Teacher Leader Academy reflections

Starting a new year is a natural time for reflection. What worked in the previous year, what you want to change or do differently, what you want to start. Much of my 2019 (and quite a bit of 2018, too) was spent pursuing my M.Ed degree through NDSU and the BPS Teacher Leader Academy (TLA). I, along with 17 other fantastic teacher leaders, spent five semesters learning, working on practicum experiences, attending (and presenting at!) conferences, and action researching (is that a real phrase?) our chosen topics.

            There are so many exciting opportunities that I could share with people interested in participating in the next BPS Teacher Leader Academy (and I do!) but, for me, my learning in Educational Leadership was supported and most successful by our continuous implementation of one phrase: Bird by Bird.

            It may seem like a small phrase but it hugely impacted my success and confidence in myself during the Teacher Leader Academy and beyond. During our first few meeting times, we read parts of Anne Lamott’s wonderful book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life 

The section titled “Bird by Bird” became somewhat of a mantra for our TLA cohort. Basically, Lamott details a story of her younger brother neglecting to complete a report on birds during his summer vacation. The night before the report was due, the brother panicked because his report was unfinished and the task looked beyond impossible. Their father sat down with the brother and took out the encyclopedias and shared with the brother that they would get this report finished “bird by bird” - basically taking things one step at a time, especially when we feel overwhelmed, which was a common concern at the early stages of our TLA cohort. 

As a (self-appointed) Type A teacher, I have often felt overwhelmed by constant to-do lists and wondering how I am going to get it all done. Those feelings were amplified when I was contemplating starting a Master’s degree and I knew I would feel overwhelmed with balancing work and life and graduate school (vulnerability was also a topic we discussed often...so important!). 

I was so fortunate that our TLA cohort started (and continued throughout) with reminders to take it all “bird by bird”. Yes, we can write an action research report. Yes, we can complete 110 hours of practicum experiences, Yes, we can present at a TLA conference. Yes, we can do it all when we take it one step at a time. This simple phrase (and all of the meaning behind it) is something (just one thing out of MANY positive experiences in the Teacher Leader Academy!) that I will be able to take with me as I move forward in my journey as a Teacher Leader.  - Sarah Morrow (Sunrise Elementary)

            It has been just over a month since we wrapped up the first BPS Teacher Leadership Academy and I find myself reflecting back to those 5 semesters often.  Something I go back to is receiving feedback.  Feedback can be intimidating and when we were first faced with doing peer reviews we froze up.  As teachers we naturally give feedback to our students daily without thinking twice. When asked to give our paper to someone else for peer review we were all a bit nervous and you could hear “I’m sorry”, “It’s a really rough draft.”, “Don’t judge.”, and other very nervous conversations.  Why were we so nervous to receive feedback from our peers? Why is it so hard to be vulnerable and show your hard work?  As we worked through the multiple peer reviews of our leadership book it hit all of us like a ton of bricks, we began to thrive on the idea of receiving feedback from each other.  

            In our fourth semester we were fortunate to have a speaker come into our class and talk about feed forward and giving/receiving cranks.  A crank is a way to expand possibilities and have an outlook of “How can we make it even better?” This is a way to feed FORWARD.  Something our speaker spoke about was how when the animators of Pixar films do their daily rundown of their work they reflect as a group.  When a member gives feedback they cannot simply just say the problem and leave it at that.  When giving feedback, they also need to propose an alternative solution for the team to consider.  Guess what, Pixar film makers aren’t the only ones that use this. TEACHERS do this EVERY day! We don’t realize how often we give feedback and how often we receive feedback. We naturally give cranks every single day and encourage our students to keep moving forward.  But when we take time to ask for feedback we get uncomfortable. Why is that? Maybe if we look at it from cranking each other up, we might begin to look for opportunities to receive feedback from each other more often!  - Melissa Haas (Liberty Elementary)

Q1: How do you take things “bird by bird” (achieve balance by taking things one step at a time)?

Q2: What is the hardest part of receiving feedback?

Q3: How can we incorporate feed forward into our daily/weekly/monthly work time?

Fostering Collective Teacher Efficacy through Collaborative Inquiry

I am continually inspired by teachers. Again and again, I sit beside teachers who come together to grapple with the hard questions of teaching and learning. Sure, experts have answers, but these teachers dive into the messy and complex work of situating these answers within the walls of their classroom and in response to the students in front of them. These are teachers who believe that by grappling together around these challenges they can help all students learn and thrive. We call this shared belief collective teacher efficacy, and it has the greatest effect on student achievement. To foster this belief, we must give teachers the green light to pursue their questions through collaborative inquiry.

Here’s what I love about each part of this equation:

• Action Research – Our students and classrooms are often our best teachers. 
• PLCs – The smartest person in the room is the room. 
• Backwards Design – Start with the end in mind. 

When you put these three things together, you have a powerful process and an empowering journey for professional learning. What I love most about collaborative inquiry is it puts teachers in the driver’s seat of their learning, or more so, a team of drivers gets together to choose how to navigate this arduous journey together. 

Below are key components of the collaborative inquiry process. With each, I’ve described what makes it especially powerful and how I’ve seen it with BPS teachers:

Framing the problem – During this initial phase, teachers dig into the gap between desired reality and current reality. They look for possible reasons this gap might exist, examine the possibilities within their control, and determine which to address for greatest impact. What I love is the grace of this process – hypothesizing which problem to address and how to address it. This requires us to closely examine what’s within our control and have the courage to try tackling it. 

A group of middle school ELA teachers began talking about students’ use of comprehension strategies. The more they dug into this, they realized the gap: Currently, students use comprehension strategies effectively in the ELA classroom, but they weren’t transferring these strategies to other classes. One option was to support other content teachers to use these strategies in their own classes to reinforce connections, but the more they talked, the more they realized this wasn’t the best possibility. They determined that the real question was how their instruction could foster ownership and transfer of these strategies.

Collecting and Analyzing Evidence – As with backwards design, this process gets teachers talking about what success would look like and what evidence will help us know we’re making headway. Too often, collecting evidence is viewed as a cumbersome process that turns students into numbers when really it should be an opportunity to more deeply understand our students and learn from them - their strengths and needs. The beauty is in the diversity of student work.

Another PLC was examining how to help students get better at determining key details and main idea. Each teacher was going to ask students the same question that week: What is the main idea? They each looked at their week ahead and planned for when they would use this question – with a documentary, class notes, a primary source, a political cartoon. They then planned how to ask it: a ticket out, at the end of class notes, think-pair-share, a quiz question. When they reconvened a week later, they were able to talk about the strengths, needs, and next steps of their students. And because this autonomy existed, they were able to learn from each other and muddle their way to clarity on what they really meant by “determining main idea”. 

Documenting, Celebrating, and Share – Ultimately, this process is about learning from our students and our classroom. Did my students improve? Do I know why they improved? This second question is the question that we often don’t spend enough time on. If we know why students improved, not only can we replicate this in the future, but we can also share our learning with our colleagues. 

Last year, a World Language PLC dug into improving students’ ability to infer at word, sentence, and passage level. They felt strongly that they first needed to address students’ willingness to take risks with the new language. If you’ve ever tried to learn a new language, you know exactly how right their hypothesis was! As they started their work together this year, they were able to quickly recall the most impactful strategies from last year in increasing risk-taking: increase collaboration, provide sentence frames and word walls, model risk-taking, lessen the consequences for risk-taking, and foster a classroom climate that celebrates risk-taking. 

The beauty of this collaborative inquiry process is how it invokes both vulnerability and empowerment. It fosters a culture of vulnerability and growth mindset, and it empowers teachers to be problem solvers of their own classrooms. The journey may be arduous, but this shared belief, this collective efficacy, makes it beautiful and worthwhile. 

Twitter Chat questions:

1. Describe where you’ve seen or experienced collective efficacy (CE), the shared belief that together we can cause great things for all.
2. Collaborative inquiry (CI) combines Action Research, PLC, and Backwards Design. Which of these components is hardest to engage in, and why?
3. Which of these components most invigorates you, and why?
4. What’s the professional question that’s been keeping you up at night? And who can you pursue it with?

Inquiry in the Classroom

We need to think about creating classroom environments that give children the opportunity for wonder, mystery, and discovery; an environment that speaks to young children inherent curiosity and innate yearning for exploration is a classroom where children are passionate about learning.

–Heard and McDonough, A Place for Wonder

My favorites moments in the classroom are when there is an excited buzz as my students share their noticing, wonderings, and new learning with each other.    In the last few years I have strived to provide more opportunities for students to engage in inquiry learning.   Inquiry based learning can be teacher directed (especially as students and teachers are new to inquiry-based learning), shared by students and teachers and ultimately directed by students.   The excitement students have in inquiry based learning transfers seamless to their reading, writing, and speaking and listening skills and deepens their passion for learning.  The power behind inquiry based learning is in putting the responsibility for learning on the students while helping them to develop and/or deepen a their understanding of concepts.  

Inquiry learning can be Design Thinking based where students generate ideas and tries them out, Problem Based where students try to solve a real word problem, Scenario Based where students work based on real world examples, or Meta where students are creating questions and activities that support the inquiry.

 

In my kindergarten classroom most inquiry is lead and guided by me, I spend a lot of time finding resources that can answer students’ wonderings, help them dig deeper in their understandings, and share their thinking.   As the year goes on students become confident, brave, and more curious.  They are also able to take more ownership in the process.  

This year we did an mini-inquiry about bats and my students had some great wonderings.  

My favorite project is fast approaching.  We work as teams to design the best sled.  Just like real engineers we

1. Ask a question-How can we build the best sled (and brainstorm a list of wonderings)
2. Imagine what is possible-we think, draw, and plan
3. Create-try our idea and see what happens
4. Improve-revise it to make it better.

It is amazing to see what they come up with and how they make it better. 

 

Inquiry is a way of life. Inquiry based learning is not about a final product at the end; Inquiry based learning is about living in a way that kids’ questions matter. Harvey 2014

Q1:  Do you feel your students have opportunities to engage in inquiry learning?

Q2:  What barriers hold you and your students back and how can they be overcome?

Q3:   Which type of inquiry based learning makes the most sense for your students?

Q4:   What impact does technology have on the inquiry process?

Creating Experiences for Kids

When I think back to my years as a student, the memories that spark the most joy were the ones that were out of the ordinary routine. Popcorn parties on the playground. Parading through the school wearing costumes. Eating lunch in the “Rainforest Cafe,” which was the teacher’s lounge covered in crepe paper. Field trips. School assemblies and pep rallies. Learning about sign language and dog sledding during an exploratory day. Trying rock candy at a powwow. Walking to a country music radio station where our teacher was a weekend disc jockey. Creating my own country, Pina Columbia. Screen printing my own t-shirt design. Experiences made school a place I wanted to be.

Though I did not realize at the time, all of these experiences required adults to go the extra mile behind the scenes. Enthusiasm required. Comfort zones expanded. Forms filed. It took time, talent, and resources to make it happen for the benefit of kids like me.

Now as a teacher myself, I see how experiences impact kids. One of my favorite experiences that I have provided to my students was a community service field trip to a senior citizen technology fair. My students taught older adults about makerspace technologies like Sphero, littleBits, and Makey Makey. The maturity and tenderness that I saw in those eighth graders that day was so beyond anything that had occurred in our daily lessons. It was worth the time, effort, and sub plans to make it happen.

Experiences grow relationships. Experiences help kids connect to content. Experiences make learning more fun and memorable. Every kid can benefit from experiences in the classroom. There are teachers in our district that are creating awesome experiences for kids. Let's share (and not compare) those experiences to inspire each other.

Questions

1. Tell about an especially memorable experience that you had as a student.
2. Share an experience that you have provided to students in (or out of) your classroom.
3. Why are experiences important for kids?
4. What kind of support do you need to provide these experiences?
5. If you had all of the time and resources required, what is a dream experience that you would love to give to your students?

AVID in the Elementary

What is AVID, you ask? AVID stands for Advancement Via Individualized Determination. AVID is best teaching practices nicely laid out for teachers to refer to; it is not something new that we have to “learn,” it is something we’ve been doing but need to be more diligent about. What is its purpose? The intention behind AVID is to prepare students to be college ready. AVID has been in secondary schools for some years now, but AVID at the elementary level, in Bismarck Public Schools, is very new. There are two elementary schools, Pioneer and Jeanette Myhre, who have taken on this great opportunity for their students, and from a firsthand experience, we have already seen the positive effects. According to Justin Miller, fourth grade teacher at Pioneer, “In our first year of AVID implementation, I have already noticed an increase in student responsibility and passion for their learning.”

This past summer, eight teachers (six from Pioneer and two from Bismarck High) packed themselves into a van and traveled to Minneapolis for the AVID Summer Institute. We attended a three-day training on how to implement AVID strategies in an elementary setting. Part way through the training, we established two goals for Pioneer that we felt our students needed the most. Our goals were organization and focused note taking. While these are goals for grades 3, 4, and 5, we are speaking mainly from what we do and see in our own fifth grade classrooms.

Our first step was to adapt our student supply list in grades 3-5 to meet the criteria for our organizational materials. All three grade levels decided to color-code the four core subject areas: math, reading, science, and social studies. All folders and notebooks were assigned a color that was consistent throughout so that students moving to the next grade would already be familiar with the system. Fourth grade implemented one binder for students, while fifth grade implemented two in order to accommodate all subject areas. Binders are used in AVID electives in our feeder school, Simle, so we want to gradually prepare our students for that transition. While this is definitely a work in progress with it being so new, we are seeing responsibility in our students. They are more independent when it comes to keeping track of their work and immediately know where to find it. There has been a huge decrease in the amount of time spent digging through desks trying to find a paper that was stashed in it days beforehand. We expect to see students’ organizational skills continue to increase as we move further into the school year.

Goal number two may seem tedious to some, but we have found great significance in note taking using AVID strategies such as two- and three-column notes. All of our notes have a purpose. I know as teachers, we always have good intentions behind everything we do, but let’s face it, sometimes note taking is assigned in the hopes that our students will simply learn something from the process. Using our learned strategies, we have students constantly refer to their notes right after taking them; they use the right side of their notebooks to take the notes and the left side to reflect on their learning through diagrams, written reflections, example problems, illustrations, etc. If students are absent and miss a day of notes, they take it upon themselves to get the notes from a peer, because they, too, are beginning to see the importance of them in our day-to-day activities. Students who struggle with a concept we have covered are taking the initiative to go back into their notes to guide their own learning, and, as teachers, these are moments of huge success and pride.

Some of our favorite assignments we have done this year with fifth grade are activities we have taken directly from the AVID book we received last summer. This include the “Successful Student,” which focuses on student empowerment, achievement, and self-determination, ultimately helping them set a purpose for why they are in school and how they can reach their goals. Another example is a one-pager. The first time we gave this assignment, we were anxious because we had no idea how much effort would be put into a simple hygiene assignment. We were extremely taken by surprise and proud of the outcome. Students did not want to quit working on them. In fact, some literally begged for additional one-pager assignments. These are only two of many things we have been doing with our classes that has shown us that AVID is working by providing evidence of students’ engagement and passion for their own learning.

Lindsay Mock & Arlene Wolf
5th grade teachers
Pioneer Elementary School


Twitter Questions:

Q1: If you are familiar with AVID, in what ways has this impacted your students?

Q2: What are some critical "soft skills" that elementary students need prior to entering middle school?

Q3: What organizational strategies are you currently using to help students become successful and independent?