidetracked. While you look back, always check for stragglers to come along beside. Be positive and be willing to compromise, but exact commitments to proceed in the process. As we say: "Permission to try, and permission to fail and try again. BUT NO Permission to NOT try."
Always look for others who can be of like mind and can take your place in offering suggestions to any and all, especially the stragglers. Someday, you will need to be replaced.
Try as much as possible to create a like minded progressive staff that can begin the process of Mindset change through seeing as many people as possible at the front giving exemplars.
Celebrate often the small victories and little changes in practice.
Never be afraid to ask "Howzitgoin'?" the worst that can happen is they'll tell you the truth! BUT before you ask, remember that the answer to the question: "when I ask you 'How is your AFL journey going?', is that pressure or support?", the answer is YES.
Look for the weary staff as a whole; know and sense when to take your foot off the gas pedal. Remember that taking one's foot off the gas pedal doesn't mean you have hit the brakes or stopped moving forward.
Be wary of the nay sayers that they do not spread poison. Enlist their participation wherever possible (make them sip the Kool Aid too). You just might be surprised at their growth!
Enjoy reading and thinking .......a LOT!!!
Seek ways for people to spend time in collaboration: it is better if they learn HOW and WHY themselves than by being told by you.
Small groups are easier to work with. They are the best blend of all that is good about individuals and all that is Good about large group thinking without the Bad.
Remember to seek feedback....carefully. You have the right to find out what you need to know and the responsibility to let others tell you what they want you to know.
Be reasonable and realize that while you may not have a life, others want one. Don't be a Collegiate Renewal Nazi.
Recognize that you will get to work with some incredible people in the Learning Leader community: some days will be terrific and some days won't. But there will always be progress made if you learn something new every day.
Collegiate Renewal is NOT a contest between schools.
Always ask superiors to explain their rationale for why they believe or do what they do. They usually have a good reason for what they want!
Strive to explain the message of Collegiate Renewal as often as possible to those who know less about it. But do it in a manner that dignifies them, and try it in plain layman's lingo.
Hopefully, you'll do yourself out of a job as We all become independent and co-operative thinkers.
Lastly, BE POSITIVE and realize that this initiative of change will take years to effect. In fact, it will and should never be over, as this is the true culture of learning civilization we are attempting to inculcate. In retrospect: I do not like the term Kool Aid: this is really a vintner's dream. We are not trying to grow the definitive grape or the best year. We are seeking to become the best vintners who grow the best varieties of grapes for any and every climate and region, adapting on a continual basis.
Marshall retires this year and he says the white hairs in his beard are stress highlights. He also says that the work of Collegiate Renewal has been the richest work of his career. I think it is the richest because of what Marshall brings to the work. He is a linchpin as Godin describes them, and his growth mindset is in all his suggestions. Adaptation, learning by looking at what is working and what isn't, and being the change you want in world are all a part of what Marshall recommends. Marshall's ideas are similar to my own, if more eloquently expressed, and I know some people find them daunting. They ask how anyone can be all that and be a full time teacher. I think maybe we miss the point. We want you strive to be these things - it isn't a destination, it is a way of thinking.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Not just talking
As a part of the work of Collegiate Renewal, we have been working to support both Learning Leaders, Learning Coordinators and administrators in leading other teachers towards student engagement. In the last month and a half, I've had the opportunity to work with a number of groups, and I have noticed that small group conversations, chances to ask questions, and work re-focusing on the specific goal of the leadership team make a much bigger difference than big professional development sessions. Last week I participated in conversations clarifying assessment goals and re-focusing on engagement, and I have concluded that these conversations are more than just talking, they are an essential part of a distributive leadership model.
When we are hoping that teachers are reflective practitioners, we are hoping that they are life-long learners and teacher leaders. Life-long learners look at research, question what is, and vision what it might be. They lead by innovating, and that innovation is the result of observing what is happening in their classrooms and considering how to grow it. Everything we are aspiring to in Collegiate Renewal hinges on all our learners being publically engaged in their learning, and teachers are a critical part of all learners, because they need to be seen making changes that help students.
I write this blog because it is one of the ways that I engage with both ideas and other people. Sometimes I feel like I am talking to myself, but even then, I am reminded that journalling my thinking is a critical part of the reflective process. Now this is mostly whining, as I get emails virtually everyday as a result of the blog, and they continue the conversation. This weekend, Scott St. Pierre sent me a number of other blogs related to the Collegiate Renewal conversation over the weekend. Two of my particular favorites reminded me that conversation itself is a complicated process:
When we are hoping that teachers are reflective practitioners, we are hoping that they are life-long learners and teacher leaders. Life-long learners look at research, question what is, and vision what it might be. They lead by innovating, and that innovation is the result of observing what is happening in their classrooms and considering how to grow it. Everything we are aspiring to in Collegiate Renewal hinges on all our learners being publically engaged in their learning, and teachers are a critical part of all learners, because they need to be seen making changes that help students.
I write this blog because it is one of the ways that I engage with both ideas and other people. Sometimes I feel like I am talking to myself, but even then, I am reminded that journalling my thinking is a critical part of the reflective process. Now this is mostly whining, as I get emails virtually everyday as a result of the blog, and they continue the conversation. This weekend, Scott St. Pierre sent me a number of other blogs related to the Collegiate Renewal conversation over the weekend. Two of my particular favorites reminded me that conversation itself is a complicated process:
- I have been discussing Sir Ken Robinson's conversations since his TED talk came out. I hooked people up to webinars, recommended seeing him live and shared his ideas through PD. However, I think it is challenging for us to really understand the implications of what he is saying in terms of how we need to change schools. I think the Innovative Educator really explains it well in the post We Have Finally Perfected Educating Students for the Past.
- I have also been concerned about the grading conversation we are having around The 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. It gets confused with our conversation around Assessment for Learning, and we see changing grading as a substitute for changing school. The conversation we had about the problems with grading is problematic for the division and parents are concerned, but the reason we had Kohn in to speak is because the focus on grade is a problem. Joe Bower has some interesting ideas on Abolishing Grading that get closer to where we want to go in terms of focusing in feedback and growing learning.
Reading the blogs of others, like talking with small groups of school leaders, reminds me how conversation is organic. Ideas spread and grow among those who are looking to learning, and talking about them is more than one conversation. It is the extended dialogue, across times and beyond a physical location, that really creates the growth all learners need. It is this growth that is our best hope for changing schools - making the simple process of talking to others a firm step in the direction of the 21st century school. We need to remember that the process of talking to others about the changes you are making is a critical part of leading as an educator.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Dropout Talks to Educators: What would we say in response?
I got an interesting video off my RSS feed this morning. It's talking about university, but really about educational institutions in general. In Collegiate Renewal, we often discuss student voice, and the value of the voice of the disengaged. Today, I heard from one of them and I thought I would share it with you:
After I watched this video I asked myself a couple things about this student:
After I watched this video I asked myself a couple things about this student:
- What is his identity as a learner?
- What extended conversation is his rant a part of? (Reading the other videos and comments after his rant on YouTube gave me a partial answer)
- Why did he annoy me so much, even when I know he has some good points?
I found myself watching some of his other rants and wanting to declare him just a guy who always rants. Discrediting this rant as one in a series helped me to feel better about the fact that he calls all of us teachers largely irrelevant. I even think that there is no value in just teaching and assessing facts, and have made his main point in previous posts on AFL, and engagement. Even when I agree with him, he irritates me.
Part of it is I want people to talk about how to solve the problems, not just try to prove they exist . . . and yes, I know this position is ironic given my lifetime coaching debaters. I also want to celebrate the work we have been doing to change the way education works and focus on opportunity thinking. But I think that isn't all of. I need to do some more thinking about this one and I could use some help.
Do you have any answers to any of my three questions? What else should I be asking?
related note - report on high school dropouts and reasons (March 2010)
Monday, March 22, 2010
It isn't really a technical work-around
Three teachers emailed me today about various work-arounds they have been trying when technology doesn't work. As I was helping them with their technical issues, I was thinking about the practice of working around and what it does. These are all hard-working caring teachers who have just become so frustrated with technical problems and systemic barriers that they have given up. I understand why, I have days where I am with them, but I think you need keep saying when things aren't working for you and your students.
First of all, some common language. I am fine with avoiding conflict over difference of perception or different ways of doing things. Likewise, if it isn't about something important, I say let it go. When I' m talking work-arounds, I mean a situation where there is a problem and the problem is significant. You are working-around because you think you don't have the power, knowledge or skills to fix it. Here is my case for why working around technical or systemic problems in education in a mistake, regardless of the tools you have to fix the issue:
1. When you work around the problem, it is still there. Sometimes you even make it bigger.
My brother-in-law has a pet rat (pause for collective shudder of revulsion) who, like many domesticated rats, has developed cancer. The rat has a large tumour near its leg that it has learned to work around, even though its leg doesn't work the way a leg should. The rat is able to function, but only for now, because the tumour is still there, and it is growing. In education, we frequently have problems that are systemic or technical, and individuals just work around them. However, doing this actually collectively shapes our practice in a cancerous direction.
Let's say our filtering doesn't allow to access YouTube (common in many school divisions, although not ours). People start sharing how to access blocked sites, students teach teachers how to use a proxy server and teachers turn a blind eye, and technicians see the illicit access and do nothing. Because the filtering wasn't updated, it becomes institutional practice to ignore division policy, and a cancerous view of policy in general is spread.
2. Not all people can work around the problem.
Especially where technical problems are concerned, only a select few understand how to solve the problem. If the average person doesn't know the difference between their computer hard drive and their personal network drive, they don't understand how why just saving to "my documents" means they can't find the document when they log in from home or at a different computer. If we try to teach people work-arounds rather than addressing the problem, we turn less comfortable users into non-users, because it just doesn't work - that darn computer lost their files again.
3. Working around prevents reporting and solving.
If you try to work around a problem rather than telling others it is a problem, then it looks like the problem is just yours. If it is a systemic problem and no one reports it, the system has no way of knowing it needs to be addressed. Teachers I work with are always telling me there is no point in reporting something because it often doesn't get fixed. I respond that if people never report it, it is 100% guaranteed not to be fixed.
In some ways it is like civil disobedience - it needs to be publicly said that something is wrong by a lot of people to get a system to change. People who just work-around are saying that they want the system to stay the same.
4. Working around grows a culture of accepting "being broken."
We want our students to work at learning how to solve a math problem until they can do it. The worst math class to teach is one full of students who are convinced they can't do math. Their low potency means that they become nearly impossible to teach because have failed before the learning even begins. We are the same way with computers. When we say "That dumb thing never works" but then do nothing, we are committing not to come to the table to solve it, and we make it okay to not learn, grow and change. That is never okay in a learning environment like a school division, a classroom or a technical department. Accepting it just doesn't work and not finding something that does is making non-functional just fine.
I know that sometimes we really do have no power to change something, and repeatedly pointing it out just irritates others. It gets me in trouble all the time. On the other hand, irritations are itchy, and an organization inevitable scratches them, creating the opportunity for change. If something really isn't working for you and your learners, you need to report it, encourage others to report it and point out when it still isn't solved. If it is technical, call your help desk or help portals and stay on it until in changes. That's what we do with our students, specific descriptive feedback about how close we are to the destination until we actually get there. As Jay would say - it isn't about criticism, it is about getting better. Now that's a growth mindset.
First of all, some common language. I am fine with avoiding conflict over difference of perception or different ways of doing things. Likewise, if it isn't about something important, I say let it go. When I' m talking work-arounds, I mean a situation where there is a problem and the problem is significant. You are working-around because you think you don't have the power, knowledge or skills to fix it. Here is my case for why working around technical or systemic problems in education in a mistake, regardless of the tools you have to fix the issue:
1. When you work around the problem, it is still there. Sometimes you even make it bigger.
My brother-in-law has a pet rat (pause for collective shudder of revulsion) who, like many domesticated rats, has developed cancer. The rat has a large tumour near its leg that it has learned to work around, even though its leg doesn't work the way a leg should. The rat is able to function, but only for now, because the tumour is still there, and it is growing. In education, we frequently have problems that are systemic or technical, and individuals just work around them. However, doing this actually collectively shapes our practice in a cancerous direction.
Let's say our filtering doesn't allow to access YouTube (common in many school divisions, although not ours). People start sharing how to access blocked sites, students teach teachers how to use a proxy server and teachers turn a blind eye, and technicians see the illicit access and do nothing. Because the filtering wasn't updated, it becomes institutional practice to ignore division policy, and a cancerous view of policy in general is spread.
2. Not all people can work around the problem.
Especially where technical problems are concerned, only a select few understand how to solve the problem. If the average person doesn't know the difference between their computer hard drive and their personal network drive, they don't understand how why just saving to "my documents" means they can't find the document when they log in from home or at a different computer. If we try to teach people work-arounds rather than addressing the problem, we turn less comfortable users into non-users, because it just doesn't work - that darn computer lost their files again.
3. Working around prevents reporting and solving.
If you try to work around a problem rather than telling others it is a problem, then it looks like the problem is just yours. If it is a systemic problem and no one reports it, the system has no way of knowing it needs to be addressed. Teachers I work with are always telling me there is no point in reporting something because it often doesn't get fixed. I respond that if people never report it, it is 100% guaranteed not to be fixed.
In some ways it is like civil disobedience - it needs to be publicly said that something is wrong by a lot of people to get a system to change. People who just work-around are saying that they want the system to stay the same.
4. Working around grows a culture of accepting "being broken."
We want our students to work at learning how to solve a math problem until they can do it. The worst math class to teach is one full of students who are convinced they can't do math. Their low potency means that they become nearly impossible to teach because have failed before the learning even begins. We are the same way with computers. When we say "That dumb thing never works" but then do nothing, we are committing not to come to the table to solve it, and we make it okay to not learn, grow and change. That is never okay in a learning environment like a school division, a classroom or a technical department. Accepting it just doesn't work and not finding something that does is making non-functional just fine.
I know that sometimes we really do have no power to change something, and repeatedly pointing it out just irritates others. It gets me in trouble all the time. On the other hand, irritations are itchy, and an organization inevitable scratches them, creating the opportunity for change. If something really isn't working for you and your learners, you need to report it, encourage others to report it and point out when it still isn't solved. If it is technical, call your help desk or help portals and stay on it until in changes. That's what we do with our students, specific descriptive feedback about how close we are to the destination until we actually get there. As Jay would say - it isn't about criticism, it is about getting better. Now that's a growth mindset.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Reflections on the 21st C Learning Day
It is never easy to look to closely in the mirror if your purpose is to see what is wrong. It is much easier if you are looking into to yourself to try to make things better, and it is even more successful if you have some friends along to help you out. Equipped with my growth mindset, I decided to look closely at the professional learning day Lois and I planned.
At the end of the session on Tuesday, Lois and I looked at the feedback we got from teachers attending. At that point, I was feeling frustrated about how parts of the day had gone. By the time teachers go back to the Gathercole at 2:15, they were clearly tired. They had been listening to each other present since 10:30, and most of the presentations were primarily lectures with visual aides. I realized I needed to do a better job of helping teachers feel comfortable leading others in doing or using more models and examples of student work - it wasn't clear that would be welcome. I was also worried about overlap in some session topics. As I looked out, I saw fatigue reflected back. Lois and I wrapped things up and asked them for their feedback, and I expected them to say it was too much. Mostly, they commented on what worked, what they need to keep learning and what structural changes they'd suggest next time we do this.
At the end of the session on Tuesday, Lois and I looked at the feedback we got from teachers attending. At that point, I was feeling frustrated about how parts of the day had gone. By the time teachers go back to the Gathercole at 2:15, they were clearly tired. They had been listening to each other present since 10:30, and most of the presentations were primarily lectures with visual aides. I realized I needed to do a better job of helping teachers feel comfortable leading others in doing or using more models and examples of student work - it wasn't clear that would be welcome. I was also worried about overlap in some session topics. As I looked out, I saw fatigue reflected back. Lois and I wrapped things up and asked them for their feedback, and I expected them to say it was too much. Mostly, they commented on what worked, what they need to keep learning and what structural changes they'd suggest next time we do this.
"One more idea I wanted to add (as I kept thinking on the drive home) - next time, perhaps people could be surveyed ahead of the session to see what topics they would like to see addressed or presented. This could then help to then help to build the day."
After the day was over, a group of six of us got together to add a second mirror - you know, like you do when you want to see your hair in the back (Speaking as middle-aged woman, seeing your backside is not always a great experience.). However, our collective reflection really gave me some good insights this time. Here is what I learned over the two days:
- You can't under-estimate the value of just-in-time technical support. We had Jay there for help, but still had many mini-computers that did not work, issues with the Smartboard and some software issues. One thing that I would say is that teachers with greater fluency were much more able to work around the problems (read some interesting comments re the on-going nature of technical problems in the comments about this post)
- It is easy to have anxiety about putting your ideas out there. In our group, some of us found it really hard to know our ideas were being 'published' to the world. I think this may be related to another observation I had. Many of the teachers used technology to comment on student work, but a much smaller group encourage student to provide specific, descriptive feedback to others. We teachers struggle with creating and publishing to the world - it's that need for perfection rather than growth. I need to think some more on this one.
- I always move things along too quickly, and I did this time even with Lois to slow me down. I need to remember to give others time to reflect. My internship report (last thing a pre-service teacher does to be certified) had one suggestion for improvement - wait time. I need to work more on this.
- Teacher's speaking to each other about what they are trying, not what they have perfected, is a really good way to promote reflective practitioners.
- We talked to much about the technology and not enough about why we are using it. That happens ever time. Lois and I discussed it and how to avoid it, but it still happened. Dave noticed it within the first 1/2 hour. Hmmmm. . .
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