This week, a colleague at school circulated the email below to a large number of faculty. The content of the inquiry has caused me to really think about some things. Here are a few of them:
Kudos to this educator for soliciting dialogue about an important learning issue! I love that instincts were to create a space for discussion and collaboration.
Thanks to this educator (and others who designed the PD day) for identifying a way to use in-service time for self-identified interests and innovations!
Could the texts we are asking students to read be part of the issue…rather than the length of the texts?
Years and years ago, was a similar message part of a tribal campfire discussion? “Villagers, we are having a harder and harder time getting children to tell stories around the campfire. Their oral memories are terrible! They want to look at these things called books. What should we do?” [please excuse the reductionist, less-than-accurate historical detail here]
Don’t people who write long books do so by examining small dollups of thinking? Don’t writers of long texts do so by writing smaller dollups of writing?
I read a lot of “sound bites” that I categorize with modern day tools so that I “study” an issue intensely from a number of different, inter-connected perspectives. When we think about a printed, long text, isn’t that exactly what we have access to via the words that the author decided to record – all the synthesized thinking that went into the recording of the text?
Why do we educators sometimes assume that just because the “kids don’t do it in school, they must not do it?” I am certain that our students are choosing to read and immerse themselves in some longer, richer texts…not because they are assigned in school, but because they are interesting outside of school.
Let’s search for the “both/and solution.” Students – all learners – should be able to do both/and…learn in sound bites and backchannels, as well as in longer, deeper texts, as well as…
Dear Colleagues,
Some of you may have seen Bob Ryshke’s recent posting of Mark Bauerlein’s article on thoughtful reading, “Too Dumb for Complex Texts.” In a similar vein, I offer you a short blog post called “Are We Really Becoming More Stupid?” Make sure you read the response, too:
The post and the response encapsulate neatly two different arguments about the way we (or some of us?) read today.
My own experience in class over the last 2-3 years has been that of an increasing student unease with spending time with texts or even passages, and I have been wondering whether it is some way related to a rapidly emerging digital culture that privileges sound-bites, personal opinion (not informed judgement), and multi-tasking. We have even seen some of our faculty peers engaging in technological multi-tasking by tweeting each other during presentations (so-called “back-channeling”).
I would be very interested in participating in a collaborative discussion with some of you about encouraging our students to read slowly and deeply — to give complex texts enough time to breathe. The next in-service day looks like the perfect time to do this. Let me know if you’re interested, and let’s start working on a reading list and/or an agenda for the day.
Every year, I engage in a “360° review” as part of my annual evaluation as a principal. As part of the review, I invite hundreds of faculty, parents, students, and administrators to contribute to a survey which solicits feedback about various aspects of my job performance. In short, I want to learn and grow. I think I do good work with considerable effort, but I hope I am not yet the principal that I will learn to be. When we stop growing, we stop. And more mirrors on the bus provide a deeper, richer view of what’s around us.
Collecting feedback is not unique. However, I always share the results of this particular survey. Certainly, this survey data is not the only feedback I get. However, it is the most formalized way that I collect feedback from a large set of constituents and people who deserve to share a collective voice in my learning and growth. Interestingly, sharing out the results seems to be a rather unique practice. For me, it seems natural to complete the loop…to connect the dots…to round out the circle of community.
This week, I sent the following email to all those I invited to participate in my formal feedback collection (the survey):
On Feb 7, 2011, at 1:03 PM, Bo Adams wrote:
Dear All (BC field):
On Jan. 6, 2011, I invited you to take part in providing me with formal feedback about my job performance as principal of the Junior High at Westminster. Thank you to the many of you who chose to participate. Of course, I welcome feedback from all of you, at any time; the survey was just one method for feedback.
As has been my practice for all eight years of my principalship, I like to share the overall survey results with you. Here is a link to a PDF of all 37 pages – a summary from Dr. Clarkson and 36 pages of the survey monkey results.
[link was here.]
Overall, I found the feedback to be very positive and encouraging, and the various voices all give me good things to think about as I continue to learn and grow in my work to serve the Junior High School and Westminster at large.
Thanks,
Bo
Approx. 50% of JH faculty responded [37 of 80]
Approx. 10% of JH parents responded [42 of 400 sampled]
Approx. 25% of Admin responded [7 of 30 sampled]
Approx. 60% of Synergy 8 students sampled responded
Why do I feel so strongly about sharing out the results of my feedback and evaluation?
I believe it helps those who participate to “calibrate” their feedback with the whole…the collective voice.
I believe it shows that I have nothing to hide – I value all the voices who contribute for one reason or another. I am the principal and/or colleague for 100% of the people from whom I solicit feedback…not just the ones with whom I agree.
I think networked (three-way) feedback is stronger than mere two-way feedback.
Sharing solicits more feedback and conversation. Already I have received 12 follow-up emails, 4 phone calls, and 6 drop-by visits. We get to interact with the feedback so WE can continue to understand each other better, each person’s perspectives better, each person’s work better.
I ask my faculty to share their student-course feedback with me. Shouldn’t I model a reciprocal respect by doing the same? Shouldn’t I be cautious – nay, resistant – to doing something to/with others that I would not do to/with myself?
Principals, other school admin, teachers, educators, and other learners…STOP! and READ! Bill Ferriter’s The Tempered Radical blog post “What I’d Hold YOU Accountable For.” From the perspective of this principal teacher, Bill’s tweet and post are right on the money…they certainly do NOT rub me the wrong way. May I strive to live and lead by his recommendations!
Are we creating the conditions necessary for innovation in schools? Are we leading learning innovation?
In an effort to complement Bill’s post, I offer these supports, suggestions, and examples:
Tear down the walls that exist between teachers and rebuild an infrastructure that provides for a powerful community of learners. The PLC infrastructure is well-researched, well-documented, and well-utilized (in many places). At the Junior High at Westminster, we have adopted and adapted an aggressive model – replace a class in the rotating schedule with an opportunity for regular, job-embedded PLC work. Our teams meet four days per week, for 55-minutes each day…just like our student learners meet for math, English, science, etc. Additionally, we use a co-facilitator, teacher-leader model, and we rely on a PLC structure to support the facilitators of the various teams. As a facilitator PLC, we meet one day per week for face-to-face time.
Tear down the walls that exist between teachers and leverage social media to provide an “anywhere, anytime” PLC/PLN. For the past month, a growing team of teachers at Westminster has been engaged in the “20 minute experiment” on Twitter. Take a look…
Tear down the walls that exist between teachers and implement a faculty assessment plan that holds growth and development more dear than evaluation. Let’s conduct “physicals” rather than “autopsies.” We are several years into this process at Westminster.
Tear down the walls that exist between teachers and promote innovation, creative thinking, and project-based learning. Find ways to highlight the experiments, innovations, prototypes, and trials of an amazing faculty of lifelong learners.
I hope I do not sound overly paternalistic when I say, “I am so proud of the teams of teachers in our Junior High!” Currently, our PLC (professional learning community) facilitators are enacting an action research project. We are facilitating the construction of essential learnings for an upcoming unit of instruction in our various PLCs (math, English, science, history, Spanish, etc.). Among the groups, essential learnings exist at various stages and phases. Some teams are a year or more into the process. Others are just starting. Some take to it like a fish to water. Others struggle. Sounds like any learning endeavor, doesn’t it?!
To help find common ground in our journeys to establish essential learnings, we decided to “shrink the change” (from Switch, by Dan and Chip Heath). What if all the PLCs worked on essential learnings for an upcoming unit? Could that help us all to understand essential learnings more deeply? Could such a project illustrate a variety of ways for teams to respond to the first essential question of all PLCs: What should students learn?
After a few facilitator workshop meetings, in which we strived to understand the basic processes of establishing essential learnings, we got to work in our various PLCs. Take a look at the method the Junior High Math PLC used to discuss and enhance the vertical alignment of their established and evolving essential learnings in 6th through 8th grade math.
Can you fathom the potential of this team-oriented work? They are breaking down the silos of individual courses and teachers. They are building an essential learnings “scope and sequence” to ensure that our math students develop deep and enduring understanding of critical math concepts. To know what students should learn then allows us to build assessment strategies to ensure that deep learning is occuring and enduring. And we can work out the kinks of overlaps and gaps so that student-learning is part of a system, rather than a vaccuum.
In the background of the current, short version of the video, the Science 8 PLT is completing a new draft of their essential learnings. Those go on the board next! Can you see what’s coming? The potential for integrated studies that weave together the related essentials of math and science. [I am looking forward to showcasing that video journal.] What potential! I am so proud of our teams of teachers learners! When we pull together, we can accomplish more.
While I have not done any real, substantive research into this etymology, I understand that the term “principal” comes from “principal teacher.” Like a principal violinist or principal trumpet in a symphonic orchestra. I am a principal. I consider myself to be a part of the body of players with instruments. Yet, I am often likened to the conductor or director. Such is why I strongly prefer the title of principal – it reminds me everyday that I am amongst the musicians with instruments in hand. While I see the conductor or director of an orchestra as an accomplished musician, there is something different about standing up front, facing a different direction, and waving a wand rather than a wielding a stringed instrument, a woodwind, or piece of brass. Yes, I am a principal…teacher. A principal…learner. A principal…educator.
Consequently, I feel a visceral reaction rising from within me when I hear things that imply or directly name “us” and “them” thinking. Recently, a colleague of mine sent me a tweet (with no intent to incite, I am certain) that made reference to “admin” and “faculty” participating in something together, and I responded with this…
However, at the same time, I empathetically understand the thinking that “my principal evaluates me, so he/she is not really ‘one of us.'” I will not give up the career objective, though, to “be one of us”…co-teacher, co-learner, co-educator. I want to be in the band with the faculty. I am a (principal) teacher, a (principal) learner, a (principal) educator.
In my efforts to break down this industrial, hierarchical, twentieth-century, mental model of “us” and “them,” I believe that the way principals conduct (ironic, I realize) observations is critical. The shortest, most concise summary of my thinking on this issue comes from Kim Marshall’s extraordinary article, It’s Time to Rethink Teacher Supervision and Evaluation. If you have not read the article, I encourage you to do so. I think it is profoundly powerful. Here’s a hook that I hope grabs you:
The theory of action behind supervision and evaluation is that they will improve teachers’ effectiveness and therefore boost student achievement.1 This assumption seems logical. But the vignettes above raise a troubling question: what if the theory is wrong? This article takes a close look at this possibility and explores an alternative theory of action.
Marshall listed and explained 10 reasons why the traditional model of supervision and evaluation is ineffective:
1. Principals evaluate only a tiny amount of teaching.
2. Microevaluations of individual lessons don’t carry much weight.
3. The lessons that principals evaluate are often atypical.
4. Isolated lessons give an incomplete picture of instruction.
5. Evaluation almost never focuses on student learning.
6. High-stakes evaluation tends to shut down adult learning.
7. Supervision and evaluation reinforce teacher isolation.
8. Evaluation instruments often get in the way.
9. Evaluations often fail to give teachers “judgmental” feedback.
10. Most principals are too busy to do a good job on supervision and evaluation.
As Marshall transitioned from describing the problems and shortcomings to detailing the practices that can actually improve instruction and learning, he wrote:
I’ve argued that the theory of action behind supervision and evaluation is flawed and that the conventional process rarely changes what teachers do in their classrooms. Here is an alternative theory: The engine that drives high student achievement is teacher teams working collaboratively toward common curriculum expectations and using interim assessments to continuously improve teaching and attend to students who are not successful. Richard DuFour, Mike Schmoker, Robert Marzano, Douglas Reeves, Jeffrey Howard, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, and others believe that this approach is a critical element in high achievement. I agree, but with a proviso: if a school adopts this theory, it must change the way teachers are supervised and evaluated. If it doesn’t, the principal won’t have the time, energy, and insight to get the engine started and monitor it during each school year.
Then, Marshall provided a set of bullet-points, on page 732 of the Phi Delta Kappan article, that significantly define what I strive to accomplish in my principalship – a philosophy in short order, rather than a checklist. Moreover, he created 12 steps to linking supervision and evaluation to high school achievement:
1. Make sure the basics are in place.
2. Decide on the irreducible elements of good teaching.
3. Systematically visit all classrooms on a regular basis.
4. Give teachers prompt, face-to-face feedback after every classroom visit.
5. Require teacher teams to develop common unit plans and assessments.
6. Require teams to give common interim assessments.
7. Have teams report on student learning after each unit or quarter.
8. Arrange for high-quality feedback on lessons for teachers.
9. Create a professional learning culture in the school.
10. Use short observation visits to write teachers’ final evaluations.
11. Include measures of student learning gains in teachers’ evaluations.
12. Use a rubric to evaluate teachers.
While I do not believe in or adhere to a rigid, all-points adoption of Marshall’s 12 step plan, I have tried to serve in my role as principal teacher by doing the following as overarching goals and action steps:
1. Create a culture of collaboration.
Since the 2007-08 academic year, the Westminster Junior High School has embarked on a journey to provide job-embedded, collaborative teaming for 100% of the faculty. Over this multi-year process, we are currently providing formalized teaming opportunities for 42 of the 74 teaching faculty. I hope to provide such for everyone in the Junior High, but it just takes time. Each year, we try to increase the number, the percentage, and the opportunity. And our model is agressive – a built-in period for teaming that mimics the student schedule for learning. Because student classes meet for 55-minutes a day, 4-days a week, so do the “teacher classes.”
When we only had one formalized PLC, I attended everyday as a co-learner, a co-participant. Now that we have five formalized PLCs in the Junior High, I am unable to attend every meeting, everyday. So, I schedule a minimumof one team meeting per PLC per week. Consequently, I am able to hear the planning and strategizing of the teams. I am able to participate in their discussions of the 4 Big Questions (1. What should students learn?, 2. How will we know if students have learned?, 3. What will we do if students already know it?, and 4. What will we do if students are not learning it?). I wish I could fill my schedule with ALL of the team meetings! Participating with my orchestra is the richest time of my week. These teachers are extraordinary, and I learn more about teaching and learning from these team meetings than from any other professional development in which I facilitate or participate. Collaboration is essential, and it enables me to know what people are thinking and learning. And it allows others to know about what I am thinking and learning. We develop relationships with those with whom we spend time talking. And at its core, teaching and learning are relational. First and foremost – RELATIONAL. Building relationships demands collaboration. An administrator worth his or her salt will work tirelessly to make such collaboration the norm rather than the exception.
2. Create more opportunity for conversations about teaching and learning.
On this front, the Junior High School has undertaken a multi-pronged re-envisioning as part of the developing Faculty Assessment and Annual Review Plan. To increase opportunites to talk about our teaching and learning, we have engaged in peer visits for more than six years now. [There is an interesting story here for another blog post.] Systemically, we have opened our doors in order to break down the isolating nature of teaching in an “egg crate culture.” Peer visits can occur between two faculty members, but we have also provided for instructional rounds, so that teams of teachers can enlist multiple lenses for feedback and discussion about teaching and learning practices. Additionally, we begin each year setting goals and engaging in self-assessment. With these reflections, we talk together about our aspirations and plans to reach them. I always send out my reflections to faculty, and I enjoy conferences with each and every faculty about their reflections. Until this year, all of these conferences occurred with individual faculty members. Now, teams can conference together with me about their team and individual goals. Faculty also collect student-course feedback. A faculty committee designed a process that has guided our programmatic inquiry of students’ perceptions about what and how they are learning. As principal, I use a similar model for my own evaluation, and I always share the results of this annual collection of feedback with the faculty.
Ideally, all of these pieces should work together as a whole system to enhance the conversations we are having about our teaching and learning. And our plan is a formative assessment plan for growth and development more than for purposes of evaluation. If engaged in the spirit with which this system is designed, the Faculty Assessment and Annual Review Plan is meant to work as an ongoing system of practicing and scrimmaging. For such is the universal method of learning and growing.
3. Create an understanding that the administrators are learning, too!
As learners, don’t we prefer to have things done with us, instead of having things done to us? In the old model of teacher supervision and evaluation that Marshall wrote about, administrators were failing in large part because they were doing supervision and evaluation TO teachers instead of WITH teachers.
On Wednesday of this past week, I was given a rare gift. Two sets of regular weekly meetings were canceled, and I found myself with four hours of windfall-profit time. What did I do with this time? I learned. I tried to practice some of the observational tactics suggested by Marshall, and I tried to get wrapped up even further with being the principal teacher, the principal learner, the principal educator.
From 8:15 a.m. until about 11:30 a.m., I practiced some mini-observations. Here was my process:
1. Take my iPad and my Flip camera and find a classroom. Prioritize classrooms of teachers who sit in formalized PLCs.
2. Spend 10-15 minutes observing in the classroom, take some notes using Quick Office on the iPad, and record a 30-90 second video.
3. Go to the next classroom.
4. After three mini-observations, use Box to transfer iPad notes to the “cloud” so I could pick them up from my office PC. Return to my office for a “download” and sharing of feedback. Copy and paste my notes into an email, transfer the video to my PC, and attach the video to the email. Send the three emails to the individual teachers and copy the department chair and the dean of faculty.
5. Start the next round of three mini-observations.
During the morning, I observed 11 teachers in 10 classes. More than anything, I practiced a new method of observation that I think complements Marshall’s article and our developing Junior High culture better than my previous methodology. When the morning concluded, I had provided immediate feedback to 11 teachers…teachers with whom I regularly sit in team meetings. There was past context and collaboration for the observations. They were part of the system. Also, I had a master document of all the observation notes, and I produced a Camtasia video of all the observations together.
I sent the following request to the observed teachers:
Dear All:
THANK YOU! This morning I was able to visit 10 classes and 11 faculty in three class periods. I appreciate you letting me come in quietly and stay for about 10-15 minutes. You had no idea I was coming, and I used a Flip video camera without prior explanation, and you seemed nonplused. By now, you should have received my brief notes and any video I shot in your room (BC and AG are exceptions because of our decision for me to return later when the sun would cooperate).
I want to make sure that you know these types of visits are NON-EVALUATIVE. They are as much about my learning as anything, as we continue to develop our Faculty Assessment Plan, which is intended to be formative assessment. I try to offer observations, not judgements, as I attempt to provide another set of eyes and ears for you so that YOU can reflect on your practice with more data and feedback. I welcome any questions/feedback from you about the helpfulness (or lack thereof) of the notes and the video.
NOW THE REQUEST: I hope you will consider letting me share the observation video, at the least. I have compiled the smaller videos into an unedited, complete video of my morning. Also, I hope you will consider an additional request of allowing me to share the observation notes as a one-document transcript. Of course, from the earlier emails, you know I have shared already with [the Dean of Faculty] and your Dept Chair. However, I would like to share the video, and perhaps the notes, with the full ALT (Academic Leadership Team) and FAAR (Faculty Assessment and Annual Review task force). We have studied Kim Marshall’s article about rethinking classroom observation (attached if you get interested), and I am trying to learn more about how this type of observation practice could work. I read a lot about various observation methods, and I think we can learn so much from each other by sharing our practices and ideas.
Also, I would like to blog about the morning, but I would not use your real names in any post that I blog.
So, can you let me know:
* Bo can/cannot use my video.
* Bo can/cannot use my portion of the observation-notes transcript.
* Bo can blog about his learning from the morning.
Feel free to talk with others from this group, and take your time (a few days) if you want to think about it. I really appreciate your time and consideration!
Bo
Everyone gave me full permission for my requests. THANK YOU! I think we principal teachers can learn so much by sharing our own practices and being more transparent with each other, and particularly with our faculties – the rest of our orchestras. Here’s the resulting video from my morning:
Two things I wish I had done differently:
1. Use some PLC meeting time to have teacher teams establish what they would like for me to concentrate on during my visits – ask the teachers to own the process by giving me my “marching orders.”
2. Set a debrief meeting in which all of the teachers and I watched the collective video together to look for “whole-morning” trends that become apparent when we see all of the sections as one video voyeuristic.
My learning was further enhanced when I read this article, My Students Help Assess My Teaching. Threads of the same tapestry seemed to come together. Can we eventually use the excellent “look fors” in the article as a way to study such mini-observations together? There is real possibility here, I believe.
If you have read this far, bless you. This post is concluding in a place that I did not anticipate when I started. Probably, I would be better off to press “Save Draft” and to return later to polish the writing as a coherent, cohesive whole. But I am ready to push “Publish.” Writing is thinking, and I am ready to think out loud so that, hopefully, others will think with me. I hope that my own faculty might read this “thinking out loud post” and offer comment. I hope that other teachers and principal teachers will survive the 2600+ words and offer comment. For I am a principal teacher, a principal learner, a principal educator. And I don’t have all the answers. But I am interested in playing with my orchestra of fellow teachers, learners, and educators.
it's about learning 