by Andrew K. Miller | Oct 5, 2011 | ASCD, Blog, InService
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
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Why might teachers be pessimistic about setting aside valuable time for professional development?
One major reason is that teachers often have little to no role in designing their own PD. But an often even more pervasive reason is that PD time is misused or wasted on nonessential items. Here are three quick tips for maximizing the time devoted to PD:
Parking Lot: If something comes up during PD that is unrelated to the focus and can be addressed via e-mail later, put it in the parking lot.This can be a digital or physical space or a piece of paper where those requests are honored, but also put to the side, so that the time is sacred to the task at hand.
Use Digital Tools: Instead of spending 20 minutes of valuable PD time to go over logistics or schedules, capitalize on digital platforms to push out general info and announcements. Perhaps you post important information on Edmodo or a Google Doc, have your teachers read and ask questions by a certain date and time, and then come to the meeting with those answers ready. Make sure that the information being pushed out is manageable and also held in one space. This helps to make sure there isn’t password and destination overload for teachers, and ensures documentation for future return and reflection.
Set Next Steps: At the end of a PD session, set next steps with teachers that include dates and times, deliverables, and locations—perhaps a digital collaboration space to get more information or continue work. When next steps and goals are set in a concrete way and teachers can see a product connected to their PD, then the time spent working toward goals will be sacred.
How do you make sure PD time is time well spent?
by Andrew K. Miller | Sep 21, 2011 | ASCD, Blog, Whole Child Blog
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. View Original >
Project-based learning (PBL) is a fantastic way to increase parent and community involvement in your school in a truly authentic way. Instead of finding lots of little strategies to engage parents, PBL provides an opportunity to use one part of your school identity, the curriculum and instruction, as the leverage to have parents present at the physical space. Here are some tips and strategies on how to use PBL to increase parental involvement.
Public Audience
One of the essential elements of effective PBL is a public audience. Every PBL project must have a public audience. This can look like a lot of different things. The public can be judges or audience for the final culminating work or presentation. The public can come in during the middle of project to help coach students on their work as experts in the field. There are a lot of options. All of these could be parents. Every parent has some area of expertise to share, from health care to technology. I recommend creating a roster of parents, their areas of expertise, and how they would be able to volunteer. Parents will want to come to school if their knowledge is leveraged in a legitimate way.
Educating Parents about PBL
Because PBL is nontraditional, it is imperative that parents understand what it looks like, what the grading expectations are, and why the school believes it works. Parents are going to ask the same questions other community stakeholders will ask. “How will this help my child do well on the standardized test?” “Why are you grading 21st century skills?” “How will you help my child who doesn’t like to work in groups?” You will get these questions, so be prepared, and have education available for parents about the components of PBL.
Transparency of Projects
Every time you do a PBL project, it is important to let parents know what work your students are doing, and also to excite them about it. Communication with the home about schoolwork is nothing new, but this provides a focused, timely moment to communicate. In addition, it also provides an opportunity to debunk any misunderstandings about the PBL project that is occurring. If you are doing a project on health and AIDS, you can take the time in the letter home to parents to assure that the project is not sexual education. A quick e-mail or letter home about the PBL project can excite parents, solicit their expertise, and clarify expectations.
Culturally Responsive Projects
Find ways for the products you have students create to be culturally responsive. Find ways to weave student culture into the project so that parents see that it is being valued in the work students are doing. If you are having students do a project on world religions, then have each student reflect on his or her family and personal beliefs. If you are having students investigate hidden histories of the oppressed, have them investigate the cultures of their families and communities. Make it intentional.
Because the public is an integral part of PBL, it is a real way to engage parents in the school and work that students are doing. It is not without challenges, but with these tips, you can make parents partners in an important part of your school identity.
by Andrew K. Miller | Jul 13, 2011 | ASCD, Blog, Whole Child Blog
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. View Original >
Physical structures should match school cultures and learning modalities, not the other way around. Despite what some might say, physical structures communicate a lot about the learning environment and what to expect. Just like we set up seats for the first day of school to set a tone, the building communicates a tone as well. Throughout my visits, I’ve come across many innovative buildings that really set a tone for safe school culture and innovative learning. It’s not about technology and bells and whistles; it’s about the layout and ways that the walls talk.
My first two examples come from Dubiski Career High School in Texas. Where are the traditional lecture seats set up? Outside the classroom. These formal stations are set up throughout the school to allow for presentations, formal lectures, and other similar learning experiences to occur, but not in the official classroom. In fact, it is hard to tell where the learning environment begins and where it ends, hence creating the message that this is a continuous learning environment. This structure also communicates that learning occurs in many different places and in many different ways. Traditional lectures are not the focus but are used when appropriate, and this message comes across quite clear.
Another example: The school embraces different kinds of content presentations, as in the example of its mock trial room. The school creates a variety of spaces to indicate that learning and demonstration occur in different ways, keeping students on their toes and allowing for innovation and creativity. Overall, the physical structures of Dubiski Career High School communicate that learning is innovative, seamless, and appropriate to the objectives.
Dubiski Career High School hallway (Photo credit: Andrew K. Miller)
Dubiski Career High School mock trial room (Photo credit: Andrew K. Miller)
Manor New Technology High School, also in Texas, has physical structures that communicate both in terms of learning but also in terms of school culture. I’m going to focus on school culture examples. Classrooms within the building have large windows that open into the hallway. It communicates transparency of the learning, both for the faculty and for the students. Classrooms are not isolated. On the contrary, classrooms are open and welcoming. In addition, students and teachers share the space.
Student work is prevalent throughout the school, covering parts of windows and walls. Student ownership is the clear message that is being communicated. Yes, faculty share the space, but share is the key word and only a fraction of what students own. In addition, students claim ownership of the school walls in innovative and creative ways, as evident by the photo of the school wall. In this case, student work led to designing a mural that would remain on a school wall. What an excellent example of a high-stakes audience, which we know raises the level of student work. Here students are given the opportunity in the classroom environment to own the school, communicating that this place is first and foremost about the student.
Manor New Technology High School hallway (Photo credit: Manor New Technology High School)
Manor New Technology High School mural (Photo credit: Manor New Technology High School)
It would be great if we had the money to create innovative new structures to mirror rigorous learning and safe school culture. I know that many use this as an excuse not to try. Instead, I would encourage you to find ways, no matter how small, to create structures at your school that communicate a message that school put students first, that school is a safe place, and that innovative learning occurs. Look at everything from the schedule, to the way you set up your furniture in the classroom, to the space on the walls you give to students. You can start now to push for better physical structures at your school.
by Andrew K. Miller | May 18, 2011 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on ASCD Express, a regular ASCD Publication focused on critical topics in education. This article appeared in Vol 6. Number 12, the focus topic being effective school turnaround models and practices. View Original >
Turnaround schools have a unique situation and potential. Because of their mandate to overhaul a school and depart from business as usual, turnaround schools have the ability to create an appropriate culture from the ground up. Professional learning communities (PLCs) can be an ideal way to build that culture.
A PLC refers to a group of educators purposefully collaborating to focus on learning for all students and holding themselves accountable to the results, explains Richard DuFour. DuFour worries that PLCs are at a “critical juncture” where both effective and ineffective implementation has occurred.
A PLC, done well, can be a great tool to build and sustain an effective culture for all members of the school, especially if the staff drives it. However, I have often seen PLCs that aren’t really PLCs. This happens when the administration imposes it from the top down. There’s a lack of buy-in among staff members, who see it as just “another thing to do.”
The following tips can help a turnaround school take advantage of the opportunity to build an effective PLC from scratch.
Have Everyone Create the Norms of the PLC
When first starting your PLC, norms and operating procedures need to be established. It is imperative that these come organically from the entire staff.
These should be a set of four to six norms that are continually referred to throughout the year. They should also be short and pithy. As new staff members are integrated, these should be refined and revisited. It will help foster authentic communication, organization, and trust.
Separate Meetings on School Logistics from Professional Development Time
When it comes down to the week-to-week, there needs to be a separation between professional development and staff meetings about school logistics. These logistical or nuts-and-bolts conversations might be about signing out textbooks, a new disciplinary procedure or protocol in communications with students or parents, announcements from student groups, and even technical support accessing the learning management system. All are necessary discussions, but they need to be separated from PLC conversations. For example, professional development about the integration of technology into the classroom is different from training in the technology tool that will be used.
Schools should consider using technology to disseminate logistical information. Can you use an online forum to change problem wording on a schoolwide document? Can you use e-mail effectively to disseminate critical information? Can you record jings or webinars to train teachers in your school’s technology? The answer to all these is yes! Differentiate between the two uses of valuable staff time so that you can guarantee that the professional development time is sacred and reserved for critical reflection and growth as a professional.
Create Opportunities for Staff to Evaluate and Be Evaluated
All too often, there is one evaluator of a teacher. However, we all know the collective wisdom that is in the room: everyone in the school community and on teaching staff has strengths and weaknesses. Present evaluation protocols and criteria clearly and openly. Have staff members and administrators practice using them in a variety of classroom visits. Build in reflection time and goal setting. When evaluation becomes ongoing and done through a lens of trust and community, it becomes less stressful.
Keep a Focus on Mission, Vision, and Identity
Often, turnaround schools get an influx of funds, and the temptation is to spend it on a variety of resources and training programs. If you have multiple curricula, tools, and structures, it can often be just as burdensome to the new teacher as to the new PLC. A school might try to be a standards-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), PBL (problem-based learning), or RTI (response to intervention) school that uses a variety of technologies and hybrid learning. Once you start doing everything, it becomes daunting and teachers can easily burn out. Educators recognize the common experience of doing too much and trying to meet the needs of everyone. Whether a school calls itself a problem-based learning STEM school, a hybrid career tech academy, or a standards-based RTI school, keep your focus.
Find the few things that really align to your mission, vision, and identity. It will keep professional development relevant and focused and increase morale for the entire PLC. If you feel that you can’t lose a piece, find how it might fit under the umbrella of a larger component.
Just like in a good PLC, use these selected tips and strategies to build a culture-shifting PLC from the ground up so that it will be sustainable. Do it the right way—or don’t do it at all.
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