my version of transparent, collaborative leadership...with a Teamann twist
I had the pleasure of presenting at the Texas ASCD conference this week with a principal here in the Wylie ISD. We were a part of an iPad roll out last year and wanted to speak to our experience. It was a lively group and we were able to get into some great conversations. Below are the challenges we discussed, and the presentation itself.
October challenge!
And our presentation! Please let me know if you have any questions!
November integration,
Amber
I love that my campus is full of educators who recognize the variances in students abilities. How completely overwhelming to look at 22 (or 44! or 66!) students and realize that in order to make instruction happen at their level, you’re going to have to make some instructional magic happen. We’re really focusing on a workshop model classroom, structuring all instruction around small groups. It’s a work in progress but here by week 5, I am already starting to see it happen!
When looking at ways to differentiate, if you’re not able to make a small group rotation happen, there is always the three C’s: choice, challenge, and change.
Choice: Whether it is a book at their level or a menu level activity, give students the opportunity to make a choice. Our kinder team worked out a BINGO style activity so that student could be directed to activities they NEEDED to complete, but options were fun enough that the others they wanted to complete. They can create items, whether it be digitally or kinesthetically. The level of engagement and ownership escalates with my first grader when she gets to CHOOSE what her activity work looks like. Even something as basic as flash cards vs an app on the iPad, if it was her choice, she’s more likely to stay all in.
Challenge: How can the activity that the class is working on be tweaked to be more challenging for some students? A Makerspace is a prime example of a station that allows students to be challenged. Allowing students to conduct research on a given topic, or being challenged to find a local “expert” for the class to connect with could also raise the bar on an activity. Technology allows for students to create way more creatively than a paper pencil exercise…from an explain everything video to having a twitter poll…students who feel like they are actively involved in the learning process through a classroom challenge will be more engaged and inherently, stay on task!
Change: Research shows that just making a change can allow for differentiation at times in the classroom. From what the student is asked to complete to the manner in which is delivered to them. What if you recorded instructions for a project/product and a group of students was allowed to receive their directions in that manner? What if one group created a game but another group created a quiz over the same content? I saw students today taking pictures of the different states of matter inside the classroom…what if one group of students were allowed to search outside of the room? An easy change that ups the complexity level of the activity…
Even within a PLC or planning session, it wouldn’t take too much extra time for a team to throw out several easy ways that an activity could be differentiated. How do you make this happen in your classroom or on your campus?
DifferentiateN discussing,
Amber
Confession: I’m not that great with technology.
I know, I know…”Technically Teamann” and all that jazz. But really, I’m not great with technology.
I can’t code. I couldn’t reroute an access point. I don’t build computers. I don’t develop software. I don’t build apps. Or teach people how to do ANY of those things. I can troubleshoot (via the Google) any technical problems, but I can’t take apart a machine. I can’t write HTML or Flash. I can’t talk shop with the IT department. I’m just not that great with technology.
You know what I am good at?
I am able to use tools that are readily available to accomplish my personal and professional goals and to develop relationships. I am good at connecting and seeing how much this benefits all of those around me. If I have a teacher who is struggling, I can connect them with an expert in just the area they need help with. If I have a student with a particular passion, I know how to find amazing resources to help them. If I need my bucket filled, I have made connections, made friends, with like-minded people who lift me up and inspire me from all over the world. I have found a way to share my experiences & my voice with anyone who cares to listen.
If you stop and reflect on our students entering the workplace, becoming grown-ups, and functioning in this world that we live in, we can all agree on a few things. We know being a good test taker is not a sought after characteristic by today’s, and most likely not future, employers. They have to know how to collaborate, how to develop relationships, how to CONNECT with others. They need to know how to be responsible for their digital footprints, how to own the data that is collected from them and about them.
These are the skills our students need, and being future-ready means we as educators have got to figure out a way to add those skills to the already overflowing plate we have in front of us.
One important facet in my role as an administrator is to empower my staff and our students to be the very best versions of themselves, knowing that our future will be about the advantage of the opportunities available. If we are increasingly moving to become a digitally competitive society, we need our students to be able to function, and function well.
Leveraging technologies to partner with parents to help them understand the importance of what their child can do and the GREAT things that are happening with their students each and every day should be always be on our list of best practices. Today there are too many available options to share and connect with our families and stakeholders to not utilize them!
I’m not that good with technology, but I am passionate about using it to accomplish my goals. We only have so many hours in a day to impact the life of a child, and if by intentionally applying what we have available to model the collaboration, communication, and creation, we can get our students off on the #futureready foot!
Click here to learn more about the 2015 Digital Learning Day. I’ll be in Washington on March 13th at #DLDay with my session, “Who’s the Boss: Take Charge When it Comes To Your Professional Learning”. You can also see a complete list of presenters here.
Charge taking,
Amber
There is clearly not enough time in the day. I have a never ending to do list that seems to grow more than it shrinks. Recognizing that I don’t have enough time to do all the things that I have to do, much less what I want to do, I still feel like this post needed to shared.
Collaboration isn’t an option, it is now a necessity.
Knowing that we can get bogged down in our buildings, or in our classrooms, can make us feel like taking an extra step to communicate and collaborate with other teachers may push us over the edge. But sometimes? It can lead to the most organic of discoveries!
Last week, I was scrolling through Instagram, I came across a post from another educator friend talking about the website Popplet. Popplet is a visual mind mapping tool that students can use to organize facts and thoughts and learn to create relationships between them. I took a screenshot and sent it to two of my teachers whom I thought would enjoy teaching with it.
The next week, one of them, a second grade teacher, had her students use popplet to write word problems. They had to roll a dice and get three numbers. They then used those three numbers to create a math word problem and had to show different ways to solve it on a popplet.
The other, a fourth grade teacher, used it to illustrate all the different forms of numbers they had been studying. The students wrote one form of the number in the middle and then connected all of the different ways it could be written around it.
His comment? “You never know what a students doesn’t know until you ask them to create something.” It began very clear, and very easy, to see which students were struggling.
I couldn’t have required such an epiphany!!
The point here is that I didn’t pay to go to a conference. I didn’t sit through a webinar. I didn’t read a book. I simply saw a picture on a form of social media and shared it. Something that quick and easy allowed these teachers to add another tool in their toolbox to gather formative assessment data from their students. Sharing doesn’t require a tremendous amount of effort, you just have to do it!
I love my daughter’s day care. They care about her, they love on her, some days they even fix her hair in these amazing ponytail/braid/thingies. (If you’ve seen that curly-haired energetic baby girl of mine, you’d know that is an impressive feat.)
One afternoon last week, I pulled into the drive of her school, and again experienced the dilemma of where to park to run in to grab her. There are two lanes under a large carport, and then an outside “lane” that is the fire lane. One half under the carport is clearly labeled, “no parking”…and being married to a fireman, I know you’re not supposed to park in the firelane. The dilemma comes in that every day there are people parked where I think they shouldn’t be parked. And every day I just pull up behind one of them and go get my girl.
How many things do you do in the course of your day because everyone else is doing it? Things that you may or may not think are correct but that you do none the less, because it’s what others are doing?
That afternoon, I grabbed the office manager and asked her what the correct protocol was for parking. (Inside carport, or fire lane is fine…for the record.)
It made me wonder again how much happens during an instructional day that we do, not because its right, or what’s best for students, but because it’s what everyone else is doing. I challenge you to find a “person” (if not a complete PLN!) that you can check in with that help keep you in the right lane…the one where you’re supposed to be, not just the one everyone is in.
vroom, vroom,
Amber