Category Archives: Leading a Learning Community

10 Expectations From Students

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Carolyn Cameron, one of the most open and progressive principals I have ever known (she was also my former boss), shared the following video regarding student expectations for school.  The first point was that it was important to build relationships and know students as individuals.  The nine other points are things that I really believe in, but it was great hearing it from a student perspective.

Although this is a video that will bring attention to a book that is being sold, I think that it is a great conversation starter with faculty and students.  Interestingly enough, it was released around the same time the Jeff Bliss video was being shared.  Perhaps a much more positive way to start the conversation not only on what students look for in the classroom, but also may give some thoughts on how to give students this voice and take action based on what they have said.

Student voice is important but it is essential that if we ask them to take the time to share their thoughts, that we also show progress in what they have asked.

How about now?

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“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Tela Chhe

During a session I was facilitating, one of the questions a participant asked was,

How do we prepare students for a future that we are all uncertain of?

My first thought was, are we even preparing them for right now?

You look around at our world and you see everyone have a mobile device (there will be more mobile devices than people by the end of the year), yet many schools are still struggling with putting devices in the hands of students, or worse, won’t allow kids bring in their own devices.  Our students should have real time access to information, know how to evaluate it, use it, create because of it, and be able to share to an audience.  Do our schools today look anything like our world now?

If we worked with students to give them the ability to critically think, adapt, change, and connect and share their knowledge, wouldn’t they be prepared for whatever the future brought their way?

I love the notion of preparing students for the future, but I think that preparing them for their world right now is probably a good place to start.

Learning With Multiple Forms of Media

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Dan Zen

I was fascinated by this tweet this morning from #CanEdu13:

I thought about the way that our students do “assignments” and many of them still write traditional “essays” that would never necessarily reference a “tweet”, blog, or YouTube video, yet there is a lot of learning that can happen from these digital spaces, they are just not what we are used to. For example, recently talking to an educator currently finishing her thesis, she told me how she was not able to reference a “blog” as it was discouraged in her cohort.

Why?

Should we not be able to curate, assess, and evaluate information from a blog as we would from a paper?  Information often loses accuracy in many instances because it is time sensitive, and a journal takes a while to be published, as well as a book.  Is there not any relevance in the “real-time” web?

Thinking about this, I found the following quote from Henry Jenkins’ paper on “Media Education for the 21st Century”:

“Adolescents need to learn how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources, including music, video, online databases, and other media.They need to think critically about information that can be found nearly instantaneously through out the world. They need to participate in the kinds of collaboration that new communication and information technologies enable, but increasingly demand. Considerations of globalization lead us toward the importance of understanding the perspective of others, developing a historical grounding, and seeing the interconnectedness of economic and ecological systems.”
—Bertram C. Bruce (2002)

If we are looking at how people are “moved”, some are through what they have read, but many are from what they see and hear.  I am not saying to get rid of looking at “traditional” media in assignments, but how often do we encourage our students to use a YouTube video as a resource?  Is this not a skill that our students need?

“Is this good enough?”

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Bigbadvoo

I had a great conversation last night and the gentleman told me a story that I found extremely powerful…

As a teacher, he had a student hand in an assignment the day it was due, and ask him, “Is this good enough?”  The teacher looked at the student and asked him, “What do you think?”

The student looked bewildered at the teacher and thought he was messing with him.  What the teacher had explained is that the work was not for the teacher, but for the student himself.  That every single day, he has to try and do his best work to his ability, not to what he thinks the teacher wants, but to the best of his own ability.

The teacher then said to the student, “If I give you 24 more hours to do this, will you give me your best stuff?”  The student then looked at the teacher, wondered if he was serious, and took him up on the opportunity.  The next day, he showed up and his work improved dramatically, not because he was doing it for the teacher, but he was doing it for himself.

When the teacher became a principal, he told his staff the story about this student and he said, “If we are expect our students to bring their best work to school everyday, shouldn’t we model that ourselves?”

The next time I hear the question, “Is this good enough?”, I guess we have to figure out good enough for whom?

The erosion of the English language?

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I saw this picture the other day and was fascinated by the slogan.


cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by gcouros

Now I know that there are other issues with the advertisement, but I am going to focus on the use of the acronym “LOL” in the ad.

As I drove by this, I could just hear the arguments regarding how the english language has eroded with the use of acronyms in sentences.  Many people of my generation and older, might not even know what “LOL” stands for (laugh out loud) or what it even means.  Yet language continuously evolves and grows, and to be honest, many people now would be totally comfortable with what is written in this ad.  Are the people that don’t understand what “LOL” means becoming illiterate?  How wrong is it to use this in this ad?

Then I found this picture.
No-Scuba-Diving-Campground-Sign-K-8088

 

What do the two images have in common?

When I have asked some people, they do not see the similarities.  Yet, the term “Scuba” is also an acronym (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), but just one we are comfortable with because we grew up with it.

I guess we have been screwing up the language for a long time. Or, does language just continuously evolve?

Thoughts?

Removing Barriers and Educational Technology

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I was recently asked to share my thoughts on the current state of educational technology and the connection it has to education in British Columbia (for a BC website).  Here are some of the questions that came my way with my responses below.

    • What are you currently obsessed with at work right now? 

One of my big focus areas is on how we give both teachers and students a voice in their learning. We live in a world where we all have the opportunity to share our thoughts instantly with the entire world, but schools have traditionally kept that learning within the confines of the building and have only shared during “special events”. If we give our students an authentic audience, we give them the opportunity to make a difference in their own lives, as well as the lives of others.

Tying into that notion is the idea of “entrepreneurship”. Students are creating some pretty amazing things in schools, whether it is in an art class, technology course, or english. How do we give them an opportunity to share their ideas to actually learn how to make a living doing something that they love? One of the things that I looked back upon during my time in the faculty of education was that we spent a lot of time learning how to “teach”, but no time learning how to actually get a job teaching. I believe that students should not only have great opportunities for learning in school, but we need to teach them how to create opportunities for themselves.

    • How is technology changing the face and pace of K-12 education? 

Information is abundant and as Daniel Pink discusses in his latest book, it is not about accessing information, but about curating it. When you have access to all of the information in the world, there is obviously some great stuff, and some stuff that is of a poor quality. How are students critical of what they see, and how do they reflect and share? Too many schools are worried about students “googling” answers on test because that would make them “cheaters”, yet as adults, we would be considered resourceful if we did the same thing. What we do with the information is much more important now than simply finding it. We need to look at how students are not only consumers of information, but creators of content as well. That is where the real learning happens and technology gives us the opportunity to be able to share easily with the entire world.

    • What are some of the smartest teachers doing in this space? 

Many teachers are looking outside of their schools and classrooms for new ideas to inspire and engage their students. Nothing in our world seems as stagnant as the “curriculum”, and many educators are learning to continuously embrace change and bring it into their classroom. They are looking at what successful organizations outside of education are doing and bringing those experiences to their students. They are not only making learning relevant, but real. There are teachers in pockets that are doing this, but many of them struggle with the politics of school and administrators that sometimes encourage risk, yet do not model it. As Chris Kennedy states, administrators need to be “elbows deep in the learning” with their students and faculty. In the area of British Columbia, Surrey School District (SD36) has been making some tremendous strides in becoming a “culture of innovation”, but I am guessing that even in their situation, they never feel like they are “there” and are striving to continuously get better.  Learning constantly changes and grows and the best organizations continuously grow and adapt so that they can always excel.

    • What opportunities are there for collaboration and transition between K-12 and higher ed given current technologies?

With learning having the ability to be so visible in our time, K-12 and higher education need to spend a lot more time working together to improve education for our students. You often hear K-12 complaining that universities are out of date and are forcing schools to go to an old model (grading practices are a prime example of this), and many universities are saying that students are not coming into their schools with the skills that they deem valuable. Instead of talking about each other, they need to spend more time working with each other and figuring how to do best for the students, and not take the easy way out. Within our school division, we are looking at working with our university to work with teachers to give them an idea of the skills that we expect them to have and be able to teach their students. We are hoping that we can build a partnership to learn from each other and really have education take the next step.

    • What are some of the challenges? (BC’s Privacy Legislation any others?)

The privacy laws in BC are outdated and holding schools back significantly. They often talk about data being stored in the cloud as being “unsafe” but it seems that it is more about controlling it from an outsider perspective. These policies were created in a totally different world and are now holding schools back to help students understand and thrive in the world that we live in currently. This is similar to the outdated election laws in 2011 and how many became subversive because of those policies.

If provinces were really about “moving education forward”, they would look at removing barriers, not putting them in the way.

The First Step to Change

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I get a lot of emails asking about creating the conditions for change and recently was asked, “As a new principal, what is the first step to create a better learning environment in our school?”

Here is my answer…do nothing.

Too many times people walk into buildings and have some great ideas and they start trying to tweak this, and change that, etc., yet that often alienates the people that you want to get better.

What I would strongly suggest is that you sit back, watch, learn, and figure out what people are great at already and build from there.  You will build relationships and people will trust that when new initiatives begin popping up in your school that you already value their skills and abilities.  Also, this will create a team approach as opposed to the “admin vs. teacher” culture that is prevalent in many schools.

“It takes far less energy to move from  first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity.”  Peter Drucker

3 Ideas To Inspire Change

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#51 - Into The Fire

The talk of change in education is actually the one constant.  There is no doubt that education could and should get better, yet the reality is that when we state this about the system we work in, we can either be a part of the problem or solution.  Starting with what we do ourselves is the first step in improving schools.

Yet if we are to help move others, it is tough when work feels like “work”.  If your goal is to simply get a paycheque, and not changing will still get you to that goal and you are in no threat of losing your job, why change?  Many initiatives are thrown at us in education, yet there is no deeper reasoning “why” this is happening and people believe that simply waiting things out will mean that if you don’t change, you will eventually become relevant again.

In my last few years, I have really tried to help people bring an emotional connection to the work that they are doing so that it is moving from a job to “their passion”.  I do my best to help people feel invigorated in their work as leaders have created that same feeling for myself.  I am nowhere near successful as I would like to be, but everyday I continue to grow and learn.  I work quite a bit but it rarely feels like a job; I love what I do.  The work that I do is something that I want to do, not something I feel like I have to do, or even worse, feel like that it is something that is being done to me.

Focusing on helping people move forward as an administrator, I have done a lot to study “change” and what helps to move people.  Here are some of the things that I have tried to focus on in my work.

1. Strengths Based Leadership - It is really to find a person’s deficiencies, but it is imperative that you find their strengths and build upon them.  For example, let’s say I wanted to encourage blogging with staff.  It would be very easy to say something similar to:

“We need to start using technology in similar ways to what the rest of the world is doing.  It is important for our students that we start blogging.”

Or…I could say something like this:

“I was watching you with your students today and was so impressed in the work that you did in the lesson and how engaged the students were.  I wish other people in our school , along with the rest of the world, could see the work that you are doing because it would really help improve their own practice.  Would you be open to sitting down with me and writing a blog post to share what you did today?  I think so many people would benefit from what you have to offer.”

Interestingly enough, the end result is the same, but the focus on getting there is much different.  Showing people they are valued will go a lot further than simply pointing out their weaknesses.

2. Helping to define the “why” - I would honestly say that the Simon Sinek’s talk on how great leaders inspire action has been one of the most influential videos that I have ever watched and I refer to it often.  When any initiatives are implemented in schools, the first question I had as a teacher is “why do we have to do this?”.  If you are unable to articulate why you are doing what you are doing, is it worth doing?

If you want people to be inspired to move forward, creating a connection on why this will be better for students is imperative.

“…our behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make decisions based on what we think we know.” Simon Sinek

3.  Autonomy and Purpose - Another hugely influential Ted Talk on my career was Dan Pink’s talk on motivation.  He talks a great deal in his books on the notion of autonomy in our work place:

“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”

Often though his focus on “purpose” is often ignored.  Purpose is hugely important in moving people forward.  In my own work, I want to know that I am doing something bigger than myself and I am contributing to a greater good.  As leader, it is imperative that we help people understand their roles in making our vision come alive, not by them fitting into a space, but that their skills are what will take our organization to the next level.  I have talked before regarding the notion of “school teacher” versus “classroom teacher”, and I believe when we act as if these are all of our kids, schools will be a much better place, and educators will focus a lot more on improving what they do.

“One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.”   Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Change for the sake of change is not a good idea, nor will it be sustainable.  We have to be able to help people build upon what they already do great, understand the “why” of change, and help them become a part of something bigger.  We also have to be comfortable with them moving from their point A to their point B, not expecting everyone to be at the same point at the same time.  Continuous learning and growth is what we should expect and embody.

What’s the measure?

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So I read this post this morning and something made me feel really uneasy about the following excerpt:

This week, the Missouri legislature will vote on a proposal to tie 33% of his evaluation to test scores and to add student surveys to his evaluation. He writes:

“Each year, I allow my students to critique me and offer suggestions for my class. I learn a lot from those evaluations and have implemented some of the suggestions the students have made. But there is no way that eighth graders’ opinions should be a part of deciding whether I continue to be employed.”

Okay…so maybe eighth graders are not the best way to evaluate a teacher is effective, but shouldn’t there be some value in what our students say about our teaching?  Nowhere in the article is an alternative suggested.

There is also a pushback to not letting test scores be a part of “teacher evaluations” because of all of the variables that are part of a child’s life.  If a child is not eating in the morning, how well do you think they will do on a test?

One of the comments on the same post said the following:

If administrators would do their job and spend time in the classrooms evaluating teachers, they wouldn’t need 8th graders to do it for them.

Interesting since some people question if we even need principals in the first place.  What if the principal is terrible?  How important is that evaluation?

I am not saying that I have the answers (far from it) on what would be the proper form of evaluation for an educator, but I think that there are a combination of things that we should be looking towards.  All I know is that with all of the pushback against using test scores, student evaluations, etc., I am not hearing many alternative solutions.  I think that in every job, there is accountability to some degree and “teacher autonomy” does not mean we are not accountable, but what does it say to the public when we only say what doesn’t work?

Within Alberta we have a “Teaching Quality Standard” and a “Principal Quality Standard” that is used to evaluate an educator until they get tenure.  I think there are some great things in this framework but I am always curious about the use of this framework later in a teacher’s career.  Do we still look at it?   I am not out of the profession and I am evaluated as an administrator every few years based on my effectiveness.  I honestly value this feedback and use it for my own growth.  I know the criteria that I am evaluated on and what I am expected to do and actually use my blog as a portfolio for my growth and learning.

All I know is that as educators (myself included) if we say what doesn’t work, shouldn’t we also be giving some options on what does work? As educators, we have a voice and we have to use it to help create the solutions and be proactive, as opposed to simply allowing others to create them for us.

So with that being said, what would you suggest as the best way to evaluate the effectiveness of an educator?  I would love to hear the thoughts of others on this, both in and out of the profession.  We can’t just say what doesn’t work.

Suggestions?

Looking Forward To?

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Foxtongue

When I was in grade 9, I always remember hearing about the cool project that you would do in Mr. Still’s grade 10 class that had to do with learning about war and peace around the world.  In the project, you would become a fictitious country and each day you were given scenarios of what was happening around the world, then discuss with your group what you would do next.  Each decision had a consequence, and could lead to more violence or peace.  You also had to guess what the other countries would do in situations, and base your responses on these uncertainties.  Our class made it 6 days before we went to an all out World War.  I remember how excited I was about this project, how exhilarated I was during the process, and how it lead me to major in European History in university.

The next year, I anticipated Mr. Bellamy’s class project where you would create a product, and do all of the advertising for it to try and sell it to others.  People would walk out of the class loving this experience, and I remember distinctly creating a new “shoe”, and the accompanying commercial with the release of the product (which had me dunking off of a trampoline which would probably not go over well in a school now in our litigious society!).  This project, again, was one I looked forward to, loved doing, and led me to have a huge interest in media and advertising, even as an educator.

Both projects lived up to their billing and had some impact on what I do now.  Although I am not in “sales” or a politician, both of these experiences show up in some capacity within my career and I am thankful for the opportunity to take part in these meaningful learning opportunities.

With that being said, I honestly do not remember much else about my time in high school in classrooms, outside of those projects.  Of course I remember fun times with friends, playing sports, acting, etc., but I do not remember much about any other distint projects.  Of course I had great teachers that made a huge impact, but these things stick out in my memory.

So when we look at our own classrooms, what do you think gets kids to wake up early in the morning, excited for what they are about to take part in during the day?  We don’t often look enough at our classrooms as a place where students should want to be, and we treat them as a place they have to be.  Every teacher should be, and hopefully goes into the profession to make a difference, not just “teach”.

So are you one of those teachers that has a classroom with these types of projects, or will it be an experience that kids soon will forget?  In my opinion, these types of meaningful learning experiences (that took a lot of work yet were highly engaging) should be present in every classroom.  This is where we go from “pockets of innovation”, to a “culture of innovation”.

What is the learning event(s) that kids look forward to in your classroom?