Students Speak: 5 Things Students Want In Class That DON’T Cost a Dime (or take all of your time!)

by Dr. Lynne Herr

If you peruse past blog entries here on the ESU 6 professional development blog, you’ll see many posts that urge educators to ask students questions about learning and school, then listen intently to their responses.

At a recent statewide ESU professional development session, we had the opportunity to interact with a panel of high school students who are part of the Omaha metro area Avenue Scholars program.  While every student’s situation is unique, these students face especially daunting personal circumstances of poverty, abuse, neglect and personal loss. Many proudly told us that they will be the first person from their extended family to graduate from high school.  They told stories of learning to advocate for themselves and their learning.  Of finding ways to love and accept everyone regardless of lifestyle, philosophical and situational differences.  They inspired each of us to listen more intently.  And to take action.

In addition to sharing their personal stories, students offered advice to teachers and administrators for helping them succeed in school.  You might be surprised to find that their suggestions require no funding.  Simply a willingness to change.  Here are five strategies to better engage students based on recommendations from the student panel:

Stop the Powerpoints.  (Or at least improve them.) Many of these students lamented that teacher after teacher throughout their school day shows long, dull Powerpoints that offer little chance for interaction or engagement.  Break your content into smaller chunks.  Add some color to a presentation.  Link to a brief youtube video that supports what you’re trying to teach. Try new tools like Prezi.

Let them move in class. Whether attending a school with block scheduling or more traditional class periods, all students wished they could get up and move during class.  Many told of sitting for an entire 90 minute period and struggling to stay awake and engaged.  Incorporate some purposeful movement throughout each class period.  (Example, “Get up and touch 3 walls, then add your answer to the white board.”)

Allow small group work and discussion in class.  No teenager (and no adult) wants to be embarrassed by offering an incorrect comment or answer in front of their peers.  Allow students to discuss something in pairs or small groups, then report their answer as a group.  This allows more students to be engaged during a class period by allowing them to speak, test their answers in a smaller setting, debate answers and form supportive relationships with each other.

Principals:  Greet as many students as possible, and get to know them by name.  Before joining the Avenue Scholars program, most of these students had spent considerable time in the principal’s office for disciplinary reasons.  All expressed a genuine wish for administrators to seek them out in positive situations.  Say hello when they come into the building.  Know something about their courses so you can ask a specific question:  “How’s that woods, project coming along, Joe?”  Call them into the office every once in a while to offer up some praise vs. punishment.

Teachers:  Get to know something about each student’s personal circumstances.  Most of these students face considerable pressure and responsibility outside of school.  They are responsible for younger siblings, household work, meal planning and preparation, as well as contributing to the family income via part-time jobs.  Many are also involved in student activities and sports.  Students want teachers who understand that school is just one demand that they face.  They aren’t asking for less work, but for teachers who form relationships with them and help them grow through support, caring and high expectations.

They've spoken.  Is anybody listening?

Find the Bright Spot

In the book Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the authors talk a lot about change. One of the techniques to changing behavior they mention is to look at problems from a different angle.  Rather than focusing solely on fixing a problem they suggest finding what is working - mining a nugget of success and then seeking replication.

For example if a student is struggling in school with academics and behavior, we tend to delve into an analysis of the causes and try to fix the problem.  Conversely to find the bright spot - we should ask when does the student find success?  It may be in only one class - but why not try the things from the successful class in other classes?
I think the key is to ask some basic questions:

• Where do we have success?
• What is different about these situations - what are people doing differently?
• How can we use what works in other situations?

I think the same thing applies to the improvement of instruction.  Rather than continually trying to fix the struggling teachers, we could look for the bright spots. For example we ask the question "in what classes are students really engaged in learning?"  We then look to see what happens differently in those classes; it could be a simple set of practices that could be used by the staff at large.   Granted there are a lot of factors that will come into play through implementation - but we are leveraging success rather than trying to fix failure.

As a leader think about this quote from the book: "'What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?"   I think I'll try to spend more time scaling successes.

Toby

Try Something New

As most schools have been in session for a week or so, I would encourage all teachers to do a very simple thing: try something new.  As I have stated before on this blog teachers need to continually enhance/improve/refresh their educational practice. Teaching isn't about finding immutable truth and constantly deploying it.  Teaching is about connecting with kids in a fluid, changing environment. So I'll give you a few things our team has suggested:

• Try some physical movement - even if it is to have the kids touch two walls; their brains will be more receptive with increased oxygen.  The longer the sermon, the less engaged people tend to be.
• Chunk the material and give kids a chance to summarize aloud; humans are verbal so let them talk through the content.  
• Use technology even if you don't know how to use a tool.  This tip comes from Lynne Herr - give kids an outline of what you want regarding content, such as provide three types of governments and give an example of each. Then turn them loose on some tech tools; some kids could create an online comic book, others could create a online video, or they might create a voicethread.  In any event let them use technology even if you don't understand how it works. The kids will figure it out - and if they run into trouble there is always a help menu or a Google search.  Don't try to limit the technology based on what you know; let them run with it.  They won't break the internet!

Good teachers want to improve their practice, but often find it overwhelming to make major changes; so take it slow and just try something new. If teachers do this often enough they can really improve on the good things they already have in place.

Have a great start to the year - do something new!

Toby

Would you go to Doc?

We had one dentist in my hometown - Doc H.  Doc was the only game in town and if you went with a toothache more than likely you would be missing that tooth by supper.  It seemed his remedy was to just pull the offending tooth - I suspect that is all he really knew.  I think Doc did his best, but I never got the feeling that he was consistently trained in cutting edge dentistry.

What kind of doctor do you want?  The one that has been doing the same thing for 20 years, or the one that continually learns and improves?

What kind of teacher do you want?   The one that has been doing the same thing for 20 years, or the one that continually learns and improves?

I caught part of Diane Sawyer's interview with Chris Christie - the New Jersey governor about his battle with the state teacher union - specifically over tenure.  Sawyer made the comment "Isn't tenure not having to prove yourself anymore?"  I immediately thought of Doc; he never had to prove himself - he was a fixture.  I'm sure people got adequate dental care - but it's a stretch to say we got premium services.

It seems to me that all of us should prove ourselves (or improve ourselves) everyday by working to get a little bit better.  I don't buy that at some point anyone in a field has all the knowledge and skill - there is always room for improvement.  Why would Tiger Woods hire a swing coach if this weren't true?  Athletes and coaches constantly preach the "get a little bit better" and "continue to improve" mantra.

Do we preach the same in education?  Is professional development mandatory - that is, are teachers expected to continually improve, and yes, change their teaching practice?  As I've said before - the good teachers continually examine their practice and on occasion completely re-vamp what they do.

So, what kind of doctor do you want?  What kind of teacher do you want?

Doc might have been acceptable in his time - but I doubt if I would go back today.

Toby

Formative Assessment - For Teachers

I think we can all agree about the value of formative assessment.  Learners gaining continuous feedback about their level of proficiency makes a profound difference.  Formative assessment typically applies to students - but why not teachers?

Since teachers have the greatest impact on student achievement wouldn't it make sense to provide formative assessment so teachers can improve as well?  Principals will need to ratchet up their ability to supervise instruction, through both formative and summative assessment.  Most principals try to conduct walk-through observations of teachers, which can provide ongoing conversations leading up to a summative evaluation. 

Some suggestions to using formative assessment of instruction include:

• Develop and use a common language of instruction. You can't discuss instruction without vocabulary.  Name the strategies so they can be replicated.
• Get feedback from the teachers about the formative assessment.  Let them test drive the instrument on themselves so they have a better understanding of what will be collected.
• Provide a variety of assessment methods. Self observation, peer observations, as well as principal walk-through observations should be used.  People will see trends if the information comes from a variety of sources.
• Set goals.  Teachers should use the formative assessment data to set goals for instruction, as well as new strategies to try.
• Get out of the office.  Set weekly goals for classroom visits; the benefits to the principal go far beyond observing the individual teacher.  Students will see the principal from a different perspective and the principal will have a keener understanding of curriculum and instruction.
• Utilize technology to make gathering the formative assessment data more efficient.  Good principals try to have the information collected by the time they leave the classroom.  Needing to go back to the office to write up the formative observation prohibits frequent visits. For example, Google Forms can be used to gather and send the data on a variety of devices.
• Follow-up.  Have teachers respond to reflective questions, discuss what was observed and what can be changed.

Committed teachers generally want to improve their craft and formative feedback only makes sense.  The principal doesn't need to know everything about the content or even all the strategies, but they do need to provide a process for reflection and improvement. 

Special thanks to Mitch at Dorchester and Jen at ESU 6 for their work on developing quality processes.

Toby

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback

I had two opportunities to see the value of feedback to improve instructional practice.

First I had the chance to see a high quality model for instructional supervision.  The foundation of the model is continuous feedback from the building principal and even district administrators. Teachers set goals and constantly receive feedback about their practice, with new teachers receiving extensive support as they learn the craft of teaching. It struck me that this school has built a culture of continuous improvement through conversations about instruction.  Since personnel make up the bulk of the budget in any district, it only makes sense that feedback and support be provided to the most valuable resource - the staff.

The second instance was at a session on digital walk-through training provided by one of our principals - Mitch Kubicek- to a group of 14 principals from schools across the state.   Mitch provided the group not only the technical expertise about how to use a digital tool - Google Forms, but also the rationale for continuous feedback.  Mitch uses the data from 5 minute walk-through visits to provide feedback to teachers and to look at aggregate results for the building.  This not only provides the opportunity to set individual teacher goals, but also to look at professional development needs for the building.  For example, if the building data indicate a majority of the instructional methods involve presenting new information, professional development on how to practice and deepen content knowledge may be in order.  None of this is possible without providing feedback to the teachers about what is happening in the classroom.  Mitch even has the teachers tape 15 minutes of classroom instruction and use the walk-through tool to analyze their own teaching - self observation.  His goal is to walk through 6 classrooms a week - which takes about 30 minutes to complete.  Imagine the impact on teaching and learning that costs just 30 minutes a week?

Neither of these two examples are possible without feedback models.  In order to truly examine the teaching practices we need to uncover them, provide feedback, and insist on continuous improvement.  If each teacher can get a little better everyday, over time the improvements in teaching and learning would be profound.  It all rests on feedback.

Toby

Kid Talk

The following exchange took place between my wife (a math teacher) and my teenage daughter after a math homework session:
Mom: How often do you get to talk through solving your math problems?
Teen: We don't
Mom: You don't get to talk?
Teen: No, but we ask each other anyway
Mom:  How does the teacher know if you have problems or questions?
Teen: You're supposed to go up and ask - if you don't know and don't ask, it's your own fault.

Really?  I hope this isn't the case - but it is at least one student's perceptions.  We need to extinguish the sage on the stage mentality and get students talking.  How can we expect students to learn by sitting and listening with only quiet seat work to follow?  Is that how you learn?  Is that how anyone learns?  Humans are verbal creatures - we learn by talking (and doing).

Our staff has been training engagement techniques over the past several months that promote student talk.  I thought this would be a good time to list a few and consider how these techniques could change the above conversation.  All of these techniques get kids talking and many of them promote physical movement.  See how many you recognize or call by another name:

Inside - Outside Circle: two circles of students facing each other for verbal review.
Clock Partners: students paired for reflection/review based on "appointments".
Choral Response: whole class response technique when answers are short and the same.
I have...Who has...: structured verbal review of important concepts.
Musical Cards: students trade concept cards while music is playing, then pair to discuss.
Line-ups: students line up according to degrees of agreement, then discuss viewpoints.
Run the Tournament: students discuss important concepts and determine winners that advance in the tournament.
Academic Games: Pyramid game, taboo, Who am I?: each game requires students to verbalize answers.

So, why would we want to get kids up and moving and talking when we have them quiet and look like they are paying attention?  Because the brain needs processing time; the brain will drop concepts that are not processed.  Academic talk provides processing and results in greater engagement and retention of both concepts and skills. Ever talk your way through a difficult task or chore?  Talk's not just for memorizing jargon.

So how prevalent are these practices?  Are students expected to still stay in their seats, listen and do quiet seat work?  The teachers who have tried these techniques report positive results from their students and indicate their classes are more enjoyable.  We've learned it doesn't take much to implement; teachers just need to try a few things. 

So maybe the conversation could go like this:
Mom: How often do you get to talk through solving your math problems?
Teen: All the time.
Mom: How?
Teen: We work in partners, we trade up all the time, we talk about how to get answers.
Mom:  So what does your teacher do?
Teen:  Most of the time the teacher just listens and if somebody is wrong they get help right there, or the teacher goes over it with the class.