This blog is a reflection of my current thinking around a wide variety of education topics. Posts are most often inspired from events that occur in my professional and personal life.
I was thumbing through some pictures the other day (by thumbing I mean using my thumb to swipe on my iPhone) and I came across this one of my son. I was doing this on the way home from the Literacy for All Conference in Providence, Rhode Island mostly as a means for keeping my hands and eyes busy while my mind was mulling something over. During the day, I had attended a Keynote address by Peter Johnston where he said, "Once we start making predictions about a child's future, we start treating them different." Johnston went on to challenge the audience to examine their thinking relative to attribution theory. He asked us to examine our own beliefs about intelligence and whether it is innate and fixed, or a product of experience and something that can grow; these two beliefs of intelligence can be summarized as either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. I have been firmly planted in the growth mindset camp for awhile now, but something about this quote was sticking with me. Like a fly stuck in the rear windshield of a car, this quote kept buzzing around in my head with no hope for escape. But why? Why was this thought causing me such cognitive dissonance? Then I saw this picture and stopped wondering.
I have a son that was diagnosed with Asperger's a little over a year ago. In the past year, my ideas around a growth mindset have shifted from ephemeral educational theory to a very concrete reality. The picture above was taken just about the time we received his diagnosis, and when I think about the growth we have seen from then to now, I am brought to tears. Due to the tenacious work of his amazing team of teachers and support staff at school, he has made years worth of growth is is on track to enter kindergarten next year with a minimum amount of supports. When I think back to the day when we got his diagnosis and the conversation in the car on the way home, I remember the concern from both my wife and I about how this new "label" may affect him as he went out into the world. What I realize now was that I was not as worried about the label as I was about the predictions. What would people think he could or could not do? Would his teachers challenge him to grow, or would they set lower expectations for him because 'he is not capable of that'? I was worried, because like Johnston said, "once we start making predictions about a child's future, we start treating them differently."
I have been lucky so far, my son has worked with an amazing team that has not made predictions about the future of a 5 year old. They see his potential as not yet determined. As a result, they encourage his continuous growth. In the short time we have been working with this fabulous team they have adjusted his goals 4 separate times. They see each milestone is an opportunity to set a new ambitious goal.
As a principal, I am faced with the challenge of ensuring each of the 800 children in my school are afforded the same opportunity my son has enjoyed so far. I know that the process of creating a school culture that believes in intelligence as malleable and ripe for expansion will take time. I know I will have to present compelling evidence, challenge assumptions, push thinking and change policies and practices that reinforce a fixed mindset towards intelligence. Today, I start with this challenge for my staff and any others that read this post. I challenge you to suspend your expertise. I challenge you to think about everything that you "know" about students based upon previous learning and your extensive experience and put it aside. Whenever you are thinking about a student and his/her "ability" to meet the demands of your class, ask yourself 'do I believe in unicorns?' If the answer is no, then you probably also don't think you have the power to predict a child's future regardless of whether they are in kindergarten or even grade 8. So if you can't accurately make a prediction, what is the point in trying? All you are doing is setting yourself up to change your behavior in a way that matches your own prediction, and then you are no longer a believer in fate, you have become fate itself. Instead, I challenge you to believe that you are a powerful instrument of learning. I challenge you to believe that there is no more powerful impact on the learning of a student than his/her teacher. I challenge you to believe that every child has the ability to learn at high levels and you have the ability to make that happen. After all which is more dangerous for the child, to inaccurately predict he/she is 'not able' or to be wrong about growth.
I have an old Jeep in my garage that I tinker with from time to time. I have a goal to completely restore the Jeep. While I am making slow progress towards that goal, my confidence in my ability to complete this project stems from a conversation I had when I was 22 years old. At that point in my life, I had just started my teaching career and like most young teachers I had a summer job. That summer, I was a lifeguard at Nauset Beach in Orleans, MA. As a part of that job one lifeguard each day had to patrol the outer beaches as a ride along with an enforcement officer. During 8 hours together in the truck, several conversations take place. During one of those conversations, the enforcement officer and I were discussing the fact that he and his sons were rebuilding the transmission on their Ford pickup truck. I remember saying, "I wish I knew how to do that stuff, I have never been good with mechanical stuff."
At that point he said something to me that continues to influence my thinking today. He said, "Do you think that we are any smarter than you are? Do you think the mechanics that work down at _____ are any smarter than you are? We just try different things out and try to figure it out. If we can't figure it out, we ask someone or look it up. We just keep trying until we figure it out." I will remember that moment for the rest of my life, because since that moment I have thought differently about innate ability and the role effort plays in success. I realized that I wasn't born "bad" at mechanics, or that I was "dumb" about engines; rather, I had not put in the effort to learn about them. I had not tried, failed and tried again....but I could.
Grit
In the years since that moment, I have learned that many people have made the same realizations that I had made. I learned that others have dedicated years of research to determining what factors separate the successful from the unsuccessful, and what factors most influence learning. Researchers like Carol Dweck and Angela Lee Duckworth (video below) have done extensive research and determined that effort and perseverance (or grit as Duckworth describes it) are the best indicators of success. Duckworth's research indicates that grit is the number one determiner for success in school and recognizes that we as a group do not know how best to develop grit in students. She does say that grit is not a product of talent and that talent is often inversely related to grit. Both Dweck and Duckworth make compelling arguments that perseverance through effective effort should be skills deliberately taught in today's schools.
So What Do We Do?
The first step requires a self-exploration. You must start by asking yourself what do you believe. Is intelligence fixed? Do you have students that will come to you that can not learn? Students that at 5,7,12 are destined for a low wage menial job and have a fixed ceiling for their "smartness"? Do you believe that an IQ score is a reliable predictor of someone's intelligence? You may be surprised to find that Alfred Binet himself did not believe his assessment provided information about a permanent innate intelligence level. He stressed that intelligence was too complex and involved too many factors to be measured this way. So, if the creator of the IQ test did not believe intelligence was fixed, why should we? Perhaps it is more realistic, based upon our experiences, our research and the wise beach enforcement officer I rode with that summer that we all have the opportunity to learn if we are willing to put in the effort.
The next challenge comes when we try and think about how we create this ability and belief in our students. As with most things in education, the answer is not clean. At some point, perhaps there will be enough research conducted to say, "if I do this...., then the students will develop grit and persevere in their learning," but unfortunately that day is not yet here. Not all is lost however, research conducted by Carol Dweck has shown that the way people think about intelligence can be altered. Her research has shown that students who are given specific praise for effort and perseverance rather than for being smart are more likely to stick with learning experiences when presented with challenge. It is important that we create environments in our classrooms where students can see that there is a direct correlation between the effective effort we put into something and the results we see on the other end. As educators, we all recognize that some students have a natural facility with academics, which effects their rate of learning, in the same way that some people are genetically more athletic than others. However, all students will face a moment in time when they will struggle and fail. It is important that we have instilled in them a belief that with the proper time, support and effort they can succeed where they once failed. Failure is not a sign of "dumbness", rather it is a situation we have not figured out YET.
In the Classroom
In my reading, watching and conversing on this subject I have come across some useful tips for creating a culture of grit in our classrooms. This list is by no means all inclusive. As Dr. Duckworth mentions in her TED talk, this is a complex issue and we need to "be gritty about getting our kids grittier."
Avoid starting a lesson with, "We are going to start with some easy ones." If a child struggles with the easy ones, he/she is likely to believe that he/she is not smart enough to do the rest. Instead perhaps you could start your lesson with something like, "We are about to learn some very difficult stuff. I know that you all can do it, and I am here to help you. It is going to take some hard work on your part, and there is a chance some of you will not get it right away, but if you stick with it, keep trying, and use the strategies I give you ,you can do it."
Be careful with the word smart. If we are always telling students that they are successful because they are "so smart", what happens when they meet failure? Is it because they are not smart about that thing? If that is what they believe, then there is no point in trying anymore, because they were not born to do it. This is where the thinking of "I am not good at math" gets started.
Be specific in your praise. "Good job," "Nice Work," and "Excellent" all have their place in the classroom, but they do not provide the student with a lot of information and can be missed opportunities to build a culture of grit. You will get more with specific targeted feedback. Try statements like, "I love the way you stuck with that problem when you didn't get the answer the first time."; "Johnny, I was so happy to see that you used your math notebook and experimented with some of the strategies we discusses in order to help you solve that problem."; "I am noticing that Sally has slowed down and is really concentrating to make sure she is forming her letters correctly."
Provide opportunities to learn and grow from failure. It is one thing to have high standards for academic learning, it is another to have expectations that all can achieve those standards. When examining your grading practices, be sure to ask yourself about the purpose of the grade and how that compares to the purpose of education. If a student fails a test, is that the end or just the beginning? Do you have opportunities for that child to try again? If you do not think they should have that opportunity then let me ask why not? Is it important that the students learn the material, or is it important that the students learn the material according to your schedule? I am not suggesting that you hold all other students back, or that the student does not have responsibility in their own learning, but have you created opportunities for students to put forth that extra effort and try again?
Share information with students that correlates effort with success. A great example I read related to this connects homework with exam grades. After giving an exam, this middle school teacher shares the class profile with all the students, but she doesn't just give the standard, "x students got an A and y students got a B..." Instead she organizes the data by how many completing their homework. She reports, "of the students that did 100% of their homework, the average score was a ____, and of the students that did between 75% and 99% of their homework the average score was a ___...." She then leads a short discussion with students around the correlation between completing homework and the grade on the exam. This connects to her on-going conversation about effort and success.
Regardless of our approach, technique or language choices, educators have a responsibility to ensure each student believes in his/her own success. We must be deliberate in our planning and create a culture where learning is the ultimate goal. If we simply teach it, test it and move on we are continuing the belief that some people are cut out for this school stuff and some people are not. To do so would marginalize the impact of quality education.
"I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~ Thomas Edison
As the year comes to a close, I am sure most of us have our mind's eye on something that looks a lot like this picture. As teachers and leaders, we have chosen a profession that challenges us each and everyday. A profession that pushes us to grow, reflect and question. We pour our heart and soul into this job, and while we are rewarded each and everyday by the smiles and laughter of our students, it is exhausting! The summer is a time to recharge the batteries, clear our minds and pursue our hobbies. It is also a perfect time for professional growth.
The summer months provide us with something that we all crave throughout the school year.... a four letter word that has has challenged quality professional development since the days of the one-room schoolhouse; TIME. The summer provides us with blocks of uninterrupted time. Time when no one is asking us if they can use the bathroom, when no one is crying because of an incident on the playground, no one needs their noses cleaned and no one is asking how to spell a word that has been on the word wall since September. And while summer is a time to get away from school and clear our heads, it also provides a great opportunity that we should not let slip away. We live in a dynamic time where information is growing at breakneck speed, society is changing, and people are interacting in new ways. Educators need to stay current on societal trends, educational research and educational theory. To stress this point, I have often asked the following question of individuals, "Would you want to go to a doctor who had not read a medical journal in the last 10 years?" Should we expect any different from those in the field of education? I believe that our profession requires the same degree of continuing professional growth, and with that thought in mind, I offer a few suggestions to help everyone on their journey of professional growth.
Read a Book
How many of us have time to dive into a professional book during the school year? Don't everyone raise their hands at once. I suggest that when choosing a book to read, you look for something that might change your thinking, shift your perspective or broaden your view. The summer is a time for reflection and thought; you should select a book that encourages this. I would suggest authors such as Daniel Pink, Sir Ken Robinson, Carol Dweck, Thomas Friedman and books like Whatever It Takes, Creating Innovators, and The Happiness Advantage. Don't look for a book that is narrowly focused on one teaching technique or practice. Those types of books are most worthwhile when you can practice with the concepts immediately and I don't think the neighborhood kids will be too psyched if you try and organize them on a hot day in July so that you can practice Talk Moves. Save those more focussed pedagodical books for the school year, when you can read a chapter and "practice" the strategies with your class.
Play around on the internet
Ever wish you could use technology more productively in your classroom? Ever thought it would be nice to have a classroom website? What has stopped you?... my guess ... that pesky time thing again. Occasionally it rains during the summer and you can't go to the beach, camp or mini-golf. Take a rainy day and build a website (I promise once you get started you will be surprised how fast it goes). Pick a service that already has pre-made templates where you can just fill in the information that is specific to your class One where the colors, organization and styling is already taken care of. Some great free services include Weebly, Google, and Yola. A rainy day in the summer is also great for surfing... web surfing that is. What units would you like to beef up? Open up the Google search engine and type something in. I usually just type my whole question, "What is the best website for teaching place value?" For the sake of this post I typed, "Can I take a virtual field trip to the Grand Canyon?" into Google. I stumbled upon the most amazing resource put together by the National Parks Service where you can take a virtual field trip with 360 panoramic views that you can control. Find those amazing sites during the summer when you have the time to surf without the pressure of a class about to return from lunch!
Experiment with social media
Have you made it onto Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn yet? If not, the summer is a great time to play around and learn. You may be a bit leery of using these services, and I can understand/appreciate that, but you would be surprised the amount of valuable information and support you can receive. While each of
these services can be used to share the most mundane and/or inappropriate aspects of people's lives; they also can be used to collaborate with people all around the world who are working on similar problems as we are. What everyone has to remember is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms are tools. Just like a hammer can be used to build a house or as a weapon on the next episode of CSI, how the tool is used is in hands of the person. You can control how you use social media. For example, I use my Facebook page to stay in touch with family and friends, but Twitter and LinkedIn serve my professional life. I have used those two services to develop networks that I access for information, opinion, conversation, collaboration and as a means to stay current on the ever changing trends in education.
Don't miss the opportunity
Once September returns, and the school year commences, there will be plenty to distract us. Use the opportunity that the summer affords us to get to those things that you have not been able to. The pursuit of excellence requires growth, and it is up to each of us as professionals to pursue our own growth.
I recently traveled to the Washington, D.C. area to visit with my parents. During one of the days of our visit we headed down to the Mall to see all the monuments. I had not been to the Nation's capital since the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial had been completed and I was very interested in seeing it. Upon entering from the Tidal Basin, visitors are greeted by a towering statue of Martin Luther as he appears to be emerging from an uncut piece of stone. As I stood there staring at the statue and taking a few pictures, I found myself thinking about the sculptor's intentions. Why did it look like an uncompleted sculpture? What was the message? Was the sculptor being too obtuse? Then I took two steps to the left to get out of the way of a family trying to take a picture and the whole thing came into focus. Written on Martin Luther King Jr.'s right hand side is this quote, "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." From my position, I was able to see the quote, the Stone of Hope with Dr. King emerging and behind it (which I just thought was a wall) the mountain of despair. From that slight shift in physical perspective, I was able to see the sculpture's intent. I went from looking at the trees to seeing the whole forest.
During the long drive home, my mind continuously drifted back to this moment and its relation to the frenzy of public school education. I thought about how many times over the past few years that I have found myself staring intently at the fine details and intricate patterns of a tree, studying its bark, anxiously worrying if it will survive the storm or if I am strong enough to climb it; all the while missing the fact I am surrounded by a vast interconnected forest. Recently, we have all noticed a lot of trees being added to our forest: common core standards, educator evaluations, PARCC assessments, Race to the Top, and in our district regionalization. At any given minute, it has appeared that one of these trees was more important than all the rest, only to find that the next minute the importance had shifted. It is time that we take a step back and look at the forest.
The corner pieces
I am sure that any of the major initiatives taken over the past few years could be used as the perspective to see the forest, and people smarter than I would argue their points well. However, I see the new educator evaluation system in Massachusetts as the vehicle for connecting the trees. Lets take a second and re-familiarize ourselves with the major components of the new system. The new evaluation process is anchored by a set of rubrics that define the qualities and practices that are good teaching and good educational leadership. The rubrics were developed using decades of research and the observation/sharing of best practice. The rubrics examine teaching/leadership in four major areas (Standards) that slightly vary from teacher to specialized instructional support personnel to school administrator, to superintendent. While there is some variation, they all align and are connected to the main themes of curriculum development, meeting the diverse needs of learners, connecting with families and the community, and continuous professional development. Each of these is further clarified with indicators and elements that provide specific language that can help educators examine their own practice for areas of strength and improvement. In addition to the rubric, the process requires goal setting by all licensed members of the school system. Educators are responsible for creating two goals: one focused on professional growth and the other on student learning.
The edges
It is important at this point to stress that this is an educator evaluation system, not just a teacher evaluation system. Under the law, every position that requires a license must be evaluated in this system. The genius comes in the fact that the system is the same for everyone. Since the system is the same, it is easy for it to be aligned. The system can be used to set the boundaries of the forest. How might this work? Let's say there was a school district that was performing pretty well, but felt like it could be doing better. The district felt that given its demographics, resources and funding that they should be producing higher levels of student achievement. As a result, the district leadership decides to create a student learning goal to increase student achievement across the district by 10% by the end of a two year cycle. Building principals are then instructed to examine their building based data and generate a building based student learning goal that aligns with the district goal. One elementary school in the district examines their data and determines that too many students are not successfully meeting the core competencies for achievement which is stressing the intervention system. As a result, the building principal creates a student learning goal to increase the number of students achieving core competencies and reduce the number of students in the intervention system. The principal also determines that in order to best support this goal, he/she will set a professional practice goal to increase his visits to the classroom and provide quality feedback to classroom teachers. As a part of that goal, he will re-examine the qualities of effective teaching, and use language from the teacher rubric in his conversations with teachers. The principal shares his goals with the staff at the start of
school and encourages his teams to align their goals to that of the school. In examining their data, grade-level teams determine that they do not have a consistent set of common assessments with common criteria for success. As a professional practice goal, they determine to generate a set of common assessments that are aligned to the newly released Common Core State Standards. Quickly they realize that they can use this goal as a way to generate a student learning goal and determine that they will expect 80% of students at their grade-level to perform successfully on their common assessments. An team of interventionists determine the best way to support the building goal is to work to exit students from the intervention program at a higher rate. Through conversation among themselves and with the classroom teachers, they realize that there is not common criteria for success that defines a student's exit from the intervention program. Therefore this team decides on a professional practice goal to create entrance and exit criteria for the intervention program that is communicated clearly to all stakeholders.
Filling in the middle
So where does the rest fit in? Well that is the beauty.... everywhere! Can you design quality assessments without a deep knowledge of the Common Core State Standards? Should you be creating assessments that are aligned with your current testing format, the format of the reading/math series your district adopted 5 years ago, or something aligned with the new PARCC assessment? How should the school lead teacher collaborative time? Does it make sense to fill it with administrative tasks or perhaps allow complete autonomy? Or does it make more sense to require staff to use their collaborative time to work on team goals (from the goal setting in the evaluation process) and set calendar bound expectations for products that are driven by the teams' goals. Districts must examine the professional development calendar so as to best support the needs of the staff. Working with building principals, the district can support scheduling that allows for regular opportunities for teacher collaboration in meaningful teams focused on common goals that best meet the needs of students.
As teachers and administrators work together they are generating a plethora of evidence to support their own proficiency within the new evaluation system. The process encourages reflection on progress, growth and outcomes; a process that naturally loops us back to the beginning and forces us to look for new opportunities for growth. Whatever the future brings, whichever initiatives districts seek to undertake the new evaluation system can be used a a vehicle for framing those initiatives. If an initiative does not seek to improve the quality of curriculum and assessment, improve our ability to teach all students, improve our relationships with he community or improve our professional interactions it probably is not a worthwhile initiative.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Coincidence? I Think Not!
A phrase adored by conspiracy theorists across the world. Folks who look behind every door, under every rug and every rock to unearth some of the governments most deeply held secrets. Now I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I thought I could make this saying stretch to meet my needs. A few days ago I found myself reflecting on the current state of curriculum development in our school/district. More specifically, I was thinking about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in relation to our implementation and ways to best support the significant changes required under the new standards. I thought about an earlier blog post on the importance of taking a long term view of CCSS implementation and how best to share resources with teachers, provide teachers with professional development, monitor our student growth against the CCSS and intervene with those students not achieving at proficient levels. Coincidentally, I am currently reading Leaders of Learning by Richard Dufour and Robert Marzano. Coincidentally, the authors discuss the importance of Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) in designing a guaranteed viable curriculum for all students that helps "students acquire the same essential knowledge and skills regardless of the teacher to who they are assigned" (p.90). Coincidentally, both PLC and CCSS have the letter C in them. Coincidence? I think not!
Common Ground
"Working interdependently to
achieve a common goal"
Before we enter too far into this discussion, let's take a second to ensure we are all working from the same baseline. PLC is a term that gets used fairly liberally in education circles, and people have varying levels of understanding on what a PLC is, does and embodies. For the purpose of this discussion, I am going to go to the source. In Leaders of Learning, and other books authored by Dufour, Dufour and Marzano state that the "PLC concept represents an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve" (p.22). Further, let's define the PLC collaborative team. Dufour has repeatedly referred to the collaborative team in a PLC as "a group of people working interdependently to achieve a common goal for which members are mutually accountable." The interdependence is what separates a team from a group of people. I learned this lesson at a young age through team sports. No matter how hard I played or how skilled I was on the soccer field, I could not achieve my goal (winning) without the other members of the team. Each member of the team was dependent upon the effort and skills of the other members, as they were on him, and only in working together could we accomplish our goals.
Ripe Ground
Elementary schools provide fertile soil for the growth and development of collaborative teams. Except for in the smallest of schools, elementary schools often have multiple teachers that teach the same content. This provides for the easy formation of meaningful teams that can set common goals both professionally and for student learning. Also, there is a high demand on the elementary school teacher as (s)he is responsible for all academic instruction. When one considers changes to both math and ELA standards, newly implemented evaluations systems, increased demands for student achievement, soon to arrive updated student assessment systems, and soon to be released updated science standards the average elementary school teacher is facing enough cognitive dissonance to paralyze an elephant; and that is all before the first student asks to use the bathroom. Does it make any sense for teachers to face these challenges alone? Should we continue to close our doors, plan in solitary, problem solve alone and forge ahead as individuals who all just so happen to work in the same building?
I submit that to answer yes is analogous to committing career suicide. We should leverage our collective strength for the betterment of ourselves, the educational experiences of our students and our quality of professional life. PLC collaborative teams provide us with the perfect opportunity to face these ever increasing demands together, to lean on the support of the group and to find strength in what "we" provides that "I" can not.
How might this work?
Properties of Operations taught
early = later success in algebra
Let's look at how this might work within the context of a second grade math standard. 2.NBT.5 states that students will be able to Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction. As you read this standard, you will notice that the "standard algorithm" is deliberately left out of the list of strategies the standard writers are expecting a second grade student to use in solving addition and subtraction problems within 100. Fluency with the standard algorithm is not expected until 4th grade. Therefore, when presented with a problem such as 27 + 54 = ? students would not be expected to line the numbers up vertically, add 7 and 4 to get eleven, "carry" the one, add 5 and 2 and then add the "carried" one to get an answer of 81. Instead a student might use a place value strategy, where she uses her understanding of 10 and one adding 7+4=11, then adding 20+50=70 and lastly adding 70+11=81 (or perhaps 70+10+1). Another student might use his understanding of composing and decomposing with base ten to "make tens." This student would see that he could take a 1 away from 4 so that 7+3=10 and that he had a 1 left over. Then he would add 20+50+10+1= 81. Another might use the associative property to show that 27+54=(20+7)+(50+4) and then use the commutative property to reorder the problem into a more manageable sequence 20+50+7+4=81. This is a few of the possible ways to answer this problem. In order to properly prepare for a lesson/unit that addresses this standard, a classroom teacher should consider all the possible solutions, so as to better know how to respond when misconceptions arise. In addition, a teacher should consider the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP) that could be emphasized in a lesson like this: SMP 2: Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively, SMP 3: Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of Others, SMP 7: Look For and Make Use of Structure.
The paragraph above illustrates the mental process a teacher must undertake in preparing a lesson to meet this one standard, all before considering the needs of her students on IEP's and her ELL students, what materials she has available, Sally's diabetic needs, the fact that Johnny's parents are in a nasty custody battle, and managing Sandra's behavior plan. Also, the above paragraph only applies to math, the elementary teacher is also responsible for ELA, social studies, science and a social curriculum. Does it make sense to do this alone? Instead, what would it look like if a collaborative team was to enter into a lesson study? What if the team said something like, "You know, we are all responsible for teaching this standard and assessing student growth towards it, maybe we should plan how to best do this together." Not only would such an approach be in the best interest of the students, but it would be immensely beneficial to each educator. No longer would teachers have to suffer through planning in their individual silence; they would be able to access the collective strength of the team.
Let's continue to look at standard 2.NBT.5 through the eyes of a collaborative team. The crucial first step in all lesson planning is to determine the lesson's learning objective. One might say that this is simple, "teach the standard." However, if you were to sit a team of 5 members down and ask them one by one to write down what they think the standard is calling for, you would likely get 5 different answers. Collaborative teams should work together to dissect the standards they are responsible for (e.g. What are the strategies based on place value? How about properties of operations or the relation between addition/subtraction?) and establish the criteria that will define student mastery (How can students best demonstrate their knowledge of this standard?). Without these discussions, how can we be assured we have the same understanding? Are you looking for a student to show one of each type of strategy? Two of each? Mastery of one? Will they demonstrate it orally? On a test or worksheet? Using manipulatives? Through a drawing? These are important questions that the team should address in order to ensure there is a common expectation for student performance and lesson objectives. This creates a fabulous opportunity for colleagues to learn from each other and expand their thinking; this is job embedded professional development.
Once the team has established a common set of objectives and criteria they are able begin to think about lesson planning. Due to the nature of standard 2.NBT.5, teachers must consider a variety of strategies that students could utilize to answer addition problems of two 2-digit numbers that does not include the standard algorithm. In addition, teachers must consider possible misconceptions students might have with each of the different strategies. This task of anticipating student responses and misconceptions can be done easiest in a team. The team takes 3 minutes and each member silently writes down as many ways (s)he can think of to solve the problem. Then the team combines all the strategies they came up with (eliminating the duplicates) and now they have an excellent resource to inform all their thinking. Next, the team could discuss each strategy and consider misconceptions that may develop with that strategy among their students. Once this work was completed, the allotted collaborative time would likely be close to ending. The team could assign itself homework: Each member is to create one lesson that addresses the objective we created. The lesson will also incorporate at least one Standard for Mathematical Practice. The next time the team meets, the each member shares their lesson with his/her colleagues and answers any questions. Enough copies of the lesson are made for each member of the team. This approach is often referred to as 'Bring 1 get X." You bring one lesson to the group and get a lesson from every other member of the group in return. This substantially reduces the burden of lesson plan writing on the individual teacher. If the team has done an honest and thorough job identifying the learning objectives and criteria, each lesson should be a direct match to the needs of the students and a relevant resource for each member of the team.
Once the lessons are delivered, the team focus shifts to student achievement. Using the team established criteria, the team collectively reviews student achievement data and plans for ways to intervene with students that did not meet the criteria. Again, the strength of the team allows for a greater variety of pedagogical strategies for meeting the needs of all the students. Once a collaborative team has established professional trust, interdependence and collective accountability, they are able to openly discuss their students, reflect on their own practice, offer constructive feedback and seek out help from the group.
One Last Thought From the Source
I thought an appropriate way to end this discussion was with a short video clip of Rick DuFour speaking about the difference between a group and a team. He does a much more eloquent job than I could ever hope to.
The other night was no different than any other. My wife was making some phone calls for work, I was working on getting my two children fed, showered and off to bed. I had gotten my son into the shower and headed downstairs, to check on the progress of my daughter as she finished her dinner, when something extraordinary happened. My daughter, a very pensive young first grader, looked up from her pasta and said, "Daddy, how did the Civil War Start? Like how did the actual war part get started?" The question was not the extraordinary part it is what followed that cemented a fledgling belief for me, but more on that in a second. First, I need to paint a slightly larger picture of this conversation for context.
My daughter is a thinker. By that I mean she is always processing ideas. Often times this will occur over days, weeks and sometimes months. Our conversation about the Civil War has lasted for over a month. After a reference to the Civil War in a book she was reading, she has periodically asked me questions from what a Civil War is and when it was, to why did it start and who was involved. Up until her latest question, I was able to provide her with answers based upon my own previous learning and understandings. These were some great teachable moments between father and daughter and a brief opportunity to "step back into the classroom." Due to this history I have with my daughter, the question was not a surprise; however I did not know the answer. Now comes the interesting part.
The iPhone
My first reaction, like any other harried parent trying to get his kids to bed, was to tell her that I did not know and that we could look it up at a later time. I calmly explained that I would have to check on her brother soon and that there was not enough time, maybe we could do it tomorrow. Without pause she responded, "Well do you have your phone? You can just ask Siri real quick and get the answer before you go back upstairs." (If I was telling this story to a live audience, I would pause here for effect.) Now I did not use Siri to find the answer as I find she can be a bit finicky, but I did use my iPhone to search the web quickly and in less than one minute find out that the first fighting of the Civil War began when the Confederate forces fired upon the Union held Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
The Revelation
So what is the morale of the story here? I do not hold enough information in my head to fill the curiosity bucket of a 7 year old. And further, she knows it and she knows how do get the information she wants. As soon as she is old enough to have her own direct access to the information (her own phone, tablet, computer, new thing they haven't invented yet, etc.) she won't need me to get answers to her factual questions. She has grown up in and lives in a world where an infinite amount of information can be accessed near instantaneously through a device that fits in my pocket. AND SHE IS NOT ALONE! She is one grain of sand in a beach of students sitting in classrooms across this country. Mobile technology has evolved so much in the past 2-3 years that cell phones have become small computers. You no longer need a computer in your home to be plugged into the internet, which has expanded access to nearly everyone.
So What?
We work in a public education system that was not designed for the world we currently live in. Schools and teachers have historically been the keepers of knowledge and information; it was our job to pour that knowledge and information into the empty vessels that were the children in front of us. Kids do not need us for that anymore; that part of our job has been replaced by the iPad. So what should we do? Option # 1 - We ignore the evidence that is staring us in the face, continue doing what we are doing and eventually be replaced by self-adjusting computer software that can provide students with the information they need to pass state assessments. Option # 2 - Evolve.
I argue that there really is no choice, we must evolve. The American work force is not looking for employees who can follow rote procedures, produce an expected result and go to their boss every time they have a problem or question. Instead they want people that can analyze, problem-solve, work with a team, use available information to create new ideas and solutions, and make moral and ethical decisions. Today's worker needs to be able to think critically; it is not about the information they posses, but rather the ways in which they are able to use that information. Therefore, our job must be to develop these skills in children. It is our moral obligation to meet this demand.
"But They Are Just in Elementary School"
We are all guilty of a statement reflective of this. What we often ignore is how limiting a thought process this can be for our students. If we enter with an assumption that they CAN'T then they WON'T and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. However, if we assume they CAN, what might happen? To steal a question from Dr. Cheryl Jorgensen - "What is the least dangerous assumption?" Is it more dangerous to assume a kindergarten child can not think critically and fail to cultivate that skill in them, or is it more dangerous to assume they can and create opportunities to foster analysis, evaluation and creation? Is it that their brains are unable to grow and adapt to a new way of thinking or is it that we struggle to change our deeply held assumptions?
I put part of the blame for this belief structure on the developers of Bloom's Taxonomy More specifically, on those that decided it should be represented by a triangle, with Remembering and Understanding at the bottom and Creating at the top. This image of the triangle provides a subliminal message that the lower levels of the taxonomy must be present before the higher levels can be achieved. Additionally, Creating is at the smallest point (the top). Does this mean that their is less creativity to go around? Is creating only for our most sophisticated and elite thinkers? That only those that have trudged though the trials and tribulations of remembering facts and being able to restate them to show understanding could possibly hope to achieve the higher levels of critical thinking? Anyone who has spent any time with a pre-school aged child knows this is not true. The other day, my wife and I took my son for a doctor's appointment and after the appointment stopped for lunch. At the restaurant, they gave him a balloon that, as most 4 year-olds do, he cherished. Well he cherished it for about an hour until we went to pick his sister up at gymnastics and the balloon flew out the open door up into the atmosphere. After calming him from hysterics, he began on his own coming up with ways to get the balloon back. My favorite involved the construction of a special set of stairs that would take us up to the astronaut who probably caught his balloon. At four years old, he is already ready to find creative ways to solve a problem. Should we kill that critical thinking skill by assuming he can not do it, or should we find ways to foster it so that he can apply those strategies later in life and come up with more realistic, but no less creative, solutions?
Putting it to Practice
So what does this mean for us in the elementary classroom? It means we must start with a thoughtful analysis of our own approach. What assumptions are we making about what the children in our classrooms can and can not do? What are these assumptions based on? Have we done extensive research on the topic of the cognitive development of children and performed MRI scans of each of our students brains so that we can say without a doubt that, "_____ graders can't do that"? Or are we basing our assumptions on things that have been said so many times, they must be true?
Once we analyze our assumptions in a honest way and decide to make the least dangerous assumptions about students cognitive ability, then we need to examine the types of learning opportunities we are creating for children. Take a look at the questions you ask your students in the course of a given day (orally, on quizzes, spelling tests, after reading, etc.) and put them on one of two categories: critical thinking or not-so. The not-so are for questions like, "How do you spell counter?" or "In, your own words, describe the water cycle?" They require a student to either simply recall information or demonstrate their understanding in a different way that rote repetition. The critical thinking questions are questions that force students into the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Questions like, "Categorize these words in at least three different ways: cat, muskrat, silt, sap, dog, mice, pond, fox, lake." or "You are planning a birthday party for your friend who is about to turn 10. You have been given a budget of $200 dollars to use as a budget. The party will run from 10-1 and his parents have insisted that all 20 guests are busy during the entire party and that they do not repeat any stations. Using the chart provided (a table with different 'vendors' like balloon animal making, their cost per 30 minute segment and maximum # of children taken at one time) create a schedule for all the attendees that fits within the budget. Create a visual schedule that is easy to follow and can be provided to each guest so that he/she knows where to go and when to be there."
The key is thinking about the questions you want to ask kids, and finding ample opportunities for them to work collaboratively on difficult and cognitively demanding problems. Often it is better for students to wrestle for 20-30 minutes on a really good problem, than do 20-30 repetitive drill practice problems. That being said, it is important that the lesson and the learning does not lose its rigor. Students spending 20-30 minutes creating a 3 dimensional heart for Valentine's Day may be engaging and look like rigor, but it does not pass the rigor sniff-test. Be mindful of fluffy activities that have the kids busy, but have low cognitive demand. The world we are sending our students into is not ready to spoon feed them information. Today's world knows that they information is easily accessible; today's world is interested in what people can do with that information once they have located it.
Here is a link to a quick one page article on Bloom's Taxonomy that provides a list of verbs to use in your questions to raise the cognitive demand. Also, it is important to remember that technology can be our friend. Follow This link for a list of iPad apps organized by their level of Bloom's. Kathy Schrock has also compiled a list of web 2.0 apps that are organized by Bloom's as well. See it here. There you will also see her visual take on Bloom's Taxonomy, of which I am a big fan.
The Scary Next Steps
Since the Industrial Revolution, our country and society has never been in a greater time of growth and change. The Digital Revolution has created a new work force, new forms of communication, new social norms, new ideas about privacy and the ways we acquire information. As a result, we are not educating the same type of learner. Just as public education had to evolve to meet the demands of the Industrial Revolution, so will we have to evolve to meet the demands of the Digital Revolution. The first steps into this new world will be scary. We will surely make some mistakes. However, if we are willing to see the world as it is, mold ourselves to meet the needs of our students, and rely on our collective strength we will succeed.
One of the benefits of 45 states and 3 territories adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is that there are a wide variety of people all working towards the same goal. In each of these states and territories there are teachers, administrators, state officials, grantees, entrepreneurs, and consultants all working to develop both curriculum and resources that will support the implementation of CCSS. This means that millions of other people are out there right now creating materials to support the CCSS and many of them are willing to share. The purpose of this post is to consolidate some of those resources in one place. As I travel around, peruse the internet, check in on Twitter and scour my Inbox, I find more and more quality resources that can help teachers as they implement the new standards.
Below is my first collection of these resources. I have tried to organize them into "clusters" that share similar characteristics.
The Big Picture:
The Hunt Institute - This YouTube channel, put together by the Hunt Institute, interviews the team leaders of the Common Core Standards project. The videos provide information on the development of the standards, their philosophical underpinnings, research supporting their development and the major underlying principles.
Let's Chat Core - If you have not checked out Teaching Channel yet, you need to. It is an amazing resource for seeing classroom practice in action (see more below). This particular link goes to a video created by Sarah Brown Wessling, Teacher Laureate at Teaching Channel, where she provides a teacher's bird's-eye-view of the standards.
Curriculum
(UPDATE 2/14/13)
Progressions - Here is a map of learning progression for each of the domains in math. These documents, completed by the University of Arizona, show how skills and learning should evolve from one grade level to the next. They are divided up into each of the major domains.
Unpacking - Have you looked at any of the standards and said to yourself either, "What does this mean?" or "How can I teach that?" or "Isn't that what we are already doing?" Check out this work done by educators in North Carolina to unpack each of the standards by grade-level!!
Jordan - The teachers of the Jordan School District have been busy. Here is a link to a set of Literacy materials they have put together including curriculum maps and instructional materials/resources.
App - From the iTunes App Store, you can download the CCSS to your iPhone, iPod and iPad. This is an easy to use app that allows you to access full details of the grade-level standards for Math and ELA. I have it on my iPad and iPhone and it works great!
AchievetheCore - A rich resource that provides some detailed descriptions and examples of some of the major shifts in learning required under the CCSS. For example, there is a section on developing "text dependent questions" as required in the ELA standards and a section on defining the Focus areas for each grade level in mathematics. The good information is 3-4 "clicks" into the website, once you filter what you are looking for. Just click the "get started button" to get started.
Materials
K-1 , 2-3 , 4-5 - Each of these links is connected to a set of posters created by the teachers of the Jordan School District in Utah. They are posters that put each of the Mathematical Practice Standards in kid friendly language and visuals.
Khan Academy - A rich resource of instructional videos that can be used to assist whole group instruction as well as individualized instruction/remediation/enrichment.
NC Wiki - Here is a Wiki put together by your colleagues in North Carolina. They have resources including units and instructional materials organized by grade.
Howard County - The Howard County Public School District has put together this rich Wiki with resources for instruction, mapping and assessment in mathematics. The best part is that it is organized by grade level.
Instruction - Whether we are ready to recognize it or not, the new standards require some changes in instructional practice in order to meet the learning demands put forth in the standards. Here are some sites to help explore some best practices.
TeachingChannel - This is a phenomenal resource!! Teachers using strategies with actual students, in their classrooms video taped for you to watch. An unbelievable professional resource that is a MUST SEE!!
Insidemathematics - Here is another collection of videos that is not as comprehensive and is focused on mathematics, but is valuable as well.
YouTube - YouTube is much more than videos of kittens falling in swimming pools. Interesting in a teaching strategy (cooperative learning, Socratic method, think-pair-share, etc.) type it into YouTube's search engine and you are bound to find a collection of videos of teachers doing it. I have used YouTube to learn to use Excel, change the brakes on my car, un-seize a lawnmower, fix my computer, fix my phone, research teaching methods, improve lesson plans and much more. If you have not ventured into the world of YouTube, you do not know what you are missing.
School Improvement Blog - Here is a blog by the School Improvement Network that provides a lot of resources for teachers. There is a list of topics on the left hand side.
I will update this periodically as I come across new and valuable resources. I hope you find this post useful.
