Sea of Talk

"People who know everything are silent; people who know nothing are silent. In between, there is talk. Literacy floats on a sea of talk."  This quote comes from a guy by the name of James Britton.  He said it (or wrote it) in 1970.  This quote can be found on page 4 in the Ontario "Think Literacy" document (along with a bunch of other really good stuff by the way).
Let me point a couple of things out that I find funny.
1.  The quote is older than me.  I didn't become aware of it until a literacy camp guest speaker said it this summer.
2.  I didn't begin to understand it (though I remembered it clearly enough) until this school year.  Now I get it.

"Talk is the foundation for thought and understanding, and the key to literacy learning. Research demonstrates that powerful meta-cognitive strategies can be taught to help students self-monitor their comprehension when reading print and digital texts."  This is the abstract for a book by Kathy Mills.  It is part of what I believe the quote by Britton to be talking about.

I know I've mentioned it in earlier posts and I've talked about it a few times with some of you, but I wanted to put it down here, if only to document it.  I really feel like I am getting to the heart of matters concerning student learning and achievement and becoming better at what I do, not only in practice but in purpose.  The reason for this is the number of small talks I am fortunate enough to have with other people that are caring and passionate about education.  Every time I get together with just 2 or 3 other teachers and we engage in constructive talk or debate, somewhere along the line, after bouncing ideas off of one another, a collective light bulb goes on.  It is inspiring.  It happened to me twice today and I had to do two things as a result.  You are reading one of them now... the other was the nap I had to take.  I was exhausted!

I received a couple of emails that spoke to the idea I am expressing here.

"I wish we could engage in a big 'think tank' from time to time... I bet that is what people like Marzano and Reeves do to move their thinking forward.... get like minded people together (like a kind of retreat) to sit, talk, and think."

and "Maybe we should do away with formal meetings and have the informal meetings more often.  That's where the progress seems to happen."

Isn't that just incredible!  I don't think there is anything more I can say on the topic right now except that if you aren't involving yourself in professional dialogue, you are really missing out!

I promise, next entry will have more humour/wit and less worky blechness.

Another PD post?

Yep.  It turns out that this upcoming Friday I will be involved in presentation during a PD session for the first time in my career.  I've been thinking about it for about a week now and I've got a rough idea of how I'd like my section to go.  Basically, I want to get teachers to help me present individual strategies that have worked for them regarding effective use of feedback.  Bottom up or grass roots stuff that teachers in the school are already using that can motivate and encourage other teachers to try it out.

Feedback is a practice that I have been working on improving in for a few years.  There are a few things that I do to ensure that students benefit from feedback and see assessments as yet another way to learn.  I recently tried something I hadn't done before and while I'll admit it needs some tweaking, I did like how it went.  Instead of having students just correct their answers, I had them write out on a separate piece of paper the reason(s) why they didn't get full marks for the question (ie 'my explanation didn't have an example like the question asked for', or 'I defined/listed the terms instead of explaining their connection' or a big one 'I only did the first part of the question and not the second part').  Mostly, their comments were based upon the feedback I'd left them on the test.  I held individual interviews with the students and we went over their reasons, modified them if they were wrong, and made sure they understood everything before moving on.  In addition to the learning benefits to the students, this was a good way for me to see if my feedback truly let them know what was lacking from their response, and students appreciated the one-on-one time.  The only problem I have with it is that it was FAR too time consuming.

Last night I had an idea.  I belong to a wonderful group of teachers (a PLN if you will) on twitter and I posed a question to them: 'Looking for the most effective strategies for giving feedback to students. Ideas?'

Within moments, I had three responses.  That started a chat involving about 8 people.  I've received 5 good ideas that I hadn't thought to try on my own, and 1 unique way to accomplish something that others have tried that works for them.  Many people show a sample of responses from each level so kids have an idea of what they need to do in order to move up to the next level.  Some post it on their wall, others do it via overhead and discuss each.  @fnoschese suggests posting them on the internet.  I already have a website that I refer kids to daily, and I think this will be a great way for me to share content with the kids.  Few ever hang back or come after class to check the posted solutions or study the responses at various levels, but perhaps, from the privacy of their homes, students will be more inclined to check them out.  Others have suggested using individualized googledocs or wikis to track when students access the material (and more importantly, who does not access it).  While I can see that this is a great thing, I'm not confident enough in that technology to be able to do it.  I can see this working for me in the future when I have a bit more time to fool around with it though.

If you have any suggestions or would like to share ideas that work for you, you can leave a comment here or email me with them.  Better yet, get on twitter and join a PLN.  Don't forget to let me know you are there.  Just send a tweet to @glevack.

PD

About 5 years ago I vowed to quit being involved in any committees and to just focus on my job and on becoming the best teacher I could be.  I changed schools (three times now actually), and I found that I was pretty happy just being a teacher.  I can't tell you the reasons (since I don't know them) but people at my new schools would sometimes nominate me for some committee or union position or some other thing (I guess upon reflection it might be because I tend to be a bit vocal), but I would politely decline.  I might go into the feelings of powerlessness (and the feeling of being belittled) I experienced the last time I was on a staffing committee in response to the declination of the nomination, but the end result was the same: I was a teacher and not involved in any other way.  Except that was never really true either.  I coached or supervised all the dances, or just would show up to sporting events and even pop my head into other teachers classes on my prep.  I guess not being involved (in education -- I'm no politician!) is not my way.

Anyway, fast forward to the present.  I am a department head now, and I actually call monthly meetings whether we need them or not.  I am on 3 committees (though the dividing line between them all is quite blurry to me) and I'm doing some extra-curricular stuff.  So much for not getting involved.  So, what has made the difference, and how does the title of this blog fit in.

Two things.  I have an administrator that, as I've mentioned to many of you in private, (or as private as online forums or twitter can be) is supportive, energetic and committed to the students AND the staff, not just to the advancement of their own career.  Also, my board has been working really hard to provide us with useful and meaningful professional development.  A few years back, when I took a course through Queens, the prof encouraged us to reflect on all of our posts and one of the major things I talked about throughout the course was the lack of meaningful P.D.  That has changed.

Today, I was away (and so were about 12 other teachers from my school -- and get this so was one of the administrators and a person from the board!) from school for the afternoon and had the opportunity to participate in a pd session designed to help us become better at what we do by witnessing other teachers and trying to learn from what they have done.  That doesn't explain it well, but it is quite forward thinking in my opinion, and it was worthwhile.  More importantly is what followed.  After the session, a few of us hung back and really talked about things.  In the last month or so, I have had more meaningful discussions following regular meetings of the staff than I think I've had in the last 5 years.  We get together, talk about what happened during our group sessions, and then we get to the real nitty gritty.  The meat and potatoes of the discussion.  We bounce ideas off of each other, and we get to the heart of what we need to do in order for our students to do better.  There isn't any complaining -- just productive (and sometimes creative) talk.  Better yet, the talk leads to something.  We are actually implementing change (ok, planning on it currently -- but individually, I'm doing things differently!).

I really think openness and exchange are the key missing ingredients in education today.  I forget the name of the schools those two teachers began in the US (featured in Waiting for Superman), based upon their study of the teacher 'across the hall' that was accomplishing something with her students, but those schools wouldn't be possible without talking and exchange of ideas that work.  Unfortunately, we don't have that exchange model embedded in current educational practice.  We need to change that.  Of course, most of my readers are twitter followers, and so here I am preaching to the choir.

My son just came down to talk to me and I seem to have lost my train of thought (always assuming there was an end point or logical progression to this entry), so I'll end here for now.

Waiting for Superman

I went and saw the movie last night and it reminded me of a couple of my students, made me aware of some of my practices and did everything a good movie about education and education reform should do.

There were parts I found extremely sad.  Others made me angry; angry at either the filmmaker, or at society.   Other parts still were inspiring.

Seeing this movie was one of many steps to becoming a better person, and a better teacher.  Thank you to my board for bringing Geoffery Canada in to speak with us, and also for subsidizing the cost of the movie.

Concept Maps

Earlier this year I decided that one of the new things I would be trying with my classes is mind maps or concept maps.  A friend of mine has a really great book and has attended a PD session on them and I will soon be seeing the author of the book at a PD session as well.  So today, I rolled one out.

Like many things, I am never really sold on them until I really see them work for students or they are something that has previously worked for me personally.  I've never been a big proponent of the "Word Wall" or either of the afore mentioned strategies since I've never personally used them and I couldn't really see how they helped anybody.

Lets be honest.  There are a lot of WAAAAY smarter and better educated people out there and they do a hell of a lot of research into things before they spout off these new ideas.  I guess perhaps part of my skepticism comes from the fact that I get a majority of my teaching advice from people that don't do it.  You can see that I don't hold those opinions in very high regard.  Anyway, I'm not a Luddite.  I try things out (obviously) or I wouldn't have decided to give mind maps a go.  And believe it or not, I'm a great actor.  The students have no idea if I really buy into what I'm saying or not.  For the most part I do, don't get me wrong, but even if I haven't seen personal evidence, I tend to think there might (sometimes) be something behind the idea, and honestly, even if I don't I might give it a go just so I can say I was right all along and the advice was garbage.  Yeah, I'm that guy.  But to my credit, while I'm writing this blog that only I read, I really do give the ideas a fair shake and I don't let the students know that I have some doubts about the effectiveness of the particular activity or strategy.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the point of the blog.  Something happened during my second period class today.  I wish I could transcribe it for all to read or better yet, I wish you were all in my head so you'd know what I felt, but as that can't happen I'll try to illustrate here.

The circumstances of how this came about aren't really important, so I'll skip to the details.  I showed the class some mind maps and concept maps made by others in the book I had and told them that it was my intent to have them create one for the topic we had been studying.  I said that every single thing we had been doing, in some way or another, related back to the central theme and that it was important for them to be able to see those connections.  To that end, each student was going to (for credit) create a concept map for the topic.  I then asked the class about the central theme to the unit we had been studying.  The first student to respond had the correct response; sustainable ecosystems.  I put that on the board, smack-dab in the centre.  I then told students to tell me every single thing we had either learned about or talked about and I would put that on the board also.  Students (most) were very eager to contribute.  I told them that they could consult their notes, the text book, whatever.  Just hit me with the ideas.  A few (even after about 5 minutes of others really getting into it) didn't volunteer any answers.  I asked them specifically, and when they didn't have anything to offer I told them to find something to contribute and I'd get back to them.  Some of them even raised their hands once they found something, while others had to be prompted again.  Everybody contributed at least one thing.

In the process, people repeated previous ideas.  I mentioned that we had already come up with that, and pointed to the specific location on the board where that particular item had been written.  Now, that might not sound like an accomplishment, but let me tell you, the board was FULL of writing, and it wasn't particularly linear.  In fact it kind of looked like a crossword puzzle, but less organized.  (Side note:  Students were instructed to contribute and not worry about copying the terms down at the current stage.  The creativity and pace were far more important.)  After the repeated terms thing had come up a few times, and I was able to quickly and exactly locate the term on the board, I had my moment.  I got it.  I finally understood and bought into the idea of the graphic organizer.

Let me explain.

I do not have a particularly good memory.  It isn't horrible, but my family and my friends will bring up stuff from our past and I don't even recall the era, let alone the instance.  In school, my courses dealt with comprehension and problem solving and I veered away from languages and history (or even biology) which I perceived to be more of a memory based group of disciplines.  Teachers college did not afford me the same shelter.  I was forced to take psychology and other courses of the kind.  Now, it might be then that I began to notice this, but I do recall instances earlier in my life where it had also occurred.  I have a weird way of remembering things I've read.  I visualize the location in the book that I read it and I think about what I was thinking or feeling at the time I read that section.  There is this little file (and believe me when I say file for that is how I picture it) with a tag on it in my memory banks.  The tag is the material I am supposed to remember.  By accessing the page location in my memory and the thoughts I had when reading it, I can remember the material on that page in that location.  It's a bit uncanny.  I can pick up a book I haven't read in a while and refer to specific parts of the book that I really liked and within moments find the exact page I was talking about.  No, I do not have a photographic (or eidetic as Dan Brown uses) memory.  It's just weird.  Or at least I think it's weird.  I've never heard anybody else describe it that way.  So, anyway, pointing out the locations on the board that I had written these things reminded me of my college days and I then realized that by organizing things in this manner, I was creating a mental link and memory aid to the material.  A very strong one.  Way better than just writing things out in list form.

I stopped the class and shared my epiphany with them.  I told them (wisely or not, who knows) that I now really understood the purpose behind the concept map.  I am completely sold.  I could see the look in their eyes too.  They have bought into it far more now then they had before (which might lead some of you to the conclusion that I am not quite as good of an actor as I believe myself to be), which can only improve their recall and hopefully their understanding of the connections between the various ideas.

When we were done with the 'list', students were copying down the words and ideas; a not too easy task considering the rapidity that I wrote them and the lack of structure that I assumed.  I had the idea to have them get out their phones and just snap a photo of the word wall to be sure they captured it.  About 10 students did and they agreed to put their photos online for the benefit of the rest of the class.

It's been one of those days that are, for me at least, too few and far between where you learn something valuable while also teaching something valuable.

Where does the time go?

Have you ever noticed that when you immerse yourself in something that the time just seems to slip away from you.  I am quickly approaching the deadline (who knows, I could already have passed it) where we should be moving out of the biology unit and into the next unit (most likely chemistry), and yet there is so much ecology left to do that I am sure I could spend another month and a half and only get through half of it.

I have to admit, some of the students are starting to lose their enthusiasm for the topic and that is reason enough to move on.  A more detailed and thorough study of these concepts can be had in the environmental science course.  I keep forgetting that kids will have a chance to learn more after grade 9 and I don't have to cover everything in exacting and infinite detail.

Parent teacher interviews next week and with all of the formative and standards based stuff I've been doing, there is very little in the way of traditional assessment items to point at.  I hope the students (at the very least) can see where they are headed and strive for improvement.

Mind Maps

We completed the mind maps in both 9th grade classes today.  All in all I'd say it went well.  Of course the first class provided the learning platform for me so I could better outline what to do with the second class, but I don't think the learning of the first class suffered any.  It works really well in order to get kids to think of concepts in terms of connections, and to organize or group related terms.

I'll be doing it again Monday, but this time as an introduction to a unit in order to get them to access prior knowledge.  I'll post back and report on how that went.

I haven't forgotten... I'll post some pics of completed ones later next week.

A Fraud or Not a Fraud --- That Is the Question

So was it David Booth?  Who can recall when one hears so many things, but I'll attribute the quote to him anyway.  He was a guest speaker at a seminar I was at and he, in passing I believe, said that people are afraid to share or let other teachers into their classroom because they are afraid of being discovered.  They are afraid others will find out that they are a fraud.  I knew almost immediately that this was me to some extent.  I don't mind people walking into my class, but then, I pretty much stop teaching and interact with them.  They don't observe and evaluate me.

My VP has been reading a book lately, it might be called "The Rounds".  I'm not sure, but the idea is that a group of teachers act in the manner of a group of med students and collaborate and learn while visiting other teachers rooms.  A selected few of us will be doing this.  I think we will begin by visiting other schools, but I'm sure it will extend to the group of us visiting one another.  And that has me a bit scared, but also excited.  You see, like David said, I have this fear of being discovered as a fraud.  I hope it is baseless, but then, how does one really know.  I feel like I'm doing a good job.  I don't have issues in class (well, not ones I can't deal with), the students are responsive and I see growth.. but am I doing things right.  And what does that even mean?  The vp has ordered 15 or so copies of the book, and it is our first 'book club' book for our PLC at our school. (An idea that I find very exciting by the way).

I have to say that I haven't thought about it much lately.  In the beginning, you question your competency constantly and critically.  Later on (and don't let me fool you, I've only been at this since 98 -- so I'm no seasoned pro) I think you begin to play it more by feel.  You still question, and definitely refine ideas and try wild/crazy things, but you don't worry so much about being a fraud or a failure -- at least I didn't.  But lately, a few people that haven't really seen me teach and don't really know much about me have been singing my praises to some other people.  That is what has me thinking about it all over again.  It is the fear of being able to live up to that praise or those expectations.  I should be beyond this.  I am not.

And of all the times for this to be happening, it is happening right when I am once again re-inventing the way I go about my daily interactions with my students.  I'm trying to incorporate literacy strategies more heavily, I'm implementing ideas from books I've read based upon research into best practices (which I've been doing a lot more of for a few years now thankfully)... I'm changing from Socrates to Vince Lombardi -- but not just a coach, one with a thousand assistants doing tireless work.  Twitter folks (especially those at #scido), their links, books (so many -- beginning with Randall Knight's Five Easy Lessons, and there is no clear end in sight) and chatting with colleagues have all proven to be vast and incredible resources.


OH!  And I am close to having student work on my first (and second) mind maps.  I am eager to see how it goes, and how I can use it to help them, and what kinks I will need to iron out.  I'll post some results.  Dina Saddy (literacy coach extraordinaire) at my school is encouraging me to adopt Mind Maps (since I seem to want to try them so much) and one or two other things into my repertoire for the year and see where they lead.  Will do coach.

Mind Mapping

So the first week back was a bit taxing.  I am always amazed that the job could be so physically draining.

We spent the first four days playing and talking.  I've really been stressing the idea of thinking.  Thinking about everything, including what they think!  This next week will likely be more of the same, and hopefully I can keep it up all year long.

One amazing thing happened while we were debriefing the idea about differences between knowing and understanding (thanks for the inspiration John -- @occam98).  A student said she knew that grass was green, but didn't understand why.  It was an awesome teachable moment.  Some students tried to help explain why, which lead into a discussion about chloroplasts and pigment,  additive vs subtractive colour theory and perception of colour.  I grabbed some spectroscopes, told her to look out the window at the sky, then to repeat but this time looking at the tube lighting in the room and note the differences.  Her lab partner was chomping at the bit to see for himself so I told him to grab one which of course put the rest of the class on the edge of their seats and soon everybody was fooling around and looking at spectra.  We didn't go too deep into what they were looking at; that is a lesson for another grade unfortunately, but it was awesome to see their excitement.  After that, they brought up a bunch of things that they 'knew' but didn't understand and I think the difference between the two was really driven home.  More importantly, they began to realize that their goal in this class is to leave with an understanding of the things we see and talk about, and that doing that is going to require them to really participate, think, and question.

I am going to try something that I haven't really done before.  This week, my grade nines are going to create mind maps.  I guess I am using it with a bit of a twist, in that it is an introduction to a unit with the hopes of activating prior knowledge, and using the class community expertise in the subject to both help focus the class and lead the learning.  I am going to do a simple one with them so we can all learn how to do it together, and then later in the week, or early next week depending on how things work out time-wise, they will create one in groups and extend it to a class mind map that will remain on the board as a focal point and reference throughout the unit, adding to it as we discover new things that belong on it.

I am not doing this alone.  One of the instructional coaches will be assisting me with it and we will team teach the class for the one they try to do without me.  Team teaching a student directed lesson sounds funny.  I don't anticipate that either of us will be doing much more than encouraging the students.  To top it off, my administrator will be coming in to do an evaluation of my teaching on that day, so there will be three of us in the room.  It should be interesting.

There is one thing that I am noticing about my efforts to change the way I engage students; it is a lot of work.  It reminds me a little of when I first started teaching.  The focus of my efforts is WAY different, but the insecurity and the feeling of not knowing what will work for which student is quite similar.  We are all working and learning and having fun, so the effort is definitely worth it.

'About Me' assignment

I can't seem to shake the idea.  Here is some backstory.  About three weeks ago, Alec Couros (@courosa) presented at a workshop I was at.  He made it clear that he believes we should carve out our own web identity so that we are in control of (to some extent) what people find out when searching for information about us online.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit, and there isn't much information about me out there... but there is some.

I know a lot of teachers tell their students a little about themselves on the first day of classes, and invite students to share, either in writing or aloud, a bit about themselves.  A colleague told me just yesterday about some of the things he tells his classes about himself.

So, what have I been thinking of doing?  Well, it's probably completely obvious at this point, but I was thinking of assigning the students an 'About Me' project on the first day of class for homework, but the twist is that it really is about me.  They have to write a paper telling me all about me based on information that they can find from anywhere.

I am not convinced that I should do it.  I am a bit worried about what might come of it.  I've done the 'project' myself and there isn't anything damning that comes up, nor could there be (I suspect), but the idea of encouraging them to look for details related to my private life is a bit scary.

Your thoughts on the idea are welcomed.

G. Levack

First post, first day.

I have been thinking a lot over the past couple of weeks about how to go about teaching the courses I have been selected to teach this semester.  I need to be able to reach the students, and engage them in ways that will make them reflective of the learning they are doing.  To that end, I have been to a weeks' long session on literacy, and a very inspirational session of professional development today.  I have been reading (and reading and reading) other educators blogs, checking out links that my twitter friends have been posting and discussing things with friends and colleagues.  The end result is ... I still don't know how to do what I want have to do.  I am going to try some things that are perhaps WAAAAY out of my comfort zone.  I am intrigued by the idea of standards based grading and reporting.  I want to move to a truly inquiry based class setting as opposed to a more teacher directed setting.  In short, I want to do the best I can do for as many students as possible.  Easy right?  While I am sure it will be more work, I also hope it is more rewarding and enriching for the students.

On a separate vein...

I happened across this piece of text today while doing some reading.  Like many things on the internet, I came across it in an indirect way.  I was reading a bit about Stephen Hawking's latest comments extracted from his most recent publication regarding the formation of the universe.  That lead to his comments on extraterrestrial life which then led to all sorts of places as you can imagine.  The following is a piece taken from a website with credit to the author of the quote contained within.  I find the quote to be both thought provoking and simple at the same time, and I want to share it with you so you could reflect on it.

Seth Shostak points out that regardless of whether scientists send out a message to aliens or not, they probably are already aware of our presence:
We have been inadvertently betraying our presence for 60 years with our television, radio and radar transmissions. The earliest episodes of I Love Lucy have washed over 6000 or so star systems, and are reaching new audiences at the rate of one solar system a day. If there are sentient beings out there, the signals will reach them. Detecting this leakage radiation won't be that difficult. Its intensity decreases with the square of the distance, but even if the nearest aliens were 1000 light years away, they would still be able to detect it as long as their antenna technology was a century or two ahead of ours. This makes it specious to suggest that we should ban deliberate messages on the grounds that they would be more powerful than our leaked signals. Only a society close to our level of development would be able to pick up an intentional broadcast while failing to notice TV and radar. And a society at our level is no threat.

That is everything I wanted to say right now.  My initial intent was to use this blog to keep my classes informed of what happened during the day, and perhaps to post homework or reading assignments here, but I can see already that I will most likely not use it that way.  I have another forum that I can use for that.  I am interested to see what this will develop into.  Thanks so much for reading this disjointed and rambling first ever blog post.

G. Levack