Let's #Chat

Recipe for a Successful #AmesCSDchat

Ingredients:

1 district-wide tech day

1 how-to blog post with 2 videos

1 hour on a Tuesday night

8 questions following Q1, A1 format

Dozen teachers (even if they’re Twitter “newbies”)

5 coaches

5 TOSAs

1 administrator

1 student teacher

4 neighbors

? lurkers

Storify archive of chat

Directions:

Build off the district-wide tech day around digital citizenship and use of social media. Mix with the how-to blog post and 2 videos about Twitter chats. Add in 8 pre-planned questions generated by educators working together. Share out the above ingredients via Twitter. Add in a dozen or more Ames teachers, a student teacher, some coaches, TOSAs, administrators, and a few educators from neighboring districts. Season with people who are watching but not actively tweeting (lurkers).

Bake on Twitter for one hour from 8-9 PM Central. Make sure classroom successes (#eduwin) are shared liberally. The dish is almost done when “virtual doors” begin to open. Once the hour is over, create the Storify archive as the frosting for the cake. Remember to revisit the archive so you get every last morsel of information (like licking the spoon clean).

Nutrition Facts:

Twitter chats are good for your educational health. In the words of @JamesWebb95, “Seeing everyone’s passion for doing our jobs better” is inspiring and can “recharge [you] for the week.” The ideas shared provide connections across the district (and the state) that you might not experience otherwise since teachers sometimes feel isolated. “...Collaboration is key to the teacher learning new things,” @MissWill_Sci. “Collaborate with others to help [teachers] better provide for [their] students,” @MrMathAHS. Participants share about what’s happening in their classes and what resources are working well for them as well as nuggets of advice, “Be a star finder not a fault finder!” @asullivan8.

A survey of educators on Twitter found professional development as a top outcome mentioned by teachers.

Educators prized the medium for its personalized and immediate nature, and many considered Twitter to be superior to traditional professional development. They valued the types of interactions and community afforded by the service, and many cited Twitter’s role in combatting isolation and connecting them with positive, creative colleagues and leaders.  (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014)

Even for those new to Twitter chats, there are benefits. As @MandyRoss1 tweeted, “Although I’m fumbling through this, I’m reminded tonight of the many amazing teachers we have in Ames.” And yes, @MAllmanAHS, we’re working on “ways to get more teachers on board with Twitter and educational chats.” Maybe you the reader will help us spread the word and join us on our next #AmesCSDchat on Tuesday, December 8 from 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm. We’d love to hear your voice!

Reference

Carpenter, J.P. & Krutka, D. G. (2014).  How and why educators use Twitter: A survey of the field. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 46:4, pages 414-434.

Learning from Hoiberg and Prohm

Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

What if Fred Hoiberg (I’m still in denial, sorry Coach Prohm) only showed up to coach the ISU Men’s Basketball team ONLY on the days they were playing KU?  It’s a pretty big game, right? There could be some failure and so therefore it would be nice to have that extra person watching in, collecting data, and helping to support the players toward a victory.  But, only for the KU game.

If Hoiberg, or any other coach for that matter, only showed up to coach for one critical basketball game per year, that basketball program would be in deep trouble.  Instead, we know that Hoiberg and his staff enter into a coaching cycle with their players.  At the college level there are several coaching cycles going on at once.  Let’s look at individual player improvement alone.  Coaches collect data on players (free throws, turn-overs, assists, steals, etc.), and players analyze the data with the coach.  Often times players watch film of themselves and analyze their performances in order to improve their skills as a basketball player.  When it comes time for the game, the players and the coach are cognizant of the plan they devised in order to win the game.  

Instructional Coaching is very similar.  In order to really get to a point where deep reflection is happening, a teacher and an Instructional Coach will go through a coaching cycle.  Coaching is not a one time event.  The basic parts of a coaching cycle involve a planning conversation, an observation and/or modeling, and a reflective conversation.  

Planning Conversation

In a planning conversation, an Instructional Coach would simply be there to ask questions in order to help the teacher clarify his goal, determine a way to measure success, and make a plan for how to meet the goal.  It’s very important to reiterate that this goal is not a goal that the coach has for the teacher.  This goal is created by and owned by the teacher.  Art Costa and Robert Garmston, who are widely known in the Cognitive Coaching world said, “Novice teachers tend to focus on the event.  More skillful teachers focus on goals and success indicators.”  The purpose behind having a planning conversation with an Instructional Coach is to provide on-going, job-embedded professional development.  Having a quality planning conversation is one component of growing as a professional.    

Coordinating Activity

In this part of the coaching cycle, a teacher may ask the coach to model a strategy or come in to observe him teaching the lesson or a part of the lesson he planned with the coach.  Whether the coach models a strategy or not, a coordinating activity that would happen in a coaching cycle after the planning conversation is to have the coach come in to collect some data around an area determined by the teacher (see the Observable Pedagogical Practices for ideas or these Observational Look-Fors).  Gathering data is not a time for subjective judgements.  The purpose behind collecting the data is to better reflect on whether or not the goal or a part of the goal of the lesson or lesson sequence was met.  This is why the teacher determines what data will be collected, and how that data will be collected.  The coach simply collects it.    

Reflecting Conversation

During a reflecting conversation, an Instructional Coach encourages the teacher to share his perception of how well the clarified goal was met.  The coach shares the data collected with the teacher, and the teacher makes comparisons between what was planned, his impression of the lesson, and the data that was collected.  As the reflection continues, the coach would have the teacher spend some time thinking about how this particular reflection impacts other aspects of future planning and teaching.  Ultimately, what has the teacher learned from this particular coaching cycle that he would like to hold on to and remember as he refines his craft.  Perhaps that could be the start of another planning conversation.    

And repeat…

Photo courtesy of Cyclones.com

Thank goodness both Fred Hoiberg and Steve Prohm show up for more than one game a year! If the support required to keep the players afloat and reflective about their skills as a basketball player was missing the rest of the season, the team would not function to their highest ability.  Just like basketball players need coaches, teachers need coaches to come alongside and enter into a coaching cycle in order to stimulate deep reflection about their professional craft on a regular basis. If you haven't engaged in a coaching cycle yet, reach out to your coach and give that regular, ongoing job-embedded professional development a try!

The Power of Vulnerability

“Findings from many studies suggest that participation in a professional community with one’s colleagues is an integral part of professional learning that impacts positively on students” (Timperley, 2008, p. 19)

“Well-implemented professional learning communities are a powerful means of seamlessly blending teaching and professional learning in ways that produce complex, intelligent behavior in all teachers” (Sparks, 2005, p. 156).

Professional learning communities provide opportunities for professional staff to look deeply into the teaching and learning process and to learn how to become more effective in their work with students” (Morrissey, 2000).

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We know the research.  We know that working together has so many benefits for us, for our lessons, for our sanity, but ultimately for our students.  Why is it so hard?  What makes fruitful, purposeful collaboration so difficult?  

Some might argue, “Well, we don’t have enough time.”  Or, “We don’t really know what our mission is or why we’re meeting.”   Or some (ahem...perhaps myself included) might even say, “I just prefer to work alone.  I can accomplish by myself in 10 minutes what we could accomplish together in 45.” In any given situation, some of this may actually be true, but may I throw out there that our ability to be vulnerable is what allows us to collaborate successfully.

This summer I spent time reading the book Daring Greatly by Brene Brown.  She uses a portion of FDR’s “Citizenship in a Republic”  speech as a springboard to say that we could sit outside of the arena and watch OR we could jump into the arena.  We could get messy.  We could fail.  We could get hurt.   We could experience life to the absolute fullest by being willing to be vulnerable, because being vulnerable allows us to grow and become all that we were meant to be.  She calls this “whole-hearted” living.

For us as educators our “arena” could be our classroom, our PLC, our hallway, our leadership position within the building, or all of the above.  In any of these arenas, we (individually and as a collective whole) will only get better by being vulnerable.  Brown states, “Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement.  Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”   

Stepping into the arena is scary.  We risk feeling judged, embarrassed, or unworthy when we ask for help, admit to failure, share an idea, respectfully disagree, rely on someone else to carry a part of the load or provide an idea,  call a colleague or friend who is going through something tough, stop in to say “hi” to a new colleague.   Brown says, “Experiencing vulnerability isn’t a choice--the only choice we have is how we’re going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity and innovation.  As educators we want our students to be creative and innovative, but we ourselves sometimes lack that ability to be vulnerable enough to be creative and innovative.  In our District we have several goals that we are working toward.  We’re working on the Gradual Release of Responsibility, we’re working with Mentor and Model teachers and Instructional Coaches to collectively be the best we can be for kids, we’re meeting in PLC’s to develop essential standards and common formative assessments, we’re bringing our classroom data back to a group of colleagues to say either “Yes!  They got it!” or “Nope, they’re not there.” Facing these situations of vulnerability is inevitable.  It’s how we choose to respond that matters, and most importantly, it matter for our students.