Our Iceberg is Melting

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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.  

Engaging Students: The Next Level of Working on the Work

"Rather than seeing schools as knowledge distribution systems, schools must be seen as knowledge work systems." (pg.9)

This book had a profound impact on how I view the role of educators and helped shape my understanding of the importance of focusing on working on the work. I found this study guide useful to frame my thinking as I read the book.

Schlechty defines student responses to a learning task as: (pg 16)

Engagement: (High Commitment/High Attention) The task is relevant and meaningful to the student and so the student is attentive, focused, and will persevere. This learner volunteers personal resources of time, effort and attention. 

Strategic Compliance: (Low Commitment/High Attention) The student is willing to do the work as long as extrinsic rewards (grades, class rank, college/career opportunities, parent approval) are present. Remove the reward and the student withdraws effort. This learner invest as much as is need to gain the reward.  (Question these students might ask:  Is this right?) 

Ritual Compliance: (Low Commitment/Low Attention) This student is compliant without engagement. They simply want to get it over so they can get out.   This learner generally requires supervision to get work completed. (Question students at this engagement level might ask:  Is this good enough to pass?)

Retreatism: (No Commitment/No Attention) The student is disengaged.  He/she sees no reward in the task and therefore abandons it.  Student is off task, but generally strives not to bring attention to themselves.  In my experience, these students might be observed fiddling with items in their desks, staring into space, or doodling.  When a teacher intervenes, these students may move to rebellion or ritual compliance.  However, these students often "fly under the radar."

Rebellion: This student is more active in their replacement activities than the retreating student. This student focuses attention on something else and is often seen as disruptive. 

I found the engagement profiles of a classroom extremely interesting,  especially the Engaged Classroom.  Even the engaged classroom is made up of students at various levels of engagement. The difference can be seen as one compares the profile of the Engaged Classroom, Well Managed Classroom, and the Pathological Classroom.

Schlechty’s comments about assessing engagement are particularly thought provoking as many schools build observation of student engagement into walkthroughs and teacher evaluation observations.  

• On task behavior can be confused with engagement. A teacher cannot judge engagement simply through observation. Has the student persisted? How committed is the student? Why is the student investing attention?
• Conversation with students is critical to uncover the level of engagement. This conversation only can happen if a trusting relationship has been built with students.

Schlechty states that "assessment of engagement are team efforts" and advocated collegial collaboration in gathering data to reveal patterns in engagement.  I believe that collegial conversations about engagement will have a profound impact on faculties, professional learning communities, and coaching activities. 

Above all, Schlechty advocates asking students questions routinely in order to gain feedback from them regarding the quality of work being provided to students:  

Here are some questions he suggests for an engagement conversation: (pg 28)

• Did you enjoy the class? What made it enjoyable? What would have increased the level of enjoyment?
• Did you find any part of the work difficult? If so what did you do? How do you feel about what you did?
• Do you think you learned anything from the work you were assigned that was worth while? What and why? How could I know what you learned?
• If you were to teach the class what kind of activities would you build in and why?

"The primary task of teachers is not to motivate students.  it is to design work they provide to student or to encourage students to undertake in ways that maximize the likelihood that the motives students bring to the work will be responded to and satisfied   The task is also to design the work in a way that minimized the likelihood that student motives will be frustrated or need to be suppressed." (pg. 81) 

The emphasis on designing rather than planning could provide teachers a clearer understanding that it is “what the student does” that produces the learning.

Some of Schlechty’s distinctions between designing and planning: (pg 48)

• Design begins with the needs of customers.  Plans begin with goals, objectives, activities.
• Design assumes divergence, disruption, and chaos.  Planning assumes convergence, linearity, and order.
• Design is expressive and embraces values and emotion.  Planning is instrumental and embraces deductive logic and rational analysis.
• Design seeks alternatives and invites invention.Planning seeks to limit alternatives and encourages conformance.
• Designers synthesize and unify.  Planners analyze and segment.

For teachers to be designers they need to know about their students….what motives they bring to the classroom.  This kind of work would suggest to me a high need for collaboration. Teachers collaborating in knowing students and informing each other about what they know. The creative process of design should be enhanced by teams through collaboration.

Teachers focused more on designing than planning will need reinforcement from principals and collaborative coaches. The questions that principals and/or coaches ask teachers can communicate the importance placed on student engagement. Here are some from Schlecty: (pg 133)

• Describe a successful unit of schoolwork that you provided your students.
• What portion of the students were engaged--- demonstrated attention and persistence and commitment? How did you determine the level of engagement?
• To what extent did the students learn what you wanted them to? How did you assess the results?
• What about the learning experience made it as engaging or discouraging engagement as it seemed to be?
• If you were to redesign this unit for the same group of students, what would you change? Why?

Each student learning activity should be a teacher learning activity.  Educators should be consistently learning about his/her students and alternating the next design based on that learning.  

As a coaches, we might consider the same question following a classroom observation or professional development session.  I can ask myself "What did I learn about the students, teachers, staff?"  "How will that learning impact the design of my next interaction with the teacher(s) and staff?"   When we focus on working on the work rather than "fixing the people" our efforts will be maximized.  

More information about Student Engagement and Design Qualities can be found here.

This post it part of my Book-A-Month Challenge.  

The Active Learner: How Are You Keeping Up?

My school has to keep up with me, not the other way around.  -The Voice of the Active Learner.

When I walked the stage and collected my undergraduate diploma, I thought "I'll never have to read another book again."   Seriously, that thought entered my mind.  I mistakenly thought I had learned everything I needed to know in order to be an effective educator.  I quickly learned that if I wanted to keep up, I needed to become a lifelong learner. 

Reading educational related journals and books (yes, books do still exist) as well as attending district workshops and regional conferences have been a great ways for me to stay up with current trends in education.  Another way I am striving to keep up is by becoming a connected educator.  By plugging myself into the collective learning of educators across the world via Twitter, MOOCs, Google Hangout, following numerous blogs thanks to Google Reader, etc...I have grown so much more than I had ever dreamed.  

The world around us is changing at lightning speed.  It is easy to get overwhelmed.  Setting aside time to checkout Twitter, reading  a book, or viewing a webinar not only benefits me, but the teachers and students in my district.  I know I still have much to learn, but I am no longer standing still.

How are you keeping up?

Teacher Leaders

On October 12, 2012 my colleagues and I were invited to present our work at the NCTM Regional Conference in Dallas during Math-A-Rama.

Kellee Stephens, an amazing Lewisville ISD teacher leader, facilitates our session.

When we presented previously, I had just moved into the role of an instructional coach.  At that time, I thought that my role as a coach required me to be an expert in everything.  When we planned our presentation in 2009, I have to admit that I took the lead--not because my colleagues were incapable, but because I thought that, as a coach, I was supposed to "take charge."

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to learn alongside many colleagues including Kellee Stephens.   Together we have deepened our understanding of math content and developed our instructional beliefs grounded in theory.  I have learned so much from our relationship, but the most powerful lesson I have learned from Kellee is the importance in supporting teacher leaders.

My colleague Christy and I, both coaches, encouraged Kellee to take the lead during our presentation this year and we took supporting roles.  To say Kellee did a fabulous job would be a complete understatement.  She was in her element, speaking with such passion about her students work and the joy she got from seeing the connections they were making.  Our colleagues who attended our session asked her many questions and she earned rave reviews.  Three years ago when we first presented this, I would have thought I was not living up to my "position" of a coach if I was not leading the session.  Now I understand that I don't lose my "status" by empowering others.     

I am reminded of John Maxwell's Law of Empowerment.  He writes "to lead others well, we must help them to reach their potential.  That means being on their side, encouraging them, giving them power, and helping them to succeed."  (Maxwell 146)  Kellee is a passionate educator who has developed into an influential teacher leader.   I am looking forward to collaborating with her and doing everything I can to support her as she continues her journey as an instructional leader.

In what ways are you empowering teacher leaders?

John C Mazwell, (2007). The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. 2nd ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Let Me Count the Ways

Shifting the Monkey

As part of my involvement with my PLN at #txed, we participated in a book study of Shifting the Monkey by Todd Whitaker.  Todd, very active on Twitter, faithfully dropped in our weekly chats about the book.  I am constantly amazed of the connections that can be made via social media outlets like Twitter.  Being able to interact with an author while reading their book had a profound impact on my learning.  Todd is very gracious and has recently became an advocate of using Twitter.  He talked regularly about our group as he visited districts around the state and country.  This resulted in many new voices in our conversation and rich dialogue filled with reflection and insight.  

The message of this book seems overly simple:  to ensure that the monkeys, the  "responsibilities, obligations, and problem everyone deals with everyday," are in their proper place.  While this seems simple, in practice it is very difficult to do.  Often times, we take on the monkeys of others because it is easier to do the job ourselves.  We may take on misplaced monkeys to avoid having a difficult conversation, or we may shift extra monkeys to our best workers because we know the job will get done.  


Todd encourages leaders to take care of their best employees so they feel rewarded, protected, and have autonomy.  Beyond that though leaders need to take steps "shift monkeys to change behavior, so that people behave themselves even when the boss isn't looking."  To do this, he encourages leaders to ask themselves three questions:

1.  Where is the monkey?
2.  Where should the monkey be?
3.  How do I shift the monkey to its proper place?

One technique Todd shared was to treat everyone well.  When Todd says everyone, he means everyone--even the "slackers liars, and criers".  While this at first seemed counterproductive; however, when we presume positive intent in others we can shift behaviors.  He encourages leaders to address He juxtaposes this with the treat everyone as if they were guilty approach that many leaders take.  


As I read this book a personal experience came to mind.  I worked for a boss who sent out blanket emails whenever someone did something that needed correcting.  For example, we would all get a "be sure you are at work on time" email when someone ran late for work.   The crazy thing was even if I was at work on time that day, I would worry that the email was directed to me.    I would console myself by thinking if my boss had a problem with me, she would come speak to me.  One day, we all received another blanket email for an infraction that I knew was directed solely to me.  The problem was, my boss had never spoken to me about it.  I realize now that my boss was shifting monkeys of a few on to the group as a whole rather than speaking directly to the person involved.

I especially enjoyed discussing this book with colleagues from across Texas (and beyond) via Twitter during #texedchat.  

iPads and Innovation

During the October 8th inservice day, our team embedded Design Thinking by IDEO into an interactive hands on learning experience at Parkway and Hedrick Elementary.  

During our session, we began with introducing brainstorming norms by inviting participants to brainstorm the following question "When is a paperclip not a paperclip?"  

Next, Teachers sovled a mini-challenge which resulted in their dividing themselves into new collaborative teams with participants from each of the two schools.   Teams were given a design challenge and had the opportunity to learn about five new collaborative iPad apps to chronicle their team's journey.  The session closed as teams showcased their work in speed sharing rounds. 

This was our team's first opportunity to present to entire campuses.  We learned a great deal from this experience.  One important takeaway is to always be prepared.  We had some connectivity issues during the first session. Luckily we had downloaded copies of the video and our Prezi so after just a few minutes we were back up and running.  First impressions are vital so I hope participants focused on the fact that we had a solution and not that we stumbled for a moment.  I know things like this will happen from time to time so I am not going to dwell on it.  

Overall, it was a day filled with laughter and the teachers seemed genuinely pleased with the apps they learned in the process.  Teachers were able to list several ways they would be able to use them in with their students, so based on that alone, I feel the day was successful.