To help encourage conversations and dialogue about solving problems and learning, our topic/question(s) for the dinner table is/are: What problem(s) do you want to solve? What do you need to learn to help solve this problem? Be specific. Sharing and Realizing Ideas (Week of 9/22/19) (This is an anonymous Google Form)
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Hopefully the warm, summer-like weather was enjoyed by all this weekend - such a sharp transition after Friday morning’s brisk, cool start to the day (I felt like I needed to be wearing winter gloves and a hat outside of Blake)! Celebrate Holliston (the annual community day) was this past Saturday and we took in the festivities - amidst activities for the kids. It was nice on Sunday night to settle in with some down time before the week began!
I shared at the outset of the year that one of my ‘fears/worries’ is that the role of educators/teachers is always expanding - it truly is overwhelming. I also acknowledge that I contribute to this ‘workload’ and ‘thought-load’ (not sure if that is a real phrase), and it is something that I want to make sure I/we keep in mind. As one who espouses and pushes change, yet struggles with it on a personal level, I recognize the ‘mixed message’ nature of our roles and the work we are doing both professionally and for our students. Both Senge and Casap’s work have helped to abate and center some of my worries/thoughts in this regard. By focusing on the productive and progressive (taking steps at a time) nature of learning with a lens towards ‘solutionary thinking’, I do believe that the narrative of growth will be realized.
Our Topic/Question this past week focused on the ways we learn best and it is important to keep this as a focus for our students and ourselves. The strategies to help us learn will serve as the vehicles for realizing our ideas and solving problems that we encounter (both micro and macro) on a day-to-day basis, now and in the future. I have shared a sampling of responses from last week, along with a few posts that I hope will keep these conversations alive...
Topic/Question (Week of 9/15/19): How do you learn best? What strategies help you learn? Be specific.
- Peer group where some discuss what we are trying to learn, or do, and we all start with group input and the branch out to individual labs and work on solutions that we bring back to the group to assess
- This is an interesting question. Taking detailed notes and reviewing those notes works best, but I also got to thinking that if the topic is of high interest, the learning seems to naturally happen.
- I learn when I have conversations, ask questions, practice it myself, and then ponder over a long period of time.
- Quiet environment
- I learn best independently
- Sleeping
- Fun games and activities
- Games and activities
- If I have someone read something to me or if I have a video to watch, or a project.
- I learn best by watching someone demonstrate something and then physically doing it myself. For example, I have learned how to fix things around the house and car by watching youtube videos.
- With people. With people who are focused, relaxed, engaged, open-minded, flexible, receptive; humble and unself-centered
- In a quiet environment, or with a group. I like learning in all different kinds of ways.
- I like to use quizlet it really helps
- I learn best with visual and individual work
- In a quiet learning space.
- I learn best when everyone is quiet
When You Find Yourself on the Edge of Something Great
by AJ Juliani (@ajjuliani)
Juliani’s reflective post highlights the importance of seeing learning, growth, and achievement as a process - one that does not happen overnight. The ‘greatness’ is the result of a multitude of factors and a willingness to keep trying, revise, revisit, and build upon ‘the new’.
Waiting on the edge of something great isn’t just a feeling, it’s a life-changer. You realize there is no going back, and that’s what is so scary. There will be something great, but it will also be new. It’s funny how we love “new” things that don’t impact our lives that much. I’m the first one to say “check out this new app” or you’ve got to read this “new book”. I’m also the first one to say that we need to change and start doing new things in new ways. But this type of new is different, because this is something of impact. It’s big and wonderful and scary and life-changing.
Sure, I guess there are times when people “fall” into something great. But often it is a culmination of many ideas, of years of work, of taking the right chances and learning from the right failures, that leads to a great book, a great teaching moment, or a great innovation.
Don’t Look Now but the 21st Century is Behind You!
by Jaime Casap (@jcasap)
Casap drives home the importance of acting ‘in the now’ with a focus on the ‘vital skills’ (I like his terminology of vital vs ‘soft skills’): problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, ability to learn, and creativity.
If you do an exact term search for “21st Century Skills,” you get about 4,170,000 results. What those four million results are really talking about are the skills students need for the future. The problem as I see it is that we are 20 years into the 21st century and yet, we are still talking about these skills as something students need for the future. I believe the future is here and they should be developing these skills as soon as they walk into our schools.
If we can focus on helping our students develop these important skills, in the context of the content we want to teach them, we’ll actually prepare them for the future they face. You can’t be a problem solver without understanding math and reading. You can’t be a critical thinker without understanding how science works. You can't define solutions without understanding how history has a tendency to repeat itself over and over again. If we fail to provide students with these skills – in particular, if we fail those in our most struggling schools – we run the risk of limiting the futures of our most at-risk students. We can't afford to put any students at a marked disadvantage.
In the continued vein of ‘found connections of learning’, I received an informational e-mail towards the end of the week outlining some upcoming workshops through RBT (Research for Better Teaching) and the words below from Jon Saphier were embedded within. A concerted focus on both effort and explicit strategies will help our students, and ourselves, to better align and execute an understanding of their (and our) own learning so that they (and we) can take measured and clear steps towards the realization of ideas to solve problems.
"How can we teach students to exert their effort effectively? Attribution retraining means getting students to change their attributions of success and failure away from factors over which they have little immediate control (luck, task difficulty, and innate ability) to the factor over which they have the greatest control: effort. Teaching effective effort means making students aware that effective effort (effort that results in achievement of a goal) is a combination of working hard and applying effective strategies."
Source: Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, and Robert Gower. 2018. The Skillful Teacher: The Comprehensive Resource for Improving Teaching and Learning, 7th ed. Acton, MA: Research for Better Teaching, p. 379
I look forward to the work that lies ahead for all of us.
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Enjoy the week and take care.
Nat