The Tempered Radical

Reminder: Mastery and Performance are NOT the Same Thing [Slide]

Over the course of the past week, I've been wrestling with one simple question:  Are the grading practices in our schools too far gone to be fixed?

My thinking started when Dean Shareski challenged me to make self-assessment a larger part of the work that I do in my classroom.  It was pushed further by a candid confession from one of my students that her determination to "do well" distracts her from actually learning anything. 

Download Slide_HittingTargets

 

The intellectual challenge continued for me when I stumbled across this remarkable Cale Birk piece which argues that schools need to be places where students are inspired to try instead of where students spend their time cowering in fear of failure.

Cale writes:

Call me Polyanna, but I want students to try the things they would not normally try.  To do things that they would normally not think that they could do. 

And the only way to get them to do those things is to build the belief that they CAN do it, to help them scaffold the task so they have the appropriate level of challenge, and to build their resiliency skills so when they are confronted with the inevitable challenges that will come they choose to persevere.  

In short, I want them to approach their courses at school as though they cannot fail as opposed to thinking they might fail and that failure is good for them.

What Cale is hinting at is that we need to create buildings that take a mastery -- instead of performance -- orientation to learning outcomes, an idea that the Mindshift blog tackled this week.

A Student's Take on Self Assessment

If you've been following the Radical at all, you know that Dean Shareski has gotten me thinking about the role that self-assessment should play in my classroom. 

After having my students work through a few opportunities to assess their own learning, I asked them to assess self-assessment as an instructional practice. 

Specifically, I told them I was interested in (1). their perspective on the fact that self-assessments aren't graded and (2). their perspective on having the chance to reflect on their own learning.

One of my favorite responses came from Anna Beth, who wrote:

Self assessment really helped me to find what my written work was missing.  The questions you asked got me to realize that my work was not as good as I thought it was. 

After looking at my work carefully, I came to the conclusion that my thoughts were not explained clearly enough for someone else to be interested in my work.

I find that I do better on most assignments that aren't graded versus knowing that they will be graded.  I think that this is because the pressure of a grade is taken away.  Therefore, I am assured that if I don't do well, my grade won't be effected. 

When that pressure is taken away, I focus better on what I'm doing and I tend to do better.  This is where my Ravenclaw side is shown because I want to do well, but I can be so focused on wanting to do well that I can get distracted from actually learning.

That's an interesting take, isn't it?  I especially liked the last line:  I can be so focused on wanting to do well that I can get distracted from actually learning.

I wonder if that holds true for other students too?  Have we gotten to a point in our high stakes world that grades have replaced learning completely?

Is that something we can fix or is grading too far gone to actually fix?

 

@shareski's Right: My Students CAN Assess Themselves!

If you've read the Radical for any length of time, you know that my thinking is often pushed by Dean Shareski -- a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. 

What I love about Dean's posts is that they're a perfect mix of practical and provocative ideas.  He's just as likely to challenge my instruction as he is to challenge my thinking -- and that's cool. 

A few weeks ago, Dean wrote about the role that self-assessment plays in the university classes that he teaches. 

His central premise was one that struck home:  Traditional grading practices centered around teachers collecting student papers and giving letter grades with little real feedback -- the kind of practices that are uncomfortably common in my classroom -- are failing our students. 

Near the end, he issued a challenge:

"So I'm wondering if you're ready to let your students assess themselves. Not as some experiment where you end up grading them apart but where you really give the reigns over to them? If not, is it about trust? Is it about readiness? Fear?

I'm thinking that even 6 year olds should be able to assess themselves. If we give them the tools and expectations."

I decided to take Dean's challenge to heart this week, giving my students the chance to assess themselves on two assignments that were due. 

"There won't be ANY grade attached to these tasks," I explained.  "Instead, you are going to evaluate yourselves.  Then, you will get feedback from me on the first assignment and a peer on the second assignment."

I gave students handouts designed to guide their thinking as they evaluated their own performance.  Both of the handouts included a series of structured questions that forced kids to look closely at the kind of criteria that define accomplished performance.

Check them out here:

Download Handout_MetaphoricalSelfAssessment

Download Handout_OWISelfAssessment

Then I turned the kids loose. I gave them about 7 minutes to fill out each column on the self-assessment handouts we were working with.  Combined with a bit of introduction to each of the questions, self-assessing each task took about 40-45 minutes worth of class time.

I learned a TON about student self-assessment during my experiment.  Here are a few of my favorite lessons:

How Clear is YOUR Vision? [Slide]

Whipped this up for a presentation this week.  Thought y'all might dig it:

(click to enlarge)

Download Slide_VisionMatters

 

The quote comes from David Allen's book Getting Things Done.

Hope it helps,

Bill

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Original Image Credit: Through the Glass by Josh Samson

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on May 7, 2012

 

Suggestion for New #atplc Schools: Don't Skip Vision and Values Statements

Shawn Blankenship -- a building principal buddy of mine who goes by @dms_principal on Twitter -- reached out this week with a really interesting question about professional learning communities. 

He wrote:

I would love to hear any advice, successes, and/or failures you have experienced regarding the building of a strong professional learning community.

Turns out that Shawn is starting a brand new middle school next year and he really wants to build a solid foundation for his new collaborative community.

Having started a brand new middle school as a professional learning community myself almost a decade ago, I've got some pretty strong opinions about the kinds of first steps that are worth taking.   Heck, I wrote a book about it!

The most important suggestion, though, is to take the time to write -- and then commit to -- clear sets of vision and values statements that describe what your learning teams would actually be DOING if they were meeting your core mission. 

Real Progress DOESN'T Happen in Leaps and Bounds [Slide]

I was feeling a bit creative today, so I decided to whip up a slide designed to challenge the notion that organizations can make huge strides in short periods of time:

(click to enlarge)

Download Slide_OneStepataTime

 

Hope it makes you think about the change efforts underway in your own buildings -- and that you can use it somewhere in your work.

 

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Related Radical Reads:

Our Compulsive Obsession with the Impossible Sexy

Sustainable Change in Schools

Evolutionary Lessons for the Principals of PLCs

 

 

Original Image Credit: Bodies in Motion by Paul Stevenson

Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on May 1, 2012

 

Why I NEVER Recommend Teaching as a Profession

I came to pretty startling realization this week, y'all:  If I had it to do all over again, I'm pretty darn sure that I wouldn't choose teaching as a profession.

Don't get me wrong: I still love working with students. 

#alwayshave

#alwayswill

Knowing that each day brings opportunities to have an impact on lives really IS incredibly rewarding -- and every time one of the kids that I taught risks detention by sneaking out of the cafeteria to come and say hello, I remember that the work I'm doing matters.

But the sad truth is that #edpolicy decisions -- the decisions that govern every aspect of my work -- are increasingly made by politically driven nitwits who almost never have a clue about what really works in education. 

Take the recent proposal by North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger to end teacher tenure and to institute a merit pay program based on standardized test scores as an example.

Sounds great in theory, right? 

How could anyone argue with a law that establishes formal rewards and punishments for teachers?  Accountability matters, the thinking goes, and there's been too little accountability in education for far too long.  Berger says it this way:

"Until we get the policy right, I don’t think the taxpayers of this state are prepared or should be asked to put more money into the public schools than we are presently."

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/04/23/2020962/senate-leader-berger-proposes.html#storylink=cpy

Here's the hitch in Ol' Phil's argument:  He's not even CLOSE to getting the policy right.

Research has proven that merit pay schemes like the one that Phil is proposing actually lead to WORSE performance in any field that requires anything more than "rudimentary cognitive skill," a point that Daniel Pink makes time and again in Drive -- his book on the economics of motivation -- and in this RSA Animate talk.

But research doesn't matter to legislators like Berger, y'all.  Getting reelected does.

And getting people to the polls with sexy legislation that feeds into the myths that voters like to believe about what works and what doesn't -- something that Pink calls "American folklore" -- is WAY easier and WAY cheaper than building support for effective policies built on a thorough understanding of the characteristics of quality learning spaces and experiences.

Stew in THAT for a minute, would you?

We are literally living in a world where the primary motivation behind the proposals that determine what schools look like ISN'T designing the kinds of learning environments that our kids deserve.  Instead, the primary motivation behind the proposals that determine what schools look like is designing the kinds of learning environments that might get a legislator reelected. 

#perverse

But we are also living in a world that's unlikely to change anytime soon. 

The kinds of policies that would really improve our schools will cost far more -- particularly in the form of providing teachers with more time and/or fewer students to work with -- than most Americans are willing to pay.  What's more, the kinds of policies that would really improve our schools aren't quick fixes -- and with the next election right around the corner, legislators ain't got time for patience.

Which all makes teaching a pretty discouraging profession. 

Those of us who stay will struggle to make crappy policies work -- and STILL end up on the bottom of the political dog-pile when they don't.  Worse yet, we'll be called lazy by the very people whose crappy policies created all of the problems in education to begin with.

Does that sound like the kind of work environment that YOU'D recommend to anyone?

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Related Radical Reads:

Note to Arne: Cash Incentives NEVER Work

Need MORE Proof that Incentives are Dangerous?

The Monster You've Created

Merit Pay for Teachers Are a Bad Idea

 

 

Lessons Learned About Customer Service from Skype

If you read the Radical at all last week, you know that my Skype account was hacked by a Chinese speed-dialer who racked up 13,000 minutes of calls in just over a month's time. 

The entire experience was a real let-down simply because Skype has played such an important role in my personal and professional life over the past several years.  With each interaction that they facilitated in my life, I grew to see them as much more than "just another service." 

I believed in them.  I trusted them.  I cared about their success and couldn't wait for their next product.  Heck, if they had a store, I'd be the wacko camping out for weeks just to be first in line to buy WHATEVER they decided to sell.

#techcrush

That emotional connection is hallowed ground for organizations, y'all.  When companies become causes and/or lifestyles to their customers -- like Toms has become for the socially-oriented shoe hounds or Method has done for the eco-friendly cleaners of the world -- they can ALMOST do no wrong.

#samegoesforschools

Skype NEARLY blew that emotional connection with me, though.  Not only was I floored that 200 hours of unauthorized calls had been charged to my account without any notification from the company, I was floored when the company's initial response to my questions were cold and impersonal. 

#techcrash

That's when Mark Nichols -- the Customer Service Director at Skype -- stepped into the picture.  After stumbling across my original post in his Twitterstream, he reached out through email to let me know that he was willing to listen if I was willing to talk -- and that he wanted to connect through Skype so I could see that he was sincere.

We connected today for about 30 minutes -- and the entire time we were talking, I kept thinking that schools could learn a few lessons about customer service in a networked world from Mark.

Here's three:

13,750 Reasons to Doubt Skype

Let me start by saying that I've been an advocate and champion of Skype for a long, long while now. Its work to make videoconferencing -- a service once reserved for the rich and famous -- available to the masses changed my professional life and the work that I do with students. 

I regularly connect with teachers and principals who are looking for advice through Skype and my favorite digital project ever paired students in my classroom with a digital mentor in Western Canada to study ecosystems in regularly scheduled bi-weekly Skype sessions.

What's more, I regularly recommend the Skype in the Classroom website -- a pretty awesome digital home working to pair teachers and classes together -- to anyone who is interested in finding learning partners from other countries.  By creating it, Skype has done a great service for education because they've made cross-border collaboration really doable for the first time.

On a far more personal level, Skype has allowed my 2 year old daughter to know her Grandma and Grandpa -- who we've Skyped with at least 3 times a week for as long as she's been alive.  I've smiled a million times while watching the love shared between my parents and my daughter on our regular -- and completely free -- video calls. 

But the past month has forced me to question just how much SKYPE is worth loving. 

You see, someone hacked into my account -- which is also set up to allow me to make cheap domestic and international phone calls from my computer whenever I need to -- in early March and started speed-dialing China.

Will $75,000 REALLY Change Your Principal's Leadership Skills?

Sweating my way through a workout the other day, I stumbled across an article titled Getting Principals to Think Like Managers in the Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.  Considering that nearly every expert on the 21st Century principalship would argue that leading schools is about WAY more than "managing," the title caught my eye. 

The bit details a supposedly whiz-bang 2-year school leadership program run by the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.  Apparently there are a TON of districts using Race to the Top cash to put their principals through Darden's paces in an attempt to turn around their buildings. 

And apparently, the principals that go through the program are pleased with the training that they receive.  Kim Lowry -- the principal of South Elementary of Kennett, Missouri -- was jazzed by the work she did with the Darden faculty.  "I took the best business practices," she says, "and translated those into eduction."

But take a closer look at the price tag for Lowry's training -- $75,000 for 20 days of summer school paired with ongoing contact with Darden's professors for two years -- and there is REAL reason for concern, y'all. 

Just the cost of the program ALONE is amazing, isn't it?  I'd bet that our ENTIRE SCHOOL hasn't had $75K to spend on professional development in the better part of a decade -- let alone $75K to invest in ONE person for TWO years.

Now don't get me wrong: If the program were really worthwhile, I could get behind it.  After all, principals really ARE the key to school change.  Investing in their professional development means investing in the entire school community.

But take a look at Lowry's definition of "best business practices" as described by Bloomberg:

Under the guidance of professors there, she wrote a plan for transforming her school. That fall she formed teams of teachers that scrutinized student performance, hired consultants to help improve scores on standardized tests, and posted the results of every student in the staff lounge, making teachers publicly accountable for their classes.

Does that leave anyone else feel more than a little icky?  When translating best business practices into education means "improving scores on standardized tests," we're more than a little screwed.

While the kinds of basic skills covered on end of grade exams matter, buildings that spend an inordinate amount of time focused on preparing kids to test well often systematically ignore anything that ISN'T tested.  The result are legions of graduates who can do little more than fill in the blanks on bubble sheets with sharpened #2 pencils. 

Worse yet, when translating best practices means posting the results of every student in the faculty lounge to "make teachers publicly accountable for their classes" -- an #edushaming practice that rivals the cheap and easy accountability work that even Bill Gates has publicly denounced -- collaboration dies. 

Think about it: If "a focus on results" means competing to make sure that your name isn't at the bottom of the principal's naughty list -- the working reality in Lowry's school -- why would you EVER share the lessons that you learn about what works with kids with ANYONE?

As a parent, that worries me more than you could possibly know.  If my daughter is assigned to a classroom with a struggling teacher -- an inevitability in a profession plagued with high rates of teacher turnover -- I'd want the principal of her school to create a system that encouraged peers to reach out and offer a helping hand to one another. 

That will never happen in a building where teachers see themselves as competitors -- intellectual rivals trying to protect their status and their position in the principal's eyes.  Instead, there is a real incentive to let the struggling teacher down the hall dangle. 

"Somebody's got to fail," the thinking will go.  "Glad it's not me."

Highly competitive practices that pit peers and products against one another work in the business world for one reason, y'all:  No one cares what happens to a crappy product -- or to the companies selling them.  I didn't even notice when Circuit City went out of business or when I couldn't find Texas Instruments computers anymore. 

And y'all know that I'll be jumping for joy when the Interactive Whiteboard finally dies.

But in schools, "crappy products" are the lessons being delivered by the teachers at the bottom of the lists hanging in Lowry's faculty room.  Are we REALLY comfortable with a system that discourages peers from helping those folks to improve? 

I'm not.  And that's why I'm conviced that any program designed to help principals tap into their inner-manager -- ESPECIALLY those that districts are dropping $75 THOUSAND dollars on -- are a heaping waste of our time and our cash.

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Related Radical Reads:

What DO We Want Students to Know and Be Able to Do?

The Fuhrer's Take on Standardized Testing

Sucking Hard on the Testing Teat

Designing the Perfect Carrot