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Do Educators Eat Their Young?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, cooperating Teacher, Education, Leadership, Mentoring, Observation, PD, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Seniority, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on March 25, 2015| 6 Comments »

Many years ago I read an article in Time Magazine where they attempted to select and rank the most difficult jobs in the US. The criterion that was used was based on the number of decisions that had to be made on that job in a single day. I was delighted and surprised to see that an Eighth Grade English Teacher position was ranked at the top of the list. As an eighth grade English teacher at the time, I felt both validated and appreciated. Of course, it was an article totally overlooked by most people who were not eighth grade English teachers, I am sure.

Being a teacher of any course of study is a difficult job requiring a person to make possibly thousands of decisions daily. Any of these decisions can have a great impact on the developing mind of a child. What then are the expectations of a teacher candidate direct from graduating college, and having only a few months teaching experience in a loosely organized, pre-service student teacher program? Of course expectations will vary from school to school, but there are some generalities that hold true for many schools.

A new teacher must learn a great number of things from the first day of employment. First and foremost there is the curriculum. Secondly, there are the school and district policies. Then of course there is the school culture, as well as the community. This is just the job related stuff. Now let’s add what needs to be done personally to set up an independent life outside of the college experience. Setting up a place to live, transportation, and expenses beyond the support of parents. It’s the big time with adult problems and adult decisions. All of this is being done in the first year of teaching.

How does the employing school respond to the needs of a new teacher? Too often an administrator will look to, or try to persuade, a new teacher to take on at least one extra curricular activity, or coach a team. I think most schools really expect that to happen. Of course on the secondary level at least having a new teacher in any department may mean that the department Chair need not worry about arguing with the staff as to who will take the difficult, or troubled classes. Those are the problems that most certainly can go to the new kid.

It goes without saying that some type of mentoring program will go a long way in transitioning new teachers into the system. Many schools, however, see this, as a costly program that can be sacrificed in times of budgetary crisis, which in education is a perpetual state of existence. It then is incumbent on the new teacher to find a colleague to call upon for help and hope that ever-observing administrators do not view it as a sign of weakness.

My greatest objection to the attitudes toward new teachers is about the assumptions people make that new teachers will breathe new life into the old and tired methods of the older generation of teachers. More often than not, if a school has a culture where it is not inspiring its entire staff to professionally develop with support and recognition from above, there will be no number of new teachers that will affect change in that toxic culture. New teachers will go along to get along. Attaching blame for that toxic culture does not fix it. Throwing new teachers at it does not fix it. Expecting teachers living with it to step up does not fix it. It takes a top down and a bottom up recognition of the problem to fix it. It takes leadership from experienced educators not kids fresh out of college.

When it comes to new teacher hires we should expect less and mentor more. We do nothing but add on to a new teacher’s already mountainous amounts of responsibilities with things experienced teachers and administrators need to deal with. Instead, we blame colleges and teacher prep courses for not doing the right thing. They may not be fully blameless, but they are not responsible for our mistakes. We can’t keep doing the same stupid stuff and then wonder why half of the young people entering the teaching profession drop out in the first five years. Teaching is tough enough on its own, even without having politicians and business people vilifying the profession at every opportunity. We don’t have to eat our young as well. We must accept part of the responsibility for our best hope for the future finding paths other than teaching. In consideration of all of this, as a life long learner and teacher I have told both of my children that they should consider options other than teaching. Of course, they rarely listen to me anyway.

If we are to continually replenish our profession with the best and the brightest, we need to be smarter as to how we nurture them. We need to reflect on what we do and see how it affects the outcome of what we want. If we want to maintain great educators we need to enable them with support until it makes sense to let them soar on their own. If we are to better educate our students, we must first better educate their educators.

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Education Based on a Snapshot

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, Connected Educator, cooperating Teacher, Education, Leadership, Observation, online learning, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on February 24, 2015| 5 Comments »

I often wonder how we can get an accurate picture of what and how educators are teaching today. We have more, and better technology than we have ever had to record and analyze data, and yet we still do not have a clue as to what is really going on in the average classroom. The pictures that we get, or the stories that are told, seem to focus on the best and the worst. Too often superintendents spin the best, and the media spins the worst. We need to remind ourselves that any story about what is going on in education is just a snapshot that is representing a very tiny portion of the big picture.

There are too many education leaders who when talking about their schools tend to focus on the best and most innovative representations their schools have to offer. Intentional or not, this creates an impression on their audience that the entire school is filled with the best and most innovative educators. That may actually be true in some instances, but my guess would be that it is a very much smaller number than such stellar tales would lead us to believe.

Of course the idea is to offer real life examples that can be used as models for exemplary teaching. I get that, but too often these stories create an impression that these models are typical, rather than exceptional. I too am guilty of putting a positive spin on the effects of such things as technology in education, student voice, student-centered learning, self-directed PD, connected learning, and open source access. I recommend blog posts that model not only the benefits of these methodologies, but give shining examples being used today in classrooms, as if that is the norm. The fact is that the very reason these are highlighted is because they are exceptional and not the norm. It is important that these stories are shared as examples and models, but I truly believe that we need to maintain our perspective as to where they fit in the bigger picture of education.

In our latest desire for innovative education, many educators are sharing their best and most innovative lessons with their principals. The principals in turn share their best and most innovative teacher stories with their superintendent. The superintendent then takes the best of the best from all of those stories to share with the public in order to create that positive vibe for the district that everyone loves. This is good PR.

The PR process however may be creating a picture of education that is not easily lived up to. People walking into a school on any given day may be expecting great innovative, tech-supported lessons in every class only to be greeted by sit and get lectures with all kids seated in rows and quietly taking notes.

Whenever I entered a school to observe a student teacher from our teacher preparation program, I would try to walk through the school to observe at a glance what other classes were doing under the guidance of veteran teachers. It was a cursory observation at best, but there were observable differences.

My students would often have me observe them doing a student-centered lesson that usually involved group work and technology. Of course they knew what my preferences were and they believed in “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. I was not tyrannical, but I was partial to innovative lessons. I was rarely disappointed in what they did, or attempted to do. In my walk around however, I was too often struck by the fact that, I observed a majority (not all) of the teachers relying on sit and get methods with kids sitting complacently in rows.

Now we have entered into an era of Do It Yourself PD. As much as many educators talk about connectedness and all of its benefits, I see very little evidence that supports connected learning is being adopted on any large-scale by educators. Judging from books, articles, speeches and posts, educators should be in a constant state of collaboration on a global scale. Again, we are creating a complete picture of education PD that is based on a few snapshots, rather than an accurate, realistic view of what is. We do need to tell stories and model where we should be going, but we can’t give the impression that we have already achieved that goal. We need schools to do an honest assessment of what they are doing in order to determine where they need to change and improve. We can’t improve without recognizing where we need to improve. Change will best be served with both top down and bottom up improvements working for the same goal. For that to happen we need better transparency, honesty, and accuracy. If we better understand what we are actually doing, we will better understand what we need to do in order to improve.

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What’s a Twitter Chat?

Posted in Blog, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Student teaching, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on February 16, 2015| 18 Comments »

There are now hundreds of Education Twitter chats taking place around the world at almost any time of day or night. To follow any chat in real-time all one needs is the hashtag (#). The hashtag is the key to the chat. Using TweetDeck, Hootsuite, or some other third-party application it is easy to create a column that will follow only the hash tagged tweets of the chat. That will focus on and deliver each of the tweets in the chat in the order that they are posted.

Of course in a chat that may have fifty to a hundred participants it is impossible to follow every tweeter’s tweets. Very much like any face-to-face social gathering of such numbers of people, one would only engage with a few chatters at a time and focus on the topic of discussion within that group. I enter chats with the intent of engaging a few people with my point of view on the topic to challenge and test my own ideas, as well as the ideas of others. Many chats archive the entire chat so people can go back to see whatever it was they thought they might have missed from others.

My personal preference is to participate in chats with one topic to be explored in-depth as opposed to chats, which program 5 or 6 questions in a one-hour slot. My feeling is that the chat never develops naturally with predetermined questions. The participants may just be getting started when time demands a change to the next question. Maybe it is a control thing on the part of the moderators of those chats. It does keep things moving in the chat, but it seems more forced and less organic. There are many however who thrive in that format. As long as topics are being explored the format of the chat is less important. We can never answer for how other people learn and participate.

In a single question chat the participants are more reliant on moderators to feed off of and restate questions and ideas. It is more of a practice in the art of discussion and less formula.

The purpose of any chat is to get a more in-depth discussion and reflection on a given topic. Hopefully, the most successful chats will generate Blog Posts with further reflection and clarity. The people attending these chats often have a specific interest in the topic. The use of Twitter as the platform for education chats enables not only anyone interested in the topic, but also people whose area of expertise might be that specific topic. Keep in mind that twitter has a global reach, so the only possible barriers to anyone’s participation might just be time zones. Many authors, speakers, bloggers, and thought leaders will often participate in chats.

Regardless of titles there are many chatters who offer great ideas, or challenges during chats. It is great to assemble educators who have a common interest to express their ideas on that interest. They are the very people who one needs in a Personal Learning Network to continue following and interacting within meaningful ways. Every chat should offer up some new people to follow on Twitter, or to engage further in Google Hangouts or Skype calls.

The one long-standing criticism of Chats is that they have a tendency to become echo chambers of like-minded people. I would agree that educators do have a common interest, but it has been my experience that they rarely agree 100% on anything. Everyone has his/her own slant on any given topic. Some even abandon their personal beliefs to stir the pot with opposing views. This is where experienced moderators prove their worth in chats. I do not prescribe to the echo chamber argument.

New chatters are usually hesitant to get involved at first. They sort of lurk and learn the culture of the chat. They try to figure out the leaders and just try not to get overwhelmed because of the rate that most of the tweets fly by. It can be quite intimidating. Most chats start off slowly as people begin to gather. It usually takes 5 to 10 minutes to get going. Some chats have people introduce themselves others just dive right in. There is one distraction newcomers should be aware of. Hashtags for chats are used for any tweet that may be related to that general hashtag. For instance a hashtag widely used for any Tweet dealing with education is #Edchat. People use this 24/7. That means that during the #Edchat Chats tweets my come in that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Knowing this before the chat helps filter through the noise.

To bullet point the chat strategy:

Set up a column to follow the Chat
Enter the chat to engage a small number of people and not the auditorium.
Identify the moderators for guidance
Follow on Twitter the most interesting participants to add value to your own PLN
Do not get distracted by off-topic tweets
Engage clearly and succinctly
Reflect on your experience

Now all you need is find a chat to engage in. There are chats for educators in various States within the US as well as many other countries. There are chats for specific grades, subjects, courses, and interests. Of course the Granddaddy of chats is #Edchat which takes place twice each Tuesday. The first #Edchat is at noon eastern time and the second #Edchat is at 7 PM Eastern time with a different Topic. The #Edchat Topics are decided by a Poll each week. Please Join Us!

Here is a list of all of the Education chats taking place globally on Twitter.

All Chats

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Admins: A Plan to Consider

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, Education, Leadership, Observation, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on February 11, 2015| 3 Comments »

Almost daily someone comes out with a plan to do something different in education to make some progress in reforming the system. Most of these changes require that teachers or students make the change. The truth is that until we change the culture, there will be little change in the system.

In thinking about how we approach, analyze and evaluate things, it seemed to me that the people held most accountable were the students and the teachers. They were the most visible and easily assessed, because they, as groups, are asked to perform under scrutiny while their efforts are observed, recorded, analyzed and critiqued.

I have been saying for years that if we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators. In order to do that, districts need to offer some type of support for that to happen. With all that is being required of teachers today, there is not enough time for them to plan out and develop the best methods of professional practice in addition to adding their needed relevance in professional development. Things are changing way too fast. If that development is an expectation of a district or school, the responsibility for it to happen should fall on that district or school.

Why not apply the same standard of observation of students’ work, and teachers’ lessons to every school’s Plan for Support. Let’s call for more transparency from our administrators. If a teacher’s support for a student’s success is as important as research tells us it is, wouldn’t the same hold true for an administrators support of a teacher, or even the entire staff?

Many, many schools will talk about their support for students and staff to be placed on websites and brochures. Those are words written in general terms, which in many cases are just painting a picture of wonderful teachers, happy at work for the benefit of wonderful happy students. It is public relations. The reality in many cases is support for teachers is whatever the state requires for professional development, as well as a place to pick up forms to be filled out for credit.

Why not really commit to something; a real plan. Write it out just as a teacher is required to write out lesson plans. Put the plan into words on a document stating specifically what is being done in your school to support any teachers’ development. Do it step by step to include everything. What are the goals and what is the plan? Call it the Professional Support Plan. Make it public for all to see. After that, observe it. Analyze its effects. Reflect on results. Modify the plan where it is needed for better results. This should be a main objective of some administrator. Hold someone accountable for the success of support for the staff. Break down the “Us vs. Them” mentality and establish that we are educators all, and we are in this together.

Many reading this will say, “we do that already”. If that is the case then roll out that existing Support Plan Document and run it by your staff. See if they think it is an effective plan. Get a little collaboration on a document that could have a profound effect on the school’s staff. It might be possible that something was left out of the current plan, or maybe it lacks relevance because it was developed in the 90’s. Years in the 21^st Century may see changes that might have taken Decades in the 20^thCentury.

Support, Transparency, Collaboration, Communication, and Creation are the things we need our educators working on today, since they are the very things we need to teach our kids for tomorrow. We have demands of our students and teachers that force them out of their comfort zones. It may be time to ask more of our administrators. They need not do more, but maybe they need to do better. We need to break some comfortable patterns of the past for more effective plans for the future. In order to change the system we need to first change the culture. Twentieth Century methodology is far less effective in meeting the needs of 21^st Century students and teachers. We need to upgrade.

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Why Twitter Will Never Connect All Educators.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, online learning, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on January 26, 2015| 21 Comments »

If there is one thing I truly understand about educators it is that they are slow to change. It might be from decades of people jumping in with the “latest and greatest” answer to a better way to do things in education, or some legislative mandate to fix it all through legislation, only to find it to fizzle out and fall way short when actually implemented. If teachers learned one thing from these experiences it is that, if you wait and ride it out long enough, all of these initiatives will all go away. The problem however is that many educators want to apply this sit and wait posture to anything that requires them leaving their zones of comfort.

The mindset of a 20^th Century educator is very comfortable for most educators since they were trained for the most part by 20^th century educators. A majority of educators are very comfortable with the methodology and pedagogy of that time. Structure and student compliance matched to a focus on lecture and direct instruction are the common experiences of most educators.

The gap however, between 20^th Century educators and 21^st Century learners, is now beginning to widen at a much faster rate. Today’s learners have become more directed and into the ownership of their learning. The classroom is no longer the only location where learning takes place. If today’s learner has a need to learn something that has meaning to him/her, he/she can access information and tools to curate, communicate, collaborate and create without any help from someone standing at the head of the class.

If students need info, they can Google it. If they need a demonstration they go to You Tube. They can use any number of applications to create something from what they have learned and to make things better they can collaborate with anyone globally at anytime. The very best part is that after all is said and done they have the ability to publish their work at will.

Many students today learn for a reason, not because they are told to. They have found their voice. Many are finding themselves limited by what is being offered in classrooms. Many have inquisitive minds that do not want to wait to get to the next grade to learn what they want, or need to know now. Students want to learn in order to contribute and gain from meaningful, authentic learning and not because we tell them that, “someday you may need to know this”. Quite honestly the world is changing so rapidly, we do not know the “what” it is that they will need to know for their future. The best we can do to help them is to focus on the “how” to learn for the future, and they will determine the “what” based on their specific needs at that time.

The gap between teacher and student will continue to widen if the educators’ mindset for learning does not evolve. Educators, themselves, must be the Life Long Learners that they speak of in school mission statements and addresses at “parents nights”.

It is the growth mindset of educators that is the key to changing an antiquated system. We can have every educator in the country sign a future ready pledge, but if they have no understanding of what future ready means to them personally, it will be another wasted initiative. Committing to working technology into the infrastructure will have little effect if the educators are not willing to embrace the teaching and learning that must go along with that. We can’t cram 21^st Century learning into a 20^th Century model of teaching because it is more comfortable for our educators. There should be no comfort zone for an educator that is more important than a student’s relevant education. The students and their learning must be the focus. Educators can only be effective if they to are learners. Teaching is not a passive exercise; it requires work, study, and involvement in an ever-changing world. That is why everyone can’t be a teacher. It requires a growth mindset and a willingness to evolve as a learner for a lifetime and that is a necessary commitment that many are not willing to choose to make.

The idea of collaborative learning has always been with us in education, and in life in general. It is the social learning we talk about. The idea that we can now collaborate globally on a huge scale is something of a shift in thinking in education. It is only as a result of technology that this has become possible. It does afford educators an unlimited pool of collegial sources. Educators who can share ideas and help others avoid problems make up an individual educator’s Personalized Learning Network. This PLN is made up of people, who collectively are smarter than any one individual, and are willing to share. The ability to create and access these sources is all part of a growth mindset for learning in the 21^st Century. It also requires an openness to learning about the tools to accomplish it all. This takes time and is not a product of a workshop, or a daylong PD event.

Without a mindset for continually learning, or a limited view on what one is willing to learn, it will be difficult to change the status quo in education. Connecting with others may be a great idea that we all agree will make a difference in education, but what good does that do us, if a majority of educators are only comfortable doing what it is they have always done. Of course, it should go without saying that if staying within those comfort zones worked, we would not be having a global discussion on needed reforms for education.

In order to create these much-needed Personalized Learning Networks educators will need to learn about social media and its culture. The ins and outs of Twitter would be the most efficient and effective way to share what is needed for educators. This however takes some time to learn, and it also takes a commitment of at least 20 minutes a day interacting with connected colleagues for anyone to benefit from this. The benefits far outweigh the time and work involved, but the fact of the matter is that not every educator has a growth mindset. Not every educator shows a willingness to leave those zones of comfort. For those reasons Twitter will never connect all educators. The shame of it is that Twitter is probably the best way to share and learn available to us now. If we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators.

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Assertions and Assumptions Skew Perceptions

Posted in Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on January 12, 2015| 8 Comments »

This post is a direct result of a conference that I recently attended with some of the brightest minds in education. The attendees were education thought leaders all. I was humbled in their presence, which is not unusual for me. I was an education lightweight compared to many in attendance. What struck me about this group however was their lack of relevance in the world of EdTech education. They were not at all a part of the model we have all come to believe is now the EdTech-influenced model of education for the USA. I was asked by some what a Blog was. Others had never ever heard of a Professional Learning Network. Somehow the model of education portrayed by so many and being sold to America by the press through some vocal politicians and financial influencers, who probably don’t have a clue what goes on inside most classrooms today, does not exist for these folks. Like many educators today, PowerPoint is the extent of their technology integration into education.

I am so very fortunate and grateful to be able to travel and participate in Education Conferences worldwide. My interaction with educators is not limited to a building, district, county, state, or even a single country. I talk to many educators from many places both inside and outside the USA. One factor common to all these educators is that they are attending some form of education conference. This is not a common experience for many, if not most, educators. Few schools budget for teachers’ attendance at conferences and the view that a teacher’s place is in the classroom is one that is probably the most prevalent view among most keepers of the purse strings.

As a result of limited teacher participation at many of these conferences, only the best, or the most innovative, or the most influential of teachers get to attend. Of course the number of administrators, movers and shakers, the decision makers, or those who control the budgets and purse strings are most often represented in greater numbers and repeatedly attend year after year at these conferences. Of course they are also the people most sought after to attend such conferences since most of these get-togethers are sponsored and supported by companies trying to sell their products to that very target audience. This is not a bad thing, but an element in considering the big picture of education conferences, especially in the area of EdTech.

Now that we have an understanding of who attends these conferences, let us consider the “what and why” of the sessions presented at these conferences. Often, the very companies sponsoring the conference to display their Tech wares will do their own informative sessions within the program. They are probably the most knowledgeable of their product, so it is a great way to represent the best potential of that product. The employees who demonstrate these products are trained to do so, and, more often than not, they are trained extremely well. Certainly their training exceeds a typical teacher’s experience with a PD session in school. Additionally, these demonstrations show off the latest and greatest version of the products. Companies are not stuck with older product versions because of budget restrictions that schools often face.

This is my personal view of what a typical education conference looks like. It is a showcase for the best and brightest schools have to offer with the help of EdTech companies supporting and promoting the teachers and districts that are effectively using their products. Unfortunately, with all the hype, public relations, and a need to put education stories out to the press, this is often touted as the picture of education in the USA: Teachers using technology to teach our digital native children in preparation for their world. This might be the perfect time to mention those flying cars of the future that we have heard so much about over the years.

The point here is that it is not representative of what is going on in education in the USA. We are not as fully tech-oriented as the press and politicians would have us believe. Many schools lack the budget, or infrastructure to support it. Certainly the way PD is provided today, as it has been in centuries past, is hardly adequate to get educators up to speed. Trying to maintain a 20^th Century model of education in the 21^st Century is not moving us forward either, yet it seems to be a dominating education philosophy.

We need to somehow take the vision of what we see in education conferences and mix it with the reality of what is actually being done in education. If we want to focus on a better education for our kids, we need to focus first on a better education for their educators. If the promise of EdTech is ever to be realized than we need to clearly establish where we each are in that picture and make specific individualized plans to get us to where we each need to be. It will not happen organically. We will never have out-of-the-box, innovative learning until we promote and support out-of-the-box and innovative teaching. Technology in education should not be limited to PowerPoint presentations and word-processed book reports.

The picture of what American education is has been blurred by politicians, well-intentioned business people, profiteers, and to a great extent educators themselves. I don’t know if we can describe a picture of a 21^st Century classroom that holds true for all classrooms. I imagine that the most typical class in America still resembles a 20^th Century class which is not far different from a 19^th Century class: Rows, a board, and a teacher standing in front of the room. The frustration I have always had as an educator is that the vision for education is far better than the reality.

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Admins: Good, Better, Best

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, Mentoring, Observation, Parents, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on December 8, 2014| 3 Comments »

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.” St. Jerome

After years of teaching in many buildings and several districts, I have acquired a number of observations on how teachers view and rate administrators. Of course everyone’s view is skewed by each person’s idea of how an administrator is supposed to provide leadership, as well as what amount of an administrator’s job should be administration and how much should be education. It has been my experience that more often than not an administrator’s worth is judged on faculty morale and school discipline within a building, or a district in the case of superintendents. Lack of student discipline and low faculty morale are too often indicators of poor leadership. These symptoms tend to expose the obvious poor leaders, who hopefully are not a large part of the system.

In my opinion the bigger issue is less obvious, how should we differentiate and improve between successful levels of school leadership? What are the differences between good, better, and best? Assuming the poor leaders stand out, how do we get good leaders to be better, and the better to be the best?

Getting educators to agree on generalities is not difficult, but getting them to agree on specifics is often a difficult, if not an impossible task. Most educators are thoughtful, reflective, and fair-minded when it comes to evaluating people, even administrators, since evaluation is part of their job when it comes to kids. Teachers often give administrators a wide berth either because they are kind and non-critical of authority, or compliant. Maybe more honest feedback to administrators from their staffs would affect a more positive change in the system.

School Culture is probably one of the greatest influences on the learning that takes place in any school. It is that institution’s attitude toward learning and respect for its learners. A good admin will recognize this, as well as the fact that it has the potential for coming from the bottom up as much as from the top down. A better admin will not only recognize this, but will use that culture in branding the school to the outside world. Not only is it important for a school to do a good job, it is also important for an admin to tell everyone about it. The best admins not only recognize the culture and use it in a positive form of marketing; they will feed into and nurture that culture to maximize its positive effect on staff and students alike. This then carries over to the parents involving the entire community in learning and supporting the education community.

Observations are rarely comfortable for teachers and too often a time-consuming necessity for administrators. A good admin will use it as a tool for improvement, and not a club to intimidate teachers. A fair assessment of pre-determined objectives during a lesson is a mark of a good administrator. To pay attention to pre and post conference meetings to set goals and offer constructive feedback is a higher-level observation is the mark of a better admin. Of course the more collaborative the observations, as well as using lead teachers as models, or exemplars the more comfortable teachers become with the process. They feel as if they are part of the process instead of being a target of it. Thoughtfully sharing teacher successes with the faculty is often the mark of a great administrator. This enables the admin to nurture support and improve the performance of the staff.

Of course there is the idea that the head of any school system or building should also be the “Lead Learner”. With all that is required of modern administrators and the drain on their time, this part of the job is often overlooked. Any admin should recognize the need for at least one lead learner in a building, an individual with insights into the workings of relevant teaching and learning. They recognize the need for someone who the staff can go to for modeling the latest and greatest in the profession. The better admins are those people who are the go to people for how to approach learning in relevant ways. Of course the best admins are not only lead learners, but they take every opportunity available, as well, as to create opportunities to share and collaborate on learning with the staff. They model their approach to learning every day. They innovate ways to involve and lead their staff in teaching and learning.

Relevance is another very important measurement in being an effective administrator. Most administrators are products of a 20^th Century education. Too often many administrators base their education philosophies on their college training, which is usually steeped in 20th Century methodology. That works well if the school itself has a staff that employs 20^th Century methods. The problem arises when we consider that we are teaching over a decade into the 21^st Century. 21^st Century learning uses different tools, and different methodologies from that of the 20^th Century and it is the 21^st Century and beyond that we are preparing our students to live in. Using 20^th century measurements to assess 21^st Century teaching and learning may not be the best way to assess how much learning is going on in any given school.

Relevance has become a key issue in education today. In a computer-driven society change is constant and rapid. To keep up with change and maintain relevance Administrators along with all other educators need to expose themselves to the latest theories and methods within the profession of education. Of course the poorest of Administrators will stand out like dinosaurs holding on to centuries past in education, but lets get to the rest. The good admins recognize rapid change and support technology, and recognize that things must change from the 20^th Century. Better admins are reading and sharing Blog posts, supplying relevant PD to support the technology brought into the building. The best however, are not only connected educators, they Blog, provide time for teachers to collaborate, plan for the tech in their building with ongoing PD and coaching, model the use of technology in their interaction with staff and students. They are immersed in 21^st Century learning and all that it involves: collaboration, communication, curation, creation, critical thinking, reflection, authentic learning, problem-based learning, and project-based learning. The very best lead their staff by providing more sources and opportunities to connect, reflect, and collaborate further.

Being an administrator today is a most difficult job. It would be highly unusual for any administrator to have all of the best attributes, but it does serve well as a goal for which they should strive. Why not reflect on what we do, and how we do it. If we are good let’s strive for better. If we are better let’s fight on to be the best. It doesn’t have to be all at once. Let’s do it one category at a time. Motivating others is an important skill for a successful administrator, but the best administrators are self-motivators as well. But then again, what do I know; I am but a retired English teacher?

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Methods: Tradition vs. Relevance

Posted in Common Core, Curriculum, Education, Elementary, Internet, Leadership, Mentoring, PD, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on November 13, 2014| 11 Comments »

This morning I read a post from a higher education educator about the negative effects of Tech in lectures. The author was perplexed when he realized a great many students in his lecture hall were paying attention to Facebook, or attending to email during the course of a two-hour lecture. His school chose to ban tech devices from the lecture hall. Additionally, students were required to use nametags, so that the lecturer could address individual students with questions during the lecture. This was to be a spot check to insure people were paying attention.

The author said that grades increased as a result of the changes. It seemed to be implied that the positive effect came from the banning of devices. Of course my perspective on the incident led me to believe that the banning of the devices had less to do with the increased attention on the part of the students, but rather a greater impact was caused by the involvement in more of a discussion with the name-tagged students in the lecture.

As a person who attends many education conferences year round, I experience many lectures often in the form of Power Point presentations. I find myself dependent on my devices to distract me from the boredom that often accompanies too many of these 45-minute presentations. As a person of some age, I must admit that a two-hour presentation for me would probably result in a series of short catnaps. If truth be told I think a two-hour lecture would be too much for most people.

The way many people have been programmed to interact with content through the Internet may be one reason why lectures have lost their allure for many.

When kids explore a topic today a primary source is YouTube, which is probably why it’s the second most used search engine after Google. Video for many seems to be more engaging. It also gives control to the learner to repeat or skip over material at will.

Beyond the video even the exploration of text for today’s learner is different. Before the digital explosion, text was stagnant. To get from point A to point G one had to read points B, C, D, E, and F first. Hyperlink changed that linear mindset. Today, while reading text learners can diverge from that straight path with the click of a mouse. They can travel down paths of their own choosing on the subject at hand. Again, they control the path of their learning.

The vast quantity of sources is also staggering when compared to an earlier age when all knowledge was recorded in print. Lectures back then synthesized and condensed things serving a real purpose. Text today is sprinkled with audio and video clips offering variety to the learner. Many different sites address the same topics offering choice to the learner. The role of the lecturer in a digital age is far less of a need when given the plethora of alternatives available online.

There is interaction and dialogue that can take place between authors and learners.

The sources for learning today are much different from previous centuries when lectures ruled education. For the curious mind the digital journey seeking knowledge can be its own experience. Having control over one’s own learning is a very effective way to learn. It is also relatively new to a very conservative world in education.

Many of the educators in the system were not students within a digital age and have yet to come to a full understanding of it. Understanding and harnessing the powers of digital learning seems to be difficult for many educators. This may be evidenced in a two-hour lecture delivered for the purpose of testing the students’ retention of facts from that lecture. This is a short-term goal with few lasting effects for learning, and seems like a waste of everyone’s time.

Many educators are products of an education based on lecture and direct instruction. It is difficult for some to understand that kids today have different ways and many more sources in order to learn. Forcing 21^st Century learners into models of learning from previous centuries may not be as effective as some of these educators would hope.

There will always be a need for lecture and direct instruction in education. However these methods can no longer be the mainstay of education. We need to develop newer methodologies to maximize the sources available to today’s learners. Since today’s kids approach learning differently, it stands to reason that we need to approach teaching differently.

If collaboration and discussion within problem-based learning is more relevant to today’s learners, why would educators insist on staying with less effective methods? The technology has changed the way learning happens. That is now a given. Technology by its nature will continue to advance and evolve. It is easier for us to change our methodology and to use the technology than it is to withhold the technology to maintain the outdated methodology. My personal belief is that at least in education relevance is more important than tradition when it comes to methodology.

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Stop 20th Century Thinking

Posted in Accountability, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Education, Interactive White Board, Internet, IWB's, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on October 23, 2014| 44 Comments »

In the 21^st Century our approach to education can and should be very different from previous centuries. The basic skills we teach are pretty much the same, but the tools we have to use require a different approach, as well as additional and very different literacies from centuries past. Information once difficult to find, maintain, and disseminate is now found by a voice command to a mobile device. The model of the teacher as the content expert standing in the front of the room, lecturing to rows of students taking handwritten notes to memorize and regurgitate on exams delivered after every unit of learning, seem now to be a dated model, at least in some classes around the country.

With access to more free-flowing information than has ever been available to mankind in any centuries past, our approach to accessing, curating, collaborating and creating with that information must change as well. There came a time when monks were no longer needed to transcribe books because of the printing press. There came a time when the Gutenberg press was replaced by a mechanized letterpress and that was later replaced by high-speed offset presses. Today, the idea of the printed word is being replaced by the digital word. With each step forward there are those who are more comfortable with what was, compared to what is. That is to always be expected. Eventually however, we all move forward.

The model of education that most of us are products of was designed for a different time and for a different purpose. The system was created to benefit industry as much, if not more so, than it was to create a freethinking society.

Technology, contrary to science fiction writers’ predictions, will not replace teachers. It will however change the model of how we teach from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, which was teacher-controlled and teacher-directed learning to a 21^st century model of learner-directed learning. The teacher becomes more of a mentor and co learner with students. When it comes to teaching students in the 21^st century I have come to believe that it is more important to teach kids how to learn than it is to teach them what to learn.

A very great disconnect in all of this occurs when we try to use the 21^st century technology tools for learning and fit them into the 19^th & 20^th century model of teaching. I have witnessed English teachers having students do a composition assignment. They had students do a handwritten rough draft, revise it, do a final handwritten copy, and then put it on a word processor without accessing a spell check or grammar check. Those teachers learned that way, and taught that way, and added the technology to their 20^th century model of teaching. The tech tool was not used for learning. In their future lives those students will certainly use word processors for any writing that they do. Is it not incumbent on their teachers to teach students how to do it correctly? (Yes, as an adult I effectively use a grammar check and a spell check on everything I write. Most people do, even the really smart ones.)

Another example is the Interactive White Board, IWB. It can be a great tool for interactive lessons in a 21^st century class, but in the 20^th century it becomes a great way to show kids videos as they sit in rows.

Being an educator in the 21^st century will require a change in mindset. We are mostly all products of a 20^th century upbringing. That is where we are grounded. We have been programmed to it in every way. As technology begins to change things, we naturally want to fit it into what we know and do. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where that no longer works. We need to revisit how we do things in education. If the 20^th century methods were working, we would not be having all of these discussions about education.

We need to understand that teaching students how to learn will serve them much better than teaching them what to learn. As educators we need to keep in mind we are teaching our students for their future and not our past. Technology will continue to evolve. That is the nature of what it does. If we adapt and stay relevant, we survive. If we stand still, we will fall behind and we will no longer be relevant.

Placing 21^st century technology tools for learning in a 20th century environment for learning is a losing strategy. We need to update our approach as we introduce new tools designed for learning. The pedagogy is still key, but the technology is an accelerant. This is not intuitive. It must be taught. We need to better prepare educators, as well as change the culture.

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A reflective, collaborative mindset for Connected Educators

Posted in #CEM, Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on October 12, 2014| 10 Comments »

I have always been a big picture kind of learner. If I had a picture of where I was supposed to go, I had a reason to learn the various parts I needed to know in order to get there. Once I got there, I would try to figure out if that was the place I wanted to be, or if I could make it a better place. Once I understood what I needed to do as an educator, I worked to put all of the components in place. When I finally got there, it was not all I believed that I was promised, so I worked to make it better.

My education career started in the early 70”s, so the sources I had to work with back then were limited. My collegial support group was about eleven other English teachers. Stretching my teaching experience was limited to what I was allowed to do within the building, in which I taught. I later found that those limitations varied from building to building depending on the leadership and culture of each school. My development as a teacher was limited to the small amount of professional development offered by the district, and whatever courses I could afford to pay for on my own. I discovered, totally by chance, the power of education conferences. My department was told to send one teacher to a statewide reading conference. No one wanted to go and I was the most junior teacher in the department. The choice was simple.

The conference was not unlike conferences today, minus the tech stuff. The overhead projector was the primary presentation tool. What grabbed me the most was the exchange of ideas among the participants, as the presenters led them through sessions. It was mostly “sit and get”, but there were spontaneous gatherings in hallways and dining tables. I was being exposed to ideas not discussed in our department meetings, because our department’s isolation from these ideas prevented us from their consideration. Of course the intent in sending me to the conference was to use me as an emissary to connect my colleagues to the ideas presented at the conference. Of course I was quite able to convey the words, but not the experience.

A key factor in changing what we do is the ability to reflect on what it is that we are doing. To improve that reflection, it is most helpful to know about alternate considerations. What are some choices? What perspective do others have on the same subject? What has worked and what has failed? Are there totally new ideas or methodologies that are being used in education that can replace the old ones? All of these questions come to mind if one has a mindset for continuously learning and improving within the profession. The 70’s were not kind to people of that mindset because the answers to too many of these questions were too hard to find. Collaboration was limited, difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

Forty plus years later the world looks very different. Technology, which has always been a driving force in America, has advanced to a point where collaboration is easy, affordable, global, and almost ubiquitous in our culture. The very things that slowed change in the 70’s have been eliminated. Collaboration, always a great source of learning has moved up the ladder of learning to get beyond the limitations of just face-to-face experience.

In a recent Twitter exchange with two educators I greatly respect, Dean Shareski, @Shareski, and Bud Hunt, @Budtheteacher they expressed a concern that it would be better to teach students reflection than it would be to promote connectedness. I think when it comes to students I would agree. When it comes to adult learners however, I think that exposure to other ideas through collaboration stimulates reflection. I consider that a key element to this whole connected educator mindset we talk so much about.

After my own reflection on the subject, I see connectedness for educators as an accelerant for reflection. It promotes self-reflection, as well as reflection on education as a system for learning. It also stimulates reflection on the pedagogy and methodology within that education system. The whole idea of connectedness relies on the hope that educators are reflective. If they are not reflective, or lack the vision of the big picture of being connected, then we could have Connected Educator Month, every month for the next twenty years and never affect any change in the system.

Reflection is key to a collaborative mindset. The more we discuss this with our unconnected colleagues the faster we can connect more educators. If we reflected on our need for change and felt that change was not needed in what we do as educators, there would be no need to collaborate and we would continue with the status quo. Although there might be a few educators thinking along those lines, I believe most see a need for, at the very least, some change in what we do and how we do it. The more reflective we are about this, the more we will seek to expand that reflection with guidance, experience, support, validation, sources, and colleagues through the collaboration provided by our connectedness. I see them as separate entities that support each other. The more we collaborate, the more we reflect. The more we reflect, the more we need to collaborate. Being connected, for me, has expanded both my collaboration and my reflection. My goal is to get others to do that as well. Using technology to connect more educators with a reflective and collaborative mindset is the best hope for an education system in need of change.