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The Skills All Students Need

Communication. Demonstrate strong writing, speaking, and listening skills. These skills are game changers for employees with strong technical skills, since their work often impacts members of other teams, technical and non-technical, across the company. Critical thinking. Assess a situation and determine whether or not to ask for help, seek additional information, or forge ahead. Recognize when to “pull the cord” and stop the bus. Ownership. When taking on a project, own it from start to finish. Be reliable and know what needs to be done to complete the task, project, or initiative, whether alone or as a member of a team. Leadership. Act as leader, with or without the title. Recognize that leadership lies in how you behave and how you conduct yourself as much as it does in the title that you hold. Creative problem solving. Enjoy solving problems and doing so in creative ways, especially when resources may be constrained, time short, and expectations high. Self-directed learning. Own professional learning and stay up-to-date on new trends in the field. Participate in ongoing learning through online and in-person options, and be willing to share what you’ve learned with colleagues. Curiosity. Get stumped, but never get overwhelmed. When stuck, turn to personal and professional learning networks to problem solve. Failure is a part of the learning process. Collaboration. Contribute to larger projects and meet game-changing goals. View Collaboration as a key part of the job, especially when it comes to achieving outcomes. High threshold for uncertainty. Be comfortable with the uncertainty that often accompanies problem solving, innovative and creative work. Uncertainty is what drives leaders to seek answers and solve problems. Recognize that setbacks and dead-ends are part of the process.

Here are a few that I support: Collaboration: Padlet, TodaysMeet, Educlipper Creativity: Google Draw, Canva, Pixlr Express Critical Thinking: Kidblog, Breakout EDU Communication: Remind, Google Classroom

a Professional Learning Community is "a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students."

A PLC is made up of "a school's professional staff members who continuously seek to find answers through inquiry and act on their learning to improve student learning.

Teachers who work in more supportive environments become more effective at raising student achievement on standardized tests over time than do teachers who work in less supportive environments.

1. Value Parent Voice During the Conference: Start conferences by having parents share their impressions of how school is going for their child. Ask them to share what is working well for their child, what they see their child struggling with, and whether they have any specific questions they’d like answered during the conference. To save time, you can have parents answer these questions in writing before the conference. Showing parents that you value their expertise sets the stage for true collaboration. Hearing parents talk about their observations and concerns allows you an opportunity to assess the most productive direction for the conference. Beyond: Draw upon parents’ expertise throughout the year. If you’re struggling with a student, talk to his parents and don’t be afraid to ask for advice by asking questions such as, “Does this ever happen at home? What helps the situation?” True collaboration means learning from each other; building relationships with parents can help students receive better support at home and school. 2. Set Goals During the Conference: After having parents share their impressions of how school is going for their student, I shared my observations, student work, and assessment data. After looking at the information gathered from both home and school, I found success using this sheet to assess students’ progress and set goals. Sometimes I didn’t have enough time to fill in the sheet as I talked with families, so I jotted down quick notes during the conference and added more details later. Sharing the written record of the conference with parents helped to summarize our discussion and held us accountable for following through with action steps. Beyond: Revisit the action steps that were mutually agreed upon at the conference. Before winter break, consider sending home a copy of the action steps and having students work with their families to self-assess their progress towards their goals.

Think of SEL as an aspiration, not an intervention.

Describe SEL in positive terms.

Be skeptical of metrics.

As time is such a valuable resource its allocation to particular aspects of teaching and learning signifies their value. If we give time to content and memorisation of facts, we signal to our students that this is what we value. Likewise, if we remind our students that time is short and work must be completed quickly we should not be surprised when our students see tasks as work to be done rather than learning to be mastered. A more effective distribution of our time will see students being given time to think deeply and truly engage with the problems they are asked to solve.

The importance of these soft-skills including important aspects of socio-emotional learning, creativity and even critical thinking are often not given the time they deserve.

Ritchhart (2015) quotes research that reveals the power of wait time and thinking time with the quality and quantity of student thinking increasing by 300% to 700% when additional time is given to thinking within class discussion. Wait time or thinking time combined with strategies such as those from ‘Making Thinking Visible’ signify to students that what is wanted is not a speedy response but a well considered one. Wait time and thinking time according to Ritchhart combat the habit many students develop of guessing what the teacher wants as a response.