What's the Opposite of "Shoosh?"

Quiet is nice every once in a while in certain classroom situations, but it's not the environment that promotes long-term memory or transfer. Get them talking to each other about the material. Devote set intervals of time for interpersonal communication and reflection between students, teammates, colleagues, etc about the topic or lesson at hand if you want it to stick and have meaning.

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Quote Source - page 58

"You want to demonstrate the process of talking through a problem so that your students will begin to see how to negotiate challenging situations." -Germeroth & Day-Hess p. 8-9

You want them talking about it now so that they're talking about it when it matters - when it gets hard.

You want them talking about it now so that they're talking about it when you're not there.

Quiet cuts out critical steps to the process of learning anything. 

We talk our way through questions and problems all of the time, because it leads better performances and outcomes. 

Even the most confident of us bounce ideas off of our colleagues and teammates every day; shared decision making and responsibility are two elements on the Massachusetts teacher rubric; we're not supposed to work quietly.

So let's not teach quietly.

Quiet is orderly; it's easier. But don't confuse order and politeness for long-term learning.

"The overarching goal is to help middle and high school students realize that by using effective learning strategies and study habits, they can control their learning and academic success, even when the work is challenging." -Germeroth & Day-Hess p.34

Dialogue and interaction with others leads toward realization. Dialogue and interactions gets us through the tough stuff.

They have to be able to do it or talk about it outside of the classroom or practice for it to matter; it's not uncommon to hear someone lament that they took a class on something but don't remember a thing. 

It was probably a wicked quiet class.

For different ways to get them talking more, I wrote down 11 strategies last month. 

Get them talking about sample pieces of work discussing ways to improve it.

"Students can typically identify problems in other people's writing more easily than they can in their own, but with guidance, they can start applying what they've learned during peer feedback sessions to their own work." - Searle p. 86

Make today's lesson really matter.

Promote engagement; promote activity; promote the long-term learning and application of your lesson; get them talking about it.

#education #classroommanagement

9 Thoughts on Classroom Management

Ought classroom management be easier than it usually is?

A student violates a rule or acts outside of the handbook, and they receive a consequence; the concept should be simple.

But, like with anything involving people, classroom management is arguably the least easy thing educators do.

It's especially hard when you're aiming for more than behavior management and compliance.

When you're going for total learning and the physical/emotional environment required for it classroom management becomes a constant cycle of observation, consideration, and dialogue. It can be cognitively, physically, and emotionally taxing all at once.

Anything that obstructs the clarity, momentum, provisioning, etc of the lesson must be addressed with the end goals of the lesson in mind - your response has to be intentional.

1. It can't be reactionary.

2. It shouldn't be addressed in public, but it ought to be timely.

3. Don't make it about you the adult; it has to be about the student, the class, and learning.

"Parents and teachers can reduce their own frustrations and those of the students by understanding that what appear to be laziness and lack of motivation are often an extreme need for support and guidance." - Margaret Searle, p. 159

4. You have to respond in a way that sets limits on the behavior while also communicating that you're always there to help and that you'll never give up on them.

5. It can't be judgmental.  It can't be insulting.

#fhspantherchat instead of getting frustrated with what you're seeing or hearing you need to identify why it's happening & how to proceed
— Eddie Evans (@ewevans3) March 9, 2014

6. Do some investigating; find out why before moving forward.

7. Reach out to those around you and ask what have others seen and heard from the student; I may not have the right approach but I'm sure we can come up with something.

8. Think about tomorrow. Don't burn a bridge. Don't embarrass.

See the entire presentation here
Read about it here

9. Labeling, getting frustrated, lashing out, giving up, etc. is contrary to what we're trying to do

Each issue and each person is unique. Remember that and proceed intentionally.

5 Paths for Better Professional Development

I was inspired by week 22 of the #savmp blog about differentiated professional development for staff and some selections from a couple of books I've read recently.

I've been thinking about how to make the professional learning opportunities schools offer their teachers better; by better I mean more likely to lead to the learning of whatever is trying to be taught or developed.

What can be done to make it more likely that whatever is done as part of PD is transferred into classrooms with students in various situations?

1. Make it More Than "Have To"

If folks are doing anything only because they have to do it or be there, then they’re not in prime position or mind-set to learn anything; this is true for people of any age or credence.

If the avenues that schools are taking to create opportunities for collaboration and interpersonal professional learning become seen as just another obligation to be half-heartedly crammed into limited contractual hours, then the outcomes will never justify the efforts.

It has to be interest-based; it has to be driven by personal relevance. Anything short of that will be seen as “have to.”

If they’re learning what they know they need to learn, then they’re obviously more likely to learn it.

"By verbalizing options for improvement, students are able to see that they control their own choices and outcomes, which leads to better decision making." - Margaret Searle p. 148

2. Have Them Make Something

“Although some...remember more by hearing and others, by seeing, most remember by doing because action involves multiple sensory inputs.” - Betty Garner p.38

They have to do it to learn it; they have to produce something for it to be possible.

We spend a lot of time and devote a lot of energy to the perfect kind of input, but our time and energy would be better spent designing opportunities for output.

For every minute of input give them a minute of output; what good is the slideshow on how to essential questions if nobody gets to write essential questions?

If producible action doesn’t or can’t come from professional development I planned, then what I planned probably isn’t worthy of the name.

3. Make it More Than an Event

“Integrated information is more likely to be remembered and accessible than disconnected bits of data.” Garner p.37

It takes longer to learn something than it takes to teach it. Whereas “teaching it” can be done with slides and 30 minutes, learning it requires input, reflection, practice, feedback, etc.

Sometimes learning it takes year(s).

Focus on something tangible; identify relevance or need and then address it until moving on to a new focus is appropriate.

Better to learn one thing slowly than nothing efficiently.

4. Make it About Us

“A variety of of emotions can affect physical and cognitive functions. To enhance memory, students benefit from emotional engagement with information.” Garner p. 138

Being on a team feels good. Being a part of something bigger is both motivating and empowering. Researching and implementing formative assessments of higher order thinking skills is better in a group.

Purposefully and organically get teachers with similar interests and passions to connect with each other, and work and learn together. I was in a cohort in my Masters Degree program; why apply that same structure to professional learning for staff?

Build communities around professional needs and interests rather than superficial labels like department or tenure.

5. Mix it Up

"Lessons that follow a mixed pattern - listen, talk to your neighbor, listen, draw and example, listen, read and discuss with a partner - followed by summary are more likely to hold anyone's attention longer than the 'listen for what seems like forever and then do independent work' model." - Searle p. 105

People can only sit and get for so long before they stop listening. Adults are more compliant and less rude than kids a lot of the time, but they’re equally likely to tune you out if it’s boring.

Get them doing, talking, moving, creating more.

Most things get old quickly; break it down into segments; they’ll retain more.

Effective lesson plans include variety whether the lesson is being planned for 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, and / or 65 year olds.

11 Ways To Get Them Talking About It

"...recap is especially helpful for students...who have memory barriers because they tend to forget the purpose of the lessons as they try to apply new skills. Verbalization not only reconnects the dots for them but also strengthens mental pathways for later retrieval." - Margaret Searle, Causes & Cures in the Classroom, p. 58

One of the surest and simplest ways to promote the learning of the lessons we try to teach our students or staff is to get them talking about the content or skills of focus.

Talking it out reorganizes the material or steps inside our own heads so that it makes sense to us.

Talking it out forces us process, apply, and create output as a result of the daily input; what good is input if it's not translated to output?

We need to be mindful of this when we plan and when we design learning opportunities for our students or staff.

We spend so much time planning, preparing, and practicing dynamic and interesting ways to give our people input, but it's how intentional and planned the output is that will determine to what degree what we've taught is actually learned.

Talking our way through new lessons is tried and true; it's a way to make it permanent in our heads without having to stretch our creative capacity; there's no writer's block or foreign skill set required to talk about what I'm learning.

Here are some ways to get them talking about what we're teaching:

1. Stop class or meeting every 10 minutes and have neighbors turn and talk about what was just taught, done, discussed, etc. for 2 minutes
2. When asking questions to the class have each student write their answer on a little white board and hold up their answers. Before revealing the right answer have neighbors discuss why they answered how they did.
3. Have students send you an audio note using the voice recorder app on their phone, or a website like vocaroo.com summarizing what happened in class today, what was taught, and how it will be used tomorrow and beyond
4. Have students prepare audio notes on the topic of the day taking a certain viewpoint. Use edmodo, a common Google doc, itslearning, etc. for students to have a single spot to post all of their audio notes to and use the prepared statements to springboard further more spontaneous candid discussion the next day in class.
5. Have students screencast as they solve a math problem or construct a thesis paragraph using webistes like screencast-o-matic or apps like educreations.
6. When making slides utilize the narration option; oral presentations don't always have to be live. With that being said...
7. ...Get people up and talking about their work in front of a group. Earlier in the school year I presented to 12 different groups of ~100 students over the course of two weeks; by the 11th time I really really knew my stuff.
8. In a history or literature class have the students Face Off. During a Colonial America unit I may partner students off and have one act as a Loyalist and the other as a Patriot; in an economics class I may have one act as Keynes and one as Friedman; in a lesson on the Korean War one would be Truman and the other MacArthur.
9. Establish a classroom routine where at the beginning of every class someone is the "leader," and they recap yesterday's class and ask members of the class content questions to review and generate discussion. Laura Evans establishes routines that get the students talking better than anyone I've ever seen.
10. If you have a website use it to provide an authentic audience for student spoken work.
11. Make an activity pyramid of options for students to respond to input and processes as they read or listen. The linked pyramid calls for written responses, but could easily be tailored.

Getting them talking about it betters the odds it moves from taught to learned.

How else can we get them talking about it?

Why Do We Do the Work For Them?

Why do we do the work for them?

 I started thinking after reading the Week 20 post about delegation in the #savmp blog, and this quote from a book I just finished

"Adults need to model, ask clarifying questions, and help students reflect on and about their own routines, not do the work for them." - Margaret Searle, Causes & Cures in the Classroom p. 77 

Why do we do the work for our staff and/or students? Because we're afraid of what others will think if people under our tutelage produce work in need of improvement or worse. Because we think short-term.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking something to the effect of, "if my evaluee doesn't write a proficient goal or provide satisfactory evidence, then my colleagues are going to think I'm an unsatisfactory supervisor; what good am I if my people (or students) aren't proficient?"

So I do more than I ought to; I try to control the outcome rather than support and assist during the process. The goal that I'm concerned about becomes 90% my words and 10% theirs. They're "proficient," I pat myself on the back for "helping," and we repeat again in a few months. Nobody learns; we're not growing.

Ask questions instead of giving answers

If they don't do it themselves, then it comes at the expense of the long-term; the goal is always for them to be able to do it well without assistance. Start with them doing it themselves and let the doing it well happen organically. Guide by the side, ask questions, generate partnerships.

I shouldn't compromise the long-term goal to satisfy short-term insecurity.

Replace speaking with listening as often as possible

I should try to be the resource that makes them their own resource. In practice:

Student Discipline: Go through the handbook with them as you're determining consequences; when they match the offense with the proper consequence and then serve it, it becomes a lesson rather than a simple consequence.

Organization / Note Taking: Expose students to different examples of note taking and organization for the same topic. Show them an outline, word web, word cloud, venn diagram, etc. Have them decide which makes the most sense for them instead of mandating one style because it's what's always worked for you. 

They need to own it for it to be learned; if they don't own it, then it was merely taught; they won't remember

Instead of Getting Frustrated...

What I read:

"Adults must have tons of patience and provide lots of modeling, practice, and encouragement to support the development of good planning and problem-solving skills." -  Margaret Searle, Causes & Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems p. 42

"The ultimate goal is to enable the students to become more confident and independent." - Margaret Searle, Causes & Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems p. 30 

What I thought:

We've all worked with students and colleagues who have difficulties getting started and/or following through with tasks or initiatives; our first reaction often is to challenge the excuses folks that struggle with this always have, or to assume that they are lazy or oppositional.

In the classroom I saw this manifested in students who were always missing assignments, turning in assignments half done, or have grand plans end in mediocre finished products; in school leadership I see this manifested in staff who miss deadlines, create goals that are nearly impossible to meet, or want to improve in a certain area but have no concept of how to.

How we respond and how we as teachers & leaders communicate will determine if we will have any type of meaningful impact on their improvement.

Labeling or assuming takes the improvement process out of our hands; when we decide that our efforts will be wasted because of lack of motivation, laziness, etc, we've lost the opportunity to guide and support; we undercut our own capacity to lead and understand how to help folks move themselves in the right direction.

Getting frustrated or angry doesn't work; our relationships and the culture we manufacture in our classrooms, offices, schools, etc will either encourage or deter folks from seeking assistance. If they think we'll be mad or lash out, then they'll probably mask or hide the problem rather than seek our assistance.

If out of impatience we simply do it for them, then they become dependent on us.

If the same issue keeps happening despite our efforts, then keep trying something new; if they can't seem to get started or follow through, then help them:

• visualize the goal.
• see how by modeling using a "first me, then you" procedure.
• break down the process into individual parts
• visualize the action plan.
• verbalize potential obstacles before starting.
• verbalize the plan's details step by step.
• by building in class time for planning and clarifying questions.
• discussing what to do when they don't know what to do.
• engage in conversation about what went wrong last time and how to avoid this time.
• by showing them what you would do in same scenario.

The end goal with our students and staff is always confident independence; we don't want to respond to missing, incomplete, or poorly crafted work in a manner that will impede progress toward that overarching goal.

We want them to be able to do it consistently well without assistance, but we need them to be honest and timely when they require assistance.

Instead of reacting emotionally when planning and problem-solving skills lack we ought to think clearly, identify why the issue may be happening, and continue to utilize new strategies until they can move forward with a plan confidently and independently.