Creating Shared Vision: Back to the Future

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change would be noticeable and enduring.  An understanding of the current reality and ongoing communication are required to create this kind of persistence.  Creating change that lasts also requires shared purpose and vision. 

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” (goodreads.com, 2018).  We define what we will be busy about, not by being visionaries ourselves as leaders, but by walking with others, so that together we create a picture of what we hope will be.

Envisioning possibilities together energizes action and creates collective commitment for the long haul. We need to know our destination.  Choosing the future doesn’t mean selecting from the paths that are already before us – it means creating that path.

When my district started working on a literacy adoption, representatives from schools and stakeholder groups got together to define hopes and dreams about literacy learning.  We used a process that has become my favorite for visioning work, the Back to the Future protocol.  We started by dreaming big – what would literacy learning look like in our schools in five years? But here’s the trick: We spoke as if it already was. Using the present tense, we said things like, “Students are sitting around the room with books in their hands and they are so engaged that they don’t look up when someone walks into the room.”  On a chart labeled “Future,” we wrote: Students are engaged in independent reading.  We continued our visioning, filling in the Future chart with descriptions of things as they could be, describing them as if they already were.

Then we came back to the present.  On our “Present” chart, we described the existing state of literacy learning. We drew on the data about current proficiency levels and our own experiences in the classroom to describe our current reality.  It was not quite as rosy as the hoped-for future.  Putting a blank chart between our “Present” and our “Future,” we detailed our “Path,” what it would take to get from the realistic present we’d described to the future we pictured.  The details in our plan convinced us that our dreams could be realities.

To create a shared vision, we keep communicating with all the people who care about the change: teachers, administrators, parents, and students. We want everyone to be part of creating the picture of what the future will be like.  So, we talk about hopes and dreams.  We project ourselves into a hoped-for future.  When we imagine ourselves and our students living and acting in that potential future, we gain insights about what it will take to achieve that goal. When we are clear and spend real time in that future place (if only in our minds), we people the place with ideas that can become realities.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

An administrator’s view on why coaches are important:

https://dennissparks.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/using-instructional-coaches-effectively/

A great list of novels in verse:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=406

The social brain is the gateway to learning (and social context vs. online learning):

https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain

Coaching about when to use open and closed questions:

https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/v6.1.htm

Teaching tips for adding diverse texts for reading and writing:

https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/trtr.1759?author_access_token=et4KN73P5MzraPnrGcZ6T04keas67K9QMdWULTWMo8N2-YZG8OMSPZ-N9ZTpkuEeUTVa5ZIabqtU8XgQ4Y_bvwfQi5GGPoKbVIWtvvj-_bROb2FAEQsfkQBy5lkLBfP4&

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Making Tracks for Change

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change will be noticeable and ongoing.  Continuous communication is required to create this kind of persistence.  It’s also important to recognize that change that lasts is built on a deep understanding of our current reality.

Too often, schools completely alter their course rather than making minor corrections that can result in major improvement. Imagine a train leaving town and taking a branch off of the original track. Initially, there are only a few feet between the old track and the new – but the further and further the train is from the branch in the tracks, the more those tracks diverge. This image demonstrates how even small pedagogical changes, if they are maintained, can result in significant improvement.

Rather than making drastic course corrections, appropriate adjustments are suggested through careful data analysis.  We can look at standardized test scores from a variety of perspectives.  What does it tell us about advanced students? About those who are below proficient? What can we learn about traditionally underserved populations?  To get a more complete picture, we should take a look at all kinds of data, not just standardized test scores. Samples of student work provide insight. Observations verify, clarify, or refute data from other sources and give us new questions to ask.  Surveying people who care can give us data about specific practices. Deep data dives help schools understand and develop their own capacity.

When my district was preparing to upgrade our literacy curriculum, we noted the progress students were making in schools that had guided reading groups. Knowing that some schools didn’t have access to books appropriate for guided reading, we put this on our wish list for things to change. Knowing what was working at some schools helped to guide our vision for change.

In education, we are always looking to improve.  We want to do better for all our students. Finding a balance between new ideas that may be successful in the future and expansion of practices that have been successful in the past supports improvement and creates sustainability. When decisions about change are guided by many kinds of data, we are able to identify both areas where change is needed and things that are working that should have ongoing support. Small course changes based on our understanding of our current reality can lead us to the future we’ve envisioned.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Classroom arrangements and the social brain:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/social-classroom

Thought-provoking ideas about what reading is and how we can help students grasp that idea:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2044

Ways to support the development of executive functions:

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies/at-a-glance-classroom-accommodations-for-executive-functioning-issues

ABC’s of Effective Coaching:

https://twowritingteachers.org/2018/08/02/the-abcs-of-literacy-coaching-reminders-for-the-start-of-a-great-year/

Protocols for student-led discussions:

http://lindsayannlearning.com/student-led-discussion-strategies/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Sustaining Change: Just Keep Talking (and Listening)

In a recent post, I talked about the pendulum swing of education and the ongoing search for the holy grail that will solve education’s ills. I cited research that it takes three years for new initiatives to be implemented sufficiently to produce significant, measurable improvement. How can coaches and other instructional leaders encourage the necessary stick-to-it-iveness? When I faced this problem leading a million-dollar literacy adoption, I dug into the research about change – personal, business, and educational, and I mined a few gems that I could apply.  Perhaps the most important tool for creating persistence is communication.

Throughout a change process, communication within and to stakeholder groups is key. “Stakeholder groups” is a clinical term for “everyone who cares.”  This means teachers, parents, administration, and even students.  This means bringing groups of people together to talk, collecting what they talk about, and doing something with it.  Don’t ask for input unless that input will make a difference. Asking and not acting is disingenuous and destroys trust. Be transparent about how the information gathered is being used. Communication doesn’t just mean telling. It means building community – listening, understanding, dialoging.  It is ongoing – important when we begin to consider a change and continuing thereafter.  The bottom line is, you can’t go in with your own agenda, no matter who you are.  A superintendent is doomed to failure if the initiative she proposes isn’t grounded in what the stakeholders say. The same is true for a principal, literacy coach, or department head.  Start with what the people say.

With the literacy initiative I lead, the hardest thing, initially, was convincing people that there wasn’t a pre-set agenda, that decisions really hadn’t already been made.  I said this, and they didn’t believe me. At first, even my actions (survey groups, hold public forums) were seen as hollow. But eventually, my actions showed that the opinions of the collective were important to decisions. The late nights I spent tallying survey results, creating summaries of focal group conversations, and showing how these led to next steps eventually convinced people that what they said mattered. When people know that what they say matters, they buy in for the long haul.

Can you think of a change that would improve instruction in your school or district? Start talking with people about it in systematic ways. Decisions will be stronger because of what is said, and as the process unfolds, folks will be more likely to stay the course.

(More gems for change that sticks will be featured in upcoming posts.)

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Ways to make teaching personal (I especially love the idea of handing a parent a photo to start parent-teacher conferences!):

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=794

Do you ever feel lonely as a coach?  Here are some ideas for combatting that loneliness:

https://blog.teachboost.com/the-loneliness-of-coaching

How to’s for a group essay writing assignment that improves students’ writing:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/group-work-really-works

This review of reading research comes from a psychological, not an instructional, perspective, but offers helpful insights for teaching nonetheless:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100618772271

Science and poetry that celebrates skin tone:

https://www.rethinkingschools.org/articles/celebrating-skin-tone

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Turn Up the Learning

A teacher’s day is full of hundreds of decisions: instructional decisions, like, “How should I phrase the next question?” Logistical questions like, “Do we have time to finish this activity before lunch?” Psychological questions like, “What does this child need to feel safe in my room?”  Questions like these have become so routine that they are subconscious, asked and answered almost without our awareness.  Raising these questions to the level of awareness helps us define and refine our teaching philosophy, our values and purpose, and our teaching craft.  As instructional coaches, helping others define and refine their own responses to such questions is a way to support their ongoing improvement.

One way to bring instructional decisions to the fore is through a pre-modelling conference.  You know that modelling provides a vision for what an observing teacher’s future instruction might look and sound like.  To turn up the learning that modelling provides, elevate the questions that you will be considering as instruction unfolds, and highlight them in the pre-observation conversation.

This week, a 4^th grade teacher, Alice, modelled a lesson on using text evidence to support inferences about characters. In the pre-observation conference, she described how she would begin with a quick thumbs-up self-assessment of students’ confidence with this practice.  She suggested that her observing colleague, Crystal, note not only how many thumbs were down, but also how she adjusted the lesson based on that information.  Alice said she would be asking herself, “Do they need me to go back and review our anchor chart, or are they ready to move forward?”

The next part of the lesson was a read-aloud of a Time for Kids article about a child inventor.  Alice said she would be paying attention to whether students seemed engaged.  If not, she might encourage them to follow along on their copy of the text or on the projected copy on the screen. The setting for the article was a remote village in Africa, very different from her own students’ experiences. Alice knew she would be looking for signs of understanding or confusion as she read. She would be asking herself, “Are they getting this?”

Later in the lesson, students would be working with partners to match character trait cards with evidence from the text. Alice would be listening in on conversations, asking herself if students were able to justify their responses. She realized the cards could possibly be matched in more than one way, and the rationale provided was her window into students’ understanding. She suggested Crystal listen in on the probing questions she asked to assess and support students’ thinking.

Students’ independent practice during this lesson would be to lift their own evidence from the text to justify a list of character traits. Again, Alice cared about the rationale; again, Alice encouraged Crystal to listen in on the questions she was asking.

Wrapping up the lesson, Alice explained that she would ask the self-assessment question about students’ confidence with citing text evidence, just as she had at the beginning of the lesson.  As she monitored students’ responses, Alice would be asking herself whether there had been enough change in students’ responses to justify moving on, or was more practice warranted? Crystal would be noticing this, too, as she watched how the lesson concluded.

When it came time to go to Alice’s room for the observation, Crystal’s observation was supported by the chart she had completed during their pre-observation meeting that looked something like this:

Student Learning Activities	Points to Notice
Thumbs-up self-assessment re: confidence with citing text evidence Real aloud about child inventor Matching traits & evidence with partner Independent practice finding text evidence to support character traits Thumbs-up self-assessment re: confidence with citing text evidence	How many thumbs up?  Move forward or review anchor chart? How does T keep Ss engaged? Are Ss confused? What ?s does T ask? Are Ss talking about their reasoning? What ?s does T ask? Can Ss justify their responses? What ?s does T ask? Do Ss feel more confident?

Crystal was prepared with her own questions to guide the observation as Alice modelled this lesson on citing text evidence.  Her awareness was raised about the questions Alice would be asking herself while teaching.  As the lesson unfolded, both teachers were more aware of their own instructional thought processes.  The pre-modelling conference prepared them for a thought-filled observation and debrief conversation.  It turned up the learning for both of these teachers.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Ways administrators can support coaches:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coaching_teachers/2014/10/10_ways_for_administrators_to_.html

Using technology to meet existing learning goals:

https://digitalpromise.org/2018/08/21/instructional-technology-coaching-can-help-teachers-create-powerful-learning-experiences/

Using drama and role playing for English Learners:

https://www.middleweb.com/38032/try-drama-and-role-play-with-english-learners/

Great non-fiction reads and how to incorporate them throughout the day:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2875

An inquiry into inquiry:

https://ccira.blog/2018/09/04/an-inquiry-into-inquiry/

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