The Tempered Radical

Three Tricks to Retaining Teachers

Have you ever noticed that the constant stream of articles about the teacher retention crisis in America's schools never really ends? 

Poke through Google and you'll find bits on attrition in math and science, where candidates can easily move into the private sector and earn significantly more over a lifetime, and on the costs that attrition carries for schools and districts.  You can find reports drafted by national organizations like the Education Commission of the States and the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.  

Ed Week and Edutopia are writing about teacher retention.  So is Cal State University and the Virginia Department of Education.  

And in every case, the voice of practicing classroom teachers is missing!

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Sure, if you look hard enough, you can probably dig up a quote or two from classroom teachers in all of these sources---but only after hearing from authors, researchers and various other "experts in the field" who are seen as more knowledgeable on the factors driving people from our classrooms than us teacher-types. 

So let me bring some reality to this conversation, built on nothing more than my 16 years of experience as a practitioner. 

New Slide: Understanding Learning Outcomes

Here's an interesting question for you:  If I dropped into your classroom tomorrow and asked your students what skills or key concepts they were working to master, how would they answer?

Would the results be the same if I stopped into other classrooms on your hallway?  Would some students know more about the learning expectations that your school and district have set for them?  Would they know less than your students?  Why?

The reason I ask is because I'm a stubborn son-of-a-gun who worked pretty hard to resist the ever-so-popular "You-Must-Post-Your-Learning-Objective-On-Your-Board-Every-Day" craze that has been sweeping education for the past few years.  At first, I just didn't bother to post my objective at all, hoping no one would bother me.  Once my administrators started to call me out for not having my objective posted, I wrote a generic one up and left it on the board for about three months. 

Talk about passive-aggressive, huh?

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The source of my resistance was simple:  No one had ever convinced me that writing my objective on the board every day---something that was difficult to do in my language arts class, where learning objectives aren't sequential and where lessons can address multiple objectives in one period---would pay off in tangible student learning results.  And one thing I've learned is that practices or policies that require more work had better darn well be worth it!

My other beef was that we were required to write objectives in a way that I KNEW my students wouldn't understand---the language was just too sophisticated for 12-year-olds.  "They'd have a better chance of figuring out what they were supposed to be learning if I wrote those things in hieroglyphics!" I'd argue, "So what's the point of spending my already limited time on something I know won't work?"

Being the kind of guy I am, I took my resistance a step further, reading about a dozen books on assessment trying to find an expert who said that posting objectives was pointless.  I figured that would be reason enough to end a practice that I openly doubted.

Here's the hitch:  There ISN'T A SINGLE expert that thinks posting objectives is unimportant! 

In fact, every book that I read argued that posting objectives is one of the easiest way to improve student learning results.  The real clincher for me:  Bob Marzano---an edu-researcher-extraordinaire whose work I respect greatly---has shown that making students aware of expected outcomes of classroom lessons can increase student learning by 20%.

That's when I finally made a commitment to working out a system for communicating expected outcomes to my kids in student-friendly language and to sharing those outcomes as often as possible.  While I still haven't made daily communication around learning targets a part of my teaching routine (routines are hard to change for stubborn people, y'all), the parts are in place and I know my instruction will change in a positive way as a result. 

Need any help in making YOUR learning goals transparent to your students?

Then check out these two Radical posts:

Writing Student Friendly Learning Goals

More on Writing Student Friendly Learning Goals

You might also be interested in this sample of a unit overview sheet that I've started using with my students in class:

Western Europe Learning Targets

Hope this helps you to embrace sharing expected outcomes with your students sooner than I did!  It's a practical strategy with proven results that you can start using tomorrow.

New Slide: Digitally Resilient

One of the first lessons that I try to teach colleagues interested in using digital tools in their teaching and learning is that they’ve got to develop a high level of digital resilience because stumbling blocks are simply inevitable in any school-based technology project.

"Don't give up at the first sign of trouble," I say, "because it certainly won't be the last!"

 

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The question I'm forced to ask, though, is can we honestly expect teachers to integrate technology into their instruction when we can't guarantee that they'll have consistent access to the proper tools to do that work? 

Each time a carefully crafted digital learning experience fails in a school because of blocked websites, antiquated tools, or technology decisions that are not aligned with a new vision for teaching and learning, integration efforts take a punch to the gut.

Enough punches to the gut and any teacher is bound to be left reeling, don't you think?

Part 2: Using Student Responders Responsibly

A wonderfully amazing thing happened here on Radical Nation last weekend.  Were you paying attention?

You see, after I shared a response detailing how I thought student responders could be used to encourage higher level thinking in the classroom, several readers stopped by to add their own thoughts to the conversation.

And honestly, their thinking was better than mine! 

Here’s a sampling:

Nancy Blair—one of my favorite Twitter follows—started things off by suggesting another way to use responders to ask higher level questions.  She wrote:

In addition to the Likert-like questions, it is also possible to structure multiple choice questions that require inference, application, analysis, etc. by asking students to decide upon the "best" choice or most likely outcome from the scenario posed in the question stem.

An example I encountered on a social studies test years ago asked, "Which quotation below best reflects the political beliefs of the speaker?" Quotations from four U.S. presidents where listed as the choices.

Using Student Responders Responsibly

Having spent the better part of the past few years tinkering with technology and assessment, I’ve done a bunch of experimenting with—and writing about—student response systems lately.  I believe that they just might be the key to seeing teachers make real instructional decisions based on data, which is the key to quality formative assessment. 

The biggest risk that I see for schools that incorporate student responders into their assessment practices is a subsequent over-reliance on low-level multiple choice questions to gain information about student mastery.  The way I figure, our kids have enough multiple choice in their lives already!

These are exactly the kinds of concerns that I shared in my recent Digitally Speaking column for ASCD’s Educational Leadership—and they are the kinds of concerns that one of my readers from Tennessee emailed me about yesterday. 

She wrote:

I can visualize using student responders for science and math, but will be one of those teachers who need "strategies for asking open-ended questions with responders."  Very few questions I ask in my classes can be answered with a "click." 

Would you might sending me some examples of the open-ended questions you use in your classes? 

Being a language arts/social studies teacher, I can certainly understand how student responders don't seem all that useful for promoting higher level thinking at first glance!  But if you choose to use responders to ask Likert-scale-style questions, the results can be informative to teachers AND challenging to students.

Here's a concrete example:  The BBC (Britain's news service) recently decided to allow the leader of a racist political party to appear on a political news show.  The general public was outraged.  In fact, hundreds of people protested against the BBC's decision in the streets outside the studio.

Sadly, I’m Not Alone. . .

Cranky Blogger Warning:  You know the rules, here.  I’m blowing off a bit of digital steam in this one.  Take this post for what it’s worth—which might just be nothing by tomorrow morning. 

Look, I understand exactly who I am:  A sometimes-articulate, full-time classroom teacher who gets discouraged every now and then and believes that glasses weren’t made for being half-empty or half-full.  They were made for shattering against the wall in brief moments of emotional meltdown!

That leads to some brutally honest reflection here on the Radical—and brutally honest was what I was trying to be when I wrote about the torrid pace of change in schools.  I’m honestly exhausted, y’all, and I don’t mind making that exhaustion transparent. 

And if I were the only teacher slodging through a miserable November, I’d chalk this whole strand of digital misery up to sleep deprivation.  I do have a beautiful baby girl, after all.  I love her times ten, but 3 AM feedings got old months ago!

But check out some of the comments that my readers left on last week’s post.  They seem to suggest that I’m not alone.  Renee wrote:

This is my fourth year and I am so overwhelmed, still, when things are supposed to be improving for me. I look around at the veteran teachers in my department and realize they are all working hours and hours and hours with the expectation being that we will somehow find the time to transform ourselves in the next generation of teachers.

Renee’s comments should be particularly disturbing to decision-makers who are trying to see schools change.  Fourth-year teachers are the lifeblood of reform.  They’re generally idealistic and hardworking, and they’re looking for ways to lead.  More importantly, they’ve got their best professional years ahead of them, now that they’ve figured out how to manage a real live classroom.

When we chase away Renees, we’re hurting our future—and that ain’t good!

Stuffing Kids with Content

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The Torrid Pace of Change

Dean Shareski, an educator and blogger that I respect greatly, recently reflected on the change efforts in his district, writing:

I also get to spend a great deal of time with our superintendents and other leaders in our division and to a person, they all want to create a division where students succeed, teachers are great and everyone loves their job...This is all good but simply telling people they need to change isn’t a great formula for success. Not that that has been the case but when I talk to teachers I’m hearing the same message.

"It’s too much"
"It seems the only things that are valued are Reading and Math"
"I feel like everything I’m doing is wrong"
"I’m not sleeping well"
"I need time to implement"

Something’s very wrong when a whole bunch of good people all trying to do what’s best for kids feel like this.

What's really frightening is that Dean's observations are pretty much spot on:  Most teachers I know feel overwhelmed and undervalued.  The pace of change in our schools is nearly crippling---and it is driving practitoners out of the classroom.

I’m a prime example: I’ve never wanted to be anything but a classroom teacher–and have turned down a dozen opportunities to work beyond the classroom to stay true to that commitment. But I’m actively considering getting out---and I’m nearly at the point where I'm willing to do anything EXCEPT teach: consultant, college professor, instructional resource teacher etc.

What I’ve seen happen in my work is that I still have all of the traditional teaching tasks to manage—grading papers, planning lessons, communicating with parents—-AND I’ve got to wrestle through countless efforts to redesign teaching at the same time. Nothing has been taken away.

I see this as an example of an imagination/implementation gap:  The well-intentioned people crafting plans for our schools have forgotten just how hard classroom teaching really is.  The ideas they propose are all valid, but they're also nearly impossible to put into action unless classroom teachers are willing to work way, way beyond expectations. 

Does this resonate with anyone besides me?

Part Three: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects

Over the past week, I’ve been sharing sets of tips that I always recommend to teachers who are beginning classroom blogging projects. 

The first entry covered questions connected to common technical questions:  Should I have one classroom blog or a blog for every student?  Should our blogs be open for commenting?  The second entry addressed the steps that teachers can take to connect readers and writers in classroom blogging projects. 

Today’s third (and final) entry is sort of a grab bag, sharing general thoughts about topics ranging from the role that visitor maps play in blogging projects to the importance of emphasizing high-quality writing in student entries:

Emphasize the important role that quality writing plays in successful blogs

Because writing and publishing online is so easy—and because interactions between students in electronic forums are often defined by casual grammar and language use—many students approach blogging with a careless attitude, failing to invest significant time into crafting polished entries. While they crave audience, they misunderstand the message that mistakes send to readers.

Not only should teachers interested in blogging projects encourage students to work through the steps of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting, revising and editing) before publishing—just as they would on traditional tasks—they should also reinforce time-and-again that the credibility of writers is dependent solely on the quality of their written work.

Students must know that the potential for having influence in online communities exists only when students present ideas in ways that will impress readers.

Consider naming and training student editors

Teachers who are starting classroom blogging projects often enthusiastically jump in with two feet, encouraging classes to churn out dozens of entries, promoting posts with parents and peers, and building new lessons with their blogs in mind.

Then, they end up buried by entries that are poorly written or by students who need technical help to get new pieces posted online. Eventually, they begin to question whether the time that they are investing in monitoring student work for quality and in facilitating digital novices is really worth it. Enthusiasm is replaced by exhaustion.

That’s why student editors are so important for successful classroom blogging projects. Training a handful—three to five per year—super motivated students to proofread new entries and to support students struggling with technical skills can ensure that teachers don’t suffer from “monitoring burnout.”

Over time, you’ll have veteran student editors who take great pride in the blog that your class is producing. Not only will they continue to write for you once they’ve left your class, they’ll serve as competent gatekeepers, polishing entries that aren’t quite ready to be published, monitoring comments that are being posted, and generating enthusiasm for the work that you are doing online.

Require that students use pseudonyms while writing

For many schools and districts, the risks involved in introducing students to tools for communicating, collaborating and publishing content online far outweigh the rewards. Frightened by stories of internet predators, restrictions are placed on the kinds of information that students can reveal and the kinds of opportunities that students can be engaged in online.

One step that you can take to keep your students safe—and to comfort district leaders who question your decision to begin a classroom blog—is to teach your students about the importance of remaining confidential online.

Resist the urge to include the name of your school or yourself in your blog’s title. Refuse to link directly to any sites that readers could connect back to your classroom, and require that students use pseudonyms to sign their writing.

As “cloak-and-dagger” as these efforts at internet safety may seem to you, your students are likely to enjoy them! Pseudonyms and confidentiality allow them to try on different identities and to be judged based on their thoughts instead of their age or their social groups.

And the first time that their work is mistaken for that of anyone older than they really are, your students will be electrified!

Include—and regularly explore—visitor maps and statistics on page views.

As motivating as local readers can be for student bloggers, discovering that visitors from all over the world stop by to read their work never fails to amaze tweens and teens. To prove to your students that they are reaching readers in faraway locations, be sure to include a visitor map in the sidebar of your blog.

While there are many services that will track the location of the visitors that land on your site, Cluster Maps (http://www.clustrmaps.com/) is one of the most popular because it highlights each visitor with a red dot on a digital image of the world. Before long, red dots will cover entire continents, reinforcing the idea that your students are being heard!

Cluster Maps also reports the number of page views that your website receives on a regular basis—and can break those page view statistics down by continent. Consider asking students to track this information carefully in their notebooks or on a classroom bulletin board.

Watching your readership grow over time will be just as motivating to your students as seeing where their readers are coming from.

 

So what ideas, tips and suggestions do you have for teachers who are tackling classroom blogging projects?  Is there anything that I’ve left out?  Are there points that I’ve made that you can improve on?

I’d love to hear what other readers are doing to make blogging work in their classrooms!

Part Two: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects

Last weekend, I shared part one in a three-part mini-series detailing tips and tricks for classroom blogging projects—and it was a hit!  Not only did the post draw a ton of attention, it also drew a ton of dialogue here on the Radical and in other blogs spread across cyberspace. 

So I figured it was time to share a few more teacher tips for classroom blogging projects.  Let’s see what you think of these suggestions, which all address cultivating and interacting with an audience:

Promote student blog entries to parents and colleagues

While writing for the Web ensures that your students will eventually have readers from every corner of the globe, the vast majority of your blog’s readers—and almost all of your commenters—are going to be the parents of your students, the students in the classrooms of your colleagues, and educators that you have made connections with in faraway locations.

Parents, colleagues and students in classrooms just like yours have a stake in the learning that your students are doing online. That’s what makes them willing to read what your kids are writing and to stop by to leave a comment every now and then.

Don’t let this discourage you! In fact, work hard to promote your students’ writings with parents and colleagues. Send out links to pieces that you’re particularly proud of or that are likely to stimulate exciting conversations. Ask parent volunteers to stop by once a week and leave feedback for the students who have posted new entries.

Not only do students need to receive feedback in order to remain motivated by your classroom blogging efforts, but feedback from those who matter—moms, dads, teachers and best friends—is often far more meaningful than the occasional comment left by an outsider, regardless of where they are from!

Remind students to respond to commenters.

As your blog begins to draw attention and starts to receive comments from readers, remind your students to respond to each comment directly, either in the comment section of their original entry or in a new post on your blog. By responding directly to readers, your students are showing their audience that they are listening—a key to encouraging return visits!

More importantly, however, responding to comments allows your students to take advantage of the primary benefit of writing for an audience: The ability to have thinking challenged over-and-over again.

Writers who make their core beliefs transparent are often introduced to new perspectives, and responding to those new perspectives—pushing back, refining original positions, articulating misunderstandings—is a critical part of the cycle of true learning.

Schedule regular readers for videoconference feedback sessions

If you carefully cultivate parents, peers and colleagues as regular readers who stop by to comment on the work that your students are publishing online, consider scheduling a videoconference to connect your students to a real member of their audience. By inviting a reader “into” your classroom, you automatically reinforce the idea that student voice really does matter.

Have your digital guest to describe what it is that they like the best about your student blog. Encourage them to share specific entries that they thought highly of and content strands that were motivating. Ask for areas of improvement.

Nothing can be more powerful to student writers than hearing from their readers—and hearing from readers is one digital step away!

The final part of this series will be posted sometime this weekend.