Detoxifying Our Teaching

Do you suffer from:

• Sleepless nights
• Brain fog
• Muscle aches
• Headaches
• Excessive sinus problems

If you found yourself making mental checkmarks to the list above, it may be time for you to detoxify your body.

Feeling as though I needed to revamp my morning routine for Spring, I jumped at the chance to attend a detox workshop this past Saturday at Avani Spa.  As I was listening to our instructor discuss the best foods to detox the body, I couldn’t help but think about ways we might detoxify our teaching as well:

• Stop teaching content in isolation and start using questions to help students elaborate on content
• Post and refer to a standards-based learning target everyday.
• Use more visuals.
• Stop using rows and begin organizing students to interact with content.

So if you are looking to detoxify your body or your teaching, here are some additional resources you may find beneficial:  

Body Detox	Teaching Detox
10 Ways to Detoxify Your Body	5 Common Teaching Practices I’m Kicking To The Curb
28 Signs You Need to Detox Your Body Immediately	10 Faulty Teaching Strategies to Avoid

Pitino's Better Conversations

It’s not often I read a book that is life changing.  Furthermore, I have never read a book and thought the ideas in it could literally change the world.  However, after reading Better Conversations by Jim Knight, I started to wonder what our classrooms might look like if we each intentionally, as Knight says, “coached ourselves and each other to be more credible, caring, and connected.”   

In searching for what this intentional conversation might look like,  I came across this Candid Conversation with Minnesota’s Golden Gophers basketball coach, Richard Pitino Jr.  Pitino’s record with the Gophers last season was a sad 8-23.  A season that seemed to be defaced by the suspensions of three key players, Kevin Dorsey, Nate Mason and Dupree McBrayer.   Fast forward one year and the Big Ten Coach of the Year and his Gophers find themselves 24-9 and a chance at the Big Dance.  

  The question  remains, how did Pitino turn this program around?  Listening to this Candid Conversation a second time, it seems Pitino credits the turnaround to having better conversations.  Better conversations with his players about taking ownership.  Better conversations about working together as a team.  Better conversations about taking criticism.  Better conversations about winning.  

“To be an authentic communicator, we have to know what we believe and then we have to act in a way that is consistent with those beliefs.  The journey towards having better conversations is actually a journey toward authenticity” (Knight,7)  Well Coach Pitino, it seems as if you know exactly what you believe.   I look forward to watching your journey.  

 

Webinar Series

Exciting things have been happening these past few weeks in the East Conference Room!   New and non tenured staff have had the opportunity to participate in a  webinar series.  This is just one way instructional coaches can provide job-embedded professional learning.

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Here are the webinars included in this series:

Using Assessment to Track Student Growth Session Handout Designing Learning Goals and Objectives Marzano planning guide on SIP Reproducibles Session Handout Creating a Classroom Culture of Learning: Key Formative Assessment Practices. Slideshow Handout

We will conclude this week with a showing of Creating a Classroom Culture of Learning: Key Formative Assessment Practices tomorrow followed by Designing Learning Goals and Objectives on Thursday.  Webinars will run each period, so feel free to stop by the east conference room during your plan or lunch!  

Skill Groups Lab Live Stream

https://youtu.be/-j8XK_StqF4

Ms.  Kurz, Miss Milton, and Mrs.  Veach grouped students by their RIT scores to work on specific skills. Element 19!  Happy Friday everyone!  We will live stream periods 2,3,5,7, and 8.  

The Feedback Behind Matt Ryan’s Success.

What do you do if you’re Matt Ryan and your team has missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season?  You step out of your normal offseason routine and seek feedback on ways to improve your ability to throw the deep ball.  

On Friday during our professional learning, Pat Quinn spoke about the use of the feedback cycle and the steps to maximum core instruction:  

TRY SOMETHING – GET FEEDBACK – TRY AGAIN

Increase the Rate of Learning o The more times you go through the feedback cycle, the more your students will learn. o Aim for going through the feedback cycle 10-20 times per subject per day.

According to ESPN staff writer Vaughn McClure, when Ryan visited  Tom House and Adam Dedeaux of the acclaimed 3DQB training facility in Los Angeles, he received feedback on four key areas: functional strength and conditioning, mechanics and motion, mental and emotional management, and nutrition.  Ryan spent six weeks training with Dedeaux and House. The sessions were spread over a sixth-month period and were four to five days a week for three to four hours a day.

As teachers, we may need to step out of our normal day to day routine and plan for ways to give our students feedback.  When we organize students for learning, we are free to monitor and provide feedback to our students.  Additionally, we can provide opportunities for students to give each other feedback as well.  Ways to organize students for learning can include:

Partner Discussions	Grouping for Active Processing	Paired Practice
Structured Grouping	Cooperative Projects	Peer Response Groups
Group Reflecting on Learning

Here is a great resource from the compendium on Organizing Students to Interact.  

McClure goes on to state that Ryan firmly believes there's a noticeable difference in his deep ball, and not just because he's stronger."I think it's a combination of things," Ryan said. "I think it's getting your feet right, working on positioning of where your feet want to be. How I've trained this offseason, I've worked really hard on it. I don't know about [distance], but it just feels good coming off, and certainly putting it in good spots for our guys."

It sounds like Mr. Ryan was given some pretty powerful feedback! Imagine what this type of feedback could do for our students and their learning.

Bring Your Own Guts When Tracking Student Growth

Dabo Swinney had a vision nine years ago for his Clemson football program.   He didn’t hope his players would do well in a national championship game, he planned for them to do well in the national championship.  He planned every practice.  Every player knew how, what, and why they were learning with every practice.  

This is exactly what should be happening in our classrooms on a daily basis. As Dr.  Tammy Heflebower, Senior Scholar at Marzano research states in her webinar Using Assessments to Track Student Growth, “We don’t want to hope our students do well on our assessments.  We should purposefully plan for them to do well.”    She goes on to further explain that students should be able to answer these three questions with each lesson:

1. What am I learning today?
2. Why am I learning this?
3. How will I know that I have learned it?

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Additionally, Dr.  Heflebower explains that there are three types of assessments we can use to track student progress:

Obtrusive	Formalized, interrupt the normal flow of activity in the classroom Aligned to standards Levels of proficiency	Pencil/paper tests Quizzes MAP
Unobtrusive	Informal, do not interrupt the normal flow Happen along the learning journey	Observations Listening for key ideas Watching for key actions or processes Monitoring for the desired effect
Student Generated	Students generate their own ideas about how they will demonstrate their current level of knowledge or skill.	Choice menu boards Portfolios Presentations

Well, Dabo, you did it!  You beat Alabama! It would be a dream come true to sit in on one of your practices.  I would love to see what your practice plans look like and what types of assessments you use to track the progress of your players.  Congratulations Clemson!  Way to “Bring your own guts!”

Additional Gutsources- Charting Student Progress   5 Assessment Forms That Promote Content Retention

Feeling Renewed About Learning Targets

Happy New Year, everyone!  I thought I would get back to the basics and start blogging again to kick off 2017.  Can you believe it has been almost a year since my last blog entry?  Between my 11 year old, 8 year old, 7 year old, and 22 month old, I feel like life has officially taken me hostage. But with the start of a new year, I find myself with a renewed sense of purpose. I hope that you find yourself feeling the same way!

As an instructional coach, I feel it is imperative that I stay on top of my own professional learning.  This includes reading articles, books, blogs and watching webinars.  As I was sifting through some webinars on the Marzano Research page, I came across this beauty.  Renewed learnings for me in the webinar include:

• Specific learning targets have a more powerful effect on student achievement than do general learning targets.  
• There is a  difference between a learning target and an activity.
• A learning target is a statement of what students will understand or be able to do.
• Classroom activities are completed with guidance and feedback from the teacher.  

After reflecting on the above renewed learnings, I began to think about our students.  What if we intentionally post and refer to our learning targets on the board every day?  What if we all used the following format?   

As a result of what we do today, you will: Understand- Be able to-

Would this help our students feel a renewed sense of purpose about their own learning? (Insert deep thoughts emoji) Maybe the title of this entry should be Deep Thoughts!  Either way, I do hope that you think about ways you can renew your learning targets to kick off the start of a new year!