the most important factor in determining whether a school is a setting in which children grow and learn is whether the school is a setting in which adults grow and learn.
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Faculty Collegiality - 0 views
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school buildings were designed to enable the supervision and orderly movement of students. The egg-carton model of school architecture and organization prevails even today. Individual classrooms are adjacent to one another with parallel doors facing a hall (not unlike prison cellblocks).
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The major hurdle is the history and ethos of the teaching profession. "Teaching is a very autonomous experience," says Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, author of The Good High School. "But the flip side of autonomy is that teachers experience loneliness and isolation." In too many schools, teachers close their classroom door and spend the majority of their working hours with children, only talking hurriedly with other adults over a break, during lunch, or while standing at the copying machine. This is not terribly surprising since many educators chose to enter the profession to work with students, not with other adults
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What can school leaders do to ensure that their faculty members, including themselves, continue to grow and learn? It is the responsibility of school leaders to create a setting in which adults learning with and from one another becomes the norm.
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Collaboration focuses only on the product; collegiality focuses on the product and what the participants gained from their collaboration.
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"Many studies have shown that social connections with co-workers are a strong predictor — some would say the strongest predictor — of job satisfaction. People with friends at work are happier at work.
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the goal of school leaders is to create a setting in which everyone grows. When this takes place, happiness will follow.
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the work of Roland Barth. As a metaphor, he cites the instructions that are given to passengers about how to proceed when using an oxygen mask on an airplane. We are always told, he notes, that the adults should place the oxygen mask on their own faces before tending to a child or an elderly person. While this sequence is counter-intuitive to our desire to take care of those who need our help, the reality is that without giving ourselves oxygen first, we will not be able to help anyone else
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One way to address this anxiety is to "ask teachers to observe a peer with the goal of finding one thing they like and one idea they'll use,
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In a collegial setting, teachers share their expertise with colleagues and further everyone's learning.
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an elderly person. While this sequence is counter-intuitive to our desire to take care of those who need our help, the reality is that without giving ourselves oxygen first, we will not be able to help anyone else. We must take care of ourselves in order to be able to take care of others. Teachers teaching one another. This doesn't necessarily mean that a teacher stands in front of peers and imparts expertise. Although that can happen, the interaction that takes place at faculty and committee meetings offers richer opportunities for teachers to teach their colleagues. Sharing what did and didn't work yesterday, reviewing action re
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Teaching a class, laudable as that may be, only satisfies this need if the administrator's teaching responsibilities cause the faculty to view him or her as someone who understands and appreciates teaching, rather than as "an administrator who teaches."
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Faculty committees should be a school's R&D department, a place where academic research and development takes place.
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First, participation should be voluntary. That may be hard for school heads to accept, but my experience is that making attendance optional works better. Only a minority of the faculty is likely to join, but because those who are attending choose to participate, the dialogue is far more likely to be open and positive.
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If students are to grow and learn, their teachers must grow and learn; if teachers are to grow and learn, their administrators must grow and learn as well. School leaders must be learners. We must invest in ourselves, too.
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It may be difficult to admit that you don't know the answer or that you'd do something differently next time, but it's important to do so. This is part of the Make New Mistakes philosophy noted in Chapter 1. Sharing that philosophy with staff members and parents helps set the expectation that everyone is expected to learn — and that learning can be messy.
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Listening well includes structuring in designated times when you have to listen and also ensuring that you listen to opinions you don't want to hear. That is neither easy nor pleasant, but it is necessary
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"360-degree evaluation for growth." The term "360 degrees" captures the fact that feedback is generated from all sectors of the organization, not just from above. The term "growth" indicates that the data came directly to me, for use in my reflection and growth, rather than to a third party for the purposes of evaluation. Many organizations offer this service, and the format is generally the same. To start, I reflected on my strengths and weaknesses. Then online feedback on the same items was collected from several dozen people whom I nominated, people from all 360 degrees of the school, from trustees to staff to students' parents. A "coach" working for the company that conducted the survey then led me through an analysis of my profile, paying special attention to how my self-perceptions did and did not contrast with how others saw me.
The Flipped Classroom - YouTube - 0 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16
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The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 2 views
www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php
PBL differentiation effective teams tech integration teacher retention science learning gap' meetings teacher mentorship mentors
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1. What makes a team effective? 2. A new perspective on closing the achievement gap 3. Project-based learning 101 4. A school network experiments with high tech and student choice 5. Opening up a daily 40-minute block in a North Carolina high school 6. How to hold onto high-quality new teachers 7. The effect of reading about the struggles of accomplished scientists
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Project Aristotle, as it was dubbed, found that some team characteristics that seemed intuitively important – members sharing interests and hobbies, having similar educational backgrounds, socializing after hours – didn’t correlate with team success.
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Then Project Aristotle began looking at group norms – the culture of unwritten rules that guide people when they collaborate – and hit pay dirt. It turned out that two group norms were shared by virtually all of Google’s most effective teams: - Equal air time – In teams that got the best results, members participated roughly the same amount during meetings. “As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,” said Google researcher Anita Woolley. “But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.” - Interpersonal sensitivity – Effective team members had the ability to intuit how colleagues felt by their tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues. The members of less-effective teams were less tuned in to their teammates’ feelings.
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The behaviors that create psychological safety – conversational turn-taking and empathy – are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they sometimes matter more.”
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He believes there are two “ubiquitous features of conventional school environments” that trigger and reinforce the psychological factors noted above, augment the disadvantages with which minority students enter school, and feed the peer pressures to disengage from schooling – all of which creates a self-reinforcing downward spiral of achievement. The two features are: - Students being given work that is too difficult for their current academic level; - Students getting low grades on their work rather than frequent, individualized, objective feedback.
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“The hypothesis,” say Yeh, “is that the conventional school system is inadvertently structured in a way that fosters disengagement, thereby reducing effort, which depresses achievement and grades, causing demoralization, which further reduces engagement and achievement.” The process kicks in around third grade, when struggling students begin to view themselves as intellectually inferior because their grades are lower than their classmates’, contributing to decreased self-efficacy and increasing passivity; it accelerates in middle school, at which point low grades strongly correlate with eventually dropping out.
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What is to be done? Yeh’s theory is that by flipping the two pernicious factors, schools can turn the downward spiral into a virtuous upward cycle of achievement. That involves: - Adjusting task difficulty for low-performing students to an appropriate level of challenge so that if they apply effective effort, they will be successful. - Rapid performance feedback with respect to a standard, not other students.
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He cites positive research on two programs using this approach – Reading Assessment and Math Assessment – and reports on a systematic study comparing different interventions aimed at closing the achievement gap – charter schools, voucher programs, an additional year of school, various high-quality pre-school programs, full-day kindergarten, class size reduction, value-added assessment, summer school, teacher salary incentives, teacher experience, teacher PD, longer school day, computer instruction, tutoring, and school reform. Rapid assessment is dramatically more successful at raising student achievement than any of the others.
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by far the most powerful and cost-effective intervention is to adjust task difficulty and provide students with prompt, objective feedback on their efforts.
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“When students engage in project-based learning over the course of their time in school,” says John Larmer (Buck Institute for Education) in this article in Educational Leadership, “there’s an accumulating effect. They feel empowered. They see that they can make a difference.” In addition, they’re more likely to acquire the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed for college and career success.
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the key elements of project-based learning, carefully planned and skillfully managed by the teacher:
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four ways that project-based learning can go off the rails and not fulfill its potential: - Mistake #1: Using materials that aren’t truly project-based; beware of PBL-lite! - Mistake #2: Providing inadequate training and support for teachers; one-shot workshops are not enough. - Mistake #3: Over-using projects in the curriculum; basic skills can still be taught in a more conventional format. - Mistake #4: Implementing project-based learning on an ad hoc basis; to get the long-term effect, students need to engage in high-quality projects on a regular basis through their school years.
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AltSchools encourage students to dive into topics they’re passionate about, with teachers tracking everything they do using classroom video cameras and elaborate K-8 databases. The schools make a point of shaping diverse student bodies by giving scholarships to students whose parents can’t afford the $30,000-a-year tuition.
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We are raising a generation that will have the sum of human knowledge at their fingertips, for every minute of their life, so clearly education needs to change to accommodate that.”
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“Basically, what we have told teachers is we have hired you for your creative teacher brains, and anytime you are doing something that doesn’t require your creative teacher brain that a computer could be doing as well as or better than you, then a computer should do it.”
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To a computer measuring keystrokes, a student zoning out because he’s bored is indistinguishable from one who is moved by her book to imagine a world of her own.”
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“People are very focused on the algorithm. But equally important is the quality of the materials” – the clarity of the math questions and the worthiness of the readings being presented on students’ computer screens. Willingham also notes that teachers in high-tech classrooms often have to prepare two lesson plans – one that uses the technology and one for when the technology breaks down.
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Hire capable, well-matched teachers. Detailed advertisements and postings are important to giving candidates a clear idea of each position, says Clement. She also recommends longer interviews with more candidates, enlisting experienced teachers to take part in interviews, and gathering information on candidates from multiple sources.
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Provide continuous professional development. This should include induction that eases new teachers into the demands of the full job – orientation before classes begin, well-matched mentors through the first five years, and ongoing PD specific to rookies’ needs.
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Use colleagues to provide feedback. Traditional “gotcha” teacher evaluation has rarely been helpful in supporting new teachers, says Clement. Trained mentors can provide non-evaluative feedback that really makes a difference, perhaps with a firewall between their observations and the formal evaluation process. Of course it’s important that incoming teachers know the district’s criteria for effective teaching and are familiar with how administrators will assess their work.
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Understand millennials. “This generation of teachers wants to network and have input,” says Clement. Most have a strong preference for electronic interaction, and administrators and colleagues should meet young teachers where they are tech-wise and provide strong online resources.
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• Provide leadership opportunities. “While many new teachers are just surviving, others actively seek an avenue to truly make a difference,” says Clement. To find fulfillment in teaching and stay in the profession, they need to get involved in meaningful roles outside their classrooms. Some possibilities: speaking at induction ceremonies and serving on a welcome committee for the newest hires; leading book study groups; taking part in social service organizations on campus; and serving on curriculum committees
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students who read about scientists’ struggles, whether intellectual or personal, got better grades in science after reading the texts. The positive effect was most pronounced among students whose science grades were low before the experiment.
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Another finding: both before and after reading the texts, students who had a “growth” mindset (effort, not innate talent, determines success) tended to do better in science classes than students with a “fixed” mindset.
Zaption - Interact With Video - 0 views
What is Peer Instruction…in 2 mins - Turn to Your Neighbor: The Official Peer... - 1 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 01 Mar 16
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Extensions, Add Ons and Apps, Oh My! How to Utilize Google in Your Classroom | EdSurge ... - 0 views
www.edsurge.com/...ilize-google-in-your-classroom
flip teaching tech tools tech integration formative assessment extensions add ons apps
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Several great tools listed here for teachers to try in their classrooms. Newsela is great for humanities and the Easy BIb Add-On can be used in any class. Several video editing tools as well. "Easy Bib Bibliography Creator is an add-on that creates a guide within Google docs that allows you to search for books, journals, and websites to automatically generate citations in order to properly format them in MLA, Chicago and APA for a bibliography or a work cited page. (Show this one to your students writing research papers!)"