Teach-Reflect-Blog-Share-Repeat

Like most teachers I return home each day thinking about the success and challenge of the day's learning.

As a blogger, I typically turn my reflections into a blog post.

Lately, I've been sharing my lesson reflections and next steps with students. I read through the post demonstrating the lesson's strengths, challenges, and next steps. They offer thoughts and questions, and we continue the learning path.

There are many reasons why this is a successful strategy.

First, writing down my reflections, and writing for an audience, creates commitment and depth to both the ideas and the follow up actions.

Next, often the reflections are deep and include actions, thoughts, and more reflections. It's hard to keep that depth in my mind for ready retrieval the next day. Writing the thoughts down and then sharing the written post frees my mind for other activities and priorities such as family life, hobbies, and other professional work.

After that, if a student, colleague, or family member wants to understand the learning path better or create follow-up plans, the information is readily available.

Also, this process provides modeling for students and demonstrates the ways that reflection and writing can support successful learning and action.

Finally, the process is serving to heighten the depth and breadth of my lessons and develop a learning community with greater strength and promise.

Do you use a similar learning/teaching process with students? If so, what are the strengths and challenges that you notice? How could you develop this process with greater intent?

As I write, I'm thinking about how I will get students started with their own reflective online journals, and rather than just me sharing, opening up the classroom efforts so that children are sharing their lesson and follow-up learning reflections regularly. If you already do this, please lead me to your descriptions, posts, templates, and models. I can see how student learning journals will be a powerful piece in the overall learning/teaching program.

Less is More: Positive Structural Change

In the past few years, my posts have demonstrated struggle with the fact that schedules, structures, and support hindered my ability to teach well.

This year I have a new role. I'm responsible for teaching two subjects well to two classes. I have a partner teacher who teaches the other two subjects to the two classes. We work as a team when it comes to serving all children in both classes well.

This change in role has made a world of difference in the quality of work I'm able to do for so many reasons including the following:

• I am able to focus more deeply on the content and process related to the subjects I'm teaching.
• I teach each lesson twice which helps me to perfect the learning experience and share the ideas from one class to the other.
• I have a partner teacher to problem solve with--a teacher with many complementary skills and abilities so together we are much more than one teacher can be.
• The students have a more varied day rather than a day with only one teacher.
• My classroom is not as busy with multiple materials to teach all subjects, and there's more space for collaboration and learning.
• I am not constantly prioritizing and trying to fit it all in--I have a much more manageable schedule which means I'm happier and healthier.
• I have fewer leaders and departments to work with which means I can work with the departments I am connected with more deeply. 

Further school changes also mean that my supports are more readily available and we have better structures for meeting the needs of diverse learners through the use of RTI.

This is the change I've been craving, and I LOVE it. This also confirms the fact that we have to re-look at schedules and structures at the elementary level. As standards become deeper and teaching knowledge more intense, one teacher can't be all things, and trying to be all things simply dilutes the effect possible. 

How has your role or structure changed in the past few years? How has this affected your ability to teach well? What other ideas do you have for role shift and change to better the work we do?  I'm curious. 

Teaching Well: Teamwork

Research demonstrates that teamwork matters. A quick review of a newspaper or current events in any medium demonstrates that our world needs better teamwork too.

How can we better develop the mindsets and skills that lead to terrific teamwork as we teach students.

I was reminded of this recently as I broke students up into math teams. Some teams quickly made a plan, worked together, and made good progress with the task while other teams sat far from each other and didn't even talk as they completed the task.  There's work to do. Important work since research demonstrates that when students work together they all learn more.

I was also reminded of this recently during a number of meetings I was involved in at the professional level. The meetings that used good process were efficient and growth producing while the meetings that had no process or little teamwork ended up with greater redundancy and little progress. This leads me to wonder about the most effective steps for good teamwork and collective, collaborative learning. I'll continue to think and work on that in the weeks to come.

In the meantime, I'll return to the collaborative chart I planned to use early in the year, and then I'll use the graphic at the top of the page to foster an open mindset to a positive mindset and behaviors for effective collaboration.

As our schools move from isolation to collaboration, I too am learning these skills so as I foster this learning with students, they will also foster the learning for me. I look forward to the growth.

Teaching Deeper

As I continue to grow my ability to design high quality learning experiences that respond to my students, I am mindful of Hattie's research.  With the continuation of last week's challenging metric conversion activity coming up, I applied many of Hattie's attributes to the lesson. I will begin to use this chart and others to reflect more deeply on the learning experience. I'll do this to develop the language and actions I use to teach well, language and actions that can serve to boost students' confidence, ownership, and learning success.

I placed many of Hattie's criteria for successful teaching/learning into this chart. Then I thought about how I could bring that criteria about during the learning experience. I'll review the chart before teaching, and then have the chart on a clipboard and use it as a reference and to make notes as I coach teams. I know that if the learning experience is powerful, students' enthusiasm and energy will drive the lesson forward in positive ways.


Measurement Conversion Number Lines
Learning Experience Goal and Rationale: We want to learn more about metric measurement and decimal numbers. We also want to learn how to work well with a team. Learning this information will help us to become stronger mathematicians and scientists. This knowledge will also help us to understand text across many genre since we’ll be able to visualize and compare measurements.

Lesson Attribute	Action
Fair and Caring	“I know this lesson is challenging, but I know you can do it. I’m here to help. Completing this lesson will help you to understand and apply mathematical thinking with greater strength.”
We Learn Together	Metric conversions can be challenging. We are all learning together, and we’ll learn best if we help each other. We are a learning team. I want each child to do his/her best. This is not about everyone learning exactly the same, but about all of us getting stronger and better with our mathematical thinking,  understanding, and skills.
Students Know What the Teacher Values	“I value the way you work together, and the care you use when completing this task. I want you to learn to use metric measurements with greater ease and fluency.”
Less Teacher Talk, More Student Talk	“I will give a 5-10 minute introduction, then you’ll have the rest of the period to work with your team.”
Passion	“I’m really excited about this lesson because after you complete it you’ll be a better mathematician and a better collaborator.”
Trust	“I’m here to help you. I will come around the room and check in on your work. I’ll put some stars on correct calculations and help you with the problems you have.”
Listen	“Ask questions, don’t stay stuck.”
Make Progress	“Pay attention to this task and to each other, we want to make progress with our learning and that’s how to do it.”
Safety	“I’m assigning work spaces so that everyone has enough room to work carefully and safely.”
Mindful	“I will walk around the room to help. Let me know when you need help.”
Work in Groups	“It’s not always easy to collaborate, but collaboration is very important. We will continue to work on this skill throughout the year. Remember to stop now and then to evaluate your work and refine your work plan.”
Talk to Each Other (dialogic talk)	“You’ll learn the most if you start by reviewing what you did last time, making a work plan, talk to each other as you work, encourage each other with words, ask each other questions, help each other learn from mistakes, and build on each others’ ideas. I want you to share and build meaning with each other.
Relational Trust	“All of the your teachers want you to do well. Doing a good job on this task will help you to learn more and do better in all your classes, and that matters to all of us.”
Failure and Error are Stepping Stones to Success	“Don’t worry if you make a mistake, that’s how we learn.”
didactic: students learn concepts/curriculum coaching labs: students learn through practice and mastering skills. Socratic seminars: questioning leads students to question, listen, think critically and communicate their ideas effectively to group members and others.	Start with concept introduction, most time spent on coaching lab, and end with a socratic discussion.
Surface and Deep Learning	As I coach, I will notice the ratio of surface vs. deep learning, and I’ll build on that in future lessons.
Find better or different if the activity is not working.	If you’re not able to complete this work, I’ll help. We’ll find a better or different way to do it.

Note: I like this tweet challenge I received in response to this post:

Metric Conversions: Making a Number Line

On Friday, students engaged in a small group activity which required metric conversions, rounding to the nearest landmark whole number and/or fraction in meters, and making a number line of benchmark pictures and metric numbers.

The task was deep and challenging, perhaps too challenging. Yet, as colleagues and I coached, students became more engaged. Then at the end of the lesson we were able to clear up some of the questions and create a helpful conversion chart.

Metric conversions are not simple fare for fifth graders, but the conversions match well with the standards and our current place value unit.

On Monday, Friday's class will continue the activity, and I'll introduce the activity to my homeroom class.

I will copy this chart separately so that each child can
readily refer to it as they convert each measurement to
millimeters, centimeters, and meters. 

This time, I'll learn from Friday's challenge and emphasize the following:

• We'll study the chart to the right and discuss the proportional relationship between each metric unit.
• We'll talk a bit about team work including the best way to position yourself so you can hear each other and copy each other's work, how to take turns, and how to encourage each other.
• I'll print the pictures in color since I noticed the black and white pictures were more difficult to navigate and I'll recommend that students look at the pictures as they complete the first task which is to place the measurement objects in order from greatest to least.
• We'll talk about the fact that it's best if everyone uses the calculator so you can check each other's accuracy.
• Finally, I'll talk about the number line, and how it's important to identify the greatest number and least number first, then place all the numbers down paying attention to the distance each number is from each other and trying to reflect that distance accurately.

After that students will get to work, and I'll move around the room to coach each student.  

This is a challenging activity, but it's an activity that will cause a lot of practice and discussion. It's also an activity that will result in number lines that will serve as good reference points as we continue our study of place value with a focus on decimals.