Students Taking Charge

"The important thing is to keep your mind continually open to change and be willing to shift some of your beliefs as to what the teaching an learning process could look like." -Nancy Sulla 

While I didn't plan it this way, the book ended up being the perfect book to read after Understanding the Digital Generation.  The first book helped me understand the why change is necessary.  This book helped me understand how educators might make the shift in their classrooms.

Sulla does an excellent job taking theories and showing how to apply them into the classroom.  I had always considered myself open to new ideas and as someone who had a good vision of what the 21st century classroom could look like.  After reading her book, my vision has broadened immensely.  

Throughout the book Nancy walks the readers through the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused classroom.  The book is filled with practical examples and  helped me see how this might look in classrooms from Kindergarten through 12th grade.  Sulla helps the readers understand how to design an innovative flexible learning environment that engages all participants in academically rigorous content while building greater  student responsibility and ownership in their learning.  The author advocates empowering students through problem-based learning and differentiation in a learning environment where students pose questions and then collaborate to actively seek answers.  In this classroom  technology is used as a tool throughout the day to gather information, collaborate with fellow learners and experts both within and outside the school walls, and generate product.

If you have been struggling with creating a mental image of a 21st century classroom or how to get started, then this book is for you.  

"Shifting your belief system is not an easy process; it requires unlearning some of what you've learned in the past"  -Nancy Sulla 

This book is part of my Book a Month Challenge.  

Understanding the Digital Generation

This book came to me at the perfect time.  I found myself searching for ways I could effectively convey the need for some changes that were being implemented.  I believe very much in starting with the why when addressing change. Our primary and most important reason to change is to meet the needs of our students in order to ensure all students enjoy thriving, productive lives in a future they create. (Lewisville ISD vision statement)

I decided to embrace some of the things that I learned about digital learners when writing this blog post.  Since many digital leaners prefer to start with an image before moving to the text, receiving information from hyperlinks to digital sources, and want to have choice in how they access information, I created this post using Thinglink.  

If you would like some order to the image, below is the key so you know what each symbol means.

Green bullet:  Important quotes from the book
Heart:  My reflections on my learning
Exclamation point:  Additional resources and information I found while I explored the concepts in the book

This post is part of my Book A Month Challenge

Creativity and Education: Why it Matters

Does Creativity Matter?

After hearing Sir Ken Robbins speak about creativity in schools and reading Daniel Pink's book A Whole New World, I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on the idea of creativity in schools.  In my research, I found that Adobe recently published a study entitled Creativity and Education: Why it Matters?  See the infographic at the bottom of this post for key findings from this study.

One finding of the study found that 88% of participants agree creativity should be built into education curriculum.  Many educators point to our country's over emphasis on standardized testing as the cause of a decreased focus on creativity. However, with a growing interest in a more constructivist approach to education through inquiry based instruction structures such as Project Based Learning or Problem Based Learning, there has been a renewed dialogue in the importance of creativity in schools.  One aspect of this debate that I struggle with is if educators truly believe that meaningful and relevant work not only provides opportunity for creativity but leads to profound learning, why then do we allow our instruction to be boxed in by state testing?  If we truly believe creativity requires higher level thinking skills, wouldn't our students do well on standardized tests?  So, my question is do we truly believe creativity matters? If so, what are we going to do about it?


How do you provide opportunities for creativity in your classroom?  

Innovation in Practice

“Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation.” These words from Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen have had a huge impact on my approach this year.  I strive to help motivate myself, my colleagues, and the principals and teachers whom I serve to focus on our district vision as we begin our work.  In my opinion having a future-focused vision is an excellent way for us to frame our work and motivate ourselves for embracing the change that innovation will bring.

While I have to admit that at times I have become discouraged, I have strived to consider innovative approaches in working within the confines of our existing bureaucracy.  For example, our team has been told that we are to wait for requests from campuses.  As a result, I initially felt that I was being more reactive than proactive.  As I have moved forward, I have found ways to work with others that I believe are innovative.  I developed a platform for third grade teachers from across our district to collaborate so they could write common story problems for students.  I then partnered with the math curriculum supervisor to share this platform with district elementary teachers at all grade levels.

Our team received a request to lead a book study on a campus.  A teammate and I then had a coaching conversation with the principal.  We collaborated with the campus leadership team to transform the book study request into an opportunity to build capacity with teachers as they begin the process of learning walks on their campus.  The information in the book would become a “needs to know” rather than a mandated book study.

One area that I need to grow in is setting aside office time and focusing on developing FedEx projects.  I have gotten caught up in the day-to-day requests from campuses.  I am not setting aside as much time for designing innovative ways to move forward as I feel is necessary. 

Our Iceberg is Melting

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomwatt/5685961533/

I have recently read the book Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter.  It begins with a fable of a penguin colony living peacefully on an iceberg in Antarctica.  Over time, Fred, an "unusually curious and observant bird," discovers a potentially devastating problem threatening their home, one which will forever challenge their survival and possibly cause their demise (Kotter 9.)

Through this fable, the reader meets a cast of characters including Fred, Alice, Louis, Buddy, the Professor, and NoNo. Some of these characters are willing to step up and look for solutions while others serve as naysayers refusing to believe the observations Fred has collected.

Is our education iceberg melting?  Judge for yourself.  Here are some observations that might help guide you.

Sugata Mitra's new experiments in self-teaching

Be sure to watch until the end of the video as Sugata Mitra shares his image of classrooms of the future.  Also, check out the article below that shares the story of how children in Ethiopia are beginning to learn to read without the support of a teacher.

Given Tablets but No Teachers Ethiopian Teachers Teach Themselves

Emerging technologies are exciting and will have a profound impact on our society.  If we do not pay attention and change with them, however, they can lead to our demise--just ask Blockbuster, Tower Records, or Circuit City.  Technology is just one of the many changes education must embrace.

How will you react?  If you are concerned about the observations you are collecting and want to succeed in the time of change, I would highly suggest reading Our Iceberg is Melting with your learning community as a first step in building capacity for change.

This post is part of my Book A Month Challenge

Kotter, J. P., & Rathgeber, H. (2006). Our iceberg is melting, changing and succeeding under any conditions. St Martins Pr.

Collaboration and Team Work

One of the things that I am most excited about with my new position is the opportunities for collaboration.  For the past two years as an instructional coach, I have had many opportunities to collaborate with teachers; however, my opportunities to collaborate with other coaches has been somewhat limited.  

My most immediate opportunity to collaborate will be with the coaches on the Central Zone elementary team.  Our team works well together and does a good job communicating and setting collaborative goals. 

As we began the year, we visited every campus and met with the instructional leadership team during the first few weeks of school.  Our team then made it our goal to visit every elementary campus in our zone to introduce ourselves to all staff by the end of October. It was important to us that all staff members had the opportunity to meet with us.  While we initially asked to meet with teams of teachers individually, a few campuses asked us to be introduced at a faculty meeting.  We have worked diligently to develop relationships with teachers and administrators.  We keep track of the projects we do on each campus and review them.  When we see that we have not received requests from a campus, we follow up with the administrators to see how we might increase collaboration with them.  We have developed a survey that we send to teachers and administrators and have utilized this data to modify our approach as we move forward.

One opportunity for collaboration that I really want to focus on this year is collaborating with coaches outside of my team.  During the first few days of bootcamp, it was wonderful.  Everyone was eager to share ideas and we really build some strong bonds during our coaching workshop.  However, once we were assigned to our PBL groups, the collaboration and sharing seemed to stop.  I have found that many of us are "just a bit" competitive and everyone wanted their PBL presentation to be amazing.  The whole group collaborative spirit didn't seem to return to its full impact as we moved into our zone teams.  
I am going to work hard to find opportunities to collaborate with other coaches.  

I hope to continue to collaborate with the curriculum department.  I feel it is importnat to develop strong relationships with each of the curriculum supervisors.  In order to innovate instruction, we need to make sure we focus on the stage 1 curriculum documents in Eduphoria.  I have learned much from my involvement as a curriculum writer over the past several years and I hope that my understanding of the K-5 curriculum be an asset to my team.

I am excited to once again have a team and to be able to learn much from my colleagues.