Getting Parents on Board

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.

— John Dewey, School and Society

  

The prompt this week for #SAVMP is to talk about parent involvement.  This could include what we are doing as a school to involve parents in addition to any resistance that we are meeting from parents.  I will say, in our district we do a lot to reach out to parents about the vision for the school district.  From the superintendent all the down, communication with parents is a must in our community.  As we work towards more student centered classrooms, performance based standards, and other 21^st century educational methodology, working with parents to share in our vision is integral to our success.  I work in a school that has an enormous amount of ethnic, racial, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.  I feel very fortunate to work in a place where I have the opportunity to work with students from all different walks of life.  In turn, this means that I have to know how to work with a wide range of parents with different expectations for not only their child, but also the operation of the school.

 

This year we have had a large amount of teachers adopt project based learning for their classrooms.  They have met with some resistance from students in addition to parents.  I have had the opportunity to sit in a lot of these classrooms, and I am so impressed by the work that is being done.  I see students being pushed to create and analyze in ways that they have not been expected to before.  I see students engaged in their learning and synthesizing very difficult information.  I am humbled by the work of the students and the teachers alike, and I am excited for what is to come.  Unfortunately, while many parents are supportive of the efforts being made, many are skeptical of how different it was from when they were in school.  In addition, they are very concerned about their child getting a grade that is going to get them into the “right” college.  Let’s face it, asking students to really learn in a student centered environment is a lot more difficult than the traditional memorization environments that many of us grew up in.  These new learning environments require a commitment from students and parents in order to achieve.  It is no longer an option to sit, take notes silently, go home and memorize, then regurgitate on a test.  Students need to cooperate with peers, discover, take initiative, ask questions, and produce a product.

 

I read a handful of articles related to parent resistance to change, most notably a 1998 article by Alfie Kohn entitled Only for MY Kid in Phi Delta Kappan.  The article discusses many scenarios where parents have actually stopped school reforms from happening in schools trying to be progressive.  In those situations, schools made mistakes that I believe many of us in education can learn from.  First of all, we need to be as transparent as possible in the reforms that we are making.  I also believe it is important to keep the focus on learning in all conversations.   As administrators, parents need to know that we support the efforts of our teachers, and teachers need to feel that support!  We need to get parents on our reform train, not just drive by them!  

To PD, or not to PD, that is the question

As part of the #SAVMP program, I have been asked to reflect on the professional development that we use in our schools.  This has been a topic that I have greatly struggled with over the course of my career, as a teacher in the classroom in addition to as an administrator that usually gets tasked with planning PD for the staff. 

 

I have seen this e-card (see below) a few times and I have to be honest, this is how I have ALWAYS felt about staff meetings!  My principal and I have discussed it, and for a long time he would get frustrated because any time he sent an email inevitably there would be teachers that did not know what was going on or had not read the email from him.  We finally this year have gotten to a point where we have decided to address this issue with individual teachers when it happens, and got rid of staff meetings all together!  (Halleluiah!!!)

 

 Now, although we have gotten rid of the arbitrary staff meetings, we are still using that time after school.  We have recently changed the set-up of our high school so that it is no longer arranged by departments.  It is arranged by grade level in addition to a couple of special pilot groups (one International Baccalaureate group of teachers and one project based group of teachers).  As a result, departments are finding that they do not have the necessary time to collaborate as they should.  Staff meeting time has morphed into staff collaboration time where the staff decides what type of collaboration that they need, and work in their appropriate groups during that hour every other week.  So far, it seems to be working well, and it does seem like teachers are happy for this opportunity and to not have to sit in staff meetings where they feel like every single thing is irrelevant!

 

 I still think we have a long way to go with how to make professional development really work for all teachers, but I am glad that we have been able to take some steps to improve.  Currently, our teachers are required to complete 8 hours of professional development on their own time.  We have opened this up to allow teachers to attend webinars, in addition to other virtual learning opportunities. 

 

What I struggle with the most as a person that plans professional development, is how to take those PD days that are built into the school year as full days and make those meaningful for everyone!  There are always certain things that we have to get done that are not going to be meaningful (i.e. Blood borne Pathogens training!).  This year, we merged two building together, so it was important that we did team building, which I thought was a pretty fun PD.  I created a road rally where teams of 4-5 had to work together to go all over the district.  At every stop, there would be a handful of QR codes to scan that had little known facts about each and every teacher.  People had fun and were able to learn a little bit about all of their colleagues and really get to know their new group of colleagues.  I thought this was great, but I am not sure that the 100 hours that it took to plan would be possible every year J

 

I love the idea of teachers sharing their ideas and working with each other.  I know that my brother was telling me about an idea at his school that teachers signed up for the PD that they wanted to attend through a Google doc and there were multiple sessions all taught by other teachers.  I absolutely love this idea, but I have struggled with getting teachers to volunteer for these sessions.  This idea is something that I will continue to push, as I believe that it can be really beneficial for our staff. 

 

One thing I do know is that professional development is an important part of being in education.  As a new administrator, I cannot seem to get enough professional development, but it is all on my own and pretty much all virtual.  I know that I have so much to learn and the second that I stop learning things will go downhill.  I know that I need to do for my teachers what I am expecting them to do for their students.  Make the professional development meaningful, relevant, and interesting.  My plan is there will be professional development in my building sometime in the near future where teachers are excited about going!

What’s Trust Got to Do With It?

I saw a quote the other day by George MacDonald that said, “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”  In my opinion, this translates so well into the world of education and the job of a school administrator.  The topic this week for the #SAVMP blog is building trust and what to do when you lose trust.  George Couros, in his blog for this week, says “basically if you do not have the character that people trust, then it does not matter how smart or knowledgeable your staff finds you.  You will lose them.”  As a new and young administrator, these words truly resonated with me, and help to put into perspective what our priorities as school administrators should be.

 

One big question that I asked myself when pondering this blog was, “Does my staff trust me?”  I then realized that this question is actually difficult to answer.  I do think that I have the trust of the staff, and they know that everything that I do is what I believe is in the best interest of our students and our school community, but I could never answer whether or not all of the staff trust me.  Being in a new environment this year, there are many staff members that are just getting to know me, and I am still in a trust building phase with them. 

 

In my opinion, the most effective ways for earning trust, keeping trust, and earning trust back can be found in Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and I work very hard to follow these habits.   When looking to build trust with new people, my first priority is always to listen, seeking first to understand.  If a teacher or other staff member has a concern, it is important that I listen thoroughly to their concern and do my best to understand how it is making them feel.  I want everyone to know that I care about how circumstances are affecting each person, even though it may not be possible to change those circumstances.  In the ten years that I taught, I had many things happen that I did not like or did not agree with.  In those circumstances, it was easier for me to take things not going my way if I knew that my administrator cared about how I felt and was empathetic to my situation.  When an administrator chastises a teacher for being upset, or reacts in a way that attempts to invalidate their feelings, that is when trust is lost.  

 

As my mother and father told me when I was young and made big mistakes, “trust only take a second to go away, but takes a lot of work to earn back.”  When I think about what one might need to do in order to earn lost trust back, the number one criteria will be patience.  Trust will not be earned back quickly, it takes hard work to prove that you are capable of being trusted.  I also think it is important to understand that working on trust is something that is continuous, once you earn the trust of another human being, you have to work just as hard to keep it.  The bottom line as an educational administrator, is that I will keep my focus of the students at all times.  I will make decisions that I truly believe are in the best interest of our students, earning the trust of all interested parties along the way.

Why Do I Lead?

While sitting down to write this blog, I realized that the question “Why do I lead?” is a very loaded question for me. When I started in education, I never believed that I would become an administrator, which sometimes can be perceived as synonymous with leader. As I think of the educators that I am so fortunate to work with, I know that leader encompasses so much more than one with a title of leadership. I was a leader well before becoming an administrator, which may be why so many of my colleagues pushed me to pursue administration. I can also think of some administrators that I have come across that I would consider more of managers than leaders. My goal, when moving into the world of administration, was to be a strong leader. Unfortunately, my desire to lead has been overshadowed often by the need for management. By writing this blog and reflecting on my reasons for leadership, I am looking for a way to bring leadership to the forefront of my daily responsibilities.

Solidifying the reasons for why I lead is not possible without considering the reasons for why I went into education. As most educators would likely say, the students are first and foremost the driving force for heading into the field of education. The idea of having a profound effect on young men and women, and leading them into fields where they can have influence to make society a better place, is extremely motivating. The influence of a teacher should not be taken lightly, relationships between teachers and students are the most important aspect of the classroom. It is for all of these reasons that I became an educator, and chose to spend the first ten years of my career in the classroom.

As a teacher leader, there is the opportunity to have those relationships with students in addition to having an influence on other teachers. Moving into administration, it takes a lot more effort to have the relationships with students that can be made in a classroom environment, and the influence on teachers becomes more prominent. When I made the ultimate decision to take a job as an Associate Principal, the driving force was that through my influence with teachers and policy in the building, I would have a greater impact on more students. The part that has been most difficult for me is that the majority of my impact on students is indirect. I have put forth a lot of effort to put details in place that will allow me to have relationships with more students without being in the classroom.

Although the decision to lead as an administrator rather than a teacher was not an easy one, I do believe that it was the right decision, because leadership is my strength. I lead because I love learning, and I want to have as much influence over the learning of our young adults as possible. I lead because I believe in education, and I believe that in education we have an obligation to continuously improve our practice in the best interest of our students. I lead because I am a lifelong learner, and I want to share and have influence over the dedicated teachers that are in the classrooms with our students every day. Finally, I lead because I am strong. I have the strength to take failures and turn them into successes, and the strength to support both teachers and students to ensure the success of everyone.

The Need for Building Relationships With Our Students

It has been way too long since my last blog post!  Someone should have told me that being a first time assistant principal in addition to going to school full time would not leave me much time for blogging!!  LOL 🙂

 

I have been waiting for a topic that gave me enough passion to force myself to make the time to write about it!  I realized that relationships with students was something that I feel so strongly about, and is so important, that I really wanted to put a spotlight on it and try to bring some practical ideas to the teachers that I work with in addition to any teachers that are struggling to form bonds with some of their kids.

 

This year, in my high school we created a new class called “Advisory.”  The class is 90 minutes.  On some days, the students hear lessons for the first 45 minutes of class, and then the second half of class has been designated for the teachers to spend time with the students and truly form relationships with them.  Our intention in the future is to have teachers stay with their advisories for four years, so that they really have a chance to form a strong bond.  Unfortunately, we just gave the teachers class sets and said “Form Relationships!”  I think this is something that every single teacher attempts to do, and every teacher forms strong relationships with some students, but I believe many if not all teachers struggle with forming relationships with all of their students.  We probably should have given the teachers more resources, training, and ideas on what were the best ways to do form these relationships.  Well, I definitely think that needs to be worked in, but for now I will attempt to address the need for relationships and some practical strategies for teachers to use in their classrooms. 

 

So, why do we need to build relationships with our students?  I know many teachers are concerned about the amount of curriculum, and feel that they do not have time.  I would argue that you should drop some of that content in order to take the time to know your kids.   If you don’t have a relationship with them, they will not learn regardless of how much material you present to them.  Robert Marzano  stated that  “Positive relationships between teachers and students are among the most commonly cited variables associated with effective instruction. If the relationship is strong, instructional strategies seem to be more effective. Conversely, a weak or negative relationship will mute or even negate the benefits of even the most effective instructional strategies.”

 

D.E. Campbell discusses the need for students to be comfortable and feel safe from bullying and insults.  He states that “students do well when they believe that they can depend on the teacher and their classmates.”  Building that classroom atmosphere that is conducive to learning is really important to the success of students.  This is a big part of many of the new evaluation tools that are being used, the research supports the need for the type of learning environment that has fair rules that are consistently enforced.  When teachers successfully address inappropriate behavior, they help to build relationships with their students.  He also states that “without personal relationships, schools become warehouses for students rather than learning centers.”  Students find a sense of self-worth through strong relationships and they in turn become more willing to take risks in their coursework.  Especially in the high school, the sense of belonging that comes from those relationships is integral to a students’ success.  There are very alarming statistics that link extracurricular activities to achievement, but imagine how great our kids could do if we formed those bonds in every classroom, every day!!!

 

 

H. Richard Milner IV, in an article for Harvard Education Letter, talks about how everyone believes that building relationships is critical, but that there is not much talk about how to actually achieve them.  Many of his ideas center around the pedagogy that is being pushed through 21^st Century Learning.  Having a classroom that is student centered that allows for student choice truly does help the student feel connected to the teacher and helps the student feel their value in the classroom.  In addition, he advocates the need for interviewing students and finding their interests.  I see the value in this being formal but informal as well.  When you are greeting students at the door and you ask them what they did the previous night or weekend, you have gained very valuable insight into the student.  Finally, he discussed the need to get out and go to the extracurricular activities that the students are in, in addition to events in the students’ communities.  Nothing shows a student you care more than a teacher taking time out of their immensely busy schedule to support their students.

 

In a Teacher Leaders Network Article, Kelley Clark lays out five things that any teacher can do in order to help foster these all important relationships.  She talks about leaving reminders (post-it notes) on your laptop, never letting student’s see you react in appropriately to another student, use the information that you gather in student surveys, and scheduling bonding time.  The last one, most important that seems like a no brainer but can be difficult, is to learn your students’ names immediately.   In addition to what Clark laid out, I believe there are some other things that many of us take for granted that go a long way with students.  For example, we are not perfect, and sometimes we make mistakes.  If you ever do lose your cool, or say something inappropriate, do not be afraid to say to a student or the class, “I’m sorry.”  Do not worry about losing credibility, in fact you will gain some!  Sorry goes a long way 🙂  Just because we are teachers, it does not mean we are always right!  In addition, let the kids see you for who you are.  Teachers are inherently good people, that is why we get into the profession so do your kids a favor and lead by example!!

 

 

Here are some lesson plans from Scholastic that can be used the first week of school for high school teachers.

 

Ehow has four different activities that can be done in a high school classroom to help build relationships.

 

Why Are We Assigning Homework?

Why are we assigning homework??  This has been a question that has weighed heavily on my mind since the first day that I set foot in the classroom.  In the ten years that I spent teaching all different levels of mathematics, I always assigned homework.  The last few years on the job, I really started trying to change up the way that I assigned homework and the value of each assignment.  In recent years, I had felt that the homework that I was assigning was not working, especially in my lower level classes, but I struggled with the best way to change it.  I felt that rather than just getting rid of homework and keeping everything else the same, the structure of the class needed to change right along with it.

As a math teacher, homework usually looks something like this:  p. 221 (1-27odd).  As teachers, this is how we were taught and were told it was necessary to “practice.”  I spent numerous conversations with parents telling them that if their child just did their homework, their grades would improve.  I have also told parents in the past that their child should be spending “x” amount of time working on homework per night in order to succeed in my class.  I said these things because I truly believed them, but I am starting to see that I may have been wrong!

My goal in this blog is not to have teachers just blindly stop assigning homework.  I firmly believe that this question ties many other topics in education today.  I believe that in a traditional 20th century classroom, homework was at times a proper extension of the classroom.  I now believe that while we work to change our classrooms into 21st century learning environments, and challenge our students to think critically and become problem solvers, we need to consider the value of anything that we want to give as homework.  I think it is important for all teachers to be having this conversation, and that is my goal.  If we as teachers analyze each homework assignment, talk about its value, and assess its importance to the student, we may come up with a much more effective way to assign homework – or not assign it at all.

Alfie Kohn has a great quote that I absolutely love, “any theoretical benefit of practice homework must be weighed against the effect it has on students’ interest in learning. If slogging through worksheets dampens one’s desire to read or think, surely that wouldn’t be worth an incremental improvement in skills.”  I have seen this often.  The students hate the homework and although it may give them a bit of a boost in their stills, I have lost their interest in the classroom completely.  Math teachers need to especially consider this.  There is a “mathphobia” out there in the world already.  I have always felt that I am battling with students, parents, even colleagues over the value of mathematics.  I have noticed a general acceptance that it perfectly normal and reasonable for students to  hate math.  Teachers need to work hard to overcome this reality.  We should not accept the notion that students have when they say, “I’m not good at math.”  I have heard it from parents as well as students.  Parents will say to me, “Well I was always terrible at math so that is why my son/daughter is.”  We can’t change math, but I do believe if we all work together we can change these attitudes.  

Kohn also says that, “[i]n high school, some studies do find a correlation between homework and test scores (or grades), but it’s usually fairly small and it has a tendency to disappear when more sophisticated statistical controls are applied. Moreover, there’s no evidence that higher achievement is due to the homework even when an association does appear. It isn’t hard to think of other explanations for why successful students might be in classrooms where more homework is assigned – or why they might spend more time on it than their peers do.”  This struck a chord with me.  I started thinking about my upper level students and how it really does seem as if they benefit from homework.  Although, over the last few years as I started to make changes, I found that my students achievement went up when I drastically cut back the amount of homework and changed the way that it was presented.  Last year in Honors Pre-Calculus I started assigning only 3-5 problems per night.  All of the students had different problems, they had to explain in writing their solutions many times, and I graded them.  The students found they were spending way less time on homework but they were understanding more material and doing better on assessments.  The Center for Public Education has also stated that the research shows that too much homework will diminish any effectiveness that it may have had.  

After reading a lot of opinions and a ton of research on the topic, I have come to a couple of conclusions.  First of all, I believe that generic homework has no benefit and should not be assigned.  I also believe that there can be value to homework if it is well thought out by teachers, valuable to the learning process, and students believe in it.  This will require a very big shift in the classroom and a change in the way that some teachers operate.  As we continue to move toward 21st century, student centered classrooms, I think teachers should talk about and question everything that they assign to their students to complete outside of their classroom.  In addition, just as every student is not the same, their assignments should not all be the same.  If we allow some choice and individualize the homework for the students, they will see more value in it and take it more seriously – and we still need to keep the amount of homework to a minimum.  

If a Computer Can Replace You, Then It Should

I have heard many concerns from teachers over the recent years about online learning.  As a union representative the last four years that I was teaching, we would have discussions around the questions:  what will happen if we keep allowing students to take classes online – and what would the teacher become? I heard teachers agonize and worry about being out of a job because students would be able to be taught by computers.  I was never really sure how I felt about those concerns, or if they were valid at all.  Then, last friday at an edtech conference in Detroit, one of the panelists, Rick Ogston,  said something that made everything make sense to me… “If a computer can replace you, then it should.”

 

 

 

Does this statement scare you?  Maybe that is a good thing… If it forces us to have a conversation about how we learn best and how we teach best, then I think it is a great thing!  So before we all start freaking out and telling everyone that I said we should replace teachers with computers, I want to make it very clear that I do NOT believe that teachers should be replaced.  What I do believe, is that teachers need to be something that a computer can not be.  So what does that mean?  Well, I guess we need to answer the question, what can a computer do??  I will make a quick list of things that I can think of in the next five minutes off of the top of my head…
Computers can….    

1.)  lecture    

2.)  assign problems/questions    

3.)  allow wait time after questions    

4.)  go over the problem/question that was asked    

5.)  show more than one way to solve a problem    

6.)  give time to work on “homework”    

7.)  give tests    

8.)  provide instant feedback

Clearly this list is not exhaustive,  but it is a good start.  My list also does not take into account the fact that students have apps on their phone that can instantly connect them with personal tutors.  There is an app called Motuto where a student can take a picture of their math homework problem and a live tutor will work it out for them.  We really need to be looking at the value of our homework, but I will save that conversation for another blog!

 

Unfortunately, we have been in a world that is dominated by politicians that love to give money to test makers (i.e. Pearson).  There has been a huge push in this country that the only thing that is important in education is how a student does at a single snapshot moment when they take a test.  When people start to believe this premise, they see the list of things that a computer can do as “good enough.”  They think teachers are overpaid (ridiculous!). A Michigan politician even tried to push forth a bill to have teachers outsourced!

 

As I continue to think this through I decided to take five more minutes to make another list.  This list will be of things that a great teacher does that a computer cannot do.  I firmly believe that great teachers are the most important aspect to a child’s success. 

Great teachers…

1.)  have relationships with their students.

2.)  can tell what is going on with a student when they walk in the classroom

3.)  feel their students pain

4.)  share in their students success

5.)  have a way of looking at the students in their classroom and seeing what is possible for that day, week, even school year.  

6.)  are caregivers, confidants, and anything else that a student needs at any given point in their day. 

7.)  take their work home with them (even when they leave the paperwork at school!)

8.)  agonize over their lesson plans

9.)  are constantly looking for ways to reach more students and reach them better. 

10.)  know that doing something the same for many years is not the way to go, that teachers need to reflect and improve their practice just as any other profession does. 

11.)  facilitate learning to help students reach their fullest potential

12.)  allow students to discover and explore things that they love – and tie it all into the curriculum!

 

I feel like I could have kept going a lot longer than five minutes on that one!  Teachers are education!   As teachers, we need to keep pushing ourselves to do what computers cannot do.  I have spoken with many teachers about the value of traditional teaching.  While I understand the arguments, I see traditional lecture as a method of teaching that can happen through podcasts, youtube videos, or other forms that can take place outside of the classroom.  Teachers need to use their classroom for those things that students cannot get anywhere else.  That personalized education that is so necessary for our students to thrive in a very complicated, technology driven world.

 

I am fortunate enough to work with so many great teachers, teachers that are willing to push limits and take risks.  I get to go to work and see many of these great teachers in action.  The message I would have to all teachers through this blog is:  don’t ever become complacent in your practice, set yourself apart just as we push our students to do, and be the best teacher that you can possibly be.  If you do this, there is no chance of a computer ever replacing you!

Why Student Centered Classrooms?

Day 40 as an Associate Principal, I am still in a bit of culture shock – trying to find my place.  I decided that I needed to focus my efforts this week on something helpful to not only myself, but to the teachers, the school, and even the district.  I have been feeling very philosophical so I decided that in this blog I was going to try and attack a big issue…

I decided to start digging into our districts “guiding principles” and stopped when I got to student-centered classrooms, an idea that I love but definitely needed to know more about in order to help teachers.  As I considered the idea of student centered classrooms, I realized that would have been something that I would have been excited and also terrified about if I was still in the classroom.  I have found during the course of my teaching career that generally if I am both excited and terrified, it is probably something that is good for our students!  As a leader, I know that in order to impart this excitement onto the staff I needed to be able to answer the most important question… Why are student centered classrooms better for student learning?

In order to answer this question I read a lot of articles, read through hundreds of tweets, asked for other people’s opinions, and tried to come up with a few reasons that really resonated with me.  The entire time, I looked at everything through the eyes of a classroom teacher and thought about where my struggles would be if I was still in the classroom.  One thing that I really thought about was how difficult it will be to shift the thinking of not only students, but parents as well.  First though, we have to change our minds!  In order for anything to work in a teacher’s classroom, we teachers need to believe in it 🙂

I tweeted out the question and received a lot of responses – most from student voices from across the country!  I also got a great answer from our superintendent!

 

Before I get into the reasons that I believe student centered classrooms are better for learning, I need to address a few misconceptions that I have come across.  First of all, student centered does not mean that students are choosing everything that they learn and we are catering to what they want.  The teacher is still extremely important.  The teacher needs to give direction, monitor, help, give feedback.  In addition, student centered does not mean that students will always be working in groups.  They can be working independently, in pairs, or in groups depending on what the goal/outcome is for that day.  Ideally, especially if you are in a 90 minute block as we are in my school, this will change throughout the course of the class period.  Finally, this is not something that a teacher will be able to change overnight. It will require a lot of planning, and a lot of working with students to get them to be functional in this new reality.  At first they will push back, and the parents might as well.  It will not be easy, but the right thing never is!

                 

All Students Have A Voice

This is the most appealing to me part of student centered classrooms to me.  I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with other teachers about how to get students engaged.  Teachers are frustrated because students do not pay attention, students just write down what we say/do, but they don’t think about what they are writing.  They are not engaged in learning, they are just gathering information.  Many students have a “just give me the answer” attitude.  In a teacher centered classroom, students seem to think that teachers are the only people that have the knowledge they need.  They constantly wait for us to tell them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.  In a true student centered classroom, the students become so much more independent and don’t sit around not paying attention waiting for you to tell them what they need to write down, they are finding or generating that information on their own or with their peers.  It will take time and patience to get our students to this point, but they will get there.  It will not be easy, but the right thing never is! 

                              

Classroom Management Will Improve

I know one of the fears of some teachers is the loss of control.  We like control, we like being the master of our classroom.  When we think about student centered we start to get scared…  “They will be out of control!” “They will not be able to focus!”  We are afraid for our special education students that have focus issues.  In reality, I believe very strongly that our students will rise to the expectations that we set for them.  For a variety of reasons, classroom management will be so much better.  As we are going through the learning process, through the transition, we will absolutely hit some bumps – there is no doubt about it.  I have said it before and I will say it again…  It will not be easy, but the right thing never is!  Classroom management will improve because it will help students develop confidence.  They will be a part of the process, they will be involved in the learning, they will see more success, they will become more confident learners.  In addition, it will help them overcome resistance.  Finally, the personalization of the process will make students feel that they belong.  All of these things will lead to a more productive classroom environment.

                                   

Students Will Be More Motivated

The reasons for student motivation completely overlap with the previous two categories of having a voice and classroom management.  As I sit here trying to put my thoughts into words I am realizing what a difference motivation has on student participation and on classroom management.  This is something that we as teachers all know, but I think sometimes we take for granted.  Are we going to get every student motivated for every lesson?  Probably not.  What we need to do is get as many students motivated for as many lessons as possible.  It will not be easy, but the right thing never is!  In order to maximize learning, we need to maximize motivation.  When students are motivated, much of the rest will fall into place. I believe that students will be more motivated in a student centered environment because there education will be personalized, their confidence will rise, and be less resistant to learning.

                              

Our world has changed and is continuing to change, and the same must be true of education.  A student centered classroom is an ever changing paradigm.  Although the teacher centered classroom does work for some students, it does not work for all.  We need to hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold our students to by constantly challenging our practice and challenging our beliefs.  Teachers have a difficult time changing, way more than the students do!

                        

I will leave you with these parting words… It will not be easy, but the right thing never is!  

Improving Teaching: Finding Your Inner 3-Year Old

 

When my nephew was three years old he would pick up my sister-in-law’s Ipod Touch and just start playing with it.  He would open apps, try to find his favorite Glee songs, and play games.  It was so impressive how he didn’t care that he didn’t know how to use it – he just figured it out.  He would maybe ask a question once in awhile, but he got a lot of satisfaction from “getting it” himself.

As teachers and administrators, we do everything that we can to help our students keep that curiosity, and we get frustrated when students “just want the answer.”  We expect that our students will want to “figure it out” themselves.  So, we work with them and help them struggle and push them to gain that same satisfaction that they have when they are really young.   We work to create an environment without fear or disapproval so that we don’t stifle that curiosity in our classrooms.

So why is it, when we expect our students to be curious, that we don’t always have that curiosity that we want so badly from them?  On our “Welcome Back Day” at school we were lucky enough to hear Will Richardson speak.  Will spoke about a child very similar to my three year old nephew.  The question he posed to the group was, “Does that child ever say, ‘Great!  When is my Professional Development day so I can learn how to use it?”  Of course that would be ridiculous.  So why, when you hand an Ipad to a teacher to use, some are unwilling to use it without Professional Development (PD)?? 

In the article, Six Traits of Successful Teachers, Beth Lewis states “The teachers I admire most are those who remain intellectually curious and professionally vital both inside and outside the classroom for decades.  They avoid stagnation at all costs and maintain an enviable passion for children and the learning process. They remain vivid in the students’ memories forever because of their creativity, sense of fun, and compassion.”  Curiosity is just as important for ourselves as it is for our students.

“Meaningful change ain’t gonna happen for our kids if we’re not willing to invest in it for ourselves first. At the heart, it’s not about schools…it’s about us.” – Will Richardson

A couple of years ago I decided I was not going to eat animal products anymore.  It completely changed the way that I lived my life!  I had to start cooking nearly every one of my meals because it was difficult to find food at restaurants.  So, rather than giving up and waiting for someone else to tell me what to do, I hit the internet.  I started trying all different foods and changing the way I ate.  I found friends that had similar interests – in addition to people on the internet – and built a network and support system of my own.  I was motivated because it was important to me and I was invested in my own success!  We have all been there, whether it is cooking, home improvement, landscaping, shopping, or any variety of things!

Teachers are passionate people by nature!  I would implore all teachers to find something in technology that inspires them and makes them want to learn.  I totally understand that teachers feel they don’t have time.  What I would ask is that you take FIVE minutes a day.  I think everyone can find that time.  It may be during passing time, first thing when you walk in the building in the morning, last thing you do before you leave, maybe right before you go to bed at night.  Choose something – twitter, an ipad app, evernote, googledocs, or whatever you choose – and play with it.  Find your inner three year old!!  He/she is there and will get excited about learning!

Evaluating Student Growth – Anything But Test Scores

September 1, 2012

Day 10 as an administrator…   I am having very mixed feelings about not being in the classroom when school starts on Tuesday morning.  I have been thinking non-stop about how I can channel the energy that I used to use to get ready for my first day with 150 new students, into getting ready to now help the students outside of the classroom and through the teachers.

I have decided that I need to focus… I need to pick something and go with it! There is too much out there in education and I am so excited that I am having a hard time going through it!!  So, I have decided to settle on student growth.

The term growth has been thrown around a lot the last few years with all of the education “reform” that has been pushed through legislation, especially here in the state of Michigan.  Student growth is another way of saying student learning.  According to a report by the Student Learning, Student Achievement Task Force of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards,

“Student learning is the growth in subject-matter knowledge, understanding, and skills over time.  In essence, it is an increase in achievement that constitutes learning. Central to this notion of learning as growth is change over time. Knowing whether student learning has occurred, then, requires tracking the growth in what students know and can do. It is only by comparing student mastery at successive points in time that the nature and extent of learning can be gauged. Student learning is also reflected in a broad array of outcome measures, including attendance, participation, engagement, and motivation.”

In the state of Michigan, in 2013-2014 25% of a teacher’s evaluation is to be based on student growth, 40% in 2014-2015, and 50% in 2015-2016.  The Governor’s Council was slated to come out with a recommendation of an Evaluation Tool in April of 2012.  It is not out yet, and I am not sure when – or if – it will be out… No one is quite sure what this evaluation tool will look like, but Legislation specifies that the Governor’s Council will recommend “a student growth assessment tool” that is a value added model, includes at least a pre- and post- test, can be used in all content areas and grades, including currently non-tested grades and content areas, and meets all requirements for students with disabilities.

Teachers want their students to learn, they want their students to grow, but it is not always an easy thing to show.  Teachers struggle daily with their lesson plans and assessments so that they can see the extent of what students know, and what they can do to help struggling students catch up.  Teachers do this daily.  If you asked a teacher, “What has Johnny learned this semester?”,   the teacher would be able to give you a detailed answer that does not involve “they learned how to answer 20 multiple choice questions correctly.”  The answer would be complicated, breaking down each student into their learning styles, their skill sets… As an administrator, these precise details are the things I want to hear from my teachers, this is what I want to know… But of course this would not satisfy the state…

So I was laying around last night trying to figure out how I can help my teachers show growth among all students in their classrooms.  I have some ideas, some things I have done as a teacher, some things from the internet.  If it were up to the state (scary – but it could happen), it would all be based on a standardized test!  I decided to hit the “twittersphere” and make an attempt to contact the one person in the country that I see as the “superman” of education… Diane Ravitch… I sent out a tweet

An hour later I woke up to the sound of the twitter notification on my phone and thought in my head, “Did she tweet me back?!?!?”  I was as excited as a child that has just received a letter back from Santa Claus as I grabbed my phone to look, and YES – Diane Ravitch herself had tweeted me back!!

I reread it 100 times, again like that same child who just can’t believe that their hero has acknowledged and responded to them.  I started to realize that all that I was focusing on and stressing about really was just that simple… anything but test scores.  Now, to those of us that live and breathe education, this is not something new, we know that those standardized tests that the lawmakers love so much are not what is going to show us that are students are learning.  After reading this tweet though, things just became so clear to me, not just don’t use test scores, but ANYTHING but test scores.  I would go so far as to say try everything but test scores…  Teachers should do everything that they can to see what their students are learning and how much they have grown.

So, I am going to throw some things out there that are possibilities, and I hope that we can get a good list going of different measurements of student growth that will work in our classrooms, drive our instruction, improve our practice, and improve the education of all of our students…

1.)   Check out www.threering.com.  This was a direct result of my Diane Ravitch tweet.  She retweeted my question and one of her followers hit me up with this.  I played around with it for a little bit and it seems like a really cool tool.  It works with your iphone or ipad.  It is an app, but you can set everything up on the website.

2.)  Write cumulative assessments and use some items covering the same content over and over to see improvement.  For example:  last year on the first test in algebra 1 there were about 10 questions covering material that I knew was on the final exam.  Students did not do very well on these questions, so I retaught and retested that material.  The questions were different but covering the same topic.  I just looked at those 10 items for growth.  This was a very small idea, but it definitely showed growth among the students.  You could do a lot with something like this, make some higher level, multi-part questions and continue to give over time, and see how the responses improve throughout the course.  OR, you could just take one higher level question on an assessment and give it more than once over the course of the semester.

3.)  Portfolios – This is a really great way to show individual student progression.  For an English teacher, a writing sample from the beginning of the year, then at various other points throughout the semester will track progress.  This could work in any subject, and is a much more authentic tool than a single test.

4.)  Student reflection – Choose an important topic in your subject and have the students write a reflection about it.  At another later point in time give them this same topic with the same instructions and have them reflect again.  The possibilities for showing teacher growth in this manner are tremendous.

Ok… I’ve gotten it started!  Let’s see what we can come up with!!!  Here is the link to the google doc with these first four listed on it.  Feel free to add productive and helpful ideas!  I can’t wait to see what happens!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kt7yAnaooMzZbiCLRWTNO6xRhhVQQFBo8-tE7UiYeHc/edit