Vision and Reality: Moving Down the Teaching/Learning Path

I envy those who work toward significant change with success--it's a gift to be able to move forward with light, grace, and care, and make improvements in any locale.

It's not easy to advocate for change--it takes skill.

Yet, as a member of my PLN, Gail, reminds me, the small steps in your own place of authority and effort offer the easiest space to affect change. There's less avenues to travel, and more frequent space to assess and refine as you go along.

The White House Student Film Festival filled me with hope today, and gave me the inspiration to speak up once again for some ideas I value, yet it's clear that the way I speak, ask questions, and advocate is not welcome and challenged by some. Hence, I will need to learn more about this to grow, another bite of humble pie as I journey down the path of teaching/learning well.

Some may say, Why reveal this side of your life and work?  My answer is that it's simply easier to grow beyond this when the challenge is transparent--there's no ill intent in my share, only a strong desire to make positive change. Hence as I travel down this road, I'll learn, and as I've learned in the past, this will strengthen the work I'm able to do to teach children well.

Glad to Be a Connected Educator Today

This morning when I opened my email, I found an invitation to the live streaming of the White House Student Film Festival Awards. The film fest was the result of a student contest which originated at the Department of Education. The Film Fest was live streamed beginning at 2:30 p.m. which was an ideal time for the end of the day Friday teaching.

We hooked up the computer to the giant white board, and watched as one proud student after another spoke to Bill Nye about his/her award.  Students watched with inspiration.  Later we watched some of the films which were terrific depictions of how tech can be used in schools today to teach children well.

So, first, take a look at the White House Student Film Festival winners--I promise that you'll be inspired, and second sign up to be a connected educator as then you'll get the notices related to terrific events like this.

Schedule to Learning List: Day 2

Yesterday, I presented the learning list for the first time. I'm playing with that notion more today.  I can see that I'll need to come up with a template for this to make it a quicker process each day, but for now, here's today's version.

Quote of the Day: “By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.” — Roald Dahl

Thanks to the Granite School District for providing the best ever math vocabulary site--a site that's helping students everywhere learn to communicate their math ideas with greater depth.

8:30: Start of Day

9:30 Library

10:00 - 3:00 (Recess/Lunch 11-11:50)

The Move to Deeper Learning/Teaching

The move to deeper learning is a time consuming move. It's a move that includes change with regard to the details of teaching--the details related to lesson planning, daily teaching routines, student response and feedback, and collegial collaboration.

Specifically, and to date, that move includes these actions:

• Daily attention to the "learning list" including vocabulary, learning objectives, learning dispositions/mindsets.
• Explicit attention to the learning objectives.
• Well choreographed lessons that include lots of vibrant, active, rich, collaborative learning experiences--the kind of learning experiences students want to continue on their own time in their own ways.
• Attention to current research, process, tools, and strategies--keeping up to date on the changing landscape of teaching/learning.

I believe that this move has accelerated due to the fact that children are able to learn so much more with depth at this time due to the amazing access we have to information and learning tools/materials, access that is accelerating what children can learn and produce at young ages.

Yet, the acceleration also demands that we are more cognizant of developmentally appropriate tools, strategies, and process since children also have access to learning that is not a good fit for best learning. Hence, we have to curate with care, collaboration, and eye on the future with regard to how do we best prepare children for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a world we cannot even imagine.

The challenges we face as educators today are exciting because the potential for better learning for all students is great.  To meet these challenges well we need different kinds of supports from the greater learning community.

First, leadership needs to recognize and support this time consuming changing educational landscape by providing additional collegial and individual professional learning and design time. There's too much to know related to teaching well to do all that with a 45-minute prep each day and limited collaborative time.  There are creative ways to build in additional research, planning, design, and response time by re-looking at the way time is spent in a buildings, the way that educators are assigned, and the priorities for an optimal education today. We have to look more deeply at the role of collaboration, and the way schools are managed--Pink's theme of "autonomy, mastery, and purpose" in Drive is a better management philosophy than the top-down, factory models at play in some schools.  We also have to look at how decisions are made and the ways issues, ideas, and news are communicated--essential areas for revision in most schools, revision that will lead to better teaching/learning.

There's lots to think about with regard to the evolution of schools and learning today, and embracing these challenges with an open mind and sense of positivity will lead us forward in positive ways that benefit children.

From my own vantage point, it's all about the details today. The details related to the classroom routine, learning list, lessons, feedback, response, and care. Have I come full circle to return to the place where I started this journey?  No, I believe it's been a spiral; one that's pushed me ahead so that now I'm returning to the "nest" of the classroom with new knowledge, skill, and purpose--a greater ability and deeper challenge when it comes to teaching children well. 

RETELL #1: Teaching the English Language Learner, The Learning List

There's strength to the learning menu board in intermediate grades.
I will add a quote each day and times. I'll make this a prominent
and attractive part of the classroom.  I'm thinking about all the little
details with regard to room design--details that make foster
independence, team, and optimal learning.  

Similar to the study I did years ago related to inclusion, the RETELL study that focuses on the English Language Learner is study that will actually serve to improve my teaching for all children. As I sat and listened to the many introductory points related to this Massachusetts initiative, I was challenged by a host of new language and strategies to embed into the classroom's daily routines. Essentially, like the Common Core Standards, our work to improve learning/teaching for English Language Learners is focused on more explicit instruction and greater attention to detail for all steps of the learning/teaching process.

The first challenge presented by RETELL is the challenge to change the daily schedule to a daily learning list. This is one way to embed the requirement to explicitly share learning objectives with students each day during each lesson.

For example today's typical schedule or agenda would look like this.

1. Sign in.
2. Morning Work
3. Writing

The learning list evolves. . . now to add quote of the week. 

4. Lunch
5. Math Problem Solving
6. Music
7. Reading Workshop
8. Clean Up
9. Film

Turning that into a learning list looks like this.

Words of the Day

1. Sign In
2. Writing:

• I will learn to identify and write words and phrases that describe a character's physical features in a story.
• I will learn and apply the the steps of rereading and thinking like the "reader," adding  details and dialogue, and COPS (capitals, organization, punctuation, spelling) while revising and reading aloud my story.
• I will practice and apply perseverance as I revise my mid-unit narrative 

3. Math Problem Solving:

• I will read, review, and apply problem solving strategy and area/perimeter skill, concept, and knowledge as I solve a number of math word problems using pictures, numbers, and words to show my work, and a sentence to explain the answer.

4. Music

5. Reading Workshop

• I will reread the Annie Smith Peck text I studied with the teacher on Monday, and learn and practice how to write a reading response that includes a topic sentence, four pieces of direct evidence from the text and four explanations, and a concluding sentence.

6. Clean Up

7. James and the Giant Peach Film

• I will observe and learn how an author takes important details from a story and depicts those details with music, dialogue, drama, animation and setting in a multimedia composition. 

Writing the learning list took a lot longer than simply writing the agenda on the board.  I think I'll enlarge the objectives on the copy machine and hang them up on the agenda board.  I'll introduce each objective at the start and end of each lesson.  It will be interesting to see the children's reactions this morning as they view this new "schedule" for the first time. Let's see where this takes us.