To help encourage conversations and dialogue about adapting and changing as a learner, our topic(s)/question(s) of the week are: How are you working to grow, adapt, and change as a learner? (What are you working on improving as a learner?) Be specific. Adapting With Change (Week of 6/2/19) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
Blake's Guiding Lights
Our Students
Blake's Core Values: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Reflection
Our Essential Question: How can we cultivate and curate the progression of student learning and growth?
Our Mission: Blake Middle School believes in a living mission statement, based on the concept that our community seeks and respects knowledge, integrity, character, wisdom, and the willingness to adapt to a continually evolving world.
As May turned into June this weekend, we did our best to be outside, stay present, and #slowitdown (always the hardest mantra for me to embrace and live) - while also tending to the busyness of our lives with kids’ activities, chores, and errands to run. We also enjoyed going to a family friend’s graduation party in Holliston - such a wonderful way to come together and celebrate both ‘endings’ and ‘beginnings’. The concerts, art show, and ‘playoff time’ for our kids’ baseball teams feel symbolically as ‘closing ceremonies’ as well. These gatherings help me to frame the next two weeks we have with our students and one another as we bring closure to the 2018-2019 school year.
In an effort to allow myself to be present, tend to things that need to be tended (both personally and professionally), and foster reflection for myself and others I am sharing three focal points (our mission, words that directly connect to our mission, and ‘end-of-year’ questions to foster reflection) to consider...
Our mission
- What was meaningful this year? What made teaching worthwhile? What mattered?
- Describe a positive interaction or experience you had with a student during this academic year.
- Describe or explain an accomplishment you attained or something you are proud of taking place during this academic year.
- Describe a particular student or situation during the school year who or that you feel you could have handled in a way that would have resulted in a more positive learning experience.
- How have you 'lived' our mission statement in your work and growth this year?
- What is an area that you would like to grow professionally?
- What have you learned this year from a student?
- What messages do you want to leave for our students? What do you want them to remember? (A humbling but important and centering question)
- What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
June comes quickly in the cycle of a school year and it seems like in the ‘blink of an eye’ we have suddenly come to the end of an intense and driven time together as a community. Each year begins with hope, optimism, goals, and promise - and, no matter how we structure our end and celebrations, I find that the ending is abrupt and quick. I always yearning for ways to ‘slow things down’, gather together, and have more time for discourse.
Knowing that unlimited time is not realistic (or necessarily wanted by all!), I find that
the three focal points above (our mission, Niven’s words, and the reflective questions) provide an avenue and means to process the change and hopefully adapt into a forward-thinking mindset. As we have done together in the past, I am continuing the practice of having time to both individually and collectively reflect at our last faculty gathering luncheon through these questions. Reflection is a driver for learning, and it is through this practice that change will be supported. That is essentially what I believe we want for our students - to grow, find meaning, slow things down, and look ahead.
I hope that the intentional practice of reflection and engagement with students over these last couple of weeks with one another will build upon the relationships that have been made and that we can each ‘name’ the pivotal points that have pushed us to adapt and grow. Some may be positive and others may have been challenging. Some may have been easy and others may have been difficult. Some may be individual and others may have been the result of a ‘team effort’. I am confident that we can find meaning in each of these experiences, and I hope that we do not lose sight of them in the ‘rush of time’ that simply happens as time moves on. At the heart of our work is the relationships and culture we establish as a learning community.
The two posts below, along with responses from last week’s topic/question of the week, speak to the impact that the relationships we have with one another and with the process of learning can have on our ability to work through change - allowing us to adapt, grow, and improve...
Student Engagement: Key to Personalized Learning
by Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) in Educational Leadership
Ferlazzo’s focus from this 2017 post speaks to the heart of many of our conversations at Blake - how can we foster experiences that engage students and instill a sense of purpose with intrinsic motivation?
Teachers in the real world recognize that although personalization has the potential to improve learning, our first job in applying any approach is to engage students in the learning process. And engagement is not about baiting a hook. It's about helping students find their spark and make their own fire.
Researchers have identified four key elements that help develop this kind of student engagement (Ryan & Deci, 2000):
- Autonomy is the amount of power students have to determine what they're doing and how they're doing it. Typically, the more autonomy students have, the higher their level of intrinsic motivation.
- Competence, or self-efficacy, occurs when a student has the necessary skills to complete the assigned task successfully. "Growth mindset" notwithstanding, our students are not endowed with magical powers they can substitute for an adequate skill set. They won't be energized by banging their heads against a wall if they have no hope of breaking through.
- Relatedness is created when students' actions result in developing closer relationships with those whom they like and/or respect. In the classroom context, this is often about achieving high-quality relationships with teachers, as well as connecting with their classmates.
- Relevance means that students perceive the things we ask them to do as being in their own self-interest. Do the learning activities relate to topics that students are genuinely curious about? Do students believe that accomplishing the task or reaching the learning target will help them achieve a short-term or long-term goal?
A veteran educator once told me that a key question we teachers need to consider is which kind of experience we want to create for our students: a prepackaged, antiseptic tour, or an adventure-filled journey where they often take the path less traveled and can't wait to see what they'll find around the next bend.
There are no magic bullets in education—or just about anywhere else. But if we keep in mind the four key elements required for developing intrinsic motivation—autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance—we might be surprised at how much personalized-learning magic can actually happen in our real-world classrooms.
Show & Tell: A Video Column / "There Was This Teacher …"
by Douglas Fisher (@DFISHERSDSU) and Nancy Frey (@NancyFrey) in Educational Leadership
Fisher and Frey’s focus on relationships is at the core of our belief system as a school. It is my hope that our culture of reflection and intentional connection will help to build more relationships for students, staff, and families alike.
The influence of teacher-student relationships on learning is well documented. The effect size of positive relationships on achievement (the statistically calculated strength of the effect this factor has on student learning) is 0.52, above the 0.40 average effect size associated with a year's worth of growth for a year in school (Hattie, 2018). In other words, these relationships can accelerate learning. For adolescents, who regularly encounter a dozen or more adults across their school day, these relationships extend both in and out of the classroom.
The Characteristics of Caring
Relatedness: showing interest in the student's life.
Structure: creating fair and consistent expectations and rules that govern school and classroom interactions.
Autonomy: providing choice and opportunities to make decisions that matter.
Optimism: infusing into communications with students our belief in them as capable learners—and as people.
Emotional support: acknowledging feelings and assisting students in processing their emotions.
Teacher-student relationships can't be left to chance. They are critical for student learning and outcomes. Nor should the responsibility for fostering them be confined to those who teach a formal subject. The collective interactions we have with students convey to them their importance to us, and to the world. By investing in relationships in an intentional, invitational way, we ensure that each student understands that he or she is able and valuable.
Topic/Question of the Week (Week of 5/26/19): What is one belief you would like to put into practice? Be specific.
Sampling of responses...
- Showing kindness towards all. I hope I do a good job of this, but I can always do better.
- The students come first.
- To always remember, never forget, no matter where I am, happy or sad,
- I can only control my own actions and reactions - the rest is out of my hands. I want to remember that, so that I don't overburden myself with worry and angst.
- Everything has a purpose.
- I believe that we should practice calmness.
- To find the good in people.
- When a student is having a difficult time with certain content, or a certain assignment, and that assignment calls for certain skills to be assessed: change the content, revise the assignment, reconfigure the skills to be assessed.
- deep breath. nod.
- Everything in moderation
As hard as it is to ‘fit it all in’ (and I know that sometimes we just can’t do that), I am optimistic about our learning community and the progress that we have made.
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
Please click here for Blake Updates.
Please click here for Thursday Packet Information.
Take care.
Nat