How Do You Know?

Several Fridays ago, along with the rest of you, I went from session to session learning about Google Drive, Google Accounts, Blackboard, Digital Content, and Digital Citizenship.  My observation during that day is that most of us fall somewhere on the continuum between being overwhelmed by all of the new information to wishing we would get past the basics and spend much more time on how to best apply this knowledge in the classroom.

When we learn about these topics, we are learning both what they are and how to use them, and that makes for very different learning experiences.  The educational terms used to describe the two different types of learning are Declarative Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge.  When we learn new vocabulary, facts, places, names, events, or titles, we are learning Declarative Knowledge.  Procedural Knowledge is about the skills and includes the psychomotor process of putting knowledge into action. Obviously, these are not entirely separate, but this might be a helpful way to think about our experience during the last half-day professional development—and about what happens with students in your classrooms.

From Sheila Pontis "Mapping Complex Information"

Robert Marzano gives this short description of how each type of knowledge is learned:

Learning Declarative Knowledge:

1. Construct Meaning: Students link information to prior knowledge.
2. Organize the Information: Students are able to see patterns in the information.
3. Store: Students store information in long-term memory.

Learning Procedural Knowledge:

1. Learn the Steps: Students learn the process, but it is just information.
2. Shape and Adapt: Students deepen understanding through practice and take ownership of the process.
3. Internalize: Students practice to the point of automaticity or fluency.

This might help make sense of where you came out on the continuum last Friday.  If you were unfamiliar with one or more of the topics, you may be somewhere in the steps of learning Declarative Knowledge.  You are asking questions like these:

• What is Google Drive?
• What is the difference between a Doc and a Sheet?
• What can students do with Google Drive?

If you are already somewhat familiar with these topics, you might be working on learning Procedural Knowledge.  Your questions might be these:

• How do I create a group mailing list for Google Drive?
• How can I use Google Forms to create a formative assessment?
• How can I use Google Drive to improve student collaboration?

The good news, regardless of where you fall on the continuum, is that repetition does make a difference.  Best practice instruction for students (and for us) is to cycle back into a new topic soon and often.  To move Declarative Knowledge into long term memory, students need to return to the concept and do something new with it, so they can make it their own.  To move Procedural Knowledge into automaticity takes practice.  The most effective kind of practice is not a one-time shot but rather distributed over time.

From Goalsblogger

Use it or lose it.

Regardless of your level of understanding, this truism applies.  It’s the way our brains function.  It is how we make meaning and how we improve our skills.  It is how we learn.

Fortunately for us, the professional development calendar works in our favor this year.  February 6 will provide another half-day to work on our knowledge and skills.  Our goal is to differentiate for those of you working on the Declarative Knowledge and those of you working on Procedural Knowledge.

In the meantime, the more often you and your students dive into Google Drive, Google Accounts, or Blackboard, the better your chance of moving your learning forward.  You will be making lots of choices about content and activities for your class in the coming days, weeks, and months.  When you have the option, opt as often as possible for one of the strategies you learned several weeks ago and will learn this coming Friday.

I know you will find these tools will help your students.  Even using these skills a little, will help you prepare for next fall as well.

I hope your week is a great one.

Phil

Source Unknown

State of the Village

This past Tuesday, President Obama had the main stage in national politics.  The State of the Union Address is always amazing to watch, regardless of your politics.  The standing and clapping (or lack of standing and clapping) is entertaining on its own right, and even the predictable and partisan responses after the speech are part of the spectacle.  The whole experience left me feeling part of something important, part of something special.

From Politifact

My wife ran across another way of looking at our place in nation, in our world, and even in Fishers, Indiana.  Last week, she sent the information below.  I found it to be thought-provoking.  In light of our President’s speech, you also may be interested in a “State of the Village” report:

If the world were a village of only 100 people, there would be:

• 60 Asians,
• 16 Africans, 
• 10 Europeans, 
• 8 people from Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, 
• 5 from the USA and Canada, and
• 1 person from Australia or New Zealand

Source: www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating:

• 17 people would speak a Chinese dialect (12 of them Mandarin) 
• 6 Spanish,
• 5 English,
• 4 people Hindi/Urdu, 
• 3 Arabic,
• 3 Portuguese, 
• This list accounts for less than half the villagers. The others speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, Lahnda, German, French, and over 7,000 other languages.

Source: www.enthnologue.com/statistics/size

In the village there would be:

• 32 Christians,
• 23 Moslems, 
• 15 Hindus, 
• 16 Nonreligious, Agnostics, or Atheists,
• 7 Buddhists, 
• 6 Folk or traditional religions
• 1 All other religions (including Judaism, Baha'i, Sikhism, Shintoism, 
• Taoism, Zoroastrianism, to mention just a few.)

Source: www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

In this 100-person community:

• 51 would live in cities. 
• 23 would live in substandard housing. 
• 74 adults (age 15+) would live in the village, and 16 of them would be illiterate. 
• 14 would suffer from malnutrition. 
• 11 would not have access to clean, safe drinking water. 
• 20 people would not have any electricity.
• Of the 80 that do have electricity, most would use it only for light at night. 
• In the village would be 56 radios, 22 televisions, 93 mobile phone subscriptions, and 9 computers (some villagers own more than one of each).
• 40 people would use the Internet. 
• 17 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one).
• 8 people would possess 83% of the entire village's wealth. 
• The poorest 70% of the people would receive only 3% of the income of the village. 

Sources: CIA World Factbook; 12 World Bank, World Development Indicators; UNICEF; International Energy Agency; International Telecommunications Databook 2103, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook; Oxfam International, “Working for the Few,” Oxfam Briefing Paper, January 20, 2014.

State of the School

This perspective provides enlightening food for thought about our place in the world.  It would be an interesting exercise to see what we would find if we completed a “State of the School” survey.  What would a village of 100 HSE students look like?  I wonder if we would be surprised by any of the findings.

Thanks for all you do for HSE, for our nation, and for our world.  It does, after all, take a village….

Phil

Several final thoughts from our Presidents on education:

• “Think about every problem, every challenge, we face.  The solution to each starts with education.”  –George H. W. Bush
• “And when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it’s time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them.  Teachers don’t go into education to get rich.  They don’t go into education because they don’t believe in children.  They want their children to succeed, but we’ve got to give them the tools.  Invest in early childhood education.  Invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.”  --Barak Obama
• “Knowledge—that is, education in its true sense—is our best protection against unreasoning prejudice and panic-making fear, whether engendered by special interests, illiberal minorities, or panic-stricken leaders.”  --Franklin D. Roosevelt
• “The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.”  --Gerald Ford
• “Leave the matter of religion to the family alter, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions.  Keep the church and state forever separate.”  --Ulysses S. Grant

The Soul of Society

“The quality of your self-talk dictates the quality of your life because whatever you feed yourself is the source of your growth.”  --Marvin Marshall

“I am a slow unlearner.  But I love my unteachers.”  --Ursula K. Le Guin

This past week, in different settings, I ran across these quotations from two very different authors.  The first is from Marvin Marshall, who writes a monthly newsletter about classroom management.  I've followed him for a long time and highly regard his book Discipline without Stress, Punishments, or Rewards.  Marshall informed both my teaching and my parenting.

 

The second line comes from Ursula K. Le Guin, the award winning author and philosopher.  For many years I enjoyed reading her outstanding and thought-provoking science fiction and fantasy novels.  More recently, I have come to appreciate her philosophical insights as well.

I see a connection between these two quotes that I think may be important for those of us giving our professional hearts and souls in the service of public education.

Self-Talk and Unteaching

There is no question that statements, when repeated often and with authority, are soon accepted as fact, whether they are true or not.  For example, when you and I hear time after time about all the faults and problems in public education, we are in danger of believing many of the myths ourselves.  These negative words can become the self-talk that Marshall speaks of if we follow conventional wisdom and repeat the misconceptions as truths.

To avoid debilitating self-talk, we are in desperate need of unteachers, people who point out fallacies, inaccuracies, and misconceptions.  As far as I can tell, Le Guin, in a commencement address to Bryn Mawr College, coined this term.  She spoke of being a slow unlearner, but also of the great value of her unteachers.  She was speaking specifically about the hard work of unlearning many of the common misconceptions that were instilled in her as a youth about a woman’s role in society, but we can draw similarities to the current misconceptions about public education.

We don’t need to look far from home for examples of common misconceptions about public education.  This week our state legislature is in the news.  Representatives and our governor are putting forth proposals about school funding, new testing requirements, and expansion of vouchers.  These bills will have a direct impact on us at HSE.  Furthermore, and perhaps more damaging, the rhetoric accompanying these bills is often disparaging about the efforts and results of public education.  In this political climate, seldom is credit given where credit is due for all of the good work and successes of public schools.

From the Indianapolis Star this week...

Like Le Guin, I am convinced that we need unteachers to speak truth about the common misconceptions surrounding public education.  Perhaps more to the point, we may need to be the unteachers to others about what is really going on in in public education across the state, in all HSE schools, in Hamilton Southeastern High School, and in our classrooms.

We must be the voice that speaks of the good and noble and essential aspects of public education, especially in the current political environment.

My Unteachers

In that spirit, this week I participated in a short intellectual exercise.  I made a list of those people who have served as unteachers to me in all walks of my life.  When I finished my list, I found that it was fairly extensive and included great authors I have never met and a handful who I have been able to meet, albeit briefly.  It also included co-workers who have mentored me, great teachers and administrators, family and friends, and even one person whom I married!

One quality all of the people on this list have in common is that they challenged me—and continue to challenge me—to think critically and continue to grow and improve.  Unlearning is not an easy task.  In fact, it is disconcerting to find that some truths I hold are not truths at all.  But these unteachers have been essential to my growth as a person and as an educator.

I found this exercise worth doing for two reasons.  First, I was able to identify some of the sources of my self-talk and make sure I was feeding myself a high quality diet.  Secondly, I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to address misconceptions I hear about public education, to point out the inaccuracies and fallacies often repeated as fact, or at the very least to add a counterbalance to the discussion.

Make Your List

I encourage you to try this exercise, even if it is just in your head.  We are in for some tough days ahead in public education, and there is no better time to fortify ourselves for the events on the political horizon.  We must speak up for what we believe.  Our reality is that we cannot expect others to do so for us.  We must be the ones to address fallacies when we hear them, we must feed ourselves high quality self-talk about the importance of the work we do, and we must become unlearners of faulty conventional wisdom when necessary. 

Perhaps most importantly, we must become unteachers whenever we can.  Public education continues to be the great equalizer, and it needs our support now more than ever.  

I hope your week is a good one, HSE.  Keep up the good work of teaching and unteaching, of learning and unlearning.  Regardless of the negative rhetoric in our political discourse, it is a great day to be in education and a great day to be Royal.

Phil

In case you are interested, this is my list, in no particular order, of my much loved unteachers.  There are others, including many of you reading this entry.  These people taught and untaught me.  They give me hope and help me find my voice on a wide variety of topics.

Jonathan Kozol	Carol Dweck	John Shelby Spong
Jim Kirkton	Thomas Guskey	Steve Barone
Phillip Schelechty	Carl Weaver	Kylene Beers
Marvin Marshall	Grant Wiggins	Keith Graber Miller
Lucy Calkins	Jane Allen	Ruby Payne
Alfie Kohn	Bea McGarvey	Robert Marzano
Sheila Yoder	Thomas Sergiovanni	HSE Admin Team
Karen Armstrong	Jim Burke	Ann Graber Miller
My birth family and siblings	A Houseful of Lederach Kids	Lisa Lederach

Engaged in HSE21

About a month before winter break, I wrote to you about the teacher who shadowed a sophomore and a senior for two full days of sitting on the “other side of the desk.”  She shared what she had learned and how the experience changed her as a teacher.  I heard back from quite a few of you after that entry.  Something about this teacher’s experience resonated with many of you.  Most of you agreed with her conclusions, but many of you commented that changing student attitudes is tough work. 

One consistent response from you and your peers went something like this: “Sadly, students seem to want the monotony.  It is difficult to get them excited, and they actually seem to prefer the ‘sit and get’ approach to education.”

From Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, creators of "Zits."

I get it! The reality is that it is easier for most students to sit and listen, to take notes and answer multiple choice quiz questions.  It is easier (and maybe feels more efficient) for the teacher to do most of the work, most of the heavy lifting, most of the thinking in class.  On the other hand, none of us believe this approach is the way we should do school.  So what should we do?

I Don't Have Answers

But I have ideas of where to look for answers.   Simply naming this phenomenon is a good first step, and one great source of rock solid information about engaging students in their own learning is Phillip Schlechty.  I first met Schlecthy in his office in Louisville.  He is a slow-talking, extremely warm man, who has a whip-sharp mind, and he has spent his adult life focusing on what motivates students to learn at high levels.

He argues that in all of your classes, you will have students moving somewhat fluidly between five different levels of engagement: Rebellion, Retreatism, Ritual Compliance, Strategic Compliance, and Engagement. 

Students in Rebellion disrupt the learning process.  They have diverted attention and low commitment.  Students in Retreatism simply tune you out.  They have no attention and no commitment.  Ritual Compliance is marked by students going through the motions to avoid negative consequences and results in superficial learning.  They have low attention and low commitment.  Strategic Compliance is identified by students asking, “What do I need to do in order to earn an A?”  (Or D—depending on the student)  They have high attention and low commitment. 

Engagement is harder to define, but you know it when you see it.  You feel it in the classroom, and it results in deep comprehension.  Engaged students associate the classroom activity with personal meaning, and they persist in learning, even in the face of difficulty.  They have high attention and high commitment.

Below is an illustration of what typical classes might look like, depending on the engagement levels of the students.  Green represents engagement.  Work your way clockwise through the other levels down to blue rebellion.  It’s an interesting way to think about your classroom.

From Scoop.it Collection curated by Deanna Dahsad

The goal is to keep as many of the students at the engagement level as much of the time as possible.  Schlechty is clear that the expectation is not for full engagement every minute of every period of every day.  That is an impossible target to hit.  And let’s be honest, a well-managed classroom is hard enough to obtain on some days and much better than the pathological option!  However, the higher the level of engagement and more often students are at this level, says Schlechty, the greater the chance that students will learn at high levels. 

You might notice the similarity in language between Understanding by Design and Phil Schlechty’s work.  There is a natural connection.  Wiggins and McTighe say teaching is all about “transfer.”  This is what Schlechty says engagement provides.  Without engagement, there is no transfer.  Schlechty uses language that is almost word-for-word references to authentic performance tasks, student choice, collaboration, and inquiry learning.

One other place you may have seen similar language to Schlechty and UbD is in the HSE21 Best Practice Model.  Take a look at this diagram again.  It was first developed three years ago, and it is the direction we have been going ever since.

My point is that there is no one answer to changing a classroom culture of compliance to a culture of engagement, but the best educational researchers I know are supporting our current work.  If you want to design lessons that bump up student engagement, a great place to start looking for answers is in the HSE21 Best Practice Model.

We are engaged in the right work and on the right path, HSE.

Phil

Welcome Back and Other Words You May Not Be Ready to Hear

Elbert Hubbard, an American writer and philosopher, wrote almost a hundred years ago, “No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.”  If you overlook the sexist language, I think Elbert had it just about right!  Ready or not, here we go, so welcome back, HSE.

I also want to remind you of the intent of these emails.

My hope is that you find “From B106” informative, helpful, or entertaining.  In these emails, I try to clarify school or district initiatives, provide resources you might find helpful, or ask questions I hope we can answer together as a school.  This semester, I want to focus on the transition we are experiencing to BYOD next fall, try to keep you informed about the new standards and high stakes tests, and explore how current educational research might be able to improve student learning at Hamilton Southeastern High School. 

If you are feeling swamped with email and work, please hit the delete button.  I in no way want to add to your work load.

Let me state it clearly: These are not required reading.  

Again, welcome back.  My hope is that this is a great semester of learning and growth for all HSE Royals, whether they be students or staff.

Phil

A few more quotes from Elbert Hubbard that might be helpful on a cold day in January:

• The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
• The love we give away is the only love we keep.
• Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.
• Do not take life too seriously.  You will never get out of it alive.