Fire the principal. . . well, not really

How much professional development would you receive, if your school had no principal? Depending on the kind of teachers you have, you'd get none or quite a bit.

Photo credit: Trianglewiki.org

Consider the kind of PD you have in the current top-down model. Most likely, the administrators at your school board or your principal decide what PD is provided. If you are like most teachers, in many cases, you may see this instruction as completely worthless.

How would things be different, if you decided the kind of professional development that took place at your school? What if you or your colleagues directed this PD? Isn't it possible that your interest would increase exponentially?

Staff-led PD is not such a wild idea. When you consider what principals present at PD and faculty meetings, most of it could be shared in an email with a few links to articles or videos. Teachers know what they need, yet they are rarely asked what those needs are. So, you want better PD? Try these steps:

• Tell your principal that you and a few colleagues want to design some staff-led PD.
• Poll your colleagues to see what they want (survey monkey is a useful tool for this).
• Find several highly-motivated staff members (these don't always have to be teachers) who are interested in designing a half of whole day of PD.
• Use resources like education technology sites (www.freetech4teachers.com and www.learnitin5.com are two good ones)
• Ask for feedback when your PD is complete.

This is a marvelous starting ground for staff-led PD and a good way to "fire" the principal.

Don't miss ROLE Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom, now available in the ASCD store, Barnes & Noble and at Amazon.com and Mark's new book, The 5-Minute Teacher: How do I maximize time for learning in my classroom

Bammy Awards raise serious issues

Have you heard of the Bammy Awards? Don't feel out of the loop if you haven't. The Bammys, produced by Bam Radio, are an Oscars-type award ceremony honoring educators. Bam, which touts itself as "The voice of the Education Community," is an excellent online radio network that produces high quality education programming.

In 2012, the network created its own version of the kind of popular award shows that honor TV and movie actors, right down to the red carpet. Unlike the Golden Globes or Oscars, though, the Bammys honor educators.

It's about time hardworking teachers get some positive pub, you may be thinking. At first, I felt the same. After further consideration, though, I quickly realized that I am not a fan of the Bammys. And I'm not the only one. Check out the amazing response to Pernille Ripp's Bammy post here.

Ripp is not so much anti-Bammy, as she is opposed to how the ceremony was produced. She specifically takes aim at jokes that were told, which may or may not have been in poor taste, and the lack of actual teacher awards presented live.

My issue is different, as I'm against the whole idea of the Bammys, in their current form. Why do teachers need red-carpet treatment? Why should there be a "Best" librarian or principal? Don't we teach kids that they should love learning for the sake of learning?

I believe the creators of the Bammys are well-intentioned. Where they missed the point is with whom they honor. Being a teacher isn't about receiving awards. It's about kids.

So if Bam Radio wants to produce a big event, even including a red carpet, I say make it 100 percent about students. Put the teachers where they belong -- in the audience!

cross posted at ASCDEdge

Don't miss ROLE Reversal: Achieving Uncommonly Excellent Results in the Student-Centered Classroom, now available in the ASCD store, Barnes & Noble and at Amazon.com and Mark's new book, The 5-Minute Teacher: How do I maximize time for learning in my classroom

Get students excited about their supplies

Do your students come to class without notebooks or folders? (It could be that they hate what they do with them, but that's a post for another day.)

What if they took pride and ownership in their supplies? This video demonstrates a nifty project that might just get reluctant learners to bring their notebooks and folders all of the time.

The evolution of a Results Only Learning Environment

Most traditional classes never evolve. They start stale and only get worse with each day of boring drill-and-kill routine. The Results Only Learning Environment is different, because it is constantly evolving.

Even if some activities are repeated periodically -- time for daily reading in a language arts class, for example -- the ROLE teacher is always finding new ways to engage learners. She is constantly pointing them to new technology and other sources of information.

This is especially important for reluctant learners. I have one class this year that has numerous students who are willing to sit idly by and do nothing. It's been a constant challenge to engage them throughout the year. There are days when I think maybe they need to sit and do worksheets, but I quickly realize that what they need is a new, exciting path to learning.

We work on computers often, with my students blogging and writing on private web pages. Even this typically-engaging activity seemed to be boring my reluctant learners. So, I decided to give them what they wanted -- more time to surf the Internet. I introduced them to the social bookmarking site, Diigo. All they had to do was read anything of interest, bookmark it appropriately for our digital library and provide a brief, well-written annotation.

Suddenly, my toughest class was reading, writing and bookmarking articles without extra goading from me. In fact, many started working on the project during their own free time.

Teaching in a results-only class isn't always easy, but when you persevere and find what truly gets students excited about learning, it's always fun.

Coaching grades is a mysterious practice

As a new semester and marking period began at my school, there were lots of "fresh start" lectures by teachers. Even I engaged in this activity, cajoling my more reluctant learners to reflect on the prior nine weeks and consider how they might improve in the second half of the year.

At the end of the day, a colleague was regaling me with an analogy she used with her students, aimed at enlightening them about their own performance during the second quarter of school. This science teacher compared her students to various fish. Some students were the bottom-feeders, doing very little to survive; others were sharks, feeding hungrily on every learning opportunity. She was particularly proud of strolling around her classroom and pointing out which students were sharks, a joke that I'm certain amused some while frustrating others.

As a language arts teacher, I appreciated the metaphor. Considering her anecdote later, though, I contemplated this mysterious practice of goading students into becoming sharks, nudging out the weaker fish, in order to get the few good grades that might be available. Why, I thought, don't all "fresh start" discussions simply encourage students to take charge of their learning, to increase their efforts.

Shouldn't we want our students to want to enter each grading period thinking about learning, rather than thinking about a letter on a report card? 

What is the logic of a homework pass?

Let me begin this post with the precursor that no one has yet clearly explained the logic of homework, so the idea of a homework pass is even more elusive to me.

My 7-year-old, who has more homework than some Ph.D candidates, I think, announced today that she won a homework pass, because she earned stickers for, what else? Completing homework.

Huh?

Is it just me, or is this the craziest system in education? First, teachers inundate second-graders with hours of homework, which they, of course, hate.

Then, if  the students complete enough homework, the teachers hand out a homework pass, which forgives future homework, as some twisted reward for doing homework in the first place.

So, what exactly is the message?

• Do boring homework. . . reason unknown.
• Complete a particular amount of homework, and you can stop doing homework for a night.

I don't get the logic. I wonder if my 7-year-old does.

More from the forthcoming book

My book, ROLE Reversal: How Results Only Learning Will Change Education As We Know It, is currently being reviewed by book publishers. I'm hoping it will be released this fall.

Yesterday, I shared the book's introduction and asked for your feedback. Your comment on that post would be very helpful.

Meanwhile, here's another brief selection from the book:

What Stakeholders Say

The first year I implemented a ROLE, I surveyed my students at the end of the school year, in order to get their honest opinions about what was a major change in teaching methods for them. Since I was the only teacher using results-only learning, my students were used to homework, tests, rows of desks and number and letter grades. I asked students to answer multiple choice survey questions about narrative feedback, year-long projects, the elimination of rules and other aspects of a ROLE. Since they didn’t put their names on the surveys, they were free to be as honest as they wanted.

Uncanny results

Of my 100 students 87 completed the survey. The results (no pun intended) were overwhelming. Ninety-nine percent of my students indicated a preference to results-only learning over traditional learning. A whopping 93 percent said narrative feedback was more valuable than number and letter grades. Ninety-five percent preferred project-based learning, and 84 percent said they believed rules and consequences were not necessary because students in a ROLE value learning and cooperation more than being disruptive.

It’s clear, based on this survey, student feedback provided in earlier chapters and the remarkable statistical improvements my students have made in a workshop setting, that results-only learning is popular and successful with students.

Results-only learning is revolutionary education reform that may scare traditional teachers.

What are your thoughts?

Update, March, 2012
The book, ROLE Reversal, is now under contract with ASCD and will be published in late 2012 or early 2013. I'll keep you posted on the release date.

Different paths, same outcome

Give four construction teams the exact same blueprint and identical step-by-step instructions, and they will likely build identical houses. This is how learning works in the traditional classroom.

The old-school way

A traditional teacher either lectures while students take notes or asks the students to copy instructions verbatim from a blackboard or overhead transparency. A task is given -- often in the form of a worksheet. Students are to apply the notes to the task, and each individual should reach the same result.

Of course, we know they rarely meet the objective, because they have no interest in a boring task, driven by rote memory. No thinking is necessary.

The ROLE way

A results-only classroom is different. In most cases, students work in small groups, and each group will choose a different path.  The final result of all groups may even look different, but the same learning outcome will be met by all individuals. They reach the objective through collaboration, autonomy and creativity. By choosing their own path, they build something unique, while real learning takes place.

What paths are your students taking?

Feedback and intrinsic motivation

The most critical part of a Results Only Learning Environment^TM is encouraging intrinsic motivation. It’s not as easy as defining it for students and saying that I want them to work hard and seek learning for learning’s sake, even though this is ultimately what I hope for. Intrinsic motivation has to be taught, re-taught and emphasized from the first day of school until the last day. It begins with the mantra, “Production, Feedback, Change."

The power of narrative feedback
I want students to value narrative feedback as an extension of an in-class lesson, so they can take the feedback and change the activity and improve it. Once students begin approaching learning this way, they will no longer look for points, percentages or letter grades on their projects and other activities. They will care only about the final results, which is what this type of education is all about.

What it looks like
Here are a few examples of narrative feedback that I have provided in my class:

Amber, I like your project so far. You are telling a very thought-provoking story. Some entries should be broken up, as they are a bit long. Also, check your facts; you mention Susan B. Anthony in an entry dated 1917. Anthony died in 1906. Well done overall, thus far, though.

Lucy, I love your story. Your character seems very real, with real emotion. Your writing is solid. Be careful, though, to proofread each entry carefully. For example, I saw this run-on in one of the early entries: “I heard a rumbling sound, I knew what was coming.”

This is a focus area for us, so be sure to correct it. Also, I'd like to see you start putting some of our vocabulary from either our vocab book or our literature book into your entries. Be sure to highlight these, if you do.

 Feedback like this helps fan the intrinsic motivation that I teach my students in the beginning of the year. The reward or punishment of a letter grade becomes less important than the specific, detailed feedback. Ultimately, students work harder, because they want the feedback.