7-12-11 2:21 pm Shared Learning Targets

The Jump Start program afforded me the opportunity to teach literacy this summer to 18 nascent readers.  My students struggle with reading.   Most are heading into first grade next year, and come to the class as emergent readers.  One of my struggling readers told me yesterday she "couldn't read", and that I'd have to "do it for" her.  Big celebration today: she looked up at me after decoding more than a few words, and just a bit beyond her natural stamina threshold exclaiming, "All I have to do is blend the sounds!"  And the light in her eyes shone brighter than the sun.  Ahh confidence, that irreplaceable emotion that works miracles for all of us.

I want to share, or at least document, another miracle in today's class.  This rag-tag bunch of young minds that'd rather misbehave than reveal their self-assessed "can't do it" identities was more than just on-task today.  C.H.A.M.P.S. has supported my setting crystal-clear expectations, certainly, but shared learning targets did more for my learners than any worksheet could hope to accomplish. 

Of the eight Reading, Writing, and Communicating standards I'm teaching in this four-week session, today we worked on two:  Identifying author's purpose, and participating in a literary conversation.  Author's purpose is pretty straight-forward.  Did the author write to convince, entertain, or inform?  Participation in a conversation sounds almost too easy, and yet requires a specific set of skills.  A little task-analysis led me to identifying three levels of listening: Level 1 - voice off, ears on, eyes on speaker.  (Some grown-ups, myself included, need reminding.)  Level 2 - level 1 and mind on the discussion topic.  Level 3 - levels 1 & 2, and new ideas or deeper thinking related to and/or inspired by the speaker occur to the listener, who can then share appropriately in the conversation. 

So we read a poem called "Cat".  It used adjectives that inspired my readers to stretch like a cat, stick their tongues out, flick their tails, and display their claws.  And my learners quickly identified this as a poem to entertain, rather than inform or persuade.  Our next step, identifying whether or not we were good listeners in the conversation played out like this:

Me:  Who might like to share why the author may have wanted to write this poem?

Kash:  Maybe he really liked cats.

Ashley:  Maybe he has a lot of cats.

Brendon:  Maybe he wants to help people who are thinking about buying cats, know what they're like.

Me:  Well, it sounds like we have some new ideas in our group.  Brendon, would you help us by letting us watch as you fill out your conversation rubric for today?

Brendon:  (vigorous smile and nod, shy smile)

(He came to the front of the room and posted his rubric and pointed as we continued:

Me:  Class, was Brendon using his ears during the poem and our discussion about why the author may have written this poem?

Anthony: Yes!

Me:  How might we be sure?

Garrett:  Because he was on topic, and his idea is a new one that's sort of like the others but a little bit new too.  Nobody talked about buying cats.  He said that by himself.  He had to be listening to do that, so his ears must have been working!

Me:  So, we see he was using his ears, thinking on-topic, and shared a new idea.  Brendon, would you please place a tally-mark in the third box to show you used the highest level of listening in a conversation that we've talked about?

He gladly obliged, and then stood aside for everyone to take note.  That one explicit example of what good conversation participation looks like had the rest of my students very quickly adding wonderfully original, yet completely relevant ideas to the conversation.  A few I remember:  Maybe he's writing poems about what it's like to be all kinds of different animals, and it was time to write about cats.  Maybe he owns 25 cats and watches them all day, so he knows exactly how they move.  Maybe he wishes he was a cat.  Maybe he's studying cats to buy one for himself, and has watched them a lot and he wants to share his observations.  For first and second graders, I think these are pretty on target, and connected to things other students were saying.

Every single learner, readers and non-readers alike, were able to do more than participate in this conversation at the highest targeted level, they were able to acknowledge it on their rubrics.  Seven students separately, spontaneously, hugged me in the next 10 minutes.  They were all smiles.  It was popular to participate skillfully.  My hunch is that a shared learning target accompanied by an exemplar boosted my students' confidence.  A few groaned when it was time to say good-bye.  Happy smiles all around.  And this is summer school.  I'll take it!

June 24th, 10:11 a.m. Respectful Disagreement

When do we teach our children to respectfully disagree with us?  Safety, homework, chores, health and wellness, presumably we touch on all of those things in the course of parenting.  After a texting incident last week (which was not my fault) I found myself wondering how and when I have or should teach this concept to our daughter.  And yes, not having taught it much is pretty much my fault.  I'll own that.

So.  It's summertime.  In the early evenings, it seems, Anne loves to hop onto her bike for a few spins around the block.  Solo.  It gets her out on her own, gives me time to get dinner together, and generally seems of mutual benefit.  If I get worried about her, a long gaze out the front window usually produces a picture of unfettered childhood bliss.  It's all good.

Until the other evening.  Another long gaze out the window (from the couch rather than the kitchen this time-apparently dinner cooked itself that night), offered a carefree, hair-blowing-in-the-wind, HELMETLESS daughter 'o mine, blatantly flaunting her freedom all around our neighborhood! 

"Anne Magaret Sponheim, please come home now!"  I said it just like that.  And she obeyed. 

"Oh!  Right!  My helmet!  I'll go and get it right now".  She uttered those exclamations, fully convinced it would be all right.  Get the helmet, get on the bike, and off she goes. 

Well, it came as a shock when I asked her to park her bike for the night.  Sometimes second chances create confidence, yes.  Who, though, gets a second brain?  No one.  An oversight like that can have sudden, dire consequences, so in effort to teach her safety in a way that I thought would stick, I offered no second chance here.

"You don't get a second chance at a brain, so I'm sorry, I can't give you a second chance at remembering a helmet tonight."  The mix of emotions on her face was new, strange, and very complicated.  I couldn't tell what she thought or felt.  She seemed to want to keep this one to herself.

Instead of disagreeing with me, pouting, arguing, crying, or anything of the sort, she dutifully followed directions.  She went straight to her closet.  Then she apparently found her cell phone, and began firing off texts to a friend.  They were less than flattering of her mother.

Long story short, I found the phone, the texts, (this was only one of several less than flattering messages), and then made a few decisions:

1.  I talked about next steps with Harold BEFORE implementation.  Always good to get partner-buy-in.
2.  I waited.  We kissed goodnight, tucked her in, without mention of the texts I'd found.
3.  When we did get to a conversation, it was question-based.

Tell me, which of your texts are you  most proud of?  Will you read it to me?  And which are you maybe least proud of?  Please read that to me too.

The tears came pretty hard and fast.  And I held it together while she sat on the couch, feeling about 1" tall.  Time worked the magic of granting me presence of mind.  Thank you moon!  Her travail didn't pull on my heartstrings, and I felt no need to rub it in a little harder.  We simply worked it out.

Yes.  She had disagreed with me.  Yes, she understood it was wrong to fire off angry texts rather than confront me.  And that's when it came out. 

"But Mom, how can I disagree with you and still keep us good?"  Of course I knew what she meant, and so we labeled it: Respectful Disagreement.  And (this is the toughest pill for me to swallow in the whole thing) so I asked her what it might sound like to respectfully advocate for herself, when she's in disagreement wit me, or anyone for that matter.  She DIDN'T KNOW!!!  After a few blundered attempts from her, I realized we hadn't talked enough about this.

So we did.  We talked about sandwiching:  compliment, critique, appreciation.  If she'd had this resource at her disposal the night of the free-flying hair, it might have sounded like:

"Mom, you notice everything when it comes to safety.  Since I'm just riding around the block in a quiet neighborhood, I was thinking it might be OK to sans-helmet.  I appreciate your looking out for me."

At which point I would have said, something about yes, it is a quiet neighborhood, and yes, you still need to wear your helmet.  End of discussion.   Thanks, though, for advocating for your own opinion.

Now we're in earn-it-back mode.  She decided that after 10 respectful disagreements, she'll have earned the right to have her phone back.  It's been five days.  She's offered about one each.  The practice is doing us all good.  I'm modeling respectful disagreement to honor her work.  And it's all good. 

And hard as nails.  Parenting is like running a marathon.  You have to dig deep to keep going.

5-17-11 5:57 pm Math Fundamentals

Place value. Remember it? The foundation for borrowing in subtraction, and carrying in addition, place value pretty much represents the sink-or-swim factor in mental and paper-pencil calculation. While math is so much more than calculation, imagine your confidence level in anything having to do with math, including handling money, without it

Most of us function more out of habit than understanding when it comes to making calculations, and we often defer to the excuse "I can't do mental math" at times when the skill would come in handy. When I think back to my own experience of learning 2-digit addition and subtraction, my heart pounds - I think at 4th grade I began to get the rules of the game, executing the routines solely out of wrote memory. Yet, if we all understood it to its fullest extent, we'd be that much more empowered to execute math in everyday life. We might even be able to do mental math!

The concept of place-value is obscured by the rules of borrowing and carrying, story problem contexts, and the absence of the all-important critical competitor. Direct instruction of what place-value is, and how it works, seems complex because it can involve using base number systems other than 10. Children need critical competitors to create understanding.

What is a critical competitor? Think about a dog, any kind will do. Now compare it to any other breed of dog. How might you recognize their common canine features? The tail? The bark? The ears? The snout? Even though they can look very different, there are some things about most dogs that make them recognizable as such. The same goes for batteries. They come in all shapes and sizes, yet because their function is to provide power and they have positive and negative sides, you can recognize most of them when you see them.

In literacy, we use something called Nonsense Words as critical competitors to test phonics understanding. It might look like this: The letters "ph" make the "f" sound, as in "phonics", "phone", and philanthropist". In order to assess whether a reader completely understands the letter-sound pattern of the digraph "ph", we might put it in a nonsense word, such as "pheld". This way, when the student says "feld", we can feel confident he or she recognized the digraph, even in a brand new, all-be-it nonsense, context.

I propose, and maybe confirmed, we can take that nonsense-word theory into math, using base number systems. In other words, teach place-value with the base number system of 5. 3. 9. Anything but 10. here's how it worked for my 1st-graders yesterday and today:

We reviewed a few basic operating principals of our base 10 number system:
1 - there is no single-digit number representation higher than 9
2 - noticing only the one's column, the pattern 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 repeats
3 - we show whole sets of numbers from the ones column, in tens column, in other words, a 1 in the tens column represents 10 ones that would be in the ones column, except for the fact that we only go up to the number 9.

Then we kept basic place-value rules, and applied them in the base 5 number system. Some noticings:
1 - there is no single-digit number representation higher than 4
2 - noticing only the one's column, the pattern 0,1,2,3,4,0,1,2,3,4 repeats
3 - we show whole sets of numbers in the ones column, in the place where the tens column would be, only we named it the "zag" column, just for fun.

Result: After two days of instruction on base-number-systems, about 1/2 the class is really getting it. The rest are very close, even my lowest performers. A few of my higher-performing students, after some significant cognitive dissonance, now have such a clear understanding of place-value that they've ventured out to explore other base-number-systems like 3 and 4. Tomorrow they'll have an opportunity to explore others of their choosing.

The look of pure conquest on the faces of 4 of my students, having established a clear understanding of place-value was...indescribable. Literally, it's bringing tears to my eyes as I type. Those children know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when and how to move numbers into just the right columns, at just the right times, and WHY! They have calculation down pat, because they've built for themselves a crystal-clear understanding of place-value. I hope they feel forever confident as mathematicians.

What I want to know is why this type of lesson is reserved for post-graduate education? Base number systems are the keys to unlock all sorts of mathematical understanding. Talk about repeating patterns! Grouping! Number sense! Leaving base-numbers out of primary math education is like leaving phonics out of reading, or color theory out of art, or technique out of music, or the periodic table out of chemistry.

It felt extremely satisfying to give my young mathematicians access to this level of understanding. I only hope to have the privilege of watching their learning progress in years to come. I very much hope to see deep understanding, confidence, and joy of learning.

4-29-11 5:47 pm Freakonomics in the Classroom

The study of economics, I agree with the authors, currently looks a little like psychology years ago. Very esoteric, and difficult for the average citizen to access. Yet theories of correlation and causality, which may apply in economics, most surly apply to real life. These guys have my full attention!

I'm starving for strategies to tease out causality. Causality may drive everything we do in life, and mistaken causality can lead to a lot of waste. Mistaken causality, as the authors describe, might sound something like: "Gee, every time it rains, a lot of people use umbrellas. If we'd stop using our umbrellas, maybe the rain would fall less frequently." Or, again as the authors describe, for the Grinch who hates Christmas: "Gee, every time December rolls around, Christmas cards show up in my mailbox. Maybe if we could stop the cards, we would stop Christmas."

These are some of the authors' attempts at showing what a ridiculously significant roll correlation can play in our attempting to determine causality. They offer research that shows sumo wrestlers cheating, that the amount of money raised in a political campaign actually doesn't relate all that closely to election results, and even bring into question the effectiveness of child car seats over seatbelts.

This thinking is new for me, and very outside of the box. I love it for its very nature of challenging conventional "wisdom". It excites me because I often feel hedged in by conventional thinking, and yet we face real challenges every day that seem to elude solutions. When might "Freakonomics" be worth exploring?

Right now, today!

The first place that grabs my attention: academic achievement! Conventional wisdom might postulate that quality instruction causes higher test scores. Really? First of all, of course instruction impacts learning, but how so and how much? The more a teacher knows may only slightly show promise for how much a student learns, particularly if the teaching and learning style are mismatched. Academic research in this area is a multi-billion dollar industry, I'm guessing.

So, what makes a person learn? Our earliest learning happens well before babies talk. We learn to cry, feed ourselves, crawl, walk, and smile all with little to no intervetion for most. Some research make bold claims like: children can lie by the time they're two or three years old, and that as early as pre-school they know among themselves who will be an achiever and who will struggle in learning.

How do they do it? Caregivers and parents don't spend hours in professional development learning the nuances of teaching their babies to crawl. I remember Anne never really rolled over. It made me crazy with worry, and crazier still when doctors and expert grandparents reassured me: "Don't worry. She'll do it when she's ready." And you know what, at 11 years-old, she'll tell you herself: she just doesn't really like rolling. She was verbal at two months, could sit up at three, entered kindergarten reading, plays both the violin and the piano, and is enrolled in the gifted program at her school. Wow.

Everyone was right, and they were all wrong. She did do things on her own time, yet she's not fine. She's excellent. So let's take the part they were right about: She does things when she's ready.

Teachers don't really teach their students. They simply design learning opportunities, and look at assessments as indicators of acquisition. In fact, their job is to design assessments and let the learning happen through a variety of opportunities which the learner directs. Sure, quality instruction supports learning and higher test scores, yet what if that's only 50% of the equation?

What if learning is easily just as much about emotion as instruction? We know a lot about the amigdula. It controls the "fight or flight" response in the brain. Feel safe, and there's fight, which in the classroom might look like effort and risk-taking to reach understanding. Feel threatened, and there's flight, which in the classroom might look like checking out or using poor behavior choices to cover up fear of failing.

What might it cost school districts to run an experiment testing my 50% theory? If we as teachers were given a directive to open every academic interaction with students using reassuring words like: "I know you can do it, and I'm here to help if you need it.", how might that impact student achievement?

Just a thought.

And what's with the home school and charter school movement? Parents obviously want something different for their learners. Maybe they're worried their kids are miserable in school. We could spend a lot of money experimenting with new schools, or we could address a possible real cause: fear of misery.

Think about it. We're all more in touch with our feelings and their origins than ever. The pain and agony of some childhood memories can feel absolutely overwhelming. How natural might it be for some parents experiencing these feelings or bad memories, to pull their children out of potentially difficult school experiences, even if those children are truly loved and nurtured in school, because of parents' own negative experiences and assumptions?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing is believing. Might we retain more families in our school system by simply placing a slide show full of happy students' pictures in the front lobby of schools?

Freakonomics frees up my thinking in a brand new way. This opportunity to turn conventional thinking upside down gives me a new angle from which to view, well, everything! More importantly, I hope it lets me recognize irrelevant assumptions, and ultimately makes me a more effective professional, and a more critical thinker.

4-14-11 5:44 pm Workbooks Be Damned, Death by the Filing Cabinet, and Other Naked Truths about Learning

The Colorado State Department of Education Standards currently specify that 1st graders, by the end of 1st grade, need to be able to count to 120. That they must be able to create equal shares (fractions) to 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4. They must be able to use addition or subtraction operations to solve problems. Of course, there's more. They need to show repeating patterns, record data, and other more abstract concepts. Today my 1st graders counted to 56,000,000,000. (More on that later.) They proved they could create unequal shares that combine to make a perfect whole. Yesterday they solved two-part story problems using both addition and subtraction in the same problem. The class recently surveyed themselves to see how old their moms were. Turns out "most" of their moms are in their 30's. They now work in fractals, or patterns within patterns. And we did other amazing stuff like hang a chain off the roof, and build a 1,000-piece cube with units of one. My mathematicians came to me as a group of mixed-ability students. They'll leave as such, only my most struggling students will far-exceed state standards in their abilities. And this is my first year teaching this grade-level in math. So, what's going on? I'm not a "super-teacher", with "super-students". Teaching, as an industry, has morphed in the last 20 years from institutionalized routines of worksheet packets which teachers lovingly (or not-so-lovingly) supported their students through, to an array of experiences which support connections taking students from what they already know to creating new knowledge. Students, through experiments and memorable activities, create their own learning in an environment that gives them necessary tools to create new understandings. All of my students, the lowest of the low included, can read and write their numbers well over 120. With no reversals. They may make them, yet they know how to fix them. Sure I planned strategically. Of course I gave assessments, and used the results to inform my next instruction. Yet their more amazing feats, the times they've far exceeded state standards are just as much planned as not. Here's an example: We began the year with building a chain, link by link. Each day we added one link, so now it's reached the prodigious length of 143 links. "I wonder how far it will reach?" someone asked one day. That got me wondering the outrageous (it takes little to get me in the nether-regions of fantastical curiosity) and I asked my class: "Do you think it's as tall as the school?" We decided that the prudent thing would be to wait until its length doubled when reaching from the projection screen handle (with the screen rolled up) to the floor, and back again. Guess who couldn't wait? Me! I kept asking, in the last weeks we waited, "Do you think we could give it a try today?" The class made me wait. Finally, last Friday, I convinced them that surely it would reach from the roof to the ground, even though it didn't quite reach our planned length-before-trying. Plus, I'd already checked with our custodian, "T", who jumped right on board with whole idea. I guess climbing up onto the roof is her idea of a good time. We lined up at the door, quietly walked outside, and made a semi-circle around the flagpole. "T" appeared, and all my students waved excitedly. "How did you get up there?" they wanted to know. Then she dropped one end of the chain down. At first it just bounced of its own weight, without touching the ground. My heart sank. The children were silent and held their breath in anticipation. We were all frozen in place and time. Then she started to let it out. Not only was it long enough to touch the ground, it had 12 links to spare. The cheer that went up when that chain touched the sidewalk gave me a buzz that still has me over-the-moon. They went wild. Beatles-frenzy wild. Ice-cream truck to the 10th power wild. They were hysterical to watch. Such joy. A feeling of accomplishment saturated the whole group. No labels. No worksheets. No scores. Just an almost complete year of 1st grade, under their belts in a way they could see, touch, and feel. "Awesome" doesn't begin to describe it. And that chain has patterns within patterns, represents skip-counting, and the links required dexterity and strength to connect. Can they measure? Sure. They can use inches, feet, baby-shoes, fish, giant shoes, any tool you like. Can they record it? Sure. Tally marks, pie charts, bar charts, you name it. All of them. Why? Well, at least in part because they made up the questions fro our measurement unit: "How old is your mom?", "Do you own a Bakugon?" (what is that, anyway?), "Which is your favorite dinosaur, T-Rex, Bracheosoris, or Triceritops?" And what do they remember most about measuring? I'm thinking the chain that was as tall as the school. We now know our school is over 280 inches tall. Wow. A file cabinet, a worksheet, a cute project, all would have been tolerated. My students make a lovely group of people who want to accomplish their best learning. And I think what helps support that spirit, that drive, is their ownership of what we do every day. Recently we were building numbers with number cubes. I have a few show-off students who beat my challenge of making a 100's number, and built first a 300's number. Then it was a 900's number. You can imagine: "Alright boys, very good. Now let's move on." Well, of course they wouldn't leave it alone. They had to keep pushing. They finally, using 100's flats, built 1,000. "Is there a 1,000 block?" someone asked. Well, then we did it. We began counting beyond 1,000. We began building 1,000 using different tools, in different denominations, and now, yes, we're building a 1,000 cube using 1's blocks. Teachers who "grew-up" using worksheets are good people who genuinely want our kids to learn. And it's very safe. You know what you've covered. You know what still needs to be taught. When students start taking learning into their own hands, you really have to guide them carefully. Intentional evaluation of what they're learning requires knowing standards inside and out, and possessing keen powers of observation. You've got to be on your game. And it's tough to do that and manage everything else. Thing is, everything else sort of starts taking care of itself. When students write their own survey questions, they want them answered. When they are figuring out how many more blocks they need, they're happy to take 440 away from 1,000 to see what's left. (That's what led to the 560, and then we had to have some 'place-value' fun and talk about what 56, 560, 5,60, etc. all had in common and what was different about them. We got to 56,000,000 before they began to fidget.) Behavior issues melt into the excitement of discovery. It's unpredictable. And it's the best learning I know how to support. Plus, it's a blast! Thank you, Colorado Department of Education, for giving me a baseline. I wonder how much more we'll cover?

1-18-11 6:44 pm - Back-Pocket Questions

They'll get a Thank You note from me in the mail sometime in the next week or so. The Cognitive Coaching SM office, that is. It's all about deepening thinking. Paraphrasing does it, when the paraphrase supports taking thinking to the next level. But once in a while, a question is in order.

Ah, and there's the rub. Good questions are non-evaluative, they presume positive intent, and they deepen thinking. Try it. Try composing a question with all of those elements. It's achievable, and for me, also somewhat time-consuming.

I'm quicker than I used to be. At first a solid 15 minutes could maybe see a good question from my brain. Now I'm down to around five. Fine for desk-work, troublesome in a coaching conversation. They need to come naturally, be easily accessible, these thought-deepening inquiries.

So, as a Winter Break gift, our "Coach of Coaches" added these lovely 5"x7" (or so) laminated question cards to our libraries. I loved my question cards. They freed me up to listen more closely to the conversation, paraphrase better, and still question skillfully and timely.

Then they were gone. Almost as fast as I got them, they were of into Never-Never land. Forever among the missing. Oh, I searched, scoured, and sorted all my things. My work area is in fact now, much neater. Still, the cards were gone.

Guilt-laden, I got on line and ordered more for myself. If the school district was willing to invest $10.00 in me, surely I could match it. Well, somehow the order failed to complete, and those magical cards continued to allude my mailbox. Propelled into action, I started asking around. One thing led to another, and finally a conversation with the Cognitive Coaching SM administrative office landed these handy tools in my box today.

Free of charge. Free of hassle. Free of explanation. They just appeared. People are essentially good. Thank you Cognitive Coaching SM office. You rock!

1-14-11 7:00 pm Magical Words

The art of listening is easy. It involves putting your own thoughts aside, and letting the words of another enter your thinking. OK, maybe that can be tough to accomplish, but it's certainly simple. New information shared affords the listener an opportunity to make choices: think, respond, question, or just continue listening.

As a coach I paraphrase continually. It's my default, and it's an effective way to show a speaker I'm listening. I'm finding that I'm beginning to paraphrase students. Their response shows a deepening of their own thinking. It's as though their words fly out of their mouths, entirely unfiltered, and when they hear them spoken back, that's their opportunity to evaluate their thinking. Do we do that as adults? Fling our words into unsuspecting ears, and watch for reactions? How can we tell whether reactions have anything to do with what we said? Paraphrasing from the listener shows that, regardless of my response, this is what I heard you say. It seems to validate the speaker's words, or give him or her an opportunity to change the statement.

1-11-11 6:37 pm "A"

He continues to amaze me. He's eager to get whatever the class's goal is - getting to their work stations, getting to the story rug, getting to the sink to wash hands. He'll sit in any position I ask - usually "criss-cross apple-sauce, spoons-in-the-bowl", if it means he'll be allowed to get to the next thing.

And he wants to help. When his partner needs an eraser, he offers his own. When someone forgets to pick up the last piece of a project, "A" will get it. And without ceremony much of the time. So he's not needing to be a distraction. He just has an almost annoying sense of balance and justice. I say annoying because sometimes when kids want to help more than you expect them to, or more than you'd anticipate, it ends up seeming like time being taken from learning.

With "A", it's clear he wants to exercise his mind. Yes, he has his own, unfailing terms, but they're meant well. Again, I'm convinced, every student wants to learn and perform well. It's finding that balance between making room for what they want, and inspiring them to do some work that you need to see. "A" is truly an inspiration because he reminds me of what all students need. They need to feel like valued, connected contributors. It's finding a way to honor those needs while engaging them in learning activities that's the art and science of teaching. It's a fairly simple concept but can be complex to execute.

1-10-11 9:25 pm Substitutes

Well, "A" is putting us all to shame. He's outperforming my highest hopes. I've had a substitute teach for me over the last two days. All they keep reporting is how on-task "A" is.

He wants to learn. He wants to perform well. He wants to be part of the classroom community - a welcome member. More and more clearly do I see that students with behavior problems, at least this one, while a myriad of additional issues may plague him, simply chooses social "failure" over academic failure. Students with learning challenges sometimes rather you see them misbehave than reveal their true weaknesses.

This reminds me of the eternal truth: Students may forget what you teach them, but they'll remember how you made them feel.

1-6-11 6:49 pm So far, So good...

"A" was a full class participant today. He was engaged, cared about his work, and behaved appropriately. Not perfectly, he did get squirmy a time or two, but the rest of the class was able to continue their learning. I believe all students want to succeed, most especially those who struggle to do so. Observing "A"'s successes only convince me further of the truth in my convictions about students wanting to achieve learning.

1-4-11 6:06 pm The Prisoner

"A" took his imprisonment well today. He was shy before entering, hanging back at the door. He smiled, but his feet weren't moving. So, we hung up his coat with the others. If his joining the group was too big a first step, his coat could make the first move. And it did. Then he followed, with a tiny pinch of bravery. At first, he seemed to appreciate being stuck with me. Maybe it gave him a sense of belonging in his new setting.

There were plenty of allowances to buffer the blow of his being shackled. He was asked to call on volunteers, observe and report the behaviors of others, and choose teams. It's more than was fair, but "A" is a special case, and this is a slightly unusual situation.

At first he was definately a player. He excitedly reported the goings on at each table, and eagerly looked around for our next target. I'm not sure how long this first round took. Maybe 10 minutes. He showed stamina, and if there'd been more stations, he'd have been up for more reporting. But the moment he realized we'd made a complete circuit, he wanted in. Ah! Maybe I snagged him. Maybe learning activities are on his agenda. Time will tell.

With any other student, it would have been time to let him join, but I wanted to give "A" that permenant memory of my presence at his side. And sticking together gave us plenty of opportunities to bargain.

"Oh, you'd like to join Table 2? Well that could happen tomorrow. What will you do when you're at Table 2?"

"Wooork quuuuietwy."

"Wonderful! You'll get a lot done working quietly at Table 2 tomorrow."

And so on, for each station.

He began to ask to go to Table 4. It's a number chart game where students fix a 100's number chart. 100 number cards are all out of order: 23, 45, 11, 37, 90, etc. Students find the correct numbers and put them all in order. The best part is, cleaning up at this station means putting the numbers in the wrong places. They all love it. "A" asked several times to join that station, regardless of the team working there. Hopefully that means the activity is more enticing than the people. We repeated the bargainning conversation for that one several times.

And then there was the straying. He'd begin to wander off, trying to join the others on his own. Rejoining me reluctantly was, I thought, a healthy sign, even though it was by coersion.

"A, when you rejoin me, the class can rotate."

"A, we'll get started when you rejoin me."

"A, I'll wait..."

But he smiled for the entire hour and a quarter. My fingers are crossed so hard for tomorrow their knuckles are white. It's a real white-knuckle finger-crossing. I'm hopeful - very hopeful.

1/3/11, 10:30 a.m. - Effective Classroom Management, and Student "A", the Desk-Crawler

This blog shares examples of, and plans for, productive classroom management, from the perspective of an Instructional Cognitive Coach (SM). "Productive" as in supporting independent learning motivated by inspiration, achievement, and challenge. The kind of management that motivates students to want to learn. The coaching strategy is this: Identify the desired outcome, and then choose congruent behaviors to elicit it.

For example, for my 1st graders' math class, I'd like to be available to all students as they need help during learning time. Trouble is, when every one's engaged in the same activity simultaneously, chances are good that lots of students could need help at the same time. To that end I've created math "centers", areas with different math tasks involving writing, building, drawing, throwing dice, etc.

At the beginning of each class we take a gallery walk of the centers, students review the learning tasks at each, and then they set off to work independently. While they work, I'm available to circulate, and help as needed. Also, keeping many of the centers routine, only rotating in a few new activities a week, helps maximize my availability to students needing support. Other teachers have described the learning environment as "Zen", and I agree. I'm calm, collected, and able to help at all times. Students work independently most of the time. It's utterly delightful, and every bit the desired outcome I had in mind. Hopefully a fine example of some great classroom management.

As for a plan, this is what's happening with one of my favorite people, student "A". The desired outcome for student "A" is his feeling like a successful learner: trust that I'll be there when he needs me, responsibility for his own learning, fair-minded classroom participation, and academic achievement. He'll be starting in my classroom tomorrow.

In the past, "A" has required constant teacher supervision; he's continually sought attention (his desired outcome), whether by sharing crayons, crawling on desks, or randomly singing loudly during quiet learning time (all highly-successful behaviors congruent with getting the attention he craves). So: How to get him learning instead of sabotaging? If it's attention he wants, I'll use it behaviorally to attain the outcome we all want for him.

He wants continual and captivated attention of teachers and peers alike, and I think he also craves academic success. Most learners do, whether or not they show it. My strategic behavior? He and I will be learning partners for the entirety of his first day in my class. His task? Reporting to me as we tour our math learning centers, the task at each stop, and its learning objective. This will create a strong memory for him of me as his constant companion, and a shared set of explicit, appropriate expectations. The desired outcome? Trust for both of us. He'll trust me to be there, and I'll know he understands what to do.

Secondly, he will want to join his friends - another of his desired outcomes. My strategy? Offer participation, conditionally, the second day (and thereafter). He'll have his chance to build both social and academic success, after reporting accurately to me appropriate behavior for the learning activity of a center of my choosing. That is my condition for his inclusion. Rejoining me, resuming his reporting duties, will be my leverage anytime he needs redirecting. Wanting to work with his peers (his ultimate desire) will motivate him to engage appropriately (a congruent and winning behavior) in learning.

Academic success will result from engaged learning, the ultimate desired outcome. He'll trust me, his teacher, work with his friends, and continue to build academic capacity. This success will build upon itself. It's a best-case scenario backed by research and results-based planning.

I'll let you know how it goes....