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.