TLN Teacher Voices

Review: Writing Assessments for Student Growth

What Student Writing Teaches Us: Formative Assessment in the Writing Workshop
by Mark Overmeyer
(Stenhouse, 2009)

Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
High School English & Drama (IL)
Teacher Leaders Network

Mark Overmeyer’s book, What Student Writing Teaches Us, acts as a nice reminder that assessment does not always need grading and is not always summative. As readers of student work, teachers have a wondrous opportunity to use student artifacts for formative assessment to help students develop toward classroom goals, state and subject-area standards, and personal success. This slim volume makes good use of anecdotes from the author’s classroom observations. Overmeyer visited classes of varying ages and ability to explore ways writing could be used for the students’ benefit.
   

 The work has several positive aspects. One benefit for teachers with hectic lives is the user-friendly format and readability. A person could read this in snippets before school or after doing other activities during a prep period and not lose the concepts developed. For many teachers, the emphasis on the importance of student writing as formative assessment is a necessary reminder: sometimes teachers feel like they and the children are floundering in a sea of constant assessment with no time for growth.

Another important theme Overmeyer stresses is student involvement in the development of their writing as a primary element of student growth (you'll hear their voices throughout the book). His examples of students as consumers and developers of checklists, rubrics, and projects echoes best practices. The author’s integration of his own experiences as a young and adult learner remind the reader not only of the importance of lifelong learning but also the necessity of remembering the student’s point of view.

Finally, the chapter on grades should be enough to spark several days’ worth of conversation in the faculty lounge or at faculty meetings. Overmeyer discusses “admiring” a pile of student work rather than “grading” it. An excellent aspect of the book involves demystifying the rubric. Overmeyer mentions his initial conversion to rubric usage and subsequent desire to use rubrics for everything. He presents ways to develop rubrics with students, how to use rubrics effectively, and how to decide if a rubric is the most appropriate tool for the situation.

Overmeyer’s What Student Writing Teaches Us provides a fresh perspective on the purpose of student writing. His emphasis on starting with the goal in mind fits nicely with standards-aligned classrooms and other current educational approaches. Not only will the work benefit long-term professionals in grades K-8 who want a quick refresher on writing as formative assessment, it will be an excellent resource for pre-service teachers and recent graduates who are eager to get started “admiring” student papers.

PLCs at Work: An Interview with Teacher-Author Bill Ferriter

Bill Ferriter’s participation in the Teacher Leaders Network began in March 2003, on the very first day of TLN’s existence. We kicked off TLN with an email conversation among 200 accomplished teachers, mostly from states in the southeast. The idea was to stage a series of 3-day chats exploring some key professional issues and then see who wanted to stick around and become the nucleus of a national virtual community of classroom educators.

By the end of the six-week startup, Bill’s provocative questioning and his willingness to reflect on his own professional practice — tarnish and all — made him a leader in our fledgling community. He’s gone on to serve as a TLN Senior Fellow, co-author of a major TLN TeacherSolutions report, and the internationally respected TLN blogger known as The Tempered Radical, whose lively mix of classroom practice, policy and politics, and digital learning topics attracts a broad audience and recently led to a monthly column, Digitally Speaking, in Educational Leadership magazine.

As it turns out, Bill’s willingness—compulsion, even—to bare his teaching soul makes him one heck of a book author, too. Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year, co-written with principal Parry Graham, grows out of a several-year struggle by Bill and a group of teacher colleagues at his North Carolina middle school to learn to collaborate in powerful ways. In this interview, Bill recounts some of the pain and gain of that trial by fire, and how he and Graham went about translating their own experiences into a practical primer for other educators who might be willing to set forth on a similar journey.

As a bonus, I've asked Bill to speak to fellow teachers who harbor their own desire to write a book from their teaching lives. Bill generously shares his secret to publishing success, but I’ll warn you in advance. It involves a lot of writing. – John Norton, co-founder and moderator, Teacher Leaders Network.

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What created the burn to write a book for teachers just beginning to explore PLCs? Give us some history.

Bill Ferriter: I think the burn to write a book for teachers just beginning their work with professional learning communities is a product of my own early struggles and successes with collaboration. About five years ago, I had the opportunity to open a new middle school being built as a PLC from the ground up—and I was paired on a learning team with five of the most intelligent and capable language arts and social studies teachers that I’d ever met.

The problem was that we had no real idea what it was that we were supposed to be doing with each other, and that led to early frustrations. Our initial meetings were rambling, unfocused affairs and we often felt like failures. We fought through personal conflicts and professional disagreements, though, and eventually found a working rhythm and synergy that made all of us better teachers. I wanted to try to make those early struggles transparent to other teachers, hoping that the lessons my team learned might sustain others when the inevitable challenges of collaboration arise.

Collaborative work can make any teacher more productive and professionally satisfied, but only when early efforts at collaboration are structured and meaningful. Parry and I believe that Building a Professional Learning Community at Work can provide some of that structure for learning teams at any stage of their professional work together.

Your book is filled with action-oriented subheads, reproducibles, practical recommendations — there's even an annotated chapter guide divided into seasons of the year. It has the feel of authors who have been there and done that. How much easier might things be for teacher teams who take your advice?

Bill Ferriter: I think the real strength of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work is that Parry and I are both full-time practitioners. I still meet with a learning team every week, trying to identify instructional practices that work and ensure the success of every child. Parry still works as a building principal, trying to create the systems that enable teachers and students to thrive.

That first-hand experience with the real work of learning teams is evident in every chapter, handout and subtitle in our text. Our suggestions, strategies, and materials are suggestions, strategies and materials that we’ve used successfully in our work—and the text is really nothing more than a public reflection of the learning that we’ve done as we’ve tried to make professional learning communities happen in our own schools.

A Book to Inspire a Culture of Trust and Build Teacher Community

Protocols for Professional Learning (The Professional Learning Community Series)
By Lois Brown Easton
(2009, ASCD)

Reviewed by Michael Fisher
Instructional Coach and Consultant (New York)
Teacher Leaders Network

I appreciate the opportunity to read and review Lois Brown Easton’s book on Professional Learning Protocols. It is a book that I know will have an impact on my own practice as a staff developer, and I’ve already used and shared many ideas from the text.
   
Because I work with schools helping teachers to set up Professional Learning Networks, both in-house and digitally, this book is specifically geared to my work with fellow educators. Many times, when I go into schools, teachers have not had much of an opportunity to meet in collegial groups, and they are satisfied with the “island mentalities” they have been allowed to cultivate over many years. This leads to not only missed opportunities, but also to feelings of inadequacy and a sense of constantly being under attack for failing to do this or that.

Easton’s career includes 15 years as a teacher, and long service as a curriculum leader and professional developer in Arizona and Colorado, including work with the Coalition of Essential Schools. In her introduction, she promises that through the use of protocols, teacher communities can “achieve trust and create a culture that is essential for collaborative work on issues of substance.” Schools can’t wait for a perfect culture to begin using protocols, she says. Instead, “it is through their use that the culture will develop and trust will emerge.”

Protocols, Easton tells us, are:

• Processes that help groups achieve deep understanding through dialogue.
   
• Structures for groups that allow them to explore ideas deeply through student work, artifacts of educator practice, texts relating to education, or problems and issues that surface during the day-to-day lives of educators.
   
• Guidelines for conversation based on norms that everyone agrees upon in order to make the dialogue safe and effective.
   
• A facilitated set of steps which everyone understands and has agreed to that permits a kind of conversation that people don't usually have when they discuss things.
   
• A constructivist approach to discussion that allows for deep development of ideas as certain people talk while others listen and then the talkers listen and the listeners talk, with each round characterized by reflection and exploration.
   
• A way for educators to build collaborative communities, sometimes called critical friends groups (CFGs) or professional learning communities (PLCs).

 Over the course of six chapters, Easton then explores the whats and whys of protocols and how they can be put to use to examine student work and professional practice, to address learning issues and problems, and to promote effective professional discussions. Each chapter describes various protocols in step-by-step detail. (See sample chapters here.)

The protocols in this book help to inspire the atmosphere and culture of trust and collegiality that is necessary to open and maintain conversations among teachers. When there is a framework of understanding, and a foundation of value for everyone’s participation and unique voice, it helps everyone move forward.
   
Besides the great examples she describes, Easton creates a defining framework around protocols and how they should be used. This supplies teachers and meeting leaders with detailed tools from which they can choose to facilitate different types of gatherings, whether the purpose is to share ideas, analyze a specific problem, or deal with something unpleasant in an honest but supportive way.
   
I especially liked that the author included a section on protocols to use with students. I am always being asked what I think about the peer review or peer collaboration process and what resources I have. Using protocols is a perfect way to examine, review, revise and discuss student work. The protocols listed facilitate both student to student interactions and teacher to student interactions.
   
This book also contains protocols for examining professional practice and for addressing issues and problems. Out of these, I found the Success Analysis protocol to be immediately useful, and have used it several times in professional development recently with wildly successful results. In fact, I just proposed to another staff developer that she may want to include a reference in her new book to this particular tool, as the content she is writing about is quite conducive to using protocols.
   
Overall, I see Protocols for Professional Learning as very necessary to the field and unique in its delivery. It’s short (70 pp.) and to the point and written in such a way as to be immediately useful to practitioners, be they teachers or administrators. It could also be useful, in part, to students, as they construct ways to be mutually supportive but also understand that all voices are necessary and needed. I was impressed and excited by what I read, and look forward to more from Lois Brown Easton and ASCD’s Professional Learning Community series.

I Want to Belong to This Club!

A Sense of Belonging: Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers
By Jennifer Allen
(2009, Stenhouse Publishers)

Reviewed by Marti Schwartz
Teacher, Novice-Teacher Educator (Rhode Island)
Teacher Leaders Network

I loved this book! When I began reading it in early September, I approached it through the lens of a coach/mentor for a group of novice teachers who spent a week with me in a seminar this past summer. From that perspective, I found the subtitle intriguing and hoped for good advice.

Shortly thereafter, in a moment of optimism, I agreed to come out of semi-retirement and signed on for a totally new professional experience: after 32 years of elementary teaching, I was suddenly facing urban high school students on a daily basis — as a quasi-novice!

These two roles — new-teacher mentor and rookie high school teacher — kept me reading Allen’s book, when I could find time to breathe. As each chapter unfolded yet another piece of the support plan under which Allen operates, I found myself wishing that I could magically whisk away and live in her town and work in her school, under her guidance.

The program that Allen and her Maine district (Waterville Public Schools) has established is one that sounds so reasonable and supportive that one can only wonder why this isn’t being practiced everywhere. If, as Allen says, “almost 50 percent of all new teachers leave our profession after only five years,”(research cited on p. 3), then our educational system is wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy by not supporting novices everywhere more fully. To keep retraining new recruits while five years of experience walks out the door is just plain foolish.

Allen makes it look simple: set up a routine that supports teachers with monthly meetings, assistance in planning, time to observe others, and guidance in teaching their own classes. She makes no mention of how this is all funded, and one wonders how, in these difficult times, the district is able to support each of these pieces. And, though she offers many inspiring stories of those novices, she does not offer any data about the retention rate of the new teachers in her district. But these are peripheral issues; the blueprint she offers is one that seems sound, replicable and intriguing.

Writing in a collegial, inviting style, Allen offers many stories of her own past experiences as a new teacher as well as examining the athletic adventures of her children and herself through the lens of the teaching and learning that takes place in the hands of a gifted coach. Her stories are spot on — we can easily grasp the guidance and wisdom being offered, even before she points it out.

The plan of teacher support is frequent, intensive, individualized, and brilliant. As a literacy coach Allen works, first, to build relationships with new teachers even before the school year begins (just as many of us try to connect with our students mid-summer, to ease their anxiety and generate their enthusiasm for the tasks ahead). Once a month new teachers are released for the day — spending the morning observing in classrooms, and the afternoons debriefing and planning, with guidance and support.

Allen works “in a first-year teacher’s classroom three times a week for at least 45 minutes, and supports them in their second or third year at least once a week or as needed.” (p. 6) This gives her the opportunity to get to know the students (and their demands or quirks) on an immediate basis, and allows the novice the chance to see a seasoned teacher work with her own students — sometimes experiencing the same challenges that she herself has faced. In partnership with a well-prepared coach, the novice can learn multiple ways to handle those challenges from a practitioner who has dealt with many, many challenging students and classrooms in the past.

Giving and interpreting assessments and using student work to guide instruction are key learning goals for novice teachers under Allen’s wing. Again, teachers are given two days out of their classroom (for fall and spring assessments) to administer, score, and analyze the assessments. For those of us who have tried to balance such work while teaching at the same time — this seems like heaven!

“The second and third years of teaching are an opportunity for new teachers to define themselves as educators. I see these years as an opportunity for new teachers to refine instructional practice and put together the pieces of the curriculum,” states Allen (p.59), noting that she continues “to support them in a way that nurtures them to become the teacher they want to be.” While Allen certainly has some ideas as a literacy coach of what “best practice” looks like, she seems wise enough to enable teachers to discover what it looks like for them.

Allen supports her teachers in other ways: providing them with student-sized dry erase boards, microcassette recorders, mentor texts, books to add to classroom libraries, writer’s notebooks, and other classroom supplies. Having spent 30 years in a suburban public school system, I must report that almost all of those supplies came out of teachers’ own wallets. But we also didn’t have a literacy coach, or someone who so passionately, wisely, devotes her time to ensuring that good things are happening in ALL classrooms, not just a chosen few. Should your own school experience be less supportive, reading through A Sense of Belonging will give you many concrete ideas about ways to improve your own literacy instruction, begin a study group, or venture into the realm of classroom visitations.

What Allen has given her novices is the gift of time: time to talk, reflect, observe, share, grow and learn, all with gentle, appropriate support. Additionally, the time is built into the novices’ teaching lives — professional growth does not require that precious moments be stolen from their non-existent “free time.”

What Allen has given to all of us is a powerful model of strengthening the practice of novice teachers, in a book that is enjoyable to read and inspiring to emulate. “New teachers are establishing lifelong habits of collaboration and reflection…” (p.91), she writes. And I have to agree: her novice colleagues, their students, and the educational system of Waterville, Maine, will surely reap the benefits for decades to come.

Multiple Intelligences in Your Classroom

 Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 3rd edition
By Thomas Armstrong
(ASCD, 2009)

Reviewed by Kenneth Bernstein, NBCT
High School Government & Social Studies (MD)
Teacher Leaders Network

In 1983, after a number of years of research, Howard Gardner published a book with the title Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. He posited that there was not a single general intelligence such as that measured by traditional IQ tests. On the basis of his research on people with brain injuries, and the clear documentation of young geniuses who demonstrated each of what he called multiple intelligences, Gardner argued for seven distinct capabilities. A person might have great ability in any of these distinct areas, independent of the other six.

While some disputed the conclusions Gardner drew from his work, others were immediately drawn to it, because it seemed to reinforce what they were perceiving. Among these was a group of elementary school teachers from Indianapolis who, by 1987, had succeeded in founding an elementary school based on the principles Gardner had extracted from his research.

Since then Gardner has continued to work on his theory. His original formulation contained these seven "intelligences": verbal-linguistic, mathematical-logical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. He has since added an eighth, which he terms "naturalistic."

In the meantime, many others have written on Multiple Intelligences. The Key School in Indianapolis has been joined by other schools across the nation in attempting to organize themselves around Gardner's theories. There are institutes developed to do further research, such as Project Zero at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Gardner. Denise Wolf and others have worked on implementing Multiple Intelligences in schools, such as the Arts Propel Project in Pittsburgh, which also had the support of the Educational Testing Service.

A group of people at Stanford involved in the graduate education of teachers established the Teachers Curriculum Institute, which was dedicated to implementing Multiple Intelligences in social studies classrooms around the nation. Their History Alive! approach is now the required method of social studies instruction in some of the nation's more notable school districts, as I discovered in the one year I taught in the Arlington, Virginia public schools.

One of the notable figures in the Multiple Intelligences movement has been Thomas Armstrong. Since the 1994 publication of the first edition of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, Armstrong has done as much as anyone outside of Project Zero to advance the use of Gardner's multiple intelligences in the schools of this nation.

Helping Students Connect History to Their Lives (review)

Making History Mine: Meaningful Connections for Grades 5-9 (Review)
by Sarah Cooper
Stenhouse (2009)

Reviewed by Patrick Vernon, NBCT
Middle School Social Studies (North Carolina)
Teacher Leaders Network

Making History Mine is a great resource. The entire book offers teachers the opportunity to gain a fresh approach to teaching strands of history.

Educators could use all of the text or choose to only focus on one or two topics and read those chapters in depth. Author Sarah Cooper does an excellent job of organizing the topics so that Chapter One deals with examining the impact individuals have made in history and each successive chapter tackles topics such as differing points of view about history, use of primary sources in classes, incorporating  current events, getting the most out of student research projects, and empowering students to be ethical global citizens.

Even if a reader had planned to only read a section here or there, the scaffolding style of the book encourages us to read the entire text.

The book aims to make history appealing to students in grades 6-9. Cooper provides meaningful examples of how she has used activities with her students. Her examples come from the entire range of grades targeted in the text, along with a variety of courses typically taught in these grades. Through her use of diverse examples, the author is able to keep readers thinking about how they might apply strategies in their own classrooms.

In some ways the book is like a sampler platter of activities. Some lessons that the writer has used are thoroughly explained and have accompanying materials in the book so that teachers could easily adapt the lesson to their own classrooms. Other activities are mentioned but implementation details are left out. Future editions of Making History Mine would be strengthened if appendices were included offering detailed procedures for activities discussed in the text.

The constantly changing lives of adolescents mean that educators must adapt what they do to make meaningful connections between their students and history. This text is a useful tool for social studies teachers to do just that.

Never Work Harder Than Your Students (review)

Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching
by Robyn R. Jackson
ASCD (2009)

Reviewed by Gail Tillery, NBCT
High School English & Mentoring (Georgia)
Teacher Leaders Network

I must confess I was a little disappointed that this book did not turn out to contain the magic secret of getting past the hard work of teaching. However, Robyn Jackson does offer many practical tips for helping proficient teachers move to what she calls the master teacher level, so the book is definitely worth reading.

Jackson builds her work on the premise that the most effective teachers have what she calls “the master teacher mindset.” This mindset is built around a set of seven principles that Jackson says master teachers use to guide their practice. Each chapter of the book is built around exploring one of these principles, including

• knowing where students are and where they are going
• expecting students to reach their goals
• supporting students through effective feedback
• focusing on quality rather than quantity

The master teacher mindset is centered around reflective practice; master teachers work in such a way that the principles become automatic to them, and they use these principles constantly to design the work and assessments they prepare for students.

Jackson believes that a teacher's work should be done at the front end, as it were. She advocates becoming an expert on the standards of the given course and using that expertise to design work that challenges students and helps them reach their learning goals. She gives practical advice on understanding standards by helping her readers interpret their language. For example, she explains that standards emphasize either learning goals or a process (content vs. skills). Once teachers understand exactly what the standards are asking students to know and be able to do, they can assign work and assessments to help students meet the standards.

One of the most interesting and challenging ideas Jackson presents is that teachers should be able to explain why they are doing each activity and assessment they chose. She urges teachers to ask themselves, “Why am I doing what I'm doing?” If students ask you why they're doing an activity, and you can't give them an answer that makes sense, the activity must go.

Another interesting idea Jackson develops is Principle 3: ”Expect Your Students to Get There.” She discusses the point of view that I have heard all my life among colleagues: that some students can't or won't do the work because they’re lazy or don’t care or whatever, and there's really nothing we can do to change that. Jackson, however, believes that expectations are really all about what we expect of ourselves—not of our students.

She asks us as readers to shift focus from what students can and will do to what WE can and will do. She says that teachers must have high expectations of their own abilities to get their students where they need to go. She points out that, if we say students can't acquire knowledge or develop skills, we're really saying we don't believe WE can get them to the learning goal in question.

Jackson also gives practical guidelines for effective feedback in Principle 4: ”Support Your Students.” A firm believer in intervening before disaster strikes, she provides ideas on how to help students as soon as you see that a problem is developing. Undoing confusion before it starts is a proactive approach that allows teachers to anticipate and head off the damage before it happens. This was one of my favorite principles.

Jackson's book includes a self-assessment for readers to complete so they will know where they are in relation to the master teacher mindset. In the appendix, she includes an array of tools to help teachers develop action plans to help them move toward the mastery of teaching. The toolbox is user-friendly and provides concrete help for teachers who wish to pursue Jackson's line of thinking.

While I didn't agree with everything in the book, I found Jackson's passion for teaching and her obvious belief in all students to be inspiring and refreshing. This book is an easy read but also thought-provoking and full of ideas to aid teachers in helping students to excel. It is definitely worth looking into.

Rigor Is NOT a Four-Letter Word (review)

Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word
Barbara R. Blackburn
Eye on Education (2008)

Reviewed by Karen Molter
High School English/LA (Indiana)
Teacher Leaders Network

I asked to review this book because of an ongoing debate/dilemma with this issue, both among my colleagues and within myself. When I discuss this topic with other teachers, we agree it's important to "raise the bar" for students and that a rigorous education is essential for post-secondary success. The dilemma arises in the actual implementation of that philosophy.

While I have high standards for my students, trying to help them meet those standards is often exhausting and sometimes they simply refuse or give up. My colleagues who teach elective classes find that if their classes are too challenging, students will not enroll and their job security will be threatened. In our discussions, we’ve considered many solutions — vertical teaming, school culture change, social workers, even starting our own school! This book, I thought, might just offer some better answers to the many questions we have about rigor.

I opened the cover with mixed feelings. After 33 years of teaching, I often find that professional reading simply affirms many of my current practices in the classroom. Here, I was not hoping for affirmation but for something to improve my instruction at this advanced stage in my career. I was not disappointed. I found this book to be both realistic and respectful.

“Realistic” was a welcome attribute. Blackburn’s work with practicing teachers and interviews with students keeps the research and philosophy grounded in actual strategies for implementation. She actually mirrors the “guideposts” (pg. 15) for increased rigor in the organization of the book:

•  Quality … Not Quantity — She keeps to the point and includes clear examples of rigorous activities for the classroom.

•  Everyone…Not just “Special Students” — She includes activities for all types of intelligences, all levels of intelligence, and all content areas are included.

•  Learning… Not Punishment — She provides opportunities at the end of each chapter to reflect upon the content and consider how the techniques could be used with the reader’s current lessons. She also describes scaffolding and assessment techniques for use with students.

Another realistic aspect of the book is Blackburn’s clear recognition of the potential stumbling blocks to implementation and her suggested methods of dealing with them. Chapter One addresses these issues directly and leads the reader to the following definition: “Rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels.” (pg 16).

Chapter Two continues to lay the foundation for the chapters to come by offering a discussion of high expectations, challenging curricula, high-level questioning, and differentiation and multiple intelligences. Much of this discussion would provide a good orientation for newly hired teachers and those in need of a refresher.

Blackburn sets the stage nicely for the more practical portion of the book — which she offers in a “choose your own adventure” style. Chapters Three through Seven, which discuss various methods to increase rigor, are not written sequentially so the reader can opt to read the chapters in order of importance or urgency. Topics include:

• Raising the level of content — This section includes a great discussion on the difference between “reviewing and repeating” as well as a section on standards.

• Increasing complexity — Techniques for student engagement are the real surprise in this section. Project-based activities are used to attain the complexity without losing the students.

• Giving appropriate support and guidance — Her suggestions about scaffolding and providing multiple opportunities to learn offer viable solutions when students want to give up. The section on communicating teacher expectations to students effectively is also helpful.

• Opening one’s focus — “Open-ended” is more than just a type of question! Projects, choices and even vocabulary instruction can be open-ended as well. Her explanations of these strategies are eye-opening.

• Raising expectations — This section gives attention to issues such as “A,B, Not Yet” grading, victory lists, and creating a culture of learning. Her ideas here will be helpful to many teachers, even those with long experience in the classroom.

Blackburn continues her realistic approach to rigor in the chapters on assessment and the opportunities and challenges of implementation (Ch. 8 and 9). Assessment is a necessity, and she believes formative assessment is most effective. Grades are a fact of life, and her ideas about mixing a variety of types of assessment provide many opportunities for reflection.

Probably the most realistic aspect of the book comes in Chapter Nine, which discusses the introduction of rigor into the classroom and the likely resistance from students, parents, and colleagues. Blackburn’s work with practicing educators shines through here with her honest discussion of such issues. She acknowledges that the road will not always be smooth and offers several options for managing opposition to change.

There are also extras. Teacher leaders who have a need to increase rigor on a school-wide basis will find additional activities and resources in the book, which also includes a password that allows book owners online access to charts, guiding questions, and tools at the publisher's website. (Some templates are available to everyone who visits the book's webpage.)

Finally, and importantly, a tone of respect permeates each page of Rigor Is Not a Four-Letter Word. Blackburn’s chosen audience is the classroom teacher because she believes that, ultimately, it’s the individual working with students every day who is in the best position to truly raise the bar.

While the school’s curriculum, climate, or improvement initiatives may or may not embrace increased rigor, the individual teacher has the power to make changes in each individual classroom. This attitude — in a book filled with examples of real teachers’ lessons, time-saving charts and organizers, and opportunities for the audience to reflect and plan — truly displays the author’s understanding of classroom dynamics and the demands upon a teacher’s time.

This deep grasp of teachers’ work is also displayed in Blackburn’s incorporation plan, which recommends that rigor be introduced incrementally, one added strategy per week, while anticipating that there will be bumps in the road. In the world of educational literature, where authors frequently condemn existing teacher practice or put forth idealistic expectations, this book refreshingly offers positive ways to improve instruction in the real world.

Teacher Leadership 3.0 – An Interview with Gayle Moller

 When Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders first appeared in the mid-1990s, teacher leadership was not on the lips (or minds) of most superintendents and principals. Or, for that matter, most teachers.

In the ensuing years, through three editions, Sleeping Giant has become a much-read classic, inspiring countless teachers to come out of their isolation and accept roles as leaders, colleagues and collaborators. Although the book has also become a staple in higher education leadership programs, in the new edition co-authors Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller continue to speak directly to teachers in classrooms and schools, urging them to wake up and take greater ownership of their profession.

To celebrate the appearance of this new edition — updated to reflect the many advances in teacher leadership during the past eight years — we spoke to co-author Gayle Moller, who in 2003 served as an expert advisor during the creation of the Teacher Leaders Network. We also invite you to read TLN member Nancy Flanagan’s review of Sleeping Giant, as well as her Teacher Magazine essay about the book's impact on her own life. — John Norton

* * * * * * * * * *

Thanks for talking with us, Gayle. You have many fans in the TLN community. Awakening the Sleeping Giant was first published in 1996. A second edition appeared in 2001. Why did you and co-author Marilyn Katzenmeyer decide that the time had come for a third edition?

In 1996, when we first wrote about teacher leadership, there were few people who acknowledged that teachers could be leaders. At the same time, when teacher leaders read our book they said: “You wrote about me!”

The opportunities for teacher leadership have increased substantially since those days. Our editors at Corwin Press approached us, noted the continuing interest in the 2001 edition, and suggested that the time might be right for an update. Marilyn and I knew the population of teacher leaders was continuing to grow, so we agreed.

What’s changed since 2001?

In the last eight years, school system leaders have begun to acknowledge that they’re not getting the results they would like. And many realize that mandates and limited professional development are not effective ways to improve results. The perceptive district leader is now turning to teachers who are competent and can work with their colleagues at the school building level.

New teacher leadership roles — literacy coaches, mentors, and staff developers — are becoming commonplace. In addition, the National Board certification process has helped many potential teacher leaders realize how they can improve their own practice and help other teachers. External support systems, like the Teachers Leader Network, are encouraging teachers to move outside their “comfort zone” to interact with other teacher leaders. When Education Week relaunched Teacher Magazine in 2006 with a specific focus on teacher leadership, many of us took it as a sign!

What's new or revised in the 3rd Edition?

We’ve done quite a lot of revising in this latest edition. Throughout the book, we show how teacher leadership has evolved over the last 20 years by linking current research and practice to new developments. There’s a new chapter written specifically for teachers who take on new instructional leadership roles. In that chapter we address things like deciding to be a teacher leader, negotiating the principal-teacher leader relationship, working with peers, and facilitating professional learning.

To encourage more conversations about teacher leadership, we’ve added two new instruments. The “Teacher Leader School Survey” measures how supportive a school culture is of teacher leadership. We’ve also included the “Teacher Leader Self-Assessment,” which can help potential teacher leaders determine how they currently match up with leadership standards.

The book is based on a leadership development model that includes planning for action. In this new edition, we introduce an action research process called the “Influencing Action Plan.” It’s a practical tool that helps teacher leaders work through strategies to address school site problems and issues.

Finally, we wrote a new chapter on the future of teacher leadership. In that chapter we predict, based on current developments, what teacher leaders might be doing in the years ahead.

Book Review: The Sleeping Giant Awakens

Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders (3rd Edition)
Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller
Corwin Press (June 2009)

Reviewed by Nancy Flanagan, NBCT
Teacher Leaders Network

The second edition of Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders sits on a shelf above my workspace, its spine cracked and tattered. Text is highlighted — in three colors — and the volume is awash in sticky tabs, margin comments and random scraps of paper bearing quotes and additional book recommendations. I have assigned the book twice as a text for a graduate course I teach called "Teacher as Change Agent" and consider it a seminal work in the field of teacher leadership, my personal passion.

To be a useful source of ideas for positive change over time, updates to any education book must be significant, and content must have lasting value and importance. Teacher leadership is a rapidly evolving theme in the broader field of educational leadership. Books that once represented cutting-edge thinking are eclipsed as new research, conceptual frameworks and tools emerge. Works that once had great relevance and utility for practitioners are reexamined  in the cool light of collected and analyzed data. Major policy shifts re-prioritize educational goals, and technology modifies leadership practice.

When Katzenmeyer and Moller published the first edition of Sleeping Giant, in 1996, the concept of teacher leadership was neither well-known nor clearly defined.  Over the 13 years between the first and third editions, many national organizations and educational thinkers have attempted to identify critical characteristics of practitioner expertise and influence, and develop models, standards and structures for advancing teacher leadership. The new edition of Awakening the Sleeping Giant keeps pace with these developments. It continues to stand as a practical and effective foundation for the work of developing leadership in teachers — a kind of primer around the basic rationale for paying attention to teachers' craft and collegial knowledge, and a self-help plan for teachers interested in building their own leadership skills.

Revisions in the third edition were carefully incorporated; one of the nicest is the replacement of "expert" quotes at the beginning of each chapter with quotes from real teacher leaders. New self- and system-assessment tools have been added, and Katzenmeyer and Moller include updated thinking on the long-range career development of teachers who lead, generational differences in teacher expectations, and a range of new insights garnered from recent research. While each new edition has grown by approximately 40 pages, the authors have also judiciously removed or modified outdated or less-useful sections. The Resources section includes a well-chosen collection of important books and organizations, and the References list is comprehensive and thorough, a great launching pad for anyone interested in studying teachers as leaders. Moller and Katzenmeyer also generously acknowledge many teacher leadership initiatives, communities and authors in the text, including the Teacher Leaders Network.

The first two chapters of the book provide a framework for understanding the multiple definitions and kinds of teacher leadership and offer a well-researched justification for promoting leadership in teachers. Plainly, there are clear benefits to empowering teachers, beginning with increased student learning, accountability, creativity, retention, teacher satisfaction, and sustainable improvements in practice. In Chapter Three, the authors make a case for intentional development of leadership capacity in all teachers, beginning in pre-service teacher preparation and continuing with experiences in sharing expertise, building learning communities, and changing roles over the span of a career.

Chapters Four through Six describe an interactive, three-part model of leadership development: Personal assessment, changing school cultures to utilize teacher expertise, and cultivating individual leadership strategies and skills. The pieces of this model are interdependent — and the most exciting and progressive examples of teacher leadership happen when teachers understand their own strengths, fill their leadership tool bags, and work in an environment where adults can and do collaborate.

Katzenmeyer and Moller debunk the myth of the single charismatic school leader and offer hope to teachers whose school cultures seem inhospitable to the influence of teachers with good ideas. They provide a number of research-supported suggestions for reaching out to formal school leaders with evidence that distributing leadership tasks makes organizational sense and leads to more effective teaching and learning.

Chapters Seven and Eight examine some of the emerging challenges to new conceptions of teacher leadership, and the authors sketch a template for ongoing scholarship and structures to continue building knowledge and leadership models. Again — "teacher leadership" was virtually unrecognized in the educational leadership literature two decades ago. As teachers step forward to be change agents,  eager to take responsibility for improving instruction and taking control of their own work, the path is not likely to be smooth. Moller and Katzenmeyer offer a persuasive rationale for pursuing the goals of teacher leadership in spite of obstacles and setbacks.

While the authors provide conclusions and recommendations in each chapter for principals, district administrators and university professors — and most teacher leaders would love to have their superintendents and graduate advisors reading and endorsing the ideas presented in the book — Sleeping Giant's natural audience and greatest impact is likely to be with practitioners. Well-researched and full of useful citations, the volume is less a scholarly investigation of changes in the practices of teacher leaders than a guide to developing and advocating for leadership from the classroom.

A teacher colleague, currently a graduate student at a local university, confessed that she found the book eminently useful in her own thinking and personal growth as a leader —— but said she had been discouraged from using it as a resource in developing a framework for her dissertation research on teacher leadership. She was told that Sleeping Giant was a "practitioner book," full of self-assessment surveys, tools, resources, and concrete (non-academic) language. She described the text as "leadership code switching for teachers" — turning significant and complex educational concepts into constructive, accessible suggestions for teachers.

This strikes me as both true and a ringing endorsement for the third edition of Awakening the Sleeping Giant. I seldom buy a new edition of a volume I already own, but I'm making an exception with this book.

Nancy Flanagan is a 30-year teaching veteran, a former Michigan state teacher of the year, and a consultant specializing in teacher leadership and virtual professional communities. She blogs at Teacher in a Strange Land.

Read an interview with Sleeping Giant co-author Gayle Moller here.