Forgot to post a few months ago...sorry
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This is the third time I have worked with Steve Barkley. Today, election day, is our district Professional development day. Steve is speaking to about 200 staff members. We are divided by content areas, so I am at a table with 6-12 social studies teachers. He started our disucssion by talking about the difference between Teaching and Learning (post for my reflections on this idea). Take a look at the chart we discussed below: What are your ideas on this?
In your classes and PD, what is the focus?
Using Wallwisher in class
If we changed our focus to learning, would our teaching change? As a group we talked about how this idea is impacting our classrooms. It seems the simple answer is, well, maybe. We talked about the common core and new standards for social studies came up and how we as a team are being asked to do many things on the teaching side. However, as a PLC, we are moving toward learning. Steve's next question was, have we targeted student behavior that we want our students to practice to become great? Teams around the room began to talk and debate. Our team said yes! We built it last year. See the image below or click here to see our social studies website.
As a group, we agreed on these behaviors as our main goals. This was a major achievement. We went from a group that would meet once a month and point fingers at each other about what the kids did not know. Now we are sharing ideas on how to teach to achieve the above key behaviors and indirectly helping us learn how to teach our content more effectively.
Then, Steve asked several questions on how we change student behavior? He mentioned Dan Pink's work, "Drive" [twitter summary: "Carrots & Sticks are so last century. Drive says for 21st Century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose." (Pink/203)]. So, here comes technology in my room. Drive talks about autonomy, mastery and purpose. Let's take a look at each idea:
1. Automony: Mike and I have been creating autonomy assignments together over skype and google docs. These are self paced and core content standards based. Check one out! We are encouraging kids to many of the ideas above in class daily.
2. Mastery: These tasks are self paced, with kids having time to become experts on topics that would not be addressed in a normal class. A quote Mike and I like to use when we talk about autonomy, mastery and purpose:
"...multimedia technologies, which use text, audio, video, graphics and animation to communicate information, offer today's teachers a mechanism to move from a 'linear' learning environment to a 'nonlinear' environment - one which offers users interactivity, control of progress, and choice in their construction of knowledge."
-Cuper and Lambert cited in Hanover Research Council Maintaining Competitiveness in the 21st Century, 2010
3. Purpose: Teaching other kids around the world, youtubes with 26,000 views in a year? I will let the book speak for itself. http://dgh.wikispaces.com/ see the images below....
Then, Steve asked several questions on how we change student behavior? He mentioned Dan Pink's work, "Drive" [twitter summary: "Carrots & Sticks are so last century. Drive says for 21st Century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose." (Pink/203)]. So, here comes technology in my room. Drive talks about autonomy, mastery and purpose. Let's take a look at each idea:
1. Automony: Mike and I have been creating autonomy assignments together over skype and google docs. These are self paced and core content standards based. Check one out! We are encouraging kids to many of the ideas above in class daily.
2. Mastery: These tasks are self paced, with kids having time to become experts on topics that would not be addressed in a normal class. A quote Mike and I like to use when we talk about autonomy, mastery and purpose:
"...multimedia technologies, which use text, audio, video, graphics and animation to communicate information, offer today's teachers a mechanism to move from a 'linear' learning environment to a 'nonlinear' environment - one which offers users interactivity, control of progress, and choice in their construction of knowledge."
-Cuper and Lambert cited in Hanover Research Council Maintaining Competitiveness in the 21st Century, 2010
3. Purpose: Teaching other kids around the world, youtubes with 26,000 views in a year? I will let the book speak for itself. http://dgh.wikispaces.com/ see the images below....
At this point he moved on to Peer Coaching. He highlighted two coaching beliefs:
1. Everyone working in the school should be observed once a week and receive feedback.
2. The most skilled and professional educators should be coached the most.
We talked about the instructional coaching levels: Evaluation (outside criteria), Supervision, Mentoring, Peer Coaching (teacher's choice). In our PLC at the middle school, we have been working on Peer Coaching. The point here is to create learning communities to share best practices, ask questions, and find new ways to do things. I have gotten a great amount of help from the 6th and 8th grade teachers...just having chats with me that shed light on how to do things better. However, this is not required and opens the door for real meaningful conversations.
I could not leave this topic without mentioning Mike. Mike and I peer coach each other almost everyday. We talk, reflect, build, argue and learn together. Without Mike, I do not know if I could do everything we write about. We need each other to pull this stuff off and to have a "tribe" (Sir Ken reference: "The Element"), someone to share our frustrations and our learning dips with who will help push us to greater heights. We make each other better teachers.
1. Everyone working in the school should be observed once a week and receive feedback.
2. The most skilled and professional educators should be coached the most.
We talked about the instructional coaching levels: Evaluation (outside criteria), Supervision, Mentoring, Peer Coaching (teacher's choice). In our PLC at the middle school, we have been working on Peer Coaching. The point here is to create learning communities to share best practices, ask questions, and find new ways to do things. I have gotten a great amount of help from the 6th and 8th grade teachers...just having chats with me that shed light on how to do things better. However, this is not required and opens the door for real meaningful conversations.
I could not leave this topic without mentioning Mike. Mike and I peer coach each other almost everyday. We talk, reflect, build, argue and learn together. Without Mike, I do not know if I could do everything we write about. We need each other to pull this stuff off and to have a "tribe" (Sir Ken reference: "The Element"), someone to share our frustrations and our learning dips with who will help push us to greater heights. We make each other better teachers.
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