I want to send a huge thank you to Laurie Calvert, the Teacher Liaison at the Department of Education, for recommending The Sacred Profession in today’s Teaching Matters newsletter. This newsletter is a great source of information about education and you can sign up here if you don’t receive updates already. Also, welcome to those of you who have jumped over from Teaching Matters!
Student motivation is one of the trickiest pieces of teaching. Building a dynamic classroom culture where all children are delighted to be in your room and are eager to learn is often extremely difficult; however, creating a compliant classroom can be straight forward. The quickest way to an on-task classroom is to give clear instructions. Here are some tips for giving clear directions I’ve put together from various sources including Lee Cantor, Fred Jones, and my own experience of various classroom disasters:
Ok teachers what have I missed? Other tips for giving clear instructions?
Colleagues, I am bursting at the seems with all of the opinions, studies, and ideas I have heard in the past three days here at NBC’s Education Nation and the America Achieves gathering. I cannot wait to write about what I’ve heard and get your thoughts. I’ve been taking notes in my special edition Education Nation Moleskine (holla! hitting my sweet spot . . .) and meeting some incredible leaders as well as fellow educators who are making real gains for our students.
Later this week, look for a review of the movie Won’t Back Down, new projects around elevating the teaching profession, and some really grainy pictures I tried to take of education luminaries!
In my first years of teaching, I often felt unsure at the end of each lesson. Did the students learn? Was my lesson good? But I remember one lesson where I thought I had totally and completely dominated. I mean I just taught the heck out of apartheid in South Africa. We looked at maps, I gave a engaging (even moving!) 10 minute lecture, we did an awesome role play I stole from History Alive!, the kids were digging it, I played mood music during group work – I was basically Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. I’d planned to have students write a brief essay at the end of class as a daily assessment but we ran out of time. “Oh well,” I thought, “it’s OK because we got through the lesson.” Imagine my total shock when well-over half my class failed to clearly describe the impact of apartheid on our unit exam. “This is not my fault,” I said, “I taught a beautiful lesson – these kids never study!”
The exact situation above played out so many times in my classroom that it became a patter I could not ignore. WTF??! Upon reflection I realized the only thing I wasn’t doing was closing out the lesson. Here is what I now know: how I close my lesson will likely have the greatest impact on whether or not my students learn the objective.
Effectively closing a lesson is critical for two big reasons: 1) it allows students to synthesis or summarize their learning and 2) it allows teachers to know if the lesson was successful and identify misunderstandings and trends in individual as well as overall learning. Below are my top five end-of-lesson strategies:
Fine, but how the heck do you fit this in when class time is already so stinking short!?! I know, I know. Here’s what worked for me: I had a kid tell me when it was the last 10 minutes of class. I’ve also set a timer to go off at 12 minutes before the end. I also made a big sign that I posted at the back of my room that said “Close Out!” And when the time came, I stopped what we were doing if we weren’t finished and closed the lesson.
Colleagues, this single action was what brought me from interesting teacher to effective teacher. What closing activities do you all use?
Often times a commitment to being a classroom teacher can feel like a vow of insignificance. It’s like promising never to accept a promotion or take on any formal organizational leadership. My buddy Erin Dukeshire (smiling beautifully in the picture above) has written a really thoughtful piece over at the Hechinger Report called “You’re a teacher. Now what?” If this is a question you’ve ever asked yourself, you may be interested to read about the opportunities and choices that have kept Erin in the profession. Click here to access the article.
“Standing up for Teachers” by Eugene Robinson
This week in the Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson defended the Chicago teacher’s strike in a thoughtful and compelling opinion article.
My only beef with the piece is the continued use of “hero” language to talk about teaching and teachers. Teachers do critical, even sacred, work but we are not heroes. Being a hero in my mind must involve some kind of personal sacrifice for the greater good beyond what might be considered normal. The bottom line is teachers are paid for what we do. Yes, we all occasionally must work on evenings and weekends but we typically do not have school in the summer months. Unfortunately, most of us work beyond what is required by our contracts – again, not for the money, but because we love what we do. While some may call this heroic because it stems from the noble motivations of teachers I would argue again (click here for my other anti-hero post) that it is actually a tragic misappropriation of resources has lead to teachers working beyond the school day for pay that is often below what might be necessary.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who point out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust & sweat & blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again & again; because there is not effort with out error & shortcomings but he who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows great enthusiasm, great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement & who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold & timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt
In 2007 I read a really gripping article from Scientific American Mind called “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids” by Carol Dweck (click here to download the article). Dweck argues the secret is that children learn to believe their effort will determine their outcome. In other words, if they succeed or fail they attribute that result to either hard work or not enough or ineffective effort. This prevents children from becoming defeated when they fail or fatalistic when they don’t reach their goals (ex. “I’m not good at anything! I’m so stupid”).
I like to teach students what effective effort actually involves. The Skillful Teacher (a book that I love and wrote a post about here) identifies the following aspects as qualities of effective effort:
I have student evaluate their effort based around these qualities (ex. How well did you use your time?) after we finish a project/paper or in regards to studying for our exams. Although it may seem obvious to you that Bobby failed that test because he didn’t study, Bobby may walk away from the experience believing he failed because he is stupid and just isn’t good at whatever subject you teach. If you’re interested in teaching effective effort to your students I recommend making a poster with the qualities on it and guiding students to reflect on the effectiveness of their effort at least on a weekly basis. I have also uploaded a power point I’ve used to introduce effective effort here – feel free to give it a shot or adapt it so it works for your students.
You think school is hard? What if you were blind AND deaf? Hellen Kellen was the first blind/deaf person to earn a Bachelor degree – from Radcliffe no less!
I have read in numerous places about the importance of young people having role models – who look like them and who they related to – who help them see a path towards their goals. Throughout the year, I like to take the time to introduce my students to a person who achieved despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The moral of these character studies is always really clear: if you work hard, you can achieve your dreams regardless of potential challenges.
I like like to teach these mini-lessons by either having students read a synopsis of the person’s life, or reading aloud a children’s book about the person or even watching a quick video clip from a movie about the person. Then I show students a quote from the individual that underscores the importance of continuing to work hard regardless of the difficulties. At that point, ask students to connect with the individual on a personal level by journaling either about the quote or about current difficulties in their own lives. Finally, I create some kind of classroom display to help us remember the lesson we learned from the historical figure’s life. Below is a list of people I have covered in the past as well as resources I have used to teach their lives:
The key with really leveraging role models in your classroom is not just to teach them once and then forget about them but to keep refering to the lesson you learned through that individual (ex. “You can write this research paper! Hellen Keller did this without being able to hear or see!” or “I know this is hard but think about what Muhammad Ali said . . .”) Doing these mini-lessons doesn’t need to take a long time but the impact can be huge in terms of student investment and motivation in your classroom.
What role models have y’all used in your classrooms?
I am so honored to be heading to New York next week as a part of my fellowship with America Achieves to participate in NBC’s Education Nation at the downtown Public Library. One of the most exciting events of the conference is the Teacher Town Hall where hundreds of teachers come together and engage a discussion with education leaders. There is always an open mike for questions . . . anyone have ideas about questions I should be asking?
YouTube is looking to promote what they call “the next generation of online educators” who post online lessons or educational content like the well-know math YouTube channel Khan Academy or the Crash Course in World History videos (posted above). The contest begins today and ends in January when judges will select 10 winners and give them a cash reward as well as videography equipement to help them make more videos. Click here for more details.
The Sacred Profession 