Professional Development Archives - Page 2 of 2

Gut Feelings Versus Data

I was struck by the feedback that one participant gave Pooja Patel and I on our workshop last week:

Please do another workshop on that is on data. A lot of teachers around me reacted negatively when you talk about data. They said they “just know” what their students need and don’t need the data. I think a lot of teachers don’t understand why it is important.

I would love to do another workshop about data–both qualitative and quantitative–and how we really use it in the classroom. Not because I’m into” big data”, and not because I think we need to quantify everything a student does. In fact, I generally find qualitative data to be a much more powerful tool–Matt Renwick did a great post on that here. I want to do a workshop because data-driven instruction is a really powerful method that we as teachers have in our teaching toolbox, and I get annoyed that this has become synonymous with quantifying everything (although–full disclosure: I work at an international school, so many of the the testing and quantitative data pressures faced by my public school colleagues aren’t things that I have to deal with). Formative assessment, on-going diagnostic assessment, little tiny observations we make during the day and put together to create a big picture of a student’s progress–they all help teachers to make informed decisions about instruction. Also I’ve heard from a lot of teachers, both at school, in my graduate course, and at the workshop that they rely on “gut feelings” to decide on a groupings, next steps, and interventions. But are our guts the best way to make decisions like these?

Let’s deconstruct this idea of a “gut feeling”. Sometimes when I’m first articulating ideas about what a student needs or how she should be grouped in the classroom, I’ve made all sorts of informal observations here and there, I’ve looked at some work samples, but I haven’t really fully analyzed anything yet. I might have a “gut feeling” about what’s going on with that student–probably because I’m an experienced teacher and diagnostician and I’m already starting to make sense of the qualitative data that I’ve gathered, but I can’t really put it into a coherent statement with specific examples or data to support my “feeling”. And, in my experience, this is what a lot of experienced teachers mean when they say that they “just know” or that their “gut tells” them. But here’s the thing about my gut feeling–it’s not a fully articulated plan or idea. It’s not fleshed out, and, generally, as I begin to explore that feeling it starts to become more nuanced, and sometimes it ends up being the complete opposite of what my feeling was initially. And sometimes I was completely on target. Which is awesome. But it’s certainly not all the time. I’m probably right just as much as I’m wrong.

That said, sometimes my feeling is much less about the bits and pieces of qualitative data that I’m beginning to make sense of, and more about my preconceived notions about a student. Sometimes it’s the Halo Effect and sometimes it’s something else. It’s not really right, and it’s not really good practice, but it happens. It’s happened to me and sometimes it still happens (and, no, I’m not proud of it, just trying to be honest), and it’s probably happened to you too. We’re human. And that’s OK. But we do need to acknowledge that sometimes these other things that aren’t data about student performance to influence these feelings, and that those other things might not bring us to what’s best for a student. That is why we can’t just stop at a gut feeling. We need to really look at all of the sources of that feeling and turn it into a strong idea that’s supported with evidence.

So how do we coach teachers into moving from “feeling” to “thinking”? I’m really not sure. I think some of it is becoming more educated–especially at the middle level–about qualitative data (more on that next week). What is it? How do we analyze it? And remembering that teaching is a craft and a skill. As teachers, we don’t need to immediately know what’s going on with kids from some sort of magical intuition. If it comes down to our gut feelings versus data, we need to look at both. Sometimes that feeling means something else needs to be explored, but it shouldn’t be the only way we make decisions.

Self-Regulation Strategies in the Classroom

Self-regulation strategies: Positive self-talk — Positive self-talk, and important part of self-regulation. Source

One of my goals for this summer that I wrote about in my first post was to look for ways to expand my use of self-regulation strategies in my classroom next year. This summer I’ve been doing a bit of reading and exploring about that topic and thinking about how to include more of it in my class. And, as I discussed in last week’s post, I think that confusion and struggle with material can be productive, but only if we have really taught our students how to work through that confusion. Teaching self-regulation strategies is a good way to do this.

What is Self-Regulation?

Self-regulation is our ability to manage ourselves: our bodies, our emotions, our focus and our attention. When reading about self-regulation, the first thing that usually pops into my head is “This sounds like executive functioning”, and they are related. In order to self-regulate, we need to rely on and coordinate a number of executive functioning skills. Self-regulation is how we actively control our behaviors and our emotions. I wanted to get a better idea of what teaching self-regulation entails outside of reading and writing, so I read the book Self-Regulated Learning for Academic Success by Carrie Germeroth and Crystal Day-Hess, which I picked up at ASCD in March. It’s a good, quick read (only 45 pages) that gives a great overview of self-regulated learning and provides usable strategies.

SRSD for Reading and Writing

When I talk about self-regulation, I’m generally talking about Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD). I have been using these strategies for writing since graduate school. I’m a big believer in the power of SRSD. I’ve seen how well they work with students of all ability levels. It’s also a strategy that’s been researched quite well. I even include it as a part of my graduate course for reading teachers. I don’t have the time or the space here to give SRSD it’s due in explaining it, but check out Think SRSD for a full explanation and free resources or the book Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students. There are two components of the program that I really want to discuss: goal setting and positive self talk, because these are the aspects of SRSD that I want to try to pull into other parts of my teaching practice.

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a key component for SRSD and something that Germeroth and Day-Hess focus on as an important skill to teach to middle and high school students. When student are trying something new or working on something that is difficult for them, goal setting helps to break tasks down into manageable chunks and helps them focus their attention on one area in need of improvement (it also helps the rest of us in every day life, from work related tasks, to things we do for pleasure). When we set goals and reflect on our progress toward them, we are able to create action plans to help us achieve these goals. If we use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), we can even graph our progress toward a goal.

With my M1 (grade 5) group last year I had students with a number of different writing needs. I could rarely teach whole group lessons. So I had them self-assess their writing (with frequent modeling and scaffolding from me), and then set one goal for themselves helped me to teach them appropriate strategies and develop interventions to help them reach their goals. When I created graphic organizers for them based on our SRSD mnemonics, I always included a line for a goal, I always asked them to rewrite it at the top of their rough draft, and there was always a line for their goal on the revising and editing checklists that we used, so the goal was always in mind. They tracked their progress both through graphing progress–we decided together what a strong example of what they were trying to do would look like, an “almost there”, and a “keep trying” so they could rate their own performance–and through an online writing portfolio that we created using Google Sites, where they reflected on their progress and then created new goals. This worked really well, and I’d like to do this again if I have a group that needs writing intervention. What was key, though, was explicitly teaching them the learning skills that they needed, or helping to teach the missing skills they needed in order to achieve these goals. Making the process of achieving the goal transparent is what made the learning relevant and what helped teach them why it was important to set goals.

I’d like to spend more time with goal setting this year and use it for areas other than writing. I think it will help students to understand the purpose of the interventions we do and take more ownership of their learning. While we set goals last year, I think aside from that M1 group, I didn’t do a good enough job of keeping the goals at the forefront of what we were doing–we discussed them at the beginning of the school year, and maybe set new ones at the midpoint, but we didn’t really go back and revisit as often as we should. I’d like to use more goal setting sheets like these. And perhaps make a classroom display about goal setting where we could share our goals. I think I’d like to keep progress personal though. Otherwise it feels too much like a data wall to me. I also want to publicly acknowledge when students have made progress. It’s a tricky spot and I’m still working through it.

Positive Self-Talk

Part of the goal of any special education program should be teaching for independence and generalization of strategies. I’ve noticed in the past year that I’ve been at my school that most of the students I teach have a lot of trouble with positive self-talk and without positive self-talk, it’s hard to get through those times where we’re stuck working toward our goal or when something is just difficult or confusing. They do well when taking tests in my room when I can remind them that they have the strategies to tackle a tough math question, but they have difficulty with that internal monologue that successful problem solvers have–positive self-talk. That positive self-talk is what helps to get students through to their goal–what they need to say to themselves to remind themselves to use the strategies they’re learning. I really liked the idea below that was tweeted by someone participating in an SRSD workshop with Think SRSD in Tennessee.

I’m wondering if this is a better way to go–rather than publicly tracking progress toward the goal, maybe we can surround the posted goal with speech bubbles filled with the positive self-talk the student needs to engage in to help achieve the goal. I like that it helps to focus the students on the process of achieving a goal. The outcome is important, but what I’m really trying to teach them is how to set a goal, create a plan to achieve it, apply strategies, and then persevere to achieve the goal. I could even apply technology…maybe use Aurasma to connect their goal to video or audio clips of the student or someone that they consider a cheerleader or supporter in their life reminding them of their positive self-statements. That way the positive self-statements that connect with the goal aren’t static things on my wall, but living things they can take with them.

Doing more to really teach and model how to engage in positive self-talk to get through tricky spots in reading and writing, through difficult math problems, or while test taking is going to be one of my teaching goals for next year. It’s so important and I have such a hard time doing it. Modeling it often feels fake to me, and I’m not sure why. I use positive self-talk all the time. When I’m at work, at the gym, knitting, trying to execute the perfect lattice-top for a pie. I think the times I was most successful in doing this last year was when before I modeled using positive self-talk in academic settings, I talked about how I use it outside of school. We talked about planks. (Somehow, I always come back to Pilates, don’t I?)

Planks are hard, but the only time they’re impossible is if you spend the entire time telling yourself that you can’t do it. I talked about doing plank, why it was hard, and how it became easier when I stopped focusing on what I couldn’t do, and focused on telling myself that I could do it, and if I fell down, I told myself it was OK and that I could try again. Then we all did it. For most of my students, the idea that we need to be kind to ourselves when we’re doing something difficult and that positivity well help us to persevere really stuck. There are others that I still need to figure out how to reach. Even with the explicit connection to how we all use positive self-talk outside of school–“Do you always do every trick in skateboarding perfectly the first time? What do you do when you fall?”–they’re still not making the connection. These are the kids I’m still working on figuring out how to reach.

What’s Next?

I spent the some time this summer looking at other ways to include self-regulation strategies, particularly positive self-talk and goal setting, in other areas of my instruction. I just finished reading an article by Bell & Pape published in Middle School Journal (2013) that’s all about using self-regulation strategies in the math classroom. I’d really like to start using it more with the students I’m working with in math, and I’m hoping to convince some of the math teachers to integrate it into their classrooms too. We’re using Bridges in M1 math this year, and they actually have posters with problem solving questions to ask when you’re stuck. I love that idea, and would like to put those in my room too. I think that both goal setting and positive self-talk will be really beneficial for the students that I work with in math. Most of them have experienced so much failure and have such a negative view of themselves as math students, that small successes and little bursts of positivity can have a huge effect.

The real struggle, however, is getting other teachers on board. Teaching kids these strategies in the bubble of my intervention room is fine, but if I want them to apply the strategies elsewhere with any sort of consistency, I need other teachers to see the value of the work I’m doing with these kids. To encourage them to use their positive self-statements, to understand the goals these kids are working toward and really celebrate their progress. But how to do that? It can be overwhelming for a classroom teacher with little experience dealing with students with disabilities to keep all of this in mind, and I want to be a supporter rather than piling one more thing on their plates. We all want the best for our students and I need to figure out a way to make it easy for teachers to incorporate these ideas and support the students I work with.

How do you incorporate goal setting and positive self-talk into your classrooms? Any advice for coaching/consulting in these tough situations?

Mapping Our Common Ground

Everybody Learns--Common Ground Collaborative — Image from The CGC website

Last week I was privileged to be able to spend three days with a group of passionate, dedicated, international school educators in Miami to talk about a new curriculum initiative, the Common Ground Collaborative. As you saw last week, there was homework and reflection that happened beforehand, and now I’m trying to wrap my head around all of the things that I learned and to figure out what all of my take-aways are.

The Common Ground Collaborative is the closest thing to a grass-roots curriculum movement that I’ve ever had experience with. It’s a group of educators who saw a need for changing the way teaching and learning happens, and set to work to make that change. I was really struck by how the standards and curriculum framework value all learners and values learners as whole people. Students engage in critical thinking, problem solving (or tackling dilemmas, as Kevin asked us to think of it), and delve deeply into concepts, while simultaneously learning how to learn, and connecting all of this to character development and common ideas and themes that are relevant to all people, called Human Commonalities.

Over the course of three days, we listened to Kevin Bartlett and Simon Gillespie explain the curriculum, engaged in activities and discussions with other educators, both about the theory behind the CGC curriculum, how we can convince our colleagues to get on board, and how, exactly, one makes change happen in a school. We wrote, we talked, we tweeted (although, apparently our hashtag is shared by a Christian youth rally…so you may have to scan through a bit). It was invigorating, intellectually stimulating, and exhausting. I’m so glad to have gone.

As I’ve been thinking through all of this I keep coming back to a couple of key ideas: reframing how we teach, the difference between an authoritative curriculum and an authoritarian curriculum, and, just generally, that change is hard.

Reframing Teaching and Learning

The Triple Helix--Common Ground Collaborative — The Triple Helix. Image Source.

One of the biggest things we discussed was a shift in teaching and learning. The CGC curriculum is a model that says all students can and will learn. This is something I am very passionate about. This is accomplished through defining learning before we design our curriculum. Schools need to have a common understanding of what learning means before we can decide what to teach and how to teach it. CGC defines learning with eight principles (see my responses to those here) and those principles can be distilled into CGC’s tagline: Everyone Learns. I find these principles to be the perfect map for an inclusive school that embraces differentiation and personalization of learning to make school relevant to students.

Instruction is centered on “The 3 Cs” or the “Triple Helix”: conceptual learning, competency learning, and character learning. By defining these three types of learning, and then defining how they are interconnected and spiraled throughout schooling, CGC gives a map not just for defining and designing learning, but for delivering it as well. I want to talk mostly about conceptual and competency learning, but if you want to read more about character learning, see Jen Munnerlyn’s blog post for TIE.

Right now, many schools focus on content (learning facts) rather than focusing on big ideas, or concepts, that cross over multiple disciplines and choosing particular examples to illustrate these concepts. Are the American or French revolutions the only examples of the concept of “revolution” or “change” that we have? Do they need to be taught for children to understand that concept? Probably not. We can choose any number of revolutions depending on our purposes and where we are. Then, once students have built their understanding of that concept, they’re prepared to understand any number of revolutions and make connections between the concept and new event or piece of knowledge. Focusing our learning on concepts rather than isolated pieces of knowledge, and connecting these concepts to the 8 Human Commonalities defined by the CGC, makes the curriculum relevant to students’ lives.

I get really excited about conceptual learning, but I get even more excited about teaching students how to learn and teaching them skills in an authentic, relevant context. As a Learning Specialist, I see one of the biggest strengths of the CGC curriculum as being the competency learning is embedded in the curriculum. In my experience, most kids need to be taught basic learning skills: research, note taking, genre writing, reading for information, but the kids that end up in my program more so than others. Sure, we learn these things best when we’re able to apply them to an authentic, meaningful task or project, but that doesn’t mean that students will absorb it just by doing it. They need purposeful, sequential instruction that is embedded in these larger tasks. The only way this can happen is if we are teaching a concept (understanding) driven curriculum rather than a content (knowledge) driven curriculum. If we as teachers are focused on covering a curriculum jam-packed with facts, we don’t have time to teach these competencies, these learning skills. This is why all of the stands of the triple helix are essential. They work together to create the space where everybody learns.

Authoritative vs. Authoritarian Curriculum

We often use the words authoritative and authoritarian to talk about classroom management, but as my time with the Common Ground Collaborative in Miami went on, these words kept coming to mind as we discussed the curriculum. I hear from a lot of friends who work in public schools that the curriculum that comes from their school or district often feels prescriptive. “Teacher proof”. They feel like they don’t have the opportunity to do what they do best–deliver instruction to a group of kids, and modify it to meet the needs of that group. Or that there is a particular curriculum put in place and, as Kevin joked, it becomes more like a religion than a curriculum. Because of this, I often hear that curriculum would be better if it were put back in the hands of teachers. That’s why when the idea was presented that teachers shouldn’t be writing curriculum, I was a little taken aback.

There was a great deal of discussion about the fact that Gordon Eldridge (the other mind behind the curriculum) and Kevin outsourced the designing of content standards to experts in the field. The biology conceptual standards, for example, were designed by experts at Sheffield University. My knee-jerk reaction when this idea was that sure, biologists have the best understanding of the concepts, but do they know what’s developmentally appropriate? I’m sure we’ve all experienced curricula that seem to have floated down from some ivory tower without any connection to kids. But when Kevin talked about the back and forth that happened between the experts in content and concepts and a group of teachers, I was impressed. Authorities on a subject matter and authorities on student learning and the delivery of content having a conversation and engaging in a revision process together. Suddenly I realized I was seeing the smart way of creating a curriculum. And even more importantly, a great way of creating a curriculum that teachers and schools can trust, as well as a curriculum that implies a trust of teachers and their expertise.

Rather than being a disconnected, top-down, “do this or else”, “take our test to prove you learned/taught” authoritarian curriculum, CGC has developed a curriculum that has the authoritative weight of experts in content and concepts, and has left the decision about how to deliver the curriculum to those who do it best. Teachers. In particular teachers with a shared understanding of what learning means. Schools and teachers can choose to tweak modules to make them relevant to their learners, connecting different pieces of knowledge to the concepts in the curriculum. It’s a curriculum that’s all about doing what’s best for our students.

Change Is Hard

I think a lot of time was also spent talking about how to get everyone on board. I think almost everyone in the room was in. But how do we get everyone else in? I think that many of us were coming from schools where a lot of the faculty sounds like that Grumpy Cat picture above. Change is scary. It’s sometimes easier to complain about the way things are instead of taking the next steps.

What we need to remember is that change is a slow process. It happens in baby steps. In fits and starts. We start with the tiny changes that will lead to improvements in student learning and student engagement. All of those tiny changes, along with buy-in and accountability from the faculty, will add up to something great.

Maybe I’m too much of an idealist right now– you know, that post-conference or workshop high when everything about education has a rosy glow. But I think we can do it. It will take work to bring the CGC curriculum to life in our school and to get everyone on board with the philosophy. It won’t be easy, but what comes out of it will be great for our students. And that’s what we’re all here for, right?

Being a Reflective Educator: Doing My PD Homework

By Antonio Litterio [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By the time I post this, I’ll be heading to Miami for the CGC Mapping Our Common Ground conference/workshop. As I’m writing this, I’m working on my PD homework. It’s not that I’m not enjoying it–I am. It’s useful, it’s interesting, I can see how it applies to what we’ll be doing at the conference. But it’s hard to put down The False Prince. Seriously.

There were some articles to read, but there was also a “So What?” activity to complete. A “So What?” activity is a reflection activity that asks participants to think about particular ideas or concepts (What) connect to prior learning and their own experiences (So What?–CGC actually did this part for us, explaining a common definition of each “What”), and then figure out what they will do with these concepts (What Next?). In this case, we were given a list of CGC’s guiding principles with explanations and then we had to reflect on what this meant for ourselves and our school. How can we get there? What do we need to do? What’s the action plan?

I work hard at being a reflective educator, but sometimes it is hard to put in the time during the school year. I reflect on the basics–how my lessons went and how students responded; my interactions with teachers in coaching situations or meeting about students I teach, but the big questions take a the downtime provided by summer to really delve into. I’ve learned a lot by doing this activity and wanted to share some of my reflections with you, since I’m working on not just being a reflective educator, but a connected educator too.

The portions below in regular type are from the CGC “So What” activity. The portion in italics is my reflections on how it relates to my own practice. It was difficult, because this is a conference focused on curriculum planning and development, following a specific learning ecosystem developed by CGC. Since most of my work involves intervention or work with teachers, it was a challenge to think about how

We need to define our learning terms.

“Before we can teach for learning, we need common understandings, simply and practically expressed, about what actually happens when we learn. We believe learning includes conceptual understanding, mastery of competencies and development of character traits and have defined each of these components. We support schools in designing learning based on these definitions.”

My teaching focuses on scaffolding understandings and reteaching to help students master competencies. Helping the school to articulate these competencies and then create plans to help students meet them will be extremely important.

People can learn how to learn.

The most important advantage we can give students is to support them to become proficient, self-directed learners. Through our Learning Standards, we support the explicit teaching of the competencies that underpin learning, supporting students in becoming the owners and directors of their own learning.

My job is primarily teaching students how to learn, but I want to work to be more transparent about the process, both with students and with my colleagues. What are the gaps that exist and need to be filled in order to teach students to be learners? How do I assess to find the gaps and then create an intervention plan? How to I instill a love of learning while teaching students to learn? I think the last one becomes the most difficult, because often I am asking my students to work on what is hardest for them, and perhaps connecting that to an assignment that doesn’t meet their particular learning needs. However, I really don’t want to use how others are constructing their curriculum for not making changes that need to be made. I’m just not quite sure what to change yet or how to do it.

Learning happens best in rich, relevant contexts.

Learning is more enduring in authentic contexts in which students can engage with issues, dilemmas and perspectives in settings that are meaningful to them. We support embedding the learning of concepts, competencies and character traits in relevant contexts in order to close the gap between the world of curriculum and the world our students actually inhabit.

This is something I struggle with…I do intervention/remediation work. It is largely skills based. The concepts are things like “how do patterns help us make sense of our world”, and lessons largely connect back to what’s happening in the classroom. It makes it difficult to do this, but I know I want to do more. I have been toying with the idea of creating a bunch of broad Learning Lab Essential Questions (like the patterns question above) to help students make connections between what they do in my class and what happens in their other classes. I’m not sure, however, how well this accomplishes making the context “rich and relevant”.

In learning, less really is more.

Content coverage does not equal learning. To learn conceptually, students need to inquire, think and theorize. They need the space to make meaningful connections between ideas. That means selecting sufficient content to support deep, sustained engagement with our three kinds of learning….and no more than that.

How can I create this space in an intervention classroom? Often it means taking a step back from my natural inclination to explain, and the worry that if, in my small group setting, if I’m not up and talking and constantly working with students rather than letting them work somehow I am not doing my job (or others won’t think I’m doing my job–and yes, this has happened and does happen) I think this also means that I need to try to shift teachers’ perspectives of what I do—if a student works on a project with me, I’ll provide guidance, additional scaffolding, graphic organizers, etc, but this doesn’t mean the work will be perfect, and it doesn’t mean I’m constantly hovering over her to make sure she’s getting work done. If I’m doing that it’s my work and not her work.

Learning is personal.

Individuals have different starting points, different interests and will follow different learning pathways. We support personalizing learning to the maximum extent possible, including the provision of appropriate levels of challenge and choice, and the provision of timely, constructive, personalized feedback, along with opportunities to act on that feedback.

My instruction is largely personalized, but how can I make it more so? I think integrating the International Learning Plan (ILP) into the program this year is going to help a lot with that. Last year was my first year, and yes, I assessed and set goals, but without a formal system to track those goals and the progress, I did tend to gravitate toward activities I could do with the whole group, rather than individualizing. I also would like to start harnessing the power of our 1:1 laptop environment to do this as well. I started a bit last year, but would like to do more.

Everyone has a right to learn.

All people, no matter their learning differences or economic circumstances, should have optimal opportunities to learn. We support inclusive international education and concerted, collaborative efforts among our schools to contribute to the improvement of learning and teaching in locations where there is an expressed need.

Reading this I pretty much did a happy dance and jumped up and down. This is what I want to happen in our school–in all schools. Not that I’m always pro full-inclusion (e.g. is there more harm than good done if one does intensive phonics work with a 5th grader in the class when the rest are well past that or is it better to pull the student out?); however, I think a more inclusive environment puts the responsibility for the success of all students on all teachers.

I need to make more of an effort to work with teachers on how to reach all of the students at our school. This also means beginning to rethink how the school works with students who are having learning differences as well, and look at what is most appropriate for each student. Creating more opportunities for coaching teachers on how to differentiate and discussing students with specific teams (because we’ll have teams next year!) are really important. I’m still working on how to implement this, but I’m excited to try.

Learning is scalable.

The principles that apply to student learning apply also to adult learning and organizational learning. We support schools in applying this belief, bringing consistency and common meaning to processes such as professional learning and organizational change management.

This is a big one for me next year. I get to somewhat be a part of the PD process, since our focus next year is differentiated instruction. I really believe that schools need to make a bigger effort to differentiate their PD. I’ve been working on creating a self-assessment where teachers can rate their level of comfort with specific aspects of differentiation and use that to help guide them toward appropriate PLCs, in-house workshops, and PD experiences outside of school.

Learning is a social activity

While invaluable learning comes from personal reflection and moments of personal insight, we remain a social species. We support schools in creating cultures of sense-making through substantive conversation, encouraging planned, focused team learning and providing opportunities for students to lead learning conversations with their peers.

I really want to create more opportunities for students in my intervention classes to work together. I’ve done things like peer teaching, having a student who grasps a concept well teach another, and I often do group discussions about why particular strategies are effective, but how can I go beyond this? I tried something new this past year when I was teaching persuasive writing and added debate, having the students closely read an article together and then construct an argument as a group on an assigned POV, then the groups tried to persuade the other. Afterward the students planned and wrote their persuasive paragraphs for the side that they thought was the most convincing. I want to spend some time thinking about where I can integrate more of this. Writing is a natural point in intervention work to make this happen, but where else can I create space for learning that is social?

I’m really excited for a few days of collaboration, learning, and looking for deeper answers to these questions, and I’m can’t wait to share all of the new ideas and learnings that I’m sure will come from the conference.

How do you work at being a reflective educator?

Any answers to the questions above? Advice for me as I try to make my ideas into reality?

Why My Pilates Instructor Should Run Our Differentiation PD

Pilates as Differentiation PD? — It’s really hard to find images of Pilates classes that aren’t all uber-fit white ladies. This is the best I could do, doesn’t entirely match the spirit of my post, but you take what you can get sometimes…Source

I enjoy all sorts of exercise: biking (outdoors and spin classes), running, strength training, yoga, hiking, dancing…but Pilates always scared the crap out of me. More than biking in Manhattan. During rush hour. Why, you ask? One word: Teaser.

That’s not entirely true, but that is one exercise that I found quite intimidating. Pilates just seemed like something that my body would not be able to do. I didn’t think I was strong enough. I have a really hard time with spatial relationships and visualization, so when someone describes what I’m supposed to do in words, I have a really hard time figuring out (1) what I’m supposed to do, and (2) how to get my body to do it. Also, whenever you see people doing Pilates they complete things so effortlessly that it’s intimidating. They just float. It’s like some sort of magical power. Pilates seemed nearly impossible to me. Plus, I really don’t like doing things I’m not already good at (yes, I know, I’m working on it). I was never doing it. No way.

Then, about a year and a half ago, I hurt my ankle. I don’t know how I hurt my ankle. The best I can figure it’s one of those injuries that mostly happens to New Yorkers. You’re wearing heals on the subway, heading home from work. The car stops suddenly. Physics happens. The subway and your firmly planted foot stop moving, but the rest of your body keeps going for a bit, somehow straining a ligament or a tendon. And then you are in pain. Forever. Because there’s no way to avoid walking or stairs when you have no car and live in a 5th floor walk-up in Brooklyn.

My doctor told me to rest it, to ice it, to wrap it.

I begged for a boot at least, so people would offer me a seat on the subway.

My doctor told me to rest it, to ice it, to wrap it, and to wear my hiking boots or invest in a pair of Dansco clogs.

I asked when I would be able to exercise again.

My doctor told me I could do core work on the floor, or seated strength training. And once I had a full week where I could comfortably put weight on my foo use an exercise bike, do yoga, or do Pilates. Aquacise was also an option.

I thought Pilates? Hell. No.

Once I could put weight on my foot, however, I really wanted to get out and exercise, so I tried it. And it was hard.

But the instructor, she was amazing. She was helpful, encouraging, and it occurred to me later, the best differentiator I’ve ever met. She does all of the things that I hope to get teachers I coach to do and that I strive to do better myself. This is why–no offense to Bill and Ochan Powell–I think my Sunday afternoon Pilates instructor, Nathalie, should lead our next differentiation PD. Or maybe she should just come and do a class with the faculty and really model good differentiation.

This is either the best or the worst idea I’ve ever had, but since it will likely just float around as an idea in cyberspace and never come to fruition, we can leave that part ambiguous. I am, however, going to enumerate her qualifications below.

She always does a preassessment and engages in formative assessment throughout the lesson

Every week Nathalie walks into the class and asks a few quick questions to get a sense of who her students are and what they need, something we as classroom teachers should be doing as well. Maybe not in the exact same way

Is anyone new to Pilates? (What’s your experience, skill, or content knowledge with what I’m about to teach you?)
Does anyone have any injuries? Had abdominal surgery? Anyone pregnant? (How will I need to modify things for you based on your particular needs?)
Everyone’s feeling OK? You guys look tired/happy/content. (Anything else going on that’s going to make today difficult for you?)

During the lesson, she watches us perform movements and stops to explain how and why things work, how to do the movement correctly, or how to modify the movement as necessary.

Preassessments and other forms of formative assessment are so important for differentiation. It’s how we know how to differentiate. Sure, we all have things in our toolbox that we can pull out to differentiate reactively during class, but preassessments help us to differentiate proactively. During the lesson, ongoing formative assessment in the form of observations can help us to provide additional differentiation.

She gives instruction in a variety of ways

Each time she asks us to do a movement or a series, Nathalie gives the instructions orally, sometimes explaining in two different ways. She also models the movements in two different ways. Once modeling what it looks like laying on the ground, and then frequently a second time offering an “aerial view” while standing.

As classroom teachers we should always be presenting information in a variety of ways in order to reach all of our students. Making this a habit is one simple way to support everyone in the class.

She offers adaptations and modifications of activities

For nearly every movement, Nathalie offers several ways of completing the movement. The movements are different based on your skill level, your body type, any injuries you may have.

However (and even more important, I would say)…

She never refers to a modification as easier or harder and never privileges one way of doing things over another

This is the thing that finally convinced me that Nathalie was one of the best differentiators I had ever met was this: every time she demonstrates a modification she lets us all know one important thing: the modification makes the exercise work for your body. She tells us several things

Modification doesn’t make it easier: It makes it so your body can complete the exercise and benefit from it. Which, yes, does feel easier to you that the original exercise, but makes if feel about the same to you as the “typical” person doing the unmodified move.
Modification doesn’t make it less work.
Modifications are explained completely and we all know why we should choose them. I don’t do my hundreds with my legs straight in the air because I’m trying to make it easier or I’m lazy, I do it that way because I have a tendency to to have a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders, whereas the guy next to me always does modified hundreds with his knees bent because he’s a runner and has really tight hamstrings. And someone else is doing modified hundreds because she’s had a C-section. No one really needs to know why each of us selects what we did but us. But having the instructor explain the exercises and the work that’s involved in each modification creates a safe space for us to all do what we need.

As teachers sometimes we unintentionally value one form of work over another (I know I’ve been guilty of it–love to analyze, but really struggle with creative assignments, so sometimes I don’t work as hard at creating them. I’m getting better about it now that I’m aware of it) and set a classroom climate where students feel like choosing that isn’t the one that the teacher clearly values or is deemed the “normal” or “right” way to complete the assignment isn’t OK. If we value all ways of completing assignments and make sure that the work is different, not easier or harder, or better or worse, our students will see the work in the same way. Normalizing the fact that all brains are different the same way Nathalie normalizes the fact that all bodies are different creates the type of classroom where students thrive and learn.

She doesn’t let us get away with slacking–she pushes us toward growth and celebrates it

Yes, Nathalie differentiates and offers modifications, scaffolds, if you will, for those of us who may have been at a lower level of readiness when we started the class, but she observes and assesses (see point #1) and then encourages us to try something new. She doesn’t let the scaffold become a crutch, or let us define ourselves by needing a particular scaffold. She’ll tell us to try a different modification or without a modification if she sees that we are doing really well and should challenge ourselves more. Then, whether we succeed or fail, she applauds us for increased strength, for trying something new, or just for smiling through it all.

As classroom teachers we need to know when to push our students to try something new and different, and when it’s OK for them to stick with activities they feel comfortable with. We need to be aware of growing skill levels and help guide students to choices that will make work a bit more challenging for the student, or when to pull back our scaffolds a bit to promote growth. We also need to celebrate growth and trying new things.

In conclusion, Nathalie should run a Pilates class during our differentiation PD

So, if the higher-ups at my school are reading this, I think our August differentiation PD should include a Pilates class from Nathalie where we can all experience differentiation and gain some empathy for our students who might be out of their comfort zone in a traditional classroom setting. If they’re anything like me, school was always a place where I felt pretty comfortable and I was pretty good at it (that’s part of why I elected to go back there full time for my career). For me, Pilates took me outside of my comfort zone, and really highlighted for me what good differentiators like Nathalie do. And even though I always knew differentiation was important and it was something I valued as an educator, this is the first time I was really cognizant of benefitting from it. I’d like other members of our faculty to experience that as well.

And just in case you were wondering, all that differentiation worked. I can totally do Teaser now. I may not float completely effortlessly yet, but I’m going to get there.

Where else in the world outside of K-12 education do you see excellent differentiated instruction?

Summer Sabbatical (Not Just Vacation)

Last Summer at Long Bech, photo by Samantha Mosher — I may get a view like this occasionally, but most days I’ll be hard at work.

As a teacher you always hear from friends, family, and even complete strangers you just happen to be chatting with at a gym or at a barbecue: “Wow. A teacher’s summer vacation. That must be really nice. It must be your favorite part of the job.” I think it’s this misconception about teachers’ summer vacation that lead Justin Tarte to post this, which I adored. It got me thinking, do we as educators need to reframe how we talk to others about summer vacation? We know all the time we spend prepping and learning for, or just plain sitting and thinking or daydreaming about, our next school year. All the time we spend learning both teaching skills and content that we’ll pass on to our students, or having experiences out in the world that we can turn into amazing classroom experiences for our kids. Teachers’ summer vacations aren’t vacations. They’re sabbaticals, where we learn and grow as professionals and prepare for the next school year. I think the point Justin Tarte was making in his post is that sometimes we focus on the other benefits of summer vacation, rather than the other aspects and it could give others the wrong impression.

This teacher's summer vacation means fresh baked scones for breakfast — ah, the luxury of baking scones for breakfast

And, you know what, I’m not ashamed to admit that teachers’ summer vacations are nice. I can wake up when my body tells me it’s time, instead of when my alarm starts blaring around 5:30 AM. I can exercise more frequently, and have the occasional leisurely breakfast (like the one to the right) or go wait in line for Shakespeare in the Park tickets, and maybe, like Justin Tarte suggested, I guilty of talking about those things and giving others the wrong impression of what teachers do in the summer. I definitely spend a good portion of my summer, like most teachers, working. It may not be the same summer camp and summer school jobs I took early in my career to make ends meet, but I am working nonetheless. It is different work than during the school year, but it’s good work and necessary work.

Most teachers love to learn, and during the summer I get to indulge my inner learner full-time. Don’t get me wrong, during the school year I am constantly learning from my colleagues, from my students, from research I’m doing to improve my own practice, but summer moves at a different pace and my learning can be more self-directed and I have the time to follow all of those ideas down various rabbit holes where I don’t have the time to go during the school year.

I generally set goals to keep myself on track. This summer I’m hoping to take my professional learning–my summer sabbatical–to new places by becoming a more connected educator, both through this blog and through other platforms like Twitter. But in addition to the blogging and tweet-chatting I really hope to:

Read all of the books I bought at ASCD 2014 (and then some)

I have quite an ambitious list. I don’t know if I’ll get through them all, but I’m excited to try. The first set on my list are:

The ASCD Aria Self-Regulated Learning for Academic Success by Catherine Germeroth and Crystal Day-Heiss. I’m a big fan of the SRSD writing approach and want to start including more self-regulation work in my classes across subject areas (and especially in math).
Memory at Work in the Classroom by Francis Bailey and Ken Pransky: Memory is often an area where students who I teach struggle, and I always feel like I don’t have enough strategies for them. I’m hoping this will help me.
Close Reading of Informational Texts by Sunday Cummins: I’ve been reading a lot about the potential close reading has for improving reading comprehension with struggling students and I’m hoping to add more of it to my practice next year.

Learn a lot about curriculum design at the CGC conference

I was really excited when my principal selected me to be one of the school’s representatives at the Common Ground Collaborative‘s conference in Miami in July. This group includes teachers and administrators from international schools who are working to create a more inclusive, understanding-based curriculum. I’m even more excited now that I’ve started doing some of my homework.

Rethink my classroom design

This past school year was my first year at my school. I didn’t love the way I ended up setting up my small intervention classroom/office. I’m not sure if it’s conducive to the type of work I want to do with students (and I certainly am not set up to store all of this).

Make the two day summer workshop happen!

My friend and colleague Pooja Patel and I proposed this idea last year (well, Pooja came up with the idea and asked if I was interested and then let me propose it with her): to run a summer institute for teachers who are graduates of our program to summarize the latest research and methods in literacy instruction, assessment, and intervention. And over a year later, it has been brought to life: Cutting Edge Reading & Writing Instruction for Teachers. If you’re in NYC in late July, you should come.

Rethink the sequence and delivery of the curriculum for my graduate class

This is going to be a process. Class doesn’t start up again until January, but I really want to get my students thinking more diagnostically and using more observational data to decide where to go next in their interventions. I’d like to spend some time chatting with other teacher educators and reflecting a bit more on what worked and what didn’t this past year. May was not a time when this could happen, but June and July are.

Of course, I may get to a beach and I’m definitely headed out of town for a wedding or two and to visit family. Maybe I’ll take a few hikes and knit up some sweaters for the fall, but I can’t wait to start my summer sabbatical and engage in some professional learning.

How do you use your summers? Any interesting professional learning lined up?