Back in the Saddle

 Fast Llamas,

We are back in the action!  School starts tomorrow for me, 5 days of District PD and 5 days of Campus PD to prepare physically and mentally for the upcoming school year.  Lots of anxious feelings, nearly palpable as we go back to "normal".  But, we remain flexible (it's a life skill) as protocols may change.  

My last blog entry in May ended with what our friend and fast llama guru, Doug Curry had to say about Collective Teacher Efficacy, our impact and what "Makes Schools Great".  

I will begin this new school year with the same information... because the words are just so good. Doug's impact is reminding us that middle school and high school kids still need consistency, systems and relationships in order to have a sense of safety and belonging.  Don't make assumptions, just because they are older that will automatically just, "know" how to behave in the hallways, or how to interact respectfully with adults when approached, it is our role to teach students beyond our content.  

Doug Curry says that in order to have "Great Secondary Schools" you need these elements.  And, when you read them, you will be thinking, "yes!", the next step is up to you to put them into action.  

What makes schools great:

1.  Belief - Teachers will not look away at behaviors, but will lovingly step in with consistency students need in order to teach students the ways of success.

2.  Relationships - Teachers will get to know as many students names in their building as possible and interact with these students in the hallways, in their classrooms, in the cafeteria and at dismissal.

3. Expectations - "Middle school and high school students deserve a school that is both physically and emotionally safe. It is not their job to create it and maintain it. It is the job of the adults. And it is the job of the adults to have the courage and confidence to step in and intervene when students are not living up to the accepted standards of the school." D. Curry

We teach them how to act — how to respond appropriately, how to be kind to others, have empathy and integrity.  We teach them to love school and to love their teachers. We help them and their families have a plan to go from middle school to high school to their future.

Do you know what your dream school looks like?  Can you picture it in your mind?  If you don't, spend some time thinking about it and picturing it in your mind.

Reflective Questions:

- what do passing period look and sound like?  are they loud with happy kids? where are the teachers and administrators?  What are teachers and admin doing while kids walk to class? Do you feel safe?  Do students feel safe?

 - once the bell rings what does it look and sound like? are the hallways clear?  when you see a kid, do they have a pass? if they don't what happens? are students in their classrooms with meaningful and engaging learning from bell to bell?

Can you and do you understand the power of the herd?  

Do you know your impact?  What is your sphere of influence?  It's a lot bigger than you think...

This is the most important of all mindframes and is the major message for Visible Learning.  We continually adjust and refocus what we are doing. We stop talking and listen for our impact.  Our impact in our classrooms and with our fellow teachers.  

Take a look at the table below: (sorry for the formatting, I really just threw it down quickly this morning, but the info in more important to the spacing... sorry to those who are bothered! ha)

As humans, we are hard-wired in our brains for connection and for a sense of belonging.  When our students have a connection to each other, to you and to your content, the "will and thrill of learning", can flourish., so does creativity.  These feelings apply to the collective teachers on your team, in your department and in your building.  This is the herd.  

In great schools you can sense the feeling of efficacy. We are not powerless. Our schools will be whatever we want them to be. It takes effort, it takes courage and it takes confidence.   But, together, we are stronger than being alone.  If you see a slow llama (aka, a struggling teacher), help them get faster, in doing so, the whole herd gets faster and that makes our school great.

More to come in the coming days... 

Finishing up What Makes Schools Great

Fast Llamas,  

It's Memorial Day, the unofficial start for summer and in our district the last week of school.  I have lots of friends who work for other districts and they have been out for a week now.  Time flies!  Make plans to deliberately make the most of every moment this summer, even if that means watching The Young and the Restless!  

I have been meaning to complete Doug Curry's article, Great Secondary Schools and I will today.  Doug is so good at reminding us that middle school and high school kids still need consistency, systems and relationships in order to have a sense of safety and belonging.  Don't make assumptions, just because they are older that will automatically just, "know" how to behave in the hallways, or how to interact respectfully with adults when approached, it is our role to teach students beyond our content.  

How about this from @casas_jimmy

We only have our students for three more days, what will you do to make those days count?  This is an important time to model excellent behavior.  To teach how to "behave when you are transitioning and probably will not see these people for the next 10 weeks or at all".  How will you keep the students engaged, happy, behaved these last three days when some think they have nothing to lose?  

Doug Curry says that in order to have "Great Secondary Schools" you need these elements.  And, when you read them, you will be thinking, "yes!", the next step is up to you to put them into action.

What makes schools great:

1.  Belief - Teachers will not look away at behaviors, but will lovingly step in with consistency students need in order to teach students the ways of success

2.  Relationships - Teachers will get to know as many students names in their building as possible and interact with these students in the hallways, in their classrooms, in the cafeteria and at dismissal

3. Expectations - "Middle school and high school students deserve a school that is both physically and emotionally safe. It is not their job to create it and maintain it. It is the job of the adults. And it is the job of the adults to have the courage and confidence to step in and intervene when students are not living up to the accepted standards of the school." D. Curry

We teach them how to act — how to respond appropriately, how to be kind to others, have empathy and integrity.  We teach them to love school and to love their teachers. We help them and their families have a plan to go from middle school to high school to their future.

Do you know what your dream school looks like?  Can you picture it in your mind?  If you don't, spend some time thinking about it and picturing it in your mind.

Reflective Questions:

- what do passing period look and sound like?  are they loud with happy kids? where are the teachers and administrators?  What are teachers and admin doing while kids walk to class? Do you feel safe?  Do students feel safe?

 - once the bell rings what does it look and sound like? are the hallways clear?  when you see a kid, do they have a pass? if they don't what happens? are students in their classrooms with meaningful and engaging learning from bell to bell?

Can you and do you understand the power of the herd?  In great schools you can sense the feeling of efficacy. We are not powerless. Our schools will be whatever we want them to be. It takes effort, it takes courage and it takes confidence.   But, together, we are stronger than being alone.  If you see a slow llama, help them get faster, in doing so, the whole herd gets faster and that makes our school great.

Until next time... 

Fast Llamas and the End of School

Fast Llamas!

Hey all, here is a timely "reshare" November and a friendly reminder to why we should not "count down" to summer.

Here is a quick reminder to avoid "counting down" to summer and how this thinking can  send a message to others and to our brain to not "make the most of every moment."  Why is this detrimental?  Let's break it down...

All learning and thinking is as Eric Jensen says, "is state dependent".  Three states that we encounter daily (and hourly) is our cognitive, emotional and physical state. (in Quantum Learning, we call it a "congruence") What's interesting is that when one is changed, all three change as they are interwoven in our brain's neural networks.  Here's an example, you are working on a task, you start feeling sleepy and droopy, so you sit up, take a deep breath, raise your eyebrows, turn on some music or even get up and get a drink.  This changes your physical state, and thus, your cognitive and emotional one too.  (you become more capable of thinking and your emotional state gets fed with a favorite song and in my case, a Diet Coke, which makes me happy).  Our state is our frame of mind or our mood and we do have control of it.  

What does this have to do with "counting down" to a break?  Well, our words and thoughts influence us tremendously and they have the power to inspire us in negative and positive ways.  When we count down, we are sending a message to our brains that where we are and what we are doing is equated with something bad.  I know I am teetering in the "toxic positivity" realm that is super popular right now, so I will be mindful about it.  I am not saying to tell your brain to avoid negativity or squash it down or ignore it.  What I am saying that we have tough roles and careers right now and we embrace it everyday.  We need to tell others when we are hurting, tired and needing help, that's the only way others know to step in and be helpful.  But, counting down the time that we are at work so that we can spend time away from it, just reinforces those connections in our brain toward negative feelings. We already know it's tough, why send another message reinforcing it?  

No way am I telling to you to "turn your frown upside down" which actually makes be blech just typing it.

We don't have to be happy or peppy all day long, but the time we are at school is what is it, time that we are together with our colleagues, our students, and our friends.  They are opportunities to be a shining light in someone's bad day, to find a new way of doing something that makes it easier for you or someone else or share a laugh with others. We don't silence our feelings when they are negative, but, seek out others for help and vice versa.  This is the good that have for each other.  

A person I admire at school posted an article about "toxic positivity" on social media and I am very mindful of it... here is something I found that frames responses to avoid it.

Our words and actions also influence our students too, they are watching and listening.  What message about our learning and our classrooms do you want to send? Do we want to send a message to our students that we don't like the time we spend together with them?  I don't think so.  We have control of the messages we send to students about the learning that goes on in their classrooms.  We also have the opportunity to instill this life-long skill of making the most of every moment.  That the time we have together is just as fun and important as the time we spend out of school.  School is not a place to avoid, but a place where they belong.  And we belong there to for each other.  Let's focus on the present moment.

So in bringing it all together, we can do things to change our state of mind in the moment to get through tough times.  We can also support one another during the day to help our work colleagues (and students) get through those tough times too.

Fast Llama's and SEL part 3

Fast Llamas,

We are back today to speak about Academic Rigor and Social and Emotional Learning.  Remember, I went to an awesome training a couple of weeks ago that was so great in tying these two together.  What spoke to me most (and what I love to hear) is "old school" strategies, those strategies that have been around for my whole teaching career being "leveled up" to address SEL.  We are wrong to throw out learning strategies that are "old" just because they have been around for a long time. If a learning strategy works, they work for a reason, but, we can always improve and tweak our practices.  Innovation, to me is not about bright, shiny new things, but a refinement of our strengths and practices that we have mastered.  

Let's visit Balanced Instruction.  Balanced Instruction is all about the purposeful reflective practice of using a balance between direct instruction and collaborative learning.  There is a place for direct instruction, it actually has a high effect size of .60. (An effect size of .60 means more than one year growth for one year of input.)  A great use of Balance Instruction is using a lesson cycle, where direct instruction is a part of the lesson each day, chunking complex information into pieces that students can handle.  In a Blended Learning Model, small group direct instruction can be used with great success. 

Here is an example of a Lesson Cycle outline:

1.  Setting Goals and Learning Outcomes

2. Direct Instruction/Mini Lesson

3.  Practice - Independent or Group

4.  Conclusion/ Reflection

Within this outline we can dig deeper to provide the Quantum Learning Teaching Cycle:

E - Enroll/Engage - how can I grab the students attention?

E - Experience - is there a common experience that the class can share?

- Enroll/Engage/Experience are often done at the same time - I am giving you choice here to think about.

L - Learn and Label  - direct teaching/direct learning - use teaching strategies such as chunking...

D - Demonstrate - students carry the cognitive workload

R - Reinforce - help students brains encode the learning to long term memory by recapping, reviewing and retrieving the learning

C - Celebrate effort

Intertwined within this cycle is our expectations for our students.  Expectations or having "high expectations" has an effect size of about .49.  You will get one years growth for one years input by having them.  The issue and trap we can fall into is thinking that by being strict, we are having high expectations.  While I will never tell you to not hold kids accountable, I will tell you that having high expectations is more about the perception of our students cognitive abilities rather than their skills at meeting due dates.  This idea is tied with trust and "I know you can do this" attitudes.  So, there is a balance between knowing what our students can do academically and how they will respond when faced with academic challenges.  There is a balance between the pressure to succeed, feel responsible for their academic work and the support we provide students along the journey.  My favorite teachers were the ones whom provided a challenging curriculum, but, were so helpful to me when I asked.  Trust has a very high effect size... so by trusting our student to perform to our expectations, stands a very good chance that they will experience high achievement.  

Have a great week and see you soon!

Happy Mother's Day!

Fast Llama's,

I am living the key of Balance and taking today off from writing, choosing to eat Mother's Day Brunch and enjoying the day!  

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms, your own Moms, all the Auntie's and Mom's Best Friend (your own personal B.F.P.) who love you and your kids so much!  

See you next week.

Fast Llama's Running with SEL part 2

Fast Llamas,

Last week we started talking about SEL and Academic Rigor.  We will continue our discussion with that in mind today.  Remember, when students build their social-emotional competencies, they are better able to participate in learning experiences, they are more motivated to learn, more committed to school and less likely to act out in negative ways.  So it makes sense that when students feel competent in how to interact with others in the classroom, they are more likely to be highly engaged.  Which then increases their capacity to learn and retain information.  

So, when you want to try out a learning strategy, be purposeful about the planning.  We want to set students up for success and save them from themselves.  They are teenagers and they are very good at it.  In the absence of expectations, students will create their own and not always the best ones.  

Ask yourself:

1. What are the rules/boundaries? - set aside time to explain the strategy to the students, practice

2. What will it look like, sound like, feel like? - will students move?  and if so, how? how will students get my attention, how will I get theirs?

3.  What are my expectations for the students? be clear

4.  What are the expectations of me for my students?

5.  What roles can I give to students? time keeper, materials manager, table leader?

In the planning, set up the strategy and work your way through it.  This is called Micro-teaching and it is well worth the time.  

Let's look at cooperative learning.  This strategy has been around for as long as I have been in teaching. But, it took me years before I realized my supervising teacher was right, for anything students do in the classroom, they have to know the "rules of the game".  So, you can use cooperative learning successfully when you instill:

1. positive interdependence - build trust with students that you expect them to complete the work

2. individual accountability - include both group accountability and individual contributions

3. promoting other's success - we celebrate the learning, teach kids how to celebrate their peers

4. applying interpersonal and social skills 

5.  group goals - allow for students to have time to think about the work they did and monitor their progress to reach the goal individually and as a group

Take time to teach the process before you begin, setting students up for success!  This "Competence Building" is modeled and coached by you for students.  Competence building occurs when teachers help develop "social and emotional competencies systematically through the instructional cycle".  Each part of the lesson cycle gives opportunity for reinforcement of social skills.  

1.  goals of the lesson

2.  mini-lesson

3. independent/group practice

4. conclusion and reflection of learning

The teacher models and coaches positive relationship and social skills throughout the lesson,  encourages prosocial skills, and provides feedback to on how they are interacting with one another as well as the content.  Teachers do this with content naturally, adding the prosocial feedback integrated within the lesson is the added bonus.  Adding this feedback gets you to where you want to be with your classroom.  Where students have social and self-awareness of their behaviors, demonstrate responsible decision making and self management and develop relationship skills.  

Stay tuned for more next week!

Resources:

Yoder, N. (2014). Self-Assessing Social and Emotional Instruction and Competencies. Center on Great Teachers & Leaders Report partially funded by the United States Department of Education.

Fast Llama's Running with SEL

 Fast Llamas,

Hey all, what great weather we have had this weekend!  I am sitting outside this morning, enjoying a good cup of coffee and listening all the sounds!  My house sits under Continental Airport flight path... I am starting to hear more and more airplanes fly over... this is good I think.  

We had started "What Makes Schools Great" with Doug Curry, and we will get back to that soon... but, since I attended training, I wanted to share this information with you.  The following information addresses Doug's core ideas about what makes a school great and aligns perfectly:

1. Belief

2. Relationships

3. Clear Expectations

4. Systems in that allow students to learn self-regulation and autonomy

Practices that make school great is the vehicle to help students develop socially and emotionally and achievement will come along for the ride.

This past week I attended the Learning Leader Institute.  The institute was hosted by RTI and focused on Social and Emotional Learning.  My day was focused on SEL and academic rigor.  The learning for the day was grounded in CASEL'S SEL Framework.  (they have a great Twitter feed if you are interested in more from them @caselorg). 

You can also find more info on their website.  www.casel.org

What's interesting is a lot of schools focus on SEL during advisory time or create lessons for students to focus on different aspects to help their social and emotional growth.  At Labay, we use the 8 Keys of Excellence and Living Above the Line to align with CASEL's Competencies as ways to help students learn skills to/be:

1. more self aware - do they know the impact of their own behavior?

2. develop self-management - can they choose how to respond in ways that makes situations better?

3. develop social awareness - can they interact with others positively? 

4. develop social skills - resolve and communicate in positive ways

5. responsible decision making - learning to make wise choices

Fast llama's know their impact on student growth is beyond our content. We are helping to educate and thus raise generations of students.  This is an opportunity, not an obligation to show students the ways of success.  To model how successful people live their lives.  We do a lot of different activities using the 8 Keys, but, we can always do more and be more effective in our practices.  

That's when I got hit with a thought.  While it is a good idea to focus on lessons on how to develop CASEL's Competencies in our students, we are most powerful when it is integrated into the daily instructional practices happening bell to bell in our classrooms.  Most, if not all of the practices I will be sharing, are ALREADY being done in the classroom,  let's add the "why" and put a label on them to help level up your current teaching methodology and pedagogy.  We can always do better.  Like I told a newbie  teacher just the other day, "my personal growth goal ALWAYS focused on classroom management. Every year, I worked on building better relationships, getting faster at systems and building student autonomy, because a new group of students arrived every August and I had to adapt my practices to meet them where they were." I could also get better as I attended training and adopted new ideas, sometimes replacing my old ways with new innovation.  

Let's dive deeper over the next couple of weeks into Instructional and Social Teaching Practices that impact students.  You will find, many of the practices, you have already been using on the daily.  Some you may reflect on how well you are attending to and some you can put into practice.  Remember, adopt what you need, adapt to make it yours and replace what is not working with what can make improvements.  

Teacher Language and Warmth and Support:

We were just talking about this a couple of blogs (How to be a Slow Llama part 1 and 2) ago.  Fast llama teachers understand the power of Teacher Language (both in what we say, how we say it and how it looks (body language)).  How we talk to students becomes part of a students internal monologue.  Teachers should encourage effort, focusing on the things students did to do well on an activity.  Teachers can encourage student reflection on monitoring and regulating their own behavior.  Classroom Agreements go a long with with this idea, where we share and agree upon how we behave in the classroom.  Warmth and Support are demonstrated with students when we have Home Court Advantage, (HCA) where our classrooms are places of safety, support and belonging.  Build rapport with students by asking about their lives, being attentive to their needs, providing anecdotes from their own lives that show times when they were struggling themselves and came through.  Allow student input to systems and procedures and share students academic work.  Work hard at showing students your appreciation for their efforts and celebrate their successes. 

Home Court Advantage

Procedures for supporting the educational risk students encounter will go a long way in getting students to feel safe in your class include:

1. collaboration: allowing students time to answer a question, then discuss with a partner to clear up any misconceptions before they volunteer answers, using this technique also builds peer to peer rapport

2.  develop systems for when a student is speaking, other students turn to face them and listen

3.  be attentive to your question and answer procedures with students, using eliciting techniques to allow students to stretch responses "how so, tell me more, give me another example", especially if they are not on the right track

4. wait time - allow students time to think 

5. avoid rounding up - don't finish students answers for them, allow them time to talk

6.  celebrate with classroom whooshes and other novel responses that involve the whole class

7. develop responses for yourself to use when students are incorrect and systems in place to get other students to help out

Utilizing teaching practices that incorporate SEL with purpose allows students to make better and successful choices.  This is life-long learning stuff here!  

See you next week!