Pay It Forward: 5.1 Ways to Share Your Expertise

As we are beginning a new year, I have seen many posts, Tweets, and blogs about people paying it forward to individuals they do not know personally. In a world that is often driven with negative news, it is heart-warming to see people reaching out and helping others. It has gotten my mind to thinking about us as educators. We spend our days giving our best to our students, but often we keep what is happening behind the closed doors of our classroom.

I recently engaged in a conversation with another teacher at my school. She hesitantly shared an after-school program that she had started two years ago. She explained how she saw that her students needed some extra tutoring in academic subjects, but they could not afford to hire tutors. She also recognized that many of them lived in single-parent homes where the parents worked multiple jobs. This limited the types of extra activities that they could provide for their own children. To address those needs, this teacher began an after-school program on Friday afternoons where the students could stay after school for an hour for some additional help in academics. Then, the second hour each Friday, this teacher had arranged different community leaders to come in and do activities with the students. This has made a huge impact on her students, their families, and built a strong line of support from the community.

This amazing program was going on in the same school where I teach and I had no idea! When I encouraged her to share her experiences, she told me that she did not think it really counted as an important enough idea to share. That's when I realized how important it is for us to find these hidden gems that are lurking behind closed doors and encourage these teachers to share their ideas. She told me she had no idea where to begin so I shared with her a few of my suggestions.

Here are my suggestions for those just beginning to share their expertise:

1. Share informally with co-workers. Because she was so reticent about even talking to me one-on-one, I knew suggesting that she speak at a conference was an unreasonable idea right now. I suggested that she begin sharing her program with her grade-level co-workers. She has some really open-minded co-workers who I am sure would be interested in joining her program and helping it to grow.
2. Celebrate success at a formal meeting. In our weekly faculty meetings, occasionally, we are asked to share successes. This is an open opportunity to share a quick piece of what is going on behind classroom doors. This allows teachers in other grade levels and content areas to know what you are doing. Chances are they will have a contact that would like to participate or support a new and innovative idea.
3. Speak up at training session or presentation. The best sessions are the ones where there is audience participation and much discussion. This is a way to build more support for that new idea. You never know who is in that room who can help you sharpen your ideas or challenge to reflect on how you could make it more impactful for your students and your school. It also increases your level of expertise in this area and build further support for your project.
4. Volunteer to have others visit your classroom to see your expertise at work. Sometimes people are hesitant to try a new idea, program, lesson, tool or strategy until they see it at work. If you are the one they are visiting, it is really not any more work on you. You are not putting on a show, but letting them see your idea in action. Let them observe, get involved, and ask questions. They are not there to criticize you (they were interested enough to come for a visit), but to learn from your expertise.
5. Begin blogging. This is an excellent way to share what is going on in your classroom and it gives you a global audience. All of the educators that I have encountered through blogging have challenged my thinking and helped me become a much stronger educator. It helps you clarify your thinking and make tweaks to your ideas. By gaining a much larger audience, you are also broadening your horizons and influencing others by your experiences.
• 5.1 Tweet on Twitter. This microblogging site allows you to connect with other educators and have on-going professional conversations all within 140 characters per tweet. Like with blogging, you have the ability not only to share your expertise, but also learn from some of the best educators from around the world. Not sure where to begin? Here's a post I wrote Why Should I Tweet on Twitter?

As is often quoted from an unknown source, "The hardest part of any journey is taking that first step." That's what I hope I have been able to do for my colleagues as well as some of you and your colleagues...encourage people to take that first step and pay back what so many have given to us in our quest to become the strongest educator possible.

photo credit: sidewalk flying via photopin cc

It's Time to Let Go

This week, I read Chris Lehmann's blog post, Plan to Letting Go. It really drove me to reflect on the importance of giving our students not just the ability to learn, but the ability to learn and apply their knowledge independently.

I told my students at the beginning of the year that the right answer is not enough. Becoming databases filled with random information on various topics is not developing deep, critical thinkers. Learners need to be able to explain their reasoning, justify their answers, and use their knowledge to apply it to real problems. Students will not gain this ability if they sit all day listening to a teacher disseminate information.

As teachers, we naturally are helpers. When we see a student struggling or making mistakes, we immediately want to jump in and help by giving them the right answer. By doing that, what kind of learning are we fostering? We must guide them towards mastering the ability to think and reason, while instilling in them the confidence to tackle new challenges. It can be challenging and tedious work, especially when you are working with an inclusion class with a large population of English Language Learners. Perseverance is key to success. Then, when it seems that all of the guiding, questioning, and modeling is not making an impact, all of a sudden everything comes together.

A day like that happened in our classroom a couple of weeks before Winter Break. Since our class is student-driven, my students design not only their own learning projects, but also their own rubrics for the projects. At the end of the school year, I have had several students mention in passing that they wish they had a scrapbook of all of the projects that they had created. That spurred the idea of challenging them by giving them the opportunity to create digital portfolios to provide evidence of their learning in all content areas.

I created a class account on Weebly, which provides each student with webspace, and led them through a discussion of how they could use it to prove their learning (I'll share specifics about the portfolio in a later post). The discussion sparked so many ideas from my students; they had so many questions. As they began to work, I expected to have a demand on my attention to give encouragement, redirect attention back to the portfolio, troubleshoot technology issues, and ask guiding questions about the choices they were making to show their first semester learning. However, once they began work, I looked around and not a single student was demanding my attention. They were focused on learning how manipulate Weebly to make it do what they visualized in their heads. When they had a challenge, they turned to one another. One student even "Googled" a tech question to find out how to load something to his Weebly.

The conversations they had with one another were amazing; deep and thoughtful answers were given along with encouragement. They graciously showed one another their work and taught them how to do the same, if they were interested. My learners began to challenge one another to explain how the samples and projects they selected showed how they had met their personal learning goals. Then as the day came to a close, and I told them it was time to sign out and shut down the netbooks, there was an outcry of frustration. They did not want to stop...what were they doing...that's right, creating a form of formative assessment to prove their learning. Who ever hears of students begging to participate in assessment?

As they reluctantly packed up to go catch their buses, I was struck with the reminder that none of this would have happened had I not taken the time to build this framework for their learning and LET GO so they could thrive.

Please take a few minutes and think about your students. Are you giving them the guidance that they need to become motivated, independent learners and thinkers? I know it might be scary to think of letting go and letting them grow. However if you do let go, amazing things will happen.


photo credit: pinelife via photopin cc

Let them Assess

Assessment. That is a word that can send cold shivers down the backs of teachers and students alike. In our society, that word has been linked to a "gotcha" mentality where standardized testing scores have become punitive towards districts, schools, teachers...sometimes affecting entire communities. I have spent a lot of time contemplating, researching, and discussing this topic and I realized that I needed to reframe my ideas and ultimately my teaching practice in the area of assessment.

Like many of you, I am in a district where standardized tests scores pull much weight and drive many of the decisions made at the district level. Often as classroom teachers, we may feel disempowered. Is this where we throw up our hands in defeat? And the most important question: Is this what is best for our students? I think that any one who works with students know that the answer is a resounding "NO."

The question that I often hear is, "So what do we do about it?" I thought I would take a few minutes to share where I began in my journey of rethinking assessment. As I have continued to grow (and still do each day), my practice has adapted. In the interest of not overwhelming anyone, I'll share more of my journey in future posts, but I wanted to share where I began.

Those of you that follow me or have read my book, Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing?, know that several years ago, I made the shift from a teacher-led classroom to a student-directed one. In this amazing journey, my students led the way with many ideas. The idea to let the students take control of their assessment came from one of my fifth graders.

Now like many of you, I have used rubrics my entire teaching career. I'm sure we've all had the frustration of going over a rubric in detail at the front end of a project; then we observe our students trudging ahead with little (or no) regard to how they will be assessed at the end. The shift was that I wanted to make should address students' lack of connection with the purpose of a rubric as well as their idea to take control of their own assessment. I would not be presenting them with the rubric; they would be creating it for each learning project.

When you stop and think about it, if we are giving them control over selecting what they learn within a topic (or standard), how they are going to learn it, and in what manner they are going to create something that proves that learning, shouldn't they also have control over how they are assessed on that learning?

In order for us to make this shift, I relied on my students' previous knowledge. Since third grade, they had been trained to write towards our state writing test using a rubric. They understood what the specific difference was in earning a 4, 3, 2, or 1 in each category on a rubric because they had already been doing that for at least two years. When we began a new project or learning activity, I would guide my students in designing the criteria. Then I led them into determining the specifics assigned to the 4, 3, 2, or 1.

Yes, when you look at it, their copy is much simpler than most rubrics, but this is their rubric, not mine. The "master" list of the specifics would stay on our interactive whiteboard for reference, as needed, although most students took down notes (by choice) as a reminder of how to earn each score. As is our regular practice, my learners would meet together with one another for peer reviews and ideas, as well as, conferring with me throughout the project.

Once we reached the end of a project, they would assess one another's work based on their rubric as would I. My initial trepidation was that they would assign high scores to one another afraid to be honest. On the contrary, I discovered that my students held extremely high expectations for one another. When you think upon it, it makes sense. They design the projects and set the expectations. They talk about it with one another and me a LOT throughout the process. They know exactly what is expected to prove their learning.

This put an integral part of the learning process firmly into my learners' hands. Assessment plays a vital role in determining what our students know, what they need to know, and how much they have grown in each area. It informs and guides our instruction so that we can help each of our students meet their fullest potential. Having this knowledge is important not just for us, but for our students as well. If we want for them to take ownership of their learning, they need to be informed and see the goals that they have set in front of themselves.

This is only the beginning for me an my students and we sharpen our assessment practices. Stay tuned as I continue to grow and reflect upon how we can empower our students with relevant and authentic assessment practices.

Staying Focused in our Whirly-gig Lives

As we enter a new year, many of us take time to reflect upon over our previous year and set goals for the new year.  The year 2012 has been an exciting one full of rewarding experiences, professional and personal. I've met some amazing people, had thought-provoking conversations, visited some intriguing places, and experienced many things for the first time.

However, (as I suspect of many of us) in spite of all of the positive things in my previous year, I find that towards the end of this year I have lost some of the clarity of focus on what my true mission is as an educator. It's easy to do as we race towards the end of a semester with all of the holiday festivities. Throw in speaking engagements, professional development, family commitments, grad school, illness, deadlines, professional obligations to organizations and it's enough to make your head spin. So how do we deal with it? How do we stay focused when so many things begin to blur our vision? What do we do when our lives become a massive checklist and we race from one have-to to the next?

These are questions that I ponder regularly. I have done some extensive reading on the subject of trying to take control of the crazy whirly-gig life so many of us live today. I thought I would share a few thoughts and practices that I have found helpful...even though I am still working toward mastering them each day.

1. Create a mission statement. I know it sounds like an assignment from a well-meaning professor, but if you do not have a clear understanding about why you are doing what you are doing, whether in your teaching practice or your personal life, how will you be able to stay focused? You must know what it is on which you will spend your time. Without that mission, you will easily become distracted by anything else that pops up. My husband and I call that the "Monkey, monkey underpants" syndrome (see this post for an explanation). It is very easy to become distracted when online and follow down many random paths. Exploration is great, but not when it begins to creep in and push you off course. I actually have mine where I can see it regularly to remind myself of where I am headed...and yes, sometimes, I find I need to update it as I change and grow as an educator. My professional mission statement has two parts, one is my life as an educator in the classroom the other is my mission as a professional educator in the field of education.
2. Prioritize. When you are around and interact with passionate people, it is very easy to jump on their bandwagon, whether it's a great new teaching strategy, new tech tool, or new hobby. All of those things definitely have merit, but in spite of all of our best time management strategies, we only have a finite amount of time. We need to set our priorities and only invest in activities that will promote and support our priorities. Eight years ago, I determined to lose 40+ pounds. I found the key to my success in weight loss and maintaining it for the last eight years, is that I had my priorities and goals set before I was presented with an obstacle. By setting your priorities up at the front end, you are setting yourself up for success. You have made a plan, you know what is important and what is not. Isn't that what great educators do for their students? We set them up for success. We should do it for ourselves as well.
3. Limit your commitments. I'll admit, this one is a challenge for me. When we began teaching, most of us determined that we would do whatever it took to spark excitement and learning in our students and positively impact the future. We get into our classrooms, continue to grow as professionals, find success, and then the requests begin to come our way. Would you be interested in joining this committee? Would you share this great lesson with our faculty? Would you be willing to be a guest speaker at our conference? Would you write a piece for our blog? At first, we feel flattered. Even though we didn't go into education for our own glorification, it feels great when all of your hard work is getting recognized. That is why it is so important to have your mission statements and priorities set in advance because as flattering as it is to be invited, it is important that we weigh each opportunity to see if it really fits within our vision. Does it support where you want to be, professionally and personally, or is it something that blurs your vision and pulls you off course? It is tough to say "no" to an opportunity, but without keeping your focus, you will not be able to maintain the standard of excellence that brought you to the point of getting those opportunities in the first place.

I know that when my life seems overwhelmingly out-of-control with so many demands on my time, I am not my best. In spite of my best efforts, I cannot be the best teacher that my students need. My focus is too splintered. When this happens to us, we begin to lose sight of what specific students need. Our focus on truly knowing each of our students and connecting with them as individuals fades. The relationships that we have built between home-community-school begin to break down. Ultimately, our effectiveness and relevance as the leader of learning in our classrooms and our schools deteriorates. None of us want that to happen.

I realize that none of this is ground-breaking information, but it has been around forever for a reason...it works. I think what so often happens in our crazy lives is that we begin to lose a grasp on what's important a just gradually begin to drift off course. We're off-center and in the midst of all the crazy confusion, we wonder how we got where we are. It does take a commitment to be diligent and maintain focus. But, the result is a much more committed, focused person that is there for the important people in their lives: family, friends, and students. As educators, we all want to give those important people our best, and isn't that why we became teachers...to make a positive difference in the future of others?

photo credit: bennlat via photopin cc

A Wow Way to Support Student Learning

Those of you who follow me through other social media know that my students participated in the Global Read Aloud where 24,000 students worldwide read, discussed, analyzed, and published work based on one book. This year the book selected was The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. To say that my students enjoyed it was an understatement. Not only did they enjoy getting to know these well-written, deeply engaging characters, they also had an outstanding piece of literature to analyze through the lens of a writer.

This book was based on the real life of a gorilla named Ivan. One of the experiences that we (me and the other teachers in our school engaged in the GRA) wanted to provide for our students was being able to visit the Atlanta Zoo, the (eventual) home of Ivan. None of our students had been to the Atlanta Zoo (which is really worth a trip) and many had never been to Atlanta which is only 2 hours away from where we live in Alabama. We knew that this would be an amazing learning experience for our students.

Initially, we planned on taking several digital cameras for the students to take photos of our trip. However, one of my students suggested that we turn those photos into "movie to share with all of the other kids who can't go to see Ivan's home." Pretty brilliant, huh? They all agreed. That's where some real creativity took hold. With that in mind, students brought their own devices on the trip, took photos and shot video of their experiences.

Once we returned, I introduced them to TripWow, a free and very user-friendly tool by Trip Advisor that takes photos and turns them into a travel documentary. My students took all of the photos, debated about which photos best taught their audience, combined them together, added captions, and published it for all of the others students.

The discussions about what they had learned were so rich, they found they couldn't say everything that they wanted in the brief captions on TripWow. That's right, they felt the need to write more...to share their learning with others. So they turned to our class blog. Once they started collaboratively working on a class post to publish to accompany the TripWow,  they discovered that the learning that they wanted to share with their global peers was too long for a class post. There were also more photos and videos that they wanted to include. So they turned to their own blogs.

They have spent the majority of this week writing, editing, collaborating, and publishing because they felt the need to give back and share with their GRA learning community. As I reflect back on this week, it really does make me say, "Wow!" Look at how they took a simple experience and turned it into something amazing that could teach so many others. They truly understand the importance and power of harnessing digital tools and social media to empower not just their learning, but the learning of thousands of others.

Without further ado, here's their TripWow...

The Atlanta Zoo Slideshow: Mrs.’s trip to Atlanta was created with TripAdvisor TripWow!

An App Stop on Their Learning Journey

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know, my students have been actively engaged in participating in the Global Read Aloud. My students have been so engaged in diving into The One and Only Ivan, that they actively pursue finding time in our very rigid schedule to read and discuss it. You have to remember that my students have spent their entire education on a prescriptive curriculum and have not ever had the opportunity to explore an amazing piece of literature (before they come to me). What I love is how a story can really change and move who you are as a person. It makes you re-evaluate your place in the world. It can be transforming.

What makes this experience even more valuable to my learners is that we are connecting with other students worldwide through Skype, Twitter, and blogging in order to discuss and share this book. There is also a wiki where students can publish any work in which they engage that relates to the book; my students were anxious to contribute to this community of publishers.

We are working on analyzing characters in our reading and our writing. Thanks to Lara Deloza at the International Reading Association, I was introduced to a free app called Trading Cards.  This clever little app (also will be available on Android) allows the user to dig deeply in examining all aspects of a character. When my students began a debate about which character was the most important to the story, I felt like I needed to give them an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas with a wider audience. Since one of my students had helped me test out the trading card app, she suggested that they create character trading cards.

My learners divided into small groups to write about their character. As I travelled around the classroom listening to their conversations, their depth and understanding was amazing. They were inferring characteristics based on how other characters reacted to their character. They were making connections with other books they had read, movies or television shows they had viewed, and their own lives. The idea that they were going to be publishing and sharing their ideas with other students gave my learners an authentic reason to really analyze their writing.

After they had written their summaries and created an illustration of their character based on the description in the book, we conferred. I had them explain and justify the choices that they had made in their writing before they set off to publish their trading card. One group of students even expressed that they felt like these characters had become their friends. (Isn't it amazing the depth of understanding and connections that students will make when they get to read and enjoy really engaging literature?)

Once they began publishing, they discovered that they had to really limit the number of words that would fit into each category. At first this lent itself to some frustration because they really wanted to include all of their writing. Then one of my clever students reminded them that they could always publish their trading cards and their entire characterizations on our class blog. The rest of my learners agreed that this was an excellent solution.

I love this time of year. After months of guiding them, everything has started to click with my students. They have the confidence to state their ideas, justify them, suggest ways to improve upon them and find solutions for one another's challenges. They have learned the power of being in a student-directed classroom. Not once during their discussion did they focus on the technology...they focused on the learning. Our week was filled with a new energy that had not been there until now. They now KNOW that they are the ones designing their learning. Watching them take that step into becoming independent learners has been the best experience...one I never grow tired of witnessing.  I know that there is no stopping them now...and that app was the vehicle that got them to this place on their learning journey. I can't wait to see where they take us next.

Professional Learning: Is it Pulling Teeth or a Sundae with a Cherry on Top?

I have written several posts in the last couple of years regarding our growth as professional educators (see the links at the bottom of this post). Recently, I have been doing much reading and contemplating about the forms that professional learning can take in today's world. Several years ago the term Professional Learning Communities (PLC) started popping up in blog posts, research, articles, and conference sessions. Those of us who have been in education know that there seems to be an ebb and flow of new ideas and initiatives which, in their essence, are a really good idea, but somehow get turned into something far from the initial vision. Unfortunately, those who are not fully aware of these new ideas, take these seemingly positive movements/programs/ideas and can quickly turn them into something negative.

I think that the whole idea of a PLC is one of these ideas. I have heard several stories similar to this one. A faculty was presented with a book that they were required to read as part of a Continuing School Improvement Plan. As they did the required reading and engaged in the required activities, there was an undercurrent of negativity. Teachers may even say, "I've taught for fifteen years. I think I know what I'm doing. I'm professionally developed enough." Then the faculty goes on to have mandated PLC meetings as grade levels, content areas, teachers with ELLs, and teachers with ExEd inclusion classes. They were always reminded that these meetings were mandatory. All of the paperwork that they had to complete as evidence was mandatory. Do you see a reoccurring theme here? Required. Mandatory.

I believe that most educators really do want to do whatever they can to help meet the needs of each of their learners. That is what PLCs do. Teachers with a wide range of experience meet to discuss challenges and look for possible solutions together. There is a dialogue. Sometimes there is a healthy debate. However, there is always an overlying mission of focusing on helping students become successful. It's a positive experience. The conversations are energizing. The collaborations help teachers to find that passion that led them to teaching in the first place because it is all focused on the students.

What's the difference between the two? One is forced; the other one is inspiring. That is such a small shift, but it makes such a huge perception in how educators engage with one another.

We are fortunate to live in a time where we can find the PLC that we need, even if there is not one where we teach. To me, that is where Personal Learning Networks come into play. If we don't have access to a PLC where we teach, through the use of social media and digital tools, we have access to educators from around the world with whom we can connect. As most educators are, these connected educators are willing to discuss the challenges that we might having and provide insight on how to meet those challenges. These are the people who are in the classroom trenches every day just like you. They know what works because they are living it.

Several years ago, I found myself craving some professional growth that was not available to me locally. I began to connect with other educators through Second Life, Twitter, blogs, nings, and Facebook. They helped me address the challenges that I was facing. They celebrated my successes. They asked my opinion in helping them to meet their challenges. It became an online relationship where we all contributed. I found myself renewed each day after connecting with these educators. As I awoke each day to go to school, I couldn't wait to try out something new I had learned.

I was so excited about my PLN that I realized that I wanted to provide this type of collaborative learning to my fifth grade students. That is when there was a real shift in our classroom. My learners began forming their own PLN. First they built it within our classroom, and then online through social media as we connected with students from all over the world. My learners look to their peers for assistance now instead of to me. They problem solve together collaboratively. Each day they enter the classroom excited by the possibilities without fear of the unknown. They are fearless because they know that they have a strong network to support them on their learning path.

Isn't that the purpose of building PLC and PLN, to empower our students with the tools to become self-motivated students with an unquenchable thirst to learn? So next time, when one of those required meetings comes up, remember what your mission should be, helping your students. And if you find yourself in a quandary as to what to do in a particular situation, keep in mind that there is a world of possibilities available at your finger tips online. All you've got to do is grab a spoon and dive in.

So is professional learning like pulling teeth or is it the sundae with a cherry on top? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Some of my other posts about professional learning:

• Professional Development: One Size Does Not Fit All
• PLN: The Power to Perfect Your Practice
• The Best Kind of Learning aka Finding Our Peeps

 Sundae: photo credit: stevendepolo via photopin cc