Learner-Centered Innovation: The Reflection

Sadly, my class on Learner-Centered Innovation is coming to a close! I am happy to have finished the book since I tend to buy lots of professional books with the hope and desire of reading them all and improving my teaching, but many of them end up just being skimmed. It takes more concentration for me to read a book that I'm thinking of putting to use instead of one that I'm reading just to learn about something (or just as an escape!), but it is always worth it.

This course was taught by one of my colleagues and friends: Emily Keeter, the science teacher on my team. If you have not checked out her blog yet, you're missing out! It's definitely not just for science teachers - it's for everyone who wants to learn and grow in the classroom.

Last summer, Emily also taught a course where I read The Innovator's Mindset, which piqued my interest in shifting my planning and instruction. I took this course as a follow-up to that one because I think I could have done better during the last school year, and I want to improve this upcoming year with a concrete plan for how to help students discover their strengths and work toward their goals.

This book is full of specific ideas about innovation for both students and teachers. One main thread of the text deals with school culture and the growth mindset. We cannot say that we value innovation if we also punish mistakes (on any level). When we take risks, there are bound to be mistakes or failures because that is an important part of the road to change. However, as Katie Martin writes, "We can change policies and implement new programs, but if we don't empower teachers and create school cultures where people feel valued and free to take risks, we will miss out on our greatest opportunity to change how students learn...We know that kids and adults learn better when learning has an authentic purpose, subjects are integrated, and the learner has agency and choice in the process" (75). In other words, the risks that we will take will allow our students to create for an authentic purpose that deals with multiple subjects in a way THEY decide. This will hopefully lead to more engaged and interested students!

While I enjoyed reading the book (although it is not without its flaws), the best part of this course was, hands-down, the interaction with my colleagues. I think Emily did an incredible job of differentiating the options for responding to the three books from which we could choose, and her faith in our ability to select the ways that worked best (and NOT just the easiest way!) for us made me want to try new things. This is exactly what is discussed in Learner-Centered Innovation. For example, I decided to do a video blog and create a graphic for two different weeks instead of writing a traditional blog. I am much more comfortable writing, but I knew that if I didn't try something new, I wouldn't know how my students felt when I asked them to take risks. The process of doing something that was challenging for me was eye-opening; I had to ask for help from other colleagues (hi Katie!), try different ways of saving and uploading, work with different templates, and pare down my ideas about the book to the basics. I ended up being very proud of what I did and happy that I had the experience of struggling and failing before succeeding so as to have empathy for my students.

I learned an incredible amount from my colleagues in this course. I have taken classes with several of them in the past, and I am always so impressed and excited by what they bring to our discussions. I don't think we get enough time to collaborate with our colleagues who are not part of our department, and I barely know who teaches at the elementary schools (unless they have taken other courses with me in the past). Hearing how teachers in every subject and grade would apply the same ideas in different ways was very eye-opening for me, and every time I posted an idea about how I would do something in my classroom, their comments made my idea much better. I cannot overstate the importance of continued discussion and time for working together in order to put these innovative ideas into action.

Thanks to canva.com and Katie Nelson for making me look like I know anything about creating graphics!

Big Takeaways: Graphic Edition!

Now that I've finished reading Learner-Centered Innovation, my task this week was to share (in some way) what my biggest takeaways from the book are. The easiest thing for me to do would be to write about it, but I'm trying to do things that aren't so easy for me, so I made the graphic below using Canva. I highly recommend Canva; even I was able to navigate it (with the help from a wonderfully patient colleague the first time around), and I found a lot of templates that were helpful to me as I thought about the best way to show my learning. I'm intimidated by the blank document when it comes to visuals, so being able to fill in my work instead of having to create something new really appealed to me.

(Sorry it's a little too big - it was too small to see in any other size!)

Relationships and Education: Booksnap Edition!

As a follow-up to my previous video reflection on relationships and education, here is a booksnap that distills one of my major points into one page. If you haven't tried (or heard of) booksnapping, here is a blog from Tara Martin that explains it very well. I like it a lot and find that it helps me to focus my thoughts since there's only so much that you can put in one snap - and I tend to be somewhat verbose! :) 

This particular booksnap is from page 219 of Learner-Centered Innovation. There were many parts of chapters 8-10 (which I read for this week) that I could have snapped (I was particularly interested in the radical candor section, but I'll save that for another time), but I stuck with the same thread as my video reflection for this one.

Relationships and Education

This week, I am trying video reflecting! The question I am answering is:

Why are relationships so important in innovation and education?

True to form, this video is longer than I intended it to be because I just really have a lot of thoughts about things, so I can't embed it here. Here is a link!

Additionally, I did not directly address innovation in the video, but I did talk about feedback and growth. In my mind, innovation cannot exist without those things: if you are not receptive to feedback, you will not be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone to innovate and you certainly will not be able to improve your efforts. Similarly, you will not grow if you are not receptive to feedback, and growth is essential to innovation. 

Image from http://ixd.prattsi.org/2017/04/what-are-you-really-hearing-effectively-processing-feedback/

Student and Teacher Voices (Short Post #2: Students)

It's that time of the class again - 150 word limit challenge! Here we go... :)

Part 2

How do we create classrooms where student and teacher voices are not only heard, but needed?

For Students

Image from http://dannywoo.typepad.com/my-blog/2013/10/student-voice-series-1-josh-acosta.html

This part seems easier (maybe I mean "more organic" or "easier to think about doing" - it's certainly not easier to manage or plan than everyone doing the same thing, but it's better!). If we truly do embrace the idea of personalized learning, then our teaching is nothing without our students' voices. Again and again, I thought of the point that the person who is doing the work is doing the learning (I know it's brought up here, but I heard it first somewhere else and it's stuck with me for a long time). In order to merge student voice and learning, we should "...revis[e] [our] lesson plans to shift the cognitive load onto students, providing opportunities to engage in higher-level tasks and allowing students to drive the learning experiences" (202). We literally cannot do that without student voices.

Student and Teacher Voices (Short Post #1: Teachers)

It's that time of the class again - 150 word limit challenge! Here we go... :)

Part 1

How do we create classrooms where student and teacher voices are not only heard, but needed?

For Teachers
I think we need to be valued and trusted. There were so many ideas in chapters 5-7 of Learner-Centered Innovation that I was excited about, but all I kept hearing from the little voice in my head was "Time, time, time." I don't mean that I don't have enough time in the class periods (although we could always use more of that), I mean that we don't have enough common planning time with our departments and teams that is OURS. We have agendas that are set by other people and data that we have to read and respond to and we allow schedules to dictate what we do and do not do. I will never stop thinking about this point: "We aligned the staff meetings and team collaboration time to ensure that teachers had time to design new and better learning opportunities, try out some things, receive feedback, and continue to revise" (203). Honestly, that is my DREAM.

Image from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teachers-want-to-be-heard-its-time-to-listen_us_58dbb2cde4b0f087a3041e6b

(HERE is the article where the pull quote came from in case you are interested!)

The Ideal Classroom

I have to be honest: I was really only feeling lukewarm about a lot of what Katie Martin had to say in Learner-Centered Innovation until Chapter 4. I mean, it's a good book, and she had a lot of important points, but I wasn't really energized about changing my own classroom culture until last night.

I suppose this makes sense since Chapter 4 is titled "What Does Your Ideal Classroom Look Like?" Of course, I can't really explain everything about my ideal classroom since that would take too long, so here are some quick, concrete changes I'm going to make in the 2018-2019 school year to try to achieve a more learner-centered approach.

First Days

I do think that I do some good things in my first days of the year: asking students what good learners and leaders do and posting them for the whole year (thanks, Innovator's Mindset!), asking students to write a letter of introduction and introductory poem, learning their names within the first few days, creating discussion norms, etc. However, I think I could do better!

Poems and Books

First, I want to use something that I learned at Chad Everett's (@chadceverett - worth a follow!) Scholastic Day of Reading workshop. He talked about using a George Ella Lyon "Where I'm From" poem to get to know the students AND to make initial independent reading recommendations! I was floored - I've used those poems (and several variations of biopoems) to get to know the kids, but I have never used them for reading recommendations. Such an easy switch and one that I think will really pay off.

I Wish My Teacher Knew...

Several months ago, I read a story about an activity a teacher did with her students called "I wish my teacher knew...". Students ended up sharing a lot of personal information, some of which was incredibly sad, and all of which was very helpful. I feel like I thought I was asking for students to do this in their introductory letters, but I think I made that assignment too narrow and prescribed for them to really express themselves; I asked about specific things like reading and writing goals, and there's time for that later in the year. So this year, I'm just going to ask them to finish that sentence and see what happens.

What Should School Be/What If?

Here's where Chapters 3-4 start to come in. I love the idea of asking students what they think school should be and changing our narrative from "Yeah, but" to "What if?" (52). I'm sure I've said "Yeah, but" more times than I can count (and I was never permitted to say that as a kid because my father thought it was going to be followed by an excuse - he was right!), and I'm feeling a lot of regret for how many opportunities I let get away. Obviously, you have to be realistic about things, but I don't think "Yeah, but" should be the first reaction to something. I'm going to ask the students what they think school should be (another activity that was also brought up by Chad Everett) and build on that to have them answer the "What if?" question. Hopefully, that will drive some different experiences this year!

Significant Learning Experiences

The last thing that I'd like to get to in the first week of school is the Significant Learning Experiences activity described on p. 104. Katie Martin recommends doing it with the staff, which I think is a great idea, but I would also like to hear about the significant and positive learning experiences the kids have had before. I'm not sure yet how to structure this activity, but I think it will reveal a lot about how the kids learn and probably tie into the "What should school be?" question as well.

Beyond the First Days

I am excited to try these new things, but I am also a realist: I tend to start the school year with a lot of excitement, but then somehow it's December and I have a million papers to grade and meetings to go to and emails to answer and then somehow it's March and the entire year has gotten away from me. So I think I need a plan for keeping on top of the things I want to implement and making sure that they don't just last for September and then it's business as usual.

(Image from https://www.jwfpalmbeach.org/jwf-imagine-the-possibilities-campaign/)

So far, the only thing I have for this plan is to keep revisiting the things the kids do the first few days and make sure we are sticking to them. Make sure that I am honoring their learning processes, giving time for reflection, demonstrating that making mistakes is part of the process, etc. I would love to hear thoughts about systems I could put into place to help me as I am not the most organized person - I have some ideas about executive functioning routines that I think will help me AND the kids, but I'm not quite sure how those will mesh with the learner-centered experiences yet. I take heart from the wisdom of the great Gloria Steinem, though! 

Taking Risks in the Classroom

This week, I read the Foreword, What If?, and Chapter 1 ("The Evolving Role of the Educator") in Katie Martin's Learner-Centered Innovation: Spark Curiosity, Ignite Passion, and Unleash Genius.

The question I chose to answer was about how to encourage taking risks in the classroom. This is something that I've been thinking about for years because I've been trying to reconcile two seemingly opposite needs in the classroom: the need to provide a safe space for mistakes and the growth that comes with them and the need to have assignments that are graded at some point for my trimester report cards.

(image from http://www.wbrettwilson.ca/redefining-success/)

I have a poster in my classroom that says something like "Never be afraid to make mistakes; that shows that you're trying something new" - but it's badly misspelled! I can't remember it exactly and I can't get to it now, but I always think about the student who wrote a reflection about it for her journal and basically said, "That's crap because we always get a lower grade for mistakes, so why try?" 



That idea has stuck with me for years now, even after the student is in college. I started to wonder how to provide genuine opportunities for students to practice and make mistakes and take risks that would eventually lead to mastery of the concepts, and I haven't come up with much, sadly. I don't grade rough drafts except for completion (full credit if it gets done on time, partial if it's late, but nothing about the content is graded - I just use Google Docs to give comments), and I don't grade grammar practices (I assess the concepts taught in the students' writing). However, I don't know about providing a space for "real world" mistakes.

However, I do see a real need for this. I welcome any suggestions and fully support the idea that "Learning is messy. Today's technology provides easy access to answers, but if we focus only on the answers and not on thinking, questioning, and solving, we rob students (and ourselves) of great learning experiences. Perhaps more significantly, we fail to develop the critical behaviors that will empower them (and us) to be lifelong learners" (Martin, 20). Only by making the mistakes and avoiding the easy answers will our students really engage in the learning process that will take them far beyond our classrooms. Only then can we begin to fight the "Is this on the test?" question and the fear of losing points and replace them with genuine interest, perseverance, and the willingness and ability to learn from the mistakes that they see as lessons, not failure.

Guess Who's Back (Back Again)??

It is inconceivable to me that it's been almost a whole year since my last blog post. I always think I'm going to use this as a platform to connect with other educators during the year and then time totally gets away from me. I'll try harder this upcoming year; I already have several ideas about sharing student reactions and samples from new units that I try.

Anyway, this summer, I have the privilege of taking another course with a colleague and friend who ran the Innovator's Mindset course last summer. I'll be reading Learner-Centered Innovation this time around, and I'm really excited about it!

Our first assignment is to post a recommendation for a book that all educators should read. Every time I'm asked this question, I give the same answer: The 5 Love Languages of Children. It's been amazing to me how much parenting books help me become a better teacher - I'm not a parent myself, and I only get to see my students for a specific developmental period in their lives. That being said, teaching is, at its heart, about relationships, and it seems like parenting might be as well. For that reason, I have returned over and over again to The 5 Love Languages of Children. Each person is different in how we build relationships, and I think we often forget that kids are different as well. One student might feel valued by me buying a book specifically for them because it meant that I was thinking about them even when I wasn't with them; another might need me to sit with them and work together on a project to feel the same way. It's important to remember that.

Another thing we were supposed to do was post a selfie. Please enjoy this one of me in my current favorite shirt! :)