Category: Instructional Strategy

A Fun *Way to Celebrate The Incredible Work Our Teachers Do

One Way

One of my favorite things about being a school administrator is that I get to spend lots of time with a whole bunch of phenominal teachers and a ton of incredible students.  It’s been an amazing growth expirence for me as an educator.  From a leadership perspective, I belive that support, encouragement, and celebration are three key ingredients for perpetuating healthy learning communities in classrooms, in school buildings, throughout districts, across entire states, around the country, and globally.  It’s one of my core values.  Twitter has been helping me transtate that value into action in my school community and beyond.

You may have already known that it’s quite easy to email a tweet.  If you didn’t, now you do.  Check it out.  Below is a tweet I sent from our 6th grade band concert.  A rocking musical event!  Focus on the three dots next to the word “more.”  Clicking on those dots provides a drop down menu that offers a couple of options.  The “Share via email” option is your Huckleberry in this case.  Click it, and you’re off to the races.  My admin team and I have been taking pictures of some of the great instrcution happening in our builidng.  We’ve been tweeting them, displaying them on our website, and sharing them through our facebook page.

Via Email

One of the practices that’s brought us a lot of joy and helped to further connect us with our community of rockstar teachers is following up with an e-mail of acknowledgment/apprecitation.  I highly recommend it.  It helps to perpetuate an ongoing diologue, it invites collaboration, and it reminds everyone involved that the great work happening in the classrooms and the hallways of our school is what it’s all about!

If you want to take it a step further, use a hashtag to archive as you go.  We’re using #rcshms (Rochester Community Schools – Hart Middle School).  In doing so, we can backtrack, share at any given moment, revisit with individuals and groups, or even scrapbook if we want!  It’s an easy way to chart your course.

Some Awesome Ways

Make It Fun, Make It Relatable, Make It Interesting

Bike Math

This teacher brought his bike tredmill into school to deal with ratios.  He gave the students some information about the size of the tire, then asked them to do some computations.  They were able to visualize the concept as they worked.  It was engaging.  It brought fun and energy into what might have otherwise been a stessful and even intimidating learning expireince for some.  The shared enthusiasm for learning and application was palpable!

Get Creative, Connect To Application

Creative Math Tools

With some rulers, some tape, and some string, this teachers was able to help his group connect the curriculum to natural environment application.  He introduced the lesson with a story about how he actuatlly used the same set-up in a building project that he did at home over the summer.  His students had an opportunity to use the makeshift tool outside of the classroom.  They got a taste of how math applies to everyday life, and how deeply connceted innovation and imagination are.  It was good stuff!

Give Options, Tap Interests And Abilities

Childrens Book

Guitar

These pictures represent some of what this incredible Language Arts teacher uses to promote her students’ achievement…their interestes and abilities.  We’ve got art, we’ve got music, we’ve got passion and engagement!  Allowing students to deisgn their pathways to achivement in the creative writing process fosters a sense of autonomy, and a allows for feelings of competence as their work unfolds.  Also, it’s fun for them to share their talents with one another.

Put Them In Other Peoples Shoes

MapLenssound room

Facilitating a process by which students are encouraged to view the world from multiple perpectives is a great way to help them expand their own.  Above you see three examples of activites in which students had opportunities to think/work from a lens other than their own.  Writing about potentially adopting the metric system from the perpective of a chef, being hired to design a sound-efficient living room, or deciding where to live based on actual historical events, each perpetuates authentic learning and growth.

*This post represents the first in a new series I’m calling “ways.”  When I see, read about, or otherwise come across great ways to engage learners in development and growth, I’m going to consider adressing them under this category.  I anticipate that the focused reflection will enhance my learning process as it relates to application, and I hope that readers will benefit from the updated organization.  As always, input is welcome and appreciated!

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Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.

 

Support & Encouragement Can Foster Enhanced Self Esteem

Active listening is a wonderful way to collect information about those we teach.  Using that information to support and encourage our learners makes it extra wonderful, in that it values the information, and can encourage enhanced ownership of the learning process and outcomes.

It is well documented that leaners’ motivation and engagement is enhanced when they’re able to take ownership over their learning.  I’m regularly seeing some amazing classroom teachers make great efforts to understand their students.  In turn, I’ve been seeing them take that understanding to the next level by incorporating students’ needs, abilities, learning styles, background knowledge, and life experiences into account as they plan for and implement instruction.

I’ve seen these incredible educators:

– Confer with individuals and small groups

– Observe and take notes during class

– Check for understanding with regular/quick written and oral assessments

– Take interested inventories before instruction

– Use backchannels and other digital tools to generate data during instruction

– Facilitate a variety of Visual Thinking Strategies to unlock potential

Data collection is critical in any learning context.  More importantly, what is done with those data makes all the difference!

We are busy.  We are beholden to standards, stakeholders, policies, and plenty of other forces that guide our planning and prioritizing.  It is difficult to consider the individual needs of each of our learners.  It is arguably even more difficult to weave those needs into the systems and structures that serve to connect those learners to content through their needs.  However, we are sometimes gifted relatively easy pathways.  We have to take advantage of those gifts when they come along!

The other day I had a conversation with one of the organizers of our school’s computer coding club.  The conversation was about a piece of persuasive writing that she composed for another purpose.  It was stellar!  She wrote with passion, she expressed authority, she was thorough and clear with her intentions, and it was among the most engaging pieces of writing I’ve ever read (certainly from a middle school student).  It was truly exceptional!

The connection to data collection and application was extremely poignant to me.  During the summer, this student expressed an interested in creating the coding club.  She developed a plan and was given that opportunity to do so by our Principal.  She was listened to, and her voice was expressly valued.  It was a great example of a student offering information and an educator having the foresight and wherewithal to incorporate that information into the student’s learning paradigm.  Kudos to my boss!  Incidentally, it’s a great way to learn for the adults in our building as well.

During our conversation, this student told me that before she had the opportunity to develop the club, she would have never written the letter I referred to above.  She told me that she did not have the self-esteem.  She went on to tell me that the experience of being encouraged and supported in doing something that she was passionate about was powerful and transformative.  How cool!  This student brought a great idea to the table, she was given the green light and some essential guidance, and she took off running toward what became a life altering developmental experience.

Sometimes we have to work hard to understand and build relationships with our learners.  Students do not always come to us with such explicit ideas.  However, when they do, it’s essential that we listen, process, support, and encourage.

What is it that your students are looking to get involved in?  Listen closely, find out, and then make sure that they have opportunities and assistance.  It may contribute to their learning in ways that are truly meaningful and go well beyond the moment!

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Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.

 

I’ll be the Giant Robot and you be the Caterpillar Radio

The Point:

Everyone has interests and curiosities.  Educators enhance their ability to tap individual and collective potential by seeking to understand the interests and curiosities of their students, then weaving them into the learning process.  Tools and information may not be as important as understanding, encouragement, and empowerment are in growth and development.

The Story:

I remember the first time I saw one of those huge cell phones in a bag.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  You could literally talk on the phone without having to be connected to a chord in the wall!  A mobile phone, imagine that!  My family had a top-loading Betamax machine – you probably don’t even know what that is.  It’s how we watched videos until the innovation of the VCR.  Fancy!  My brother saved his pennies for years to buy a camcorder when he was about fourteen.  We lived with that thing in our hands.  We must have made hundreds of videos.  Now we can’t even watch them – the technology doesn’t exist anymore (of course we converted to digital, but that’s beside the point).  I remember figuring out that we could make each other disappear and reappear by stopping the recording and leaving the room.  We spent many hours saying “abracadabra,” and feeling super cool when we showed the ‘Hollywood magic’ to our friends.  It was pretty awesome!

Technology continues to change at a dizzying pace.  However, passion, imagination, vision, possibility, and enthusiasm are arguably very much the same as they have always been.  They still have the capacity to excite and energize their host.  Furthermore, when coupled with persistence and belief, they tend to catalyze amazing outcomes.

As educators, we are responsible for facilitating highly engaging learning experiences for our students.  I think it’s important that we tap our own learning and developmental history as tools in achieving this charge.  In doing so, put aside the fact that technology is evolving at the speed of light.  Forget, for a moment, that the world’s gadgets and tools come in and out of fashion more quickly than we can figure out how to use them.  Boil it all back down to the human components of learning for a moment.

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My four year old recently approached me with the following instructions, “I’ll be the giant robot and you be the caterpillar radio.”  Now, that may seem a bit enigmatic on the surface, but in fact, he was offering me an invitation to engage in some imaginative play.  Actually, it was more than an invitation.  He was telling me that it was time to play!  It didn’t really matter what the giant robot or the caterpillar radio would be doing, just that they were doing it together, and that they were taken seriously.  There’s no faking imaginative play with a four year old.  It’s not enough to hold an action figure (or a caterpillar radio) and make a silly voice…you have to seriously get into it!  You have to become what your collective imaginations create.

When I play with my buddy in this way, I remember how real movie making with that old camcorder was for my siblings and me.  Again, we spent hours fully engaged in a creative process.  We were excited to explore and create.  We worked through meals and bedtimes (when we were allowed to).  We were thrilled, we were learning, we were making connections, and we owned all of it.  It was based on our curiosities and our interests.

I don’t imagine it would have been very different if our camcorder was a smart phone, or if our Stretch Armstrong was a giant robot.  The key was that our imaginations were accessed through our interests, and that we had support, encouragement, and a license to explore what we were driven to explore in the ways we were driven to do so.  They say that childhood is a time of magic and wonder.  Take a look at a child when he/she is totally engaged in a creative process that’s based on his/her interests and curiosities.  It’s easy to realize that “magic” and “wonder” may very well be understatements!

Some Connected Thoughts:

Exhaust any amount of time necessary to get to know your learners.  Trust the data you gather through efforts to understand, and use them for scaffolding in goal development and instructional design.  As interests and curiosities unfold, incorporate them into the individual and collective learning structures of your classroom.  Adapt instruction based in part on the prompts your students give as they become increasingly comfortable revealing what commands their attention and enthusiasm.  Facilitate a process by which students are able to own their learning, connect the curricular content to their daily lives (past, present, and future) in meaningful and authentic ways, and dig deep into creative exploration because they’re super excited about it.  If you’re asked to be a caterpillar radio that likes to play with giant robots, do it.  Then, when you can’t stop your student’s workflow or get them to leave the classroom, you know you’re on the right track.  When you do get to that place, let me know how you did it – I need some pointers:)!

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Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.

Interest: Fostering Authentic Learning

The Point:

We are each unique and amazing.  When we feel comfortable exploring our world through the lens of our unique amazingness, we reap incredible developmental benefits.  Perpetuating interest and inquiry in the classroom and school community can be a highly effective engagement strategy.

The Story:

For those who love to mow but feel restricted to lawns, take a lesson from my two-year-old son.  The kid is a mowing fanatic.  I teeter between confused and concerned when he insists that one of his two, state of the art, bubble blowing, noise making, colorful plastic lawn mowers goes with us – everywhere.  Is this normal?  Is this all right?  I’ve consulted “Baby 911” to no avail.  Alas, nothing about mower toting toddlers.  We drag these things to the park, the mall, the zoo, birthday parties, doctors’ offices, etc.  Today we had a late breakfast together at one of our favorite pancake joints (their Mickey Mouse is to die for.  It actually has two tiny pancakes for eyes…awesome!).   It was wonderful bonding time between the little guy, his lawn mower, and me.

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As I watched him walk the streets of the downtown area, mowing concrete with every step, grinning from ear to ear, I began to see this phenomenon thorough a different lens.  Maybe there’s nothing to be concerned or confused about at all.  Here’s a tiny little person feeling free to explore his world in any way he wants.  In fact, that freedom may be just the thing he needs.  Could it be that his design will perpetuate maximum developmental benefits, along with the most individualized and holistic outcomes?  Every passer-by smiled, winked, called out, “What a cutie…vroom-vroom,” or “Hey buddy, you missed a spot!”  In no time at all, the spirit of the everywhere-mower came over me as well.  One lady insisted, “But there’s no grass here.”  In solidarity with, and defense of my unique son, I smiled and replied, “Now there isn’t.”  The kid and I looked at one another, hi-fived, and proceeded with our important, albeit imaginary, task.

I see amazing teachers masterfully build classroom cultures in which students feel comfortable expressing the tenets of their unique paradigms as scaffolding for individual and collective learning.  They perpetuate attitudes of acceptance, they celebrate collaboration, they revel in diversity of thought, and they tie instruction to learning through interest and inquiry.  They guide, they support, they inform, they challenge, and they facilitate; all the while helping students make connected meaning of their school experiences through authentic and comfortable lenses.

Today, my little lawn mower man reminded me of how important it is to let kids be kids.  While I had many great experiences as a young student, I was often remanded to the hallway for talking too much (and I may have occasionally been slightly silly at the wrong times).  What if I was taught how to talk as it relates to literacy learning?  What if I was given topics to debate?  What if I was shown how to translate oral language into written language, then given practice and publication opportunities?  What if, instead of a distraction, my deep and enduring love of my own voice was viewed as a pathway to learning for my peers and me?

Educators have difficult jobs that require intense amounts of preparation along with exhaustive time commitments.  It seems pretty hard-core to suggest that we could be individualizing instructions to the point that each of our students would be guiding his/her own learning.  The fact is, I’ve seen it done.  Actually, I see it done all the time, and when I do, I see it work.

Tools and Strategies:

As an administrator I am constantly seeking pathways to shared learning for the faculty I serve.  This year I will continue trying to find/implement strategies that recognize individual and collective interest and inquiry as important factors in the professional learning process.  I know that a lot of the teachers I work with are already designing unique learning opportunities for themselves through social media and live professional networks, which they independently construct and nurture.  I wonder if action research, Edcamp style PD sessions, and project based initiatives can help perpetuate the kind of culture that allows for folks to drag their analogous lawn mowers around as they learn and grow.

We also ate jelly with a fork…don’t tell my wife.

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Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.

Educator’s Toolshed: Beauty-Vision

I think this is beautiful.

dandelion

It’s a weed. In fact, I was standing on my very own lawn with some friends the other day when they pointed it out. A weed, smack dab in the middle of my very own lawn. How do you like that?  I’m on the lawn daily, and somehow, it didn’t occur to me that there was one dandelion I didn’t pick, sticking up out if the middle of my otherwise impeccably green grass.

My wife and I are gardening/ landscaping enthusiasts, so we take a lot of pride in maintaining our lawn. But for some reason I didn’t notice this one.  Maybe the reason is unfolding right now…a romantic notion, but conceivable nonetheless.

My friend looked at me and said, “you’re really slacking man!” He pointed to the weed and we all had a good chuckle. My first instinct was, “Destroy!” But with a closer look, I realized, “This is beautiful.”  I’m glad I missed it, because it’s reminding me of an important lesson that I repeatedly learn, and sometimes forget.  Beauty is truly all around us, everywhere and in everything. The rub, as you know, is that it comes to light in the eye of the beholder. As beholders, we have to stop, we have to look closely, we have to recognize the beauty everywhere and in everything in order to share the joy and wonder that it brings into our lives.

It seems strange that even overt and obvious beauty is sometimes so difficult to recognize and appreciate. As an educator, headed into a new school year, this dandelion’s message is extremely impactful to me. Those of you who are also educators can understand very well that in the middle of a stressful day or a challenging week, it’s difficult to look around and see the beauty that exists everywhere and in everything.

Look closely.

dandelion

This dandelion could be a galaxy filled with brilliant stars or Dr. Seuss’s inspiration for Horton’s world with in a clover. It could be an underwater colony of phosphorescent plant life or a sacred Elf city woven masterfully into one of Tolkien’s fantasies.  Moreover, putting aside what it could be, think about what it is. I don’t know the details of how a dandelion pollinates, but it seems to me that a strong gust of wind would send those little, beautiful, sparkly, feathery, fluffy, seedlings flying into the air, traveling along paths that would lead them toward the eventuality of catalyzing new life.  Seems beautiful to me.

Ironically, just about a moment ago, it simply seemed like…well…frankly…it seemed like a weed.  In any case, as a beholder of this dandelion, and someone who was seconds away from destroying it, I am now constructing an argument to illustrate that in fact, there is beauty in how it looks, and beauty in what it does. I simply needed to slow down, to take a closer look, appreciate, and enjoy.  Moreover, I’m now suggesting that there’s beauty in the message it’s giving me just by existing…a triple threat!  This dandelion, in all of its beauty and wonder, has reminded me of something very important.  I need to work hard at seeing the beauty that surrounds me.  It enhances my life, and I believe that it increases my capacity to function as the type of educator, and the type of leader, that I’m constantly working to be.  Especially in the most challenging moments, I believe that zeroing in on beauty and wonder can enable educators to embrace potential, and inspire learners with authenticity.

Beauty does seem to be in the eye of the beholder, and I believe that beauty does exist everywhere and in everything. So, it’s up to the beholder to live in such a way that beauty becomes apparent to others. What happens when educators lead in ways that expose beauty to those they serve?   What happens when educators lead in ways that that encourage students to appreciate the unique and amazing beauty within themselves?  Take one more moment, look again, behold this weed, this nuisance, this lawn pest.

Do you see its beauty?  Do you hear its message?

dandelion

Dream Big…Follow Your Heart…Be Well.

 

Informal Interventions for Struggling Readers

Developing Reading Skills During Each Instructional Moment

I’m working my way through an interesting article in this quarter’s Reading Research Quarterly called Effects of a Response-Based, Tiered Framework for Intervening With Struggling Readers in Middle School by Greg Roberts, Sharon Vaughn, Jack Fletcher, Karla Stuebing, and Amy Barth.  The article refers to research suggesting that targeted and data driven interventions at the middle school level can be effective in helping struggling readers develop their skills.  I am particularly energized by the assertion that, “adolescents with reading difficulties benefit from explicit and systematic interventions organized around their instructional needs,” the mention of oral reading fluency as an indicator of student automaticity but not comprehension, and the listing of strategy instruction models including monitoring, summarizing, and question generation.  There are formal ways of examining and working to effect student’s development at the middle school level including the Response to Intervention (RTI) process and Adolescent Accelerated Reading Initiative (AARI) implementation.  These processes and programs are effective, important, and even essential to student achievement.  However, as I read this article I continue to think about what’s happening in the classroom on a moment-to-moment basis.  If we remove the statistics, the databases, and the acronyms we’re left with the people.  Thinking critically about why it’s important to put energy into these larger and more formal efforts gives me cause to think about some small and informal things that might be done to keep students reading fluency and comprehension moving in the right direction between interventions and across content areas.  Again, I appreciate and support formal interventions, but I think we can complement them by working to understand student needs as they evolve during each lesson we teach.  Here are some thoughts:

Keep a conferring journal.  Make time for daily, weekly, biweekly, or even monthly individual conferences with each student.  For the purpose of intervention, teachers would have to decide on frequency based on need.  In doing so they would also have to manage the process, being sensitive to the academic, social, and emotional needs of each learner.  Notes would have to be simple and straightforward so that they could be effective in information ongoing instruction.

Collaborate across content areas.  Grade level teachers looking to effect enhanced development in struggling readers might consider teaming up.  Given the shift toward increased exposure to informational text with the introduction of the Common Core State Standards, language arts teachers are equipped to be great partners to their colleagues in math, science, social studies, and the unified arts.

Promote engagement by allowing interest driven self-selection.  By using an inquiry/differentiated model of Project Based Learning (PBL) teachers can give thier students ownership over the text they choose.  In doing so, they can make sure that students are invested in the reading and able to make real meaning from it.

Explicit and systematic does not have to mean complicated and formal.  What are you doing to understand and address the needs of struggling readers in your classroom?

Energy Collaboration: Working Together Separately

Learning 365:  An Interesting Collaborative Structure That Worked!

Today I had the privilege of attending the Hickey Leadership Planning Summit with my new administrative team (follow the amazing Dan Hickey on Twitter @hickeygroup).  I’ve recently been hired as an Assistant Principal at Hart Middle School along side the incredible Wendy Darga (@wdarga), and our awesome Principal Rachel Guinn (@RachelGuinn3).  The summit provided some space and time for us to get the ball rolling.  Dan Hickey is famous for helping educational leaders “get to work,” and that’s just what we did!  It was a day of planning structured around three brief “blasts” from colleagues who were asked to share some of how they think and what they do to work through the daily challenges that we all face.  This was a great way to start the year as a team!  It was energizing to be working in a room with so many passionate administrators from around the state.

For the most part, Rachel, Wendy, and I sat together thinking through a list of critical questions.  We were not engaged with the other groups, but the room was brimming with enthusiasm.  A palpable drive to get things done permeated the space from wall to wall.  What an interesting and effective way to collaborate.  I started thinking of it as “energy collaboration.”  While we weren’t interacting with the other groups, we were feeding off of each other’s energy.  I thought about how this might work in the classroom.  There were dozens of small groups, each one intensely focused on our unique and individual goals, working in different ways through independently designed and implemented activities, within one structure, intended to perpetuate productivity.  I wondered about this model for project-based learning.  How about professional development?  As leaders and learners, supported, but left to our own devices, we met and exceeded our expectations for efficiency.  Our interests and specific needs guided our individual progress, while the common need for space and team-time connected every person in that room, and in my opinion…gave us enhanced motivation to stay on task and get things done.

Each work session lasted for about an hour, which seemed like a good amount of time.  Not enough time to dilly-dally or get burnt out, but certainly enough to cover several critical discussion points.  The “blasts” were five-minute presentations that separated the work sessions.  Each one outlined an authentic passion, practice, or challenge, and was conceived of by the presenter.  They were great, they cut the work time into manageable segments, and they fired us up to get back to work.  The first was from Principal Jessica Carrier (@jcarrierms) about 1:1 tech in the classroom and how it’s essential for staff to be growing alongside students.  As administrators, we need to be modeling, providing support, and deigning opportunities for teachers to develop skills and understandings of tools that we expect them to integrate into their classrooms; a great message!  Next we heard from Jim Lalik (@jimlalik) who reminded us that people can be stifled by a fear of criticism, and that as leaders we need to focus on positive interactions to build trusting, productive relationships.  Jim is a student of Positive Psychology.  He shared some though provoking data related to the philosophy.  Finally, our superstar Rachel Guinn spoke to the group about Administrative Learning Teams and how we “are all in this together!”  She made the great point that when an outside facilitator comes in to lead a group of administrators on a learning path it releases the administrators from their typical design/facilitation responsibilities, allowing them each to focus on individual and collaborative learning; a powerful way to connect and develop as a team.  We heard three great messages, from three experienced administrators, separating three intense work sessions.  I’ll look forward to using/adapting this structure with my new team for implementation where it fits the needs of our learning community!

It might be cool to try:

Asking various staff members to inject 5 minute “blasts” into long meetings to separate segments and energize/inspire others.

Designing professional learning opportunities in which different groups are working on unique content driven by individual needs and supported in creating distinct learning pathways to suit those needs.

Promoting a tech club for staff, like a book club but with iPads and apps instead of literature.

Keeping tabs of the positive interactions I have during the day and setting goals from the data I collect.

Being a part of an Administrative Learning Team!  Deciding on a focus, enlisting a facilitator, making the commitment, and putting it into action.

 

 

 

Great Ideas Are All Around – Keep Your Eyes Open!

The Point: 

Collaboration is one essential key to growth and achievement.  Great ideas are all around us.  When we engage in thinking about (and working on) those great ideas with others, we enhance connected growth opportunities for ourselves, and everyone else involved.

The Story:

The wonderful Arin Kress has initiated a great collaborative learning project through her blog http://hatechalk.blogspot.com, and complimented the effort by engaging the Twitter-sphere with #videoblogchallenge (follow Arin of Twitter @KressClass & do yourself a favor…read her amazing blog)!  I’m extremely excited to be participating in this first challenge.  The challenge is simple:  Go to Arin’s blog, watch the video, create a blog post based on the video, and attach a link to your blog in the comment section of the #videoblogchallenge post that you’re working on.   I love this idea for several reasons.  To begin with, it’s a wonderfully creative idea for engaging multiple learners!  I happen to be a huge fan of wonderfully creative ideas, and I’m an equally huge fan of video use/production in the classroom.  Specifically, I really appreciate how effectively using and/or creating videos can engage learners in the writing process.  Through the #videoblogchallenge Arin is grabbing my attention, making participation fun, and giving me something to think about as I work to conceive of, create, revise, edit, and polish a blog post.  I’ve thought critically about blog purpose and design for some time now, spent hundreds of hours in development, and written several dozen blog posts, and I’m still a novice.  Blogs are phenomenal learning tools, however, it takes a lot of focus and motivation to create and maintain one.  Imagine how the #videoblogchallenge could work to enhance that process for you and your students.  Might you show a video to introduce the concept of blogging to a group of fifth graders this fall?  How about having rotating groups of third graders create videos each week for an ongoing digital conversation about geometry?  Where does Arin’s awesome idea take you?

Next, I believe that it’s attitudes and initiatives like Arin’s that perpetuate the most effective professional development opportunities available.  We all know that education can be a very isolating business.  There is so much to think about and do on a daily basis.  It’s easy to get stuck in a classroom or an office.  By offering the #videoblogchallenge up to her Twitter PLN Arin is rallying a community of like-minded educators around critical reflection and active learning.  What a great model to take back to each of our school communities!  When done well (and with intention), both blogging and Tweeting can bring people together and move common goals forward.  Here I am, on my own time, processing an idea that came to me through my Twitter PLN, wondering how it can positively affect growth and achievement in the community that I serve, engaging in a really fun learning activity, writing a blog post, making connections, and having an ongoing dialogue with Arin and others.  This is great PD (not to mention extremely cost effective)!  How might this model transform some of the PD in your community?  In my experience most educators would agree that interest, collaboration, fun, self-pacing, individualization, and convenience are some worthwhile components of quality learning.  Also, digital environments can be great platforms for otherwise hesitant communicators to feel comfortable expressing themselves.  This project has so many rich and effective pedagogical components.  I hope that it inspires you in the way that it’s inspired me!

 

So, here’s the video followed by my #videoblogchallenge post (you don’t need to watch the last 30 seconds):

It’s amazing how quickly life changes.  In one moment I’m comfortable moving along my path with every bit of confidence that things are looking up, when all of the sudden…the escalator just stops.  It’s that shift into an unexpected challenge that can throw me off.  If I took a moment to relax and think, I might realize that I could simply walk up the rest of the way to get where I’m going.  However, it’s hard to relax when things don’t go according to plan.  I have to be somewhere, do something, meet someone, finish some project, etc.  Who has time to relax and think?  So often the answers are staring me directly in the face.  An escalator is literally a moving staircase, which means that when it’s not moving…it’s literally a staircase.  If I had approached a staircase I would have simply walked up the stairs, but I didn’t, I approached an escalator – and I expected it to escalate me!  This video reminds me that life is unpredictable.  Thankfully, I’ve been alive long enough to understand that adaptability is essential.  I know that plans are frameworks we use to achieve desired outcomes.  As necessary as it is to make those plans, it’s necessary to be ready to change them.  My wife and I are constantly talking about our belief that we’re surrounded by opportunities, and that being prepared to take the ones that fit us is the best way to achieve our goals.  As a husband, a father of three, and an educational leader, adaptability is an extremely important component of that preparedness.  I love the excitement that the two stranded escalator riders expressed when the repairman came to their rescue, and the disappointment they expressed when his escalator broke down.  I wonder how this scene would have played out if the three of them put their heads together to make a new plan by which each could continue on his/her individual path, and then took collaborative action to implement that plan with a continued willingness and ability to adapt as it unfolded.  My guess is that it would have been more effective.  Great video Arin!  Thanks for the challenge:)!

Some Things to Consider:

1.  Finding ways to collaborate can enhance initiatives that would otherwise be developed/implemented in isolation.

2.  Keep a “Great Ideas” journal.  We are surrounded by great ideas.  When educators keep their eyes open and gather ideas for use/adaptation they enhance their abilitie to engage all learners.

3.  Read http://hatechalk.blogspot.com & follow Arin Kress on Twitter @KressClass…you will learn and grow!

4.  Explore video production/use for classroom instruction and professional development.  Check out some more thoughts and ideas at https://bergseyeview.edublogs.org/category/instruction/instructional-tools/video-production/

5.  Expand/engage with your Twitter PLN & Blog (read and write)!

 

Your input is always welcome and appreciated…happy learning!

 

Seth

Taking Risks, Working Together, & Failing in order to Succeed

 

Reasonable Risks, Crossing Bridges, & Collaborations are Keys to Learning & Growth

I keep hearing about how important it is to promote the taking of “reasonable risks” in our classrooms and school communities.  The theme of “failure” as a learning opportunity is hot in the education dialogue right now…as it should be.  After all, where would any of us be without it?  Failure has arguably brought us every great innovation, idea, and achievement that we have.  It can be an incredible motivator, a wonderful teacher, and a tremendous character building resource.  No risk, no reward.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m a believer in axioms.  They generally make sense because they tend to be time tested.  I could declare that eating mashed potatoes with every meal makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  However, it most likely would not make axiom status, in large part because it’s not true.  It doesn’t work.  As tasty as mashed potatoes are, it probably is not in anyone’s best interest to eat them with every meal (especially if you’re a butter fiend like me).  On the other hand, when people get to bed early, they set themselves up for reasonable amounts of sleep (and tend to stay out of late night trouble), and when they wake up early, they have time to get things done.  So many people have found this practice to be a good model for health, wealth, and wisdom that early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise became an axiom. I digress in an effort to illustrate that no risk, no reward holds true as well (statistically).  So, earn a penny by saving one, stick with birds whose feathers are similar to yours, keep your chin up, get out of the kitchen (if you can’t stand the heat), imitate people you wish to flatter, strive for less (it’s actually more), treat people how you want them to treat you, behold beauty in your own way, don’t try to change a leopard’s spots, if you’re looking to save nine stitches…stitch one (in time), face the music, and for goodness sake…take risks!

My two-year-old has an aptitude for risk taking.  Ironically, I frequently find myself calling after him with words like, “no,” and “stop,” and “don’t,” in a loud, sharp voice, and with a reddening face.  I don’t want the kid to get hurt.  But there in lies the art of modeling reasonable risk-taking and supporting our learners in taking reasonable risks.  It’s the reasonable part that they need to understand.  How can we help our children and our students develop the essential critical thinking skills that allow them to determine whether or not any given risk is in fact reasonable?  I would suggest that we will have done our jobs if those we raise and teach are not only able to be reflective and grounded enough to cross each bridge as they come to it, but that they will be able to evaluate how to cross, if an alternative route is called for, or if crossing is in fact not the reasonable option at all.  Then, I would like to think that they will have the courage and resourcefulness to follow through with whatever conclusion they come to.  Finally, if/when they fail…I hope that we’ve been effective enough teachers that they are able to celebrate that failure as a step on the path to success.  Truman Capote said, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”  I like that.

After multiple previous failed attempts…

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my 2-year-old risks life and limb to successfully cross the shaky bridge at the park!

I’m currently engaged in an exciting project with two incredible educators who I recently met on Twitter.  Together with Ashlee Logan (@logan_ashlee) and Aaron Koleda (@aaroNKoleda) I’m co-founding and co-moderating a Twitter chat focused on ways that educators can use videos and video production for best practice instruction in their classrooms and school communities.  The idea was born out of an informal conversation about Ted Talks, a combined love of collaborative learning, and a collective desire to grow by taking reasonable risks!  Given that we each live and work hundreds of miles apart, the three of us would have little chance to know each other if not for our individual efforts to reach out (a reasonable risk).  I’m relatively new to Twitter, but I’m quickly finding that the magic isn’t in having access to the limitless flow of ideas and resources.  Rather, it’s in the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals, connect, and engage in relationships that extend past one hundred and forty characters.  Ashlee, Aaron, and I met recently for the first time in a Google “Hang Out.”  It was awesome! Having bounced our ideas and enthusiasm back and forth on Twitter for a few weeks it was wonderful to be face-to-face (to-face), even through a video chat.  The next step is continuing to develop our #vidEDchat concept.

We’ve set up a blog and a Twitter account, we’re collectively brainstorming format, guiding topics, logo design, and connected resources, and we’re actively communicating the upcoming maiden voyage of #vidEDchat to our respective PLNs (August 14th from 9-10am).  Our intention is to recruit as many collaborators as possible to join in on our journey to explore how videos and video production can enhance learning.  We hope to enlist experts like Brad Waid (@Techbradwaid) & Drew Minock (@TechMinock) from www.twoguysandsomeipads.com to join when we discuss augmented reality, Todd Neslony (@TechNinjaTodd) at www.toddneslony.com to help us explore how videos and video production play into flipped instruction and project based learning, and chat pros like Michele Corbat (@MicheleCorbat ) & Victoria Olson (@MsVictoriaOlson – http://techteacheronamission.weebly.com/) to provide feedback as we work to develop the concept.  One of the most important aspects of this effort to each of us is that it’s a shared effort.  I’ve not met anyone on Twitter who isn’t there to connect.  The collaborative energy is outstanding.  My incredible #vidEDchat partners and I are more than ready to cross the bridge from shooting off and reading Tweets to building authentic relationships by which we can perpetuate ongoing and meaningful collaborative learning.  We’re excited at the prospect of joining forces with as many others as are so moved to join us!  Two of the axioms at play here are no risk, no reward & the more the merrier.  The reasonable risk is that we’re putting ourselves out there, exposed in the Twitter-sphere, ready to push through the roadblocks in developing an idea we believe in.  The hope is that others find our collective work as meaningful as we have, and that by growing this chat we’ll be exposed to learning that will take everyone involved to places we couldn’t have otherwise imagined!  As educators we will continue to practice and model this type of action and learning, not only for our children and our students…but for ourselves!

Being Present Enhances Life, Learning, and Growth!

Shower Them With Presence

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THE POINT:

Being exactly where I am during any given moment enhances that moment for me, and those around me.

THE STORY:

Like everyone I know, I have a lot on my mind, a lot of the time.  I’m truly blessed to have an amazing wife and three incredible children.  Along with that blessing comes plenty of stuff to think about.  I’m realizing with increasing clarity that thinking about all of that stuff all the time doesn’t make it less challenging to navigate the wonderful and occasionally unyielding waters of parenthood, professionalism, and overall humanness (I believe that’s a word).  It’s tough out here!  However, that toughness is manageable, and its effective management can go a long way in perpetuating quality and balance.  My father-in-law, who beat what doctors told him was a fatal cancer over twenty years ago, recently told me that life is not always easy, but that it is always wonderful.  He might be on to something.  Sunday, after a long morning of two-year-old birthday celebrating, softball playing, bubble blowing, overeating, tickle fighting, diaper changing, imagining, and not napping, we pulled into our driveway hoping to get a moment or two of relatively quiet rest out of ourselves and our munchkins.  Our hopes were not realized in large part because the lack of napping produces an explosive energy enzyme in my easily excitable sons (two and almost four years old).  We missed our window.

Aside from the venerated moments of peaceful quiet that never came, I was hoping to get a bit of work done.  No such luck.  However, I do realize that I had another kind of luck…an even better kind.  The trick that I’m going to work hard to pull of as frequently as I can is to understand and appreciate that kind of wonderful luck every time it comes my way.  I was lucky enough to be able to spend an extended afternoon finding sticks and rocks, picking weeds (and even some flowers, which are difficult to distinguish from weeds for a two-year-old), playing pretend sea monsters in the pool, catching up with friends and their children, having burgers with my mom, my sister, and their friends, working through screaming, overtired baths (in collaboration with my exceedingly patient wife), reading books, tucking in the little whirling dervishes who are giving me exactly what I deserve (sorry mom), watching a few moments of mindless television with my aforementioned wife, and quickly melting into a deep sleep without even realizing that it was happening.  I didn’t get my “work” done, but I am arguably better off having lived a bit without worry about it.

As a parent, I realized how important it was to my boys that we were engaged with one another.  It didn’t matter exactly what we were doing, it only mattered that we were doing it with enthusiasm, and that I was aware and responsive.  It’s possible that I spend too much time trying to plan meaningful activities, when I could be spending that time engaged in meaningful activities.  If my boys are pretending that a beach ball is a giant rock, and they’re kicking it around the yard as if they have super powers, maybe I should be doing it with them rather then sitting on the porch figuring out if the Bouncy-House Warehouse is open until five.  In fact, it might be all right to play pretend all afternoon long.  Modeling imagination and sharing the experiences that my kids find meaningful seems like a good thing to do.  Being fully engaged also gives me the ability to extrapolate meaningful pathways to development and growth.  When I pay attention the people I’m with I learn about them.

As an educator, I’ve repeatedly realized that there may be no more impactful practice than true, deep, and reflective engagement.  Students of all ages thrive on being recognized and understood.  Value is added to learning when it’s owned by the learner, overtly recognized as relevant, and shared in authentic ways.  Thinking about increasing my engagement gives me cause to reflect on times when I’ve found myself distracted in the classroom.  There is so much to think about, plan for, and do over the course of a school year, let along the course of a school day.  What if every time a student approached me I made myself fully available to interact, authentically engage, and respond?  What if I purposefully deigned my classroom to make it easier to do?  One person might not be able to give his/her full attention to twenty-five people all the time, but can I do better than I’ve done?  Are there systems, structures, routines, or tools that can help?  How about instructional leadership?  Isn’t it true that my colleagues and I mutually benefit from consistent and active support and encouragement?  There is only so much time in a day.  The critical reflection I’m working to unravel as I write this post revolves around the balance between living that time and planning for it.  Live IS wonderful, and for my money the most wonderful parts are shared.

THINGS YOU MIGHT CONSIDER:

– We live in a busy world.  There is always lots of stuff to think about.  Managing the process by which you do that thinking can help free you up to fully engage in the really important stuff.

– Life is not always easy but it is wonderful.

– A missed nap can be an opportunity for some meaningful togetherness.

– Recognizing the value of authentic, and truly interactive engagement is a good start to fulfilling that value for yourself and those around you.

– It doesn’t always matter what you are doing with your children, only that you are doing it together.

– Sharing experiences that other’s find meaningful is crucial to building relationships.

– Teachers have extremely busy days.  It’s easy to become distracted and overwhelmed.  However, there are ways to address that busyness and stay present simultaneously.

– Learning is enhanced when it’s shared and recognized as meaningful.

– When educators take time to support and encourage one another the entire school community benefits.

– Thinking critically about how you interact with others can help make those interactions increasingly meaningful.

THINGS YOU MIGHT TRY:

– Add an engagement section to your journal, or keep an engagement journal.  Once a week, once a month, or every so often write critical reflections about how actively you’ve been engaging with the people in your life and consider the impact it’s had.  Make note of times when you’ve been able to fully engage in the face of potential distractions and consider how you managed it.  Write stories, bulleted lists, draw pictures, and scratch ideas.  Actively brainstorm ways that you can increase your engagement.

– If you’re an educator, brainstorm ways to design an environment that promotes and perpetuates authentic engagement.  You might consider digital media, flipped lessons or units, a workshop model with one-on-one conferences build in, responsive journaling, electronic portfolios, classroom Twitter accounts, video production, etc.  Talk about it with colleagues and collaborate on implementation.