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Category Archives: coaching

Why?

Posted on by Posted in coaching, Literacy, Making Connections, Reflections Leave a comment

Every now and then I get a Skype call from my niece asking for my help with her homework. Recently I received one of these calls about her writing class. She shared her paper with me via a Google Doc and we went through her paper looking for examples of figurative language and spent some time doing impromptu grammar lessons. She’s a conscientious student and does well in school but, like all students who care about their work, she has her own self doubt and wants reassurance that she’s doing it right. Once we were done and getting ready to sign off, she grumbled a little about the rest of her homework and told me she was dreading it. Of course I had to ask her what she was working on. Here’s kind of how our conversation went:

Me: What are you working on now?

Her: I have to redo a test from my PE class.

Me: You didn’t do so well the first time?

Her: Nope, I guess I missed a lot of questions. But at least this time I get to use my book.

Me: What do you mean you “guess” you missed a lot of questions? Didn’t you see your test?

Her: Nope, my teacher just told me and some other kids that we missed too many and we needed to do it again.

Me: So you have no idea what you did right and what you did wrong, you just have to do it all over again?

Her: Yep

There was more conversation after that and I asked more questions but quickly realized that, because she is a conscientious student, she’s going to do exactly what was asked of her but that really, she probably wouldn’t learn anything new from it because she didn’t know what she did wrong. She was dutifully compliant.

After closing down Skype, I began to wonder how often I had done this same thing with my own students thinking that I was helping them by giving them another opportunity to redo and complete their work to get a better grade. Then I realized the difference, I wouldn’t have done that without letting them see their first test to know what they need to work on. In my neice’s case, there was no feedback, no learning target, no goal. It was busy work that would help her boost her grade but didn’t have anything to do with helping her master the content or skills of the unit. I trust that it was done with the best intentions but for the wrong reasons.

I know that this assignment is now complete and she has moved on. Has she better learned that content now? Probably not. Is her grade better? Probably. I guess it just depends what is more important.

Trying Something New

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At the beginning of every calendar year, thousands of people make new year’s resolutions. It’s a good time to make the change because it marks a specific date where something new can happen and it brings with it the idea that new possibilities can come. Some succeed and some fail but the important thing is that they have tried something new. As I move in and out of classes, I see students trying something new all the time. They are working with new ideas, developing new strategies and working on new problems. The same can be said for teachers. Today I went into one classroom where the teacher had just learned how to use the highlighter with her SMART Board. That was cool. I also saw students thinking about research and exploring new topics using their own phones and tablets. This was new for both student and teacher as they figure out how to use these devices in the classroom. The bottom line is new things are important things. Will they always work out? No. But how do we know that unless we try? Just because it worked last year, does that mean it will work this year? What questions and decisions do we need to ask as we try new things both personally and with our students?

I don’t have all the answers to these questions but I do know that trying new things is important and it’s easy to get into a rhythm and, sometimes, a rut. Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google did a TED talk entitled “Try something new for 30 days”. In it he says:

The next 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not think about something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the next 30 days.

How will you use the next 30 days with your students? Will you try something new as a part of your instruction or will you do what you’ve always done? What would happen if you did try something new? Maybe it’s worth thinking and being intentional about. After all, these 30 days are going to pass and you might just engage your students in new work and new ideas.

Technology Thursdays at Northeast Middle

Posted on by Posted in 21st Century Education, coaching, Education, Friday Flyer, Professional Development, Technology, Tools Leave a comment

Starting this month I will be offering a new experiment in professional development. Judging from the number of people who came to the technology sessions Wednesday afternoon, there is plenty of interest in learning more about technology and how it can be used in the classroom. I’m always available to think, plan and work with you around how to use technology in your instruction. These “Technology Thursday” sessions will be centered around a specific topic and will be held every hour during the day so that you can come at your convenience. This is strictly an optional drop in type of session where I will work with whoever shows up around these topics. If there’s only one person, that’s who I’ll work with, if there’s a group, I’ll work with everyone. You can stay as long or as little as you want. During these days I will have nothing else scheduled and will be completely available to help. Hopefully you will find this useful and convenient.

Topics:

  • January 24th - SMART Boards and SMART Notebook – Whether you’re curious about the new features that are available to you in SMART Notebook 10.8 or you just want to know how to orient and navigate the board, this session will be all about SMART Notebook. (If you’re interested in the new features, be sure to make an appointment with Julie in advance to have your software updated.)
  • February 21st – Document Camera – New Avermedia software – Document cameras are not new in our classrooms, but there is a new version of the Avermedia software that brings new features and greater flexibility. From new math tools to embedding your document camera image into a PowerPoint, this session will go over these new features. Come share your ideas with your colleagues. (If you’re interested in the new features, be sure to make an appointment with Julie in advance to have your software updated.)
  • March 7th – SMART Response – Most of you have heard about or used the SMART Response system to give assessments and check for understanding. If you’ve never taken the opportunity to try this system out, this is the session for you. I’ll help you get started and begin thinking about how to use these tools in your classroom.
  • April 11th – Discovery Education – Discovery Education is best known for streaming videos but there’s so much more to it. This session will focus on finding, storing and sharing the content that you find. If you plan to attend this session and are new to Discovery Education, please let me know so I can make sure you have an active account.

All sessions will be held in room 402 in the library during every hour. Hope to see you there.

Would you take away their pencil?

Posted on by Posted in 21st Century Education, coaching, Education, English, leadership, Making Connections, NCTE, Reflections, teaching, Technology Leave a comment

DSC_1284Just a few weeks ago I had a great conversation with the assistant principal of a nearby school centering around how to manage devices in the classroom. “What do we do if the technology distracts our students?” she asked. At one time, not so many years ago, my answer would have been different than the one I gave her. In 2003, I begged, borrowed, and stole computers and parts of computers from every nook and cranny of the high school where I was teaching. All of the staff had just been given a laptop and the old desktops that were in each room were, in many cases, dust magnets that were never turned on. So, I snagged them and rebuilt about 25 computers that would serve as the basis of my “paperless classroom” and give my students the opportunity to create and interact with digital materials in ways that they hadn’t been able to before.

Each semester when I got a new round of students, I went through the process of thoroughly threatening them if they did anything inappropriate (I may have used the word “stupid”) while on the internet and on these machines. This was a different time in the world of technology and online tools were not nearly as easy to use as they are now. But my fear was still there. What would happen if something went horribly wrong? How would I handle the fallout from a student who didn’t abide by my rules and guidelines? During those first few years students were clamoring to get into my English 10 class because it was different. They got to be on computers. They published their work online. They learned how to code HTML. It was not your typical English classroom and word spread quickly that there was something different happening.

As an introduction to this new found world of technology in school that my students were experiencing, I felt as though I had to hold something over them if something went wrong. So, each semester, I assured them that if they did something inappropriate, I would revoke their technology privileges altogether and the rest of the semester they would find themselves doing all of their work with a pencil and paper. This seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time. After all, students wanted to be in the class because they wanted to be on the computer. In order to manage my classroom, all I had to do was punish them where it hurt most… the ability to use digital tools to learn and create.

As I look back at that now, I realized how flawed my logic was. If I were really interested in their learning, removing access to technology was not going to help them succeed or learn more effectively. This is even more the case today with so much information, tools, and opportunities that exist online. So what would I do now if I were in the classroom and faced with the same question? Well, hopefully my district and administration would have thought about this in advance and recognized that taking technology out of the hands of students does not help them. Instead it puts them at a disadvantage because of the many learning opportunities can be found online.

So what is to be done? If I were to do it all over again, I’d refer to the code of conduct that is found in every school and try to find parallels between the digital and analog worlds. If a student is playing a game on the computer instead of his work, what approach would I take if technology wasn’t a factor? I would either find a way to keep them on task or give them the appropriate consequence. If a student posts something inappropriate in a message board, I would have to approach this in the same way as if they said or wrote something inappropriate in class or in a notebook. I most certainly wouldn’t take away that student’s pencil.

The tools of technology have changed the way we teach and approach instruction, but too many times we feel that these tools are not integral to the learning process. Technology tools are quickly becoming essential for classroom teachers but many still give the same threatening speech that I gave almost 10 years ago. We would never dream of taking a textbook away from a student because of behavior, but in many cases we don’t think twice about limiting their access to a system that has more information than any textbook or library could ever hold.

If I were back in the classroom today, that speech would look dramatically different. These technological tools are the new paper and pencil, learning tools which I would never dream of taking away. There are other ways to manage student behavior, removing the tools of learning should not be one of them.

Edcamp St. Louis

Posted on by Posted in 21st Century Education, coaching, Education, Friday Flyer, Professional Development, Technology Leave a comment

One of the great things about being in the education field is the people that you get to meet, work with, and learn from throughout your career. In my own experience, I’ve found that some of my best learning has come from other teachers, not necessarily in organized professional development opportunities, but in impromptu conversations in the hallway and at conferences. What I like about going to conferences is the fact that I can get a broader perspective on the world of education and the ideas of others outside my own little district and school realm. Conferences are hard though. Typically, travel and expense is involved, both of which are major barriers to the conference experience.

To get around such barriers, a number of educators around the world have begun to organize free, personalized, professional development opportunities that they call Edcamps. I’m not sure which Edcamp can be considered the very first one, but they seem to be cropping up all over the place now. There are many benefits to the Edcamp experience, but probably the biggest draw is that these events are FREE opportunities to meet, network and collaborate with other teachers outside your building and district. The event itself is typically sponsored by a variety of companies and organizations who see value in education and want to give educators development opportunities.

Now, one thing that you need to know is that these events are not your typical conference experience. Edcamps pride themselves on being what’s called an “Unconference“. An unconference, while not unique only to the world of education, is a participant-driven meeting where those in attendance decide, on the spot, what will be presented at the conference that day and organize themselves accordingly. You may not know “what” you will learn when you arrive that morning, but you do know that you will learn “something”. In this format, there are no presentation proposals or approvals. If you want to talk about and present on something, you can sign up to do just that and those who are interested in the topic can come and listen and talk with you. To a certain extent, it gives structure to those “hallway conversations” that are so valuable.

Last February was the inagural EdcampSTL held in the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District. It was a great day of learning and networking and I would encourage any educator in St. Louis area to go to the EdcampSTL website and click on the “Register Now” link to reserve your place at this year’s event. It’s well worth the time to learn from other educators in the area. Just a side note, when you go to register, you’ll probably be placed on a waiting list. I have assurances from the organizers that those on the wait list will absolutely be admitted.

So mark your calendars for February 9, 2013 from 8-3 and plan to be at Hixson Middle School in the Webster Groves School District. It’s a good day and a great way to expand your thinking, be inspired, and get ideas for the classroom that you can use the following Monday. I’ll be there and I hope you’ll consider joining me there and learn from your fellow educators. If you have questions about the format or the event itself, please let me know.

Talk to me…

Posted on by Posted in coaching, Education, Feedback, Friday Flyer, Reflections Leave a comment

Yesterday a friend of mine pointed me to a blog entry by a teacher named Paul Bogush entitled “I can’t save everyone…“. Paul is an 8th grade social studies teacher in Connecticut and in his post he laments about the fact that he can’t save everyone and warns that his focus on data has caused him to overlook the reasons why students are struggling. He’s not giving up looking at data and analyzing where he can focus his energies but instead is thinking about his students as people and thinking beyond the data. In working through this thinking, he asked his students a few questions including what they would like to see him do differently in the second quarter. One struggling student simply answered “Talk to me.”

I can only imagine what he felt as he digested that answer and internalized the fact that he had been calling on students and working with them but maybe not “talking” with them. His solution was to begin collecting a different kind of data.

I printed off of all of my class rosters and placed a check next to each kid that I “talked to” today.  Go ahead try it.  If you do nothing else today, print off a class list and place a check next to each kid that you talked to today.  Not just a question and answer back and forth, but a few sentences either in or outside of class.  I wonder what that data would show over time.  I bet that the kids who aren’t doing so well would be the same kids missing checks next to their names on more than one occasion. – Paul Bogush, November 13, 2012

If you were to do this, what would your data show? Do you talk and interact with your students? As Paul has recognized, he can’t save them all, but he can most certainly talk to them.

Read Paul’s post at http://blogush.edublogs.org.

Gaining Perspective

Posted on by Posted in coaching, Education, Literacy, Professional Development, Reflections 2 Comments

Look at the following picture. How many squares do you see in this image?

If you took the time to try to solve this puzzle, there’s a chance that you didn’t get the same answer as I did my first time with this activity. The question is, who’s right? If we sit down together and come up with two different answers, am I right or are you? To a certain extent, the answer doesn’t matter. It’s a puzzle. But at the same time, why is it that one of us has to be right? The question clearly states, “how many squares do you SEE in this image?” From my perspective, with my knowledge and background, I can’t really be wrong and neither can you. Just because we don’t see it the same way, doesn’t mean that our view isn’t valid or accurate, all it means is that it’s different. As we try to help students be creative and curious, we need to look at the questions we ask, what we ask them to do, and how we ask them to think. If there’s only one answer and it’s the “right” one, students will always be searching for that “one” rather than thinking differently and exploring options.

In his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, author Jonah Lehrer suggests that,

Like most skills, creativity is best learned by doing. Kids don’t learn how to be creative by sitting in lectures about the creative process, or getting history lessons on American innovation. Rather, they learn how to be creative by creating things, by flexing their own imagination.

What about in your classroom? Does everything have right answers or do you allow for students to “see” things differently? Are students able to flex their imaginations and make their own sense of the world?

By the way, the “correct” answer for the above puzzle is 30. However, if you got a different number, you’re not wrong.

For more about creativity, see the following:

See Research Differently

Posted on by Posted in 21st Century Education, coaching, leadership, Making Connections, Readings, Reflections, teaching 1 Comment

Wednesday morning I was looking through the RSS feeds in my Google Reader account and I ran across a post that Christopher Lehman, author of Pathways to the Common Core, had recently put on his site entitled, “Research Instruction: Who Decided It Should Be A Tremendous Bore?” With a title like that, how could I help but click on the link and read his writings.

What was great about his post was that he put many of the thoughts I have had about traditional research instruction into words. I remember as a high school student sitting in the library with stacks of notecards documenting and redocumenting facts and quotes and then flipping it over to record my source information so that I could pull these facts together. For me, that was research. It was finding all the information so I could retell it in my own words, get my grade and, if I were lucky, remember something that I put down on the paper. Those research habits were a direct result of how I was taught to do research and work with information. It was a way for me to prove my “knowledge” on a topic to my teacher and, truly, jump through the hoops. Did it help me, probably. It certainly gave me a basis of understanding of the process. I’m just not sure that it helped me to learn much in the way of content.

Research is something that we do everyday in the form of posing a question and finding and answer for that question. In his post, Chris pulls from his newest book, Energize Research Reading and Writing, and suggests three ways to make the research process less painful and more exciting. But even more than that, using this approach, research also becomes about learning not regurgitation.

  1. Stop handing out so much stuff – Give students choice and support them with resources and direction. Assign them questions, not topics.
  2. Take notes on your mind, not your book – Learning doesn’t happen in the book, it happens in the mind and with the connections students make to the reading and information.
  3. Add a new process step: teach-through-writing – I love this. As is sometimes obvious, writing helps me think through topics and make meaning. In this one, students explore the topic through different writing activities that help them make connections based on what they have learned.

I didn’t even remotely do Chris’s approach to research justice in this short space. But I am interested in learning more about how research can be changed from what I experienced for so many years to one that focuses on students learning and understanding.

This coming Monday, Oct 1st at 7PM EST Chris is guest moderating #Engchat with the topic “Teach Students to Research, Not Regurgitate” and I hope to be able to join him in the discussion.

 

Cross posted to Parkway Northeast Middle School Friday Flyer

Saying what they didn’t say

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In the summer of 2011 I attended the Adaptive Schools workshop put on by the Center for for Adaptive Schools. During that 4 day workshop I learned many things, but one of the most useful was around paraphrasing when collaborating with others to clarify ideas, thoughts, and conversation. In the classroom, I often asked students to paraphrase what I said to make sure they understood my directions. I also used paraphrasing to allow students to make their own meaning around a poem or other piece of text that we were studying. However, what I don’t remember doing was having students paraphrase each other in meaningful and intentional ways. I had them read each others work in a peer review, but typically students (despite my instructions) focused on the structure of the writing rather than clarifying what a classmate meant and the ideas that were included in the writing. As I think back to that activity, I wonder how much more learning they would have gotten out of this collaborative work had I asked them to paraphrase (either through writing or conversation) the work. My guess is that it would have been considerable.

According to the Center for Adaptive Schools, there are three different types of paraphrasing that are efffective ways to to support thinking. Each of these techniques depends on the purpose for the paraphrase and, if used effectively, can help students think in different ways.

  1. Acknowledge/Clarify – This technique can be used to better understand a phrase or text. Essentially, one person takes the others ideas, speech, or text and puts it into their own words. This is especially useful as students are trying to come to an understanding of a concept. This is probably the most common type of paraphrase that students and teachers use in the classroom. It provides students with feedback and acknowledges their voice and ideas. It also gives the person with those ideas the ability to say, “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant” or, “No, you’ve misunderstood, what I mean is…”. By using this technique, everyone is on the same page.
  2. Summarize/Organize – This technique is used to organize the thoughts that are heard or read. Sometimes students have their ideas and can verbalize them, but haven’t organized them into cohesive thoughts. Summarizing and organizing puts these thoughts together and can give meaningful feedback to the person with the ideas because it helps them think more clearly about what is being said or written. In many cases, the paraphraser will also include numbers or categories that will help to offer further clarity about what issues or ideas might be brought up. This technique also gives those with the ideas the opportunity to expand on their ideas if they don’t feel the categories accurately portrait their original thoughts.
  3. Shift level of abstraction – The final technique takes a certain level of maturity and thought process to really implement it effectively. I often think about this in the scope of a socratic seminar where students are beginning to think in abstract ways. A particular student may read a piece of text or have a conversation and, through paraphrasing, explore the values that they hold. For instance, when students read a story or primary source document, they will identify with it in different ways based on their own experiences and values. Many times who or what they identify with can offer insights to their own identities that they may not have even understood. Using paraphrasing techniques as an opportunity, students can begin to think more broadly about some of the essential questions that are part of the curriculum and help them to identify with their own work.

There is far more to say about paraphrasing and how it can be used in the classroom and I continue to think about how this impacts students and teachers. During the Adaptive Schools sessions, our facilitator, Toni Prickett, said that, “Paraphrasing is saying what they didn’t say.” This has stuck with me as I work on my own paraphrasing skills. When I’m in that mode I listen more closely to understand not only what students and teachers are saying, but equally important, what are they not saying.?

How do you paraphrase? Are these techniques that you use now? How could they be used in your classroom and with students?

What is an Instructional Coach?

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This year I’m moving from the role of Technology Integration Specialist to that of an Instructional Coach. For awhile now I’ve been attempting to frame what this will mean for me and my work. This week I wrote up a piece for my staff to try to help them to know what I do for them. In the process I helped define much of my role for myself. I think this is just the beginning, but this is what I sent out this week.

 

What exactly is an Instructional Coach?

As the year starts, I’ve been thinking a lot about what my new role is at Northeast. Until this year, you’ve known me as a TIS who, hopefully, could help you with your technology and figure out how to use it. The good news is, I’m still that guy. Those who know me know that technology is my thing. That hasn’t changed and I will talk with you about technology anytime you’re interested (and maybe even when you’re not). However, as an Instructional Coach, I have the opportunity to go beyond that and really work with you on a deeper and much more effective level around all things instruction. If it happens in the classroom, it’s in my realm. Additionally, much of my work will be centered around supporting the work of CLTs this year.

Here are some ways that this might look:

  • Design and Organization

Create a learning environment that facilitates effective instruction  (ie. physical space, classroom discipline, student reflections, etc…)

  • Plan: Unpack a Unit of Study

Get familiar with a unit of study in order to design Stage 3 (lessons) with student goals in mind.

  • Examine Student Work 

In an informal sense, a chance to get another set of eyes on student work.

  • Examine Student Data

Analyze data to help make inferences about the data and determine what is working and what is not to help design instruction.

  • Formal or Informal Coaching Cycle

Collaborate with individuals or CLT’s to work toward improvement in any desired area.

  • Work with Students

Assist with helping individuals  or groups of students to reach their potential.

  • Problem Solving

Facilitate probing for root causes.

  • Technology Integration

I still do a lot with technology and can certainly help you decide the appropriate tool and strategy to use with your students.

Bottom line, I’m here to support you. That will mean a lot of things. If you have a question, ask. I’m a resource for you as you work to help students in every curricular area. If you want to try something new, have someone observe you in a nonevaluative role, or just chat about what you’re doing in the classroom, contact me and we’ll get together.

Cross posted to Northeast Middle School Friday Flyer