Decembers Past, Authentic Assessment, and Relaxation

In December of 1978, I finished the last final exam for the first semester of my senior year of college, jumped into my older model Mercury Capri, and headed south on a sixteen-hour trip out of Northern Indiana to my hometown in Central Kansas for the holidays.  Soon after all of our family celebrations and reunions, but well before the beginning of second semester, I made a life-changing decision.

As a result of the decision made on that December evening 36 years ago, I went to the only phone in our house and made a call.  At that time, the phone was firmly attached to the wall.  The one update was that my dad had replaced the short cord with one that stretched to fifteen feet.  (Phone 2.0!) For privacy, I walked across the hall into the spare room and closed the door, so I could call Lisa Herr back in Northern Indiana.  

1970 Mercury Capri

To be honest, I wasn’t honest.  I told her a little white lie and said I was going up to Hesston High School with some friends to watch the basketball game.  Instead of watching the HHS Swathers play, I loaded up the Capri, popped The Eagles Greatest Hits into the cassette player, and headed northeast out of town.

I cut cross country on dirt roads through the empty wheat fields outside of Hesston, picked up U.S. 50 to Emporia, reached Kansas City a few hours later, and headed due east toward St. Louis on Interstate 70.  In the middle of the night, I drove an almost empty highway past the brightly lit St. Louis Arch, took 465 around Indianapolis before the winter dawn, and reached Lisa’s house in Waterford by mid-morning.  I completed the trip that typically took 16-hours in considerably less time.

Later that same day, I asked a truly authentic assessment question.  After some confusion about whether or not I was serious, Lisa said, “Yes.” 

As a direct result of that decision, that drive, that question, and that answer, in these next two weeks, Lisa and I will have all nine of our children at home at one time or another over the break.  In addition, the older three will bring along their significant others.  And of course, one grandchild will arrive with the Nashville delegation.  She is certain to entertain and be entertained by her aunts, uncles, grammy, and grampy.

I intentionally left out quite a few details of this story—including the speeding ticket I picked up in Strong City, Kansas; how my future sister-in-law helped me surprise my future wife; and how the first words from Lisa when she heard “the question” weren’t quite what I expected. But those are other stories for other times.

I tell you this particular story partly because it is one I think about often around the end of December and partly because it might encourage you to remember events from your own Decembers gone by.  Mostly, however, I tell you this story because it is decidedly NOT about school, and that is important as well at this time of year.

Soon enough, January will roll around, and we will be busy and stressed once again.  We do have an exciting and challenging semester ahead, but for now, you deserve a break.  You have done great work this first semester.  I think especially of the important investment of time and energy from the ROAR Champions, all the new courses that you are putting in place for next year, all the experimentation with high-probability instructional practices, and the many new performance tasks and authentic assessments that are in regular use.

I hope this winter break that you find time to remember good events from this past semester and from previous years, that you create great memories with friends and family, and that you can forget, for at least a little while, all about school.

Please ease up on the Stress Button and hit the Relax Button as often as you can.  Thanks for all you do for your students and for the school, but for now, enjoy your time away.

Phil

Powerful Questions, Meaningful Artifacts, and a Caring Environment--Part I

We are closing in on the half-way point to the school year.  Next semester our focus will shift to preparing for the major changes coming our way in the fall of 2015.  The freshmen will return home after a three-year absence, our College and Career Academy philosophy goes live throughout the building, and all students will walk through the school doors with their laptops/tablets in hand—and with the expectation of using them during the school day.

I want to use the last two entries of 2014 to emphasize two points about all of these changes coming down the pike: First, we are not the only school experiencing these shifts; therefore, we can and should learn from those who have traveled this road successfully before us.  Second, we have built a rock solid foundation at HSE on which to build structures and capacity to handle these coming changes.

Science Leadership Academy: One Trailblazer

What would a school look like that is founded on the following concept?

Students will ask powerful questions and create meaningful artifacts of their learning in a caring environment.

Chris Lehmann, the principal of Science Leadership Academy, was hired by The School District of Philadelphia in 2005 to answer this question.  He started an inquiry-driven, project-based high school and formed a partnership with The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia’s science and technology museum.  The school’s progress and student learning has exceeded expectations and was recently documented in a book Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students through Inquiry. 

Certainly, Hamilton Southeastern is a different kind of school than Science Leadership Academy, but read again the words in bold above.  These are terms we have been talking about for years.  And see if Lehmann’s words below resonate with discussions you have had at HSHS as well:

The ideas that asking good questions, caring about the people around us, and building structures that make it easier for people to succeed have grounded us in all the conversations we have at SLA, and, more often than not, those core concepts provide the framework that allows us to answer new questions and challenges we face.

We are not the exception to the rule. Without a doubt, all schools face questions and challenges.  At the heart of what we do is learning, and the process of learning, by definition, results in something new: new thoughts, new skills, new ways of knowing and understanding the world.  Change is inherent in our profession, but that doesn’t make it easy.

The authors of Authentic Learning document their experiences and share strategies they have used to overcome obstacles and challenges.  It is nice to know that other very successful schools struggle at times but have found ways to persevere. 

  

Core Values

One way SLA answers new questions and takes on new challenges is by using the filter of their core values to make decisions.  We haven’t talked often in terms of core values at HSE, but I love this concept and think it could be helpful to us.  SLA calls their core values the “anchors for teaching and learning,” and they use their core values to help guide decision-making, both small and large.  The Five Core Values of SLA are listed below.  If you read nothing else in this entry, please take time to look closely at these core values:

• Inquiry—Authentic learning can happen only when there is a legitimate desire to gain knowledge or skills. Students need to be able to ask their own questions (with varying degrees of guidance) in order to engage with their education.
• Research—In a world where our access to information is becoming limitless, what matters is no longer how much you already know, but how well you can find what you need to know. Students need to learn how to both collect and interpret their own data, as well as identify and assess outside sources for quality and credibility.
• Collaboration—Whether in person or electronically, collaboration has become a cornerstone of the work life of adults, yet students are typically expected to produce and prove their knowledge in isolation. Working together not only supports students in their pursuit of personal achievement, it also helps them develop interpersonal skills that are essential for their future professional lives.
• Presentation—This skill is often pigeonholed as the "front of the room" presentation that students loathe. Presentation is actually a skill that students use constantly, both in the classroom and, increasingly, online. Bad presentation skills can be damaging to both their professional and personal reputations, so knowing how to present themselves and their work appropriately and effectively is essential. (Note: I want to explore this topic next semester.)
• Reflection—How do we improve ourselves? Curriculum is often written as a race to the finish line, without any time or space for students to consider what they could do differently or better. Reflection provides a necessary pause between presenting a finished work and beginning a new line of inquiry and helps ensure that students (and teachers) improve with each cycle of learning.

Even though we do not formally name and keep our core values at the forefront, these from SLA are not far off from what we value most.  An interesting question: What would our school look like if we held similar values as SLA and used them regularly to assist our decision-making?  You have thousands and thousands of decisions to make as a teacher.  How would your decisions be impacted if you kept these core values in front of you as you choose daily objectives, lesson strategies, performance tasks, and assessments?

Part II Next Week: The Right Road

 That is plenty to contemplate for now.  Next week I want to examine SLA’s Framework for Technology and make the point that we have been, and continue to be, on the right path to move our school and our students forward.  That is certainly a core value we can all support.

I hope your week is outstanding, HSE.  Enjoy the end of semester, even with all of the business.  Enjoy the anticipation of the holiday break.  Enjoy knowing that you are making a difference in the lives of your students.

Phil

Closing thoughts on values from interesting people….

•  “Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose.”  --Edward de Bono
• “Your beliefs become your thoughts.  Your thoughts become your words.  Your words become your actions.  Your actions become your habits.  You habits become your values.  Your values become your destiny.”  --Mahatma Gandhi
• “Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.”  --John F. Akers

The Other Half of the UbD Team

I often reference Grant Wiggins in these posts, but today I want to pass on a really good resource from Grant’s partner, Jay McTighe.  He is an educator, a consultant, and co-author of the Understanding by Design books.  His educational consulting business can be found at Jay McTighe and Associates.

From Jay McTighe and Associates

If you take the time to click on the link above, you can read a bit about Jay McTighe, but the really good stuff is found under “Resources.”  In fact, McTighe and Associates has compiled and maintains a listing of free resources to support teachers designing UbD unit plans.  Click here for the link to his Resource Page.

Once you are on the Resource page, hit the picture of the globe, and you will see:

• A 31-page annotated list of UbD Websites, including exemplary state, district, and regional service agency websites;
• An “Essential Question Website,” which provides help and examples of solid essential questions in career education, English/Language Arts, Library/Media Science, Social Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, Technology, Theater/Dance, and World Languages;
• A 5-page annotated list of UbD Websites supporting the creation of Performance Tasks and their assessment;
• “UbD Websites for Science,” “UbD Websites for Social Studies,” and “UbD Websites for World Languages”; and
• “Resources for Mathematics Tasks” and “Social Studies Resources for Tasks,” which include lots of information and examples of performance tasks and assessments.

While you are on the Resource page, play around with other links as well.  The “Download” link gives you access to a wide variety of UbD design tools and templates.  The “Video” and “Articles” links take you directly to information on a wide variety of UbD topics. 

If you are working on creating UbD units, it is well worth your time exploring help from the other half of the Wiggins/McTighe team.  You get the information and examples of quality Understanding by Design units from one of the co-creators of UbD.  It is reliable. It is comprehensive.  It is free—and at HSE, we like free.

Have a great week!

Phil

Remember this is the week for End of Course Assessments.  The biggest days of testing are Tuesday and Wednesday.  Please do all you can to encourage both the students taking the tests and the teachers giving them.

A few closing thoughts about tests…

• In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test.  In life, you’re given a test that teaches a lesson.  –Tom Bodett (He’ll leave the light on….)
• At the end of life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal.  You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.  –Barbara Bush
• If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here.  I guarantee that.  –Michelle Obama
• Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.  –Richard Bach

Fascinating Fun

One day in my high school debate class, as often happened in that particular course, we were having a wide-ranging discussion about a variety of topics.  The topic for the day was humor and what makes something funny. We discovered that humor is really difficult to describe or even to point to specific attributes.

I don’t remember all the details of the conversation, but I do remember our teacher told this joke:

Question: What did the insomniac agnostic dyslexic do?

Answer: He lay awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.

Before you get upset with me for including this joke, please know that I recognize it is problematic  It is slightly irreverent, and it cuts a little too close for comfort to those who have struggles with learning or love someone else who does.  Stay with me for a bit longer.  I really am going somewhere with this entry.

The point of including this joke is that, for whatever reason, it has stuck with me for almost 40 years, and it includes a misperception I have been living with for just as long.  It contains a classic example of misperception by simplification.  You see, for forty years I assumed that I had a decent understanding of dyslexia, and I think my assumption might be based on this one joke.  Dyslexia, I thought, was the transposing of letters as in the example above.

Fascinating

Last month, I came across a short article and a short video clip.  The article was written by Kelly Sandman-Hurley and started with a challenge that I’ve included here.  Take a moment to read the text in the box below.

Kelly Sandman-Hurley says, “You just experienced dyslexia for one minute.  During that minute, the passage slowed you down and forced you to pronounced words that didn’t seem to make any sense and weren’t familiar.  You knew they were wrong, but you read them anyway.” 

In the rest of the article, she debunks myths about dyslexia.  Quite honestly, I held most of the common misperceptions and myths, and my guess is you might as well.  If you have five minutes, this video clip is fascinating and may help you better understand about 20% of the students sitting in your classroom.  (That is not a misprint.  Twenty percent is the right number according to Sandman-Hurley because dyslexia occurs on a continuum from mild to profound.)

What is Dyslexia?

Fun

Since I started with a joke, I thought this might be a good time to end with some as well.  A few weeks back I sent you a list of really bad jokes and asked you to send me your favorite bad jokes.  So here they are.  If you don’t like bad puns, warped humor, and/or groaners, stop reading.  If you do, read on.

• The first chemistry teacher said to the second, "A student threw sodium chloride at me today."  The second chemistry teacher replied, "That's a salt." 
• There's a new post-apocalyptic soap opera on daytime TV….  As the World Burns. 
• What do you call a taco that has been in the freezer?   A brrrrrrrrr-ito. (Author’s comment: Yep I made it up. I’ve told to my kid at least once a month for the past 3-4 years, and she groans every time. Mission accomplished.)
• A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink.  When it arrives, the neutron asks, “How much?”  The bartender replies, “For you, no charge.”
• A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.
• England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
• I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
• They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.
• I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.
• Jokes about German sausages are the wurst.
• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.
• I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
• I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.  (In recognition of all of you No-Shave November enthusiasts….)
• Broken pencils are pretty much pointless.
• I dropped out of the Communism class because of lousy Marx.
• All the toilets in New York’s police stations have been stolen. As of now, it appears the police have nothing to go on.

Special thanks to Kelli Hanes (and her husband), Tabby McClain, Jeremy Sprague, Cliff Bailey, Laura Pickell (and her son Wyatt).  Which contributor supplied which joke will be kept anonymous to protect the guilty.

Have a great week, HSE.  I hope it is both fun and fascinating.

Phil

The Other Side of the Desk

In the middle of October, Grant Wiggins gave space in his blog for a guest writer.  Some of you read the Wiggins blog, and for whatever reason, the experience of the guest writer resonated with you.  I know this because a handful of you sent me links and a few more shared comments or made references to the article over this past month. 

For those of you who don’t follow the Wiggins blog, his guest writer had recently left the classroom after fourteen years to become an instructional coach.  The first assignment she gave herself was to shadow two high school students, a sophomore and a senior.

Link to Grant Wiggins Blog

For two days, she followed these students wherever they went during the school day, sat when they sat, took notes when they took notes, and took tests when they took tests. (She reports that she passed the Spanish test but failed the one in Business.)   “My task,” she said, “was to do everything a student was supposed to do.” 

To be clear, her goal was not to criticize what teachers were doing.  She wanted to understand the student perspective in order to inform her own professional development.  At the end of the two days as a student, this is what she reports learning:

·         Most students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting: “By the end of the day,” she says, “I could not stop yawning and I was desperate to move or stretch.”

·         Students are passively listening 90 percent of the time: “In eight periods of high school classes, my host students rarely spoke,” she says.  “It was not just sitting that was draining but that so much of the day was spent absorbing information but not often grappling with it.”

·         Students feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long: “I lost count of how many times we were told to be quiet and pay attention.”  She also found, to her dismay, that “There was a good deal of sarcasm and snark directed at students.”

For each of these points, the writer created “implications” for herself to improve her teaching.  For example, she vows to include lessons with more movement, use a timer to keep herself from talking too long, make a public pledge of no sarcasm to her classes (and ask her students to hold her accountable), and design tests that include time for students to ask questions of the teacher.

I don’t know who the teacher is or in what kind of school she works, but some of you, like me, found her experience intriguing.  I can’t help but wonder what we would find if we tried this experiment at HSE.  What would it be like to sit on the other side of the desk?  What implications for your teaching might you discover?

In the spirit of the Wiggins blog, I have two proposals I hope some of you seriously consider:

1. Guest Writers: Do you have something important you would like to say to your peers about curriculum and instruction or about life?  If so, come and talk to me.  If you have read my entries, you know they can be wide-ranging.  There aren’t many limits to the topics you could cover.  I welcome guest writers for “From B106.”  If Grant Wiggins can do it, why not us?
2. Student for a Day: Would you like to spend a day sitting on the other side of the desk?  We can make this happen.  The experience was a powerful one for the teacher who was the guest writer for Grant Wiggins.  If this possibility is intriguing to you, come and see me.  I would love to hear what you learn from the experience.

Have a great (and short) week and wonderful Thanksgiving, HSE.  At this time of year, I am particularly thankful for having the opportunity to work with all of you. 

Phil

A few thoughts on being thankful…

• Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.  --Oprah
• When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.  –Dalai Lama
• Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare.  They are consumed in twelve minutes.  Half-times take twelve minutes.  This is not a coincidence.  –Erma Bombeck
• When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.  Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.  If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.  –Tecumseh

Sleep, Creep, Leap

The last few weekends, when the weather has cooperated, Lisa and I have been out getting the flowerbeds around our house ready for winter.  We pruned a few things back, deadheaded some of the perennials, and divided or moved a few plants as needed.

During this time, I came across three interesting surprises, and I have included the pictures below.  They create a good metaphor for what we are trying to do with Royal Outreach to Another Royal (ROAR).  So this entry is especially for those of you who have become ROAR Champions.

Clematis: November Blooms

 We’ve heard that perennials have three stages following their planting: at first they Sleep, then they Creep, and eventually they Leap.  This particular clematis was a bit spindly when we bought it off the clearance table in hopes that it might eventually do well.  We planted it near the back of the house, watered it regularly, and at times we thought it wasn’t going to make it through the sleep stage, much less creep or leap.

About a month ago, however, we saw some new leaves emerge.  Then, well into the cold of fall, it opened up a handful of blooms.  As you can see, the plant still looks a bit anemic, but the flowers are amazing.

Toad Lily: Wrong Name, Right Flower 

The home of this Toad Lily is in deep shade at the side of our house.  We planted it last spring and haven’t paid much attention since then.  It looked fairly healthy this summer but was overshadowed by the plants around it.  Soon after several bitter days of rain and cold, it burst into flowers.  Its name is an unfortunate misnomer.  These blooms are far from toad-like.

Our Toad Lily came into its own long after the others around it had flowered and wilted.

Succulent: From the Desert

This one is my favorite, and I don’t know its name.  I only know that it is some kind of succulent, and that succulents grow wild in the deserts or steppes of the world. You can’t tell by the picture, but the blooms on this plant are only about an inch across.  It was planted in the rock garden—you can see the tufa stone in the background—and it takes full sun.  All through the summer heat it stayed green and grew only a handful of new spikes.  Suddenly, when other plants were turning brown and getting ready for winter, it sent forth these flowers.

Late Blooms and Winter ROARs

Maybe if these plants had bloomed during the summer along with the others, we wouldn’t have paid much attention.  But they didn’t.  They waited until most of their neighbors had long since blossomed, dropped petals, or became dormant.  I suggest to you that seeing blooms late in the season, even after the first frost, makes them all the more beautiful.

We all know students just like these plants.  They go about the business of school without much fanfare.  They sleep and maybe even creep, but they are not likely to see spectacular successes.  If, however, we are patient and continue to nurture these students, we may see them change, grow, and even leap. 

If they do, their success can be something truly special.

Thanks again to all of you who have become ROAR champions. Continue to watch and nurture your students.  Outside we are well past the first frost and even the first snowfall, but inside HSE, it’s still growing season.

It’s a great week to be a Royal.

Phil

This I Believe

When tragedy strikes, as it did this past week, we are always caught unaware.  Even those of us who have been around long enough to have experienced painful events in the past are still caught off guard.  Tragedy is insidious.  It does not take just one form or follow expectations, and it is easy to let emotions overrule logic.  Our rational side understands that tragedy is not just probable; it is inevitable.  When it occurs, however, we struggle with the full range of contradictory thoughts and emotions.

I picture Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof holding out his hands and debating with himself.  “On one hand” is followed closely with the rebuttal, “On the other hand…”   As we try to make sense of the events of the past week, like Tevye, we soon run out of hands.  In most matters surrounding human life, issues are incredibly complex with no easy answers, and the clamor of the media and the cacophony of rumors just add to the confusion.  Our emotions, however, eventual tend to end up in a paradoxical dichotomy of fear and hope.  These may not be opposite emotions, but they are close.  

Fear diminishes and hope encourages.  In the coming days and weeks, I encourage all of us, whenever possible, to work tirelessly to diminish fear while encouraging hope.  We are, after all, in a profession that does this exact work.  Fear arises from the unknown, but our profession is about helping students understand the unknown and find ways to deal with the unknowable.  Hope looks forward to a better future, and at its core, our profession is about preparing students to create a future better than the present.

In times like this, we need to acknowledge the fears of our students and our own, but our focus must remain on improving the future. We must refuse to let the tragic events of last week define who we are, what we do, and what we believe about ourselves, our students, and our school.   Being a Royal is more than celebrating the positive.  It is also about rising to challenges and overcoming obstacles. 

Keep fighting the good fight, HSE.  Bring hope to yourself, to your peers, and most importantly, to our students.  Find time to grieve.  Find time to laugh.  Find time to hope.

This I believe: There is neither a finer nor more important day to be a Royal than today.  I hope you do as well.

Phil

Time Has Flewn

How did it get so late so soon?

It’s night before its afternoon.

December is here before its June.

My goodness, how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?

--Dr. Seuss

I just turned my calendar from October to November.  I’m not sure I can answer Dr. Seuss’s question.  Just how did it get so late so soon?  Each time I flip the calendar to another month I am reminded of how quickly time passes and feel a quickening sense of urgency at all that needs to be accomplished before the start of next school year.  Perhaps I am premature in my worries, but with the passing of each month, I can’t help but think of 3,000 students walking through the new doors of HSHS, each carrying some kind of technology and expecting to put it to use.

Picture from Zealousgood

 As you all know, next year your students will be coming into your classrooms with some kind of computer or tablet.  With a "Bring Your Own Device" program like we will have at HSHS, not all students will have access to the same software or app, so part of our struggle will be creating high probability lesson that engage students with technology in ways that are accessible across multiple platforms.

Picture from Nextdigit

What you may not know is that a group of our teachers have been part of the Technology Leadership Certification program through the Central Indiana Educational Cooperative.  Members of the TLC cohort have been meeting for the several months and working on ways to improve student engagement and learning through the use of technology.  Some teachers are working directly on technology applications and others are building Understanding by Design Units that specifically incorporate technology as part of the instruction and/or assessment.

For those of you not in the TLC cohort now is still a good time to start thinking about what 1:1 will look like in your classroom, and one way to do so is to look at what your peers are creating.

Projects and Assignments:

• Canterbury Tales using Pinterest to create a personal pilgrimage
• Using Blogger to collaborate on a book review which incorporates images, multimedia, and videos
• Teach compositional strategies and principles and elements of art by having students create a superhero or villain
• Students design and implement a digital survey from start to finish as part of an AP Statistics course
• Create “Teach-a-Tip” tutorials using screencasts for student and teacher use
• Students use Google Presentations and share their product about French holidays
• Continue to wage the “War Against Mediocrity” by having students identify a problem, research, blog, and solve the problem
• Create a Google+ Community for all English 12 students to post and share information, rate books, and discuss reading recommendations
• Use Google Docs, Google Forms, Socrative and/or Kahoot to create a simulation of the European Union, where students vote as to which countries should be allowed to join
• Students research and create a German character, decide what gifts might be appropriate for the character, and share using Anime, Voki, ThingLink, or other online resources
• English 11 students create a ThingLink for themselves to include in college applications

Full UbD Units

• The Progressive Unit that includes authentic assessments and the website Newsela
• Students learn the Elements of the Periodic Table using Google Docs and other digital resources
• A unit on Energy which includes a windmill design challenge and possible Skype interviews with residents living near windmills
• A unit on Cells that requires students to use Google Slides, complete a viewing log, and review using Kahoot

Did any of these ideas resonate with you?  Could you steal any of these concepts or adapt them to your own purposes?  If so, you have numerous in-house experts ready to help.  Just ask!

As the good doctor reminds us, time does fly when you’re having fun.  We must be having a blast!

I hope your week is outstanding.  Keep fighting the good fight, HSE.

Phil

A Culture of Coverage

Questions start the thinking process, and answers often end it.—Warren Berger

Last Thursday we spent time experiencing close reading of a Doug Reeves article on effective grading practice.  For close reading to be used well takes time and preparation.  Students need to read, reread, discuss, and struggle with important questions.  The picture below serves as a visual reminder of our work last week.

Close reading does take time, and some of the discussion I heard last Thursday reminded me of keynote speaker I heard several years ago.  Tony Wagner works for Harvard’s Innovation Lab and is a former schoolteacher.  He gets out into classrooms often, and he reported that he often hears message from teachers similar to this: “We don’t have time for student questions because that will take away from the number of answers I have to cover.”  Teachers aren’t happy with this, Wagner said.  He referenced one California teacher who stated, “I have so many state standards I have to teach concept-wise, it takes away from what I find most valuable—which is to have students inquire about the world.”

At one point in his address, Wagner said, “Somehow, we’ve defined the goal of schooling as enabling you to have more ‘right answers’ than the person next to you.  And we penalize incorrect answers.  And we do this at a pace—especially now, in this highly focused test-prep universe—where we don’t have time for extraneous questions.”  Does this sound familiar?

Many of you in the classrooms of HSE likely feel this same pressure to “cover material.”  Time is limited, so we speed through content without delving as deeply as we want and without letting or even requiring our students to ask and answer important questions.  Warren Berger, the author of A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, points out that giving time for students to ask questions can be difficult and even threatening to teachers:

Questions challenge authority and disrupt the established structures, processes, and systems, forcing people to have to at least think about doing something differently.  To encourage or even allow questioning is to cede power—not something that is done lightly in hierarchical companies or in government organizations, or even in classrooms, where a teacher must be willing to give up control to allow for more questioning.

Are we willing to give up some of our time asking questions to allow students to do the inquiring?  Is it possible for us to find a better balance between coverage and depth, by taking the time to read, discuss, and think deeply? 

A Place to Start: Close Reading and Questioning Strategies

We just spent time looking at close reading, and I see this class activity as a great place to start creating better balance.  In close reading, a highly engaging text covers key content and is read purposefully and carefully to uncover rich layers of meaning.  Students discuss and answer strategic questions about the text.  The results include both coverage and depth of understanding.

In daily discussions, you might also consider using questioning strategies to delve deeper—and to have some fun.  See what you think of these approaches.

·         Repeatedly ask “Why?” of your students and get them to ask you the same question:  When students give you an answer, follow up with another “Why?”  After they answer, repeat “Why?” again.  Watch what happens when you repeat the question.  Robert Burton, a neurologist writes about our “certainty epidemic,” the tendency of people (and students are people) to question less than they should.  Show students how to use this important word and teach students to use it often.  You may have to prompt them often.

·         Hold a discussion where only questions can be asked: The goal is to ask questions as answers to questions.  The discussion doesn’t have to be long, but Warren Berger claims this activity is “fundamentally subversive, disruptive, and playful.”  See what kind of questions your students will ask—and how a follow up responses can be both an answer and a question.  You may be surprised, and you will be fascinated to watch the brains at work as they try to phrase questions rather than statements. 

·         Use exit tickets that require students to ask questions:  If you are using exit tickets anyway, try having them write down an important question they still have or a question that they think is the most important one for them to answer from the day’s lesson.  It will give you feedback, and it gets students to think in terms of asking key questions.

Albert Einstein once said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”  That is a bit cynical, but I do believe we can contribute to this miracle.  Will these activities end the “culture of coverage” and revolutionize formal education?  Nope.  But they are ways to let students see that we value the questions more than the answers.  Oprah Winfrey was right when she said, “Ask the right questions, and the answers will always reveal themselves.”  It certainly worked out well for her!

 Why will you have a good week, HSE? 

Phil

The Rest of the Story

On Friday morning, Matt was in a classroom, so I took over the morning pledge.  During the moment of silence, you may have noticed the ticking of the clock that hangs on my office wall.  Several students did, and during the passing period joked with me about it and asked what made the noise.

Paul Harvey, a fixture on the radio of my youth and longtime newsman, had a distinctive staccato presentation.  His radio program I remember most was called “The Rest of the Story.”  My guess is that if you ever heard his show, you would remember him as well.  What follows is the rest of the story about the strange ticking noise coming from my office.

As you can see, in a total juxtaposition of eras, I have an old hand-wind Regulator clock on my wall just to the right of the computer screen.  As I’m writing these words, I catch the movement of the pendulum out of the corner of my eye and hear the ticking of its inner workings when I stop to listen.  If I don’t pause intentionally to listen, the passing of time still ticks away, but it does so outside of my conscious hearing.  

This clock comes with a key, and on Monday mornings, like clockwork—sorry, I couldn’t help myself—I wind both the main spring and the chimes.  At five minutes before the hour, some internal mechanism trips with a clunking noise that only those in my office can hear, but people walking by at the top of the hour can hear its chimes mark the passing of another sixty minutes. 

From Free_Picture.co

This clock is significant in my life, and it has a long and varied history in educational settings.  In the late 60s or early 70s, my parents took a trip north using byways more than highways.  They wandered through the Badlands of South Dakota and on up into North Dakota.  Even with the Wall Drug billboards, the old Burma Shave signs, and the stark beauty of the region, their drive through the Dakotas became monotonous.  So when they came upon a country auction in the middle of nowhere, they pulled over to see what they could see.

The auction was taking place at a recently closed one-room schoolhouse that had reached the end of its usefulness to the local farm community.  As we can relate so well in Fishers, time moves on and bigger and newer will inevitably replace rural traditions. 

In the midst of the items being auctioned that day, was the Regulator that hangs in my office.  My dad placed the highest bid, took the clock to our home in Kansas, and had it repaired by a local jeweler.  In my junior high and high school years this clock hung in our living room.  In the 80s, it moved with my parents to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and then sat in storage for the years they lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Eventually, they moved from Northern Ireland to Northern Indiana, taking the clock with them.

When I left the classroom and first became a high school administrator, my parents let me return the clock to its roots in a very different schoolhouse from that of its origins.  For over a decade it hung in my office at Goshen High School, and it was one of the first items I put up at Hamilton Southeastern.  Here it will stay until it is time for both of us to move on. 

I tell you this story because of my hallway conversation with students Friday morning and because of a quiet moment in my office earlier in the week.  Both events started me thinking about the clock, about education, and about the passing of time. 

Last week felt like an especially busy one, both in school and after school.  I was transitioning between tasks and trying desperately to check more items off my To Do list.  I have found that at times it pays to do less before doing more, so I stopped and sat and did nothing for at least a minute, with only the ticking of the clock and its faint echoes disturbing the silence of my office.  During this time, I glanced up to check the time and found myself looking closely at the old Regulator. 

From Free_Pictures.co

I saw again the dings in the wood, the fading gold paint on the glass, and the slightly yellowed face with the bold Roman numerals. I couldn’t help but wonder about who bought the clock originally and placed it on the walls of the schoolhouse in North Dakota, perhaps as many as a hundred years ago.  Who were the kids who sat in the one-room school?  What did they think, do, and become?  How did what they learned play out in their lives and the lives of their children?  Those students and their teachers all had hopes and dreams, and I wondered about where those might have taken them.  Perhaps their children or grandchildren or great grandchildren live around us or even walk the halls of Hamilton Southeastern.  We all know of stranger coincidences than that.

Hamilton Southeastern is very different than a one-room schoolhouse in North Dakota.  Much has changed, yet much stays the same.  We do our best to prepare students for what is to come, but the reality is that we have no idea what our world will look like a hundred years from now, fifty years from now, or even twenty years from now. This was certainly the case for those students in North Dakota as well.  Could those children who listened to my clock tick off the passing seconds long ago possibly have imagined a school like Hamilton Southeastern or the world in which we live?  And yet here we are, living in this world and educating the next generation.

So today, HSE, I am feeling a bit nostalgic and a bit optimistic.  The clock that you hear during announcements has seen lots of changes in the world of education.  Time is passing, but the results of our efforts and those of educators who came before us endure.  When you hear the ticking of the Regulator over the intercom, perhaps you, like me, will find comfort from the sound of the past and hold tight to the conviction that we are sending echoes of hope into the future. 

From The Atlantic

Paul Harvey, pictured above, once said, “In times like these, it helps to remember that there have always been times like these.”  And then I’m sure he signed off, as always, by saying, “And now you know the rest of the story.  This is Paul Harvey…. Good day!”

I agree with Mr. Harvey.  It is a good day…to be a Royal.  

Phil

Ready or Not....

Downtown Indy

Several weeks ago HSE administrators drove to the IUPUI campus and met with an interesting group of higher education people on their home turf in downtown Indy.  HSE and IUPUI are developing connections and exploring options of how we can help each other.  This kind of relationship-building is happening with other colleges and universities as well, but the IUPUI people were especially warm, welcoming, and excited about the possibilities.

Their Executive Vice Chancellor said something right at the beginning of our meeting that has stuck with me.  I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something similar to this: “We are getting students who have all the necessary content knowledge.  They know the material, but they don’t always know what to do with the knowledge or how to handle the unfamiliar demands, freedoms, and choices of college life.” 

As secondary educators (and sometimes as parents) we recognize the Vice Chancellor has a point.  We do a remarkably good job of preparing students for the academic side of college life, but we also know that not all students are ready to handle life outside of the classroom.

Southern California

This week I ran across a blog entry, “Another Take on ‘College and Career Ready,’” by John Warner, author and professor of Composition 101 at the University of Southern California.  In this blog, he takes issue with the use and overuse of the term College and Career Ready.  Warner makes the argument that success at the university does not call merely for mastery of content; rather he cites the following traits as most important to success in college—and in life:

•  Curiosity: Students with this trait “will learn things simply because they want to know.”
•  Self-Regulation: Warner points out that many students are not used to managing their own time and freedom and their inexperience causes problems.
• Passion: “It doesn’t matter what the passion is, and it need not be academic.”  They need to care about something in order to care about school.
• Empathy: Students must be able to see from another’s point of view.  Part of the learning process is gaining a new perspective.
• Courage and Skepticism: Warner argues that student must be willing to ask tough questions, “stick their noses into a discussion,” and believe they can contribute.

The good folks at IUPUI would, I think, agree with John Warner.  College and Career Ready is more than simply academic content.

Fishers, Indiana

We are in the process of opening the College and Career Academy at HSE.  I know we are equipping our students with the content knowledge they will need at the next level of education and in careers, but I also believe we must continue our work of teaching the traits listed by John Warner and desired by our colleagues on campuses and in the workplace. 

We do this kind of teaching when we require critical thinking, incorporate inquiry learning and engaging performance tasks, ask and have students answer essential questions, and require students to apply their knowledge and skills in new and different ways. 

We must avoid the trap of thinking that College and Career Ready is all about content knowledge.  Without question, the content knowledge is essential, but by itself may not be enough to prepare our students.

Panamanian Jazz

I ran across these words of wisdom from Ruben Blades, a Panamanian jazz singer and songwriter, and perhaps not someone you might expect to be quoted in this memo:

I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.

Admittedly, Blades had other topics in mind than being College and Career Ready.  His words, however, resonate, both in his music and on this topic.  We must give our students the opportunities and support to develop the character traits listed above by John Warner.  All the knowledge in the world does little good if it can’t be put to use in positive ways.

Ready or not, the week is coming, and students soon will be walking through your doors.  I hope it is filled with curiosity, courage, questioning, passion, and empathy.  That, HSE, would be a very good week.

Phil

A Question, a Shark, and a Scream in the Dark

Halloween came early for me this year.  I was dressed in my assistant principal costume and attending a professional development session in Central Office.  Dr. Schauna Findley was leading our work, and she put up a series of questions labeled “2015-2016 Possible Prototypes.”  These are exemplar questions of the type likely to be on our new school accountability tests.

You saw these several weeks ago in a presentation Matt gave during our PD time:

Even though you saw these last week, that doesn't make them any less scary.  Think of Jaws.  The music starts.  The tension builds.  You know the great white shark is going to attack, but that doesn't lessen the tension.  In fact, it increases it.  Or think of walking through a haunted house.  You know someone is going to jump out and scream.  The anticipation and wait is just as scary as the actual event. 

These kinds of questions are coming.  We don’t know exactly when or how they will appear, but they are “out there” waiting for us in the dark.

Close Reading: The Text and the Prompt

Let me tell you why I’m a bit frightened.  These questions have a whole different look and very different instructions.  Our students have taken so many tests in their school careers that they think they know exactly what is being asked and don’t need to read carefully.

When our students come to questions like these, what will they assume they are being asked to do? What are they actually being asked to do?

Try it for yourself.  Go back up and take a quick look at question #1.  Without reading the prompt carefully, what do you assume you are supposed to do in order to answer this question?  Now complete a careful reading of the same question prompt below with just a few words highlighted.  I marked words which refer to numbers in red in order to help with close reading.

The article shows that understanding plant DNA offers many advantages to plant growers and scientists. To complete the chart below, first select the two statements from the left column that are advantages of understanding plant DNA.

Then, drag and drop one quotation from the list of possible supporting evidence into the “Supporting Evidence” column to provide textual support for each advantage you selected. You will not use all of the statements from the box titled “Possible Supporting Evidence.”

The students are not asked to fill in each box with supporting evidence.  Rather, they are to pick the correct two answers and provide supporting evidence for only those two.  Be honest.  How many of your students will take the time to read the prompt carefully? 

Cue the Music from Jaws

How about number 2?  Here is the prompt:

Choose two quotations, one from each letter, that provide evidence for the claim made by both Abigail and John Adams.  Drag each quotation into the appropriate box.

That seems straight forward.  Now do a close reading.  Do you know what a “claim” is?  (Do all of our students?)  Look carefully at the boxes.  Did you catch on first glance that the top box is for John Adams and the bottom is for Abigail?   Notice that the quotations are listed with Abigail’s letter on the left-hand column.  Would students likely drag quotations to the wrong boxes?  Would you?  Are you hearing the music from Jaws yet, or are feeling the tension of waiting for the first scream?

My point is twofold.  First, these new tests are going to have different formats than what our students are used to.  Besides “drag and drop,” students are going to have multiple choice questions with six to ten options.  Students may have to choose one, two, or more correct answers and then justify their choices.  They are going to have to use close reading skills for understanding the text and for understanding the prompt.

Secondly, we don’t need to panic--yet.  Just like walking through a haunted house at Halloween or watching a scary movie, we can prepare ourselves—and our students—for the unexpected.  We can shine a light in the dark corners, and we can listen to the music being played to help them know when, to paraphrase Ray Bradbury, “something frightening this way comes.” 

In the coming weeks I want to take a look at what action steps we can take—and are taking—in order to make sure our students get the treat rather than the trick when they take the new Graduation Qualifying Exams and the Revised SAT.

Welcome to October, HSE.  I hope your week is frighteningly wonderful.

Phil