Are Grades in our Way?

Many participants were grateful to see Starr Sackstein at our Building Learning Communities Conference (#BLC16) thanks to Alan November with November Learning. Starr facilitated our session on "Empowering Learning Through Mastery".

As is Starr's style, she welcomed us to move our seats from traditional rows to a collaborative circle where each participant had equal voice and representation. Our circle continued to expand to include more and more conference participants who found our session. Everyone felt they had a voice and was welcomed to share our challenges, questions and concerns with moving learning to the front and grades to the back.

Starr began by sharing her journey of how grades can stifle learning and some options for shifting the paradigm to focus on growth through feedback to empower more creativity and engagement in the learning. She shared her visionary journey in her district and how well her learners have responded and respected her entrepreneurial spirit. She mentioned how she conferences with her Learners to collaboratively reflect on their growth, gain and progress. Starr has seen incredible growth in herself and in her Learners. She and they continue to make their writing visible globally and challenged us to empower our Learners to not merely submit work to their teachers, but instead to share the learning globally!

Check out Starr's Ted Talk!

Global Collaboration

Craig Vroom and I have been connected via Twitter for several years now and we finally had the opportunity to meet in person as he presented a session at Alan November's Building Learning Communities (#BLC16) in Boston on "Global Collaboration for Local Impact". Craig's charisma and genuine presence created an ambiance when attendees immediately became participants. Even though many of us had not yet met, the exchange we experienced quickly became collaborative and the sharing flourished.

Craig started with The Power of Twitter. We discussed how Twitter can enable us to engage in useful Professional Development (PD), more reflective exchanges (through chats), effective communication with educators worldwide and through becoming and maintaining being a connected educator. Twitter has been the medium that Craig and I have used to encourage, support and challenge each other. After Twitter, we shared how to Find Your Tribe and the Power of Blogging. We shared how blogging is an individually reflective endeavor that is key to making sense of our learning, while also connecting to each other as we often share a similar purpose.  Next, we discussed the importance of the First 3 Days. The first 3 days is a time for building relationships, fostering a safe and trusting environment and building an interdependence that is crucial to retained and collaborative learning. Hundreds of educators will be sharing with #1st5Days on Twitter. Finally, we ended with Being a Lead Learner. We shared how one can be a Lead Learner as the facilitator of a district, a school or a classroom. In all cases, play, humor, listening, empathy and perseverance are key aspects of learning that lasts! Thank you Craig!

Humor Facilitates Learning

I've just experienced much rich learning and sharing at Alan November's Building Learning Communities (#BLC16) in Boston. After chatting with Lena Marie Rockwood this morning, I've decided to write a number of brief posts to share the learning. Here it goes...

Charles Cooper facilitated a session on how humor can be a significant component to fostering an environment in which learning, sharing, collaborating and asking questions end up being natural by-products. When I arrived to the session, there was a YouTube video on showing very young children laughing silly with their parents. The participants in the session naturally broke out in laughter. We started laughing silly, connecting with those around us and had not yet bothered to introduce ourselves. It was almost like a basic need of connecting was already established due to the silly laughter. The laughter has facilitated our connections,

Imagine if natural connections through laughter could be one of the ways our learners connect in a classroom environment! Laughter can dispel fear, anxiety and reluctance. As long as the laughter is not at the expense of anyone in the room, a more relaxed and connected environment seems to be immediately created. Whether a humorous video is showing as learners enter our environment or whether we show a silly video prior to an assessment where learners might be a bit on edge, humor can help to calm us and help to facilitate an environment where learning and connecting is more natural.

Check out this link: Contagious Laughter

Gratitude

This reflective post is inspired by our Learners and dedicated to an #edchatma colleague of mine, Maureen Devlin. Every day our Learners share their intrigue, their interest and their energy with me. I'm filled with gratitude for the Culture of Learning we've fostered that enables us to learn alongside each other every day with respect, trust and honesty. Maureen Devlin continues to inspire her Learners and her colleagues in our Professional Learning Network (PLN). I am so grateful to have met Maureen and continue to be inspired by her. Check out Maureen's blog.

Just this week, I've been inspired by the following individuals:

• One young man that has learned to appreciate math in a whole new way after arriving to our high school informed me Wednesday that his grade was "only a B" and stated, "Mr. Rowe, you and I both know I'm capable of better than that. What can we work on together so I can demonstrate my understanding at a higher level?" After I gained my composure after a statement like that, we identified one math standard where he could use Extra Practice and more get more feedback. We worked together with questions alternating between he and I. The connection we have has developed over our school year and is one reason why this is his best year of math. 

• A young lady who shares a math class with me in addition to our Interdisciplinary Block weekly communicates with me as to how she can get more practice to connect and integrate our learning at higher and higher levels. She has become an exceptional student of mathematics with an unending desire to reach greater levels of proficiency. Her sense of humor and willingness to help me and her peers contributes significantly to our Culture of Learning. I've been asking her if I could call home to share with her parents how significantly she contributes to our learning. She has been reluctant saying "Mr. Rowe, no teacher calls home to say good things about their students." She does not know about our nationwide movement of #GoodCallsHome that continues to empower Learners, Parents and Teachers about the great learning happening in our schools. On Wednesday, she finally gave me the okay to call her home!

• A young man in one of our math classes has transformed his attitude towards math and it has enabled him to reach success like he's never seen before. He and I have worked through many challenges this year. Our dedication to each other has enabled him to finally like and look forward to math. We can both attest to the fact that our dedication to our Culture of Learning has not only improved our ability to communicate math more clearly but to also appreciate others with different strengths and interests. He gets our "Transformer Award". 

• As I was leaving school today, another young man in one of our math classes shared with me how this year has opened his eyes to appreciate and value mathematical understanding and reasoning at a whole new level. I'm very grateful when our Learners communicate to me that they look forward to our time together and enjoy learning with me. Learning can and should be this enjoyable. As we parted today, he said, "Mr. Rowe, I'll see you tomorrow first block for math". What a way to connect with our Learners!

• Yesterday I was greeted by a prior student who returned to our school as a substitute teacher. He shared with me his appreciation for how we learned together. He is just finishing his undergraduate study at college. He said he wanted to support learning and really enjoys the one-on-one connection teachers and students can and should have. He thanked me for my influence on his life. Seeing him again and sharing with him really made my week. 

In our classes, we Yearn to Learn every day! Thank you for reading.

Reflecting After Surveying Our Learners

In John Hattie's "Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning", I found his survey and provided a Google form to our Learners to offer anonymous feedback. The following is the aggregate of these findings. For each of the survey questions, our Learners were prompted to select a rating of  1 (Lowest or Rarely) to 5 (Highest or Mostly). The percents below represent Learners who rated me in the top two tiers (4 and 5).

7 Cs Classroom Climate Survey
Percents of 5's or 4's ratings out of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)	A	B	C	D
Number of Learners	20	17	20	18
1. Care
Our teacher in this class makes me feels that he really cares about me.	85	82	80	89
Learners in this class treat our teacher with respect.	100	53	75	89
2. Control
Our class stays busy and doesn't waste time.	85	47	85	66
Our teacher has several good ways of explaining each topic.	90	82	80	82
3. Clarity
Our teacher really tries to understand how Learners feel about things.	90	82	95	94
Our teacher explains difficult things clearly.	80	94	84	82
4. Challenge
In our class, we learn a lot almost every day.	95	76	74	94
In our class, we learn to correct our mistakes.	95	94	89	93
5. Captivate
Our teacher makes learning interesting.	80	71	70	72
I like the ways in which we learn in our class.	80	82	74	82
6. Confer
Learners speak up and share their ideas about our learning.	75	76	95	71
Our teacher respects my ideas and suggestions.	85	82	84	94
7. Consolidate
Our teacher checks to make sure we understand when we are learning.	90	94	84	88
The feedback I get on my work in this class helps me to understand how to improve.	85	82	84	88

Possible areas of improvement:

• The lack of respect that some of our Learners (B) may have for me may be tied to their perception that we do not stay busy and may waste class time. Our Learners (C) that may have a reduced respect for me may be contributing to why they believe I don't make class as interesting as the other classes. Our Learners (C) also indicated that they believe they learn less per day than the other classes. 
• Our Learners (B) were the only class to generate a percent in the 80s related to "our teacher really tries to understand how Learners feel about things". 
• Our Learners (A) have their lowest rating for me on sharing their ideas about learning even though they are the only class to offer a full respect for me. 
• My lowest rating was associated with using class time well and not wasting time. 
• My second lowest rating was tied to me not regularly making our learning interesting. 

Possible areas of strength:

• Our Learners (B) were the only group to result in a percent in the 90s for "our teacher explains difficult things clearly.".
• Our Learners (C) provided a rating in the mid-90s for "Learners speak up and share their ideas about our learning" compared to the other classes all being in the 70s. 
• All Learners offered high ratings that they learn to correct their mistakes.
• Our Learners (C) not only shared the highest rating for "their teacher tries to understand how Learners feel about things" and that they speak up and share their ideas about learning. 
• Our Learners (D) shared my highest rating for caring about them and for me respecting their ideas and suggestions. 
• My highest rating was for our Learners learning to correct their mistakes. 
• My second highest rating was that our Learners feel I try to understand how they feel about things. 

I absolutely welcome your feedback, thoughts and comments about how I might improve our learning environment to stimulate life-long learning and critical thinking. I appreciate your reading this post and I thank you in advance for any feedback you might provide. 

Distraction Attraction?

Are you attracted to distractions? Are you drawn in by notifications on your mobile device? Are you lured by hyperlinks on a webpage? Is your focus easily broken when someone on social media tags you, retweets your tweet or likes something you recently posted? When you're exercising on cardio equipment at your local fitness center, do your eyes jump from one TV screen to another? Might it be intrigue or boredom? Why are we so easily drawn away from our task at hand by something that could likely be so trivial?

As the psychotherapist Micheal Hausauer notes, teens and other young adults have a "terrific interest in knowing what's going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop." Could this describe more than just teens? 

These excerpts are from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr:

• "The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it."
• "When we're online, we're often oblivious to everything else going on around us. The real world recedes as we process the flood of symbols and stimuli coming through our devices."
• "When our brain is overtaxed, we find 'distractions more distracting'." 
• "The Net is, by design, an interruption system, a machine geared for dividing attention."
• "The more complex the train of thought we're involved in, the greater the impairment the distractions cause. "

I'm finding the following activities are regularly or maybe constantly being interrupted:

• Driving - I took a pledge two years ago to not text and drive. Since I was almost hit in the crosswalk by a student of mine in front of our school, I'm very sensitive to this subject. Before sending a message to someone, I think whether they might be driving. If so, I wait to send the message. Daily, I see so many drivers appearing to be even slightly distracted from their driving due to some mobile device. Many appear to be clenching their device while attempting to drive. 

• Reading - I greatly enjoy learning through reading. I'm often reading on my iPad. I'm now noticing how often notifications appear in the banner section of my device. My eyes are drawn to it as my ears hear a tone announcing the distraction's arrival. Sometimes I switch from reading on my iPad to reading on my Kindle where my focus cannot be broken by social media notifications. 

• Learning - When our Learners are in a state of "flow" where engagement, attention and communication are rich and that dreaded announcement comes over the PA System beckoning some uninterested strolling learner to visit the main office, I wish we had the opportunity to disable more 'notifications'. I've read that schools in Germany and Japan see learning as sacred and would not disrupt learning unless it was an emergency. 

• Listening - I've been in meaningful conversation countless times with people in and out of school only to be distracted by their mobile device. Virtually every individual chooses to yield to the distraction. After reading the above-mentioned book by Nicholas Carr, I understand why we change our focus even though I still see it as somewhat disrespectful and impolite. 

• Reflecting - Just while I've been writing this reflective post, I've received about twenty notifications scrolling at the top of my iPad. None of them were worth the loss of my focus. I've realized this year just how important reflection is and am trying to spend more time each week in a state of distraction-free reflection. 

As always, I appreciate you reading my reflection and welcome your thoughts. I wonder how many times you were distracted while reading this brief piece. If you were distracted, did you choose to yield to it and why? Was it worth it? 

Learning Life Lessons

Today I attended the funeral of the dad of one of our Learners. One of our senior boys, not only attended, but honorably participated in the funeral for his dad.

I went to pay my respects at the funeral home at the last viewing of the dad of one of our senior young men. As it turned out, I was in for a life lesson. As I learned today, Eric is a mature 17-year old young man with a level-head, a deep-rooted love for family and a yearning to love and support his friends, family and everyone with which he comes in contact. Just as soon as I entered the funeral home, he introduced me to his mom and his younger brother and sister. Soon after, he was sharing memories of his dad through the hundreds of photos displayed. These photos captured precious memories of everyone in his family with a focus on dad. Eric expressed such heartfelt love, respect and adoration for this man. I kept hearing, "Mr. Rowe, I have learned so much from my dad." Eric shared his love for hockey and all the support his dad had provided for him and his teammates. I later learned that his teammates were either at the wake the prior evening or at the funeral today. In addition to Eric's immediate family, I had the pleasure to meet some of his uncles, his grandmother and grandfather. Come to find out, his grandmother had substituted for my classes when I had been out of school last year.

After a short walk to the church where the funeral was held, I was greeted by several of Eric's classmates. They were well-dressed, well-spoken and so appropriate given the situation. Upon arriving inside the church, I sat with Eric's classmates and teammates that filled about four pews. It was a sight to see nearly fifty respectful young men there to pay their respects and to support Eric. Eric's dad had influenced many of these classmates and hockey players. I was more than humbled by the way these young men represented themselves, their families and their community.

What had the greatest effect on me was when Eric made his way to the front of the church with his mom to eulogize his dad and her husband. Eric's mom initially spoke offering such love and commitment to her husband. She smoothly transitioned to enable Eric to speak as she gracefully stepped back and Eric approached the microphone. At that moment, my tears began to flow as they are at this moment. This 17-year old young man spoke with such strength, honor and gratefulness for the man his dad had been to him. Eric shared that his dad had been his best-friend, hero and role-model. Through Eric's words, he shared that he was committed to follow in his dad's footsteps and be a role-model and be there to love and support those with whom he connected. Eric conveyed that he knew he was now the man of the household and promised his dad that he would make him proud. This young man taught us a great deal today. I'm sure his dad is already so very proud of his son!