Ms. Foley and Ms. Kulkarni have their students demonstrate Newtonian physics through building rollercoasters. Not only must the coaster work with a dropped marble, it must be cost efficient. Each piece, including the tape, has a fictional dollar value that they must defend to a board of investors. This is another great example of our staff challenging students in rigor and relevance.
Ms. Johnson, 7th grade AVID instructor, shared with me this great video emphasizing the benefit of a big binder:
This summer I attended the Sustainable Leadership conference through the AZ K-12 Center. One of the issues brought up briefly was the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test/survey that 15 year-olds around the world take to determine which nation has the most effective schools.
For the longest time, students from Finland and Korea were the top scorers, the United States ranking in the middle.
This year, kids from Shanghai took the test for the first time and blew away the competition. Time magazine reports that Chinese classrooms have more students, but teachers make more money than in the United States and there is a huge emphasis on problem-solving skills. The world’s changing so quickly that rote memorization won’t suffice – by the time you memorize the facts, technology/politics/the world will have morphed already. Even if it didn’t influence the test, students still need the ability to think critically. Rigor, right?
Diagram 1 – Very Official
This is my fourth year as librarian and previous to that I spent five years teaching Language Arts. In both frameworks I facilitated technology projects with students. This week I’ve observed some great teaching with two Science teachers. One thing that I noticed is that they allotted the perfect amount of time for their students to finish creating iMovies.
When working with technology, you’ve got to find that balance of giving students enough time to explore the program and troubleshoot errors, but if you give them too much time, they’ll tinker until the project starts to decrease in quality (the “Hey! We Need Squirrels in our Planet Reports!” Effect). This balance between not enough and too much time can be discovered through practice over the years doing the same project, tweaking it to meet student needs and standards.
Another way to find the balance is to break down the large parts of the project into tiny, more manageable chunks. That’s what these two teachers have done masterfully and is what I recommend for others, especially when tackling technology. It’s something that sounds like common sense, but you’d be surprised how tempting it is to give the students too much time for tech.
Granted, all this depends on students paying attention and working when they’re supposed to. I’ve seen that when you give them enough instructions to be confident to start working, but also let them know that time is limited, they usually do a good job of meeting your professional expectations.
If you’re overwhelmed by college options, don’t think college is an option, or just need more information about college, check out AZTransfer.com. It collects all of the information about going to higher education in the state of Arizona and puts it in an accessible format.
“Learning has to be productive in order to make sense.”
I agree with Charles Leadbetter, a London researcher who observed different school environments in very poor areas of the world. We promise that education will have extrinsic value, that you’ll be able to make a living because of the education you receive. But for some, waiting 10+ years for the pay-off is way too long. In many of the countries he visited, kids were dropping out at 14-15 years of age to work for a living. What good is an abstract exercise if you can’t pay your bills?
This goes back to the core question of why we have schools. Is it just to train workers? To grab some students’ attention, we need to do at least that. The issue I have is that the world is changing so fast that we need to help students develop critical thinking skills. If we train them on current problems/technologies, those might not be the same issues by the time they leave high school.
This is why I see structuring curriculum through Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships as being key. Give students the challenge, give them real-life application, and let them know that you care if they succeed. That’s how you get motivation. The tough part is filtering out the stuff that doesn’t align with 3Rs, even if it’s how you’ve always done things.
Leadbetter might argue that having a curriculum to begin with doesn’t meet the needs. But we don’t have enough teachers to construct individual lessons for each student. Leadbetter suggests peer-to-peer teaching as an alternative. Also, module-based learning, like you see in well-designed online classes (not the busy work kind), is another way to tackle individual learning. With so much individualism, though, social cohesion is at risk. Definitely some stuff to get your thoughts going.
Check out the video from Charles Leadbetter:
Some of the educational models referenced:
Formal Innovation:
Big Picture schools
Jaringan School in Queensland
Kunscap Skolan schools in Sweden
Informal Innovation:
Reggio Emilia Approach
The Harlem Children’s Zone
Many educators have probably heard the starfish story somewhere along the line. The kid saves one starfish on a beach and it makes a difference to that one starfish.
I love Jake Parker’s take on it. Click here for the full comic.
Here’s a sample:
I must admit that the journey metaphor is feeling worn. (And, thanks to Glee, I always associate it with “Don’t Stop Believing” (okay, so the cast sang the National Anthem? Pretty cool.).)
But it does feel like a journey when you look at where I was on Wednesday and then debriefing today. On Friday we were asked a variation on the set of questions that we started the conference with. One of those was identifying what leadership opportunities could be found in the current climate. On Wednesday that was a daunting task. What influence do I have? Can I fix the budget? Now I feel like the leaders that came from our campus have a purpose and a way to implement it.
I was chatting with a friend of mine today who always has great leadership insight. His big advice was to walk people through the journey of how we came to the end product. We, as leaders, can’t expect an end product without doing the work. We also can’t expect people to buy into an idea immediately (although that would be nice). It’s that growing process of coming to the solution that is so important. I need to remember that people are still seeing the daunting problem and not the smaller, more manageable, chunk to tackle.
I am home and on my third set of McDoubles for the week. That can’t be good. The food at the conference was great and then for dinner each night I would maintain my artificial flavorings habit. Not sustainable in any definition of the word. This week shall entail celery for each meal.
I’d like to once again thank the AZ K-12 Center for a great conference. It is very refreshing to be surrounded by 138 of the best professionals in the state and to realize that I’m not crazy for wanting to improve my practice. If this is the first article you’ve seen from the conference, make sure to check out day one and day two for context.
Consistency. This is the word that kept running through my brain today. We heard from Ùrsula Casanova, author of Sí Se Puede. She brought us a case study of Cibola High School where 93% of the kids graduate and, of that number, 88% go on to a two- or four-year college/university. So, how do they do it?
Consistency. When the school started, Jon Walk was given the opportunity to travel and recruit teachers that adopted his high expectation – every student that graduates from Cibola should be able to go to college. He also was given time and resources to research how to make that happen.
One example of their consistency is their “35 minute rule”. If we truly value classroom instruction so much, why do we interrupt it so frequently? Jon Ward’s idea was to not have any interruptions to the first 35 minutes of a class period. That allowed the teacher to get into the flow of the lesson and for the students to retain focus.
Another big interrupter is the PA system. To me, it resembles the brain buzzer in Harrison Bergeron – I start to get a thought and then BLAM – I forget where I’m at. Cibola reserves it for the morning welcome and that’s it.
Consistency is something that we can control. We can’t always control what comes from higher-ranking government officials (although we can vote, right? Let’s not forget that option.) but we can control our consistency. Many of our students exist in flux and they need someone who can be their constant (to quote our principal and LOST).
We’re already doing many of the things Cibola does. Our counselors go the elementary schools and emphasize the high expectations we have for our students. We do have programs in place to keep students in class and discourage tardiness. Our counselors meet with small groups of our students. But, like anything, we as a campus need to still grow in our profession. What we can’t do, though, is adopt a school’s end product without looking at the twelve years worth of work that produced that end product.
We closed out the day with our stories. Our butterfly metaphor, where the tendency of visions is to flit off and avoid consistency, was well-received. Many of the other educators could relate. Instead of it just getting a “Oh, that’s nice” reaction, we received so much feedback to take to our campus. That’s a result of the sharing structure established by AZ K-12 during the event.
Next summer’s conference will hopefully feature Dennis Shirley and his co-author, Andy Hargreaves. They’ve been investigating social capital and have tons to share.
On the topic of networks, I’ve joined shelfari. My profile is http://www.shelfari.com/brian_griggs , surprisingly enough. Check it out to see my bookshelf.
Well, my virtual bookshelf. I have tons of real bookshelves.
Also of note – Dennis Shirley will be addressing Capitol Hill on Tuesday to recommend the Fourth Way as a framework for reform.
The conference was emceed by Penny Kotterman. Normally I don’t voice my opinion for who people should vote for, yet knowing that Penny is an educator and is trusted by the AZ K-12 Center wins her my vote. The mind boggles to think what it would look like to have a skilled, experienced teacher as the Superintendent of Schools.
“From foxholes to freedom.”
Today we really dug deep into how having a World War I, foxhole mentality in times of great (‘great’ meaning ‘large’, but maybe could be ‘good’) change is counterproductive. Hunkering down, remaining isolated, and just trying to survive is not how effective reform happens. Gone is the collaboration and the growth from connecting with other professionals, especially those who are different from you.
But if you reach out to people who are different to you, there’s risk. There’s also risk in trying something new – you could fall flat on your face. When jobs are on the line, and tenure is gone, do you want to take a risk?
You know, we could learn from the rest of the world. Many times I hear about competing with India and China – is there anything wrong with wanting to collaborate with India and China? (Yes, I know there are political issues there. But not every school in a foreign country hates the United States, right?)
Finland has intrigued me in the discussion. It’s a lot tougher to become a teacher in Finland. They actually get paid less than we do (on average) in the United States but they have a higher social standing. Would we be willing to trade some salary for being treated like professionals? For parents trusting us at our word?
If we’re to ask for freedom as teachers, though, we can’t be licentious (Dennis Shirley usage) with that freedom. If we get time to collaborate, it can’t devolve into a whine session or a chance to grade papers. We can’t show up late to staff development, duck out early, and expect to be taken seriously.
So, students in Finland do really well, including on the PISA test. We didn’t do poorly but we also weren’t near the top. On my To Do list is to find a staff directory for a Finnish school and e-mail one of their teachers to develop a rapport. With as much technology as we have access to, collaborating with another country can’t be that tough, people.
Another concept introduced today was the Tuning Protocol (the link downloads a PDF). It’s a structured process for assessing student performance. Because it has guidelines, it’s not a venting session. It’s not about meaningless validation of your teaching – it’s about truly making your instruction better so you feel good at a job well done. We have team meetings, where a group of teachers address a multitude of issues. I think the structure in the Tuning Protocol could streamline some of that and make us feel like the meetings are worth something.
The Raising Achievement, Transforming Learning project in England and the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement were discussed as models for improving schools. Both emphasize working alongside the community as well as partnering with another school (or multiple schools). It’s like mentoring, but on a school-to-school basis. Another push is for transparency – not just the punitive side of things but also on the efforts that are made for improvement.
What’s great about the AZ K-12 Center is that it does provide those connections, that time to step back and regain perspective. It’s like a mini-reform. When looking at changing education in the US, it’s a daunting task. There are so many polarizing elements and a top-down structure (“deliverology” – here’s what we’ve legislated – do it) that’s still stuck in Second Way thinking.
It’s the principle of stopping to think that has stuck with me this week. Three things that work against change are privatism (the foxhole mentality of individualism – “you want to observe? How come?”), conservatism (“I’m surviving, this works” – but are you growing?), and presentism. Presentism is where the needs of the moment overshadow everything else. This is where I get stuck – I do things because they have to get done and don’t think about why.
In the near future we may see the Quality Education Investment Act in California challenge the teachers’ union to expand from solely defending members’ interests to being a positive change for student achievement and learning. They would be the voice of reform and not just a collective bargaining unit. That would get the public’s attention and leave politicians with not much more to say.
Sustainability is key to reform. Sustainability means that if I step away from it, it will keep going. This is where the systemic network comes in. If others have caught on the success of the change is not resting on my shoulders. We must also realize that we can’t adopt an end product. We can’t see that it worked somewhere else and think that we can transplant it perfectly and do it quicker. Changes need to be crafted by the network affected. We need to help our struggling peers, not out of condescension but out of a shared purpose of helping students. That’s why we’re all at school, right?
Privatism (versus collegiality – trusting that we’re colleagues) gets in the way of that. No one likes to be told what to do. But if we had mentoring, true relational mentoring, at all levels of our career, the students would benefit. We need to honestly look at our practice.
A reminder of why we do it, why we care: check out this three minute video from the AZ K-12 center.
Lots of thoughts to delve into, but I swear I’m going to get to watch Netflix tonight.
Books that were mentioned:
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch
Drive by Daniel Pink
iBrain by Gary Small
Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization by Yong Zhao
Mindful Teacher by Elizabeth MacDonald and Dennis Shirley
Video:
Simons and Chabris - Selective Attention Basketball Video
Robert A. Compton – Two Million Minutes – Comparing schools from around the world – See a clip
Website:
www.storiesfromschool.org
Dennis Shirley is speaking at Capitol Hill on Tuesday. I hope the call to professionalism matched with educator-based assessments catches on.
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