Month: September 2018

Feedback: The Teacher Kind

Feedback: The Teacher Kind

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I can’t help but chuckle when I walk into the library and see this engraved nameplate with the message Every day I’m hustling on our librarian’s desk.He Said She Said - Everyday I'm Hustlin It’s so true, each of us is busy, doing our best, in the ways we know how to eke out “a’ learning“ in our schools.

One of my colleagues told me recently, “I think you have very high expectations.” I’m still trying to figure out if this was a compliment or a suggestion to ease up a bit. (If you knew me, you’d be laughing out loud). But at least 5 days out of 7,  I wake up and the first thing on my mind is learning. It’s not what I might eat for breakfast or what I may do on the weekend, it’s usually about a provocation or a concern I have about a student or something “Google” since I’ve been working on my Google Trainer Certification. When school is in session, I’m definitely hustling. But does it have to feel like a “hustle”? Like I’m tricking someone into learning?

Every morning, one of the first things I do is take my dog outside and I walk around my garden, listening to a podcast. I feel like I got a partial answer to my queries.

We tend to think of feedback in schools as what teachers say to kids. Traditionally as a kid, I got feedback through what teachers wrote in notes on my papers, or grades that I got. But feedback, the more important kind of feedback, is student to teacher feedback. And John Hattie writes about this in his work, the classrooms where there is student to teacher feedback it correlates well with student achievement.

Carl Anderson, from a Teacher’s Guide to Writing Conference, Heinemann Podcast

As I reflect on his words, I recognize that we are 6 weeks into school already and there hasn’t been a whiff of student-to-teacher feedback. But today that changes.  I sincerely want to know How am I doing as your teacher?

When experiencing failure, remember: This is a Start

I put up an Activity Post on Seesaw to provide our 1st Grade students to tell us their “2 Stars and a Wish”. We told them that this is a secret teacher message and it won’t go up on their journals so they could say whatever they like. The most important thing was they were honest and helpful. (“Helpful” is a loaded term, I know, but it’s a message that we are sending about feedback in general)

Here’s what I learned:

  • “I like playing games with you.”
  • “I like sounding out letters with you”
  • “I like Maths”.
  • “If I work hard, I will be great.”
  • “I want to do more math because it’s fun.”
  • ” I want my friends to be happy.”
  • “I want to use Chinese to count (to 50)”
  • “I want to be a good writer”.
  • “I like it when we play games but I don’t like it when we get dirty outside.”
  • “I want more time writing and making books”
  • “I want more learning choice time”.
  • “I want more literacy time to play Teach Your Monster to Read“.
  • “I want to go for a walk to collect some small moments for writing”.
  • “I wish I can speak better in English”
  • “I wish I could write better.”
  • “I love learning choices.”
  • “I like to draw when I am doing my ‘small moments’.”
  • “I like it when we do maths because it makes me calm.”
  • “I really like the teachers.”
  • “I want to use playdoh and I wish I could read eBooks.”
  • “I want to do more maths with numbers and patterns.”

Although these comments warmed my heart and intrigued me, they didn’t provide the insight into “how I’m doing as your teacher” per se. When I look at this, it tells me a lot about what they are connecting to in our learning community: words, numbers, nature, language, technology, pictures, sensory play, intrapersonal learning, and interpersonal learning. Indeed, this helps to shape a picture of who they are and provides us with more data as teachers to know how to communicate with them but the intent seemed lost on the openness of this question, which I reckon may not be the best approach with children this age (6-7-year-olds), at least for this time of the year.  So I ended up walking away, feeling that I failed to get the desired feedback. But because I believe that all learning–even when we make mistakes–is helpful, I reminded myself that this is a start.

The Struggle Continues: Peer Feedback

Since our staff has been inquiring into student engagement as a part of developing greater student agency with the PYP Enhancements, our professional goals this year are rooted in it. We are taking a very systematic approach to it, using peer coaching to explore where we are in our mission to “challenge, inspire and empower”, using the work of Jim Knight and his Impact Cycle.

Peer to peer feedback is highly valuable, and when done in the spirit of non-judgment, care, and positive intention, then an authentic critical friendship can ensue. I whole-heartedly believe in it. C’mon-Who doesn’t want a true loving fan, sitting on the sidelines, applauding our growth and challenging us to bring our best self into the “game”?? I personally delight in having someone who can discern the subtleties of a lesson and provide me with something that I can reflect upon to improve my practice. Bring it on!

So now I ponder this quote:

If we don’t design lessons and units that will earn students’ commitment to learn, then we can’t expect them to take an active or in-depth approach to learning. In other words, if we fail to take student engagement seriously, then the best we can hope for from our students is superficial learning.

The Eight Cs of Engagement by by Harvey F. Silver & Matthew J. Perini

Before I sit down and watch a recorded video of a lesson, I want to ensure I had clarity of what I am reflecting on. I picked out some of the attributes of engagement, creating a “rubric” that I can score where I saw my students during the learning period captured. It’s my “baseline” if you will, and I want to make sure it is objective and telling. Also, this is my first thinking about how I might assess myself, so I am bound to make amendments to it along the way.  But at least I can examine the video and pick out evidence of where the level of engagement might generally rank on this scale/rubric to give more direction for my goals.  Also, I feel this might be a talking tool for our peer-to-peer dialogue about what they saw, heard and felt was happening in the lesson.

engagement rubric

Next Steps: Fail Again

So I think we need to go back to the drawing board on mining for feedback from students, refining questions so we can penetrate deeper into their perceptions of our teaching and their learning community.

I feel like student feedback is an opportunity to reflect on where we are with respect to developing agency as well. So now I wonder if taking the “temperature” might be a better first approach to gaining an understanding of how students feel about their learning.

I was thinking that I could use Plickers as a tool to take a “snap-shot” of the children’s perspective during a morning meeting. I don’t want to bombard them with a heap of questions, so these are the student questions that might establish a general idea about our learning environment:

  1. Do you usually understand what is expected of you in our classroom?
  2. Do you usually understand the directions given?
  3. Do you think the teacher gives you enough time to think?
  4. Do you think the teacher gives you enough time to write?
  5. Do you think you have a voice in our classroom and that your ideas are valued when you share them?

Of course, I would need to follow up with the No’s, as well as examine recorded videos to see who may be lingering in the far end of the engagement scale, digging a bit deeper with more thoughtful questions for them such as:

  • How do you show your teacher that you are enjoying learning?
  • *Which teacher do you find most helpful?
  • What does this teacher do to help you learn best?
  • What specific advice would you give to help your teacher improve?

(*We are a teaching team, with 6 of us working at any given time with our Grade 1 students. I wanted to add this question to help us think about why and how certain teachers resonate with learners. Maybe we can capitalize on the rapport and connection they feel with us.)

What if…..

Also, I was thinking that if we looked at a videotaped lesson alongside them, a teacher could ask them directly if they were engaged; and why or why not they were engaged-what influenced their interest and concentration during the lesson? Could there have been a missed opportunity to move them into a more active stance in their learning?

I’m a scientist at heart and I LOVE dissecting things, but let’s be honest, this would be a luxurious survey given how limited our time can be. Yet, I reckon that it would be really helpful for those students who don’t generally demonstrate “active compliance”.

Final Thoughts……for Now

So I don’t think I’m going to bring an end to the hustle any time soon, but I feel that an honest and hard look at my practice and the dynamics I have with learners would be a good place to start.

Start.

Yep, that’s where I really am in this process. Perhaps you are too.

But I think if I keep walking in the direction of my original question, Does it have to feel like a “hustle”? Like I’m tricking someone into learning?, then I think I may arrive at some conclusion. It may not be the end, but it could be a step in a new direction.

I think, ultimately, that is where feedback lands us: in a new territory of growth and learning.

 

MindFULLness or Mindfulness?

MindFULLness or Mindfulness?

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Have you ever read the book, Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh? I was recently reminded of something that is quite foundational in creating mindfulness:

If we are not happy, if we are not peaceful, we can’t share peace and happiness with others, even those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it.

Sounds so simple, right. Just stop, take a breath and pay attention to the wonders of our world–the people we get to spend time with, the beauty of nature, the sensations in life like the tickle of tea tree shampoo on our scalp, the chirp of the birds outside your window, or the smell of coffee. These are precious gifts of aliveness.

THICH NHAT HANHBut I read an essay recently by Robert Holden about “Destination Addiction” and it deeply touched me.  He put forth an interesting question–“Do you eat a banana only to get to the end of it?”

That’s a profound question when you deeply examine it. And it made me wonder, what else am I in a rush to get through?  Do I rush to get through the day, through the week, through the semester? Or am I savoring those moments with students? Am I enjoying their laughter, their kindness, their insight? Am I in awe of their desire to grow and learn? And am I extending compassion and appreciation towards those that I fill my days with?–my colleagues, my family, and my friends. Perhaps these relationships need some savoring as well.

So instead of having a mind FULL of my To-Dos, I’d like to fill my days with my To-Be’s: To be present, to be kind, to be thoughtful, to be gentle, to be curious.

I think that everyone needs a reminder to slow down and “eat the banana”, to peel back the deliciousness in life and chew on it with the purpose of enjoying the gift that it is. In this way, we can cultivate mindfulness and more vibrant interactions with each other and the world.

May you be the peace that you seek in the world.

The PYP Planner: A Shift in Our Approach to Planning Inquiry (#enhancedPYP )

The PYP Planner: A Shift in Our Approach to Planning Inquiry (#enhancedPYP )

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Quick Quiz: What is the first “box” in the PYP planner? Did these things come to mind?:

What is our purpose?   To inquire into the following:

  • Transdisciplinary theme:    
  • Central idea :  

summative assessment task(s):

What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?

Now with the enhancements in the Primary Years Programme (PYP), we can redesign our planner which has to lead to an overhaul of our collaborative planning. If you notice in the Box #1, aside from clarifying our theme and central idea, we would start planning our summative. However, we haven’t done any assessment of student’s prior knowledge, and I often found that determining the summative assessment before we have even launched a unit of inquiry (UOI) has always led to more teacher direction in our units, as if we are nudging and, sometimes pushing the students toward our end goal–The Summative Task. Think about it, when we plan in this way, we are already dictating the terms of what we want the students to Know, Understand, and Do (aka: KUD) before we have even gotten them to SHOW US what they already know, understand and do. A bit presumptive of us, really, eh?

Needless to say, since the reigns are off, and schools get to design PYP planners in the Enhanced PYP, there’s been a shift in how we approach planning. And the new “Box 1” (figuratively) is about planning our provocation FIRST so we can let the students reveal to us what they know and lead the direction of the UOI, rather then us marching them towards the summative. It may seem trivial, but when you consider how AGENCY is the new core of our curriculum, we need to be approaching our units in different ways.

Let me provide a context, looking at our Math Stand Alone:

Patterns and sequences occur in everyday situations.
-Patterns can be found in numbers.
-Types of number patterns
-Patterns can be created and extended.

Key concepts: Connection, Form, Reflection

Related concepts: pattern, sequences, collections/groups

As a team, including our Math Leader of Learning (Olwen Millgate), we sat down and discussed the many different ways that we could plan a provocation around this central idea. At the end of the day, we determined that the most open-ended, the better, so that students could exercise as much creativity and skills as possible. We would just be the “researchers” in the classroom, observing and noting what the students came up with when given the challenge–Create as many patterns using one or more of the materials provided. 

As teacher researchers, we divided up the students so that we could take notes, making sure that all students were given the time and attention to “show what they know” about patterns. Here is the simple observational sheet that was created for this provocation: (Free to use)

We gave the students a variety of math tools to work with:

  1. counters
  2. ten frames
  3. unifix cubes
  4. Cuisenaire Rods
  5. beads
  6. pattern blocks
  7. peg boards
  8. tanagrams
  9. popsickle sticks
  10. white board and markers
  11. stampers and paper
  12. dominos
  13. magnetic letters and boards

As you can see, they had a plethora of options, and the students engaged freely, making their own choices and creations. Some students preferred to work by themselves while other collaborated–another aspect that we noted along with capturing their conversations. Here are just a few of those creations:

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There was a very loud and animated group at the Unifix cube station–which surprised us all by how excited they got about building “tall patterns”, with a lot of debate about whether they were just snapping cubes together or generating a true pattern. Although to outsiders, it may have felt chaotic, there were fantastic conjectures going on, which we saved a few examples to use for future provocations. (The Guiding Question: Is this a pattern? Why or Why Not?)

Later, our team met to discuss what we observed and we were able to sift through our documentation. We unpacked the provocation, and shared our photos and notes, describing some of the interactions that we had with them. Then we went to our curriculum and examined the phase the students might be achieving at in their conceptual understandings. Our central idea comes from the PYP Maths Scope and Sequence in Phase 1, so we needed to challenge it —is this the phase they are actually in or are we seeing evidence of Phase 2 understanding? We decided to stick with our central idea and lines of inquiry because we felt like we saw and heard evidence that most of our learners were on the tail end of this phase, applying their understanding of pattern.

After this conversation, we went on to determine what our next steps could be. Most of the patterns were ABABAB–do we encourage them to make ABCABCABC or other more sophisticated patterns? At the end of our deliberations, we decided that rushing them might create conceptual gaps so we wanted to stick with their ABABAB, but create a series of opportunities to look at how we could manipulate only 2 variables to generate a variety of patterns. What can we do with only 2 attributes?–This became the guiding question for our upcoming provocations.

So here we are, in Week 2 of this unit and we still haven’t nailed down our summative task. Gasp, right? But, on Friday, after this week’s follow up provocations, we can safely appreciate our learners, where they are and where we can take them during the remaining weeks of the unit. I find that thrilling. We will create our conceptual math rubric, using this generic one as our guide:

math standalone 2

Hopefully, you can see that we are thinking about planning not as boxes but phases in our inquiry. We are using this “tuning in” period to dictate the terms of our how we will ultimately assess students. And we are spending more time researching and planning our provocations so that they can make the children’s thinking visible and expose their understanding of the math concepts. I believe that as this approach to planning evolves, our attitudes toward our students also evolve when we are observing how they are competent and creative when expressing their ideas.

I’m wondering how other schools have begun to consider the impact of planning on agency and how it will look in the Enhanced PYP. The planner has always been a tool for us to shape our collaboration and thinking about how best to meet our students’ needs in the inquiry. I think it will be fun to see how schools begin to shift as they reflect deeply on the importance of it–it’s more than just an exercise in paperwork, it is an artifact of learning.

So what’s your “Box #1”?
Digital Lunch: Using Google Search Operators to Research How to End Hunger (#TeachSDGs)

Digital Lunch: Using Google Search Operators to Research How to End Hunger (#TeachSDGs)

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What does the word “ hunger” even mean? Many of our students, particularly in our international schools,  have very little experience with this concept. They may say that they are “starving” when they are 10 minutes late to lunch, but have no authentic connection to this idea of “Zero Hunger”, which is the subject of the second Sustainable Development Goal put forth by the United Nations. corecompetanciesAlso, they fail to appreciate the components that all have to work together to ensure that their lunch even makes it to the cafeteria. You can understand why one of the first of UNESCO‘s “key competencies” is to develop an understanding of the processes and mechanisms that create or diminish hunger using a systems thinking approach. 

Systems thinking, in a nutshell, can be described as a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the natural processes of the natural and economic world.

Peter Senge , quoted originally from The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

You can see why UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) believes that it is critical to use this approach in order to advance sustainable development goals. When connecting the dots,  students need to research the underpinnings of the problem in order to introduce new tools and methods that could develop more sustainable pathways for those people and communities that are facing an experience of true hunger.

zero hunger objectives

Thus it seems vital that, as we explore Google Apps for Education, we explore the importance of Google search operators that eliminate frivolous information and refine research efforts so that students can cut through the nonsense and find relevant and helpful information as it relates to this SDG. 

However, perhaps before launching into a tirade of internet research, you can share an inspiring story of a person or organization that is attempting to do their part to tackle Zero Hunger. There is a great story about the former President of Trader’s Joe Grocery chain, Doug Rauch, who went into retirement but then traded in his golf clubs because he wanted to address the hunger-related problem called “food deserts” by creating a food market; the Daily Table helps those impoverished community members in the Boston area. He is a great example of someone who examined the systems around food deserts when developing this grocery store, and his story can provide a lot of “food for thought” (sorry I couldn’t resist the pun) as a provocation. 

Now going back to Google Search……

Rember that in a typical Google Search, there are thousands if not millions of results of sites that are indexed for the content you could be looking for. It’s overwhelming and most of the time, students go down a rabbit hole, returning with very little data related to their topic. However, Google has a list of “operators” which are symbols and special characters that extend one’s web search capabilities within the Google Search Bar. They have created over 40 different search operators that help filter and refine web search results, making it easier to find appropriate and relevant content. Using one or more of them improves your web results. For example, when a student puts in the word “hunger” look what comes up:

hunger webpage

Now at this point, there are 3 predictable things that students are going to do:

  • click on Hunger by Wikipedia, feeling pretty confident that they got all the information they need,
  • or they going to start watching one of those videos (wholly off the topic, but can’t resist the urge to be entertained)
  • or they will recognize that their search term wasn’t specific enough to warrant quality result and put in new search terms.

We want to develop this last behavior as a research skill. We want to them to be thinking critically, solving problems and developing resiliency, and believe it or not, simply exploring search operators will give them a huge leg up on cultivating these behaviors.  Because, as you can see, none of these web results would be particularly helpful in finding information related to our Sustainable Development Goal of “Zero Hunger”, and if you put in “Zero Hunger”, still 35,000,000 results come up. So let’s take a look at some search operators that can help students conduct research. In the charts below, you will notice the search operator in the left column, while the right-hand side explains how it works and some considerations that we need to be mindful of.

googlesearch1

googlesearch2

I created a video tutorial to show how the search operators make a significant difference in generating more relevant and useful research on the internet:

It is my hope that you can see the impact of these operators in action. However,  I’d like also like to share with you another amazing way to do research online which works great if you teach older students (think High School) or you are personally working a degree program: Google Scholar, it takes internet research to another level.

Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

All the results you get are from academic journals, so it is a wonderful way to sieve through the articles. Here is another video tutorial on how to use it:
Between using Google Search operators and Google Scholar, students should have no problem researching the local and global issues that are related to the systematic challenges to ending hunger. It is my hope that through deepening our understanding of this sustainable development goal (SDG), we can truly attain this ambitious target. I believe all of us in education should do our part to contribute to this worthy endeavor.

*This is the 2nd of our Digital Lunch series, in which using Google Apps for Education training was used to support teaching the Sustainable Development Goals put forth by the United Nations. In this lunch hour training sessions, participates were exposed to SDG #2: No Hunger and the operator terms used for Google Search. This blog post gives an overview of the training.

DigitalLunch: How to Bring an End to Poverty (#TeachSDGs) using Google’s Blogger App

DigitalLunch: How to Bring an End to Poverty (#TeachSDGs) using Google’s Blogger App

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To imagine this goal- ending poverty in all its forms everywhere- seems like humankind would need to make a mighty effort to bring this into reality. However, I felt inspired by the research presented by Peter Diamandis in his book, Abundance, the Future is Better Than You Think. Extreme-Poverty-OurWorldIn his book, he presents really interesting data that shows that current efforts are making an impact, helping people get out of “absolute poverty” or extreme poverty which are defined as income levels that are below the minimum amount to sustain people’s basic needs. Although this is a dreadful situation, I believe as educators, we should convey a sense of optimism to our students–that WE can be the Change, while bringing them into awareness of the issue and compel them to eradicate it.

If we are to take on the challenge of teaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), then we can look to the work done by UNESCO to find learning objectives that we may embed into our current curriculum. They suggest to create a conceptual understanding of extreme and relative poverty and to critically reflect on the underlying cultural and behavioral practices that create these conditions. Furthermore, it should be our intention to connect the head to the heart, adding social-emotional learning objectives so that students begin to show sensitivity to the issues of poverty as well as empathy and solidarity with poor people and those in vulnerable situations. (Education for Sustainable Goals). I believe wholeheartedly we can do this, and I’d like to suggest using the Google App Blogger to cultivate knowledge of the local, national and global distribution of extreme poverty and extreme wealth.  In my opinion, student blogs can be a great way to chronicle their learning journey because they combine both traditional writing skills with the new literacy skill of visual messages as students create reflections and powerful posts that respond to their deepening understanding. 

Here are some of the basic reasons why I would use Blogger:

  • Free and easy to set up–all you need is a Gmail account.
  • Simple and easy to use its features.
  • Autosaves their work as a draft, and they can go back in “history” to review changes.
  • Can be used as an individual or collaborative blog
  • Great context for important problem-solving, critical thinking and cultural awareness.
  • Has the opportunity for an authentic audience experience.
  • Transforms students of “consumers” into “creators” of media.

My Personal Recommendations….

  • When you have the students sign up Blogger, make sure they DO NOT sign up for the G+ platform or it will not allow the blog to get set up if they are under 13 years old.
  • Make sure you have Admin privileges on the students’ accounts, so you can have editing privileges and can moderate comments.

Click on the video below if you are ready to learn  How to Create a Blog for Student Learning Using Blogger.  (If you are already familiar with Blogger, then you can continue to read how we could use to blogging to journey students through an inquiry into poverty…… )

 

Okay, so now that you have a general sense of the power of blogging in learning and how you can get started using Blogger, I’d like to provide some ideas of how you use the blog to show growth in their understanding of issues surrounding poverty, in their local and community and globally.

Suggested Provocations:

  1. Watching the film Living On One Dollar . Also, there are a ton of resources on that website and additional work done by the filmmakers. By the way, not an easy documentary to watch–will evoke strong emotions.  (I’m tearing up just thinking about it.)
  2. Field Trip to the Landfill. What does the trash tell us about the wealth in our community?  Depending on where you live in the world, you may actually bare witness to people who are living in extreme poverty.
  3. A ride on the local bus through impoverished neighborhoods. In some places, just the bus ride alone can be quite an eye-opener to the people who live in poverty. I would add the See, Think and Wonder thinking routine to this excursion.
  4. Student Challenge: What might it be like living on 1 USD a day?

Blogging about these experiences will be illuminating and can be done either in-class or for home learning. Here are some possible blog prompts:

blog prompts.png

I would also recommend that students read and respond to each other’s blogs using the comment feature. No matter the age-group, I think a review of what constitutes a helpful comment would be a smart idea. I would NEVER assume students understand the complexity of netiquette. In first grade, these were some of the “starters” we gave them to help guide appropriate responses: Helpful Comments. Perhaps those might provide a guide on how you might want students to engage with each other online.

These suggestions, as well as the blog prompts, are merely the beginning of what could be possible. If you go to the TeachSDGs website, you can find more resources and ideas. The great thing is that students could share their blog posts on social media platforms to further spread the message of the SDGs as well as be a resource to others grade levels within our school communities or across the globe.

If you have any feedback, I’d really appreciate how you felt about this information:

 

*This is the 1st of our Digital Lunch series, in which using Google Apps for Education training was used to support teaching the Sustainable Development Goals put forth by the United Nations. In this lunch hour training sessions, participates were exposed to SDG #1: No Poverty and the digital tool of Blogger. This blog post gives an overview of the training.

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