Learning Habitats and the Educational Environment

The word habitat is defined as: The natural home or environment of an animal, plant or other organism. Humans put great importance on most of our habitats.  Our homes are designed with furniture and decorations that make us feel comfortable and put us at ease.  When we bring a new baby home from the hospital we have a newly painted room, with kid-friendly wall paper (whatever that is), and special furniture. Our habitat accommodations even extend to animals when we put them in a zoo. I once saw a prairie dog exhibit at a zoo.  They had special grass, decorative driftwood, hollow logs... for prairie dogs... underground rats.  One more example--carnival goldfish.  Even those free fish we reluctantly win at carnivals get a round bowl with rocks at the bottom, fake plants, a castle to swim through, and sometimes we even buy them a friend.  We are all about the habitat.

Consider all of that, and then think about most secondary schools and the classrooms within.  Our elementary years are spent in colorful classrooms with decorations and sometimes a special rug where students can comfortably sit.  As students transition into junior high and high school they typically enter bland walls, desks in rows, maybe some "inspirational" posters about doing your best--an environment more suitable to prison life than student life.  The inside of most classrooms are institutional, stiff, and unwelcoming.

I think we need to create a habitat of learning in our classrooms.  A comfortable, welcoming learning laboratory   Students should sit in groups.  Seating should be comfortable--how creative and engaged would you feel sitting in a school desk all day?  Leading companies like Google have embraced this, how have we ignored it for so long?

Draft Day

Last year our 7th grade team created a PBL project for two schools that involved a murder mystery they had to solve, you can read more about it here.  We decided to do this again this year with just our 7th grade kids.  We went through and tweaked it to fit just our school since the first time we included two schools together.

The next part is one our favorite days in team.    It is called draft day.  We have a common team time where we get to create projects and collaborate. One thing we do in our grade is when we do a big project we do not include all the students.  We first go through and eliminate any one with F's, we let them use this time to get caught up on their work.  The other group of kids we eliminate are students that have proven to us they can not handle open ended projects and group collaboration.  This is the only time we do this. Since we do projects all the time, they do get plenty of time to have that experience.  Once those kids are picked out, this year we had 9 out of 127 kids, the draft officially begins

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 We put every kids name on the board and we then "draft" them and put them in groups of three.  We have found that is the perfect number for group work.  Each teacher gets a turn in picking a group and we just go around and draft all the kids until they have all been selected.  We group them by ability level and we try to put combinations of kids together that we know don't usually work together or would be a good combination to work together.

In our grade we give very few tests, because we want to "know" the kids so we have conversations where the kids explain what they have learned.  One of our favorite things to say is "you can't hide from a conversation."  We know the kids so much better than 4 years ago before we made the switch to 1:1 and project based learning. 

Since we mix up the kids throughout the year they are used to it.  It is definitely a culture that takes time to build, but it is without a doubt worth the fight in the beginning.  The kids are doing a great job with this project.  There is quite a bit of higher level math and the kids have tore into this project and they are really good. 

Since it is Istep week it is so interesting to see the kids in the morning taking multiple choice tests that have exactly one right answer working in silence compared to our afternoons where they are collaborating, sharing ideas, and solving a problem that has no one correct answer.  Our project has 9 suspects and we have created it so that 3 of them could be the killer.  How do we judge that?  It is based on their justification of their work, the way they connect the evidence to their suspect,  and how they present their information.

Today is our final day and I can't wait to see their final presentations.  I had one girl come up to me today and say " I am so excited today to present.  Normally I am so scared to present in front of people but not today.  Our presentation is awesome."  Wow, excitement about learning, can't argue with those results.

15th Century Teaching Model Still Highly Relevant

Recently I visited a school to learn about their BYOD program.  I came away with lots of great insights and ideas.  One of them was a teaching method I had never heard of.  The Ignatian Pedagogical Model is based on the Jesuit St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises.  There are 5 basic components: Context, Experience, Reflection, Action, and Evaluation.  Though interpretations seem to vary on how it should properly be implemented, I think the validity of the basic components speak for themselves.

Context
Students must be provided with a reason for learning beyond traditional reasons of, 'state standards require this', 'because it will be on the test', or 'because I said'.  Those might be "context" to a teacher, but they are not context to a student of the 21st Century.  If you don't know or can't explain to your class why they are learning a particular topic, maybe you should look for some real world application or possibly rethink whether this particular topic should be a priority.  Like Daniel Pink says in his most recent book To Sell is Human.  Teachers have to "sell" their curriculum.  If the kids aren't buying what you're offering, you really have no one to blame but yourself.  You can sit back and blame parents or the culture, but that won't change anything and it certainly won't be a valid excuse as to why your students aren't doing well in your class.

Experience
After students have real meaning as to why they are learning something, they need to experience it.  Spoiler Alert: worksheets, web quests, and the like are not a way to experience curriculum.  Students have to be immersed into the field of knowledge with real world activities that produce an authentic product.  The construction of the product they produce should take them through an inquiry-based learning path.  Students should then present their product to an authentic audience.

Reflection
Context and experience should be done sequentially, but reflection should be done throughout the process.  Reflection is such a powerful tool.  Students greatly benefit from metacognition; evaluating their thinking process, finding ways to improve, and just being mindful of their learning habits.  A learning journal shared to the teacher and student would work well. A student blog would be a public platform for students to demonstrate their thinking and learning.  Regardless, a single reflection platform is not enough.  The teacher should have conversations throughout that force students to stretch their thinking and expand their sphere of learning.

Action
The goal of Jesuit education is to move the student into action, not simply the personal satisfaction of learning (source).  To me, in a school setting, this is a flexible component that can be worked into the "Experience" portion.  Once the student has the knowledge, what will they do with it?  Is the product they are making the final use for this knowledge?  Can it be incorporated into future learning? Can students take political action such as writing to their congressman or writing a letter to a newspaper or company? The "Action" component is a great way to exercise the new learning that has taken place and justify the context you provided initially.

Evaluation
As with all things education, assessment is important to get right.  While I don't think there is a "right" way to do this component, there certainly are some wrong ways, such as ending this teaching model with a multiple choice test.  We usually advocate for students to present everything they learn to an authentic audience, a group of students, or one-on-one to the teacher.  Our motto is: you can't hide from a conversation.  The ultimate summative grade should be discussed between you and your student.  No time for that?  An alternative would be to build a rubric as a class before you start your project in the experience phase.  In addition, you can put formative evaluation benchmarks along the way to see how students are doing.  It may be a completion grade for a journal entry or a qualitative grade on the weekly set of journals.  Either way, its nice to work in a few smaller grades into a larger project.

The Ignatian Pedagogical Model doesn't need to be a large project.  You could probably create a one-day lesson using this model.  Its simply a structure.  An apparatus that supports curricular content and instruction.  I like it because it is so simple; the five parts are very easy to understand.   The five parts address educational best practice and allow for great depth, yet they can be flexible and easily addressed.  In addition, I think students would learn to adapt to this method.  They might be critical about the context or curious about the action that follows.  These are both good signs that they are buying what you're selling.  At that point you got 'em, everything else is easy.

How to Make the Perfect [Assessment] Cocktail

Assessment can be a sticky issue.  We know best practice is not a multiple choice test, yet that is the preferred method state standardized tests use--due simply to the ease of grading, way to lead by example ;)  So, do we use best practices or inferior methods that prepare students for a bogus test designed primarily for PR and political fodder?  Tough choice right? While it may be an easy philosophical decision.  The pressure from administration can often complicate things.  My general belief is that if a student can pass my assessment, they will do fine in a multiple guess test.


We often sit around and talk about assessment, specifically 'what is the best way to know what students know'.   I think we've concluded that it depends on the situation.  What is best in a science lab is not what is best in twelfth grade AP English.  While the specific assessment models don't always hold true across all the disciplines and developmental levels, the concept usually do.  Such as the concept of self-assessment.  I think this is a powerful assessment concept that should be worked into nearly every activity you wish to use as an a recorded assessment (grade).  However, it isn't always the most reliable option.  Self-assessment is best when balanced by a teacher assessment.  Obviously the teacher provides a needed perspective in the overall assessment of a given activity, and probably should be given the highest weight.  That being said, another valuable perspective are the students' peers.  If the student presents their work to the class, the class should have a say in the assessment.  The same is true of working in groups or presenting to an authentic audience.  A group assessment is a great ingredient to authentic assessment.

If you are truly interested in really learning what your students know its good to account for multiple perspectives.  If you are looking for a fast way to grade... well... find another profession because you're making all the rest of us look bad.  And while we're on the subject its OK not to grade everything you do in your class.  I once met a teacher who took 55 grades in a 9 week period---thats 1.2 grades per day!  To sum up, assessment is best thought of like a cocktail.  One part self assessment, one part group assessment, and one part teacher assessment... and, it should always be used responsibly.

Billboards and Commercials in Math

Our kids just recently did a project where we were learning the order of operations.  We connected it to commercials or billboards.  Here's how it worked.  First the kids created two order of operation problems.  They had to have 5 out of the 7 steps involved.  The problems also had to have a negative number and a fraction.  After they made their second problem correct they were to go back and make the problem wrong by doing the steps in the wrong order.  I know this sounds crazy, but it actually really helps them to understand the steps.  Plus it ties into a part of the project that comes into play at the end.

Our entry event was to watch some funny commercials and some funny billboards to get them interested.  Their goal was to create a funny or clever commercial that had words that went in the same order as the order of operations.  For example:

Parentheses = Pancakes
Brackets = Bacon
Exponents = Eggs
Multiply = Milk
Divide = Doughnuts
Add = Asparagus
Subtract = Snake

I tell them a crazy story about a neighbor that has to eat their breakfast in a certain order as an example. It was fun to see how clever they were with their commercials and billboards.  They presented them to the class.  Half the kids probably made commercials using Imovie and Garageband.  The other kids used mural.ly, smore, or easel.ly to create billboards.

Finally on the last day they rotated to every other groups computers and used the other groups problems. They had two objectives.  First they had to figure out which of the two problems was right or wrong by looking at the steps of the problem.  Finally after they found the wrong problem, they had to solve it with the steps and get the correct answer.

Most kids can recite Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, but they really are not good at applying the steps to a problem.  The thing I love about having the kids make up problems is that they are always harder than the problems form our 7th grade book.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to make the other kids laugh with their commercial or billboard.  They also love keeping track of who gets their problems wrong.  They take a lot of pride in stumping their classmates.

Why I'm Convinced 1+1 can Equal 3

How can 1+1=3?  Its not an equation of numbers, but an equation of people.  I've always been a believer, but the immense value of collaboration has become crystal clear to me lately.  I now see every problem or project as a puzzle and I thoroughly believe the members of my PLN hold the pieces to that puzzle.  Between my local colleague and my virtual connectionsThe same rings true in the classroom.

Last week I was listening to a group of students reflect on their egg drop contraption.  One student brought up an idea to add more cushioning to the bottom, another group member jumped in and suggested adding a small ballon to the bottom of the egg holder.  Another student chimed in about needing to add something on top of the egg so it wouldn't bounce out.  The ideas continued to flow from all the group members.  Within 5 minutes the group had an amazing plan and they were all anxious to try again.  I don't believe those students could have came up with that idea individually.  The concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts goes back to the time of Aristotle and has never been more true than in today's economy.  Education has to embrace this reality.

There are countless benefits to collaboration in the classroom.  One benefit of small group collaboration is the breakdown of social anxiety.  So many students are hesitant to speak up in a class of 30 students, but feel much more comfortable contributing to a group of 3 or 4.  Another positive experience is students teaching other students.  They speak a common language and often learn more easily from their peers.

Just like any other skill, collaboration skills need to be taught and classroom norms need to be established.  Simple things such as establishing acceptable ways to give constructive criticism (ex. starting with, "I wonder if... ") can add important tools to your students collaboration skill set and allow 1+1 to equal more than 2.

Collaborative Skills Resource 1
Collaborative Skills Resource 2
Rubric for Assessing Teamwork

Egg Droppin' PBL

This week our 7th grade team did a two day PBL with our students.   Our team consists of Ryan Evans (Science), Jill Beals (English), Adam Hall (Social Studies), Marcia Kaufman (Special Ed), and myself (Math).   The project was something Ryan and I have done before in our classes.  It was a simple egg drop.  Fun and easy for us to connect to our standards.

Materials
1 paper plate, 3 straws, plastic bag, 3 coffee filters, 1 meter of tape, 2 feet of string, one plastic cup, 1 balloon

Grouping
We as a team ranked the kids from 1 - 3 based on how well they work in a group.  As a team we do a lot of group work so we know the kids really well.  Then we had a draft and combined a student from each grouping so a 1, 2, and 3 were together.  We had a lot of fun and the groups really worked well together.  We will definitely do this again.

Standards
Measuring, Converting, Speed Formula, Expository Paper, (next year we might add Newtons first law of motion)

21st Century Skills
Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Research, Application, Presentation Skills, Creativity

We took the kids out of their regular schedule for two days.  The kids that were selected by each teacher worked in that room for the entire two days.  Here is what each 1/2 day portion looked like.


Tuesday Morning
The kids came into class and got into their groups.  They were really excited to start building.  It was fun to watch them debate on different ideas and then try them out.  Our driving question was, "Which factor is more important: to save your egg, speed or cushion?"  They spent quite a bit of time planning, building, practicing with a golf ball, and redesigning.  After their group was done, they wrote their own individual expository paper on the steps they went through from start to finish.

Tuesday Afternoon
After lunch we headed outside.  We had four classes of egg builders.  Each teacher dropped their class' contraptions from 10 ft.  Each student had to keep the stats of every group in their class.  They recorded time, distance, and whether the egg broke or not.  If they made the first drop, they got to go through the "Evans Gauntlet".   Our science teacher took them up 4 more heights using our football stands.  The final height was on top of our press box.  At one point the entire class was chanting "break" all at once.  It was fun to watch.  Once that ended, the kids went back to the rooms and started putting their presentation together.  Five of the thirty-two groups completed the "Evans Gauntlet".

Wednesday Morning
This day was planned for the kids to research the speed formula and figure out how to apply it to help answer the driving question.  They then took their data and put it into graphs so they could figure out their answer to the speed or cushion question.  They did this by looking at the data from the drops.  We were a little ahead on time, so the day before we added some interesting egg questions. That way if they got done early, they still would have something to work on.  They enjoyed trying to search and answer questions like which came first the chicken or the egg.  Our kids really worked hard and did a nice job in groups.

Wednesday Afternoon
The afternoon was set up for presentations.  Our kids are really learning how to create and give a good presentation.  In fact, most of our kids' presentations were better than some of the presentations from the last education conference I attended.  They are learning to use as little words as possible, if any, and tell a story through their pictures on a Google shared presentation.  Every group presented to their class.  The kids in their groups used a rubric and evaluated each group in their class.  The four winning groups then got to present in front of the entire 7th grade in our auditorium.

We had a great day.  It was fun to see them grow, learn how to solve a problem, and work together.  We are planning on doing one of these at the end of each nine weeks.  The next three are a murder mystery, catapult, and a rocket build and blast off.

MTV Cribs Math and Art Lesson.

This week in class we are learning scale.  We connect it to MTV Cribs since they love celebrities and all their rich stuff.  The kids really enjoy it and it is a fun way to learn and apply scale.  The links for each day show the Google presentation I used in class.

Monday = Intro to scale and practice, teased we would be designing our own "Crib".

Monday we learned scale, watched some interesting videos, and I created scale problems that fit what we were learning.  They love watching videos.  We did this in partners so the kids could talk out their thoughts.

Wednesday = Design and review.

I let them know that on Wednesday we would be designing our "Crib".  Their faces lit up.  We watched an MTV Cribs episode to give them some ideas. We used the website called Floorplanner.  I don't even mess with teaching them how to use these websites.  I just let them discover and ask questions.  Some kids come in with amazing houses already built.  I let them work for 4 - 5 minutes designing then they did a review problem.  As soon as the problem is correct, they get to go back to designing.  This really motivates them to be quick and efficient, something we focus on a lot in my class.

Friday = Scaled down our rooms.

How this works is for math they design their house and we scale down the measurements for our art teacher.  She then takes those measurements and has the kids build their bedrooms and connects it to her standards.  We have done this now for three years and the kids are really excited because as 6th graders they remembered seeing them sitting around the art room.  I honestly never thought when I started teaching that I would be showing MTV Cribs in my math class.  It's not my thing, but it's not about me.  It's about them and what they like.  Our job as teachers is to find a way to connect our subject to their lives, even if it means watching MTV.

Internet not working at school.........Go for a math walk.

As school started today, our plan was to work on the internet.  After 10 minutes of problems we bailed on the plans for the day.  I had the kids get out their phones.  We partnered up and went for a walk.

We are learning some geometry definitions.  I learned years ago that the students couldn't use the formulas if they didn't know which was which.  The words we are learning are perimeter, area, volume, surface area, and lateral surface area.  We walked around our school block taking pictures of items that fit into each category.

We had a blast.  The kids were walking, talking, and taking pictures of math.  They found some really good ones.  It was good because the kids get all the different kinds of areas confused.  Here were some of their ideas:

Perimeter = edges of signs, fences, length around tires......

Area = shadows, sidewalks, roofs, our football field.......

Volume = pool, houses, garbage cans, cushion inside our football slides....

Surface Area = colored globes in yards, painted field goal posts, garbage bag around trash......

Lateral Surface Area = plastic around phone lines, a cone in our parking lot, pads around goal posts.....
            
I didn't know what to expect from the kids but they really found good ideas.  We got back to class and they shared their ideas and we talked about good ones and ones they had in the wrong category.  My favorite part of the day was when one kid saw a possum dead on the road and yelled out "AREA". This is something I will regularly start doing, math walks for our vocab words.  So if you are 1:1 and the internet is down or really slow, don't fret, let your tech people do that.  Just have the kids get out their phones and go for a math walk.

Picture = Totallycoolpics.com

Priority # 1.......Fun

As the school year begins I am always looking for good ways to get the kids "into" my class.  I came home the other day and my 3rd grade daughter was ecstatic about the first day of school.  She was so excited about her class and all the things they were going to learn.  Also that day I talked to one of her friends and I asked how was her first day, she paused and said "amazing".  After thinking for a minute I had to ask what they were so excited about in school.  They both answered with smiles "cursive".   I started laughing because I was expecting just a fun activity that they did on the first day and maybe I could steal a good idea.  I can't compete with cursive.


That got me thinking, young kids really do love school.

It really made me think about how excited kids are in the elementary school to go and learn at school. How come as kids get older, school gets boring and they lose that excitement to learn?  I guess it is because elementary teachers are magic.  They play games, do activities, and keep the kids interested as they learn. How come the older kids get, the more we just give them information and they have to give it back?  Is it just the structure or the ease of creating lessons in that fashion?

Do your kids have fun in your class?  Some teachers might say that their job is not to have fun, it is to teach the kids.  I argue they are one in the same.  The more the students enjoy what they are doing the more they will learn.  School can and should be fun, if it isn't you are doing something wrong.  So whether you teach kindergarteners or seniors, make it your top priority to have fun with your students and everything else will fall into place.

Concise Professional Development with Diigo

Education is a busy business.  Ask your teachers to participate in a book study and watch the eyes roll to the sky.  Its not you, its not your book--it a time thing.  Educators feel slammed during the year, but Diigo offers a great solution.  With a Diigo account, you can annotate articles with highlights and sticky notes and share the annotated articles to your colleagues or have them create Diigo accounts and create a group, which makes sharing very simple.

The real beauty of of Diigo is the ability to just grab the most important sentences and paragraphs (using the browser extension), which allows you to share the most important, actionable parts of a given article.  The selected text can be emailed or shared in groups creating a concise, digestible form of professional development for departments, administrators, or the entire staff. Obviously, this tools can be used in the classroom too!

In addition, users can make comments on annotated parts of an article allowing virtual conversations to take place right in the article.  This video (courtesy of Will Richardson) shows user conversations about highlighted areas of an article.  We all need to learn and improve our craft.  Tech tools such as Diigo allow learning and collaboration to fit into our busy schedules by cutting the fat and getting right to the meat.

Remember When we Couldn't Know EVERYTHING?

I'm lucky enough to be a part of the generation that was pre-cell phone and pre-Internet and I like that.   It makes me appreciate the information-rich, communication-saturated world we live in.  I remember a time when four friends were sitting in a car and someone posed a question, 'is it farther to New York or Panama City from Indianapolis'... an no one knew the answer.  AND NO ONE COULD FIND OUT!  We just sat and wondered and continued to... not know.

Those days are gone.  Smartphones, 4G, WiFi, etc. have created an information atmosphere that blankets most of the developed world.  While there has been a lot of ink spilled on this in the last decade, I had a realization the other day.

"There is no excuse for not knowing something."  

It happened when Joey and I were designing the plumbing for some rain barrels.  We don't know anything about plumbing or rain barrels for that matter.  We read research online, watch videos, and looked at pictures--we could probably start a rain barrel consulting firm at this point.

There are some major implications for education in this new world.  Why do we stress memorization in school?  How much school-organized PD training do teachers  really need?  How can schools and libraries stay relevant in a world when all of the collective known knowledge is floating in the ether?

Whether you want to build rain barrels, learn French, or find a better way to teach fractions--all you need is a computer, a connection, and the motivation to explore.  There is no valid excuse for not knowing something that you want/need to know... besides laziness.  It sounds harsh, but its true.  In addition, ubiquitous information also raises the bar both professionally and personally.  We should expect excellence, especially in our professional lives.  The cliche' 'where there is a will, there is a way' has never been more true.  By the way, Panama City is closer to Indianapolis by 48.4 miles.  Thanks Google.

Our Summer Schedule

Last year the Indiana Department of Education provided a grant to 17 schools to host a professional development conference.  This summer has been dubbed the The Summer of eLearning.  As a professional development junkie, I was really excited and proud of my State.  I decided to attend everything within 2 hours drive and take as many teachers from my school as I could. In the end, 25 of our 87 teachers volunteered their time to attend at least one conference, saying loud and clear, 'I want to get better'!  I was pretty proud of my colleagues.

If you want to connect with Education Shift, we will be presenting and/or attending several conferences/workshops this summer:

• Edcamp Indy (Franklin) June 6th (over)
• Knight Time (East Noble) June 12 and 13 (over)
• Southern Wells Workshop (Poneto) June 18 (closed)
• e3 Technology (Warsaw) July 29 and 30 (open)
• eQUIP (Plymouth) July 31 (open)
• The Digital Shift (Lebanon) August 1 and 2 (open)

This was the second year from Edcamp Indy.  Edcamp Fort Wayne was in early May.  Edcamp is an amazing concept that we fully support and hope will continue to gain traction in Indiana.  The Knight-Time conference just wrapped up last week.  It was a great opportunity to learn and connect with other educators.  Richard Byrne and Vicki Davis were the keynote speakers, and the good people at East Noble did a great job organizing their conference.  Southern Wells is a closed Google workshop for their staff.  The remaining conferences promise to be amazing opportunities to learn and connect.  We hope to see you there!  

Kids Can't Learn From Teachers They Don't Like

Rita Pierson grabbed the spotlight and spurred a great conversation with her recent TED Talk titled Every Kid Needs a Champion (below).  In her talk she asserts the title of this blog--'kids can't learn from teachers they don't like'.  A statement like this would likely sound like heresy to rigid traditionalists.

'I'm not here to be their friend'.

'I don't care if they don't like me'.

I remember teachers in my youth that made statements like this.  I even remember having instructors in college who reminded us that 'we are not there to be their friends'.

While all of this is true to some degree, being 'liked' by your students opens opportunities that wouldn't exist without the foundation of a strong relationship.  Your students need to know that you care about them and feel the passion you have for  your class.  If you don't show that you care and have passion, why should they?  And you have to be authentic.  Students can sniff out someone being 'fake' like a shark smelling blood in the water.  They have to truly believe that you care about them and the stories they tell, and wow, do they have some stories to tell! Listening to your students and asking them questions about their lives is an investment that will pay dividends throughout the year.  Building meaningful relationships with your students is the cornerstone of effective classroom management.  Here are some ideas:

• Ask questions--Show a genuine interest in students' lives by asking questions and then checking in throughout the year.  
• Be funny--I know its 'not your job to entertain them', but humor goes a long way and makes a good first impression.
• Individualize your relationships--I used to be able to describe the character of a class period, but not necessarily the individual students before I moved to conversations as my main assessment method.
• Let them teach you--Students love it when you are open enough to allow them to teach you something.  Its an act of sincerely listening and students eat it up because they love to be heard.
• Talk to them after/out of school--While I'm sure its been a long day, going to watch their game or chatting with them after school will earn you  a great deal of credibility. 
• Let them be heard--Most students love to be heard.  Their families, dislikes, funny stories, pets, etc. all provide good material for conversations and the beginning of a productive relationship.  
• Be playful--Once you have established the foundation for a relationship and that your class is a place of learning, its OK to lighten things up a little with some playful behavior and non-offensive sarcasm. There is a fine line here, but a little play will go a long way to show students you care about them as a person, not just as a student.
• Be the captain--Being open and playful requires the need to drop the hammer too.  Students need boundaries, and they actually like it when you fairly keep them within class expectations.  I alway error on the side of fairness when I have to discipline students.  

Many students come to school without the first levels of Maslow's Hierarchy satisfied   How can we expect a student to learn if they feel hungry, unsafe, or unloved?  As effective teachers, it has become an unspoken part of our jobs to find a way to bridge these gaps left by a bad home life.  Many of us would probably agree we are part teacher, part counselor.

Building an organic, individual relationship with our students will have a greater impact on learning than any piece of technology or model of pedagogy.  If we scoff at the idea that 'kids can't learn from teachers they don't like', we are undermining any other measure that we believe is effective and spinning our educational wheels.  

De-Professionalizing Teachers

Today in education you may hear people talk about "professionalizing the profession".   It dawned on me recently that the teacher's role in education has been historically moving toward de-professionalization and recent conventions have rendered us nearly obsolete.  The fact that we are discussing how to "professionalize" a profession like teaching is evidence of the erosion of authenticity and specialized skills of the modern concept of what it means to be a teacher.  Several events in the history of education have been key moments that have slowly de-professionalized the teacher.

Teachers were originally professionalized by their content knowledge.  They held special knowledge that was not easily available to their students.  Later, standardized textbooks and teacher editions provided a content crutch.  Teachers could lean on this one resource rather than learn a rich body of authentic, specialized knowledge that was once a premium.  The component of content knowledge was stripped away from the profession.  More recently, the Internet has 'flattened' the world and put the collective knowledge of humanity at any students fingertips.  Teachers are no longer needed to be the 'knower of everything' and 'answerer of questions'.

The required professionalism slipped further when textbook companies started to offer resource packages and curriculum guides.  Another pillar of professionalism began to crumble.  Flash to today where many large school districts create pacing guides to be used among all the teachers of a given class.  A dozen or more 8th grade math teachers teaching the same basic curriculum at the same pace.  While I can understand the concept of a guaranteed curriculum, this reduces teachers to a simple deliverer of a one-size-fits-all 'education'.  Large online classes are are natural extension of this model.  In this type of course the 'teacher' simply needs a general disposition to facilitate the provided curriculum.

All of these developments or what I would label education de-form, rather than reform, have created a completely different role for the once professionalized job of being a teacher.  It has also created low expectations.  You don't need to know too much.  You don't need to be able to create authentic course work.  You really don't need to plan a curriculum.  You simply need to implement.  All of the art has been reduced to a calculated, one-size-fits-all science.  The salary (which began low) followed the decent of professionalism.  This has made recruitment of unique talent a difficult task, but then again it isn't really necessary.  Often, when it comes to hiring, schools are more concerned with filling a role.

I am not a role.  I am not a deliverer of a pre-formed 'education'.  I believe many teachers would reject this description, but we are the sufferers of a system of de-professionalization that has come to dominate mainstream education.  The progression of our education de-form has created a culture of low expectations and reliance.

Despite the sad story I've told, I truly feel the tide is turning, or being turned.  Leaders such as Sir Ken Robinson and Will Richardson are changing the conversation.  School leaders and teachers are listening and the ranks of educators that reject de-professionalization is growing.  I was never really aware of all of this.  I accepted the de-professionalized role when I first became a teacher.  It was only when I got connected to Twitter and reading other educators' blogs that I realized a battle was being waged to change the culture.  A great deal has happened since then and the change is clear.  Will Richardson calls for authentic, personalized, real world learning.  He is keynoting 4 of the 17 major professional development conferences being promoted by the Indiana Department of Education.  His message is not well received by traditionalists, so his mere presence is an exciting sign of change.  

How can we re-professionalize the profession?  I think we start by philosophically rejecting the conventions above--textbooks, pre-made pacing guides, workbooks, etc.  A massive gulf exists between connected and disconnected educators.  Teachers need to be connected--not just to those in our districts, but to greater world of education.  We have to be aware of the efforts to reform and deform education, so we can recognize the difference.  We need more educators, student, and parents talking about real education reform.  Teachers need to exercise their professionalism and promote positive reform--in their classroom and publicly in social media.  This is a numbers game and we need to grow our ranks.  We have to change the conversation.  What are you going to do about it? 

Unpredictable Environments

One of my favorite times of the year is just around the corner.  Morel mushroom season.  For those who don't know, morel mushrooms are an elusive wild mushroom that can't be domesticated and are therefore a seasonal delicacy for those who are lucky enough to find them during their 3-4 week growth period.  The defining quirk of morels is their random growth patterns.  They tend to grow well near elm, ash, and poplar trees, but sometimes they pop up in the middle of a tree-less patch of grass or even a gravel driveway (I've seen it).  The unpredictability can make morel hunting frustrating, but it is also what makes it rewarding.  As I reflected on the nature of morels, I couldn't help but compare it to learning.

Morel growth is random, surprising, and inconsistant, and so is authentic learning.  I don't mean memorizing facts.  I mean that moment when a student makes a real, lasting connection to what he or she is learning, it clicks... an 'ah-ha' moment.  These moments are the cherished treasures of educators.  This is why we teach.  Unfortunately, these moments randomly occur in the same inconsistent fashion that morels grow.  So how do we create learning environment that increase the likelihood of these types of authentic learning moments?

While there is no good answer to making the inconsistant consistant--you have to play the odds, like hunting morels.  Since morels can grow anywhere, hunting them down can be maddening, so I play the odds by stopping at every elm, ash, and poplar tree I see as I walk through the woods.  Similarly, I try to play the odds by creating a culture of learning in my classroom with some of the following measures:

• Reward good questions, not just good answers
• Make creative, critical thinkers (students) famous by sharing their thinking with the class
• Provide multiple opportunities to show understanding--digital, physical, verbal, written, etc.  
• Be supportive, but encourage independence
• Award an informal "Genius of the Day" for good thinking
• Provide many opportunities for authentic creation rather than inauthentic regurgitation 
• Model and emphasize real learning as part of your daily language
• Develop sincere, individual relationships with students
• Get feedback from your students about your room, lessons, and class overall--let them be heard
• Have high, yet reachable expectations
• Have passion for EVERYTHING you do--if you don't have it find a new job
• Cover everything you do in a thick layer of enthusiasm--its infectious and makes everything better

I am continually surprised at the odd times that students have a moment of authentic learning, as I am surprised when I found a dozen morels growing in an empty grassy lot last year.  Both unpredictable environments can be frustrating, but also highly rewarding when you play the odds.  

If You Build It, THEY Will Come

I enjoy gardening and this year I decided I would really learn about each plant and what their special needs are. I created a chart for what to plant when and any special quirks that apply to each plant. I am currently making a google doc for each item I grow so I can keep track from year to year what works and what doesn't.  I want to be a better gardner and apparently the biggest dork on the planet.  I think I am close.  I tell you that to tell you this:

I was turning over the garden the other day and I was feeling anxious because I knew it was time to really start getting some things planted.  I started thinking about the things I was going to plant.  It dawned on me that plants are just like kids in your classroom.  They all have different needs, for example different plants need different times to start.  Some like it colder and some need it warmer.  Some can't grow in hot weather at all.  Some need a lot of care and attention, some need very little but still need tending to.

Our students aren't any different.  Some need constant attention.  Some just need a push here and there.  Some just like to learn and are easy.  Some are stubborn and you really need to trust you before they buy in and work in your class.

Before one to one I was a factory, every kid did the same lesson as everyone else.  It was like herding cattle, get them all and move them along at the same pace.  Now that we are 1:1 I feel like I can really give each kid more personal one on one time, more than I ever have in the past.  They even get to choose their own learning path by math journals and projects.  We call this layering your class.  It is where the kids are busy working and as the teacher this creates time for you to answer questions, ask questions, and have conversations.  I have heard the words "ohhhhh.... I get it" more this year then all my other years of teaching put together.  I can see it in their faces and hear it in their voices when it clicks. The reason for this is I am free some days to help who needs it when they need it and I don't have to worry about the other kids and getting them to the next problem.

Your classroom needs to be a learning environment where you develop personal relationships with the kids.  Whether you are one to one or not, the key to having your kids grow at their greatest potential is to talk to them one on one.  This relationship builds a trust and and gives the kids a sense you really care about them.  It is easier if you are one to one but it is not a necessity.

I have seen more kid's self confidence grow this year from giving them choice and really building a personal relationship with them.  One of my favorite lines in any movie is from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, he will come".  If you create the correct environment and foster strong relationships your students will grow and bloom to their fullest potential.  If you build it, THEY will come!

ASCD Final Reflection

Its Monday night and time to wrap things up and reflect on the whole ASCD conference. Prior to the conference I shared my inclination that large expensive conferences might be an obsolete form of professional development. I always think about the scene in Goodwill Hunting where he tells the ponytailed Harvard grad-student that he 'wasted $150,000 on an education he could have got for $1.50 in late charges from the public library'. I think that situation has relevancy to the annual ASCD conference. Our district spent close to $10,000 (from a grant) on this undertaking. How many books could we have purchased? How many hours could we afford to pay our entire staff to collaborate? How many in-house training sessions could we have organized to set up each teacher with a high functioning PLN? Do large conferences like this simply subsidize teachers and administrators that are too lazy to self-direct their own professional development?  

The first half of day one was nearly a total loss partly due to the lack of organization, my mistakes, and poor presentation skills. If WiFi is down for more than 30 minutes someone should be fired. After we went without an Internet connection for half of the first day I was jaded. The long line to "register" was another immediate sign of disorganization.  I should give them more credit I guess.  There was 10,400 people attending over 400 sessions and it went pretty smooth.  I pulled an arrogant, idiot move by leaving during the introduction of the first keynote speaker Freeman Hrobowski because I thought the guy introducing him was Hrobowski--who I knew little about until I read about him that night. The introducer called a hashtag a “pound sign” and my nerd hackles shot up. Shame on me. I heard Hrobowski was fantastic. 

What was not fantastic was being read to in the next session. I call for legislation against reading text from a presentation slide, enforced by corporal punishment executed by the suffering audience. The highpoint of the entire conference luckily occurred at the end of the first day, so I ended on a good note.  Will Richardson’s session From Old School to Bold School was the total package for me. He is a fantastic presenter. His message was challenging and provocative--this is the draw of a national conference for me. I want to be blown away. I don’t want an idea to refine what I’m doing, I want an idea that forces me to completely rethink everything I’m doing. I don't want to spend this kind of money for incremental professional adjustments.

The second day was very similar to the first.  There was very little that I found useful with one saving grace--Maya Angelou. It was a great honor to hear her speak. Mother Angelou is a national treasure; a "rainbow in the clouds" for us all. Most of the garbage sessions (sorry, at this point my professional filter is getting thin) were about Common Core--they were sooooo boring. Mind numbing may be a better description. Common Core is all over the place these days.  ASCD surely wanted to delivery sessions on hot ticket items, but engagement has to be considered.  This isn't the tax code, its education for crying out loud.

Today (day three) I got a late start, possibly due to my overall lack of enthusiasm. I missed an early shuttle and arrived late to the session, which was full. I wanted to wait around and hear Van Jones talk about a green economy and educational opportunities, but we had to meet back at the hotel by 11:00 to check out, so the day was a total loss. 

 
Despite my muckraking negativity I did enjoy the conference overall, and I deeply appreciate being included in the group from my school that was fortunate enough to attend. As I reflect I realize that the real value in this conference were the great speakers/presenters, not the content.  I think a good deal of my sour feelings stem from the fact that I was not a good attendee of ASCD.  I had overly high expectations. I chose sessions poorly and more importantly I’m a self-directed learner with a huge appetite. It sounds arrogant, but I’ve heard many of these ideas before. I’m sure many of the 10,400 attendees experienced amazing growth, but the best idea I heard all weekend came over lunch with my principal, and was completely unrelated to any session (a whole other post).  I probably learned more on Twitter and Google Reader this weekend than I did from my sessions.  Did I just waste $1,000 on an education I could have got for free at home?  In the spirit of Will Richardson's book Why School?, I think I can summarize my feelings with "Why Conference"?

ASCD Reflection Sunday

I’m not sure how to describe today. My first session was about Inquiry-based learning design. Sounds good. Not so much. The room was probably ¾ full when it began. When I left, about 50 minutes in, about half the people remained. There was a pretty steady flow of people exiting the room, I felt bad for the presenter. Maybe her best stuff was yet to come, but I was getting nothing besides a very general description of inquiry learning. Are my expectations too high? Am I picking poor sessions? Am I just a snob?

Maya Angelou is amazing. Plain and simple. She didn’t give a lecture, she told a story and today I really understand the stark difference between the two. She is truly an orator, which I think is a dying art. She is an inspiring speaker and definitely one of the high points of ASCD.  It was a nice gift for St. Patrick's Day. 

Disappointment struck after lunch when I couldn’t get in Common-Core related Performance Assessments. I love performance assessments, but the McCormick staff member stopped me in my tracks and wouldn’t let me enter, lest I break the fire code. I slipped into Using Common Core to Enable 21st Century Learning. BORING. I sincerely apologize. Really. I don’t know if a full belly and late night last night had something to do with it, but this session nearly put me to sleep. There was one really great slide with about 10 good ideas on it, but many of the slides were very wordy rubrics or screenshots of documents with fonts too small to read. The last speaker of the trio had a novel idea: provide the documents to the audience so we can actually read them and have a legitimate takeaway besides the awkward sounds of yawning and the door closing as people walk out. The final speaker of this session focused on problem solving and his handout was actually very useful, but 10 minutes into his speaking he lost my attention.

The last session of the day that I wanted to attend was full and my backup was cancelled so I called it a day. I’m still disappointed in the organization of the conference. They are cancelling sessions without updating the app they provided, or I can’t figure out how to access it. Hopefully Monday will provide some redemption. I also want to apologize for my lack of careful editing as I am trying to put this out as fast as possible.

ASCD Conference Reflection One

Well I’m on my way to my first major national education conference--the ASCD Annual Conference. I hoped my first national conference would be ISTE, but my school was lucky enough to procure a grant to attend ASCD, so I’ll take what I can get. After reviewing and comparing ASCD to other major education-related organizations, it seems like ASCD has a more traditional focus. The conference boasts over 400 sessions, which was a bit overwhelming at first. Maya Angelou and Sandra Day O’Conner are two of the major speakers, which I think will be exciting.   I’m probably most excited to hear Will Richardson’s session, From Old School to Bold School.   I’m also excited to see a few members of my PLN.  Mark Barnes and Jason Markey each have a session that I plan on attending.

 

At times in my professional career I've felt that these large conferences were similar to an Ivy League education.  For those can afford it, they are great, but the same learning outcomes can be achieved through commitment and a quality PLN using Twitter and reading blogs.  Our school will likely spend $10,000 sending a dozen teachers to this conference, and without the grant it would be out of the question. This does not seem like a sustainable form of professional development (hence the birth of Education Shift!).  Obviously there are smaller state-level conferences such as ICE in Indiana, but they still come with a hefty price tag.  The ASCD conference costs $425 for non-members compared to ICE which is usually over $300.  A great alternative is the Edcamp movement that sprang up a few years ago.  I hav attended Edcamp Indy and Edcamp Chicago, and I plan on attending Edcamp Fort Wayne this May.  My hopes are high for ASCD and I plan on blogging about my experience each day after the conference.