WHAT'S YOUR PLAN FOR ENGAGEMENT?

After listening to an ASCD podcast featuring an interview with A.Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera, the authors of Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap, I am thinking that this question about engagement  should be added to coaching conversations and PLC explorations of teaching and learning.

The authors use the questions:

What is your strategy for getting students more deeply engaged  and invested in learning?

What’s your strategy to get students to care about learning?

 They define engagement (ASCD Education Update page 6) as:

Behavioral Engagement-on-task behaviors including persistence, asking questions, taking part in discussions, asking for help

Cognitive Engagement- deep involvement and effort to understand a concept or master a skill

Affective engagement- high interest, positive affect and attitude, curiosity, and task involvement

Boykin and Noguera report that low performing students often receive more instructional time than other students but less engaged time…a process not likely to close the achievement gap.

In an earlier blog, I noted Phil Schelechty’s thoughts about judging engagement: 

 On task behavior can be confused with engagement. A teacher cannot judge engagement simply through observation. Has the student persisted? How committed is the student? Why is the student investing attention? Conversation with students is critical to uncover the level of engagement. This conversation only can happen if a trusting relationship has been built with students.

“How do you build trusting relationships that support engagement?” is another question administrators and coaches should be asking.

A website for Oregon Small Schools examines how personalized learning environments can drive engagement.

The personal connection between teachers and students also allows teachers to push students farther. Teachers can demand higher levels of achievement because their expectations are based on a personal understanding of students’ capabilities. Because of their sustained, mutual trust, students grant teachers the authority to challenge them as learners.

 In a personalized learning environment, students are

 treated as individuals

 given responsibility

 spoken to honestly

and treated with dignity and respect

Through these connections teachers get to know students well; they become familiar with students’ learning styles, interests, backgrounds, and goals. Knowing who their students are and how they learn, teachers can adjust instruction to leverage students’ strengths and build curriculum around issues relevant to their lives.

Coaching and PLC conversations can increase teachers’ conscious planning for student engagement.

  

Footnote: ASCD Education Update,( Volume 54 Number 3), March 2012, Making Research a Reality: Educators Can Close the Achievement Gap with Lessons Learned, Richard Allen

DISCOMFORT - THE SOURCE OF WHY

A recent article by Lois Brown Easton, The Why, How, and What of Professional  Learning (Tools for Learning Schools, Spring 2012, learningforward) introduced  me to the work of Simon Sinek.  Sinek, the author of Start With Why, identifies that the common communication  process  flowing from what to how to why should be reversed. He suggest that the inspired leaders present a message beginning with why, then how and finally what.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

“Martin Luther King’s speech was ‘I have a dream’ not ‘I have a plan’.”

 Sinek defines a biology of human decision making. He describes that our actions are driven by the brain’s limbic system. There are emotions behind our actions. Understanding the why means knowing the source of those emotions.

See Sinek’s presentation on TED. 

In my work with coaching, I have always encouraged coaches to identify teachers’ beliefs and values as part of building a plan for change and growth.

“Probably the most important aspect of a coaching program resides in the opportunity it provides to rekindle the vision of educators--- to empower them to, once again, teach with their vision, allowing their mission, their beliefs, and their values to drive every decision.” Quality Teaching In a Culture of Coaching

As teachers examine student work, data, or a coach’s observations, they often find an area of discomfort….an outcome that doesn’t measure up to the vision driving the teacher’s work.  That discomfort then becomes the source of motivation…the why…for the teacher’s learning or change.

Easton suggests that effective PLC’s should follow the same why, how, what process:

-First identify why we might engage in the challenging proposition of changing how. (A small number of our students score advanced on the math standardized assessment.)

-Next , how would we bring about a change. (This is where study and learning occur in the PLC. What would students need to experience and do in order to reach a higher standard?)

-Now the PLC is ready to identify changes in what they do to achieve what they want (the why).

I have frequently suggested that the reason to study data is to find discomfort. That discomfort now drives the work of growth and change.

School leaders sharing the “why” …. the beliefs and commitments… may find more teachers willingly joining in the hard  work of the what.  Hopefully, with teachers experiencing involvement examining the why, we will find fewer stating, “Just tell me what to do.” 

CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVITY

Two weeks back I posted a blog on critical thinking and creativity which connects to an article I just read from Doug Reeves in ASCD’s  Express  where he examines “The Assessment Gap in  Career  and College Readiness.”  Reeves identifies  the call in Common Core Standards and from employers and college faculty for 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication in writing as well as in speaking and technology skills, such as web design, digital communication, and social networking.  He notes that while saying these skills are important, we seldom assess them.

Here are a few quotes from Reeves that I hope will encourage you to read the article:

~While colleges and employers require writing that is crisp; thoughtful; evidence-based; and the result of drafting, editing, rewriting, and painstaking improvement, the typical writing assessment is a one-shot wonder, created without taking advantage of evidence or available resources.

~Not a single state assesses speaking, though this form of communication remains essential for engagement in collaborative groups at work or in higher education. Not a single state assesses the use of technology to communicate, such as building a website or creating a dynamic and purposeful network.

~Scores of doctoral dissertations that cover collaborative learning were written by a single person working entirely alone.

~But while we praise the concept of critical thinking, we neither practice it nor assess it. 

Similar to my earlier blog’s point that standardized testing need not prevent teachers from having students practice creativity and critical thinking, Reeves states that it is what produces the student engagement  likely to increase student performance on the standardized test. He believes that teachers are in the best spot to develop assessments for these 21^st Century skills.

Ronni Reed, commenting on that recent blog of mine, sent me to a resource for considering such assessments:

“I have been very interested in this since NJ adopted the 21st Century Skills as an additional part of the NJ CCCS requirements. I researched some assessments in order to get a baseline on students, so that growth could be demonstrated. I found wonderful resources on the Catalina Foothills website. [Catalina Foothills Unified School District #16 in Tucson, Arizona] Check it out.”

 Exploring the site I found rubrics (novice, basic, proficient,advanced) for each of the following areas of critical and creative thinking:

Comparing, classifying, inductive and deductive reasoning, error analysis, constructing support, abstracting, analyzing perspectives, decision making, investigating, problem solving, experimental inquiry, invention, data analysis, and scientific inquiry.

The site also includes video clips of teachers and students sharing examples of their work with 21^st Century Skills. Here is an example.

Ronni…Thanks for sharing!

COACHING AND PROFESSIONAL CAPITAL

I just returned from presenting at and attending the European Council of International Schools Leadership Conference in Vienna. My session was on Instructional Coaching.

I had the opportunity to attend Andy Hargreaves keynote where he discussed several elements of teaching that for me point to the value of coaching from peers, instructional coaches, and administrators.

Hargreaves asked the audience how many years they thought a teacher needed to reach high quality. (My guess was 7 years based on earlier studies  that I had seen showing student test performance increasing during a new teacher’s first 7 years). He suggested that teachers need from 8-20 years. Interestingly, 8 years of experience is about 10,000 hours, matching the required practice mentioned by Gladwell in Outliers.

I also attended a session by Charlotte Danielson where she presented a research piece that showed the difference in student achievement between teachers rated proficient and teachers rated distinguished that was very dramatic.

When I saw those differences my years of “preaching” that coaching should focus on good to great was certainly reinforced. To what extent have we created an environment where administrators and teachers have been satisfied…thinking we are getting the job done with proficient teaching? Hargreaves cautioned that we are often so excited about the high commitment that young teachers bring to the classroom that we often overlook their level of competence.

Hargreaves, who has recently published with Michael Fullan Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School, listed these professional capital assumptions about good teaching:

-It is sophisticated and difficult.

-It requires high levels of education and long training.

-It is perfected through continuous improvement.

-It involves wise judgment informed by evidence and experience.

-It is a collective accomplishment and responsibility.

-It mediates and moderates online instruction.

I am thinking that coaches might want to make use of the list of assumptions to guide some critical conversations.

With board members---if they agree with the assumptions, it certainly would guide a decision to invest in providing coaching support for staff.

With administrators---How does belief in these assumptions influence the design of an instructional coach’s job role? In what ways would an administrator need to support coaching culture and activities?

With teachers--  How would agreement with these assumptions influence a teacher’s relationship with an instructional coach and with members of a professional learning community?

CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING

I am preparing a workshop presentation for middle and high school teachers titled Teaching with and for Creativity and Critical Thinking.  The current writing regarding 21^st  century  skills that are necessary for students to be college ready and career ready stresses the need for both.

Here is a partial list of skills students should be developing:

·         Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs

·          Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view

·         Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments

·         Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis

·         Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes

·         Use a wide range of idea creation techniques (such as brainstorming)

·         Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts)

·         Elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate their own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts.

So some will ask is there time and space in the current curriculum and state standards for such skills to be taught, practiced and internalized?

A Newsweek article on creativity suggested…“creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way. “     

The focus of my workshop session will be on the good news is that instructional options designed for students to develop critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills also enhance the internalization of important content knowledge. The right mix of direct instruction with less structured  real world problem solving can set the stage for higher ability students and low achievers to master crucial content and important process skills. My workshop will explore the “why” and “how” of planning for these learning options.

The Newsweek article includes a great example from teachers who came up with a project for the fifth graders to figure out how to reduce the noise in the library. Its windows faced a public space and, even when closed, let through too much noise. The students had four weeks to design proposals. An intense study of sound preceded brainstorming ideas and then testing out possibilities.

Here is another strategy from Thom Markham in a piece titled, Can We Really Teach Creativity?

 "Use breakthrough assessments. Rubrics with a ‘breakthrough’ category—a blank column that invites students to deliver a product that cannot be anticipated or easily defined in words. It’s not the ‘A’ category—that’s Mastery or Commended or a similar high-ranking indicator. The breakthrough column goes beyond the A, rewarding innovation, creativity, and something new outside the formal curriculum. It’s a ‘show me’ category. Students like it, and so do teachers. It particularly appeals to high-end students who feel current offerings are drab, or to the middling student who will not work just for a grade, but who seeks the psychic reward of creating something cool. For samples of these rubrics, go to Thom Markham's web site  and click on ‘PBL Resources'."

I’d love to hear examples you’ve seen or done to combine creativity, critical thinking and standard curriculum.

RESILIENCE

While reading The Resilience Revolution: Discovering Strengths in Challenging Kids by Brendtro and Larson, I was introduced to the Circle of Courage model illustrating the basic needs for children:

Belonging

Mastery

Independence

Generosity 

The creators of the model state that when the Circle of Courage* is in balance, children develop their strengths and experience positive life outcomes.

Brendtro and Larson suggest (page 45)

• To satisfy the need for belonging, build trust
• To satisfy the need for mastery, recognize talent.
• To satisfy the need for independence, promote power
• To satisfy the need for generosity, instill purpose.

“We believe this rejuvenating approach meets important needs for adults,too: we all need resilience in the difficult work of raising healthy kids."

I agree. Let’s explore each of the four components of the Circle of Courage and consider how they apply to building a teacher’s resilience in coaching.

Belonging

I have always encouraged teachers to use belonging and trust to create a classroom environment that would promote increased student risk taking and growth. Effective cooperative groups, small learning communities, teacher looping, and middle school teams all focus on increased belonging and trust. Relationships are crucial. The same applies to creating coaching and PLC environments where teachers take risk and grow. I am a strong proponent of PLCs as teams rather than franchises.  Teams have more belonging and trust and therefore more teacher and student growth.

Mastery

Brendtro and Larson state,”….mastery is practical intelligence. It is meeting important life goals by developing strengths and overcoming difficulties. Adults can encourage mastery by tapping the hidden talents in every youngster and giving every child the skills to creatively solve problems." What a great focus for coaches...tapping hidden teacher talents. PLC’s should be centers of creative problem solving.

Independence

Powerful young people are described by Brendtro and Larson as feeling secure enough to ask for help and able to make decisions and set the course for their lives. They are the pilots not passengers on their journey.

Great thought for mentors and coaches who focus on teaching teachers how to think and problem solve rather than providing them with “what to do”. Some coaches ask me if they should work themselves out of a job. My thought is yes, unless you continually learn new things to broaden teacher and student success. The ultimate will be learning that with and from the teachers and students.

Generosity

When at risk students reach a point of assisting their struggling peers the Circle of Courage is completed. All youth need to find purpose to their lives and schools should continually be building those opportunities into the learning mix.

In QualityTeaching in a Culture of Coaching,  I emphasized the value of coaches connecting their work to teachers’ individual beliefs and values. When a coach hears the “difference” a teacher works to make in the lives of her students, and notices the teacher’s efforts, energy and perseverance are increased.  

I believe that the Circle of Courage provides a model for reflection as coaches examine their day to day interactions with teachers.

Larry Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, Steve Van Bockern: Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future (2002) 

DISTRIBUTING LEADERSHIP

I am currently reading a 2012 report from OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: LESSONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

The section on developing school leaders identifies the major responsibilities that leaders have for developing, managing, and evaluating the quality of teaching and learning…all at the same time that many systems’ programs are invading the time of school principals.

“In England, 61% of head teachers described their work-life balance as poor or very poor. Some have attributed this to long working hours or to deficiencies in working practices, such as school heads not knowing how to prioritize or delegate their work.

In New Zealand, a study found that, eight years after major education reforms were introduced, school leaders’ administrative work had increased substantially and they were working ten hours longer per week, on average, than before the reforms.

 This and other research finds that administrative demands are taking up 34% of school leaders’ time, clearly competing with educational leadership as their top priority.”

So in a time when school leaders are hearing more and more about the important work of being an instructional leader….guiding teaching and learning practices…more programs appear to drain time from an instructional focus.

The OECD report continues:

… effective school autonomy depends on effective leaders, including system leaders, principals, teacher leaders, senior teachers and head teachers, as well as strong support systems. That, in turn, requires effectively distributed leadership.  Leadership structures or more informal ad hoc groups based on expertise and current needs can be formed to encourage a distribution of power among these actors.

The National Education Association has implemented a program called Priority Schools Campaign to support struggling schools.  All of them are Title 1 or Title 1 eligible - serving poor students - and most of them serve large numbers of minority and English language learners.

Ellen Holmes, leading the NEA program states:

“Educators and principals recognize that sustained school change is actually more difficult under tight, top-down mandates. Structures that allow for more distributed authority and decision making elevate the wealth of expertise and experience in schools so that changes can be made in a meaningful way closely matching the needs of students and families in these schools. …Teachers want to be leaders, but their pre-service preparation does not adequately prepare them for this role and quite frankly, many principals are not sure how to cultivate a culture that recognizes and grows teacher leadership. The Priority Schools Campaign provides support to sites and local affiliates in developing teacher leadership.” 

The OECD report seems to confer:

…collaborative leadership, as opposed to leadership from the principal alone, may offer a path to school improvement. There is also emerging evidence of the impact of teacher leadership on teacher self-efficacy where teachers are encouraged within their schools and within education systems to show leadership in relation to such areas as pedagogy, the curriculum and its assessment, evaluation and student behavior. There is also debate about the nature of standards which could be used to define collaborative leadership. One such example is the work of the Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium in the United States, involving higher education institutions and teacher unions, which has published a set of teacher leader model standards for use by the teaching profession itself. Last but not least, education unions are increasingly engaged in encouraging teachers to take the lead in their own learning.

The Teacher Leadership report summarizes the important connection between effective principal and teacher leadership:

“Teacher leadership can enhance the capacity of the principal: Teachers in leadership roles work in collaboration with principals and other school administrators by facilitating improvements in instruction and promoting practices among their peers that can lead to improved student learning outcomes. By doing so, they support school leaders in encouraging innovation and creating cultures of success in school. Teacher leadership can neither be effective nor successful without principal support, but neither can the principal maximize his or her effectiveness without harnessing the talents and expertise of teachers in leadership roles”

Instructional coaches and staff developers as teacher leaders need to be building continuing partnerships with principals and developing the leadership capacity of other staff members. Principals need to be continually supporting the leadership skills of everyone.