Why Are You Doing All That?

There's a perception out there:
         Ambitious teaching is a personal trait.  Not all teachers are ambitious, nor do they have to be.


I've been asked more than once, "Why are you doing all that?"   It might be about serving on several school-wide committees.  I am passionate about the work of both my classroom and that of the whole school.  You might say I am an ambitious teacher.


My response to the question often is, "It's just professional."  My expectation is that ambition is a common characteristic of teachers.

Change

New practices and innovations should:
  1.  not be patched onto archaic systems.
  2.  be a part of a comprehensive integrated program.
  3.  be based upon a vision.
  4.  grow out of research.

What Happens in the Other Classrooms Doesn't Affect What Happens in My Classroom, Does It?

Sometimes my students look at me like I'm crazy.  I admit it may be a bit unsettling to have your chemistry teacher singing and dancing around the room.  I don't mind the looks so much then.  I do mind the resistance I encounter when I implement practices I learned in graduate school.
Within a school-- agreement about instructional practice is required in order to reap the ultimate benefit of each individual teacher's investment.  Teachers united in consistently applying a real shared vision will see the greatest effect.  This is true because it makes it all simpler and clearer to students.  Similar models and methods are encountered in all classes.  Once learned and understood they can be used by students in any class.  Students working toward common standards they have seen and tried before rather than a multitude of performance measures are more confident in their attempts to meet them.
Outstanding Instructional Practice
Improving Schools From Within
Classroom Instruction That Works
Powerful Learning

Community Building and Protocols

What Students Need: Structures and Tools

Students need structures that provide them:
   Power and Choice
     If students have power and choice they will be motivated to discover and create.
   Responsibility
   Confidence in Their Abilities

Students need tools:
   Of the Time Period
     Technology
   Of the Mind
     Process skills, habits of mind
   Of Their Heritage
     Content knowledge

What Teachers Need: Structures & Tools

Teachers need structures that allow or go so far as to impose:
   Professional Development in Milieu
   Support in Professional Practices
   Encouragement
   Authority and Responsibility

Teachers need tools that provide:
   Curriculum Support
   Assessments
   Up-to-Date Technology
     -that will streamline the work that can be streamlined
     -so they may model appropriate use

It Bothers Me When a Student Asks:

"What do you want in this project?"

This MIGHT be a legitimate question from a student IF no direction has been given.  At minimum my students receive:

1.  An Essential Question 

2.  A Rubric

3.  A Model

4.  Engagement / Advanced Organizer / Anticipatory Set
5.  The  Objectives for the Unit of Study

When this happens I am tempted to ask the student, "Have I not given you reason to want something in the project yourself?  Have you no motivation to discover and create?"

Even with my best efforts and best practices to draw from them their interests, abilities and future goals and even create more interest it is still me imposing the application of those things to their learning.

I've had one student explicitly state to me that HE chose to take my chemistry class because of his interest in metallurgy.  He had some reason of his own to do the work.  How can we get other students to be like this one?

Well, first we must relinquish the responsibility for learning-- or at least a bigger chunk of it--  to the learner.  Then we must be patient and confident as we let them flail about, muse, or even get really bored or frustrated until they find a way to get at it.   

Decision Making

Have you ever been in a quandary about how a decision should be made in your classroom?  Have you ever sat through a staff meeting wondering why a decision was taking so long to be made?  I found the description in Crucial Conversations:  Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High of four types of decision making helpful.  I made this table to help me make sense of it--I'm pretty visual.

Carry A Compass to Help You Along

Stand by REM has been a favorite song of mine.  It has given me the emotional courage to stand by my values.  What values you ask?  I live by the insights of visionaries.  I implement research based models and methods of instruction.  I am guided by the Ten Common Principles and other compatible perspectives.  I make decisions based upon ethics and morality.  My practice is professional because that is right and good.

This is what it means to be an ideal teacher—one that acts from a core of inspired proven ideals.

How I Got Into Teaching

I gave up my first career in microbiology for my children.  I was happy to do so, and
seamlessly transferred my passion to raising children.  I wanted to be the best mother I could be.  Part of the plan was to find out everything there was to know on the subject.  With my firstborn in my arms I scoured the local library shelves for the parenting instruction manuals.  Along with the expected titles I found A Nation at Risk.  I vowed that my children would not be a part of the ineffective system described there.  It set me on the path to homeschooling.  I had almost five years until my son was kindergarten age.  I began my preparations and was ready to home school at the appropriate time.  We learned at home, in the backyard, at the library, the museum, the parks, along the riverbanks and on the mountain tops for many years.  They were the most joyous years of my life and the most challenging.  As time passed my children needed to form part of a larger social circle and to learn specialized skills I did not have.  I also saw that I might be able to build the nation not just by safeguarding my own but through creating a wider influence myself.  I thought I might have something to share with the nation at risk. 

Gradually I have moved from my inner circle outward.  I began my professional teaching career at a charter Essential school.  This environment operated on unique core principles which enhanced and cemented my belief in their implementation. Having now transitioned to a typical rural regional high school, I try to make a difference by sharing these unique practical principles with educators who have not yet attempted to implement them.

When Will We Ever Learn? Part One

Written in 1971, Illich's book Deschooling Society critiqued the institutions of society and provided a vision of alternative possibilities. This book was the beginning of much of what is called for today in education and reveals Illich as a prophet who foresaw the internet with all of its potential.

In the introduction Illich expressed his expectation of more than just the insertion of these approaches and tools into the existing educational architecture:

The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education . . .

Illich asked us to begin with the individual and to acknowledge that learning takes place continuously in many environments. Rather than imposing expectations upon students he demanded that they drive their own curriculum. He proposed an open education market which allows for a multitude of sources for learning. He did not go so far as to say that there should be no planned instruction.  But rather, he made it part of a larger picture. 

If Illich was right many improvements for the individual and society can be expected by enacting his vision.  Imagination and innovation, directly related to economic health, will be fostered. Social connection will expand beyond limitations of geography, culture and status. All social classes will be empowered.  The roles of educators will be not only that of subject matter experts but will be transformed to that of coaches as well.  But, his ultimate goal was the fulfillment of individual potential. Illich believed this process begins with fostering "personal potency" in individuals and in making a multitude of learning experiences available to them.

Illich's dream is foundational to the proper implementation of best practices and the use of an expanding pool of learning opportunities.  Education must begin with the individual, the narrow end of the funnel, and develop from there.  When the process begins outside of the student, we run the risk of never getting the learning inside.  When only specific schooling is recognized as legitimate learning we limit the fulfillment of potential. Perspective matters, turning the funnel around will make necessary transformational change happen.

Teachers as Coaches and Guides?

When teachers act as coaches—facilitating the learning of students, they:  give access and direction to multiple appropriate resources, act as an expert consultant in content and process and assist the student in filtering and fitting information to a purpose.  The teacher becomes a miner of learning opportunities, methods and activities.  They develop a dynamic repertoire of strategies to implement depending upon the student’s interests, learning style, particular project and needs.  

In the initial stages the adults:

Model

Open Doors

Explore Options with the Student

Map Territories with the Student

Later the adults are needed to:

Course Correct

Consult

Remind

Act As Sentinel

Facilitate

Encourage, Cheer, Motivate

(or return to the initial role when needed)

Why Give Choice?

We often hear students lament, “Why do we have to learn this?”  We can explicitly answer their query and we can design authentic instruction and assessment to get the point across.  But, by giving students choice in their learning they answer this question themselves initially and over and over again throughout their work.   Providing choice can induce interest, maintain focus and provide a sense of purpose and thus more learning.   Giving a teenager choice also empowers.  This is something we can grant them power over with little cost or loss.  When we give them legitimate power they will not have a need to seek alternative and detrimental means of control over their lives.  Giving choice enhances learning and acknowledges the growing personal responsibility of young people.

Caution:  Too much choice is confusing and disperses energies.  It may even lead to dissatisfaction and depression.  See Barry Schwartz's book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.

How Can Choice Be Given?

If it is accepted as reasonable that we give students choice we might then consider two ends of a spectrum of how to do that. Both approaches require an investment. One in planning, one in waiting. One is initially directed by the teacher, the other is only initiated by the learner. They may result in the same end: enhanced learning. The root or genesis of it differs and so too may the long term effect upon the student’s role in learning in the future.

One means of including choice within curriculum is to engineer the program so no mistakes or waste is possible. Both content and process skills might be delivered in parallel courses which each have a unique thematic base. For instance, specific and basic state requirements in chemistry, biology and physics might be taught through the study of food. They might just as easily be address through environmental studies or an expanded study of astronomy and space exploration. In this case the curriculum designers require students to take courses from set pools of courses with common outcomes. Whether the student takes food science, environmental studies or astronomy they come out understanding the process of science and the basic content knowledge of the foundational disciplines.

Anarchists and free schoolers insist upon initiative from the learner. The learner must exhibit an interest in something. When they do, the adult fans the spark by providing resources (materials, tools, experts) which leverage the interest into productive study. For example, a typical juvenile interest in blowing things up leads to soda bottle rockets to making things from found objects to making musical instruments to a visit to a luthier’s workshop and mastery of banjo playing and composing original music on Garage Band. This leads to college freshman studies in the anthropology of tools and a semester’s worth of philosophical focus on Aeolian wind harps.

The extent to which choice is given in this discussion is dependent upon the desired outcome. Are there set standards to which we must work, say state curriculum requirements? If so, perhaps the engineered choice is preferable. If on the other hand, we can ignore outside demands or choose to set them aside in faith that a full experience will flower from our dynamic and vigilant attention to learner interests, we may prefer the second approach. The second approach most scaffolds a student in developing initiative based upon something that comes to mind. In the first case we may yet need to engineer another experience that takes the learner to the next level , that of independent inquiry.

Moving Toward Student Differentiation

Differentiation can be overwhelming for teachers.  One point often missed, that can ease the burden on teachers, is that the best of it requires student participation.  If a student will play a role in the process it will not only relieve the instructor but will end up being more to the point of serving the individual.  

Involving a student more deeply in their learning can look like this:

                Instruction:

Individualize by Interests

At the beginning of the course ask students to identify a possible future career for themselves.  Throughout the course, present instruction through the lenses of those careers.  Bundling similar careers together and forming learning groups around each expedites the preparation and implementation.  These groups can work in parallel on the same basic concept.

Individualize by Learning Style

The same approach can be taken with learning styles.  A teacher may use a multitude of approaches to presenting information.  But she may also break up students into groups based upon their learning style.  Involving students in determining their learning style and then allowing them to choose which group to join for a particular time enhances their engagement and responsibility taking.  Offering three choices seems sufficient to make an appropriate match and not be too demanding for an instructor to prepare for.  These might be divided into these broad categories:  kinesthetic, visual and linguistic.  Of course, to diminish the future teacher labor cost one should always preserve and archive the support materials and lesson plan so that they may be used again.

                Assessment of Performance:

A quiz which has hard and easy questions.  The student choose which to respond to.The easy question aims to confirm understanding of the foundational concept.  It may be low order.  The more difficult one allows students to challenge themselves with the concept if they believe they are ready.  It should be higher order, require multiple steps or synthesis of new material and previously learned material.  Example:

1.        EASY List the three major types of intermolecular force. 

       HARD   Identify an example of an intermolecular force evident in a macromolecule (lipid, nucleic acid, protein) of biologic importance.  How does the force affect structure and/or function of the macromolecule?

Assessment by Interest

If instruction has been tied to interests, assessment can readily also be linked to interests.   This works particularly well with projects but one section of questions on a test could present students with a choice of questions to respond to based upon their interests.  This might include describing an application of a learned concept to a particular career.

Assessment by Learning/Performing Style

In the same way projects and test questions can be open to attack from a range of means of expression.  A test question might offer the option of writing a short essay or drawing a detailed, labeled illustration.  A student might make an oral presentation or write a critique.

            Remediation:

Workshop Stations Tied to Test Questions.  Students look over missed test questions.  They highlight the questions that they still don’t understand or are not confident in solving.  The teacher sets up learning stations for each of the questions on the test.  At these stations a self-paced activity provides an opportunity to re-learn a concept.  Ideally, the activity should attack the concept from a new angle—one that was not offered earlier.

Reflection:

When self-assessment is taught and implemented students are given responsibility for their own learning.  The role of the teacher is to select appropriate prompts that will press the students to productive work.  A general or final prompt in a session might be something like:

What do I need to do next to keep making progress (toward a specific goal)?

or

What do I need to do in the next 24 hours in order to be ready for class tomorrow?

Asking students to reflect before choosing a remediation activity is critical to their successful use of time and the opportunity to learn.