The Tempered Radical

Materials for My #scichat Homies [Handouts]

Bad news, all y'all:  I don't have a ton of time to write tonight.  My 2.5 year old daughter -- who is completely beautiful, by the way -- is sick as can be, which means my wife and I are juggling work schedules.  That automatically puts me behind. 

The good news, though -- particularly for my #scichat homies -- is that I've got a few activities that I can share with you quickly!  Not sure if they'll be useful for everyone, but if you're a middle grades science teacher, my bad luck may just be your good luck.

Here they are:

Scientific Method Lab Handout 

Download Handout_LabReportOverview

One of the biggest challenges for sixth grade science teachers is introducing kids to a process for working through an experiment.  While kids are naturally curious and great at asking questions, they're not always great at answering their own questions systematically.

This is the handout that I use with my kids early in the school year to help them to learn about the kinds of steps that scientists take when experimenting.  I love how direct it is -- and think it really works.

#estamuybueno

 

Spaghetti Tower Challenge

Download Handout_SpaghettiTowerChallenge

Late last year, Jonathan Martin wrote about a neat activity that the kids in his school were working on.  Essentially, groups of kids were given spaghetti and told to build a tower that could support a marshmallow.  Tallest tower wins.

It seemed to me to be a great way to get groups thinking and working together on an engineering type challenge that didn't require a ton of materials -- so I whipped up this handout and turned my kids loose. 

#theylovedit

 

The SUPERTUBE Challenge

Download Handout_PaperTowelTubeColumn

After watching my kids get completely geeked by the chance to design a spaghetti tower together, I decided that I needed to whip up another quick, materials-light design challenge. 

That's what this activity is.  Essentially, groups had to modify a paper towel tube to get it to hold up as many textbooks as possible.  The record on our team currently stands at 23. 

#beatthat

Anyway -- hope these activities help someone out!  I gotta go and check on my kid.

Rock on,

Bill

What Role SHOULD Standardization Play in a PLC?

John Spencer -- an #eduthinker who I respect greatly -- has been wrestling with the role that standardization should play in a professional learning community this week.  He wrote:

The truth is that I became a better teacher when I was finally given autonomy. It's not an excuse. It's the impetus for innovation. When I have creative control and the freedom to experiment, some of the best lessons occur.

Last year, I was able to use a tech-integrated framework, move away from traditional grades, go with a project-based and problem-based approach and teach thematic units. I also had some of the highest reading, writing and math scores in the district.

All of that required a hefty dose of teacher autonomy. Although we were a PLC, the principal was flexible enough to say, "Try this and compare the results with your team." He never mocked my need for autonomy, but actually embraced it instead.

That's the same issue that Justin Tarte -- an assistant principal in a school that values autonomy and innovation -- is struggling with:

This year at Poplar Bluff Junior High School we are going through year two of Professional Learning Communities. Additionally, we are in the first year of our professional studies book club. We have been experiencing a lot of growing pains, but more importantly we are having difficult discussions that are helping to move us forward.

Most recently we read "Linchpin" by Seth Godin (you can find my blog post here).

While we were discussing the relevancy of Godin's thoughts to our school and students, a teacher asked a simple but profound question: "How do PLCs and their standardization of education fit in the mix of creating and developing Linchpins?"

And it's similar to the thinking of George Courous, who is in the middle of developing a series of supporting documents designed to give teachers a clearer picture of what effective #edtech integration should look like in their classrooms:

How do we ensure that all of our students get the same opportunities no matter what school they attend, while also ensuring that our teachers have the autonomy to be innovative in their teaching practices?  

Interesting stuff, isn't it?  Essentially, John, Justin and George have all stumbled on one of the central challenges of leading PLCs: Balancing the competing need for autonomy and standardization in the collaborative schoolhouse.

On the one hand, teachers are creative professionals who expect to be trusted.  We want to work in schools that allow us the flexibility to do what it is that we do best: Make instructional choices based on our deep understanding of our own strengths, our curriculum AND the students in our care. 

On the other hand, autonomy to the extreme often leads to drastically different learning experiences for students in different classrooms on the exact same hallway.  The push towards standardization that feels so wrong to teachers like John and I is just an inevitable response to this sad reality.

So where SHOULD the balance between autonomy and standardization in a collaborative learning community rest? 

Talking #edtech at the Teacher Roundtable

Not sure if you've had a chance to stop by yet, but Ed Week has been hosting a Teacher Roundtable discussion about technology's role in teaching and learning over the past two weeks. 

I've enjoyed my own place at the table -- but more importantly, I'm jazzed that I'm sitting at the table with a bunch of other real live classroom teachers!  Those are the kind of voices I think we need to hear more of in today's #edujabber. 

I wanted to point you to the two bits that I've written for that conversation.  They follow common themes that you've seen here on the Radical over the years.  Check 'em out and tell me what you think:

Technology is about Efficiency: One of the mistakes that I think we make in conversations about teaching with technology is believing that there really are NEW magical skills and behaviors that our students need to learn in order to be successful in tommorrow's world. 

In my experience as a learner, the skills that matter -- managing information, collaborating, solving problems collaboratively, being persuasive -- are no different than the skills that were important when Socrates was getting his seminar on in Greek forums.

The difference -- which I tried to detail in this post -- is that technology makes it possible to tackle each of those behaviors more efficiently than ever before. 

 

Our Never-Ending Reliance on Digital Resilience: Not sure if you've figured it out or not, but I'm a full-time professional pessimist.  My clouds never have silver linings.  There aren't sunshine and daffodils clouding my rose colored glasses.  In fact, the only glasses I own are half-empty -- or shattered on the floor in the corner.

That pessimism comes through in this post -- which is a bit of a rant about my impatience with the complete lack of tech tools in today's classrooms.  I mean it's 2012, y'all.  Shouldn't we be able to count on something more than collections of broken desktops and intermittent internet connections?

I'm down with being held accountable Mr. #edpolicyman as long as I'm given a fighting chance to work in a classroom that's outfitted with the tools necessary to do this work well.  Until then, your grumbling frustrates me. 

Hope you get a kick out of them.  And hope you'll leave me a bit of feedback.  I'm always down for a good bit of pushback. 

Rock on,

Bill

 

Our Compulsive Obsession with the Impossible Sexy

I ran across an interesting article on the Fast Company website today detailing the work of Method -- a wildly successful startup selling ecofriendly soaps and detergents. 

In it, Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry -- the minds behind Method -- make a point that I think schools working towards sustainable change often fail to understand:  Sometimes the most successful innovations start from thinking at the edges of the box. 

To the Method guys, edge of the box thinking is called "soft innovation." Here's how they explain it:

"Soft innovators establish new standards for quality, experience, and sales in their categories without actually doing anything profoundly innovative. Think Ben & Jerry's, which introduced the ice cream pint to the world as a more personal alternative to the half-gallon or gallon tub."

In their own work in the personal and homecare marketplace, soft innovations have included tinkering with everything from the scents that they use in their products to the feel of their labels and the quirky shapes of their packages. 

These kinds of evolutionary steps are essentially risk free, argue the Method guys, and risk free innovation is a good thing:

"Don't get us wrong, we love big innovation...but many companies underestimate the power of soft innovation, which can enhance the consumer experience and drive massive differentiation within a category.

The advantage of a soft innovation is that it treads lightly on the R&D budget, requires less marketing support because consumers "get it" right away, and is predictably successful because the idea is familiar and the consumer learning curve is quicker."

Couldn't we revise this thinking into a beautiful statement about successful innovation efforts in schools?  It would look a little something like this if we did:

Don't get us wrong, we love big innovation...but many schools underestimate the power of soft innovation, which can enhance the student experience and drive massive differentiation within a category.

The advantage of a soft innovation is that it treads lightly on the PD budget, requires less marketing support because teachers "get it" right away, and is predictably successful because the idea is familiar and the learning curve for everyone is quicker.

What does this all mean for schools and their leaders?  Most importantly, we need to take active steps towards implementing soft innovations in our schools.  What simple and immediate changes can you make to:

• The ways that your teachers collaborate.
• The ways that your teachers assess and report on student learning.
• The ways that your students interact -- with ideas and with other people.
• The ways that your students communicate what they know. 

Sure, completely reimagining schools is sexy.  But the simple truth is that sexy isn't always doable -- and our compulsive obsession with the impossible sexy means most of our change efforts are ridiculous failures.  

_____________________

Related Radical Reads:

Sustainable Change in Schools is Evolutionary

Evolutionary Lessons for PLC Principals

Make Like an Obstetrician and Deliver

 

Digital Advice for School Leaders . . .

On Wednesday, I'll have the chance to present to the technology committee of our school district's Division of Principals.  In the process of preparing, I asked my network the ONE bit of advice they thought school leaders interested in driving change in their own buildings needed to hear.

Many of the responses shared the same theme -- a theme that was summarized nicely by Tim Wilhelumus, who wrote:

@plugusin Lead with the learning and not with the tools. Always. #wcpsstech #cpchat

— Tim Wilhelmus (@twilhelmus) February 13, 2012

 

In the end, driving change in schools means remembering that technology alone isn't revolutionary.  Technology just makes it possible for teachers and students to do revolutionary things. 

Our choices about technology need to start and end with our beliefs about learning. Forgetting to put learning first in ANY conversation about education is a recipe for failure.

I also loved Jon Becker's advice:

@plugusin that very few things could be more impactful than them modeling what it is to be a learner.

— Jonathan Becker (@jonbecker) February 13, 2012

 

Jon's right, isn't he?  Principals ARE the lead learners in our schools.  Your modeling means everything to us -- and that includes the example that you set when exploring the ways that new tools and social spaces can change learners. 

Finally, Steven Anderson's point is worth noting:

@plugusin Get connected. Team up with other admin and share and learn and grow, together. It's how we improve ourselves and our craft.

— Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom) February 13, 2012

 

Whatever you do, move forward.  Take the digital plunge -- and bring some friends!  Learn together.  Experiment.  Figure out what's possible and what matters.  Change your own learning and then start changing the learning in your buildings.  

Any of this make sense? 

___________________________________________________

 Related Radical Reads:

Making Good Technology Choices 

Doubting Bauerlein's Dumbest Generation 

Reflections on Teaching for Tomorrow

Teachers, Chainsaws and the Dreaded Interactive Whiteboard

Technology Just Makes Good Teaching Easier

Note to #atplc Nation: Norms Really DO Matter

Over the course of the last week, I've had two separate conversations with two different principals about the critically important role that clearly articulated sets of norms play in governing the work of successful learning teams. 

Both principals are leading their buildings through the transition from traditional to collaborative schoolhouses -- and both underestimated the importance of the norming process.

That's understandable, isn't it? 

Norms are one of those ideas that seems overly-restrictive.  "Why EXACTLY do we need a set of rules for our learning teams?" the thinking often goes, "We ARE all adults, aren't we?  Why can't we just act like it?"

Here's the hitch: Norms are nothing more than the common patterns of beliefs, interactions and behaviors that define any collaborative group.  That means your team HAS norms, whether you take the time to articulate them or not. 

Read This: Fewer Priorities Makes Schools MORE Productive

I've been doing a ton of writing lately for my fourth book -- a title set to tackle the five frustrations of a Professional Learning Community -- and thought you might be interested in a few of the quotes that I've stumbled across while researching. 

The first comes from school change expert Doug Reeves, whose most recent title -- Finding Your Leadership Focus -- is a must read for school leaders. 

Reeves writes:

"In other words, educational leaders and policymakers can make a large number of changes to improve the lives of teaching professionals, but if they fail to address the fundamental issue of focus---giving classroom teachers more time to focus on fewer priorities and giving teachers a voice in what those priorities are---then that failure to focus will undermine every other reform."

(p. 76)

NOTHING could be truer, y'all.  When classroom teachers have the time to focus on a small handful of priorities, remarkable things happen for students and for schools. 

Reeves goes on to recommend that EVERY school and district complete an initiative inventory every year, warehousing projects that aren't making a measurable impact on student learning no matter how essential they seem to be:

"For school leaders enduring the withering assault of initiative proliferation, the challenge of focus may seem insurmountable.  After all, they are near the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid of a traditional of a traditional school system and, along with classroom teachers, they bear the brunt of multiple demands of policy, procedure, and prescription...

By asking the right questions, focusing on the factors with the greatest leverage, guarding a culture of success, and embracing the power of teacher leadership, school leaders can be at the point of a diamond rather than at the bottom of a pyramid." 

(p. 65)

So here's a simple question for you:  What one initiative are YOU going to ditch tomorrow?

If you need some help deciding, you might find this initiative monitoring handout from my first book on Professional Learning Communities helpful.

_______________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Decorating the Christmas Tree with Initiatives

Make Like an Obstetrician and Deliver

The Importance of a Clear Vision

Writing 25 Word Stories [Handout]

 

If you've been reading the Radical for the last few days, you know that I spend last weekend in Philadelphia at the Educon conference. 

That means I'm intellectually spent and WAY behind in almost all of my part time work right now.  Constant conversations and really, really cool interactions with some of the brightest people on earth will do that to you.  As a result, I haven't got a ton of time to write today. 

What I'll do instead is share a handout with you that I created recently for the language arts teacher on my team to use with our kids.

It's designed to walk students through the process of writing a really good 25 word story.  You can download it here:

Word Doc: Download Handout_CanYOUWritea25WordStory

Adobe PDF: Download Handout_CanYOUWritea25WordStory

So what's a 25 word story -- and more importantly, why would you want your kids to write them?