I recently presented at Southern Region Education Board’s(SREB) High Schools That Work (HSTW), Quality Teaching: Research Based Strategies That Work Conference in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The workshop was designed for teams composed of teachers in middle grades and high school, career/technical teachers, and school and district leaders from high schools and middle grades schools participating in any SREB school improvement initiative.
HSTW technical site visits reveal that many students are not engaged in challenging assignments aligned to state and national standards and that many are not motivated to make the effort to succeed at a high level.
Research consistently shows that in order to get more students prepared for high school and for college and careers (not either/or), schools must make significant changes in their structure, their teaching practices, and their expectations of what students can achieve. Far too many middle grades and high school classrooms are boring, repetitive, and irrelevant to students' lives and futures. Schools must make a greater effort to integrate academic content with real-world applications.
My presentation strand, The Effort-Based Classroom, had these objectives:
-understand how to shift teacher perspective to have a new definition of student effort, ability and success.
-realize the power of beliefs and vision in how students learn.
-discover ways to generate enthusiasm and motivation in students so they will want to exert effort.
One area of substantial discussion during the two day strand was the role of teacher as advisor. Personally, I see advisories as crucial to assure that every student has a plan-a future picture that provides the motivation to drive sustained effort. Leaving the development of this plan to chance-hoping that family, friends, or the individual student take the initiative is unacceptable.
Minnesota’s Gov. Pawlenty's Workforce Development Council says one way to improve the state's economy is to have high school students choose their career path in the ninth grade.
Here's the wording of the proposed policy from page 3.
"Every Minnesota learner will, from no later than ninth grade, have a plan, reviewed at least annually, to guide him/her through high school and beyond into competitive employment and postsecondary education.
The plan will be implemented gradually, becoming a graduation requirement with the graduating class of 2014."
While my focus isn’t on the reason of the economy, this type of plan-discussed, modified, reviewed continually with an advisor, researched and written about as a course or graduation requirement can help students develop possible pictures of a future-visions that motivate.
Exploring possible careers in middle school and how learners interest and talents match are great advisory or guidance class activities.
A recent article in Education Week (Feb 4), illustrates that the advising process for high school students will require more time and focus than guidance counselors are likely to have the time to provide:
If more students are to thrive in higher education, high schools must not only help them earn good grades in demanding courses, but also step up their work to guide them through the difficult process of choosing and applying to colleges.
At a panel discussion of two reports on college readiness that were released January 27th, scholars and advisers in the field said raising academic standards, beefing up coursework, and helping students earn good grades are a crucial part of improving high schools, but they aren’t enough.
Many students—even those with good grades—lack the information and support necessary to select good colleges, complete the applications, secure financial aid, and actually enroll.
The college-counseling role must be shared by more adults in high schools, not just the counselors, and it must be systematized to include all students, not just those who “happen to stop by” counselors’ offices.
The formula in Tapping Students Effort… Increasing Student Achievement is Effort x Ability focused on a Manageable Task = SUCCESS. A picture of that success is needed to support effort. We need to reinforce pictures for students who bring them to us and help those without pictures to build them.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
EFFORT AND WORK
I had the opportunity on a recent winter vacation get-a-way to read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I had read his two previous books The Tipping Point and Blink and enjoyed them both. Two of my educator colleagues had recommended Outliers so I was looking forward to having the time for reading.
I wasn’t disappointed except that the book ended too soon as I was enjoying the examples of patterns Gladwell identifies in the study of successful people.
Two of his points connected strongly with my thinking about how we prepare students with the knowledge and attitudes to understand success. How far can you go on natural ability and talent? Where does hard work fit in? What effort does success require? What makes hard work fun?
Several years ago I read Rafe Esquith’s book, There Are No Short Cuts. Esquith got that line from a musician who was asked by one of Esquith’s students how he made such beautiful music. The answer the student received was, “There are no short cuts”. That banner went up in Esquith’s classroom as the key to students understanding a critical component of success. (Esquith's class web site) (Washinton Post article on Rafe Esquith)
Gladwell sites the studies of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. Amateur musicians never practiced more than about three hours a week over the course of their childhood and by the age of twenty totaled 4000 hours of practice. Professionals had steadily increased practice time every year and by the age of twenty had reached 10,000 hours of practice.
Ten thousand (10,000) appears to be a rule when studying successful people. From musicians, such as the Beetles, to ice hockey and soccer stars, to Bill Gates this level of practice and experience appears. These are great stories to share with students who often see successful people as naturally talented and/or lucky. Knowing about the effort people invested is helpful.
Another piece of Gladwell’s writing that caught my interest identified three qualities of work that need to be present for work to be satisfying: autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward. All three are equally important for students to find school work (learning) satisfying.
Autonomy--- a sense of being your own boss. ...being responsible for decisions and directions. I often point out that in an elementary school you find kindergarten students making more choices in a day than fifth graders. Those younger students are often more motivated. Successful alternative programs or academies are often built on increasing student autonomy… Note: this is critical in coaches and administrators building teacher motivation by increasing teacher autonomy.
Complexity---- Gladwell shows how wet-rice farming peasants in China had laborious work like peasants in other feudal systems but differed in that their work required an exactness.. “complexity” … the work wasn’t just back breaking, but required care and thought. I often share that when teachers try to make “tested material” simple for learners, it actually makes internalization more difficult. The mind seems to work best when tackling complexity. As an example, I suggest taking a culminating activity for a unit of study and opening the unit with it. As students struggle in that complexity, they gain a reason for “working hard” to learn the material.
Connection between effort and reward—the wet-rice farmers had to pay a flat rate of their harvest to the landowner so when their thinking and hard work increased yield, they profited from it. Students need to see a connection between the efforts teachers are requesting and the desired outcomes the student seeks. In Tapping Student Effort , I explored the need for teachers to know and sometimes build pictures of the students’ future in order to show the connection between effort and the reward in the future.
Autonomy, complexity, and connection between effort and reward make work meaningful. If we want students to invest effort in school, we need to make learning meaningful. For many students “passing the state test” is not a meaningful task. Teachers need to invest in finding those meaningful learning activities where student learning can later “show up” on the state test.
In an article in the Feb (2009) issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Upper Elementary Grades Bear the Brunt of Accountability, Lorin W. Anderson reports the following on meaningful learning [page 416].
Strategies for helping elementary students make sense of core subjects have been identified. For example:
• Students are more likely to make sense of language when teachers spend more time coaching rather than direct teaching (Allington and Johnston 2001).
• Students are more likely to make sense of mathematics when they're solving real problems in collaboration with their peers (Ginsburg-Block 1999).
• Students are more likely to make sense of science when instruction builds directly on students' conceptual frameworks, that is, the ways in which students currently understand the natural world (NSTA 2002).
• Students are more likely to make sense of history when instruction incorporates the sounds and images of videotapes, streaming video, and films and includes required oral history projects (Hoge 1988).
The need for meaningful work is why I am excited whenever I find the great examples of teachers engaging students in Live Event Learning.
I wasn’t disappointed except that the book ended too soon as I was enjoying the examples of patterns Gladwell identifies in the study of successful people.
Two of his points connected strongly with my thinking about how we prepare students with the knowledge and attitudes to understand success. How far can you go on natural ability and talent? Where does hard work fit in? What effort does success require? What makes hard work fun?
Several years ago I read Rafe Esquith’s book, There Are No Short Cuts. Esquith got that line from a musician who was asked by one of Esquith’s students how he made such beautiful music. The answer the student received was, “There are no short cuts”. That banner went up in Esquith’s classroom as the key to students understanding a critical component of success. (Esquith's class web site) (Washinton Post article on Rafe Esquith)
Gladwell sites the studies of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. Amateur musicians never practiced more than about three hours a week over the course of their childhood and by the age of twenty totaled 4000 hours of practice. Professionals had steadily increased practice time every year and by the age of twenty had reached 10,000 hours of practice.
Ten thousand (10,000) appears to be a rule when studying successful people. From musicians, such as the Beetles, to ice hockey and soccer stars, to Bill Gates this level of practice and experience appears. These are great stories to share with students who often see successful people as naturally talented and/or lucky. Knowing about the effort people invested is helpful.
Another piece of Gladwell’s writing that caught my interest identified three qualities of work that need to be present for work to be satisfying: autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward. All three are equally important for students to find school work (learning) satisfying.
Autonomy--- a sense of being your own boss. ...being responsible for decisions and directions. I often point out that in an elementary school you find kindergarten students making more choices in a day than fifth graders. Those younger students are often more motivated. Successful alternative programs or academies are often built on increasing student autonomy… Note: this is critical in coaches and administrators building teacher motivation by increasing teacher autonomy.
Complexity---- Gladwell shows how wet-rice farming peasants in China had laborious work like peasants in other feudal systems but differed in that their work required an exactness.. “complexity” … the work wasn’t just back breaking, but required care and thought. I often share that when teachers try to make “tested material” simple for learners, it actually makes internalization more difficult. The mind seems to work best when tackling complexity. As an example, I suggest taking a culminating activity for a unit of study and opening the unit with it. As students struggle in that complexity, they gain a reason for “working hard” to learn the material.
Connection between effort and reward—the wet-rice farmers had to pay a flat rate of their harvest to the landowner so when their thinking and hard work increased yield, they profited from it. Students need to see a connection between the efforts teachers are requesting and the desired outcomes the student seeks. In Tapping Student Effort , I explored the need for teachers to know and sometimes build pictures of the students’ future in order to show the connection between effort and the reward in the future.
Autonomy, complexity, and connection between effort and reward make work meaningful. If we want students to invest effort in school, we need to make learning meaningful. For many students “passing the state test” is not a meaningful task. Teachers need to invest in finding those meaningful learning activities where student learning can later “show up” on the state test.
In an article in the Feb (2009) issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Upper Elementary Grades Bear the Brunt of Accountability, Lorin W. Anderson reports the following on meaningful learning [page 416].
Strategies for helping elementary students make sense of core subjects have been identified. For example:
• Students are more likely to make sense of language when teachers spend more time coaching rather than direct teaching (Allington and Johnston 2001).
• Students are more likely to make sense of mathematics when they're solving real problems in collaboration with their peers (Ginsburg-Block 1999).
• Students are more likely to make sense of science when instruction builds directly on students' conceptual frameworks, that is, the ways in which students currently understand the natural world (NSTA 2002).
• Students are more likely to make sense of history when instruction incorporates the sounds and images of videotapes, streaming video, and films and includes required oral history projects (Hoge 1988).
The need for meaningful work is why I am excited whenever I find the great examples of teachers engaging students in Live Event Learning.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
KNOWING STUDENTS: KNOWING TEACHERS
In my work with advisories and student effort, I am continuously identifying the need to KNOW students: from students needs for survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun to students’ learning styles to students’ five year plans.
I am currently reading Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principals of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson. (ASCD 2009) and found another way to look at “knowing students.”
Jackson uses the term capital (knowledge and skills) to define what we are trying to get our students to acquire and currencies (knowledge and behavior) as what they bring with them to acquire the classroom capital.
“Often however, there is a disconnection between the currency we (teachers) value and the currency they (students) are spending. Or our students do carry the currency recognized in the classroom but refuse to spend it because they do not find the classroom capital particularly valuable.” (pg 32)
This book introduced me to the work of William Sedlackek, of the University of Maryland, the author of Beyond the Big Test.
Sedlacek’s research identified eight noncognitive characteristics that are predictive of academic success in college. Jackson sees these as strengths students bring to the classroom that you can use to help students acquire classroom capital (school success).
*Positive Self -Concept- the confidence that leads to the determination to succeed
* Realistic Self-Appraisal- the ability to accurately assess your own strengths and weaknesses and to use this assessment to further your own development
*Successful Navigation of the System—knowing how to access resources and how to use the system to help you achieve your goals.
* Preference for Long Term Goals—knowing how to set and achieve long term goals, delay gratification, and persevere in spite of obstacles.
*Availability of a Strong Support Person- finding someone to confer advise, particularly in times of crisis.
* Leadership Experience- having the ability to organize and influence others
* Community Involvement- being involved in the community
*Knowledge Acquired in and about a Field- having the explicit and implicit knowledge of a particular field of study
This is a great list of things to KNOW about your students. Jackson goes further:
"…I decided that if these skills were crucial , and if my students didn’t come to me with them already, it was my job to help them develop these skills during the semester they were with me.” (pg37-38) She focused on creating a classroom where students could develop these skills while mastering her course content. Note: this connects with my earlier postings about the power of Live Event Learning (1/11), (11/23), (3/30).
I’m thinking that Sedlacek’s list is great for school leaders and coaches. They need to KNOW the teachers they serve. These same characteristics can be a starting point for building additional teaching capital that will build the teacher’s and his/her students' success. Building teachers’ skills and experiences in these same areas can be an added goal of professional development and coaching. Note how Sedlacek’s list connects with Learning Oriented Leadership (Jan 25).
I am currently reading Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principals of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson. (ASCD 2009) and found another way to look at “knowing students.”
Jackson uses the term capital (knowledge and skills) to define what we are trying to get our students to acquire and currencies (knowledge and behavior) as what they bring with them to acquire the classroom capital.
“Often however, there is a disconnection between the currency we (teachers) value and the currency they (students) are spending. Or our students do carry the currency recognized in the classroom but refuse to spend it because they do not find the classroom capital particularly valuable.” (pg 32)
This book introduced me to the work of William Sedlackek, of the University of Maryland, the author of Beyond the Big Test.
Sedlacek’s research identified eight noncognitive characteristics that are predictive of academic success in college. Jackson sees these as strengths students bring to the classroom that you can use to help students acquire classroom capital (school success).
*Positive Self -Concept- the confidence that leads to the determination to succeed
* Realistic Self-Appraisal- the ability to accurately assess your own strengths and weaknesses and to use this assessment to further your own development
*Successful Navigation of the System—knowing how to access resources and how to use the system to help you achieve your goals.
* Preference for Long Term Goals—knowing how to set and achieve long term goals, delay gratification, and persevere in spite of obstacles.
*Availability of a Strong Support Person- finding someone to confer advise, particularly in times of crisis.
* Leadership Experience- having the ability to organize and influence others
* Community Involvement- being involved in the community
*Knowledge Acquired in and about a Field- having the explicit and implicit knowledge of a particular field of study
This is a great list of things to KNOW about your students. Jackson goes further:
"…I decided that if these skills were crucial , and if my students didn’t come to me with them already, it was my job to help them develop these skills during the semester they were with me.” (pg37-38) She focused on creating a classroom where students could develop these skills while mastering her course content. Note: this connects with my earlier postings about the power of Live Event Learning (1/11), (11/23), (3/30).
I’m thinking that Sedlacek’s list is great for school leaders and coaches. They need to KNOW the teachers they serve. These same characteristics can be a starting point for building additional teaching capital that will build the teacher’s and his/her students' success. Building teachers’ skills and experiences in these same areas can be an added goal of professional development and coaching. Note how Sedlacek’s list connects with Learning Oriented Leadership (Jan 25).
Sunday, February 1, 2009
LEARNING COMMUNITIES
I just completed presenting at the winter conference of the Utah Association of Secondary School Principals in St. George, Utah. My session was titled "Leading Learning Communities" and focused on the middle school and high school principals.
My approach was to establish the link between student achievement and teacher relationships defined broadly as collegial relationships and then the role that principals hold in building that collegiality. My message was that “teaching is a team sport”. Teams need leadership and coaching. Productive teams are unlikely to form without conscious leadership.
Collegiality is one of the most important factors in determining the quality of a school. (Roland S. Barth)
Prior to my introduction, the conference opened with the awarding of three awards, High School Principal of the Year, Middle School Principal of the Year, and Assistant Principal of the Year. It was a great lead in for my presentation as each recipient made a comment as to how the collegiality of other administrators, many of whom were in the audience, was critical to their success.
I had the participants discuss the current status of teacher relationships at their schools using Barth’s descriptions. (ASCD Educational Leadership, March 2006: Improving Relationships within the Schoolhouse) [read the article]
Parallel Play
Adversarial
Congenial
Collegial
I suggested to administrators that what most schools call teacher teams are really teacher franchises. As I’ve explained in earlier postings , it is not until teachers take shared responsibility for student success, learning, and achievement that teaming really takes place.
On the website for the New Jersey State Department of Education, you can find a great document for starting or refining your staff’s understanding of Professional Learning Communities. It is called A Common Language for Professional Learning Communities, which was developed by a NJ Professional Development Partnership.
Collaborative teacher teams engage in collective inquiry into their practice by:
*examining data on student progress
*analyzing student work
*determining effective strategies to facilitate learning
*designing and critiquing powerful lessons
*developing classroom-based common assessments to measure progress
Principals have very full agendas so building collegiality, creating real teams and professional learning communities takes conscious behaviors. In the Barth article linked above, he shares the following:
Researcher Judith Warren Little found that school leaders foster collegiality when they
-State expectations explicitly. For instance, “I expect all of us to work together this year, share our craft knowledge, and help one another in whatever ways we can.”
-Model collegiality. For instance, visibly join in cheering on others or have another principal observe a faculty meeting.
-Reward those who behave as colleagues. For instance, grant release time, recognition, space, materials, and funds to those who collaborate.
-Protect those who engage in these collegial behaviors. A principal should not say, for instance, “Janet has a great idea that she wants to share with us today.” This sets Janet up for a possible harsh response. Rather, the principal might say, “I observed something in Janet's classroom last week that blew my socks off, and I've asked her to share it with us.” In this way, leaders can run interference for other educators.
When I finished my presentation in Utah, the next speaker had the difficult task of sharing the budget challenges that the principals were likely to face in the coming school year. As I packed my materials and headed to the car, I was hoping that the principals were connecting that the creativity of collaborative teacher teams would be critical to their school’s ability to best serve students in challenging times.
My approach was to establish the link between student achievement and teacher relationships defined broadly as collegial relationships and then the role that principals hold in building that collegiality. My message was that “teaching is a team sport”. Teams need leadership and coaching. Productive teams are unlikely to form without conscious leadership.
Collegiality is one of the most important factors in determining the quality of a school. (Roland S. Barth)
Prior to my introduction, the conference opened with the awarding of three awards, High School Principal of the Year, Middle School Principal of the Year, and Assistant Principal of the Year. It was a great lead in for my presentation as each recipient made a comment as to how the collegiality of other administrators, many of whom were in the audience, was critical to their success.
I had the participants discuss the current status of teacher relationships at their schools using Barth’s descriptions. (ASCD Educational Leadership, March 2006: Improving Relationships within the Schoolhouse) [read the article]
Parallel Play
Adversarial
Congenial
Collegial
I suggested to administrators that what most schools call teacher teams are really teacher franchises. As I’ve explained in earlier postings , it is not until teachers take shared responsibility for student success, learning, and achievement that teaming really takes place.
On the website for the New Jersey State Department of Education, you can find a great document for starting or refining your staff’s understanding of Professional Learning Communities. It is called A Common Language for Professional Learning Communities, which was developed by a NJ Professional Development Partnership.
Collaborative teacher teams engage in collective inquiry into their practice by:
*examining data on student progress
*analyzing student work
*determining effective strategies to facilitate learning
*designing and critiquing powerful lessons
*developing classroom-based common assessments to measure progress
Principals have very full agendas so building collegiality, creating real teams and professional learning communities takes conscious behaviors. In the Barth article linked above, he shares the following:
Researcher Judith Warren Little found that school leaders foster collegiality when they
-State expectations explicitly. For instance, “I expect all of us to work together this year, share our craft knowledge, and help one another in whatever ways we can.”
-Model collegiality. For instance, visibly join in cheering on others or have another principal observe a faculty meeting.
-Reward those who behave as colleagues. For instance, grant release time, recognition, space, materials, and funds to those who collaborate.
-Protect those who engage in these collegial behaviors. A principal should not say, for instance, “Janet has a great idea that she wants to share with us today.” This sets Janet up for a possible harsh response. Rather, the principal might say, “I observed something in Janet's classroom last week that blew my socks off, and I've asked her to share it with us.” In this way, leaders can run interference for other educators.
When I finished my presentation in Utah, the next speaker had the difficult task of sharing the budget challenges that the principals were likely to face in the coming school year. As I packed my materials and headed to the car, I was hoping that the principals were connecting that the creativity of collaborative teacher teams would be critical to their school’s ability to best serve students in challenging times.
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