Monkey see, Monkey do

Walking out of church this morning, my little Owen started running towards the playground on the other side of the parking lot. My parents were walking with us and I said to them, "That's crazy! How does he even know where he's going or that it's stuff to play on over there!?" (I mean, sure... the playground at the park across from our house, I get that. But this is an entirely different play yard!) Mom, who spends every day with Owen, smiled and said, "I guess because we walked up here twice last week??"

Yes...we have hit that point in the ole' "growth and development" phase. You know, the point where you realize how important routines are, and it's not even that he's learning everything on his own, but instead, he's repeating what he sees/hears/does. To a passerby (like me, for instance, not knowing he had been to the church playground recently) it seems very much like these little ones are the most intelligent humans by saying and trying new things. In reality? They're replicating processes and phrases they hear from those around them.

At some point in a child's growth and development, we tend to forget this critical phase. We forget that they need to see and hear and try new learning more than once before it becomes part of their vocabulary and an essential piece of their daily routine. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard the words, "I taught them that" or "I talked about that" from myself and other educators, I'd probably be able to consider early retirement!!!! :)   And that's not bad! It's not a bad thing to introduce a new skill to a student. But it IS bad if all we do is introduce the skill and never provide context for that skill and never allow students to explore that beyond the initial introduction, because THAT'S where the magic happens!

Sure, Owen's still growing his depth of knowledge with these skills right now as he recognizes slides and swings (among other skills). Since we didn't just name them or let him play on them only one time though, he's beginning to get the concept of sliding and swinging. He seems to be grasping cause/effect now every time he climbs to the top of the slide and let's out a big "weeee" before he even gets moving, and with his pointing and screaming "ing! ing!" every time we pass a swing, we feel like he's able to classify this type of equipment too. But he wouldn't know those more advanced skills if he hadn't been introduced to swings and slides, allowed to play on them, allowed to fumble with their use, called them out as other kids were playing on them.... MULTIPLE contexts, various levels of application.

So take a look at the agendas you have planned for the week. What skills are you hoping to teach and/or assess with your students? What variety of opportunities are you designing into your work to allow (not just for repetition, but) for contextualizing of standards and skills? How will you celebrate a student's replication/regurgitation of a skill and name for them that this is the beginning of a deeper application of this skill?   Why are you still reading this!?!? Seriously....go look at your agendas and make sure you're doing your job and serving your child(ren) well!

Peace, love, and so much up & down on the slide!!!!

Sarah

Organizing Your Project Briefcase

When you're starting the design of a new project, or beginning to organize project documents into your learning management system (LMS), it's not uncommon that we all feel a little like this:

Am I starting in the right place? I have so many ideas!!! How do I provide enough structure to stay organized (and keep my students organized) while still allowing space for student driven exploration!?

Well...why not think of your PBL/PrBL unit design just as you do a briefcase!? (At New Tech Network, we do this quite often and even house our PBL/PrBL units in Echo, our LMS, and refer to them as "project briefcases".) Let me explain...

A briefcase is the structure that carries important papers and documents.

Within your briefcase, it's helpful to have file folders to organize/categorize those documents.

Within each file folder, you will find the documents which relate specifically to the categorized, labeled tab on each file folder. 

This is exactly the structure that we should be using when designing projects if we're going to support students from beginning to end with just enough structure to check in on their progress along the way without over-structuring the learning experience (which we know can...and will...crush any hope for inquiry)! The specific "structure" I'm referring to is that of "benchmarks." Not only should benchmarks provide formative feedback to students as they progress toward finishing their application of learning (i.e. their product), but they also serve as substantial tasks that groups/individuals need to complete in order to mark their progress along the way. That said, as PBL/PrBL units are designed, it will look a little something like this....

A driving question and problem statement serve as focal points to guide student learning throughout a project.

Within your focused project, it's helpful to have benchmarks that guide individuals/groups toward a finished product(s).

Within each benchmark, you will find activities and tasks which relate specifically to the benchmark designed to support students from start to finish.

You see!? Professionals don't carry around their whole desks (i.e. all of your content standards) to every meeting (i.e. every project) they attend, and they certainly don't dump all of their documents out in front of clients as soon as they sit down at a table (i.e. front load information and hope the clients are able to sort through it on their own)! Instead, they only take their project briefcase (i.e. a subset of standards geared towards a particular focal point) filled with labeled folders (i.e. benchmarks) that aide in organizing documents (i.e. activities and tasks) related to each particular folder category. 

In your LMS (ours at NTN being Echo), it would look a little something like this:

A sample project briefcase  (project title & image at the top with file folders easily marked as "Phase" or "Benchmark" and what product will mark student's progress)

    

A look inside one of the folders at the activities & documents students investigated & completed to support their progress towards this benchmark/phase.

If you're feeling at all like your project is a bit "scattered," or if your students don't seem to be able to make progress without your spoon-feeding them the next task or activity to attend to.... it might just be that they're struggling to dig through the intended purpose, or focal point, of the project. Perhaps there are too many "un-organized documents" for them to sort their way through.  OR MAYBE time just got the best of you and you HAD a great design and/or organization system, but ended up dumping resources into the nearest folder, whether it really belonged there or not. 

I beg of you.... while it's 64+ degrees here in Southeast Indiana this week..... PLEASE....start your "Project Spring Cleaning."  Go get your PBL/PrBL unit designs cleaned up which will set your students and yourself up for successful launch, but be sure to also clean up your LMS organization as well! 

Peace, love, and tab dividers,

Sarah

There's no "I" in SuperBowl Champ

"People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses or the problems of modern society" - Hall of Fame Football coach Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi is considered one of the greatest American football coaches in history, and one of the best motivators as well. The National Football League championship trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the Super Bowl, is named after him. With the Super Bowl being played today, there are some lessons from each team's effort tonight that can be transferred to our classrooms as well.

At New Tech Network (NTN), we define collaboration as "the ability to be a productive member of diverse teams through strong interpersonal communication, a commitment to shared success, leadership, and initiative." Collaboration during intense moments of problem solving plays a significant role toward successful school performance. So, what can we do to TEACH our students the necessary skills for becoming an effective collaborator? Here are a few resources of activities to support your project planning based on the domain(s) of collaborative skill building you've designed into your current project's focus:

• Interpersonal Communication - Check out this resource, "Interpersonal Communication Strategies," for building, enhancing, and extending interpersonal communication strategies that can be used any day to teach your content standards. I also love the "digital strategies for interpersonal communication" on pg. 4/5 of this document!
• Commitment to shared success - In this edutopia.com article, Andrew Miller reminds us how to make group work productive (and not just have kids working in a group). His reminder on "the importance of structure" is so critical to creating the time space for students to gain proficiency on the indicators of this domain on NTN's collaboration rubric. 
• Team & Leadership roles - I love some of these 10 minute Leadership Lessons so much that I can't wait to build them into the upcoming PD sessions I'm designing to remind adults of the importance for being aware of the ways they lead teams.  The "Perceptions Exercise" on page 23 would be great as teams are forming (before they actually dig into problem solving together) whereas activities like "The Pretzel Activity" on page 20 are beautiful for teaching students how to take direction from others and improve progress through communication. 

On game day, presentation day, or any ordinary Tuesday, it's important for (you and) your students to remember that success comes down to how you contribute to conversations, work through conflict,  provide constructive feedback to team members, monitor progress of your team's efforts , and so on. Much of that comes together with wins for the team and that builds trust going forward. Are you making sure your student teams are championship worthy? 

Peace, love, and Patriots do it again....

Sarah

Rubric Reading 101

While onsite at Winton Woods Intermediate School last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to be present for the warm-up in Matthew George's 6th grade science class. I knew students were just beginning to study Newton's Laws of Motion, and as students were getting settled, I noticed them taking a document out of their folders that had instructions at the top with pre-printed lines below them. Students had clearly spent some time writing a response on these lines since I could see half-filled pages on most student papers within eye-shot. It seems that they were responding to a prompt about "force."

Mr. George had two sentences projected for students to see and discuss as they began class:

"Jake do need to wear his seatbelt. If he don’t the force might knock him out the car."

He asked students to find their NTN Written Communication rubrics (of which, the last row entitled "Language and Conventions" was circled on student copies). 

The class discussion that followed was designed to support student understanding of the grammar and mechanics of the two sentences projected on the board, as well as bring a focused understanding to what the language of the rubric meant. Here are some of the conversation points that occurred:

• Teacher: Do you see any Science terms in his writing?
• Students: FORCE!
• Teacher: What do you notice about the way he writes about force? 
• Students: He should say "doesn't" instead of "don't"
• Teacher: If you want to be in the advanced category, you can’t always write the same way that you speak. Sometimes it’s a bit different. What are some of the basic conventions of writing?
• Student: Proper grammar, capital letters, proper punctuation
• Student: He has the words with capital letters and periods at the end of both sentences.
• Student: But he he should say "doesn't" not "don't".
• Student: The word "do" doesn't sound right in the first sentence.
• Teacher: Good catch. Those are grammar errors. (He continues to talk more about these with class.) These would move him down to Proficient from Advanced. Does he cite sources? Do you see anywhere that he got his information?
• Student: No...so maybe not advanced. Let’s bump him back down to proficient.
• Teacher: Maybe there are some grammar errors but I can see what he means. Bump down one...it says there’s “limited” control...”  Is that happening?
• Students say yes and he asks them to point out what it’s limited to
• Teacher: We already said those grammar errors don’t really distract
• Teacher: Sounds like we’ve decided together we might be somewhere between "Developing" and "Proficient," so not a 1, not a 2, not a 3, maybe a 2.5.
• Teacher: This is an example of what a sort of developing response might look like.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL RUBRIC CONVERSATIONS YOU'VE EVER SEEN!!!!! Students transitioned from this class warm-up by moving into a partner feedback session on their own writing. They were charged with the task of sharing their writing with a partner and determining where they felt they might currently fall on the rubric. Students were then asked to make the necessary corrections so they could achieve a Proficient or Advanced score (based on what their next level of growth was). I wanted to give Mr. George a hug for creating the space and conversation for such a thoughtful learning experience for his students, but he was busy....so I'm celebrating with all of you now instead.

I often hear from teachers during the project design phase, "My students won't understand the language on the rubric" and/or "I'm not an english teacher, so how do I teach written communication?"  Here's one, very simple, easy to implement example of how.  Mr. George used this time to teach/reinforce written communication skills by deconstructing text... text related to his current subject area.... and he didn't assume students knew the rubric language. Instead, he took on the responsibility of teaching it to them by helping them make sense of the vocabulary on that document. Did you spend 60min. on the whole document? No! He focused on ONE row... one important domain which is recurring in the project work and spent his normal 10min. of warm-up time on this group conversation which flawlessly transitioned into "work time" which was structured as a partner reflection and refinement session. OH, I JUST LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS! (Including conversations I had with students as I listened in on their feedback sessions).

So, no more excuses. You obviously have a rubric that you're using to guide students toward proficiency of skills for your current project (and if you don't, then talk to me... we need to make sure you do)!!! What domain and/or indicators (i.e. bullet points) will you focus on supporting students with this week? How will you bring their attention to the level of proficiency they are currently operating at? And most importantly..... what will your warm-up be that is time efficient and content effective!?!

Peace, love, and student dialogue,

Sarah

P.S.... I am REALLY regretting not whipping out a recording device to capture these beautiful conversations. If you're up for the challenge (and your students have signed media release forms), would you mind audio/video recording the rubric conversations you have this week and next and send them my way??? I'd love to build a little library of simple activities such as this once that elicit such great skill building opportunities for students! 

Teamwork makes the dream work...

Every Saturday at CrossFit on the River, we have a Team Workout of the Day (WOD). As 50+ people walk into the gym, we anxiously look at the whiteboard to see what movements the WOD will require us to do, then folks scan the room to see who lifts similar weight as they do (so we can share a barbell), or who moves at a similar pace (so no one is resting or working more than the other). Most team workouts, we're asked to find a partner mostly because there are so many of us and so few pieces of equipment to go around. Yesterday's WOD, though, required us to have a partner to complete the movements (not just share equipment and space). The outcome? Teammates that worked equally as hard for the entirety of the WOD and supporting each other to genuinely "keep pushing through the rough spots" because if they didn't, then neither did you!!!

I can't help but think of the conversation I have with many of the teachers and instructional leaders I support. Why would you have students work in groups to complete project work, if the project doesn't necessitate more than one person to complete the work? So please.... look at your current and upcoming project design(s). Are you anticipating students working in teams to complete the project work? If "yes"... are they only in groups for the sake of sharing equipment (computers, books, folders, etc.) and space (physical floor space, to make life easier on you for individual check-ins with students throughout the project work)? Or, will they actually be in groups because they couldn't possibly complete the research and "ask" of the project without a teammate?

Bottom line, if you're going to ask students to work in teams, then be sure to design a project which requires thought partnership from teammates (not just splitting up research for the sake of completing work faster). If you'd like some help with this part of project design, please.... let me know!

Once you've figured out where and how collaboration will support student learning in your project design, it's important that you scaffold collaborative skills in your classroom and school-wide. Here are a few best practices, tips, and resources that you might find useful:

• Hear some of the common pros and cons of group work in this Fires in the Mind blog post, feating a few short video clips of students talking about collaboration.
• Use inquiry -- show students an example of effective collaboration and ask students to generate guidelines for collaboration.
• Invite a parent, business partner, mentor, etc. in to share their experiences with collaboration
• Hold short workshops on effective communication, conflict resolution, and/or holding someone accountable (or use students who excel in these areas to lead those workshops)
• Build Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team into your curriculum (for the quick low down, check out this .pdf )
• Have students self-evaluate and reflect using a team effectiveness survey.

What have you tried? How often do you build in opportunities to support the development of collaboration skills? Feel free to comment on the blog to continue the conversation!

Peace, love, and TeamWODs,

Sarah

12....

... That's the number of ornaments I put on my Christmas tree before my li'l guy started hanging his toys on the lower branches like they were ornaments. He first tried laying the ring-like pieces onto branches of the tree and laughed as they fell through onto the floor. After 10-15min of those failed attempts, he was able to the branch through the center of the ring. And, just like Mom, once he knew it wasn't falling through, he grabbed another toy and hung it on the tree too.

If a one year old can mimic movements so fluidly, don't you think your eleven, thirteen, or seventeen year old kids (students) can too? Frequently, when I ask teachers, principals and instructional coaches how they're going to facilitate _____ skill, they respond with, "I'm going to model it." While I know that what you're implying with that statement is, "I'm going to intentionally demonstrate a new concept to approach to learning and students will learn by observing," but I need you to know that your students see you "hanging Christmas ornaments" too!

I think about the key learning outcomes we intentionally address across NTN (Agency, Collaboration, Written Communication, Oral Communication, and Knowledge & Thinking) and wonder what students are actually seeing and hearing in the skill development of these outcomes on a daily basis. For example, if we really ARE trying to teach out students that collaboration is about being a productive member of a diverse team through strong interpersonal communication, commitment to shared success, leadership & initiative, then shouldn't they see us wrestle with a dilemma with our colleagues? Shouldn't you be attending feedback sessions which support one another's growth as educators...and shouldn't students know that you all take the time to give and receive feedback to one another!?!? So many of you do such great things already that are MODELS of the outcomes you're trying to reach with your students, but when asked how you're going to support students in developing these skills, it's very rare that "make my own learning visible to students" is part of that response.

Had I waited until Owen was in bed to hang the ornaments on the tree this year, then yes, I assume I'd be teaching him how to put a ring on a branch in the next few years. Instead of that intentional demonstration, however,  I just did my thing and made it visible to him and IT STUCK! I didn't even know he was watching, but suddenly...there they were! Toys hanging on my tree and now I kind of don't want to take them down. 

As you look at the definitions of the NTN Learning Outcomes and/or the specific indicators on the rubrics, what will you do in your own work as an educator that will make your learning and your practices visible to your students? When you reflect on your actions and interactions with adults and students this semester, what were you REALLY modeling for your students? ...was it the skills and best practices you were hoping to model!? If not...what will you do differently next semester?

Peace, love, & "be the change you want to see in the world,"
Sarah

Reflections....

And then it happened.... 

As of Friday afternoon, I've officially been parenting for one year. WHAAAAT!? Yes, I'm still trying to let that sink in. My own birthdays have always been natural times for reflection, but I found myself reflecting even more on Owen's birthday than I typically do on my own. 

One of my colleagues, Jim May, introduced me to his own family birthday tradition of asking two simple questions. (1) What's the most memorable part of the past year? (2) What are you looking forward to in the year ahead? (i.e. What do you want to be saying is the most memorable part at this time next year?)   That's it... nothing over the top, just a simple reflection for celebration and forward thinking. 

This also led me to think about the reflections that are often led at the conclusion of a project with your students. (YES, you should be reflecting with your students THROUGHOUT the project.... every benchmark is a good check-point, quite honestly!) But for the moment, I'm just going to speak to questions you might consider asking yourself, your team teacher, and/or your students to reflect on with you post-project implementation.

• Where was I this time last project? Forecasting is both the most & least important part of planning. To get an accurate picture of where you are, you need to check where you were at the same time last project. Are you still on the right path? If not, what threw you off course, and what can you do to get back up and moving in the right direction?
• Am I the learner and/or project designer I want to be? When you and/or your students started your PBL journey, you had dreams of the creative designer and problem solver you wanted to be. Are you that person? You may not be at your vision of "perfect", but are you the type of person you wished for?
• Have I lost/gained knowledge since last project? What does your skill set for PBL design and implementation look like compared to last project? How have your students grown across the learning outcomes? Are you/they the same or worse? There's no better time than now to strengthen your resolve to take on a new learning challenge.
• Did I accomplish my goals for this project? It's not just for the new project; everyone makes goals and resolutions throughout the project. Did you accomplish your goals for the last project? What did you wish for when you launched this project with your students? What did you do to make it happen?
• Do I need to change any routines? At certain points in your educational career, you become susceptible to stagnancy depending on the support of your department, grade level team, leadership position, etc. If you need to push beyond a current routine to freshen up your current state in education, now's the time!
• What do I have to be grateful for?  You have survived the longevity of this project, your students and colleagues are still talking to you, and you're still employed. If you're breathing and walking into your classroom post-project, you have something to be grateful for. Show your gratitude to the world!
• What good can I do next project? Now that you have a firm grasp on what type of designer/problem solver you've been, it's time to decide who you're going to be. You may want to strive to up the authenticity in your next project, or refine your assessment practices. Time isn't stopping, so why not (re)visit the NTN project quality checklist, choose a focus area and get after it!

Even if you just use these questions for you, don't forget that it's a great time for a "birthday" reflection for your students too. You might check out BIE's "Self-reflection on Project Work" to get you started. 

Peace, love, and cake smashing celebrations!

Sarah