Bringing The Smithsonian to You!
During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the many webinars we have been doing to support teachers as they facilitate learning virtually, I keep commenting that the Smithsonian Institution is a tremendous resource. Or, should I say, plethoras of resources and services. Then I got to thinking that if I was going to keep saying that educators needed to check out the Smithsonian, we needed to do a little “show and experience” for them. As a former Smithsonian Teacher Ambassador, I really value all the resources available for educators. So, I decided to reach out to Ashley Naranjo, Manager of Educator Engagement at the Smithsonian Learning Lab, and ask if she would be interested in doing a webinar together. She was quick and enthusiastic to respond in the affirmative. Needless to say, I was excited.
Ashley and I had a great planning session where she had great ideas for engaging webinar participants in actually navigating and using resources. In fact, she and I will be modeling an activity at the beginning – I can’t wait! As I mentioned earlier in the post, I was a Smithsonian Teacher Ambassador back in 2010 and 2011. During that ambassadorship I was talking to groups of educators and organizations about the over 1,600 Smithsonian resources available. I told Ashley this asked how many there were now; she laughed and said, “Over 5,000,000.” Boy did I feel outdated.
Bottom-line: educators won’t want to miss this free webinar. This interactive and engaging webinar will include an overview of the Smithsonian Learning Lab and how teachers can curate their own digital collections of resources across subject areas and grade levels. The great part is that educators will learn, by doing, how to use Smithsonian Education museum resources in their own teaching and learning contexts. Please join us for this journey of bringing the Smithsonian to you!
Being Who We Want To Be
I just had another Lizzie West quote impact me. In this one, West said, “Freedom, to me, is imagination, the power of imagination to create what we want and be who we want to be.” This made me think about all our students, both high school and post secondary, coming out into the Gig Economy. We often talk about how our students will need to create their own job titles, create their own jobs, or adjust to jobs yet not out there, but this is more true today than ever. We must provide the environment for our students to imagine and then create who and what they want to be.
“Freedom, to me, is imagination, the power of imagination to create what we want and be who we want to be.” ~ Lizzie West
Our high school and college graduates of today are entering the workforce of the Gig Economy. The Gig Economy is made up of consultants, independent contractors, freelancers, side-giggers, and on-demand workers. Gig Economy workers make up approximately 30-40% (depending on what source you use) of the U.S. workforce right now. Alternative and flexible work arrangements have been increasing, but with the COVID-19 Pandemic these may become the norm.
Therefore, I get concerned that most high school and college graduates still receive a transcript instead of a portfolio. This plays to my belief we need to worry more about transferable skills and less about courses. Our students will need to be able to identify the skills they have acquired and then be able to market them. Developing portfolios begins to do this and gives them a usable product from their education.
Additionally, we need to be teaching the skills required of the Gig Economy. According to Fast Company there are four essential skills needed in the Gig Economy:
- Critical thinking and logic
- Human Resources
- Finance
- Marketing and communication
Gig Economy professionals must also be able to:
- Match personal skills to problems that need solved.
- Direct themselves.
- Ask good questions before devising a solution.
- Learn, learn, and learn some more.
Our students will need to develop a strong sense of self. They will also, now more than ever, need to be able to answer their own “why” of their learning. Understanding this “why” will help them imagine what and who she/he wants to be.
Who Thinks About Thinking?🤔đź’
I came across a Lizzie West quote recently that really got me thinking. The quote is, “If you don’t create your reality, your reality will create you.” So, can our thoughts become reality? We really need to think about what we are thinking. The way we think about ourselves turns into our reality. The way we think about ourselves either limits our potential or paves the way for the “sky’s the limit.”
“If you don’t create your reality, your reality will create you.” ~ Lizzie West
What we think directly influences how we feel and how we behave. Our future reality is a product of our experiences and what we think it will be and how we see ourselves in it. Those that think in terms of positive expectations experience positive results more often than those who have negative thoughts. Research has actually proven this.
When we think positively about our future reality we then see the evidence that supports these thoughts. Conversely, if think negatively or see ourselves as failures we will only see the evidence that supports this. Therefore, it is up to us to create our own reality. How you think of yourself and how you see your future will directly impact every subsequent thought you think, every decision you make, and every action you take throughout the day.
Angry Teachers 2
Today we started the second part to a great professional development webinar that I am calling Angry Teachers. The title of this webinar is “Angry Teachers 2: Interactive Lessons and Engaging Tools.” The through-line of the webinar is the game Angry Birds. At the beginning of the webinar I always say, “Everything you need to know about teaching you can learn from Angry Birds.” In Angry Teachers 2 we pondered the question, “Many people believe that learning should feel like work.” We then discussed the Finnish model of education where learning looks like play.
During the gathering, we actually play the game and we do a “design the solution” activity where the participants actually design a lesson while playing Angry Birds. At completion the groups had to answer the following:
- Explain your lesson’s objective(s) and standard(s) covered.
- Explain what teaching strategies will be used.
- Explain why you chose what you chose.
With over 25 groups in some of these webinars time does not allow for all groups to share out. So, I offered to the groups that if they would send me their designs I would post them in a blog. Since I’m facilitating six sessions of Angry Teachers 2, I will add to this after each session. So keep coming back to check it out for the next week or so. Here is what has been sent in as of 04/28/2020:
Group 7 (04/28/2020
7th Grade Geometry
Group 4 (04/23/2020)
- Small groups based off of levels (scaffolding of groups with high, medium, low in reading and math)
- Social and Emotional (ok to make mistakes, but we have to learn from them our next chance and how to recover from failure)
- Rewards chart (every so many levels gained, trip to treasure box on Friday’s)
- Balance of wanting to play, but must get work done first
- I Do (model on board, discuss elements), You Do (choose children to go to board and take 1 turn), We Do (small group break up)
- Respect (each bird is a different shape and size, but have their personal strengths, so they work together as a team for best practice of the task ahead of them)
- Build on lessons taught (can go back and retry lessons to practice a skill needed in level)
- Feedback (given as an OREO method (GLOW, GROW, GLOW))
- Include cross curricular ideas
- Rigor (levels get harder the further you get, so have to use critical thinking skills)
- Incorporate the 4 C’s (collaboration with group, critical thinking of what to do next, creativity to beat the level with what birds are given, and communication amongst group members to help those struggling succeed)
Group 5 (04/23/2020)
This group made a great Doodly® of what their lesson would be. Check this out:↓
Doodly® created by Dawn Eibel of Manatee Charter School in Bradenton, FL
Group 11(04/23/2020)
- characterization
- social-emotional: anger/empathy/hidden feelings, etc
- compare/contrast video game with movie segments
- mapping/sequencing/ordering (steps to get most boxes, etc)
- groupings of characters by traits
- writing a backstory event for a character – a childhood moment, embarrassing situation, etc
- LOTS of writing: setting, events, characters, develop themes or moral of story
Our objective had to do with a 3rd grade standard of sequencing order of events. The objective specifically stated that SWBAT provide a sequence of events in order for each level of the Angry Birds game that they have gotten through.
This quickly turned into what we said could eventually be a “strategy guide” of sorts that the students could collaborate on because we don’t do work just for ourselves but we are creating for the world to see and consume. An extension activity that we thought would be beneficial is if the students could do a STEAM ativity to where, over time, they create a real world Angry Birds level to test out different scientific principles.
On a personal and professional note I have enjoyed your PD’s so much because I’ve been a proponent of looking at different mediums to promote  and incorporate into education. I actually started a You Tube Channel for parents that covers different pop culture references and relates it back to education. If you have any amount of time please check it out. www.youtube.com/c/jeremywhiteeducation (It’s called LIFT Tutoring)
I hope your blog post for this specific idea of incorporating Angry Birds into the classroom is beneficial to a lot of educators as we continue to rethink what education is, especially during this time of remote learning.
Let’s Talk Student Engagement: Part 1
This morning I started a new iteration in supporting teachers and administrators during this time of remote learning due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are now doing 30 minute small group supports. I made two different types of support and one of them is called, “Let’s Talk Student Engagement.” The idea is to have groups of five teachers working together, coming up with solutions to increase student engagement and share expertise. I have to say I really enjoyed my first session. We had a great discussion around how to do better at engaging students.
One teacher stated that she has done away with worksheets and switched totally to projects. She is giving the students three to four choices of what project he/she wants to do. I am a huge proponent of student choice and agency when it comes to education. We also discussed the value in staying a little more general or broader in topic. In other words, don’t get to specific. Also, chunking content into smaller pieces is a best practice. Learning online can be physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing. Use of long reading passages or big projects is not advisable, unless chunked very intentionally. I philosophically believe in the Self-Determination Theory, which holds that we are most deeply engaged, and that we do our most creative work, when we feel that we are acting according to our own will on behalf of goals we find meaningful.
From a pedagogical standpoint it is very import to remember it is very important to allow for:
- in-depth discussions
- group work/projects
- both watching and creating video/audio clips
- hands-on projects
- individual time to work
“In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” ~ Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” We should not forget to look at the opportunity in front of us. One of the great advantages right now, teaching virtually, is the ability to individualize and personalize like never before. There must still be the opportunity for students to have peer/group interactions and very clear expectations. We must enable our students to work autonomously, but yet develop and enjoy learning relationships with others, and feel they are competent to achieve their own objectives.
Gaps In Our Consistency
At one of our most recent gatherings of 3D Leadership, a topic came up that the participants were calling “gaps in our consistency.” When I asked about these gaps they said they were the things that really kept them from being great teachers and the schools which they taught from being as great as they could be. One of the most important tools in effective schools is consistency. Research and practice have proved that school leaders and teachers must be consistent every day in carrying out their duties if they want to improve student performance and conduct. Here is what the teacher leaders said the gaps were:
- Being Reactionary
- Everything done short term/constant change
- Lack of training to make sure initiatives/processes could be implemented
- Relationships must be in place for there to be the trust for everything to be going well
- Besides the why, there needs to be the what and the how
- Teachers need to teach and not be auditors
Really, what any teacher wants is to be able to get to work and feel like what he/she is doing are the right things to be doing. What teachers don’t need are things constantly changing or different expectations or directions. These result in confusion. It is really about being on the same page and staying on the same page. Consistency really can be the protagonist or the villain of great accomplishment. There is a difference between being agile and continually changing focus, priorities, and behavior patterns.
One of the biggest problems that inconsistency brings on an organizational and personal level is a loss of trust. Judgement becomes not trusted, follow through on initiatives is not trusted, and trust that what is being implemented today will even be important as soon as tomorrow. The administration and staff must operate like a single coherent unit. If we are able to build this consistency in any organization we can build what researchers have called a “culture of consistency.” We need to recognize our gaps in consistency; delivering consistently can have a profound impact on our effectiveness.
Whether It’s Spinning Plates or Juggling Balls, We Can’t Afford To Drop Either For Our Kids!
Remember, This Is a Marathon: We Want You To Still Be In The Race At The End Accept, Acknowledge, Ask, Adjunct Teaching, Advice
We need to take time to reflect on what it means to truly form a partnership between schools, teachers, and parents and consider how we can shift our practices in ways that will extend well beyond this crisis. I had the tremendous opportunity and honor to be a part of an event hosted by Kevin Eikenberry of The Kevin Eikenberry Group this past week. It was titled ‘Juggling Balls You Can’t Drop: How To Be Successful Parent, Employee, Teacher (And Spouse) Without Going Crazy. Kevin had asked me if this was an important and timely topic, and I very quickly responded with, “Absolutely!” Then it became important to pick a great teacher to be a part of the project that was doing an awesome job of supporting parents and students. Kevin left that job to me and I could not be prouder of who I picked. I had worked with Katty Pacheco, 2nd grade teacher at Renaissance Charter School at Boggy Creek in Florida, before on webinars for teachers and knew enough about the support she is providing parents right now in this time of remote learning to know she would be a great choice. And…she certainly proved me right. The parents on the Live With Kevin event really appreciated her comments and advice. It was such a great event. If you missed it, here is the link to watch the event and see materials provided from the event: Juggling Balls You Can’t Drop: How to be Successful Parent, Employee, Teacher (and Spouse) Without Going Crazy.
I decided to do this post to share not only the link about, but to share out the thoughts I have developed prepping for the event. I’m coming up on a month of working from home and as long for many of the schools I work with being transitioned to remote learning. During these unprecedented times we all are doing the very best we can. I had the opportunity to present to the SMART Factory League global event last week too, and I will be posting my thoughts on things we need to be thinking about moving forward. One thing we need to keep in mind is what my friend and great author, Nora Bateson, said in Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns: “No one is qualified to talk about uncertainty. You cannot get a degree in it yet, to the best of my knowledge” (location 437/3376, Kindle Ed.). While learning virtually has incredible potential, the very piecemeal efforts are not a very good substitute for real classrooms, in most cases. The school closures across the country have real consequences for our students academically.
Schools are the cornerstones of most communities and play a role that goes far beyond academics. Our schools support the nutritional, social and emotional well-being, and other health considerations of our children. This situation has many parents overburdened trying to support their child’s education the best they can. There will be gaps in education and students behind as a result of this COVID-19 Pandemic, but we must work to learn from this experience and be ready when the call comes to re-enter our schools. All of our focus cannot just be on making sure every student has internet access, even though that is an important consideration.
Accept that you are our students’ most consistent teachers, and right now you are their only in-person teachers.
- Remember to differentiate, just like your child’s teacher would. Students who tend to be independent self-starters will thrive in a more unstructured environment. Without “wasting” time on commuting to school and having recess or dead time between class periods, they will likely become increasingly productive. Other children may require more guidance and outside motivators to continue to thrive academically.
Don’t change everything that you are doing (bring old routines to your new normal)
- Acknowledge that being a working parent from home is the most challenging
- Do not reinvent your schedule (at least to the extent you don’t have to)
- Create a daily and weekly calendar (include daily routines)
- Set boundaries and even assign roles for everyone
- This can include assigning childcare and “adjunct teaching” time for family members
- Schedule breaks in and some time for unstructured fun
- Virtual play-dates for kids and adults
- As an adult have something to look forward to at the end of the day (eg. Virtual happy hour, cooking the evening meal, family movie night, go for a drive or walk)
- Zoom (or whatever platform is being used) lunch for the kids. Suggest to your child’s teacher that students have a set lunch time and all the students sit down and eat with their cameras and mics open.
Don’t be afraid to ask
- We need to lean on our village now, more that ever (eg. Parents, kids, teachers, community members)
- Ask your teachers for resources, ask your teachers for a weekly schedule, ask your teachers for help
- Ask your teachers for a weekly “office hours” for parents to explain what will be happening that week or the next week and anything parents need to know to be successful adjunct teachers.
 Your kids will give you good advice
- This is a chance to give kids a chance to be leaders of their own learning
- Ask what resources they like best
- Let your children be a part of developing the daily and weekly schedule
- Give your students agency and choice
Accept that things are not going to run 100% smoothly and we are not all going to be our 100% productive selves.
Byron’s Book Recommendation:
The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Resources:
Noble Education Initiative Learning Hub:https://www.nobleeducationinitiative.com/services/learning-hub
The Smithsonian Institution: https://www.si.edu/collections & https://www.si.edu/openaccess &
https://airandspace.si.edu/anywhere
Time For Kids: https://time.com/tfk-free/
Khan Academies Kids:https://learn.khanacademy.org/khan-academy-kids/
Educating Students To Improve The World
The book Educating Students to Improve the World, written by Harvard Professor Fernando M. Reimers, presents an inspiring and bold vision of how schools should be organized to cultivate a range of skills and dispositions that effectively educate students to make the world better. The book is unique in the breadth of the scholarship it integrates and in how it builds a sensible model to understand the process of educational change that honors the multidimensionality of the process. It is, at the same time, a very scholarly book, an erudite treaty of the field of global education, and a very practical book, a book that makes sense to those in the business of leading schools and school systems.
Professor Reimers
The idea that the book contains is simple, yet holds remarkable potential to transform education around the world. The big idea the book contains is that public education, as an institution of the Enlightenment, was meant to be global since its creation, but the obvious global nature of many of the challenges facing humanity requires that education becomes intentionally global. Professor Reimers argues in the book that formal education should be aligned with audacious and hopeful visions for a more inclusive world, such as those contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Such alignment involves defining what kind of competencies would actually help students care about and have the skills to make a difference in advancing a more inclusive and sustainable world. With such clarity on the expected learning outcomes for students, the curriculum would then map backwards an instructional sequence to gradually support students in a rigorous process of development of such competencies.
But the merit of this book goes beyond articulating why education should help students develop a sense of purpose, aligned with ambitious purposes of building a better world, it then explains how structuring effective education programs requires that the process of change is advanced multidimensionally, reflecting a cultural, psychological, professional, institutional and political.
The ambitions of the book are considerable, to bridge an evident schism between the scholarship and practice of global education. The book is an intellectual tour de force tracing the history of global education to the very creation of public education systems, and integrating research reflecting a variety of disciplinary perspectives in support of a conceptual framework in service of more coherent and effective educational practice.
Enhancing the credibility of the ideas in the book is not just the fact that the book is well researched and crafted, but that it builds on a long practice of the author actually doing the very things this books recommends should be done to develop a relevant curriculum. Professor Reimers invented an approach to take bold goals, such as the United Nations Development Goals, and translate them into student learning outcomes, and then curriculum and pedagogy. It’s a simple and intuitive idea, but it had not been done before.
It is the combination of the powerful idea that education should be aligned with ambitious goals for inclusion and sustainability with a theoretical model of how to structure efforts to translate that idea into changed educational practices that makes this book unique. It is not surprising that since it was published, as an Open Access resource by Springer, a week ago, the book has already been downloaded 24,000 times.
The book can be downloaded here https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811538865
Advanced Consulting
Advanced Consulting: Earning Trust at the Highest Level by William A. Pasmore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When it comes time to write my end of the year blog post about the top books I’ve read in the last year, this book will be in the top tier of that list. As a person who does leadership training and coaching/mentoring of leaders, I learned a great deal from spending time studying every page of the this insightful book. My copy of the book looks like what my mom always told me a Bible should look – used. I have the pages dog-eared, highlighted, notes in the margin, and the spine is all broken back, and this book will continued to get used in a reference capacity.
Advanced Consulting starts the reader off with a great story, as great leaders do. Then the reader is reminded that we should not always be looking for the most glaringly obvious things to fix, but the opportunities unaddressed that would slip up. This book drove home the fact that, “Every change is an experiment” (p. 111) and that “More pressure won’t produce progress, less pressure and more understanding may” (p. 109). This kind of candid and authentic information from Bill Pasmore helps us to understand why he argued there is no perfect knowledge in the real world. That is why this book is so timely right now in these uncertain times with the COVID-19 Pandemic. There are things, like this, that cannot be predicted, and this book gives us incite in how to help leaders to find ways to work interdependently to find solutions.
Lastly, as a curious person and leader, I loved the part of the book where Pasmore admitted, “I learn something I should have already known” (p.143) when accepting a new assignment with a new organization. He reminded us to be genuinely curious and humble. Whether you consult leaders or are a leader (remember, I believe everyone is a leader) you need to read and study the insights of this book.
Easter Isn’t Canceled
Baseball was not canceled during the Pandemic of 1918-1920
Today, I chronicle thoughts, here in my blog, on a new page in the book that is the story of my life. I have been doing some personal growth studying, with the help of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, on the pandemic of 1918-1920. My motivation this morning is that I am always moved by the personal stories written by people experiencing an event first hand. The most interesting and compelling speak of what was happening, the mood of the country and those around them, and what he or she was feeling at the time. I’m going to attempt a little of that this morning. I also believe if we are not using this as an opportunity for our children and students to write an account of something that will be undoubtedly written about in textbooks, or whatever our kids’ grandchildren will be using, we have missed a chance to process and save the realness of our experiences real-time.
Queen Elizabeth II shared a video message yesterday that was quite moving. Click here to watch it. The genius of her message was how different parts of the message have and will inspire different people in different ways. For me it was when she said, “But Easter isn’t canceled; indeed, we need Easter as much as ever.” No doubt things will be different today for most of us. But, Easter isn’t canceled, and different doesn’t have to mean bad.
One of my fondest memories growing up was of our Easter morning Easter egg hunt. We’d get up and go find the eggs hidden all over our very large yard that included barn lots. Interestingly, the one thing that I remember most vividly is the blue egg, and it was always a blue egg, put on top of an electric box on the back side of the house. I need to point out that these were real boiled eggs, usually a few duck eggs mixed in because we raised ducks, and my mom and sister colored them – I wasn’t much into coloring Easter eggs (that involved being inside and standing still – some things don’t change with age). My dad was so proud of that hiding spot on the electric box (not sure why). That became a special spot, however, because the first Easter we lived in that house my dad, after I spotted and claimed the egg, had to lift me up to get the egg. The next year I could reach it and every year after that that egg was mine, and my dad would always laugh and say, “You need me to help you get that one?” I’d say, “No!” We’d make eye contact and now having a son of my own I think I know what was going through his mind.
Easter isn’t canceled because of the COVID-19 Pandemic and my son will have an Easter basket (yes even at age 19) this morning. We will go to church via Zoom and then have the traditional Easter brunch of “One Eyed Connelly’s (that is the family name for a piece of toasted bread with a hole cut in the center and an egg cooked in that hole), sausage links, and cinnamon rolls. I’m sure there will be Easter egg hunts with the nieces and nephews to be joined virtually on some electronic platform or another. And, how cool is it we have those platforms? We are connecting more, socially, than ever before. Physical distancing (as I am calling it because I hate the term social distancing) is not keeping us from socializing.
I went to my first virtual Happy Hour last week – very fun. Also, I popped into a teacher’s lunch bunch. She has all her students get their lunch and they all log into Zoom and eat together. Students get social time with their fellow students and teacher. Everyone turned their mic on and it sounded just like a traditional school lunchroom. I hope we use our pandemic experiences to get education in our country to a place where we could say, “School isn’t canceled.” I realize that is a tall order, but we need to contemplate what that would mean. We need to think about the fact school is no longer a place. We need to think about the why behind professional working parents being so frustrated with being adjunct teachers now. Continuing to educate, which I believe we need to be doing, cannot be about providing busy work and crappy worksheets. It needs to be about great content, accessible by all, and delivered in a way the student can easily access. Now becomes the time to decide what education will look like during the next pandemic, other crises, or just moving us into the next decade.
Today, however, Easter isn’t canceled. During the pandemic we are distanced, clouded by the threat of disease, but stubbornly persistent. Realizing this is usually a pastel colored and celebratory day, this might just be a season of clarity about what it means to be a person of faith.
Byron's Babbles 
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