Rediscovering Modeling in Professional Learning

Teachers? How many of your PD presenters were willing to come into your classroom and demonstrate what you’re learning live with students in their natural element?

Principals? If a teacher you’re evaluating needs support in instructional or classroom management strategies, do you feel equipped to show them how it’s done?

PD Presenters? Do you ever get the opportunity to teach alongside someone who is learning from you?

These are the moves that make a difference. I’ve recently been reminded of this.

Since September, I’ve been involved in a new professional learning model that is built around job-embedded learning opportunities for one main reason.

To see if it works better. And it does.

Bad professional development is the worst-kept secret in education. I’ve attended them. Heck, I’ve given them. I’ve been called in to present some tech tool for a half-day to some captive staff and never heard from any of them again. Now, I’ve been told I put on a pretty good show. We laughed some. I used some fancy strategies.

But, I doubt they learned a thing. And what’s worse? Everyone seemed cool with that.

Well, our team stopped being cool with that. If it’s worth training, it’s worth putting a structure in place that will actually impact teacher and student experiences. And it required re-discovering modeling in the classroom.

And so, the former HS geometry teacher who’s last year in the classroom was 2014 with mostly 10th and 11th graders is going into early elementary classrooms and teaching math.

I promise, the students aren’t the only one learning something. Because I’ve discovered a paradox. In many ways, good teaching is good teaching. And in other ways, the early elementary classroom is a whole different world than the 10th grade classroom.

It isn’t always pretty. It is NEVER perfect. But it is almost always productive. And that is a massive step in the right direction from the standard remembrances of PD’s past.

Because here’s the reality. Can an elementary teacher learn from a HS teacher? Yes. But talk only goes so far. The PD presenter might say, “Your students need more opportunities to respond during your whole group time”. It is perfectly reasonable for the learner to say, “Can you show me what that looks like?” And instead of a cheeky demo on-the-spot, you make an appointment and a plan and go and teach that teacher’s students.

The feedback has been overwhelming. And the impact on teacher practice has followed suit.

And the stated difference in the feedback is the modeling. That has changed the game.

So, PD presenters: What options do you have to connect with folks you are presenting to? How might you get into classrooms to demonstrate?

Principals: How does your credibility spike when you can own a classroom for a half-hour to demonstrate good practice?

Teachers: If you have a trouble area in your practice, invite someone in.

It’s high time we start holding our professional learning to a higher standard.

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Effective collaboration means embracing dissent

As professionals, we give ourselves and each other a lot of credit for being good collaborators.

We do this because there is a notion that collaboration is what professionals do. It’s the Law of Detachment, right? If we are professionals, then we collaborate. We are professionals. Therefore, we collaborate.

Except that, as with most things, it isn’t that simple. For starters, basic professionalism requires that people play nice with each other which is related to, but different than from effective collaboration. Second, collaboration is a skill. It must be practiced. There’s explicit expectations. It’s more than just sharing space while working.

Finally, and most important, collaboration is going to require people to be faced with dissent — or at least be willing to do so.

And not simply because it’s polite to do so, but because the dissent makes your final product better. And the goal of collaboration is to allow multiple people to create a product that is better. By better, I mean a product that will have be more effective, efficient, more smoothly implemented and long-term sustainable.

And the stakes are rising. These last six months here in the US have ramped up a lot of frustration among educators of all kinds. The election and related sound bites matched with different changes at the state levels (here is Michigan, we’ve got state-level assessment changes, new science standards, new student literacy laws… just for starters) are generating many, many, many opportunities for meaningful collaboration.

The tricky part is that when we are frustrated and stressed (and many of us are), we don’t want dissent. It FEELS a heck of a lot more productive to knock out a plan amidst conversation where everyone is (more-or-less) on the same page to begin with.

But, in so doing, we lose the chance for the dissent (which shows up in the form of “yeah, but”). And the dissent is how the thoughts go from ideas to effective solutions.

Put another way, Michael Fullan says:

“Defining effective leadership as appreciating resistance is another one of those remarkable discoveries: dissent is seen as a potential source of new ideas and breakthroughs. The absence of conflict can be a sign of decay.”

– Michael Fullan (From Leading In A Culture of Change, 2001, pg 74.)

Groups of like-minded people are often biased. They often have blind spots built around their common appreciation of the issue in question. They often have a hard time empathizing with people who either disagree or are agnostic to the issue in question. This is generally true regardless of the group or their nature of their agreement.

Put specifically, folks problem-solving around inquiry and PBL need explicit instruction advocates on their team to create effective solutions. Standards-based grading folks need to keep their traditional-grading colleagues at an arm’s reach. You want to do a better job of supporting those unrepresented students, your problem-solving group better include some folks who think those kinds of supports shouldn’t exist. You want to create that maker space, go find the person who thinks makerspaces are a waste of time and resources. Progressives and conservatives need each other to navigate these modern issues (that extends beyond the realm of education, by the way).

It’s not the most comfortable, particularly when the issues are charged with emotion. It may not even be productive at first. We need to learn to frame these conversations differently.

Statements like “we want to create a makerspace” might need to become “We want to create a more effective use of the media center. Here are some ideas we have.”

There will be misunderstandings, some of those will be ongoing, and possibly loud. But in the end, it opens the door for a better solution. A solution with more roadblocks anticipated and prepared for. A solution with a broader embrace of the realities of the implementation. A solution that wider appreciation for the struggles of a diverse group of people who will be operating within the solution.

In short, a better solution.

And it begins with embracing each other for the value we bring to the solution, particularly the folks who say and think things we disagree with because you want those folks to show us all of the ways our plan is ineffective. Expose our bias. Reveal our blind spots. We all have them. And if they don’t get exposed during the planning process, chances are when the solutions are rolled out, they will be exposed then. And your window for that solution might close with the problem still the problem.

And once we’ve made the decision that our chief goal is creating meaningful, lasting solutions we’ll need to learn to identify those who disagree with you not as folks to be avoided, but rather folks who are essential to the problem-solving process.

The Value of Opening Your Doors

Have you ever heard a teacher say something like “Yeah, you know administrators make all these rules and policies, then I close my door and do whatever I think is best”?

Ever heard that? Or something that basically means the same thing?

There’s a lot of different directions that could take, of course, with that as a starting point, but I want to focus on “closing the doors”.

Let’s look at this at several levels. Often “closing the doors” represents an attitude as much as it describes a physical state-of-being. “Closed doors” implies that we don’t want people seeing us do what we do. (Or perhaps, at least, only certain people.)

But it also creates risk. “Closed door” teachers often don’t see their classroom practice compared to other teachers. This stifles innovation, collaboration, public relations and other essential components of schools in search of consistent improvement.

It follows, then, that one good first step toward improving innovation, collaboration and public relations in a school is to open the doors. Let teachers explore each others work, let the community see what goes on. And not just see, but explore, participate, and engage.

Yesterday I saw that attitude on display at Cavanuagh STEAM in Lansing, MI (follow them on Twitter @CavanaughSTEAM ).

 

School hasn’t started yet. It begins the Tuesday after Labor Day, but already the doors were open, the teachers were ready to give the community a chance to explore their classrooms.  Parents were given a chance help shape the direction of the projects their students will be completing and provide opportunities for authentic audiences for student work. One kindergarten teacher had a small block-based  maker activity ready for the incoming kindergartners. She reminded me as I chatted with her prior to the event that this was many of her students’ first school experience. She clearly wanted to make a good first impression.

The event, “Family STEAM night” gets repeated 4 times per year. After the first one, subsequent evenings have a strong emphasis on showcasing excellent student work and giving each teacher a chance to highlight some of the outstanding experiences their students explore in the classrooms.

Their doors are open and they invite the community to come in and join them. Sadly, I had to leave before I got to see what it looks like when they do. I look forward to the next Family STEAM night when I can see the halls filled with parents and students getting to see first hand what it means to be a student at @CavanaughSTEAM.

Simple Leadership Advice

I’m going to attempt to model this my internalization of a bit of advice that I received recently.

Leadership is about trust. You want your people to trust you?

Speak plainly and keep your word.

By speak plainly, I mean say what you mean in a way that designed to be heard and fully-processed by those who hear it. Trust corrodes when those you are leading feel the need to constantly read between the lines of your statements.

By keep your word, I mean if you commit to doing something, then do it.

The advice I received was from Mark Wilson, but his was directed at goal-setting. Goals should be simple and easily understood. He didn’t mean that they should be low-level goals. But they should be able to be stated simply.

All of our students will be safe in our school.

All of our freshman will successfully complete all of their classes.

All of our new students will get a complete orientation to our school community before they attend a single class.

These are not-simple goals, but they are stated simply. That makes them easier to follow. Easier to implement. Easier to assess.

And it also makes it easier to keep your word. Here’s what I said I would do. Did I do it?

Well, if your goals sound more like this…

“To support the ever-dynamic pressures of a 21st century global economy, we will consistently find new and innovative learning experiences to blend with classical best practices to provide the highest-quality academic pathways for our diverse learners to produce successful work- and college-ready graduates.”

… then it becomes quite a challenge to evaluate whether or not you did what you said you do. This goal is not necessarily more complicated than “All of our freshman will successfully complete all of their classes”, but it is much less likely to become the unifying slogan around which we focus our energy. And isn’t that the point of stating the goal?

 

To close, all of this talk about speaking plainly has me thinking of this delightful scene from Shrek the Third

 

 

Reflections on #mindshare16

After the first day of MACUL’s Leadership Mindshare, Mark Smith (@smithstem) and I reflected on the somewhat unique structure that was on display. “As they started unpacking their idea, I told them, ‘We’re not going to have another conference. We just don’t need another conference,” Mark told me. He didn’t explicitly describe what he was trying to avoid, but whatever it was, it worked.

The goals of the event were to bring experienced leaders together with novice and aspiring educational leaders and then make the open sharing of ideas, effective networking, problem-solving, and inspirational story-telling a built-in part of the experience. The designers of the two-day event predicted quite accurately that these were the things that folks would not need to be coerced into doing. These are things we attendees did with great enthusiasm.

Purposeful video sharing new hire info to families and Twitter info! #mindshare16 from @GustafsonBrad pic.twitter.com/DEhM4mHVyq

— Derek Braman (@DerekBraman) August 5, 2016

There were some keynote-ish presentations from Mark Wilson (@markwilsonGA), Dr. Brad Gustafson (@GustafsonBrad), and Amber Teamann (@8amber8).

And between those short presentations, the presenters mingled among the breakout conversations, which were designed to revolve around the themes of the presentations.

“Sometimes we need to innovate around the edge of an idea or tradition.” @hs_math_phys just dropped a leadership truth-bomb. #Mindshare16

— Dr. Brad Gustafson (@GustafsonBrad) August 5, 2016

The balance was a powerful piece. We’ve long since realized that PD’s where we sit and listen for extended periods of time, but at the same time, there was a limit on the productivity of the smaller 6-7 person breakout discussions. There was time when we needed to come back together and hear some stories and advice, laugh and think.

The structures were varied…

What makes initiatives stick? We asked the inspiring leaders at #mindshare16 https://t.co/OkJvAwBLyo

— Dr. Brad Gustafson (@GustafsonBrad) August 4, 2016

… and full use was made of the beautiful room we were in.

Answering “What makes it stick?” Is not easy when we are looking down at you! #mindshare16 pic.twitter.com/5rikFiOpE9

— Andrew Broere (@AndrewBroere) August 4, 2016

 

Multi-level collaboration! #mindshare16 # ciesctweets pic.twitter.com/QXqi4GZ7qo

— Ronda Eshleman (@RondaEshleman) August 4, 2016

And in so doing, not only were we discussing in ways that were unusually high-engagement considering the standards of most educator PD, but we also saw some excellent strategies modeled — an important understanding for school leaders who have the stereotype of boring staff meetings.

Here’s a small version of Socratic circles I got to be a part of.

Finding ways to have effective, focused conversation about empowering staff, students, and families! #mindshare16 pic.twitter.com/aIbI7TGcyq

— Derek Braman (@DerekBraman) August 5, 2016

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up, but in the end, there were many take- aways for me.

The value of influencing despite authority. My role currently includes ZERO authority, but many, many opportunities for influence. The goal is to be able to influence people toward powerful student-centered teaching and when growth is needed, I don’t have the ability to mandate anything like a traditional building leader would. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no opportunity. Do I believe in my ideas enough to sell them to people who could just as easily tell me to flake off?

We need to innovate the right way. Given the constant flow of new ideas, new structures, new devices and apps, there is a certain value to being able to reassess the experiences our students have in our schools. But innovation is an investment. And thereby a sacrifice. You sacrifice a known quantity for an unknown. You invest time and resources in hopes that there’s an improvement toward a greater goal. That makes it a risk. And you can’t simply rack up losses in the name of innovation. Innovation needs to be strategic, controlled, and focused on areas that serve to improve the school community.

Everywhere you are, someone’s been there before and been successful. Find them and learn from them. Everywhere you’ve been, someone’s there right now and could use someone to learn from. Let them find you.

In the end, I suspect there were a lot of folks whose feelings could be summed up pretty well in 140 characters or less.

So thankful to attend #mindshare16 On Wed night, I was thinking why did I sign up, 2 much 2 do! Right now, my idea list is spilling over!

— Brandi Mendham Ph.D. (@brandimendham) August 5, 2016