Category: collaboration

PYPC Book Club: Opportunities for “The Fun Habit” in Team Collaborative Meetings

PYPC Book Club: Opportunities for “The Fun Habit” in Team Collaborative Meetings

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In April 2020 I needed to find an antidote to my seclusion.  Not only was I physically isolated but also felt lonely professionally. Although there were lots of webinars and free professional development out there to help us execute online and hybrid learning, there wasn’t a lot that really supported my role as a coordinator beyond “emergency planning”. So I was inspired by a recommendation to read The Art of Coaching Teams: Building Resilient Communities That Transform Schools by Elena Aguilar.  I felt like I needed to discuss and process it with others. So I decided to throw out the idea of forming a book discussion group to the PYP Coordinator Facebook community and the next thing I knew, a true virtual book club was formed.

Books have created a campfire experience, in which we huddle around its pages and tell stories about our lives and our practices as PYP curriculum coordinators.  They can facilitate vulnerability and connection, and help us to take risks in our leadership practice.  It’s the 4th year now and it is a joy to co-construct the reading list with colleagues from all over our global network of PYPC. One of the goals of our reading is to put at least one idea from the book into practice, and in our final meeting for that book title, we share an idea with the group of something that we have or we will put into practice. It’s like professional development on steroids because we are naturally each other’s accountability partners and support mastery in our leadership practice. 

Typically I offer an “Early Bird” read at the end of the summer holiday or winter holiday, depending on your hemisphere. This book typically is adjacent to the work we do in our schools but not necessarily for educators. This year we have been reading The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life by Micheal Rucker, Ph.D. You can tell by the title that its aspirational message is to make fun an integrated part of your life and not just something that happens sometimes. The ideas I share in this post are stimulated by our discussions. 

The PLAY Model

One of the key ideas of the book is to purposely design your life for more enjoyable experiences. To do that you need to take a “fun audit” and determine how and why you are spending your time the way that you do. He suggests you filter your audit through the PLAY model, analyzing your activities by how they make you feel: vibrant, pleasant, “meh” or in suffering. 

In my mind, collaborative team meetings are really a “split screen”; part of the meeting is for team building and the other part is to achieve a particular goal. We can conduct this “fun audit” not only on our personal lives but in our professional lives. When do we truly feel alive as teachers? When is school a drudgery? And in those honest conversations with one another, how can we support each other in moving out of the “agonizing” quadrant to at least the “yielding” if not “pleasant” quadrant? 

Treasure Chest

To me, time is something you don’t get a refund on. The time I spend with teams is precious and I want to help them to reflect on the moments of joy and fun in the classroom. Remembering these moments is important to our mental health and it stirs positive emotions that charge our “batteries”. We get so much energy and inspiration when we can share them moments with others. 

There are many ways to do this. I could provide teachers with a meeting “exit ticket” in which they share a moment that they “treasured”, which could be with the students or with a colleague. I collect those happy memories and put them in a treasure chest, to pull out later at a staff meeting, helping them to recall those times when they enjoyed school life. And if a moment doesn’t come to mind during our meeting, it’s okay–they can hold on to the “ticket” and pop it in the treasure chest later. 

The treasured moment includes:

  • Who was involved?
  • What happened, when it happened, and where it happened?
  • And why it was a treasure for them?

Or if that is too ambitious to bake this exit ticket into our meeting routines, then we do it as a component of an end-of-unit reflection or at least an end-of-term reflection. The goal is to find the good (there’s lots of it!) and to savor those beautiful moments we have with students and each other every day. 

Finding Connection 

Collaboration is a skill that we must develop intentionally with our teams and staff. Mindset and attitude play a vital role in how teams function. Having a desire to work with one another and demonstrating respect is an essential component of facilitating team dynamics. We have to like each other to work well with each other. Congeniality matters.  Developing compassion and trust for members of a team is something that we can support by establishing camaraderie during our meetings. Plus, it gives us great data about the people we serve in our role. The great news–we can make it fun by doing quick “warm-ups” in our meetings. Here are a few light-hearted ways to bring people together. 

  • This or That: Hobbies, movies, music, books, quotes favorite holidays, food–the topic doesn’t matter–it’s the ability to find commonalities is a really important aspect.
  • Roll of the Dice: Dice always add an element of excitement. Create options for things people can share based on what they roll. For example: 1, something that they are proud of. 2, the last thing you read about (can be personal or professional reading). 3, your favorite toy as a child. 4, a place that is on your bucketlist to visit. 5, the last resturant you went to. 6, a social media post that made you smile. (By the way, you could also use a Spinner tool if you don’t have dice)
  • “Yes and…”: This is a fun improv activity in which the team has to plan an event and the goal is to agree with what the person says and add on another idea to the planning. For example: You’re going away on a wonderful trip to The Shire (the mythical home of hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”). Clothes and toiletries will be provided for you but you can bring some other items to make this trip special. What will you bring?  Remember, this can be any type of event, realistic or imaginary like this one–anything from a Taylor Swift concert to a something even quirkier like the World Toe Wrestling Championship. You would do a round or 2 just to have a few laughs and practice agreeing with one another.  
  • What meme lives here: show a funny picture and write a quick quip as a meme. Can be done individually or created as a group. 
  • What’s your story?: Show a collage of some funny children books. If you could be a character in one of these books, which one would you choose and why. 
  • Would you rather?: similar to This or That but it can be more silly and can add a 3rd option.

These are just some ideas that will hopefully help you to spark some opportunities for relationship building and infuse some energy into meetings. Remember, the intention is to bring levity and joy to the start of the meeting. These activities should not go beyond 5 minutes. 

Are you the nerdy type of pedagogical leader?

For me, the PYPC Book club has been a source of amazing professional development. I’ve been inspired by other great pedagogical leaders, and it has nudged me out of my comfort zone. I hope this post not only sparks some fresh thinking, but also helps you to consider other ways to connect with other IB educators. If you are a PYPC and you’d be interested in joining, please send me a message so I can share our reading schedule with you.  

 

The Role of the PYP Coordinator: 5 Dos and Don’ts When Working in International Schools

The Role of the PYP Coordinator: 5 Dos and Don’ts When Working in International Schools

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It’s a time of year that we are always prone to reflect and come up with wish lists for the new year. There are projects that remain unfinished, books you want to read, and pedagogical challenges that we continue puzzling over. Often this time of year we renew our enthusiasm and commitment to at least some of these things.

That said, whether this is your 1st year or 15th year of being in curriculum coordination, there are always things that come to mind as opportunities for improvement.  I think of these like Boomerangs, items of good leadership practice that I must return to if I had become sloppy over the course of the year. So I’d like to share the 5 Dos and Don’ts that I have to constantly check in with myself each and every year.

DON’T use acronyms, but DO create a common understanding of key principles within your program.

I think we can often assume that we all speak the “same language” in the PYP. We don’t. Using acronyms adds another layer of confusion for new staff (or even old staff who never got the jargon to begin with). Sometimes brevity is unhelpful. Here’s what I mean in a possible email to teachers:

Let’s meet in the LSR during CPT. We will work on our UOI’s KUDs and create SC. Ts need to add them to MB.

Maybe you know what the goals of the meeting are, or maybe you don’t. And that is the point! If you are left scratching your head, then maybe you need to inform what certain acronyms mean or just spell them out. Seriously, acronyms are not that much of a time saver anyway, and can really handicap some teachers who may not be native speakers of English (or whatever language dominates your school’s professional discourse). It’s better to be clear, especially in written communication.

Let’s meet in Heidi and Gustav’s learning support room (annex room 3). We will work on our upcoming unit’s KUDs–what we want our students to K.now U.nderstand and D.o; then we will create success criteria. Teachers need to record these in ManageBac (MB)

Until acronyms are internalized, it is better to write them out so that everyone is in “the know”. Moreover, when new teachers join the team, you will have to be mindful, even providing a “glossary of terms” for those brand new to the PYP of the jargon you use at your school.

DON’T solely have collaborative planning meetings but DO have a variety of focused planning sessions that have a purpose and goals.

Many schools have regularly scheduled meeting times such as a “late start” or “early release” days that are perfect to allocate for collaboration with grade level teams and specialists. These meetings with specialists are “tried and true” ways to promote collaboration for unit of inquiry planning, but they are not the only kinds of meetings that we can promote collaboration. Using these moments to discuss other topics such as assessment practices, how we are promoting student agency, or looking at inquiry practices can also help promote collaboration. Personally I have been thinking about flipping the focus of the collaboration meetings away from the homeroom teachers’ units and instead provide opportunities for specialists to be the focus for support of their non-integrated units. In that way, we can start broadening our ideation for agency and concept development in more supportive ways across our whole school, and in every subject.  Never the less, straying from doing “meetings-as-usual” could help foster creativity and innovation but it’s important to have the purpose of these collaborations clearly stated with intended goals communicated so that teachers feel that the time is well spent and helpful.

DON’T go into classrooms for “special moments” but DO create a schedule of classroom visits.

I realize that not all coordinators have time in their schedule to frequent classrooms, which is why I am suggesting that it gets built into one’s personal timetable. If it is baked into one’s personal calendar, then it is easy to get into classrooms. This could be a 10-minute walk through or you could spend a full period. Moreover, popping into a variety of classrooms is preferable, so this goal might be to visit certain classrooms on a bi-weekly or even monthly basis.

I also want to be clear the the purpose of these visits aren’t just to capture special learning moments (ex: guest speaker, end of unit activity, community action project, etc..) to post on social media, nor should they be “gotcha” moments to find fault with teachers. It should be an intentional moment to observe students during the learning. Write down notes about the conversations that they are having, or any interesting interactions you observe. Teaching is complex and there are lots of things that they don’t observe so having another educator in the room, no matter how brief your visit is, might unearth some data that could help teachers support student learning. It also might provide more helpful information when you sit down in the planning meetings. So, take notes or photos so you can capture some anecdotes to share with teachers later. If those anecdotes are useful to share in the larger learning community, that would be great, but it shouldn’t be the only reason why you come into classes.

DON’T assume you know how to support teachers but DO ask them how they would like to be supported.

You may read all the books and do all the trainings but you know the saying that  “to ASSUME it to make an ASS out of U and Me”– even though this wit and wisdom sounds cliche, it is something that needs reminding regularly. For example, there are times when you go into a classroom and you feel like you are being “supportive” but when you start “co-teaching”, it may be very disempowering or even insulting to the teacher to interfere with the lesson. I think it’s important to ask teachers individually and as a team what are some ways in which they can best be supported. And although you may have asked that question earlier in the school year, it’s important to ask it again in case the needs have changed over the course of the year. For example, I will definitely be asking teachers what needs to STOP, START and CONTINUE with the level of support I have given as we re-boot the school year after our holidays. And I want to add that this feedback will be communicated as their “wishlist” because I have to balance school priorities with their needs, but I will definitely do my best to meet their requests.

DON’T have too many initiatives but DO remind your team what goals were set for the year

Initiative overload is endemic in most schools across the globe. I think the new evaluation process is helping to transition our approach in our IB programs to action-research might alleviate this phenomena. However, it is not an easy habit to break. Wen we try to do too much in too little amount of time, I think the goals become shallow and not a lot of traction can occur. I don’t think it matters if you are a new-to-PYP school or an established school. Having a focus and remaining on track is vital to the long-term growth of your school’s development.

Personally, I have been thinking a lot about this as we jump into the 2nd term, and considering what milestones we might reach at the end of the year if we remain concentrated on the initiatives we set out at the beginning of this year. I want to share this vision with our teachers and get a sense of what their expectations might be as well. In that way, they can feel that they are making headway with their effort, as small changes can make a big difference in the trajectory of our students’ learning.

Although 5 things are hardly an exhaustive list, I do hope these Dos and Don’ts provide some inspiration and ideas to reflect on the ways you can improve and grow in your pedagogical practices. Did any other Dos or Don’ts come to mind as you read this post? Please share in the comments so this community can glean from your wisdom as well.

Wishing you a marvelous 2023!

The PYP Planner: The Challenges in Designing an “Enhanced” Collaboration Tool

The PYP Planner: The Challenges in Designing an “Enhanced” Collaboration Tool

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Ever since we decided to give one of the “enhanced” planners from the Programme Resource Centre a try, we have been reflecting on our planning process. Do these planning templates actually “enhance” our planning process? Moreover, how might our planner be a reflection of Who We Are? Between our frustration with the “enhanced” template and our school’s own initiatives, we thought it would benefit our planning if we co-constructed our own PYP planner.

The Process

In order to approach these questions, we used design thinking to navigate our discussions and our guide us on this journey. As you can see from the graphic below, it is not really a linear process but one that involves constant dialogue and reflection along the way.

Empathize and Define

We launched our discussions during teacher in-service days when we had a fair amount of time to explore and worked in mixed grade-level groups. As you might know already, schools can either use one of the planners provided by the PYP or develop their own planner based on the collaborative planning process. We started by examining the current “enhanced” planner that we had adopted earlier that year and had groups discuss its Pros and Cons, carefully considering…

  • The different elements of the PYP framework in the planner
  • The amount of “boxes”
  • The layout
  • Visual elements like colors and icons
  • The leading questions
    • Do they help your planning conversations? Why or Why not?

These conversations lead us to think about what is the purpose of the PYP planner and its role in collaboration. We took some time re-reading and reflecting on the IB’s document about the collaborative planning process before we researched different templates that other schools had created. Groups analyzed the templates and took notes on what they liked about each planner. Based on these conversations, we came up with some criteria that we wanted to in our own planner:

  • The essential elements of the PYP UOI planner.
  • Color coding for collaborative phases to help them know when they needed to be dipping back into the planner.
  • Some links to helpful documents or terms in case people had doubts about what to put in boxes.
  • Sections that clearly defined what the specialists were doing in their classes.

Ideate

Groups began to sketch out ideas and started to create their own versions in their teams. They could use either Google Docs or Google Slides to create their template. Their creations lead to many interesting conversations and lively debates. Eventually, we came back together and teams analyzed each other’s potential prototypes and we voted on one.

Prototype and Testing

The purpose of a prototype is to provide a representation of what a “final” design could be like. It gives the opportunity to analyze potential flaws and where there might be improvements. With this in mind, we gave the agreed-upon prototype a spin during our upcoming UOI planning. After the teams had a chance to use it, I met with them to discuss what they liked and didn’t like about it. I took notes and then made adjustments to create a final draft planner. I shared the draft planner and got feedback on its elements again. I created an exemplar and through that process, I continued to make revisions that supported our school’s goals.

Implement

During the course of this year, we have been using this final version. There are things that have worked and didn’t work with it. So even though we went through many iterative cycles, it’s not easy to create a planning document.

Do Betters

If I had to do this all over again, these are the areas that I think deserve more “air time” in the overall design of the planning document.

Collaborative Practices: To think that a one-size-fits-all planner is going to improve collaboration is naive and, in hindsight, I think an examination of our collaborative practices would have been a better place to start. Not only would it address the EMPATHIZE component better, but would have helped us DEFINE what we really needed in order to truly personalize our planner.

Connecting the head with the heart: Although our template definitely supports more understanding of the content in different subjects, supporting transfer is really tricky. Thinking through how we can get students to acquire knowledge and skills throughout the inquiry and make transdisciplinary connections is really a big goal of our learning framework. Moreover, how might their learning transfer into action? This is definitely something that we have to put front and center in our re-design.

Cultivating and Curating Curiosity: Evidencing the learning on the planner has been the hardest part of the planner to fill out. During the inquiry, teachers rarely remember specific questions that students asked unless they are captured on sticky notes or posters. Using digital platforms to upload pictures or learning artifacts is often a better source of documentation than our planners. This is an area that we must unpack more and consider how we can support assessment practices that develop learner-centered approaches and inform teachers.

I’m sure more ideas and reflections will emerge as we work to co-construct a meaningful PYP planner that supports our goals. I’m wondering what other considerations might be out there, but am hopeful that they will emerge as we move forward during the re-design of the planner.

Why is the Whole World Upside Down? Education After COVID-19 and #RemoteLearning

Why is the Whole World Upside Down? Education After COVID-19 and #RemoteLearning

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Lately, I’ve been reading and reflecting a lot about Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Somehow when I feel stressed, I turn to science as my security blanket. I feel comfort in the tested theories and proofs as if all of life’s unsolved mysteries can be explained with science. Surely, during these uncertain times, trying to figure out how we got here and where we go next is on everyone’s mind. Mine too.

Darwin’s theory is one that is easily misunderstood. Most people don’t know the backstory of how his theory came about and whether he actually agreed with his conjectures but we accept his ideas as a fact, by and large, and teach it in our textbooks. But his ideas are why the whole world is upside down.

The problem, whether we are aware of it or not, is that his ideas of “selection of the fittest” have paved the way for our economic principles and so much of the discrimination and atrocities in our human world–from civil wars and genocides, to acceptance of violence as a norm–justifying it as our primal urge to compete for scare resources and force “natural selection”. We’ve accepted his ideas because it was the first attempt of describing the complex behaviors that we observe in nature, but collaborationdarwinI think this COVID crisis is helping us to examine these ideas and ask ourselves if this is how we want to continue living as a species. Because the truth is, if we really make a study of nature, there’s a helluva lot more evidence for cooperation rather than competitition in the endurance of living things. Darwin actually wrote about this but it often goes unnoted.

But whether you are taking about plants (The Hidden Life of Trees  )  or microscopic , single-celled organisms (I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life), there is a complicated web of life that is the operating system that runs in the background of all things, from the most mundane elements of Earth (How to Read Water) to the deepest understanding of intelligence (Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness). And the fact that our economies are coming to a grinding halt during this pandemic exposes this fault in our thinking of our origins and purpose in life. Economists may have taken Darwin’s principles too far.

However, to not seize this moment in Education would be a terrible blunder. Especially since we now have the world’s attention of how dang important educators are in our societies. We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.

We’ve been granted a second chance.

Will we take it?

Needless to say, this is bigger than technology. It’s not about the level of preparedness that educators had when walking into remote learning. We could focus on that but I think we should be looking at the glaring equity issues we have–survival of the fittest–if you had access to technology and wifi, you got to continue your education online. If you didn’t, schools either were temporarily canceled or teachers made packets of uninspiring worksheets that put your brain to sleep–and ultimately got burned in a trash heap since districts were too afraid to have teachers actually grade them for the fear of spreading the virus. All that “school work” went up in flames. Ironic and metaphorical at the same time.

There’s this part of Darwin’s theory of Evolution that we should focus on. Adaptation: a change in a behavior or physical feature that improves a living thing’s ability to survive.  If we superimpose this concept onto culture, we call it innovation.

Innovation is often considered to be a value. But I don’t think so. It’s a necessity in my mind, a conscious decision. Natural selection is only one form of evolution but change can be also be a choice. That is where innovation comes in.

In the course, New Learning: Principles and Patterns of Pedagogy , Dr. William Cope reminds us that “

I share these thoughts of Dr. Cope to demonstrate how important this time is to reflect and consider WHAT’S NEXT in our human paradigm and our role to consciously decide as educators how we can support this transition to new ways of thinking and living in our world. I believe that as we move through this pandemic, we will also have a crisis of the heart and mind as we grapple with how we might use this opportunity to innovate in Education and embrace new ways of doing “school”. We can use the power of formal education to steer humanity in a new direction.

An Einstein Approach

Just as we are awakening to the ridiculousness of “standardizing” our students with testing, let’s not make the shallow mistake to make this about apps and tech. It’s much more primal and significant than that.

Albert Einstein once said:

einstein problems.jpeg

So, if our thinking has gotten us into our mess, then we have to revise it.  Education plays a crucial role in this.

The truth is that living things are exposed to disease all the time. That’s not new.

But we deem this a crisis because it has changed our way of living. And that may not be a bad thing in the long game if we get to eradicate the wrongful premise that the only way to survive is at the expense of others.

Because what the scientific evidence is now demonstrating is that it’s our relationships that helps us to solve-problems (code word: adaptation). And doing this TOGETHER will be the only way through this situation. We can not simply survive but we can thrive if we stop doing the same things and thinking in the same ways that got us here.

And, if we don’t want to be “same-same, but different” (same content but with a splash more of technology in there for good measure), then we need to look critically at our curricular content and school structures, while asking if it is truly serving a higher purpose for living beings, big and small. We have the power to choose this.

So, it is in the spirit of Nature’s truth that begs us to rethink schools and rebuild our world.

So what if we got Darwin all wrong?

Here is some of my first thinking what should be the basis of new standards in Education.

  1. Empathy should become a part of our content because it helps us to understand the relationship we have to our world.  We don’t read and write to pass a test, we do it to connect with the world.
  2. As a skill, explicit teaching of cooperation and collaboration should become the new “norm” in our school.
  3. Grades are an artifact of “selection of the fittest” thinking in which we rank and value our students based upon their academic knowledge. It’s an artificial and inhumane way to evaluate students. We need to stop this practice.
  4. No more, dog eat dog: content should include a new paradigmn in which we highlight peace and inter-relationships. How to solve conflict is an essential skill.
  5. Moreover, social emotional learning isn’t fluff. It’s a vital for developing human competence.
  6. Sharing is not just caring, it is an essential component to life. All life. So, the circular economy and sharing economy shouldn’t be a fringe idea, it should be a guiding principle.
  7. Awareness and appreciation of intelligence is not just a human thing. It’s in ALL things and when we recognize it, we can transform our life experience.

So, I want to restate what I said earlier:

We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.

We’ve been granted a second chance.

Will we take it?

Let’s set the world rightside up. We have the power to do that in Education.

 

 

 

 

 

The Role of the Teacher during #RemoteLearning

The Role of the Teacher during #RemoteLearning

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Indefinite.

That’s the word that currently describes the state of our school’s remote learning. What began as a 2-week quarantine has transformed into a vague timeline. It’s no wonder why people have now redubbed this experience as “emergency learning” since the typical planning and preparation that might have gone into this situation was stymied by the gravity of this crisis. We jumped first before we actually knew how to swim.

But as teachers, we are resilient. We can go with the punches. Flexibility. Humor. Patience. Those rarely show up on our job descriptions but are foundational skills for anyone who makes it past their third year in the classroom.

However, we aren’t the teachers any more.

Not really. It’s the parents.

But in my mind, parents are always the first and last teacher of any child. I borrow their children for a few hours. However, parents never recognized their role as teachers, until now. They may have been educating them in their values and beliefs in a passive way, whereas, we as professionals, are intentional and precise with the skills we want them to have.

When I heard these thoughts shared, I felt it summarized the juxtaposition of this moment:

What gives us energy? Not when the work is small and menial and easy. But when the work is big and important and collaborative. It adds up to something. Everything we believe in is now being put to the test.

-Lucy Calkins, Teaching and Leading in the Midst of COVID-19

So true.

I, like so many educators, am looking for wisdom. A beacon light that will guide me through this experience. But not because I don’t know how to teach. Or that the teachers I lead don’t know how to teach. No, they may struggle with the online environment but they are eager to be effective. The motivation is there. But I lean in and listen because I am seeking the insight in how we might pilot families through these stressful times.

In my mind, this is the role of the teacher during this COVID-19 crisis. It’s helping parents claim their legitimate position as their child’s teacher, despite their lack of pedagogical know-how.

We may design lessons and engage with students online but, to the families, who we are and what we do is so much more valuable than that. Our relationship has shifted. They see who were are and what we do differently……

We are trainers. We instruct them in how to set up their child’s schedule and their learning environment.

We are mentors. We build a genuine connection and share stories of their child’s learning.

We are coaches. We collect data from them. They are the eyes and ears of our student’s learning. We urge them into supporting their child’s next steps.

We encourage. We remind them that what they are doing is hard but it will get better. They can do this. Keep the faith in the capacity to figure things out.

We support. We explain what is working and why it’s helpful to do what matters, as many times as it takes. We never give up. We are there for them.

We remember. We remind them that their child was born to be curious and has a strong desire to learn, even if they don’t always show it. They are growing intellectually, mentally and spiritually during this time. It is their human nature to do so.

We acknowledge. We share our gratitude. We smile. We laugh. We give grace.

We are human. 

This is the role of the teacher. Indefinitely.

 

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

Wabi-Sabi Collaboration in a Time of #RemoteLearning

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As we transitioned to remote learning, our struggles have been largely dealing with technology and finding ways to problem solve the glitches that showed up in online lessons. When I saw this graphic shared by Dr. Jennifer Chang Wathall on Twitter, I could relate to where our school’s teaching teams were at with instructional design with remote learning. stages of elearning.jpeg

However, what this graphic doesn’t show is the fierce collaboration that underpins moving from one stage to the next. Collaboration is how we move through those e-learning stages: from survive, to strive, to thrive, to arrive.

Perhaps it has been different at other schools, but our leadership has really demanded our teachers work together as a team, co-planning and co-creating lessons for online learning. We did this for 2 main reasons.

  1. Divide and Conquer: If teacher teams could collectively share lessons and post them onto SeeSaw, then they would feel less overwhelmed with the new demands.
  2. Team building: The collective struggle would help support teams to form stronger bonds, nurturing relationships despite our distance.  Teachers wouldn’t feel “alone”, they’d feel supported during this time.

This has been a transformative process for our grade-level teams. Earlier this year, we did some professional learning into team teaching and best practices for co-teaching. One of the artifacts that we co-constructed was a reflective tool that helped us to define what are the stages  we were at as teams:

What has been interesting, is that since we’ve started remote learning, every one of our teaching teams has encountered conflict which, as they navigated their emotions and processed their perceptions, has deepened their ability to communicate and collaborate. And, as they work through their team challenges, it has moved them through lower-level stages into true “knot working”.  Remote learning has been the catalyst for really digging into our toolbox and using strategies that help members to share openly, be vulnerable and remain open to change. So, instead of confrontation, we have CAREfrontation.

I’m coming to understand that there is an “art” of being in intellectual communion with others. And I have noticed that these CAREfrontations employ the Japenese concept of finding beauty, Wabi-Sabi.

wabi-sabi (侘寂) 
Wabi originally referred to the loneliness of living in nature, remote from society; sabi meant “chill”, “lean” or “withered”. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, the life of the object and its impermanence Wikipedia

When I reflect on this definition, I think about how social distancing has the potential to bring out the worst and the best in us. This belies our own imperfection and flaws. But it is these idiosyncrasies that make us special, a one-of-a-kind. And when members on ouseth godin quote.jpegr teams can convert these flawed images of one another into a new perception, then our weaknesses can become our strengths. According to Barbara Bloom, “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they fill the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.”

Isn’t that lovely? 

So how do we fill these “cracks” with gold on our teams?

I think the first step is having awareness. We know that having differences are inevitable. What matters is how we manage our differences. When we apply Wabi-Sabi to our relationships, we have to embrace the most fundamental aspects of who they are. Yes, we wish they were “perfect” but they are not. They are who they are, so we must accept and value them. This perhaps is the hardest part. Accepting what is. But when we can acknowledge a member’s uniqueness, we validate their worth and the effort that they make to the team. This is a must. It is the only way we can move through conflict.

This validation helps support teacher self-efficacy– the #1 factor that influences positive student outcomes. So the ability to support and appreciate one another on a learning team is a vital component of collaboration. We elevate the learning when we provide an emotional and professional boost to one another.

Through this process, I have come to understand that acceptance of others is a kind of generosity. It is an opening in our hearts to allowing what is presenting before us to be there. If this tender heart doesn’t exist, then we must find a way through this impasse. This becomes the work of leadership, to be the model, to demonstrate this unconditional love. If we can do this, then we can support teams to release their grip on this notion of “perfection” and expand the team’s definition of it to include all the failures and mistakes that are made as we fumble through developing amazing experiences for our students online.

When we can appreciate the learning process that we are all going through professionally and personally, then we can find humility and humor–the gold that can be used to fuse our teams’ gaps.

I cannot say that Wabi-Sabi alone is the only principle that can guide our teams through this transitional period, but it is one that is serving our personal and professional growth at this moment. Perhaps it can benefit your community as well.

 

The #EnhancedPYP Planner: Who Gets to Plan the Learning?

The #EnhancedPYP Planner: Who Gets to Plan the Learning?

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They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. This couldn’t be truer when we consider the full impact of bringing the Primary Years Programme (PYP) enhancements on board. Making AGENCY front and center of what we do is a major paradigm shift, and if you don’t think so, then your school is either on the cutting edge or so far from the edge that the thought of empowering intelligent children with the capacity to self-direct their learning is downright heresy. Most of our schools fall somewhere in between–in our hearts, we want this, but in our heads, we aren’t sure how to make it happen.

Recently we got together in Sao Paulo to discuss how the Primary Years Programme Enhancements were rolling out in our schools. So much to talk about…so little time. But planning was a topic that we kept coming back to. There are quite a few schools that are developing their own planners, and their teams had a lot of discussion about, not only what elements need to be on the planner, but also where they wanted to begin their focus on the planner.  Here are some of the ideas that were shared that were Must-Haves and potential starting points of “The Planner”:

Reflection: Where are we now and where do we want to go?

Learning Goals: The purpose and conceptual focus of learning.

Language: Using the language of the PYP and developing academic language in meaningful ways.

Students: Their passions, interests, and resources that they can bring to the unit.

Assessment: Co-constructing success criteria and developing a continuum using solo taxonomy.

Tools and resources: The people, places, and tech that can be used to invigorate and engage learners.

Approaches to Learning: Ways in which student-initiated learning and agency can be nurtured.

Through these conversations, my mind wandered back to a blog post that I saw a few years ago: “We’re Going On An Expedition” and I keep wondering how we might make learning more like a journey for all students–not just during the PYP Exhibition–but for all grade levels. Moreover, asking the students who they want to become (Learner Profile Alert) as a result of their experiences this year and how teachers could be their guide through this journey. What if THAT was our starting point for planning?

comfort zoneAlso, if I think about “The Planner” like the map of this journey, then I am wondering how we might open up the planning of a unit to the students themselves. Instead of “The Planner” being a teacher-directed document, what if we had our official “Planner” for student-created which became the basis of the inquiry?  We flip the responsibility of this document so that students got to direct the learning. Hmmm….How might we structure the document in order for students to authentically co-plan with us teachers? I think THIS is the type of PYP planner that I want to create with my team. But what teacher team is so courageous to do this?

Now as someone who has co-constructed units of inquiry with students, I can attest that this made me uncomfortable. These kids don’t know about THE STANDARDS, so it’s not what guides them when we co-construct units. They think about what THEY want to learn, not what some educational body has mandated for them and outlined in THE STANDARDS. So I wonder how we can have true AGENCY if we are the ones telling them what they should know and when they should know it?

In my mind, Who gets to plan the learning? seems like the foundational question to ask when we develop new planning documents. Because if we, as teachers (bless us), get to plan the learning then I think we are the ones who “own” the unit. And if we define Agency as Voice, Choice, and Ownership, then clearly it will be a challenge for students to really take authentic action.

I’m am thinking about how we can use our Exhibition documents as the basis of creating an Enhanced PYP Planner, but I’m afraid that I have more questions than answers in how to approach this. However, the pursuit of these answers is something that I want to explore in earnest.  The process of this Enhanced PYP Planner will be a journey unto itself, but I am willing to engage in going deeper into how we create genuine student plans for THEIR learning rather than documenting OUR teacher plans.

I’m curious if anyone else has embarked in this direction or would be keen to go what has-been into what-could-be? What approach would you take?

 

 

Go As A River: Developing Professional Learners in a #PYP School

Go As A River: Developing Professional Learners in a #PYP School

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Professional Development is the life-blood of what I do.

effect plc
From the book, Teacher Collaboration for Professional Learning: Facilitating Study, Research, and Inquiry Communities

Being held accountable for improving the standard of learning is a weighty task, one that I take very seriously. It consumes a lot of energy in my role as a PYP Coordinator. Every Wednesday morning has been carved out for me to facilitate training and engage in a PLC (Professional Learning Communities). As you can see by this graphic, ensuring that our professional development time is well-spent is an important matter to be considered.

I’ve been in the field of education for 2 decades and I have definitely seen how it has evolved. In the book, Professional Learning in Action by Victoria J. Risko, MaryEllen Vogt, it was interesting that they noted research done by Kragler, Martin, and Sylvester that described the stages of professional learning over the years:

  • the in-service era (1950-1960s)
  • the staff-development era (1970-1980s)
  • the professional development era (1990-2000s)
  • the professional learning era (the mid-2000s to present)

Our current era, suggests that teachers must become leaders in their own learning, no longer passive receptacles but self-motivated and responsible. As educators, we are to engage in problem-solving, which is guided by our social constructivists’ principles. When we are intentionally directing our own learning, we are more purposeful in our decision-making in order to advance our knowledge and expertise.

In Zen, there is an expression: Go as a River.

Zen philosophy always likes to represent a complex idea in simple terms, but this saying suggests that we have the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community.  The Nobel Laureate, Thích Nhất Hạnh, reminds us that we cannot reach the ocean like a drop of water, we must surrender our isolation and learn how to come together through compassion and a willingness to accept each other unique qualities in order for us to have the energy to do the work we dedicate ourselves to, which in his world, is mindfulness.

There is strength in community.

As a Primary Years Programme Curriculum Coordinator, the heart of my work is collaboration. I not only model it through my efforts with members of the leadership team but with other stakeholders. And, moreover, I strive to cultivate greater collaboration amongst my staff.

The types of collaboration I see teachers engage in happens on multiple levels

  1. In the classroom: with the teachers who support learners, and the learners themselves.
  2. In grade levels: with the team of teachers for that grade level.
  3. In the division: with the various teachers and students at the different grade levels
  4. In the school: with other divisions’ students and/or teachers, the school leadership or the parent organization.
  5. In the community: with groups that are affiliated with the school or other organizations that they volunteer or work with. But in a sense, they are an ambassador of the school.
  6. In networks: with individuals or groups that share common values or interests.

So I have taken this notion, to Go As a River, as the rational and objective of our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) this year. In my mind, coming together to learn with one another is an intimate and vulnerable act, since it requires honesty, openness, and transparency.  There are so many models of PLCs, mostly data-driven, however, I wanted a different approach. I wanted to bake a process into our PLCs that did the following:

  • developed the skills of collaboration within our division and our teams.
  • allowed for teacher agency.
  • taught teachers how to be researchers and guided them through a process of putting educational theory into professional practice.
  • cultivated supportive teams that helped individual teachers through the struggle in order to build teachers’ self-efficacy, something that has a high impact on student learning, according to John Hattie.
  • built the capacity to debate and discuss issues without personalizing it, so that people can have the experience of having productive and meaningful conflict.

In this way, teachers are pushed out of their comfort zone in a healthy and safe way, and everyone in our program benefits from our risk-taking efforts, especially our learners, who need us to be responsive. I also felt that it would be important to incorporate  the “5 energies of high-performing teams” that you can see in this graphic:

high performing teams

Clearly, I have high hopes for our teams. Simon Sinek, a man whose work inspires me to stretch boundaries, reminds me in this TED talk, that developing the trust and will to cooperate is not something you can simply instruct team to do, (“Get along, people!) but it is a feeling that is cultivated through the climate you create to provide a sense of safety.

As someone who gets to “set the tone” of not only how we collaborate but who we become as professional learners, it would be easy to turn to the many books written about how to construct Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and just copy and paste those systems. Drive Outcomes through Shared MeasurementBut the heart of these systems was designed for standardized test scores and relied on student data in order to inform practices of school improvement. I struggled with this for several reasons, chief among them is that I don’t want our students to fit into a “standard”, I want them to be looked at as unique and special. I didn’t want them to reduce to numbers. If we only use data as the foundation of what we do, then we would miss out on opportunities for genuine teacher inquiries. Speaking of which, I examined the structure of teacher action research and thought perhaps that applying this practice into professional inquiries would be the route to go. However, I found that this was a goal-orientated structure that didn’t actually “teach” teachers how to collaborate, and may not appeal to all teachers since it typically culminates into a research paper. I felt that this put pressure on teams, and why would I want to stress out teams for the glory of publication? The last professional learning structure I examined was the Lesson Study I felt that this was a great tool to incorporate into our PLCs but wasn’t the PLC itself. Thus, I wanted to take what was great about all of these systems and create something that is unique, something that represents, perhaps even mirror, what we might expect in our Primary Years Programme (PYP) classroom.

Speak the Same Language (Intellectual Energy)

In a previous post, What Can Pedagogical Leaders Do to Grease the Wheels of Innovation in Their Schools? I’ve talked about the importance of ensuring that teams have a shared instructional language. Our principal, Matt Ihle, says it best: “Building understanding is the purpose of communication”–and thus by coming into an agreement of what PLC means to us, is the foundation for the work we will do this year. 

plc staff definition
This is our working definition of a PLC

So, the first order of business was not to come up with “norms” but to come up with a shared working definition of what it means to be “professional learners in our community”. We have to make sure that when I say we are having a PLC meeting, staff know exactly what that means because we have co-constructed a description that is full of vision and purpose.

Be over Do (Social Energy)

Often times we create these agendas and rush into the “doing” of the work before us, squandering really important time to develop teams. I can’t begin to tell you how many schools I’ve either worked at or visited that have leaders who feel that all they need to do is to throw adults into the room, give them a 1/2 hour to establish “norms” and collaboration happens. No! And No!

Conflict happens and what we do with conflict determines the capacity to do good work in our schools and creates the climate in our schools. How we move through conflict has everything to do with trust. In the book, Speed of Trust, Stephen Convey explains that “Speed happens when people truly trust each other.”--one of the reasons why teams are more productive and efficient is due to working through conflict faster.  Think about this quote:

“In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.”
― Stephen M.R. Covey, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything

You know that is true–communication and trust go hand in hand. You can probably think back to a time when someone said something to you that triggered in you some negative emotion and it made it hard to be around that person. However, you may have a friend or colleague who can say something critical and you can reflect on it without being offended by it. Why is that? The reason is that this friend or colleague shares your values. As a result of that, you choose to see how you are connected rather than distinct. Finding common ground is easy when you share common ideals.

So, again, we didn’t talk about “norms”, instead we talked about values. In our first meeting, we ranked and shared personal values with our co-teachers, and in the next meeting, we unpacked and discussed our professional values. It was incredible to see the shift and hear the conversations. People really got to know one another and have discussions that were meaningful, even if they weren’t directly about the PYP Enhancements and student learning. They had permission to be who they are, and what became the “norm” was acceptance and appreciation.

Tribes Vs Teams (Spiritual Energy)

Tribes represent a culture with shared interests and values. Leadership roles are distributed and dynamic. Individuals work toward a common goal, for the sake of their community. This is exactly what I wished for as the engine behind our PLC. These meetings should the development of a coalition that is dedicated to a purpose, so I wanted to turn teams into tribes.

So teachers took a Google survey to put their interests and questions around student learning. I looked for keywords and patterns in order to form the basis of the tribes, then sorted them into their inquiry groups.

  1. Encouraging Curiosity and Inquiry
  2. Translanguaging
  3. Student Agency
  4. Play-based Learning
  5. Student Motivation
  6. Differentiation and Universal Design for Learning
  7. Language and Literacy

When the tribes were inaugurated, I gave them a guide for this “vision quest” and referenced the work from the Center for Courage and Renewal circle of trust touchstonesas the premise for our rules of engagement and the Circle of Trust Touchstones became the “norms” of our tribes.

Tribes came together to discuss why this topic matters to them and unpack their philosophies and beliefs that will guide their practice. During another meeting, they crafted a mission statement for the work they will do throughout the school year. In their meetings, they would choose their roles, which were flexible, and purely determined by the group.  In this way, they could see the significance of their collaboration and develop a strong support system among them. Mid-year, we would examine and reflect on these mission statements, in order to determine the next steps. And, although some tribes were larger than others, every group has found their way to work through their challenges.

As a part of their PLCs, we had some meetings dedicated to going back to their grade level teams to share what they have been learning about and what their experience has been like doing the Lesson study and peer observations. We used the framework of the constructivist listening tool to provide for deep listening as people had time to share without interruption or judgment.

Acknowledging the Learning Pit (Psychological Energy)

I feel very strongly that if we are to take the profession of education seriously, then we will always be in a state of cognitive dissonance, as we grasp and reach for the “best practice” for the students that we teach. In my post, Why There is No Escape From the Learning Pit, , I explain this conundrum:

“It’s sort of ironic–me, the teacher, who is supposedly the expert, is often shoulder-deep with the students, trying to figure out the course and direction of the inquiry, instead of being assured and confident about the path we are going. It seems that bewilderment, frustration, and struggle have become the perks of being in a state of wonder and anticipation.” 

I think there is a real danger in not acknowledging the struggles we face when we start walking the talk, putting principles into practice. I wanted our teams to be prepared for it and accept it. Remember that Go As a River means that we the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community.  

The Learning Pit is inevitable, in which we debate and grapple with who we are to who we wish to become as teachers. Furthermore, I explained that it was my job to get them out of their teacher’s comfort zone and that the structure of our PLCs was intended to push them into the pit, but it would also be designed to pull them out. Setting up this expectation was important because I wanted to normalize discomfort but also emphasize that it is safe to do it.

The Cycle of Professional Learning (Physical Energy)

action leanring

Years ago, I read the book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and the one big idea that I took away from it was that mastery comes from commitment. So I wanted to ensure that staff had the opportunity to test out and practice ideas, all the while, developing “staying power” when they face challenges with implementation. Thus are PLCs would be cyclical so people could problem solve and celebrate accomplishments. So our PLC meetings would include discussions around the following:

Research: Ask questions and seeking professional literature and learning resources that shed light on the most effective practices. 

Implementation: Discuss the challenges and successes of implementing new ideas and practices. 

Lesson Study: Develop lessons and integrate ideas into your learning community. 

Peer Observation: Watch a lesson related to the research topic. Engage in discussion and self-reflection afterward.

Data evaluation: Discuss the results of either formative, summative or anecdotal evidence of learning. 

Self-reflection: Consider your practice and develop your next steps on your learning journey.

Review and Debate: Examine ideas that have arisen as a result of your reading, feedback from your peer observation and implementation of new practices.

These ingredients would the agenda items for our meetings and represent the types of things we would do within our Action Learning Cycle.

Explore and Plan

First, each teacher inquiry needs to start by sharing the personal research around our areas of interest. We set up a SeeSaw PLC group so that people could post the things that were inspiring them. There’s a proverb: “to know and not do, is to not know”; so I wanted to ensure that teachers developed the capacity to read articles or watch videos with the impetus of testing ideas out in their classroom. To take curiosity and put into action, that would be the heart of the work we would do as life-long learners. Here is an anecdote from our PLC that facilitated this practice:

Pre-planning of a lesson: Translating Research Into Action

The research article I’d like to share:

A summary of the article:

The teaching actions are reflected in this article that I don’t do, but I want to try is….

Nothing fancy here, but it’s the lubricant of change and was the prerequisite for the lesson study. Again, I didn’t design anything complicated for that either. I wanted a simple format that would have the basic ideas for the peer observations:

The Plan: Framing the Peer Observation

What questions will drive the lesson? 
What planned actions will take place in the lesson? (Use the chart to simplify the “looks fors” for your peer) 

 

What the teacher(s) do(es)? What do the students do? 

As a result of applying my new professional learning into the lesson, I expect (my hypothesis about the unplanned actions) the students to…..

 

Act

This is the implementation phase when a teacher conducts a lesson that integrates their learning from their research and has a peer observe their attempt. The peer observation not only shares practice but it also holds teachers accountable to initiate their growth. Peers come together to share their notes and provide feedback.

And although implementation seems like an obvious action, going back into the research is also an action too. Research includes looking at student data, which can be formal or informal, and also examining more articles and videos–whatever resource they want to use to further their practice.

Bends in the River

As much planning as I put into cultivating the collaborative and trusting climate of our tribes, I have to also be willing to throw things out, as I reflect on what is happening in classrooms and in discussions. I must allow for things to happen organically. Sometimes it means allowing tribes to hold tension, giving them the opportunity to grapple with issues around what is the “best” approach. However, I think this is the kind of spirit that is imbued in the concept of “Go As A River”, as we transform conflict (whether it is trivial or substantial) and trudge out of the Learning Pit, becoming better for it, together.

“I Used to Think, But Now I Know” -8 Ideas about Translanguaging and Language Development

“I Used to Think, But Now I Know” -8 Ideas about Translanguaging and Language Development

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I’ve heard this word translanguaging tossed around a lot on Twitter and among educators, but, honestly, not only does its spelling baffle me but also what it looks like in education. Recently a colleague of mine presented a workshop on it which got me curious about what this elusive term could mean in classroom practice. So, I decided to include a book on it during My Summer Professional Reading for 2019 and by the time I was halfway through Translanguaging for Emergent Bilinguals: Inclusive Teaching in the Linguistically Diverse Classroom by Danling Fu and Xenia Hadjioannou, I knew I had to read more books on this topic.

Why? Because as I read the case studies, I realized that I knew so very little about the language development of bilingual and multilingual children. I also realized that I had a very limited perspective of their issues. You see, I, as a Caucasian American, grew up believing that English was a preferred language and was encultured to develop a bias of elitism which made any subsequent efforts to learn other languages half-hearted. This introspection was an illuminating and humbling experience, so I began picking up more books to fill in some gaps and help me understand what it means to truly be “culturally responsive“. There was one book, Teaching in 2 Languages: A Guide for K-12 Bilingual Educators, that contained a quote which really impacted my thinking around the connection between language and identity:

Technology can make report cards more personal, not less. (1).png

As a person who grew up in an all-English-speaking home, attending a monolingual American school, I’ve never had to grapple with how my home language and culture was viewed by others. But now I can easily see how other’s view of our language can impact our self-esteem. For example, I remember when English-Only became a legislative act in the state of Arizona (a state that borders Mexico). At the time, I hadn’t seen the harm in it, but now I know that banning the use of other languages in school was like rejecting the immigrants and multi-lingual persons which populated that state, who were mostly Mexican. As a teacher, it had huge consequences in our classrooms, and bilingualism became a dirty word.

Of course, the opposite of this is also true: if you really want to show me that you care, love my language. As an international educator, I have had a unique opportunity to live and learn a variety of languages and been exposed to a myriad of cultures. When I read the poet’s words above, it hit me deeply, remembering back to moments when a simple hello in a child’s home language made them light up with a smile of recognition. Now I know that smile said, “You see me. You love me.”, which was true, but I had undervalued this gesture, thinking that it was rather superficial. Now I know it communicated a message of acceptance and care.

Technology can make report cards more personal, not less. (2)It makes sense that language is so deeply connected to self-worth because it not only reflects the values and perspectives shared with and among those language groups, but the self-expression of that child. Language communicates thinking through culture; and when we accept the use of a variety of languages being used in our classrooms, we accept that our students are woven together by a complex tapestry of experiences that can be expressed in a multitude of ways; denying them the use of their complete language repertoire is like rejecting their ideas and perspectives.

These books really stirred my heart and got me thinking about how important language is to our school’s culture and in the development of the self-esteem and personal identity of children. It’s not a small topic, but a big deal.

These are my 8 takeaways from my reading and the ideas that widened my understanding of translanguaging and the language development of children.

  1. Different languages are not contained in different parts of the brain. Multi-lingual children have access to all components of language facility during learning. So when we think of terms of “Spanglish” or “Chinglish”, we shouldn’t associate it with a lack of English competency, but instead demonstrating how holistic the nature of language is in our brain.
  2. Translanguaging is not the same as translation. Translanguaging is about empowering students to access language in order to grow their whole intellectual and social facilities and develop cognitively. Translation helps to serve this purpose but is not the end goal. We want students to integrate the understanding that exists in both languages, not preferring one language over the other.
  3. Language confusion is a misnomer. Multilingualism is an enhanced way of viewing and interacting with the world. What we think of as “language confusion” is actually us observing children in the process of integrating and experimenting with language; students are building bridges of networks in their brains, rather than tangling up their neurons. In fact, code-switching (the practice of moving back and forth between two languages) serves different purposes based upon the learner. So, code-switching is a deeply personal experience, and, as educators, we should consider what is being communicated vs. how it is being communicated in order to that we understand how best to support the learning needs of our students.
  4. Certain content areas require more skillful use of a child’s language repertoire and cultural background. I think most of us can appreciate that inquiry-based approaches utilize the scope of a child’s cognitive ability, particularly when language doesn’t create barriers during an active learning experience in which they are constructing conceptual understanding. However, social studies can be the most challenging of the content areas because it requires not only language skills to understand the abstract nature of vocabulary and concepts, but also highly influenced by the background knowledge and experience of the student. According to Sharon Adelman Reyes and Tatyana Kleyn, models such as Sheltered Immersion are more useful for students who have intermediate language capabilities; for emergent students, we need to provide learning resources in their home language in order to gain a full understanding and to bridge together their cultural dispositions with their prior knowledge and the learning within the classroom.
  5. Content objectives are not the same as language objectives. Although learning content may also call for learning the vocabulary associated with it, there is also an opportunity for a multi-lingual to use their language repertoire which included previous experience and terminology from their home language. For example, when learning content, students can use any of their languages to access information and gain a deeper understanding. So, if it makes sense to give them a book in Korean (or whatever is their mother tongue) about lifecycles because you want them to understand how living things change over time, that is perfectly fine to do so. Learning in their home language is adding not subtracting from their intellectual reservoir. However, if the lesson is specific to language, then outcomes need to be centered around the skills associated with developing fluency in it.
  6. Translanguaging involves the 5 Cs  (communication, culture, connections with other disciplines, comparisons with students’ home language and culture, and the use of the foreign language in communities outside the classroom) for a holistic learning approach. Translanguaging encompasses more than just instructional practices, but also engaging the heart with the head of a child, in order to create an inclusive school culture and bridging the curriculum to the child’s experience.
  7. Graphic organizers aren’t the same as worksheets. Worksheets can often have a negative connotation. However, the purpose of graphic organizers isn’t to keep them busy but to help students clarify their thinking and can be necessary for multi-lingual students to access the full range of their language repertoire. We really need to integrate semantic maps (mind-mapping and conceptual maps) within lessons to combine visual and written information to accommodate the language needs of our students.
  8. There is a distinction between teaching a language and “special education”. Although language development could be dumped into the same category as “additional learning needs”, they are NOT the same. Moreover, an educator who is qualified in EAL (English as an Additional Language) or other second-language learning teachers, is not an expert with assessing and working with students with exceptionalities. Both are highly specialized fields and need to be treated as such.

These 8 ideas are really the beginning of getting a foothold into appreciating the complexity of language development. We need to stop this “English-only” approach in our schools because it does more harm than good when helping students to make academic progress and mature emotionally. Incorporating these ideas involves a comprehensive analysis of a school’s culture which can involve aspects such as language policies, parent education, teacher professional development and buying educational resources to create an optimal learning environment for our students. I know that I am just beginning to appreciate how connected culture and language is to our students’ identity, and plan to continue to study how it can be used at my school.

Perhaps you might consider areas in which your school can “grow the whole child” through languages other than English. Where would you start? Examining school and classroom libraries? Doing read-alouds in other languages? Auditing how and where multilingualism exists in your school? Encouraging more multilingualism, such as school and classroom displays that include other languages?

Once you start to brainstorm ideas, I’m sure you can find numerous ways in which you can employ language in the service of learning and building an inclusive culture within your school community. I hope this blog post whets your appetite and you dig deeper into the research and resources to create translanguaging in your school.

If you feel that I have forgotten some other essential aspects of translanguaging or have any resources that you wish to share, please post below. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful contribution.

 

 

 

 

 

Productive, Meaningful and Fun–Time Spent Well in Schools

Productive, Meaningful and Fun–Time Spent Well in Schools

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Time, a precious commodity in our world.

The more I think about what needs to change about education, I think the concept of time and its usage in learning needs to be evaluated. The school year often feels like a rush, and I think there’s great value in “putting on the brakes” on the frenetic energy as we charged through our outcomes to ensure we’ve “covered” everything.

Clearly, this is not the spirit that we want for learning, but often schools are bathed in this sort of state of mind, as we hurry to complete all the things on our school calendars and tick all the boxes for our curriculum to be “delivered”. So how might we begin to address the concept of “time” in our schools? I think it boils down to 3 things:

  • Understanding how much time we have
  • Evaluating our use of time
  • Appreciating the time we have

Understanding Time with Time Management: Student View

I remember my first day in Language Arts in 8th grade at Largo Middle School in Clearwater, Florida. I was given a personal planner, with our ferocious tiger mascot emblazoned on its cover. I had never seen nor used one of these before. As I thumbed through its thick pages, I noticed all the months with its special dates already logged inside. It felt like such a gift until…..the teacher told us that it was designed to log our homework each night. Buzzkill! Yes, I learned how to use a planner for homework, but how I wish now that it was “sold” to me with more benefits than using a log of all my homework. What about my friends’ birthday? What about fun events at school? What about tracking other important events like when I got my “monthly visitor”?

So with this said, students need to first and foremost come to understand and appreciate time. It’s really hard to learn how to manage time when they have no concept of it–that planner was really helpful but it needed to be presented in such a way that helped me to personalize it beyond our teachers’ homework assignment. It felt like it was THEIR planner, not MY planner.

Of course, since I’m Google-y, I think we should also teach our students to use Google Calendar or other online calendar apps and tools for helping them develop productive digital lives. Time management is a critical skill, and we often forget that it needs to be taught explicitly. But time is also deeply personal, and we need to recognize and honor that.

With that in mind, how often do we ask students what’s worth their time? There are so many things that fill up our school events calendar–what if we asked students what they wish they got to do as a school community?  How would they choose to celebrate or commemorate…

  • 100 days of school
  • International day
  • Earth Day
  • Hour of Code
  • National Day
  • Holiday celebrations (Halloween, Guy Fawkes, Christmas, Eid, Hanukkah, Martin Luther King, Chinese New Year, etc…)
  • Day of Design
  • Teacher appreciation day
  • Birthdays
  • Spirit week

What about concerts/performances, assemblies, and learning fairs? All of these events are in service to the learning of our students, but we never ask them how they would like to design THEIR school calendar? We often ask parents and teachers when we design our school calendars but have you ever asked students? Now I’m not suggesting that we ask students to trim things off the calendar–for all we know they might want to add new events like “High Five Day”–but it starts to create more ownership of the time we spend as a school community and invites them into the planning of these events. Not only is it empowering, but then it opens the doorway to have more support of the parent community, which could lighten the load of our teachers, who often get the lion’s share of organizing school events. This is truly a school community event when its organization is shared by all members.

Evaluating our use of Time and Developing Priorities: Reflection and Planning for Teachers

Let’s face it, there are a lot of paperwork demands that often dampen the brilliance of teachers. Personally, I spent 1 hour on “highlighting” one unit of inquiry electronically on our scope and sequence documents to ensure we tick all the boxes for accreditation visits. That was precious, precious time on a redundant task. We have to ask ourselves as leaders what do we need to STOP doing and START doing so that our teachers work smarter not harder when it comes to ensuring that we have learning documented? And then gain their feedback to ensure that our attempts to do so are actually effective.

reflectingSince reflection and creativity have its own clock, it requires a pace that allows for connecting ideas that seem unrelated to its other. Space in our minds and our schedules are necessary in order to respond to the needs of students and develop new approaches and ideas in the learning. When we are stressed out, feeling rushed, our brains are in high beta, an anxious state in which we go into “survival mode”. We are living in a state of impatience, anxiety, and frustration.  I can’t remember a moment in which my teaching was improved by stress. Can you?

So how do we use time to foster a culture of reflection in our schools?

Thoughtful and reflective teaching practice only comes from having room in our schedules to do this. Responsive teaching, in which teachers have time to look at student data and consider what are the misconceptions that are coming out of the learning from well-designed formative assessment, take time to unpack thoughtfully. We have to make sure teachers have the time in their planning schedules to do this.

unpacking
From the work of Dylan William, posted on Twitter (@DylanWilliam).

responsive
The connection between “responsive teaching” and formative assessment.

 

We want them to reflect and develop a better understanding of learners. This is critical, to not only developing a relationship with students but to appreciate the trends that might be emerging as students grow in their skills and knowledge of the conceptual understandings. Where in the non-contact periods is there room for reflection? How often do we have teachers bring student work to meetings and have thoughtful discussions about the learning? As leaders, we need to take inventory of these habits and practices which create a foundation of reflective practice in our schools. As teachers, we need to advocate for ourselves and make known that we need some room in our meetings for deep thinking around why we do what we do with students.

Appreciating the Time We Have: Whole School Approach

I think we need to dig into the research to determine how schools may reconfigure the calendar and class schedules. Here is a summary of some key findings:

  1. Year-round schools that distributed their allotted 175-180 days over 12 months have better academic achievement.  Loss of learning gets diminished, and when time is spread thoughtfully over the school year, there is the potential for less teacher burn out.
  2. 4-week school week not only decreases school costs but has other benefits such as reducing disciplinary problems, greater collaboration among teachers, and higher morale.
  3. Older students benefit from a later start of the day due to the research on brain development on optimal learning time.
  4. Block schedules for language and math are helpful for struggling students.
  5. Block schedules that are longer than 90 minutes do not seem to improve academics.
  6. Block schedules benefit teacher collaboration by having at least two- to seven hours of staff planning and professional development.
  7.  PE cannot replace recess due to the important social-emotional learning that happens on the playground.
  8. Flexible library schedules have the capacity to grow more avid readers.

So this is only what we know so far about what is impactful but it’s hardly a template for re-designing our days. However, I find schools like these really inspiring in how they’ve approached making the minutes matter in their schools. Whether these schools brought in outside providers to come and “teach for a day” so that teachers have time off for professional development and planning or changing the roles of teachers for more student self-directed learning, they thought outside the “clock” to inspire new ways to make the most out of instructional time.

When I consider these groups of professionals, I believe that the dream of teachers and students come skipping to school alike, eager to engage in the heavy cognitive lifting of the day, is really within reach. When we thoughtfully consider what we know about “best practice” as it relates to time in our schools and have a willingness to reconfigure our school-days, the impossible seems possible.

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