More Smithsonian Exploration
As a former Smithsonian Teacher Ambassador, I am very excited to be partnering with the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) to provide a webinar in our series of Noble Education Initiative opportunities for learning. Back in April we partnered with the Smithsonian Learning Lab and had two fantastic webinars and were able to provide outstanding resources to educators. I blogged about these webinars in Bringing The Smithsonian To You. Since then, we have continued to be asked for more from the Smithsonian Institution.
Tomorrow, May 20th, we will do just that with More Smithsonian Exploration: A Journey To The Smithsonian Science Education Center. We want educators and caregivers to join us to learn to use the resources that provide tremendous opportunities to learn with their students. The SSEC offers curriculum and digital resources that support educators and caregivers in providing authentic STEM experiences. EVERYONE is welcome and can still register here: https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/60b0b44a5a92ca7fe3-more.
I am really proud of this partnership to bring make this free webinar possible because of the aim of the SSEC to transform and improve the learning of science for K-12 students. Click here to view the SSEC fact sheet to learn how the world’s largest museum, education and research complex is bringing an interdisciplinary approach to education using science, history, art, and culture.
The SSEC is also providing tremendous resources and support to teachers who work with newcomers from all over the globe and English Language Learners (ELLs). Our webinar will be engaging and inquiry-based to model the strategies that are effective for effective learning with our ELL students. We will also get a first hand experience with the SSEC’s real world and relevant featured curriculum dealing with COVID-19: COVID-19! How Can I Protect Myself and Others.
Join us tomorrow and see how the Smithsonian Science Education Center is transforming science education.
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.
❤️ Kids Having Ownership!
This past week I had the honor of doing a day long professional development for teachers from all schools corporations in Elkhart County, Indiana. I am representing Noble Education Initiative carrying out this customized professional development. This was part of an ongoing Project Based Learning partnership created by Horizon Education Alliance to bring business/industry and education together to best educate students. I love doing professional development workshops, particularly when they are on topics that I am passionate about. Project Based Learning (PBL) is one of those topics. It is also energizing to be with a group of educators who are very engaged. Groups like this always remind me and validate what Gallup® finds teachers value in question 12 of the Gallup Q12 Index©: “In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?” These teachers have been given this opportunity and very much value the opportunity, and are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn and grow.
The group last week was both passionate and engaged. We started the day with what I called “Level Setting.” I had them work in pairs to talk about their PBL experience now that we were half way through the school year. I wanted them to talk about what they had learned, “wow” moments, what they still had questions about, and what they still needed help with. They were to represent this on a tear sheet and put it up on the wall. Here are a few of the tear sheets that were put up:
Did you see the comment “❤️Kids Having Ownership”? That’s what this is all about. The next few paragraphs will dig into that a little deeper.
Aubri Mosness with her students
We then had everyone individually do a gallery walk and pick one thing that stood out to them. This was an awesome discussion when the group came back together. There were questions like, “who wrote… I would like to know more,” or “I had that same experience because…,” or “I am so glad you wrote that because that same thing happened to us, and we are still trying to figure out…” You get the idea. One comment really stood out to me during this discussion; It was by Goshen High School Teacher, Aubri Mosness. She said, “I have felt the transition from me doing most of the work to the students doing most of the work. At first I was a little uncomfortable because I felt like I was doing much, but then I realized how much the students were getting out of it.” I was so excited by this. This is such a revelation in teaching. Great teaching should have the students doing most of the work. She was truly facilitating with a student managed classroom and the students have student agency and choice.
Then, at lunch Ms. Mosness’ students presented to the whole group and business/industry representatives that had joined us, on their project and I led a little Q&A. The students were incredible. During the presentation Ms. Mosness commented, “When I give my students too much, too much information, too much guidance, I am taking away opportunities for learning.” This was a drop the mic opportunity as far as I was concerned. The students all concurred. I then asked the students to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on the following question: “School work should look more like real work?” All six students gave me a thumbs up. Our students deserve to learn in an environment that is facilitated in a real world and relevant context.
These students were giving first hand testimony affirming the research I did for my book, The Hand In The Back Of The Room: Connecting School Work To Real Life.” In the book I talk about that the hand in the back of the room was mine, and probably yours too, that was raised wanting to know why I needed to learn what I was being taught. In other words school work must be connected to real life. This is why PBL is so great. Using PBL teaching principles will make school work look and feel like real work. In other words, the question from “the hand in the back of the room is answered as to why she needs to learn what she is being taught. When teachers are allowed to make student learning the ultimate test of facilitation of learning, then instruction improves to produce better learning. The results of my research showed improved achievement/performance in science when students are taught in a relevant context. For me that context was agriculture, but there many other real world contexts to be used. This is why the partnerships with business/industry is so important for our students. The challenge to all of us in education is to find ways to make learning visible by connecting school work and real life for the students we serve.
Success In Aspirational Terms
This past week I heard a person say that “success should be measured in aspirational terms.” The more I thought about it, the more I like it. In education I believe we need to think more aspirational in the way we prepare students. In other words looking beyond just credits and a diploma to the outcomes of what a student should be able to do now and be capable of learning to do later.
Let’s use an example that gets used a lot – welding. It is short-sided to think that having a student be in the single pathway of learning to fuse two pieces of metal together is enough. Don’t get me wrong, good careers await the student, but that’s not aspirational enough. This is why I believe in achieving multiple pathways. A student with aspirations for welding should also be studying computer science. Computers have become an indispensable part of welding processes. Computer, and even artificial intelligence, are required for the execution of many welding operations today. We can only imagine this need for knowledge of computer science will increase. Industry is telling us that welders will need knowledge of lasers, computer program, robotics, artificial intelligence, materials engineering, and systems integration to advance.
With the increased demand for highly skilled and technically sound workers, our students will need to shape their careers around multiple areas of expertise. This aspirational approach will enable their lifelong learning and ability to be agile to a ever-increasingly fast changing world.
We need to be deliberately aligning our student’s aspirations and abilities. The scene in the movie “The Martian” where it doesn’t look like it will end well for astronaut Mark Watney he sends this message to be relayed to his parents:
“Tell them I love what I do and I’m really good at it. And that I’m dying for something big and beautiful and greater than me. Tell them I said I can live with that.” ~ Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, in The Martian (2015)
Try and tell me that’s not aspirational. We all need to find what we love and what we are good at. It’s not either or, and we need to help students find that balance as well. Some would say that aspiration is magical thinking. I don’t believe it is a magic trick to strategize about the future, help students invent themselves and us reinvent ourselves, push upscale, and keep a growth mindset. Without deep thought and planning about measuring success in aspirational terms, it just becomes a vacuous platitude, or “thing,” as I like to say. But taken in the context of enabling the future, career/skill agility, and student outcomes, measuring success in aspirational terms becomes about being prepared for what we don’t know we need to be prepared for.
Changing The Narrative For Our Students
Yesterday was another powerful day of learning at Harvard University. It started out with Liya Escalera walking us through changing the narrative, valuing the cultural wealth of our underrepresented students in order to achieve equity. Additionally, she taught some great asset-based approaches to leading for student success. The best part was how she had us start this session. She had us reflect on situations in an educational setting that made us feel unwelcome and then reflect on a situation that made us feel welcome. This was a great way to get us in a mode of thinking about changing the narrative for our students. Liya also worked us through asset based communication. Below is a slide that does a great job of showing what our discussion included: 
Then we spent time digging into family engagement and making families true partners with Stephany Cuevas of Harvard University. We know that students with engaged families:
- Exhibit faster rates of literacy acquisition
- Earn higher grades and test scores
- Enroll in higher level programs
- Are promoted more and earn more credits
- Adapt better to school and attend more regularly
- Have better social skills and behaviors
- Graduate and go on to higher education
The learning did not stop here. We then spent time with Daren Graves diving into issues of race with intentionality. This was very powerful learning. We discussed how racism can happen without it being intentional. In education we must be diligent in monitoring the areas where we see disparate racial outcomes or impact:
- Curriculum
- Groupings
- Assessment
- Relationships with students and faculty
- Relationships with the community
- Recruitment/Retention
Just like in Thriving Students and Developing & Supporting Our Students: Future Identity Versus No Future Identity here is the top 30 list from our Tuesday learning:
- Reflect on a situation in an educational setting that made you feel unwelcome.
- Reflect on a situation that made you feel welcome.
- Asset-Based versus Deficit-Based Communication
- It is a bad habit to not look at all our communication through a critical lens.
- What is the problem? The problem is not our students.
- Is the problem that our students aren’t post-secondary ready, or that our education system is not student ready?
- Cultural competence will not cut it. We need to be highly skilled, not just competent.
- We need to make sure all schools are student ready.
- Google Translate™ is a good thing, but must be edited, or those reading will feel disrespected.
- We need information to go to parents as well as the students.
- We need to offer parents parents questions to ask their students.
- Our families are collaborators.
- We need to have parents presenting to parents.
- Have parents talk to each other.
- Students need to be thought of as part of a family, and then the family as part of all the practices of the school.
- Staff needs to view families as collaborators and partners.
- Staff Relationships With Parents + School Knowledge = Family Engagement As Confident Partner
- Staff needs to think of themselves as mentors to their parents.
- Family engagement is a way of thinking, not a practice.
- Family engagement is a value, not just a practice.
- There is no gene for race. Science saved the day!
- Race is an idea.
- Race is not culture.
- Race is something that happens, not something we are.
- It’s not about doing well in school, it’s about doing school well.
- Racism is usually pretty mundane.
- A system that confers privilege and produces disparate outcomes on the basis of race.
- historically-based systems
- actions/beliefs/policies/practices/conceptions
- confers visible and unacknowledged privilege
- Sometimes we set students up for failure by trying to not set them up for failure.
- Start with implicit biases, then move to structural biases.
- Racism can happen without anyone intentionally wanting it to happen.
Angry Teachers
If you follow my blog you know that I am a fan of Angry Birds; both the game and the movies. I have blogged about Angry Birds on four different occasions: Teaching Like Angry Birds, Angry Birds University, The Angry Birds Effect, and “I’m Not A Leader!” ~ Red. Now I am adding a fifth post about this Rovio Entertainment created phenomenon that I love to use as a guide to great teaching and leadership.
This week I did a professional development for Mevers School of Excellence on student engagement. I have been working with this school’s teachers on professional development by customizing a series of professional development units using teacher walk through data and student data. These teachers are phenomenal and deserved a great finale to the year long work we have been doing. So, this professional development unit was titled “Angry Teachers.” Catchy, don’t you think? We certainly don’t want our teachers to be angry, but we do want them teaching using the principles employed by Rovio that have made this game such a phenomenon. The only homework prior to the evening’s professional development was to have the Angry Birds Classic game downloaded on one of their devices.
I led off with the statement, “Everything you need to know about teaching you can learn from Angry Birds.” I think some were skeptical, but I really do believe this statement. Then, of course, I had them play the game with the volume turned up and take notes about what they learned. Needless to say, they had so much fun. I had them take notes on what they were learning that could be applied to great facilitation of learning. Here is what we talked about:
- Make it easy to start the task.
- Show, don’t tell.
- Give useful and immediate feedback.
- Make it easy to recover from failure.
- Complicate the task gradually.
Think about it; if a teacher is getting just those five things done he or she is on the way to providing great facilitation of learning. Then after playing a little more I broke them into groups and had them develop the learning even further. Here are the graphic representations of their learning the 10 groups came up with:
Pretty amazing work! Now, consider the following:
1. Angry Birds involves practice without penalty.
2. Angry Birds offers the opportunity to constant feedback.
3. Angry Birds inherently teaches that different tools have different purposes.
4. Angry Birds has a built in mechanism for knowledge transfer.
5. Angry Birds rewards perseverance.
6. Angry Birds gives no time limit.
No wonder we are all addicted to this game! Now if only we could ensure that our
classrooms are always safe spaces to practice new strategies, offer students a range of possibilities for how to succeed in their learning, give our students constant feedback, and support knowledge transfer within and among our courses. So, do you agree? “Everything you need to know about teaching you can learn from Angry Birds.” Our students deserve us to be “Angry Teachers!”
Durability of Expectations
In a meeting I was a part of this week we developed a phrase that has caused me to do a lot of thinking: “Durability of expectations.” Our work was in the context of thinking about student success, outcomes, and what the profile of an Indiana high school graduate should look like. I like to combine all of this and talk about student success outcomes. Success looks different for all students and some students have not really had an opportunity to have success modeled for them or even know what success can look like. I have often said that it is ludicrous, in some cases, to ask our students what they want to be or do in life because they have not had the opportunity learn what all is out there. That is why I believe it is so important to make sure we are doing a great job of career exposure, career exploration, and career navigation for all students. We need to career coach our kids.
Success: “Knowing what one wants in the world and knowing how to get it.” ~ Dr. Felice Kaufman
We must make sure we are giving our students the opportunity to innovate, be creative, and take risks. This will help them to persevere, adapt, and develop a growth mindset and begin to understand lifelong learning. We need to help our kids understand what is out there and that getting where they want to go will be a non-linear process in many cases. Most of the career paths those of us in the baby boomer age are characterized of having relative stability. The career paths for today’s students are now times of discovery, restlessness, and exploration. The last I read, boomers will switch jobs 11 times during our lifetime, but millenials and younger will not only switch careers but change entire career trajectories. Therefore, the modern career trajectory isn’t necessarily a climb to a destination, but rather a continuum.
We will need to offer solutions to our students that help them understand and give them the opportunity to skill, re-skill, and up-skill as they embark on their non-linear career paths. This is why I am such a believer that we must begin to identify the transferable skills our students. These skills, according to employers, hold much more weight than the traditional way of looking at academic records or even work history. Life is not linear, it is more like a Jungle Jim, so we need to make sure we are facilitating learning for our students that gives them the transferable skills to have durable expectations of what they can do. In other words, our students can have a lasting expectation that they have the skills to start and understand how to stay skilled to make the desired career moves that become available. Even if our students take a non-linear path in life, if they have credentials and transferable skills they will have what is needed to provide the on and off ramps to whatever career moves come available. This will give durability to the expectations our students have as they move through life and professional careers.
The old adage that you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards is true, but we need to give our students the ability to zigzag. By preparing students through career coaching, exploration, work based learning, and transferable skills and credentials we will add durability to the expectations of our students and their parents. We have an obligation to make sure our students are prepared to see and be prepared to seize the opportunities no matter how unconventional or surprising.
Teaching Like Angry Birds
I am not a big game player on my phone, but I love Angry Birds. I have blogged about this game twice before in The Angry Birds Effect and Angry Birds University. Just in case you aren’t familiar with Angry Birds, it’s simple: the pigs have stolen the birds’ eggs. This has made the birds angry. Therefore, they allow you to slingshot and catapult them into the pigs’ fortresses. The birds love every minute of it.
The thing that still amazes me about Angry Birds is that a person can download the game and be playing in 10 seconds. You are given small pieces at a time in a way that makes it possible to master a level in 30 seconds. In education we call this chunking. I always wonder why we can’t create learning management systems (LMS) in education the same way. Instead the first thing that has to happen with a new LMS is to take a training on how to use. With Angry Birds this is done real-time as you go.
In Angry Birds the learning is paced and is scaffolded just like in a great classroom. Once you develop foundational skills you are given new birds with different abilities. At the same time different scenarios are introduced. This is a very engaging and developmental path to mastery.
The game also has a very well structured star ⭐️ system. And remember you are able to play over and over making improvements to reach mastery. We need to operate more like this in education. Players are also able to earn badges. I love the way schools are adding badging to their e-portfolios.
Another very cool addition is that of tools that can be used. These tools include an earthquake, a scope, extra power sling shot, bombs, and more. These really teach creativity and problem solving because you only get so many. Therefore, the player must decide the right time and how best to use these limited resources.
As you can see, Angry Birds supports many learning principles and best practices. Rovio just continues to make improvements. I last blogged about Angry Birds in 2014 and this game continues to improve and be a relevant example of how to lead learning.
School Is For The Student
I am reading an incredible book right now by Roger Daltrey, the frontman of The Who. As you know, I love rock music and am so intrigued by those who have artistic talent and took the risk to make it big. And, make it big The Who did…The Who is arguably one of the most influential formative influences during the development of rock and roll 🎸. I’m only half way through the book and now I want to meet Roger Daltrey. Oh…the places he has been and the things he has done!
“If anyone had ever once sat me down and explained that school was for me, not the teachers or the system, and there were reasons why I should stick at it, it would have been totally different. But no one ever did.” ~ Roger Daltrey, frontman for The Who in his book Thanks A Lot Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story/Roger Daltrey.
This post is about a statement in the book and the reason for the title. Mr. Kibblewhite was Roger Daltrey’s Principal who kicked him out of school. So…he’s thanking him? That really made me think. But then Daltrey wrote this statement: “If anyone had ever once sat me down and explained that school was for me, not the teachers or the system, and there were reasons why I should stick at it, it would have been totally different. But no one ever did” (Daltrey, 2018, p. 21). I haven’t been able to get this statement out of my mind ever sense.
Did you catch what he said? That someone should have explained that school was for HIM, not the teachers or the system. Part of the reason no one ever sat him down and told him this, is because we forget it, or never believed it to start with. School exists for the students. Period. Not for the teachers or the system.
Schools are such complex and contested institutions in my country 🇺🇸 and globally. While every member of our society is promised a good education, there are ongoing inequalities that are fueled by race, class, and gender. Somehow, I believe education failed Roger Daltrey. Now I get that he did things that caused the expulsion – he divulged those in the book. But, again, I go back to the statement I can’t get out of my mind, “If anyone had ever once sat me down and explained that school was for me, not the teachers or the system, and there were reasons why I should stick at it, it would have been totally different. But no one ever did.” Daltrey needed to know the “why” and no one ever took the time to tell him.
Now you can argue that had he not been kicked out of school that any number of the 100 different paths that Daltrey would have taken wouldn’t have led to The Who. You are probably right, but how many other students are lost that don’t have the grit of a Roger Daltrey? For some, then, schools are seen as a means for learning and mobility; for others they are “sorting machines” that maintain social inequality. I believe we need to make sure that schools are student centered and not school system centered.
I have said it many times that many of the things we have done around holding schools accountable have forced us [schools] to make decisions in order to make the school look good without any regard to what the students need. We have it backward. If our students are successful and achieving the outcomes necessary for postsecondary success, then certainly, the school has done its job. It’s really about considering questions of relevant academic content, methods of teaching, ways of learning, and overall educational aims.
Another statement Daltrey made in the book was, “There was the maths teacher who hated me because I hated maths. I just couldn’t get it to go into my brain. I don’t know why they don’t work out which kids are good at maths and let them get on with it and which ones aren’t and give them a break. We still haven’t worked that one out today. It’s mad.” (Daltrey, 2018, p. 15). What he is really saying is why didn’t anyone ever make math real for him? Why was school work not made to be like real work. Daltrey went on to say, “Obviously it helps in life if you can add up a few numbers but I could do that. How else do you think I managed to work out how much we were being ripped off when The Who started making proper money in the 1970s?” (p. 15). Think about if math would have been taught in the context of managing a band. We must make education relevant for our students. Otherwise, we will lose them.
Our schools are effective only when we refocus on meeting the individual needs of students rather than the needs of the education system or the broader society. We must have our students ready to be a part of and function in a global economy and society. Remember, school is for the student.
Reference
Daltrey, R., 2018. Thanks a lot Mr. Kibblewhite: my story / Roger Daltrey. New York, NY. Henry Holt and Company.
Using A Different Runway To Help Students Take Off To New Heights
This morning as I was trying to fly home from Charlotte, North Carolina, the pilot came on and said there would be a slight delay. Because of the storm that was Hurricane Michael, we were going to have to use a runway that they usually do not use. He told us we would be using the runway going to the northeast, whereas typically the north/south runways are used. They would need 15 minutes to recalculate takeoff speeds, routes when in the air, et cetera. I was cool with it as long as we got in the air, headed north, and away from the storm.
As you know, I love metaphors, analogies, and similes; so here we go: I compared this to how, as teachers, we must constantly be making adjustments. We are constantly having to recalculate for our students and use new runways. We regroup students based on data, we spiral in new material based on mastery, we develop ways to maintain the proficiencies already mastered. Adjusting and recalculating instruction also means providing more opportunities for students to learn successfully based on information you gather such as their interests, work habits, motivation and learning styles and academic performance. Doing this on a consistent basis helps refine instruction so they can succeed.
Great teachers are those who know their students abilities, know the students proficiency of standards, and then use that information to determine how and what they will teach. They use educational standards and differentiation to guide instruction, while constantly focusing on 1) what the students know, and 2) what objectives (or steps) they need to take) to fulfill their goals. They focus on what the students can do today. How about you; Are you recalculating for a different runway for the success of your students?
Byron's Babbles 
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