Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm shift that must be made to make schools relevant.

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Pam Moran is a leading advocate of an educational model that prepares all students for success. She emphasizes the value of student-led research, project-based learning and contemporary flexible learning spaces that promote collaboration, creativity, analytical problem-solving, critical thinking, and communications competencies among all students.

You and your family

I grew up in a family of makers. My husband, John, is a maker and artist extraordinaire.. He went to the University of New Mexico but then started making jewelry and working with silver. Included a picture of some of his beautiful jewelry to the right.  John built our timber frame house we live in and he’s a wonderful dad. Despite the fact that he is wheelchair bound, he is still someone who is active and interested in so much. Every day, my son, Jason, who is a digital media director in New York City, calls his father and they have wonderful conversations.

Life is such a great place. If we see ourselves as open to learning, we can continue to evolve and develop who we are and what we can bring to this planet. If we define ourselves as educators, we’re constantly focused on seeing learning as a lifetime event not just something that happens when you got to school.

I have a mother who is 97 years old. She was actually a World War II Vet who worked for naval intelligence in Bainbridge, Washington which is an island outside of Seattle. She worked on breaking Japanese code during WWII. She just received a Congressional award for her work. Two pictures of my mom at 23 and 97.

One of the interesting things is that there was secrecy about her work. She was not allowed to share that she received this medal from the Secretary of the Navy at that time. In 1996, she told our family during the holidays that she had something to share. She pulled out a box with a letter that she had just gotten something that was declassified. That meant she could tell her family what she actually did in the war. She had kept that secret for a lifetime. We never had a clue what she did in the Navy. What this taught me is that my mom was always a person who lived her life by doing what she says and saying what she’s going to do.

I am so grateful that I’m still able to have amazing conversations with her. She has been a great model for me to really think about what it means to just stay open and interested in everything that is going on in life. She’s still that way at 97, and she has amazing stories.

TedTalk. Hacking Schools: Getting Ourselves to Yes

We can learn from anyone if we continue to remember that the lessons of life really are timeless. Even when you do have conflict in the work that you do, that if you come from a position of honesty, integrity, and trust, what a difference it makes in terms of the relationships you have.  

What it was like for you as a student

I had a different trajectory as a student. I grew up on a farm in the low country in South Carolina. We grew up when segregation du jour was the law by redistricting of schools. It was a different experience. When you live in a place like I did, you grow up in a very diverse community. Our African-American community was a strong community and one that was very present and a lot of interaction with the Caucasian community. If you were white, as I look back, the privileges you have are very apparent. If you were very thoughtful about growing up in a very segregated school system. The fact is that in rural South Carolina when I went through school, it was very limiting and no one had the breadth and depth of education we have today. We had some good teachers, but I had a lot of teachers who had not finished four year colleges but went to “normal” schools to become teachers.

My Science teacher was also my guidance counselor was an incredible influence on a lot of kids. She encouraged kids to look at opportunities that would take us beyond the boundaries of our little county. She asked me 2 questions:

(1) Have you ever thought about majoring in science since I loved biology? and  
(2) Have you ever thought of being a teacher?

So I went off to college to a small liberal arts college, Furman university, in a program that was pulled together around field biology doing a lot of work in the outdoors. I enjoyed the work of field biology, but  I ended up teaching in Virginia and doing a Masters and Doctorate at the University of Virginia. 

Your journey as a teacher and becoming an administrator

My career in public education began as a high school science teacher. I subsequently served as a central office science coordinator and staff developer, elementary school principal, director of instruction, assistant superintendent for instruction, and adjunct instructor in educational leadership for the University of Virginia’s Curry School and the School of Continuing Education. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Furman University and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the University of Virginia. I am also an alumnus of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Executive Educators Leadership Institute. 

I am a past President of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, Women Educational Leaders of Virginia and the Virginia Association of Science Supervisors. I’ve held leadership positions with the regional Chamber of Commerce, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Education Fund, and the University of Virginia-Public Schools Educational Partnership.

Albemarle County Public Schools Superintendent

I served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools since January 2006 until June 2017. The division includes more than 1,200 teachers educating 13,700 students in 25 schools. During mys tenure, Albemarle County Public Schools has become one of the top performing school divisions for students in the state with an on-time graduation rate of 95 percent.  Two out of every three high school seniors graduate with an Advanced Studies Diploma, 30 percent higher than the state average for all school divisions.

Best way for me to share what happened in Albemarle County Public Schools is to show you. Edutopia collection of shared articles about the students and schools. 

Albemarle County Public Schools is comprised of 26 schools in Albemarle County, Virginia. A blend of primarily rural but also suburban and urban schools, each one embodies the culture of innovation and risk-taking that is the core of the district’s approach to teaching and learning. From makerspaces and curriculum to the use of social media, flexible classrooms, and instructional coaches, Albemarle gives students the life-long learning skills they’ll require to succeed.

Multiage learning space at Woodbrook Elementary
(source: Article by Tom Vander Ark. Forbes)

In 2017, a national survey organization ranked Albemarle County Public Schools in the top three of all school divisions in Virginia and among the top two percent of all school divisions in the county. Among the school division’s flagship programs are its Learning Commons, AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) and M-Cubed. Both the Learning Commons and M-Cubed have received the National School Board Association’s Magna Award, given annually to the school division in the nation with the most innovative and effective program.  The school division is the only one in the history of the Magna Award to twice receive the association’s highest performance honor. The school’s Learning Commons, which is a multi-disciplined, technology-infused learning center, has attracted visits by MIT, Harvard, the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina and from the Smithsonian Museum and the New York Hall of Science.  M-Cubed is a program that supports black middle school males in year-round advanced math studies to improve their high school academic performance. The division’s Jack Jouett Middle School is in the top three percent of all schools in the world for the success of its AVID college and career readiness program.

Your Book

Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools with Ira Socol and Chad Ratliff

Writing was a labor of life. After single year of my 43 years of my career, one thing is that if you are open to learning, that every single year of your life can be filled with amazing new opportunities to learn and develop and be a part of a community that makes things better for kids. 

I was fortunate to co-author this book with Chief Technology Officer Ira Socol and Lab Schools Principal Chad Ratliff to demonstrate how you can implement innovative practices that have shown remarkable success. We use progressive design principles to inform pathways to disrupt traditions of education today and show you how to make innovations real that will have a timeless and meaningful impact on students, keeping alive the natural curiosity and passion for learning with which children enter school.

• Discover the power of project-based and student-designed learning
• Find out what “maker learning” entails
• Launch connected and interactive digital learning
• Benefit from the authors’ “opening up learning” space and time

Using examples from our own district as well as others around the country, we created a map of the processes necessary to move from schools in which content-driven, adult-determined teaching has been the traditional norm to new learning spaces and communities in which context-driven, child-determined learning is the progressive norm. 

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This is Barbara. I shared a few of the excerpts from our conversation and hope you listen to the entire podcast with Pam. I learned so much from her about Albemarle County Public Schools, their book, and her new journey with Socol Moran Partners LLC with Ira Socol. I highly recommend that you read Timeless Learning or contact Pam for any school or district interested in transforming teaching and learning.  Thank you, Pam for sharing your story!

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Dr. Pam Moran’s contact information

Website: https://spacesforlearning.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @pammoran

Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm shift that must be made to make schools relevant.

A past gubernatorial appointee to the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia, Dr. Moran was selected by her peers across the Commonwealth as Virginia’s 2016 Superintendent of the Year.  She subsequently was one of four statewide superintendents of the year to be selected as a finalist for 2016 National Superintendent of the Year.

In 2016, Dr. Moran was selected to serve on the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development. She is a member of the MakerEdorg advisory committee and has delivered several TED Talks on the impact of creating a contemporary learning environment for students, one shaped around a student-centered project-based instructional model.   Under her guidance, Albemarle County Public Schools was selected in 2015 for membership in the League of Innovative Schools., a nonprofit organization authorized by the U.S. Congress to accelerate innovation in education.

Dr. Moran has appeared on the cover of Education Week’s Digital Directions magazine as a “National Mover and Shaker” for her advocacy of a curricular digital integration model, which will be featured in an upcoming profile by Edutopia.  She also was selected by eSchool Media as one of its national Tech-Savvy Superintendents of the Year and under her leadership, the school division received the Virginia Governor’s Tech Innovation Award.

Dr. Pamela R. Moran has been named the new Executive Director of the Virginia School Consortium for Learning (VaSCL). A statewide education organization headquartered in Palmyra, VaSCL includes a membership of more than 70 school divisions across the state. Its mission is to improve the quality of K-12 education in the state by providing high-quality professional learning to educators and by facilitating the sharing of best practices among school divisions.

Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, an education innovation lab dedicated to the transformation of public education. Jim formerly served as the Director of the Institute for six years and as a superintendent in several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

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Jim is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders and co-author of Five Levers To Improve Learning: How To Prioritize For Powerful Results In Your School. I have been fortunate to participate in several summits with Jim, attend his sessions at conferences, and collaborate on blogs about personalized learning. I learned some new things about Jim in the podcast. Enjoy!

You and your family

We are a family of educators. My wife, Lynn, has been a math tutor for a long time and so supportive of the work I’m doing. Our oldest son, Jay, with a newly minted Ph.D., is a professor at Appalachian State University. Our daughter, Christine, is an early childhood educator. I have spent more than 45 years in education with more than 20 years as a superintendent. I loved that. The work I’ve done for the last ten years around personalized learning has actually become all consuming and a fun journey.

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I tend to be an achiever. For me, a school was all about if a task or challenge was set up, I would go after it. When I think back to my experiences in education, what was missing often was the connection to purpose. Rarely, do I recall a specific or compelling purpose around learning? Being an achiever, my focus typically was around doing well on the test and getting good grades. I was fortunate to do well most of the time. The downside of that was how much I forgot because I learned it for the test, not for its inherent benefit or for other value it brought to me. Not that I forgot everything, but I saw the same thing happening with my students.

Jim Rickabaugh: “Getting Learning Right the First Time, Every Time”

When we learn for the task if that’s the driver or if we say  “you need to know this will be on the test” and the test is over, too often what was learned is let go. It’s an unfortunate consequence for learning. The sad part is that even the act of learning tended to be very linear and focused what was going to be on the test. In the process, we ignored and failed to explore so much that would have been interesting, compelling, and enriching. No one ever thought to stop and talk about why we were learning that was value for us. Every once in a while, something would come along like a project or a concept that was so powerful that it transformed all of that and become a really meaningful thing. Unfortunately, that experience was more the exception that it was the rule.

Your journey as an educator

I’m the first educator among my parents and siblings. The choice to go into education was driven by two things. I wanted to make a difference in children’s lives and two there were educators I admired who were brilliant people who impacted me. One, in particular, was in eighth grade. We were doing a project exploring careers. I was having difficulty finding a topic, and my teacher, Mr. David Kitch, said to me, “Jim, you really should think about going into education. I think you’d make a great teacher.” I admired Mr. Kitch as a great teacher, and if he thinks I would make a great teacher, I should pay attention to that. 25 years later, I was visiting the school district I attended and Mr. Kitch was retiring that year. I was so appreciative of his encouragement and advice that I took time to call him and thank him. Mr. Kitch remembered me but didn’t remember the comment and was shocked that it made such an impact for me. For me, it was a driving force because he was such a brilliant teacher.

If teachers only knew how much they made a difference in children’s lives, they would be absolutely humbled. Our influence becomes integrated into who they are, that they might even separate it. It is true that educators rarely know the full impact that they have on the students’ lives they touch.  For many students who don’t have the support system at home, educators are their support system.

Your journey as a teacher and administrator

I taught history and Spanish in a small high school in Wisconsin near Madison. Just before I graduated from college, one of my professors who I respected said, “so to be really clear, your graduation is not the end, it is the beginning. You might start working on your masters immediately. If you don’t, life happens and it will be more difficult later.” So my first year, I worked and started working on my masters and continued working while I worked on my Ph.D. while  I was a teacher. I worked at that school for four years and then moved to the Chicago suburbs as a dean of students handling mostly discipline issues. I learned a lot but I found my perspective about students was too narrow and unhealthy. So I pushed on to become a building administrator, then joined the district office as head of the curriculum, and then became superintendent at a suburb of Milwaukee. After that, I became superintendent of a district in Minnesota and then went back to Wisconsin to become superintendent of Whitefish Bay School District until 2010.

AEI Speakers: Jim Rickabaugh

Starting the Institute for Personalized Learning (https://institute4pl.org/)

There were a group of superintendents scratching our heads with two observations. One observation was that educators were working under more stress, pressure, and working harder than any of us could recall in our careers. Yet, we’re still not reaching so many kids. Our conclusion was that it is not that educators don’t care. The second observation was that in 2010 we were continuing to get more money for schools, but we found ourselves continually cutting programs. We committed to spending a year to see if anyone had figured out this issue. In 2010, people thought “Personalized Learning” was computer learning. We read everything and talked to everyone we knew. Ultimately, we came to a very obvious conclusion.

The problem is not that people are working hard enough and the problem isn’t money. It’s that we have a school design that is not aligned to what we’re asking schools to do. All learning is personal, but we have a system as if it is a corporate activity.

Our question was: “What would happen if we actually started the design process looking at it through the eyes of a learner instead of looking at it through the curriculum or other structural elements.”

So it turned out that learning has always been personal. We knew that. We practiced that up until the point when we needed to prepare workers for industry and assembly lines. We asked ourselves how would we engage learners if we didn’t have the system we have? Suddenly, there are all kinds of really good options that engaged learners that were not engaged in the current system in far better ways. We ended up writing a white paper, Transforming Public Education: A Regional Call to Action, on this topic that is still on our website. We were lucky that CESA1  (Cooperative Education Service Agency) was willing to put money behind this for the first two years and then see if there was enough momentum to keep it going. It continues to grow by shifting into a pay-as-you-go model and operates on services we provide using the resources they had. Thankfully, we are coming up on the 10th year and there are over 60 formal memberships and supporting over 100 projects around the Midwest. There were 500 people from 13 different states represented at our last convening.

It’s not always easy, but if people make those design decisions on the front end, then you are less likely to let it go later. Too often, good ideas have been left behind because the funding ran out. Not that the ideas weren’t good. It didn’t matter. The idea is for the each of us to own our learning and the system needs to support that process.

What Personalized Learning looks like

There is always a mystery to learning and still confusion around personalized learning. That’s why the Institute continues and we are constantly surprised by what it does for the lives of children. We partnered with a research team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison to visit schools involved in personalizing learning. They had a question for us that they were struggling with: “Every place we go where this work is going on, why do they all look different?” They asked us about fidelity to the protocol, and we came up with it being fidelity to purpose. When you are really clear that we’re trying to develop capable learners, we’re promoting ownership and agency. These discussions really pushed our thinking. This idea of fidelity to purpose brings passion to our work.

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This is Barbara: There is more so make sure you listen to the rest of the podcast to discuss his books and his latest venture: you learn purpose for learning (Start and Stay with the Why)

A picture at the iNACOL 2018 conference during Jim’s presentation on change

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Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, an education innovation lab dedicated to the transformation of public education. The Institute serves a growing number of member school districts engaged in personalizing learning and is a part of the multi-state Innovation Lab Network coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Jim formerly served as the Director of the Institute for six years and as a superintendent in several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dr. Rickabaugh was Wisconsin Superintendent of the Year in 2008 and Minnesota Superintendent of the Year in 1996. He is a member of the boards of the Wisconsin Education Business Roundtable and the Innovative Schools Network and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Midwest Comprehensive Center. He received the Excellence in Educational Leadership Award in 2005 from the University Council for Educational Administration and a lifetime achievement award from the Master Teacher in 2010.

Dr. Rickabaugh is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders focused on helping principals and other educational leaders to engage their staffs in designing and implementing personalized learning ecosystems. Jim is also a co-author of Five Levers To Improve Learning: How To Prioritize For Powerful Results In Your School. An engaging speaker, Jim has presented on personalized learning at several national conferences including the Annual Visible Learning Conference, ASCD Annual Conference, AESA Annual Conference and iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium, among others.

Senior Advisor, Institute for Personalized Learning
Twitter: @drrickabaugh

Resources:

Placing Learners at the Center Article

Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning – ASCD 2016 

Keys to Implementing Personalized Learning as a Leader: An Interview with Dr. James Rickabaugh

Dave Burgess is the New York Times Best-Selling author of Teach Like a PIRATE, co-author of P is for PIRATE, and the president of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. which delivers powerful, inspirational, and innovative books, keynotes, and professional development.

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I have had conversations with many of Dave and Shelley’s authors and now see that it is all about passion. I was honored and very excited to have a conversation with Dave and learn his story. Listen and enjoy.

You and your family

I was born and raised in San Diego, CA and live there with my wife, Shelley, who is an educator and runs our consulting business with me. We have two children. My son, Hayden, is a senior in high school, and my daughter, Ashlyn, is a sophomore. We are just getting into the college applications with our son right now. His top possibilities are University of Miami and UC Santa Barbara. He’s a big-time scuba diver and into marine science so he wants to be on a coast somewhere.

The only time I did not live in San Diego was the five years I went to school at UC Davis as a psychology major which is a great major for educators or even in business. Understanding the mind and how people think is a critical thing.

Your journey as a student and an educator

I was a good student and did very well in school, but I was not highly engaged in or on fire about school. I was good at playing the game of school. I knew what I needed to do and I did that. I had some good and bad teachers. I was good at jumping all the hurdles and going through all the hoops I needed to do. My gateway into teaching was as a basketball coach.

The first job I ever held was for three summers with the John Wootten’s Basketball Camps in Thousand Oaks, CA. I came out of college doing various things and different entrepreneurial ventures and then took a job as the boy’s junior varsity basketball coach at high school.

I enjoyed working with the kids so much and coaching that I went back at night to get my teaching credential. Then I became a History teacher in the social studies department at the school where I was coaching and became the girl’s varsity basketball coach. It all started with basketball. I also met my wife, Shelley, in the night classes where we were both getting our teaching credentials.

Empty Kids Into the Gift Shop: Homework thoughts from Dave Burgess https://youtu.be/3CocrqSNGNM

Being on Fire

I do miss the day-to-day banter with students along with the kind of relationships you can build when you see someone every day for 180 days. But I am really on fire about what I do now and going around speaking and publishing. I don’t want to go back but I do miss the interactions with the kids.

I want kids to be on fire about school and knocking down the walls to get into a class. How it all started for me as teaching like a pirate was when my department chair reached out to me about being head of professional development. He asked me to put on PD about all the cool stuff I do for kids. About all the things I do in my room that no one understands. He said something that changed my life. “I don’t think you can, because I think the success in your classroom is just you and personality driven.”

“Too many people wait until they are ready to present. You are never going to be “ready.” Take that opportunity when it comes to you and then you get ready.”

I took that as a challenge. I knew I could teach this so I told him to sign me up for one of the workshops for my peers in the district. Then I walked away thinking “I don’t have a workshop, anything written down, or organized in any way.” I got relentless about writing everything down that I thought was successful in my class. But that wasn’t good enough because that was everything that I do. I had to take a step back and figure out where these ideas come from, to begin with. Why does this one work and not this one? It forced me to be more intentional about my teaching.

So that’s why I encourage people to present, submit sessions and proposals for conferences whether it is in your district, school site, or a local or national conference. When you are put in a position where you have to stand up in front of other people and present your magic recipe or secret sauce, it will force you to be more intentional about your teaching. You will so much more reflective. It made me such a better teacher.

Another thing, I signed up for my first professional development workshop before I had a workshop. With that deadline in mind, I came up with it. Too many people wait until they are ready yet. You are never going to be “ready.” Take that opportunity when it comes to you and then you get ready.

Teach Like a PIRATE

That’s how I came up with Teach Like a PIRATE. I wanted to come up with a theme and build it for my workshop. I wanted to be able to model and demonstrate some of the things that I do in my classroom in the workshop. I wanted teachers to feel what it was like in my classroom. If you list yourself as an engagement person and write up a workshop description that says you are going to teach teachers how to create a wild and outrageously engaging classroom that has kids knocking down the walls to get in, you better have a pretty dang good workshop. So I wanted to have a theme.

Pirates appealed to me. Pirates are…

• Unconventional
• Reject the status quo
• Willing to sail into uncharted waters
• Risk-takers
• Rebels
• Mavericks

I’m abnormally drawn to acronyms and came up with passion and enthusiasm and then realized there was a P at the beginning and an E at the end of the word: PIRATE

I got excited about the workshop and started submitting proposals to any conference in any state. I paid my own way to the conferences, flights, and hotel rooms. I was going into debt doing my thing but I had to do it. I wasn’t getting paid when I first started. A lot of people say that they are not going to present at a conference unless they are getting paid. I did so many conferences for free or paid to present because I wanted to go where anyone would listen to me. When I showed up no one knew then. People forget that when this started no one knew what Teach Like a Pirate was. I was just a crazy guy walking around the conference center dressed as a pirate.

I made my descriptions sound like you were going to Disneyland. Most sessions sound like they are going to the dentist’s office to get drilled. I literally walked around the conference center and recruited people and invite them to my session. My sessions were different. It was about lighting the rooms up on fire. Being outrageous. My goal when I stepped in front of people was to douse myself with gasoline of enthusiasm, spark it with flames of inspiration, and light up the room. That’s how it all started.

Disrupting Publishing

A person working for a publishing company was in the audience at one of my sessions and wanted me to write a book based on my workshop. She offered me a publishing contract but I did my research. I couldn’t believe what they offered as my take compared to what they got. They wanted to remove my creative part, the personal stories, and take control of the process. They asked where the research studies and where was the data. They told me that no administrator would buy my book, but I had a secret. I am married to an administrator.

This was my story, my manifesto. So Shelley and I did a ton of research and formed our own publishing company. We published Teach Like a Pirate right from our laptop on the kitchen table. We love our authors. Many wanted to write a book but did not want to start a publishing company. A crazy thing happened when Teach Like a Pirate took off. I was a full-time practicing classroom teacher when I wrote it. Half of the book was written on my son’s desk in his bedroom at a time in his life when he wasn’t able to fall asleep at night without someone in the room. It is now published in Spanish, Russian, Korean, 2 forms of Chinese, and we’ve sold over 350,000 copies. It was a wild ride.

Authors started coming to us so we decided to disrupt the industry. We tried combining the best of the publishing world and self-publishing and created a hybrid model. Authors have creative control and have their voice and their books come out the way they want. We have a full team and give our authors support during the whole process and help promote their book through social media.

Dave’s Contact Information

@burgessdave on Twitter
@dbc_inc on Instagram

Websites: https://daveburgess.com/ – https://www.daveburgessconsulting.com/
Dave’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/outrageousteaching

#tlap chat (8 pm CST every Monday night!)

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Dave Burgess is the New York Times Best-Selling author of Teach Like a PIRATE, co-author of P is for PIRATE, and the president of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. which delivers powerful, inspirational, and innovative books, keynotes, and professional development.

He specializes in teaching hard-to-reach, hard-to-motivate students with techniques that incorporate showmanship and creativity.  At a recent ceremony in Washington, D.C., he was awarded the BAMMY for Secondary School Teacher of the Year by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences.

Dave delivers the ultimate professional development experience for your teachers that is perfect for all circumstances from truly inspirational opening keynotes to full-day hands-on workshops.  It is a high-energy, interactive, and entertaining experience that will leave your staff unbelievably inspired, motivated, and with the practical skills to dramatically increase student engagement.

His presentations are a unique blend of outrageously energetic performance art and magic, mixed with an inspirational message of how and why to become more passionate in the classroom. All techniques and methods are modeled and fully explained so as to leave no doubt about how to apply the methods in the real world. Participants will leave with a tool-box full of dynamic presentational ideas that they can immediately use to improve their lessons.

As a teacher in San Diego, California, he was a 2001 and 2012 Golden Apple winner in the Grossmont Union High School District and the 2007-2008 Teacher of the Year at West Hills High School. He was voted a faculty standout for 17 consecutive years in categories such as Most Entertaining, Most Energetic, and Most Dramatic

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Music for podcast citation:

“Super Power Cool Dude” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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For all of the Conversations on Learning podcasts with Barbara Bray,
click on the podcast tab at the top, the logo below or go to https://barbarabray.net/podcasts/

This past year, I decided to step out of my comfort zone. I wanted to try some new experiences, but something was holding me back. I couldn’t figure it out. I think what was keeping me from finding my magic was fear. Fear of not having enough money so I kept taking jobs that kept me comfortable. Fear of looking foolish so I kept doing the same presentations. Fear of letting my family down. Actually, my family was pushing me to go out of my comfort zone. I didn’t realize I had a fixed mindset that I couldn’t do something. It was me holding me back.

So I decided to start over and rethink what I’m doing with my life. I needed to find my WHY, my purpose. You probably notice a theme around passion and purpose in my posts and podcasts lately. I tried to figure out why I was letting fear take over so I had help from my family, friends, and a coach. Here are some tips that helped me:

1 – Know Your Fears

Fear is a valuable thing. It keeps you safe and encourages you to be cautious when you need to be. But fear also limits you. Not everything you’re afraid of deserves fear or caution. Sometimes, courage and bravery are needed to make your life better. First, review your fears and if they are real. I had no idea I was holding myself back when I didn’t have to. So I took time to address each fear one at a time and talk about that fear. I needed to figure out on a scale of one to ten how real that fear really was. There were no fears in my work that were 10s. I made the fears bigger than they really were.

2- Challenge Yourself with Small Activities

One of my fears was changing the direction in my work. Before I jumped straight in, I needed to identify the direction I wanted to go. I had been blogging on my website Rethinking Learning since 2010 and before that blogged as Rethinking Learning on My eCoach since 2004. I really love to write and share. I figured the easiest thing to do was to start blogging again around passion, purpose, kindness, and agency. So I did. I’m loving it and writing every day. It’s about going slow and dipping your toes into what you’re passionate about.

3- Think of it as a Blesson

I learned from my husband that everything you do that takes you out of your comfort zone can be a blessing and a lesson: a Blesson. I love that. I decided to ask me a few questions: “What happened that I can learn from and learn about me? What am I learning about the other people who have gone through a similar discomfort? How can I use the information from both of these questions in my professional and personal lives?”

4- Be Your Own Coach

I am a coach for others and even help schools with their coaching programs. My coach asked me: “What questions do you ask when you are coaching someone out of their comfort zone?” I knew the questions and realized that I could do this for me. These are the questions I asked me: “What are the worst things that could happen if I go out of my comfort zone? What are the best things that could happen? Will I and others benefit from my actions? Would it be better to stay where I am? What is holding me back?”

5- Get a Handle on your Fears

After I identified some of my fears, I needed to do research on different topics. I needed to reinvent myself. That seemed so big, that I just kept doing the same thing even though it wasn’t working for me. I guess I didn’t feel confident in myself. I needed to get out and talk to people, visit schools, and travel. This is a mental trick anyone needs to do. It is about believing that you can do something if you do the research on what it is you want to do. The research builds knowledge. When you have that knowledge, you build the confidence you need to move forward.

6- Living with Uncertainty

Being uncomfortable is kind of the new norm today. The world is changing so fast that no one knows what is ahead for us. There is an uncertainty about the type of work is needed in the future. That impacts all of us. For me, I knew I couldn’t keep going down the same road because it wasn’t working for me and for others. The best habit for me was to practice becoming familiar with uncertainty and discomfort. I try to pick one thing each day that kind of scares me and act on it. The one big thing I did was start my podcast show. Each show puts me out of my comfort zone. I needed to push myself so I did big time. I really recommend the idea of picking one thing each day that scares you and go and do it. You will be amazed at how you will be able to live with uncertainty easier every day and build a growth mindset about whatever you want to do.

When you take at least one small step to living uncomfortably and tackle your fears, you will be amazed at what magic occurs within you.

Eric is an author, innovator, and speaker. He is a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education and before that he was Principal at New Milford High School in NJ. Eric formed the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework for all educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures.

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Eric is making change happen. The book he co-authored with Tom Murray, Learning Transformed, really opened my eyes about changing culture with the 8 keys. I”ve read most of Eric’s books and attended many of his keynotes. I have looked forward to talking to Eric and was so honored when he said yes to our conversation. Below are a few excerpts from the podcast along with resources and links:

Share about you, your family, and your background

I was born and raised in New Jersey, lived in New York for 13 years, and was a principal New Milford High School in New Jersey where we did some pretty amazing things. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by a dedicated staff and student body who was willing to embrace different and better to improve results. I played a small role to get everyone to see the part that they could play. I might have got the ball rolling in 2009, but the majority of my teachers didn’t change because they had to, they changed because they wanted to.When everyone in our community understood how we were changing, why were getting results along with the process and tools we used, it just became a celebratory culture of excellence.  Through that we had visitors from all over the world, and then I got asked to scale the work.

Right after moving to Houston

Now I am working with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) so my family and I moved from New York to Houston, Texas. We are now residing in Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD), an amazing school district. My son, Nicholas, is in middle school and my daughter, Bella, is in 5th grade where they are doing some incredible things transforming their learning.

Houston had a rough go being hit by Hurricane Harvey. It was a challenge, but we saw the best of people. We saw empathy, selflessness, and people rising up. I saw people organizing relief efforts using social media and on local Facebook pages. We were using push-to-talk applications sharing where demolition crews needed to go and where help was needed the most. I’ve used social media for my professional practice, but I saw it as a means for humanity to rise. My home was threatened but not  damaged so social media gave me the avenue to give back and help people in need. If it wasn’t for social media, we wouldn’t know where the help was or who needed help. We’ve rebounded and rebuilt. Thank goodness for the human spirit and technology to support each other when we needed it most. In fact, the experience helped my children look beyond their privilege.

[I’m including this article by Eric, Humanity’s Gift, written during the relief efforts about his and his family experience. Powerful!]

“Life can’t always be about what we do for ourselves. It has to be equally about what we do for others.”   Eric Sheninger

Change Begins by Believing in Ourselves

In our book, Learning Transformed, we say that “you” are the solution. The only way we can transform teaching and leadership if we all believe in our own abilities to initiate and sustain change. When we think about motivation and mindset, change begins with us. We cannot expect others to change if we are not willing to change ourselves. When we change ourselves and take calculated risks, we can inspire others. Success breeds success. Whether it is about increasing achievement or about our children owning their learning or hosting other schools to see how we were doing in the face of significant challenges. It all comes back to belief and the collaborative spirit. 

A Sense of Urgency

There is a sense of urgency to transform learning. I know everyone is talking about the why, but the how is so much more important. There was a sense of urgency for me to expose a vast body of research that supports all the talk about the why.  I’m in schools every week talking to teachers, walking in classrooms, and asking kids why you are learning what you are learning. What I’ve noticed is that the talk is not being backed up by scalable action. We have isolated pockets of excellence. We have districts and schools doing amazing things but we need to scale the work.

We need to prepare kids for a world that we have no idea what it will look like. We need to provide kids with human specific competencies not just skills that allow them to compete in an ever-changing world. We need to provide the research to back up what we need to do along with evidence that holds ourselves accountable to showcase a path toward efficacy.

How are we reaching our desired goals? How is it grounded in research and supported by evidence? Evidence should drive the conversations. When we talk about all this great stuff, we are able to show artifacts that support how we are changing teaching and leadership. We can keep talking, but we need to double our efforts in how we act to change things. There are a lot of great ideas but we have to account for the challenges schools have and how we act on them. This is why Tom Murray and I wrote Learning Transformed supported by evidence driven by research.

Leadership Lays the Foundation

I don’t have power now or a title. I’m not in a school, but I can talk about Laura Fleming who is a teacher at Milford HS who created a makerspace in the library. She did it. I just gave her the support and resources she needed to do the job. She had time conflicts trying to work with teachers so she created her own micro-credential platform to acknowledge each teacher’s professional learning. The most important changes that are implemented don’t come from people with titles in power, it comes from our teachers and our kids. If leaders want to have success with any specific mandate, they have to be able to articulate how they are doing that successfully. That’s how you persuade, inspire, and motivate those with the power and title to support the change.

When we talk about shifting mindset and practice, we need to focus more on the “what ifs” instead of the “yeah, buts.” If we focus on the “what ifs”, that how we get to a culture of YES. That’s how we get to really create a relevant, immersive, learning culture that primes kids for success.

What is Really New?

How can I craft a message that is relevant to the audience? Let’s talk about good, old fashioned research like Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget and current research from Linda Darling-Hammond, John Hattie to build a vast research base that supports change. Project-based learning, student ownership of learning, and collaborative learning is connected to research, and learning approaches are not new. Technology is not new — it is a tool that supports and enhances.

Here’s a great quote from William Horton, “If we don’t get instructional design right, all technology is going to do is speed up the rate of failure.”

We need to inspire people about their own sense of urgency. We show Gallup data in Learning Transformed that the longer kids are in school, the less engaged they are. This data shows us that if kids are not engaged, then how do we expect them to learn. We connected the research to schools that focused on the what ifs, implemented change, and found success.

Make sure you listen to the podcast to the end…

The discussions got deep around disrupting school — you have to listen to Eric’s discussions around compliancy and parental pressure. Then Eric talked about his daughter, Bella, and the principal at Wells Elementary School. Eric even interviewed the principal on Periscope.

Bella loves school because they got rid of homework, bring their own device K-5 to leverage technology, flexible learning spaces, and portfolio-based assessment. The best part is that my daughter is happy and the journey to get to the destination is more enjoyable. All the teachers are sharing on social media with evidence to back up the research.

Everything comes down to relationships. Without trust, there is no relationship. Without relationships, no real learning occurs. Show kids you care! Get kids to trust you!

Don’t prepare your kids for something. Prepare them for anything! All kids have greatness inside them. It’s the job of educators to find and unleash that greatness.

****

Eric is a Senior Fellow and Thought Leader on Digital Leadership with the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE). Prior to this he was the award-winning Principal at New Milford High School. Under his leadership his school became a globally recognized model for innovative practices. Eric oversaw the successful implementation of several sustainable change initiatives that radically transformed the learning culture at his school while increasing achievement.

His work focuses on leading and learning in the digital age as a model for moving schools and districts forward. This has led to the formation of the Pillars of Digital Leadership, a framework for all educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures. As a result Eric has emerged as an innovative leader, best selling author, and sought after speaker. His main focus is purposeful integration of technology to facilitate student learning, improve communications with stakeholders, enhance public relations, create a positive brand presence, discover opportunity, transform learning spaces, and help educators grow professionally.Eric has received numerous awards and acknowledgements for his work. He is a CDE Top 30 award recipient, Bammy Award winner, NASSP Digital Principal Award winner, PDK Emerging Leader Award recipient, winner of Learning Forward’s Excellence in Professional Practice Award, Google Certified Innovator, Adobe Education Leader, and ASCD 2011 Conference Scholar. He has authored and co-authored the following:

Learning Transformed: 8 Keys for Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today
Uncommon Learning: Creating Schools That Work for Kids
Communicating and Connecting With Social Media: Essentials for Principals
BrandED: Tell Your Story, Build Relationships, and Empower Learning
Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times
What Principals Need to Know About Teaching and Learning Science

Contact information

Email: Esheninger@gmail.com
Website: http://ericsheninger.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/E_Sheninger
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EricCSheninger

Rich Czyz is Principal of the Yardville Elementary School in New Jersey and Co-Founder of FourOClockFaculty.com and the author of his book, The Four O’Clock Faculty: A Rogue Guide To Revolutionizing Professional Learning.

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I started following Rich Czyz and Four O’Clock Faculty on Twitter several years ago and was amazed by how much he was sharing. Rich with Trevor Bryan post almost every day. They even wrote a section on culture in my book. When I finished reading Rich’s latest book, I just had to invite him to have a conversation. Below are excerpts from the podcast:

Can you share with my audience about you, your family, and your background?

I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with my wife and three children. We really enjoy the area and I work in New Jersey. I started as a fifth-grade teacher and worked my way up through instructional coach to technology coach to a supervisor and then as a director of the curriculum. I felt I needed to be back with students so I took a principal’s job at a wonderful place to be every day in the 2nd and 3rd-grade building. I’m lucky to hang out with kids every day and collaborate with teachers.

Why are you so passionate about changing the culture of professional learning?

I’ve sat through a lot of professional development and been responsible for planning professional development (PD). Sitting through a lot of it, I’ve felt that it is not where it needs to be. My personal belief is that professional learning and professional development is the one thing that educators can do in order to change education. They can take charge of their own professional learning. A lot of times PD is left in the hands of a couple of district administrators or building principal. Leaving it in their hands, sometimes teachers are not necessarily getting what they need. It is the one thing that can really change the outcomes that we are seeing in classrooms. We are missing professional learning and development that is connected to what we are doing in the classroom.

Is that why you and Trevor Bryan started the Four O’Clock Faculty and posted tips and ideas often?

Trevor and I were colleagues in my first job where he was the art teacher at a new school. When I taught 5th grade, he was my students’ art teacher. We found that we were very similar in our beliefs about education. Trevor and I had some ideas about professional learning and development to help colleagues grow and learn so we decided to start a blog and reflect on our own learning. It all started on a snow day in 2015 with unexpected time and decided that day was the day to start our blog, Four O’Clock Faculty. I wrote two posts that day that started it off. It gives both Trevor and I a platform for sharing our message which we think is an important one about really inspiring students with creativity, collaboration, and getting them to authentic, relevant learning. We’re excited about it and we post almost every day. We recognized that visuals and simple messages are what everyone seems to gravitate to. So we create visuals with tips and short messages for educators to learn something in a quick and easy way.

Read more about the origins of the Four O’Clock Faculty.

I read your new book, The Four O’Clock Faculty: A Rogue Guide To Revolutionizing Professional Learning. My focus for years has been professional development. Now I call it professional learning and this is the book all of us need to read. Tell me your journey in writing it.

It kind of started with a couple of blog posts early on for Four O’Clock Faculty. It kind of blossomed into an idea for a book. I realized that I have a lot to share about professional development that people would enjoy reading about. I reached out to several educators who had written books to ask them about the process of writing a book. I was fortunate to connect with Dave Burgess with his Teach Like a Pirate theme and the Dave Burgess consulting group in order to get the book published. When I first met with Dave, he said: “if this is what you want to do this needs to be your manifesto about professional development and professional learning.” That’s really what I tried to do by stating my beliefs about what professional development and professional learning should look like and hopefully help everyone with tips on how to improve professional learning in their own setting.

Why do you believe that professional learning should be meaningful and relevant for educators? What are a few learning experiences that support your ideas of meaningful professional learning?

For me, it all started with a learning experience that I had as a second-year teacher when we were implementing a new writing rubric when I taught math and science. The district provided year-long professional development on the new rubric, however, it was not something I was using in my math and science classes. At that point, I realized that I was forced to sit here and I’m not using this rubric and that I could use my time more effectively if I was able to work on some other things. It stemmed from that and other things that I saw as an administrator that professional learning is an important piece. A lot of times we are not giving educators what they need.

One example I always share is in my former district we used to force our school nurses to come to our staff meetings. When we were talking about language arts or mathematics, our school nurse was forced to sit there and listen. I recognized then that we are not doing it right. So if I’m a school nurse, help me learn about head trauma and where we’re going with concussions in athletics. Or if I’m a music teacher, what can I do to help my students learn in the music realm? We need to get professional learning that is meaningful and relevant. Districts can put some things in places like STEAM education or creativity by providing choice and integrating those big ideas into what is relevant for teachers.

What are a few ways to change a school or district’s culture surrounding professional learning one bite at a time?

In my previous district, we would focus on one staff meeting as professional learning as opposed to a list of policies and procedures. We also did an Edcamp to take that learning and put the responsibility back on our educators. Even now, as a principal of a 2nd and 3rd-grade building with 40 staff members, we try to focus our monthly meeting on growing as professionals. I like to to do a lot of modeling since that is an important piece of changing that culture. If, as the leader, I’m expected to see a certain type of instruction in the classroom, then I should be modeling that instruction for my educators at staff meetings. That professional learning piece is a huge part of that staff meeting culture. That is where you take one bite at a time because you have to take baby steps because not everyone is ready for the change. There are some people that are so ingrained in how PD has been done that it has to start small and build from the ground up. It takes a couple of years, but I think that culture can change around professional learning.

Let’s talk about the “Angry Administrator Update” that you include in each chapter. Do you have a story about this you would like to share?

So I believe I think differently than a lot of administrators and there are a lot of great administrators out there who are doing wonderful things. I think all of us need to connect with educators. I will always call myself a teacher first and try to never forget that. But there a number of administrators out there who do get angry when you try to change things. They’re kind of in love with the status quo and doing things a certain way. I just felt it was important to help those educators that were going to try to change professional learning to get that support that they need. So these updates are tips to help administrators who want ideas on how they can change and support their educators. It is about having the best interests of students in mind as well.

I have to ask you about the chapter about Going Rogue. Why do you call it a Rogue Guide? How do you start your own ROGUE professional learning?

The ROGUE chapter actually started as an early morning writing experience before I started my day with the kids and getting off to work. It was one of those inspirational mornings where I had recently talked to a colleague who was forced to sit through staff meetings that were just a list of procedures and policies. That colleague and a couple of others at his school decided to start their own weekly group where they read a blog post and meet to reflect on it. That’s kind of where that ROGUE spirit comes from and getting what they need. If they’re not getting what they need from their administrators or from the school district, then I believe it is important to get what they need on their own. I see educators at Edcamps on Saturdays who take time out of their personal lives to be together to grow as learners. I feel it is our responsibility as educators working with students to make sure we are doing everything we can to learn professionally.

ROGUE stands for Relevant Organized Group of Underground Educators. That’s the key piece. Sometimes you have to go a little underground if you are not getting what you need.

The one thing that is a real problem that I hear from teachers is time. Where can educators find extra time in their day to incorporate personal professional learning?

There is a chapter on Time. As educators, we tend to put more and more on our plates.  It seems like there is never enough time to do all the things that we used to do. One thing I would suggest is first to find those things on your plate that are not relevant or meaningful and not effective. There are things that we have been doing as educators that we continue to do just because we’ve been doing them. Those things probably can go so they can find more time for those things that are meaningful, relevant, and effective. As far as professional learning, from something as my previous district, our teachers were required to be in the building 15 minutes before the day started and 15 minutes after the day ended for students. So we took those extra 15 minutes before and after to learn something new. We did something called Tech Mex Tuesday combining that idea of Taco Tuesday and Tech and sharing with teachers. We would start right when students got on the buses and show a relevant tech resource along with chips and salsa. What usually happened is that teachers that were learning something stayed longer than the 15 minutes required time to continue their own learning. Lunchtime is also another time for learning even though it can be the only time that teachers get to themselves. But taking once a week or even once a month to sit down with colleagues and learn something new during that lunchtime can be an important step as well. That first step might be finding those ROGUE educators as collaborators who want to make learning better for students.

Let’s talk about Twitter. That’s how I met you. How did Twitter change your view on what is possible for education?

So Twitter completely changed my worldview. Before Twitter, I was the educator that was not connected. I swore off Facebook because I was told that students and parents would try to connect with me and I was told to stay as far away from that as possible. I attended a professional learning session at a conference where they were talking about Twitter, and I was able to open an account. I let it sit for a couple of months and then I came back to it. I saw people were sharing relevant resources and ideas. I was finding things that were helping me. The next thing I jumped into Twitter chats that are amazing sources of information for educators and just really connecting. So, the idea that I was able to connect to you and other educators out there was amazing. Now when I see you and others that I met on Twitter at a conference, I feel like I’ve already known them. Twitter allows that personal connection even before the face-to-face meeting. Twitter allows for that collaboration and sharing and extends learning beyond your four walls.

Would you like to add anything more for my audience?

I’d like to add what we are doing on the Four O’Clock Faculty blog posting micro-learning sessions. They are short videos around 2-3 minutes each. The idea is from my children who do martial arts where their instructor would do these short videos of skills. He would teach the skill, have them practice, and then jump into another skill. I was thinking about that in terms of education, so we created these micro-learning videos where teachers can get an idea of a skill or something that they can practice. Then there’s a call to action on how they can take that idea and bring it back to their classroom. For example, one idea was how to ask more effective questions in the classroom and how to get students questioning. The call to action was to have teachers to write 10 really good questions that they want to ask their students during that week. The micro-learning sessions are another way that educators can practice skills in a short amount of time frame.

***

Rich Czyz is Principal of the Yardville Elementary School in New Jersey. He is the co-founder of the Four O’Clock Faculty blog, which can be found at fouroclockfaculty.com. He is the author of The Four O’Clock Faculty: A Rogue Guide To Revolutionizing Professional Learning. Rich has a passion for modeling and implementing innovative strategies to help learners and teachers improve every day. Rich is active on Twitter (@RACzyz) #40CF and can be reached via email at richczyz@gmail.com. 

When you walk into your school, what do you see? Are kids motivated to learn? Do you see effort and persistence? Are teachers excited about all the kids in the school? Just as the Iceberg Illusion by Sylvia Duckworth, @sylviaduckworth, shows, sometimes we only showcase success after learning has happened. This post is about creating a culture of learning that is visible in your school as learning is happening.

Why do we need to do that? The idea of school is changing. It has to now because the world has changed and keeps changing. Life for our kids is so different than it was ten or even five years ago. For learners to grow and flourish, we need to create learning environments where every child is recognized as a learner while they are learning. Some kids never get showcased or recognized. A culture that values every learner will empower them to discover the joy of learning.

“Culture has been defined as ‘the way we do things around here.”
Richard DuFour

Schools have been doing things the same way for hundreds of years. Culture change or shift is defined as lasting changes to the shared ways of thinking, beliefs, values, procedures, and relationships with the stakeholders. A school needs trust in changing beliefs, values, and relationships. Change is a difficult process. There are so many types of relationships in schools that impact how people think about school. Teachers and leaders are learners, too.

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” John Dewey

Here are 18 ways several authors shared in their books how teachers and leaders can celebrate learning as the culture:

Recognize the joy happening right now in your school

I chose a few of Dean Shareski’s @shareski suggestions in his book, Embracing a Culture of Joy: How Educators Can Bring Joy to their Classroom Everyday, on capturing and sharing the joyful moments:

1. When the bell rings and students don’t leave because they are in the midst of an engaging conversation.
2. When students are fully attentive as the teacher reads them a story.
3. When students cheer at the success of a third try at a science experiment.
4. When a teacher asks students about their soccer game.
5. When a student solves a difficult problem.
6. When a student comes in early to work on a project.
7. When a teacher acknowledges a student as an expert.

Be the Change

According to Eric Sheninger @E_Sheninger and Tom Murray @thomascmurray in their book, Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today, here are a few of the strategies they suggest for leaders to help colleagues begin the process of changing their professional practice: 

1. Lead by example even when (initially) it might be a lonely place. Real change comes from colleagues modeling expectations for one another.
2. Share current research and practices that support the change you are championing.
3. Encourage colleagues who might be resistant to change to attend professional learning opportunities with you. At the very least, make sure you share your experiences during a faculty meeting or in personal conversations.
4. Help others see the value of the change on their own.
5. Be patient. Like you would your students, treat your colleagues with respect and remember how satisfying and rewarding it is when you help students succeed.
6. Get your students involved. There is no better way, in our opinion, to convince educators to change than when they can see firsthand the impact it has on kids.

Begin with Reflection

I chose a few of Pernille Ripp’s @pernilleripp, suggestions in her book, Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower your Students, on how teachers can reflect on making learning visible:

1. Film your teaching. Are you talking more than your learners? Are they not listening or were you too focused on covering the curriculum?
2. Have students time for you. Set the timer for 10 minutes and when it goes off, stop talking. If you need more time, negotiate with your students.
3. Give them time to be experts. Find out what your learners are passionate about. Then facilitate opportunities for them to share their expertise.
4. Stop answering all of their questions (or at least some of them). Ask a question back instead of answering or refusing to answer. Ask something like “How will you find out?” and maybe keep going by asking “How else can you find out?” Also, wait and see if other students share the answer or help another student.
5. Don’t stop asking yourself the hard questions. Would you still like being a learner in your classroom? Trust in yourself and your ability to create a better environment for all the learners who are in your class. Push yourself forward so that you do not become stuck in a routine. Learners change every year and so should our approach.

I want to come back to the idea of the Iceberg Illusion from Sylvia Duckworth at the start of this post. What is the culture you see when you go to your school? What are you missing? Is it only about the successes you see or is it the learning culture that happens every day? How can you make learning visible so every child is valued?

 “If culture changes, everything changes.” Michael Fullan

Thank you, Dean Shareski, Eric Sheninger, Tom Murray and Pernille Ripp for sharing your writing and ideas with the world! I highly recommend educators and those in my PLN to read your books. Thank you, Sylvia Duckworth, for giving me permission to use your drawing in this post. For more information about her work, please go to sylviaduckworth.com.

If you have any tips, resources, or comments on creating a learning culture, I welcome you to share below.

Guest Post by Linda Ullah @linda_ullah, Online Instructor, Krause Center for Innovation, Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California

In 1970, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote an article in The School Review (Vol. 78, No. 3 (May, 1970), pp. 429-434) entitled “Teaching as a Subversive Activity.”  They point out the best educational environments are ones that are open-ended and inspire wonderment through interesting activities. I started using the term “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” when No Child Left Behind was enacted. I just now learned where it came from. Forty-seven years later, in spite of legislation to the contrary, the best educational environments are still those that are open-ended and inspire wonderment through interesting activities that empower learners to develop agency.

My Experience to Wonder and Be Curious

Throughout my long career as an educator, I experienced several swings of the pendulum–several “reforms.”  Teaching, for me, has been a long process of learning. I’ve been fortunate to work with outstanding educators who really care about their learners. It is that caring that is the key to empowering learners to wonder, to be curious, to be excited about learning.

In the 1990s, while teaching at Edenvale School in the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, CA, my learners became interested in local history when the school was celebrating its 25th anniversary. Encouraged by my principal, Meril Smith, I wrote an Apple grant and got 8 networked computers, some software and a dial up AOL connection. The grant was based on our local history project which my learners entitled The Great Edenvale Detective Caper. This was my foray into project-based learning and into personalizing learning, although, at the time I was unaware of these pedagogies. I blundered my way into them instinctively because it seemed like the right thing to do. I still remember standing in the middle of my classroom watching every learner fully engaged in the project and not needing my help.  The project morphed and continued over the next three years.

During that time my learners, and other learners at the school, wrote, self-published and sold a book entitled The Mysterious History of Edenvale, Proceeds from the book were donated to the Adopt-a College program to help provide college scholarships for former Edenvale learners. Edenvale learners also wrote and performed in a local history play named “Edenvale 95111”, created a school-wide, local history day with games and activities for each period of history, designed and painted a local history mural on campus, worked with East Los Streetcapers to help design a piece of street art near downtown San Jose, and created a local history museum on campus. The project took on a life of its own because the learners were in charge of it. On occasion, I still hear from my former learners wanting to know if I still have copies of the book that they might borrow or purchase. I’ve managed now to save just one copy for myself.

As Edenvale school became networked, more opportunities for my learners to work with others presented themselves.  I joined some National Geographic Network science projects during which my learners worked with research scientists and learners from other schools around the U.S. and the world to do real scientific research on acid rain, recycling, water pollution.  This led my learners to become more interested in pollution, and I was fortunate to be selected and trained in Global Project Based Learning in Qiryat Shemona, Israel along with teachers from several other countries.  I was partnered with a high school in Sao Paulo, Brazil and my elementary school learners worked with high school learners on a cross-curricular project centered around water-pollution. My learners and I also participated in several Jason Project projects working with scientists and learners from around the world doing research on volcanoes, coral reefs, rainforests, etc. During this time I noticed that the more I allowed my learners to control what they wanted to learn about and how they wanted to learn it, the more excited and engaged they were.

In 1995, I took a part time position as a technology learning coordinator in my district for the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project–a federal technology challenge grant through Joint Venture Silicon Valley involving schools in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.  I remained in the classroom part time.  As a group of educators, the TLCs (technology learning coordinators) under the direction of Michael Simkins became a powerful professional learning community as we learned from each other about project based learning, collaboration, and coaching. My learners worked with learners at Frost Elementary School and the Live from Mars Project to create shoe factories (their choice) for a Mars Colony. The following year, my learners chose to create the Mars Virtual Olympics. The teachers I coached began to do collaborative projects with other classes and schools as well.  My passion for connecting classrooms around the world began to grow.

Three Questions for Educators to Wonder

1. How do we empower our learners through wonderment and interesting open-ended educational activities when standardized testing looms like a hungry tiger looking for prey?
2. How do we assure that our learners are fully engaged critical thinkers who remain the motivated, joyful learners they were before they started school?
3. How can we as educators assure that our learners have the skills they need to live and work in a global economy and in a world where technology connects us in both positive and negative ways?

Becoming Globally Literate to Understand Diverse Cultures

Globally literate people have an understanding of diversity, culture and language that allow them to live and work in peace with each other. We live in a culturally, racially, religiously and linguistically diverse world full of wonderful opportunities. Giving our learners the chance to work with learners who live in other cultures can only strengthen global understanding and hopefully promote world peace. In our global economy it is critical that our learners develop an inherent respect for the many cultures, races, religions and languages of the world.

The rationale behind global project-based learning is to give learners the opportunity to become aware of and appreciate each other’s cultures, languages, and religions so that they will develop positive working relationships around a common goal and develop an empathy for peoples from other parts of the world. Ultimately this multicultural understanding and empathy will promote a healthier environment, better living conditions for all, and worldwide peaceful relationships. Peace and prosperity in the 21st Century depend on increasing the capacity of people to think and work on a global and multicultural basis. As technology opens borders, educational and professional exchange opens minds. (Institute of International Education)

Real Learning Provides a Sense of Wonderment

The first question I get from teachers is: “…but I have standards to “cover” before the “tests”.  This is followed by the statement: “ I have to assure my learners show …x… on the state tests.”  Since I view teaching and learning in an era of “accountability” as a subversive activity, my reply is paying homage to standards and standardized test does not mean you have to sacrifice real learning. Real learning happens when learners are empowered, excited and engaged. It is that sense of wonderment that Postman and Weingartner discussed.

Begin by finding out what excites and interests your learners.  Discover (perhaps with your learners) where those interests and the standards intersect. Think cross-curricular.  If you are at the secondary level, look for a partner teacher who teaches a different content area.  If this is new to you, look for global projects that meet your learners interests and the standards.

Global projects you can join:

• Global SchoolNet
• Global Collaborative Projects  
• ePals
• iEarn
• The Global Classroom Project
• Launching a Virtual Book Club
• Kid Link
• Skype in the Classroom
• OneWorld Classrooms
• Online Projects for Kids
• The Jason Project
• Center for Integration in Engineering and Science Education Projects
• Flat Stanley
• Connect Your Class to the Outside World
• Projects by Jen (Links to an external site.)
• Global Collaboration Day Projects

Examples of virtual field trips:

• Google Expeditions
• 10 of the Best Virtual Field Trips
• Discovery Education–Virtual Field Trips
• Virtual Field Trips Web Site
• Skype in the Classroom-Virtual Field Trips
• Virtual Field Trips–Scholastic.com
• Virtual Field Trips for the Classroom
• This is What Google Expeditions Can Do in a Classroom

Find a friend or family member who is traveling and have them blog their trip for your classroom and/or take a Flat Stanley along with them. For example, in 2006 Flat Stanley went with me to Singapore and Bangladesh for a friend’s classroom.

Finally, look for a colleague or friend who teachings in another school, another state, another country and begin to plan a project that connects both of your classrooms.  My eCoach is an excellent collaborative planning tool.

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Former President Jimmy Carter once said, “We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”  One of the best gifts we can give our learners is to help them, through their interests, develop wonderment about the world and the people who live in it.

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Linda Ullah has a M.Ed in Special Education and a M.A. in Instructional Technology. She is an online instructor for the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College.  She has been an elementary classroom, special ed, Title 1 and GATE teacher, a technology learning coordinator, teacher in residence at the Krause Center for Innovation , a school development coach for the New Tech Network, a coach for the Friday Institute at NC State University, and a coach for Personalize Learning, LLC.

Follow Linda on Twitter: @Linda_Ullah

Guest post by Paula Ford @prford5, Kindergarten Teacher at Manuel De Vargas Elementary School in San Jose, CA. This post is a continuation of her post on Traveling Toy Animals with her learners in California and with Ashli Engle’s class in farming country in Indiana. 

Our question: How is the city and the farm the same and different?

We have now concluded our PBL, and would like to share the rest of our adventures with our traveling toy animals. The children worked together to answer all the questions their friends posed in Ashli Engle’s Kindergarten class in Indiana.  Each child sent a letter to their Indiana friend, individually answering their questions.  In addition, our class worked together to make an iMovie about what it is like to attend school in Silicon Valley.

Some of the questions from our Indiana friends asked about what our children’s parents do for work.  To help answer that questions, some of the children took iPads home with them to spend a day at work with their parent.

The children in Indiana mailed letters back to us, answering all of the questions we had posed.

They also sent us a few videos. The first was of the children walking around the perimeter of their school (they took the mice with them). We were amazed by the all the trees and the horses right on the edge of their school site!

Here is a video of what it is like to attend school in a farming community in Indiana:

Many of our children have never seen the snow, and were excited to see that our friends in Indiana play in the snow at recess.  This video had a strong message for us: though we may look different on the outside and do different things, everyone has something in common.  For example, they had a pajama day and read books to celebrate Read Across America day just like we did.  We are not so different after all.

Our mice looking out the classroom window in Indiana

Toy horses from Indiana 

After receiving the videos and answers to our questions, we found that we still had more questions we wanted to ask. We arranged a Skype video session for our children to ask and answer follow up questions.

Following the Skype session we reflected on our learning and revisited the original Driving Question: How is the city and the farm the same and different?  We realized that now we are experts on this subject, and we shared this knowledge with our friends and family.

Our PBL Wall

Though this PBL has officially ended, it really is just beginning.  Originally, we intended to return the mice and horses back to their original owners. However, the children decided that they would like to keep the animals they received as a special memory of this PBL.  In addition, the children have requested to share their contact information with each other so that they can continue to communicate together, and include their families in this process.

Our friends in Ashli Engle’s Kindergarten class in Indiana

Mrs. Ford’s Kindergarten Class with the horses and letters from our Indiana friends

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We know there is an urgent need to change education so all of our children are prepared for their future. I embedded this amazing video below from Prince EA “I just sued the School System!” I believe teachers, administrators, parents, and kids will find that this 6 minute video will help them get the conversations going around WHY they need to change the education system. However, before you watch the video, I suggest you consider HOW you might want to change the idea of “school.”  Try what is called “active listening” while watching this video by taking notes to capture your thoughts. Consider these three ideas:

1. Most teachers learned how to teach in a 20th century system. How can teachers shift their thinking so they are future focused?
2. Technology has impacted every part of our lives. How does technology impact what kids need to learn and the teacher’s role in the future?
3. Schools continue to look and operate like they did over 120 years ago. If there was no such thing as school, how might you design learning and the learning environment?

Video “I Just Sued the School System!!!”

What did you come up with after watching this video? Go ahead and make your case on what you see needs to be changed by adding a comment below. Or use this video to start your own discussions around change.