Learning Environments

I wrote this post in 2005 where it is cross posted on Rethinking Learning. I read it and thought it needed to be posted again with a few updates.

A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is comprised of people (teachers, para-professionals, administrators, and other community members) who collectively examine and collaboratively work to improve teaching practice. A PLC can but does not have to be situated in one school or district. With the ability to work online from anywhere at anytime, members of the community can connect, find others with similar interests, study and review existing teaching practice, and do action research to improve teaching and learning.

Being a teacher is challenging work and can be isolating. Many teachers teach the way they were taught which many times tends to be traditional lecture style: the expert or the giver of knowledge. Now with accountability issues, teachers are pressured to meet standards and teach to the test. What I am seeing is more teaching that is prescriptive in nature. In some areas, especially for at-risk students, this style can be  effective in teaching reading but less effective for students to retain deeper concepts. When teachers can interact with other teachers who have similar teaching situations, take the time to test and challenge their ideas, inferences and interpretations, and review and process information with each other, they grow professionally. This learning experience grows exponentially with the expanding exchange of ideas and multiple sources of knowledge from a variety of participants of the PLC.

A PLC can be a powerful professional development opportunity that encourages change and improves professional and personal learning.

Attributes of PLCs: the Five Dimensions
(adapted from source: http://www.teachinflorida.com/teachertoolkit/PLC.htm)

1. Supportive and Shared Leadership. The collegial and facilitative participation of the administrator shares leadership with his/her staff by facilitating their work.
2. Share Values and Vision. All PLC members develop a shared vision based on their commitment to the needs of their students and their desire to improve their teaching practice or grow their own skills and learning.
3. Collective Learning and Application of Learning (Collective Creativity). PLC members move beyond existing procedures and teaching methods to design strategies for improvement based on high standards, latest research, and best practices.
4. Supportive Conditions. The environment is risk-free so all members are safe and comfortable to collaborate, communicate, learn, make decisions, problem solve, and share their results and products.
5. Physical Conditions and Human Capacities.

1. Time to meet and talk
2. Small size of school or PLC
3. Physical proximity of staff to one another
4. Teaching roles that are interdependent
5. Communication structures
6. School autonomy
7. Teacher empowerment

I agree with the first four dimensions for any school. An online PLC can take the fifth dimension beyond the classroom and school walls.

• PLC members can meet anytime from anywhere.
• The PLC can be multiple sizes with the support of  eCoaches who guide and facilitate the process.
• Anybody can be the teacher and learner and eCoach.
• Communication online is a paradigm shift for teachers and needs to be designed into daily routines.
• Teacher and Learner empowerment.
• Learner centered environments.

The PLC as an Organizational Culture

Most learners adopt the organization’s guiding principles. If these principles are top-down decisions without input from all the stakeholders, the members of the organization may implement them without commitment and belief that they will affect positive change. The organization will be more successful if all members are valued and involved in the decisions on the direction of the community right from the beginning.

A sense of relational trust – linking the notions of respect, competence, personal regard, and integrity with academic achievement – also strengthens the community and makes shared decision-making possible. (Gordon – 2002)

There is a lot of talk about bringing creativity into the standards-based classroom. What does creativity mean to you? Does this mean that a teacher is defining the type of curriculum and classroom environment? Or does it mean that students have a say in what they learn?

I want to challenge you to think way outside the box about this. If we are going to design a learning environment where students are creative critical thinkers that have the skills to be collaborative global citizens and become the best they can be, the focus needs to be on the learner. If we do this, then everything changes: the school, the classroom, teacher education programs, administration, and the relationship with the school with the school community especially the parents.

I was reading today about the number of jobs available and that there are not enough people qualified in the US for high tech talent. Tapan Munroe stated in “It’s a seller’s market in some fields of work” that it is a myth that there aren’t job openings in America. Education is focusing on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to help build these skills, but the US student is just not prepared to fill these jobs. US launched the Common Core standards that are separate skills that do not seem to relate to today’s kids. We have all the standards in My eCoach and teachers match their projects to them. We have people who are adding resources and projects to the standards. Here are two seventh grade Common Core Math standards:

 

Analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
	MATH-RPR.7.3. Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems. Examples: simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease, percent error.
Expressions & Equations Solve real-life and mathematical problems using numerical and algebraic expressions and equations.
	MATH-EE.7.3. Solve multi-step real-life and mathematical problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form (whole numbers, fractions, and decimals), using tools strategically. Apply properties of operations to calculate with numbers in any form; convert between forms as appropriate; and assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies. For example: If a woman making $25 an hour gets a 10% raise, she will make an additional 1/10 of her salary an hour, or $2.50, for a new salary of $27.50. If you want to place a towel bar 9 3/4 inches long in the center of a door that is 27 1/2 inches wide, you will need to place the bar about 9 inches from each edge; this estimate can be used as a check on the exact computation.

How do you use this in a real-world situation? I asked Ken Bakken who is an eCoach on my team to help some 7th grade teachers create a real-world project that would make sense to students. Percentages can Make and Save you Money

This is still teacher-driven curriculum but it is a step in the right direction. The idea is to make the curriculum real to the learner. What if we tried a different approach where learners were given a problem or concept and they came up with the driving questions? Give them some real-world concepts like…

• Climate Change
• Pollution
• Water Quality
• The Price of Oil

If you look at one of these concepts, you could probably think of questions that will engage students in amazing discourse. Letting go is good. Let the students brainstorm the questions. Give them the standards and what is expected of them and then let them go again. Let them co-design the activities based on the standards. You provide the structure, the guidelines, and facilitate learning and collaboration. Just watch the creativity take off.

The purpose of education is to provide opportunities for all children to meet their fullest potential. That’s not happening. The dropout rate in the United States is higher than ever. More children are left behind now since the law No Child Left Behind. Now we’re Racing to the Top expecting all children to be at grade level by 2014.

Schools are designed the same way they were hundreds of years ago. The teacher is delivering instruction and facts very similar to the lessons they taught with an overhead projector or chalkboard. Schools were designed after the factory model starting in the 1800s. Grouping by age meant a teacher would have more control over their classroom like a manager in a factory behind closed doors. Standards were developed so at each grade level, students at one age would learn skills and attain specific knowledge that would prepare them to move to the next level. Just because one child is at a five year level doesn’t mean that all five year olds think alike or have similar prior knowledge.

Each child learns at different rates, and has different learning styles and intelligences. One six year old may be reading and writing fluently where another has never had the opportunity to read at home nor owns books and may not even know the letters of the alphabet. Since No Child Left Behind legislation, instruction is more teacher directed with the focus on increasing scores. Textbook companies created content that taught to the test. Several of the textbook companies own or are closely tied to the testing companies.

My dream is for every child to be in control of their own learning. The purpose of education needs to shift to the learner learning in any environment.. Now with digital textbooks, online courses, Web 2.0, social media, and access to everything a learner needs at their fingertips, the purpose of education is changing.

We cannot continue to deliver instruction feeding students facts. We need to rethink how to structure learning. Does it have to be at a school? What if students could review what they need to learn by the end of the year and collaborate with their teacher, peers, and parents to design real-world engaging and innovative activities? Students should be able to assess their prior knowledge and be able to challenge a class so they move at their own speed.

Let’s redesign schools into learning centers similar to Reggio Emilia schools. Teachers as observers and co-learners. Students ask questions that mean something to them. Everything is inquiry-based. This approach can be adapted for K-20 even if you base it on standards. Students can learn at a higher level if they are motivated. Look at collecting evidence of learning in an ePortfolio posted online and showcasing projects that mean something to the world so students celebrate what they know and do. We can bring joy back to learning and create amazing citizens who collaborate on global projects.

First posted in the Winter OnCUE Journal 2011

“Many of our schools are good schools, if only this were 1965.”-Louise Stoll & Dean Fink

The world is changing. Today everyone is connected to each other with information instantly at your fingertips. Everything is changing, that is, except schools. Teachers and administrators are integrating technology by adding interactive whiteboards, instant response clickers, and even 1:1 laptop programs. However, one glance into most classrooms, you would find very little has changed over the past 30 or more years. Education still mainly involves teachers feeding information to students to cover the curriculum in preparation for a standardized test. 21st Century teachers involve everyone in the community in their children’s learning.

Changing the learning environment takes more than adding technology to the mix. It means bringing in the real world, involving the school community, and changing the learning environment so our children have the skills they need to compete in the global economy. Some of the resources we had in our homes 30-40 years ago include:

• Television without remotes
• Landline phones
• Records and maybe 8 track cassettes
• First personal computers with less than 128K owned by very few
• No Internet or maybe a select few had email

Today, most children, even those who may be at-risk, have cell phones. Many of these cell phones are Smartphones with the ability to connect to the Internet, text messages, listen to music, and even watch TV and movies. The power of these Smartphones is thousands of times more powerful than what we had with multiple devices 30 years ago.

Culture influences student learning more than even formal learning with easy access to cable television, music, video games, cell phones, movies, and other technology. Before and after school students connect to each other and virtual places that transform them into worlds we have no control over. The classroom can no longer be separated from the real world. Educators need to find ways to make learning relevant and applicable to students’ real world so that they are influenced by intellectual information rather than simply the pop culture of today, which has changed drastically over the past 30 years. [Johnson, B and McElroy, T. 2010]

Authentic Relationships with the Community

Teachers have been and many still prefer working in an isolated environment. The classroom is their domain. The teacher who prefers working in this situation may lack the confidence they need to engage in authentic conversations with parents and others from the community. The classroom door is literally closed to the world. The 21st Century teacher involves everyone in the community that believe in their children and want the best for them. This open and inviting teacher welcomes dialogue, builds authentic relationships with all key members involved, and sees this as an opportunity to develop classroom support for their students and themselves. Authentic relationships are built upon respect between all the members of the school community. Each member has responsibilities in developing and nurturing these relationships. All key individuals are important because of the experiences and abilities they bring to the educational community. It takes everyone in the educational community (the village) to produce an intentional relationship.

Opening up the classroom and inviting the community to be involved with what is happening in the classroom is new for many of our teachers. Even our newest teachers may not have learned these strategies in their teacher education programs. Change is scary. This administrator can build the relationships with the community first by promoting their school and its goals. The administrator can reach out to teachers, leaders, businesses, parents, and other stakeholders to encourage their involvement in designing a shared vision for the school.  Everyone needs to voice their hopes and fears in a risk-free environment. A shared vision gives all stakeholders a sense of ownership and feeling of pride in the outcomes. Asking a business or organization to participate in students’ learning activities may open doors that lead to new doors.

You never know what could present itself if members of the community realize they could help their school. Some ways might include:

• a plot for a community garden
• mentors and tutors for the after-school program
• career day
• author book talks
• technology support
• offering prizes and rewards for events

In turn, students could participate in community service learning projects:

• reading to young children
• maintaining the garden
• teaching technology to seniors
• being a docent for an exhibit

Bringing Parents on Board

Today’s families have also greatly changed compared to 30-40 years ago. There are extreme pressures on families with the economic concerns and other demands of today’s culture. The number of working moms has doubled from 30 percent in the 1970’s to almost 60 percent today. Just to keep the family together means that Americans work 160 hours more per year than they did 20 years ago. With the economic conditions, some parents are out of work and having difficult times paying their bills.  On top of that, many students live with one parent, a guardian, or two working parents.  Parenting is even more difficult when you consider the gap between parents and their tech savvy children.

The 21st century teacher can initiate new types of relationships with their students’ parents. This teacher contacts each students parents or guardian to learn more about their child, their hopes and dreams for their child, and how they can work together to guide their child to success. They become a team that is a collaborative support system that keeps a close eye on the progress of their child. The school can have an online portal that parents can access to check on homework, grades, and projects. Since face-to-face meetings may not be possible with parents busy schedules, teachers can forge a connection with parents in a virtual environment. Teachers can connect using a variety of tools such as setting up a website or wiki, a newsletter, a contact form, chat, email, IM, Twitter, blogs, and even providing their cell phone number. In this instantly connectability world, parents and teachers do not have to be strangers.

Reference

Johnson, B. and McElroy, T. The Changing Role of the Teacher in the 21st September 2010. Vol. 7. No 9. Teachers.net. Online. Retrieved September 20, 2010. http://teachers.net/gazette/wordpress/dr-brad-johnson-tammy-maxson-mcelroy/changing-role-of-the-teacher/” target=”_blank”>http://teachers.net/gazette/wordpress/dr-brad-johnson-tammy-maxson-mcelroy/changing-role-of-the-teacher/

Holidays bring out the best and worst of people. The economy is putting stress on all of us no matter what your income. If you are poor, you are probably having more problems than just not having enough money to pay bills. I work with a high poverty middle school and am so in awe of children who put up with so much. One of the 6th grade teachers is doing “I am from” poems.

I read poems that tore at my heart strings. One boy wrote about living in a house with drunks and his mother dying of alcoholism. He had other things in the poem that I’ll share later when they create their digital stories with their poems. Other students wrote about unbelievable issues of lives unknown to me. I had to go out of the room and cry.

I’m so involved with my own life that I forget what our children are going through. All of us have more issues now than ever before because of the economy. Poor children are going through the most. They have no voice. Social services are overwhelmed and underfunded. They can only do so much. Schools have cut counselors and teachers are younger and don’t have the background or experience to deal with these issues. We are leaving more of our poor children behind than ever.

The reasons why they give up or leave school is more than the school’s problem. It is society’s problem. It is a matter of taking on their perspective and having empathy for their situation. It is our duty as adults to listen and to try to figure out what is happening to the child.

So I go back to my years in middle school: a white middle class 11-13 year old girl in Maryland. I remember wanting to be popular and liked. It was not the best time of my life. I was scared and didn’t know what was happening to my body. I was changing. I cried a lot for no reasons. I loved this boy or that boy. If they didn’t talk to me, I was devastated. So my perspective of middle school might have been the same as many young white middle class girls. I don’t even remember my teachers or the classes I took. I do remember sewing class and wearing one of my creations in a fashion show. But forget math or history. I don’t remember any of that. I remember I lost my best friend to Hodgkinson’s disease. That was awful, but I never knew anyone who had been shot or murdered.

This group of children I’m working with all know someone who has been shot. Many of them had a relative shot, a family member in jail, very rarely have breakfast or food on the table. I cannot even imagine what they go through. One child sleeps in the bathtub because that is the only safe place. Families are in trouble all over the US. If you are in trouble, there’s probably anger, yelling, crying, and everyone in the family is impacted. We cannot forget the children. What adults do in their homes or at school impacts the children.

Some children internalize everything so you never know there’s a problem. They smile on the outside and are so hurt on the inside. What I love about these “I am from” poems is that sometimes one child who is really in trouble opens up and writes what is happening to them. I believe our job as educators is more than teaching to a test especially for children at-risk and in crisis. Help your children to open up and share their feelings. Look at their perspective on life and have empathy for them. That’s what the holidays are about: sharing and loving each other — kindness and compassion.

I read Chris Lehman’s post on “What we should remember” about why we teach. It’s all about our kids. That’s it! Thank you Chris for a thought-provoking post! I am in awe of what your students are able to do at the Science Leadership Academy and hope more people get involved in Educon 2.3 end of January.

I work mostly with middle school students. Remember what it was like to be in middle school or junior high. This was my toughest time in school. I remember falling in love with a boy who didn’t even know my name. I remember loving Paul McCartney because I knew he would see me in the audience and want to date me. I remember almost everything but my teachers’ names or even what happened in the classrooms. I remember embarrassing times and scary times. It was an awkward time where friendships meant more than my own family. I remember not feeling smart because I don’t remember anyone telling me I was smart.

What I wore, how I looked meant more than what I learned. So are middle school students different today than I was then? Most of the schools I work with are Title I schools with high percentages of free and reduced lunches. This was the target for NCLB. I’m sorry to say there are more poor children left behind now than ever before. I grew up in a safe environment where we didn’t have to worry about life and death decisions. I love Glee and believe all children are smart and talented. I grew up in a house with artists who never new there was a box to be in or lines to color in. However, Glee represents a middle class school. I’m white and grew up in middle class neighborhoods. I had no idea what children from high poverty schools go through. Yesterday I read “I am” poems and autobiographies from some of the children from one of the middle schools I work with. I cried. I really cried. I was sitting in the faculty room of one school and couldn’t even imagine what many of these students endure.

I don’t want to share their personal stories here but imagine most children in this school had a family member shot; knew someone in prison probably a father or brother; come from a broken home; do not have enough money for breakfast; don’t have a warm coat; may lose their home; some are homeless. When you realize that some of these students sleep in their bathtubs because that is the only safe place from bullets, you wonder if they’ll stay in school. I read about 12 year old girls who believe their only goal is to get pregnant. That way they have someone who will love them. Oh my! I heard this before, when I started with the Technology Challenge Grant in Oakland in 1998. We were working with 4th-8th grade students. I just thought it was getting better. It seems much much worse now.

The dropout rate is higher than being reported because we lose kids in middle school. The numbers reported are only high school dropout rates. Middle school is where we need to focus our energy. If we really want to make a difference, we need to change middle schools around the country.  Teachers only know what they were taught or how they have been teaching or what is asked of them by the administration. Teachers cannot do this without the support of their administration and the district office. My next post will be some ideas for them. Chris writes some great questions in his post for teachers and principals. So here’s my ideas for middle school teachers to reach their students:

• greet your children when they arrive to your classroom by name and shake their hands.
• have compassion and empathy for your students perception and positions.
• realize that all children are smart — find out how they are smart and celebrate it.
• create opportunities for success in every classroom.
• design engaging learning environments where students own their learning.
• be an advisor to several children if there is no counseling program.
• get to know your students’ families and invite them to your classroom or visit their home.
• have students keep a journal for their eyes only — unless they want to share it with you and others.
• bring in content experts either to your classroom or virtually.
• connect your classroom to other classrooms around the world.
• connect your curriculum to real-world applications that make sense to your students and their lives.
• create replacement units that engage your students of some content areas in the pacing guide.
• ask students to ask three other students before asking you.
• encourage questions – lots of questions and post them around the room.
• be more of a co-learner and facilitator of learning.
• take some risks and be okay about failing some of the time.
• if you cannot take risks, then rethink your job there. Go where your core beliefs are the same.
• and if there are no other jobs and you feel lucky to have this job, then use some of the ideas here with your students.

Learning in middle schools of the past for today’s children is an oxymoron. 11-13 year olds have different perspectives on life and what they need to know than adults no matter their situation. Add poverty and crime and hopelessnes and it is an almost impossible thing to ask of these students and teachers. Our current school system is broken especially for these kids at these ages. I am only one person and realize the challenge to make this kind of change is enormous. We cannot lose any more children. They are all precious and special and gifted and smart. They are our future. I will do whatever I can to support teachers as they do what they can to help students reach their fullest potential.

Teachers go into teaching to make a difference. Then reality hits. This time in history is hitting everybody. 60% of Americans feel the country is in decline. State education budgets are devastated. Teachers want to make their lessons engaging but there are so many reasons or excuses that they find to go back to what is safe and easy. Actually, I’m starting to understand their position.

I’m a coach who comes into their classrooms and shares with them strategies to engage students and then I leave. I set up a way to virtually support them. What I see is a different teacher than when I worked with teachers 20 years ago. The world is different. Their training is different. The curriculum is different. The pressures they have today are overwhelming. Teachers are told to follow the pacing guide. Why are you not on page 262 on Thursday? This is impossible if you want to engage students in the learning process. Reading from a script is boring for the students and the teacher. It creates a power struggle between the teachers and the students. Teachers become more isolated in their classrooms instead of where we were going – a more collaborative network of professionals learning from each other. When you read from a script, you don’t need collaboration.

Changing the learning environment depends on the school, the administrator, and the willingness for the school community to take risks. Risk-taking and being okay with failing is the way we learn. There cannot be one right answer if we want to solve global issues.

What if we stop and rethink what school is all about. It’s all about the kids. Their future is at stake. It’s a moral issue. It needs to be about learning not teaching. Our children are not prepared for their future. Pacing guides, meeting the standards, teaching to the test, are just not enough anymore. So if you are a teacher who wants to make a difference in kid’s lives and are in a situation where you and your students talents and creativity may be stifled, there are several things you can do before you give in or give up.

• Start your digital footprint by following people who believe in the same things as you and follow them.
• Build your personal learning network (PLN) using social media i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Classroom 2.0 on Ning, and more.
• Join My eCoach and voice your challenges and successes in the Conversation Corner. Look for projects or lessons in the eLibrary and clone and adapt any of them.
• Write a blog or comment on people’s posts so there are trackbacks to you. Quote and link to those people who write and talk the way you want to write and talk. I welcome your comments and invite you to follow me.
• Attend conferences virtually if you cannot go to the conferences in person. Some conferences include: K12 Online Conference, Connecting Online Conference (CO11), Global Education Conference, and Educon 2.3. If the conferences are over, then watch the archives.
• Check out collaborative global projects like iEARN, Global Schoolhouse, and ePals. Your students want to make a difference too and need a way to connect the curriculum to the real world.
• Find, clone, or create and implement one lesson that infuses some creativity as a replacement unit. You can use the Universal builder — it’s easy. Or use Google Sites or Wikispaces. Just take a risk to publish online.
• Capture moments using digital media of students working on a unit without creativity and comparing it with the replacement unit. If you don’t have a camera, ask your coach to capture it for you.

Start small. Change takes time. Learning is all about change. Learning never ends. It means that your students as  learners want to grow and add skills or knowledge to what they know and do to reach their learning goals. You are their co-learner, guide, coach, mentor… facilitating the process. They may not have goals so you may be guiding them to learn how to question, be a critical thinker and problem solver. Your learning never ends either. That’s why you are reading this.

To be an agent of change (that’s what this type of teacher is), you cannot do it alone. Ask for help. Find a coach or mentor to work with you on the backend. A coach is there to guide you to success. It only takes starting with one project. It may not be an overwhelming success where you see gigantic breakthroughs, but take into account the tone in your classroom– where it is and where you want it to go. You still may need to do direct instruction. The forces and atmosphere are still traditional teaching and direct instruction but this is where you can make a difference.

One teacher at a time — One classroom at a time — One PLN at a time –All of us sharing why we need to change so we have evidence — real evidence that this works.

So what does success look like to you? How are you making a difference in a child’s life? How can we help you?

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I mentioned Sir Ken Robinson and his talk about “Schools kill Creativity” in my webinar. I just watched this animation where he explains why the current education system is failing our kids.

Some questions he brings up:

• why do we need to group students by age anymore?
• why do we need to separate kids into separate subjects?
• why are degrees not a guarantee for jobs?
• why are we not waking up children to what they have inside themselves?

I saw divergent thinking in preschool using the Reggio Emilia approach that I shared in my webinar. Divergent thinking is the process of having original ideas that have value. I mentioned this as Flow. Schools are starting earlier squashing creativity and divergent thinking. Now are kindergarteners are told there is only one answer or not to share. To prepare our children for their future they need an aesthetic experience and to collaborate so they are not isolated and all doing the same thing at the same time.

On Friday October 8th, I was lucky to be invited to help facilitate professional development for Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Over 120 PK-12 teachers worked side-by-side in mixed grade-level groups to experience project-based learning (PBL). This approach requires 21st-century skills: collaboration, creativity, innovation, team work, and critical thinking. 15 Teams  of 8-10 teachers each created public-service announcements (PSA) to raise awareness about Mid-Pacific Institute. Teachers put themselves in the role of learners with a facilitator guiding the process in each team. So how did they do? Read more what Elementary School Principal Edna Hussey wrote about the process.

The team I worked with consisted of MPI’s director of education technology Mark Hines, associate education technology director Bob McIntosh, the three principals, and middle school tech coordinator Brian Grantham where we collaborated several weeks prior to last Friday to  plan the project experience. A meaningful day is effective if everything is planned well. I was so impressed with how the team worked tirelessly to pull everything together. The PSA concept was developed as a project that could be completed by day’s end and which would entail the use of technology already available to the faculty. Check out the details and completed PSAs at http://mpi-psas.my-ecoach.com.

Teachers completed reflections as exit tickets at the end of the day.

“I hope that this process will help me consider some of the challenges and rewards that come with building a project so that when I design this sort of thing for my students, I will understand what it’s like to be them.”

“I hope to get a better sense of how students think about ‘open-ended’ projects. If I enter with a student’s mindset of being ‘spoon-fed’ what’s required of me, what will work to engage me in this project. Often students feel lost when they get to make too many decisions. I hope to get ideas/techniques for helping students to get engaged.”

There were 15 teams who focused on a theme and developed a driving question and supporting questions about that theme to develop the storyboard and script for the 60-90 second PSA.

“Everyone feels comfortable to share ideas and is respectful and listens to the ideas of others. We have been able to discuss differing ideas and come to consensus. Everyone is open to hearing everyone’s ideas and do what needs to be done to bring the project together. Everyone also seems to understand the importance of the process, not just completing the product.”

“The group is communicating very well. I’m proud that people are constructing their ideas based on the communication of a positively critical idea, from a teachers perspective, and for the teachers as an audience, keeping the assignment in mind. When there was a difference in opinion, they chose to go with the more persuasive/engaging idea that invites the audience to think. It is going well because we are focusing on the process, even though the worries of getting the PSA done came up, we acknowledged how this might be a crossroads for students, and how should we proceed.”

We asked teams to pair with another team at the end of the day to share their PSA and reflect on the process. A spokesperson was chosen from each group to share with the whole staff. Everything was so positive. What an amazing group of teachers! Thank you Mid-Pac for including me in a very exciting professional development opportunity!

Professional development does not have to be work. Same with the classroom. I hear teachers talk about their work that day or the workshop that made their brain hurt. Where’s the joy? When you teach to the test and focus on increasing scores, just watch the faces of the students. Are they engaged or motivated?

Look back at preschool and what Kindergarten used to be like. The room was set up with learning centers and students were talking and laughing together. There was learning going on. You could hear it and see it. I used to put on professional development sessions that were more like this type of Kindergarten room. I taught claymation to teachers where they worked in teams, created a storyboard together, assigned each other characters or objects to create with the clay, and so on. The giggles and laughter that ensued was pervasive. The whole room was laughing during the session. Then they would video and lay music over the video. When we were all done, we had a show… with popcorn.

Real learning by doing… and FUN!!! I miss that. There seems to be a whole generation of teachers that missed this type of professional development. For the past 8-9 years, all professional development seems to be focused on data, improving scores, and accountability. I know we need that, but here’s my take on it. The scores are based on standardized tests and our kids are not standardized. They are all different. Teachers are all different. So we use the scores to determine our improvement on AYP and the gaps. We use that data to help us design and drive the curriuclum. But what about supplementing these tests by following a student’s progress by collecting evidence of learning along with reflections in an ePortfolio? Authentic assessment where the student analyzes what they learned and now understands. Teachers could then correlate the test scores with actual evidence and share their own reflections to help the student improve.

I taught a project on advertising for multiple grade levels where I remember the kids saying to me “I didn’t know learning could be this much fun.” I loved that. Think back when you were learning something where you walked away feeling really good and it was fun. Remember that? I do. I remember making a paper maché map of the world with others students and then doing a presentation. That was hard but fun. I remember walking home feeling a joy in my heart that I did it. I know it now.  I had struggled with the concepts, but that project made it real.

We need to make the concepts real to our students and bring the joy back to learning.

What are your priorities in learning?