The ECET2-MA2016 Journey Continues: Join Us!

Over a year ago Meenoo Rami asked me to participate in a start-up idea that she was forwarding as a Bill and Melinda Gates Education fellow. Always impressed and inspired by Rami, I agreed to join the effort. There was no money involved, but I did receive the promise of an invitation to an uplifting education event.

When I get involved in initiatives for no money, I make my decision whether to say yes or no based on whether the event will positively impact the work I do in the classroom. Rami's idea connected well to my classroom work so I joined the effort. Several months after the start-up began I received an invitation to attend the Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2) event in San Diego. Then in January of 2016, I attended the event with 400 educators from across the country. As promised, the event was truly uplifting introducing me to inspiring educators, ideas, and opportunities.

During the event Gates Education Foundation officers gathered Massachusetts educators, consultants, and donors, and challenged us to do a better job by our underserved populations. They noted that while our state was doing an awesome job with education, there were still gaps to fill. They invited us to write a grant to host a similar ECET2 event in Massachusetts as one way to meet this challenge. So during a long layover at the San Diego airport at the end of the event, a number of Massachusetts educators started talking about hosting a similar event in Massachusetts. Our efforts actually resulted in two planned Massachusetts events. The first, the October 22nd ECET2-MA2016, is focused on Teaching ALL Students, and the second organized by Jennifer Dines, held in early 2017,  is focussed on Teaching our ELL Students with Strength, Creativity, and Commitment.

Since our brainstorming time at the airport in January until now, Audrey Jackson and Sean Brooks, Educators from Boston Public Schools, Kevin Cormier, a Pepperell Math Teacher, Lisa Simon, Math Curriculum Specialist and Educator at Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District in western Massachusetts, and I have worked together to write the grant, and then upon notice of approval, plan the event.

Now with only three weeks to go and over 100 confirmed guests from all over the state, we are putting the finishing touches on the event, an event that will feature Jose Vilson, activist, educator, and author of This is Not a Test, Suzy Brooks, Director of Instructional Technology at Mashpee Public Schools, Liz Phipps Soeiro, Cambridgeport Public Schools Librarian, and student speaker, Rachel Kennedy who was recently awarded a Boston Globe Essay Award for her essay, "Young, black, and afraid for my brother on Nantucket." We also have a number of dedicated educators from throughout the state who will lead the break-out sessions.

In the meantime, we still have a few open seats for MA teachers who want to spend a Saturday in October learning about, sharing, elevating, and celebrating the work we currently do and can develop to Teach All Students. Massachusetts educators from public, private, parochial, and charter schools are all welcome to join us. Simply complete the invitation form. We're accepting the final invites on a first come, first serve basis.

We expect that our inspiring speakers and presenters, colleague circles, healthy, delicious lunch, and networking events will serve to create energy and motivation to elevate and celebrate what we are doing now in Massachusetts and what we can do in the future.

Little did I expect a simple yes to the inspirational Meenoo Rami would result in such tremendous collaboration, positive challenge, and the opportunity to work with so many wonderful Massachusetts educators to teach ALL of our students with strength, skill, and dedication.

If you plan to join us on October 22, my planning team colleagues and I are looking forward to meeting you and learning with you. If you can't join us on the 22nd, consider joining us for the pre-event #ecet2ma2016 Twitter chat on 10/16 at 7pm-7:30pm or for the post #ecet2ma2016 Twitter chat at 10:00 am on 10/23.  Also follow the event tweets at #ecet2ma2016 and feel free to reach out to our team via the website contact information with questions, suggestions, or potential donations to make the day extra special for all of the attendees.

Teaching Well: Finding the Center

There's always more to do when you teach. It's a job with no limits when it comes to promise and potential. The challenge as with all jobs is to balance the work with your family life, friends, and personal pursuits. To do that, you have to find the center of your time and efforts; you have to find what matters.

To me, I am committed first to my many fifth grade students. I want each student to enjoy school, be inspired, and learn a lot. I work with a great team of teachers and together the only limitation we face as to what we can do right now is time. We are constantly learning, leaning on one another, and pushing each other to develop and improve the program. As it stands now, my first priority is teaching math well and my second priority is STEAM teaching and learning. With this in mind it's a day-by-day effort to teach, design learning experiences, respond, reflect, and revise as needed.

I am also committed to lifelong learning and improving my craft. This arena is a bit more challenging since there is limitless opportunity to learn, multiple outside agencies inviting teachers to learn with them, tremendous online opportunities for learning, bountiful courses, lots of books to read, and many, many professional events. This is a much different professional learning scenario than years ago, and teachers need to review what's out there and make choices that will elevate and celebrate their work with the greatest result.

Currently with regard to professional learning, I am prioritizing the following efforts:

• Moderating Tuesday night #edchat 7pm-8pm
• Studying and design math/STEAM research, learning, and program development
• Promoting culturally proficient teaching and learning via reading, writing, planning ECET2-MA2016, working with colleagues, and designing related teaching/learning events.
• Looking at ways to integrate SEL (social emotional learning into multiple learning experiences to promote student success and wellness.
• Development of our shared teaching model, professional collaboration, and tech integration to elevate achievement, students' self confidence and independence, and student engagement and empowerment.

As the year moves along, I plan to attend a number of professional events to keep the learning fresh and current. For example I've already committed to attend ECET2-MA2016, MassCUE, edcampMalden, edcamp Boston (if I can get a ticket :), Educon 2.9, MTA Summer Conference and The Wayland STEAM and Literacy Institutes--events I've attended in the past and know to be great resources for new learning. As I attend the events, I'll likely engage with the sessions related to cultural proficiency, STEAM, tech integration, and math learning. 

In addition, I also want to develop my efforts to collaborate with educators near and far. The more I reach out to collaborate, the more I learn. Areas that interest me most in this regard include how to use good process such as "hosting conversations" to move our collective work forward. I'm also interested in the ways that we can maximize tech integration to develop successful, targeted, and results-oriented collaboration. 

I have multiple opportunities to develop this interest and work as I collaborate with my grade-level colleagues, colleagues across the system, and educators throughout the world in my Professional Learning Network. Specifically our systemwide grade-level colleagues are looking deeply at the math/STEAM programs. There has been substantial discussion, questions, and ideas shared in this regard. It will be interesting to see where that goes. I'll also have practice as I work with our system-wide salary and working conditions team to re-look at our contract and find ways to improve our work conditions and wages so that every teacher has what they need to teach well and live well too.

At the center of my work is the belief that our efforts matter and the more that we can direct our time and work to the center of what's important and what makes a positive difference, the better we will all do for our students. 

What does your teaching/learning road map look like? Where are your priorities? How will you work with colleagues near and far to move your craft and impact forward? These are questions that take us to the center or the heart of all that we do and aim to be. Onward. 

What is Good Process?

Sometimes conjecture gets in the way.

Instead of making the time for deep, comprehensive analysis, people conjecture instead.

When I read Intentional Interruption I was struck by the fact that humans often don't want to go deep and look at data and statistics with an open mind, broad focus, and targeted analysis.

In general, I believe that figuring out good processes and then using those processes in a timely manner can uplift the work we do to teach and learn well.

How can we rightly change and develop the processes we've used in the past to promote better work in the future?

As I think of this, I have the following suggestions:

• Re-look at timelines and give process the time it needs in order to result in good change and growth.
• Include more voices in the process in targeted ways. Don't simply rely on the analysis of a few, but figure out ways to make the process more inclusive.
• Use data and statistics honestly and don't shy away from the troubling news, but instead embrace it and truly figure out how to dismantle it.
• Report honestly and transparently all facts and figures so that everyone understands what's happening and why.

I truly enjoy thinking and learning about processes that serve to uplift our work and result. If you use a process or multiple processes that promote good work, I'd like to learn more about this. So let me know. 

Level Two: Open to Honest Critique; Willingness to Improve

Our school was rated Level 2 by the state and that doesn't sit well with me. Of course, like teachers everywhere, I want to be rated similar to our peer schools in the district and elsewhere at Level 1. What happened?

I looked at the data with multiple angles and culled a large number of new, redesigned, and elevated efforts that my colleagues and I might employ to help our school reach a Level 1 status.

Honestly to make the progress will take good honest analysis, critique, and effort from all educators in the school. The big questions are the following:

• Are we maximizing the talents, skill, and time of our terrific staff?
• Are we employing "robust instruction" for all students?
• Do we make significant time for meaningful time-on-task for student learning?
• Are we maximizing the use of the best online and offline tools to teach well?
• Since we're a Title One school, are we using those funds in strategic, beneficial ways?

Now as I write about this, I must note that we are a privileged school. Our students generally come to us well-loved, enthusiastic, and happy. The teachers stay for years and commit considerable time to professional learning and development. The school administrators are dedicated to each and every one of the students. 

Further, our school district went through significant redistricting which may have affected our ratings and we could have possibly asked the state to recalibrate our baseline. I'm not exactly sure about how this works, but I estimate that this plays a small role in the overall rating. 

In all, I think our school can rally around this publicly known truth and look for ways to make gains. I've created a list of changes for my own teaching, changes culled from deep data analysis, analysis of my own work, a review of the expectations, and from connecting to teachers in the other schools about what they did to elevate scores.

I believe scores can reveal trends and help us to look deeply at the work we do. I am committed to helping students achieve good scores in ways that elevate self esteem, develop meaningful academic achievement and enrich a love of learning. I do believe we can do both especially in a well supported school system like the one I teach in. Let's see what we can do. Onward. 

Improving Scores: Teaching Well

Teaching is not all about scores, however, those of us in the field know that scores matter to many. As always my teaching/learning goal is to help students learn in engaging, meaningful ways and also get good scores.

If you've been reading my blog during the last few days, you've probably noted that scores have been on my mind. How do we help all students achieve better and more in this regard?

I'm not the only one thinking about this. Many are re-looking at programming, time, and effort to make a difference in this regard.

This week's analysis points me in the following direction:

• Continued student-centered teaching/learning efforts with a goal on making the teaching program an enriching, engaging experience.
• Regular professional learning, share, debate, and discussion.
• Fidelity to the standards and time-on-task for the program goals.
• Regular student response, feedback, and encouragement.
• More opportunity for repetition, practice, and "just right" goals (reach, challenge)
• Apt employment of staff to meet the goals.
• Regular informal and formal formative and summative assessments to target program/student needs.
• Employing additional efforts to support areas of challenge.

There is substantial programming that supports our students; programming that includes the following elements:

• After school homework clubs
• Preview programs
• Response to Intervention (RTI)
• Extra time for math technology integration and student support during the day
• Terrific tech access, math software programs such as Symphony Math, Khan Academy, and TenMarks
• Lots of math tools including manipulatives, games, rulers, dice, number cards, and more

Right now my most important goal is to look at recent assessments and student work to see who is understanding latest concepts and who needs more support. Then I'll make time to provide the supports and also move the program to the next goals. It's a step-by-step effort that depends on all of the criteria above and daily attention.

As I always note what I like about teaching is what I also find most challenging--you're never there, and there is always more to learn and develop.