Week 4 Reflection

February 3 - 9

Chapter 2

One point I thought really notable was the effect the author implied remotes have had on our attention span; today most people, students and adults, are used to being able to fast forward, pause, or rewind anything they watch.  This degree of control over the information delivery system makes direct instruction, especially prolonged direct instruction, very difficult...that is of course, unless the presenter is actually watching the audience and adjusting their presentation accordingly. In this case, presenters may choose to jump around a bit, to liven things up by working in an anecdote, or to stay on track and proceed as planned.  Either way, as educators, for better or worse, we're competing with a whole world of influence, increasingly truncated into smaller and smaller byte-sized bits of information.  We must be edutainers, capable of having our students laugh, cry and learn.  "Boredom and learning are mutually exclusive!"

The solution is simple: classic show and tell.  Show them photos too big, bold and beautiful to print out, and tell them about them.  Leave the websites and items they'd be tempted to write down off the screen and put it in the handout. Give them the handout, which may include a thumbnail of the slide image and any pertinent black and white text that goes along with it (and resource links), but don't let them use their devices while you're presenting...this ensures you've got their attention when you need it and they see the image first (in your presentation) before coming to the text related to the image (in the handout)...because (and I agree!) "words can only recall images we've already seen."

My presentations involve few words on the slides but this is the first I've heard of designing a presentation to be (1) delivered on screen and then (2) printed out with additional information afterward. I often allow teachers to follow along or explore the technology/software I'm providing instruction on while I'm delivering instruction. I think it may be more beneficial to have them pay attention first during my presentation and then try it out for themselves.  I've been redesigning my PD and presentations with this approach in mind: Grill (direct teach, all eyes on me); Drill (practice applying what you learn with help from me or each other); and Chill (have time to play/tinker/explore...i.e. "sandbox time")

PLCs

What is a PLC? A PLC, in my own words, is an atmosphere of sharing and ongoing professional development, created and fostered by the staff and administration of a school, which focuses on student learning, sharing skills and strategies that facilitate student learning, and maintaining a frank but constructive dialog about how to increase student learning.

What is a PLC?

PLC shift #1: From an emphasis on teaching to an emphasis on learning.  Be able to answer (1) What do we want them to learn, (2) How will we know when they've learned it, and (3) What will we do if they haven't learned it?

PLC shift #2: A Culture of Collaboration.  Teachers must see themselves as members of a team working collaboratively toward the goal of student learning. As such, sharing techniques, resources, successes and "teachable moments" becomes an everyday occurrence, an exchange of ideas with a common purpose: student learning.

PLC shift #3: A Focus on Results. Results must be measurable and used to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, at the individual but also dept. and campus level.

Additional key point: teachers must share not hoard! A hard thing to convince secondary teachers to do!

Additional key point: PLC utilizes intervention during instruction (vs remediation after the fact..summer school etc) and directives (students will attend x,y,z) vs. optional invitations for further help.

PLCs What Are They and Why Are They Important?

I see this list of PLC characteristics to be the most valuable:

1. supportive and shared leadership,

2. collective creativity,

3. shared values and vision,

4. supportive conditions, and

5. shared personal practice.

For our district, we are looking at Learning Keys and their "data walks" to create more supportive conditions for teaching (campus admins do 4 minute data walkthroughs but attach no specific teacher names to the data...so we can see dept. or campus level data to drive PD).  We are also looking at "Instructional Rounds," where teachers observe other teachers for the same higher level questioning, authentic assessments, engaging lessons etc (focused on through data walks)...our hope is that this method of sharing (best) personal practices will help improve overall instruction (learning!!).  Ideally we'd like the benefits of both systems so we're working on the details.

Supportive and Shared Leadership

In addition to all that's above, we have been slowly trying to coax principals into modeling ongoing learning themselves, specifically by sharing resources, success stories, and other items with their teachers and parents via Twitter. At this point, four out of five principals are actively tweeting away, and this is great.  I think a great point made in this article is the importance of principals giving up this idea of "omnicomptence," where they feel obliged to maintain the illusion that they know all subjects equally well, or that they can't/shouldn't admit there are some things they don't know very well.  Admitting and acting on this (by pursuing further learning opportunities) makes principals more human, approachable, and respected.

My fears about DuFour: At a previous district, I saw much of DuFour's philosophy translated into a perpetual do over opportunity for the kids. At one point, between Sat. school and homework lunch, I was told I would have to teach last semester's content to students (so they could demonstrate "mastery" eventually), even though the student's grade wouldn't change (UIL). This was a hard sell! How do you tell a student who has been raised on grades and other extrinsic motivators that they need to give up their lunch/Sat. to relearn content they failed to master the previous semester? How do you talk the parent into dropping them off and picking them up? Our fallback was the standardized test we were preparing them for...not something I enjoyed.

I also noticed that admins were implying that we needed to give kids a chance (over and over again) to raise their grade or turn something in weeks late...while I understand that learning should be the goal, I feel we do kids a greater disservice by teaching them the wrong life lesson...are they going to get infinte do-overs in the real world?