If You Could Only Pick One (New Year's Resolution)

http://goo.gl/H8nyX2

I just read a post by an educator, Tom Whitby, who I have known for about 6 years and have only met once. His post was entitled Year End Resolution Failure and, as the name implies, looked at why we so often fail at meeting our New Year's Resolutions.

His premise was that we should all just pick one thing that we commit to doing or changing this coming year. This makes it easier for us to be successful with our goal. So if I decide to follow his lead and only pick one thing to commit to this year, what would it be?

In 2014 I will be helping teachers, more than ever before, by sharing what I have learned about project based learning. I have several irons in the fire as I head in that direction. My possible goals, then, will be related to this mantle I carry.

The first is the completion of our 2nd year at Decker Middle School (DMS) with the New Tech Network (NTN). In their eyes, we haven't moved far enough in the direction they desired us to move. For this I could dedicate myself to being a stronger advocate for all things NTN.

The second is that I will be working in my first full year as a Buck Institute for Education (BIE) National Faculty member. I have tons to learn about facilitating groups of teachers new to PBL and who face obstacles of every shape and size in their path from conventional classroom teacher to facilitator of learning in the PBL classroom. For this I could strive to learn everything I can about how BIE's message is best conveyed.

Thirdly, I will be working with our teachers at DMS as their instructional coach. We want each of them completing PBL projects within the first month of school. To help with this, I could up my game and make sure I am in their classrooms more and offer to model classroom teaching for them as we try new and different teaching methods.

Fourthly, I will be working on, and hopefully completing, a book with Telannia Norfar this year. The book is PBL-based and we started working on it 6 months ago. I want to be near the 10,000 word mark when we go back to school on January 6th. That will be one fourth to one sixth of where we need to be when it is completed. To meet the completion goal, I could dedicate myself to writing, at least, 4 times a week. Or I could shoot for a word count of, say, 500 words a week.

Lastly, and not obviously related, I will be turning 56 next week. I'm obese. I'm starting to have health problems because of my weight. I need to lose about 60 pounds and I need to be physically active. I could dedicate myself to setting up a workout schedule and an eating plan to help me meet those goals. The only draw back I see is that EVERYONE says they want to lose weight and get in shape for their New Year's resolution. I hate doing things that everyone else is doing.

So, if I only had to pick one goal, which would it be? The obvious one, to me, is for me to regain my health and fitness. If I'm not able to help teachers or my family because I'm dealing with chronic health issues then I can't do any part of the first four items on my list. It's amazing how scary something as routine as working out can be when you've been a toad for a few years. I used to...(do a lot of things), but not anymore.

As I progress with my posts during the upcoming year, look for updates on my workout plan. There may be less educator stuff and more healthy habit stuff for a while but, hang in there and I'll be back to my old self in a matter of no time (or a few years - it took me years to put on this tonnage and it won't come off overnight).  I hope you all have a wonderful 2014 and that you learn a ton.

Everyone Knows New Orleans

Cafe Du Monde

I just finished up my first 24 hours in New Orleans and I'm getting ready for the New Tech Network's annual conference ( NTAC 13 ) to start tomorrow morning.

When I knew I was coming I started looking at some guides to the city and I started asking my twitter folks, who live in the area, where I should go while I was here.

My first objective was to find a place to eat that would handle a business-type client, that gave a real New Orleans feel, and was open on Mondays.

The two gentlemen I asked were quick to respond and gave me some specific and varied possibilities. And, combined with some Yelp.com reviews, persuaded me to make a reservation at Tujaques.

Now, I have lived in this area in the past and I always liked Tujaques. And, it has been around since, virtually, forever. So I made reservations even though I ended up getting more and more recommendations that steered me towards "better" restaurants or "more modern" restaurants.

And that's the point of this post. In the end I must have had recommendations for 20 different restaurants.  There were even recommendations for a few others, "but I'd have to drive a little."  New Orleans does not have a dearth of places to eat. And everyone has their favorites.

So when you come here - because, eventually, everyone comes here - you should ask people for recommendations. But you should realize that there's a better restaurant than the one you're eating at in the next block over.

     The following is a sampling of restaurants recommended to me with a link to their Yelp.com info:

Central Grocery
Court of Two Sisters
Camellia Grill
Brigtsen's
Red Fish Grill
Muriel's at Jackson Square
Luke's
Drago's
Elizabeth's
Mother's
Brennan's
Borgne
Cochon
Bon Ton Cafe
Tommy's
Dickie B's Steak House

You Want Me To Do What? Creating School Culture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelkeen/

     Last week I sat down and took a serious look at what I need to do between now and the first day of school and I had to pause and shake my head (while saying "holy crap!")  It was one of those days.

     So, this transition thing - how hard can it be?  To answer that I took a look at an 8 day training plan I am putting together for the 6th grade teachers as they change from being regular classroom teachers to PBL teachers in our New Tech school.

     I decided that they needed to find out what it means to wear the label of New Tech (NT).  Anyone can become a teacher using PBL in their classroom.  There are 100's (1000's ?) of teachers in the United States who are trying out PBL or have been using PBL, successfully, in their classrooms for years.

      But what does the PBL look like in those classrooms?  How strong are the inquiry and the questioning?  How open-ended are the products being created?  And what is the school culture like for the school within which these classrooms reside?  In my opinion, it is this culture piece that is the biggest difference in schools with the NT label.

     If you are to be a NT school you must be willing to create a culture of Trust, Respect, and Responsibility.   And, you can't just give those three words lip service.  A bunch of posters in the hallways or the classrooms with what those three words mean doesn't mean they actually reside within your school culture.

     We will start building this culture with our teachers in Grand Rapids, MI as they attend the New Tech All schools Conference (NTAC12) during the week before we officially start the 8 day training.  The teachers will have assigned breakout sessions to attend and then share at the end of the day.  During the end-of-day get together we will be discussing and creating our meeting norms.  And, we will be establishing our School-wide Learning Outcomes (SWLO's).

     These teachers will never have used learning outcomes to grade student work.   When schools attend the New Schools Training with NT they spend hours upon hours establishing their learning outcomes complete with written definitions and rubrics of how they will be assessed.  Our teachers will not have had that benefit and so I will have to facilitate this conversation.

      To make life easier for them I intend to put the learning outcomes used by our district, in its Strategic Plan, on the table as a starting point.  They are: Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Digital Citizenship, and Work Ethic.  Our teachers will have at least a cursory vision of what each of these look like and this will be easier for them as they make these outcomes our own learning outcomes.

     At the end of our discussion each night it will be time to bond.  Too often we forget to take the time to get to know each other.  Gone are the days where teachers lived in their little classroom never to mingle with the other teachers.  And so, for us, that may mean sitting together for dinner, it may be having a drink together, it may be doing some of the fun night-time rituals NT schools do in Grand Rapids like the Piano Bar Sing-a-long.  The most important thing is creating memories, outside of work, that will stay with us as we tackle the more difficult issues during the following weeks and months.

     Then, with this week of getting to know each other behind us, we will really be able to tackle culture during our 8 days of training.  Here is a brainstorming list of what I will have for them to work on:

          a. Specific ideas for Culture –  (Something every day)

1.  Use a PBL approach to this with an Entry Event and agenda within ECHO  (a Moodle-like platform used by the NT schools) so they are seeing how to use a project briefcase.
2.  We will use team building activities each morning and after lunch each day.
3.  We need to set the Norms and the decision making process.
4.  We need to discuss the Learning Outcomes, define them, and create a rubric for each.  We will use the 5 mentioned in the district strategic plan:  Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Digital Citizenship, and Work Ethic for our first year.
5.  We need to weight the Learning Outcomes – Content 40 – 60% with the others adding up to 100%.
6.  We need to discuss a 6^th Grade Orientation.  Do we want to use MNTHS (Manor New Tech High School) students who graduated from our middle school?
7.  We need to discuss how we will conduct Classroom Observations and what we will do during late start Mondays (our district has late start Mondays for PD).
8. Have a "Day of Celebration" when we get to the end of the first 9-weeks (or other significant date).

          b. Specific ideas for PBL – (2^nd week only?)

1. Teachers will plan their first project.
2. Teachers will plan a 2-week culture project (for the whole school to create the culture).
3. We need to have a literacy component to the project briefcase.
4. Have a critical friends day, in the middle of the second week of training, to see what they have planned for their first project. 

          c. Specific ideas for ECHO – (Something every day)

1. Who will be the ECHO liaison? 
2.  We will create a standard project briefcase that every teacher will use for the first two 9-weeks grading period (minimum)
3.  We need to create a School Resource Library in ECHO
4.  We need to have a Low Tech version of the Project Briefcase.  This could be a “White Binder” for each student with pre-set tabs where each of the sections will be electronically. 
5.  We need to show them what is available in the NTN Resource Library also in ECHO.

     The culture we create will need to be refined and worked on throughout the school year and beyond.  Culture is not something you create and then "it's done!"   This up-front time without distractions will pay dividends as we move through the school year.  Wish us luck.

You Need to Teach How to be in a Group

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidquick/

     Next week is our first week of school and that means, yet again, we need to teach our Freshmen how to work in a PBL environment.  When every class is being taught this way it means that in every class they will be working in groups of 2 to 5 people.  In some classes they may have to be a group leader.    In other classes they may have specific roles to do.  In yet another class they may just be working in a collaborative role.

     When students get to us they don't, usually, understand how to work in a group.   There are assigned roles with individual responsibilities and expectations.  There are also expected behaviors of each member of the group and behaviors by the entire group.

     Last year we came across a Ted Talk by Tom Wujec where he described a challenge (presented by Peter Skillman).  This is now, famously, known as the Spaghetti Challenge.  Here is a great video to show what a typical classroom is like in the last few minutes of this challenge.

     The rules are simple and we like to present the challenge as an engineering design brief (got to get the vocabulary started too).  During the first day of class they are given the challenge.  The next day we introduce roles and the students break up into expert groups based upon their roles.  The roles are Designer, Tester, and Builder.  Therefore the expert groups are the Design Team, the Test Team, and the Build Team.  Before the expert groups get started we reflect on what we observed the previous day.  What went well?  What hurdles needed to be overcome?  What frustrations did they feel?  And other thoughts as they come up.  We then ask how we could make the experience better.

    On the third day the expert groups have a quick meeting and then the students are sent back to their original groups to make the tower.  The groups are reminded that each person in the group has a role and they are not to do anything that isn't specifically related to their role.  Once the challenge is completed we take measurements but instead of a "winner", based upon height,  we recognize groups that worked well together.  We take time to talk, again, about what worked and what frustrations were felt.

     By the end of these three days, the students have learned most of the other students' names and (more importantly) I know many of the students' names.  They have also worked in groups where no one is assigned as the "group leader."  Each of them has had an important role that was needed for all of the group to be successful.  Finally, they have seen what group relationships worked and what relationships were not as effective.

Sometimes It's Hard Being a Guy....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenpoff/

    This week there was a blog post which was the first in a series of posts by "Emma," a New Technology High School teacher with her thoughts on teaching 21st Century skills.  

     The post was brought to our attention by our school's coach and, unfortunately for me, I decided to read it.  After reading it I really felt awful for "Emma" who was in just a miserable position at, what sounds to me like, a miserable school somewhere in this country.  What hit me the hardest was that "Emma" was teaching in a school with the same title as my own, a New Tech school.

     Now I could have just said, "Gee, that's too bad for Emma."  But, NO, I had to write a rebuttal in the comments section.  And, to my credit, it didn't really show how emotional this post got me.  You see she was, it appeared, telling the world that the reason she was so miserable was that she had to teach using Project Based Instruction which didn't allow her to teach her content.

      Emma went on to say that her students were just told to do google searches and to create end products that were flashy but had little umph.   She had many examples where PBL was limiting the learning going on in her classroom and I responded to them in my rebuttal but here's an example I didn't talk about in those comments:  "After all, it’s not about what individual students learn but the final product."  Wow, that is so counter to what we learn when our teachers go to training each summer.

     You see the New Tech Network (NTN) gives us training each year called the All Schools Conference where teachers and coaches from schools in the network conduct training in all facets of PBL.  In addition we have Fall and Spring Meetings of the Minds (MoM's) conducted by the coaches in each region which emphasize best practices.

      So, I write a rebuttal and I move on, right?  Well, along comes some guy who goes by Ben F. who decides to write the following:  "I would recommend that Sara, Patrick and Chris read E.D. Hirsch, Diane Ravitch or Stanley Fish, but their continued employment at New Tech would be imperiled by entertaining such heretical thinkers’ ideas. Safer to keep a closed mind, alas."  To a "real man" - thems fightin words! 

       Let me preface what I'm about to write by saying that I am 53 years old, I'm out of shape and over weight, and I've never been in a good fight.  But if Ben F. had been sitting in the room I might have walked over and, well, I would have...well, you get the picture.  My blood was boiling.  My heart rate was maxed.  My respiration was maxed.  I couldn't focus on my students I had to refute his remarks.

       Luckily for all concerned our Master Teacher, and good friend, was present and she let me write my comments and then she read them over.  She simply smiled, chuckled, and said, "no, you're not submitting that."  But I would have if she hadn't stopped me.  I would have told him.  He would have known just how mad he had made me.

       I calmly went back to my classroom and wrote the comments that you can read on the post.  But I got my jab in when I wrote, "But, I can’t think of one person, including me, who would like to ever see you “round these parts,” as we hicks from small town Texas say."  Now that's maturity!  I didn't let that high level of testosterone affect my thoughts.  (Sometimes it's hard being a guy...)