Refresh, Rejuvenate, Reflect
by Martha Doennig, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

With Independence Day just around the corner, I am reminded of many vivid summer childhood memories. Decorating bikes in red, white, and blue for the annual neighborhood parade, long days at the community swimming pool engaged in diving contests followed by the carnival and fireworks, and spending the dog days of summer sprawled on the couch under the only window unit engrossed in book after book. July 4^th marked the midpoint to the much anticipated arrival of a new school year.  Now, Fourth of July signals the arrival of school supplies and back to school promotions at local retailers. As exciting as school supplies are, don’t let the retail world cut your summer short.  Maximize your time to refresh, rejuvenate, and reflect.   Should you have already exhausted your summer goals, here are some ideas to recharge for the coming school year.

Retreat.  Many of us tend to be like Carol Ann Tomlinson.  In “Architects of Summer” she refers to herself as a certifiable education addict.   Teaching and its demands consume and sap mental and physical energy.  As a child, it was easy to turn off the school brain, but certainly easier said than done in adulthood.   Granting the teacher brain an opportunity to rest and focus on other elements of our lives that contribute to joy inspires rejuvenation.

Do Something Just for Yourself.    During the school year, we often neglect our basic needs.  Restroom breaks, lunch, and time for appointments go by the wayside.  In “Take Time for Yourself-and Cultivate Learning,” Rick Wormeli discusses the importance of being physically present and in good health to be a teacher.  The personal energy needed to move our students forward is intense.  Our well-being is crucial for the impact we want in the classroom.  Therefore, take this time to tune up your body, and possibly spoil it a little bit, too.

Try Something New.   Taking the risk to experience something new has multiple benefits.  Tomlinson indicates that newness allows a deepening of self- identity beyond an educator, as well as the opportunity to “refashion the old in promising ways.”  

Reflect.   Now that you have had a break from the school year, it might be time to look back.  Consider what you did well to make it go well.  Make comparisons to what you hoped would happen in your classroom and what actually happened. Consider who you are as an educator compared to a few years ago.  

Grow.  Once you have reflected on the year, it seems logical to hone in on knowledge or a skill that you feel would benefit your future students. It may seem ridiculous to even mention it, but find time to cultivate your own growth this summer.  Tomlinson argues summer to be a great opportunity to take the time to study teaching and learning.  We are fortunate to have collaboration built into our professional learning during the school year, but adequate time to grow is hard to find during the school year.  A small nugget of learning from the school year could become a catalyst for extensive thought and growth during the summer. Choose something of interest and commit to knowing more.  Commit to growing in new knowledge and find ways to make that new knowledge relevant to what you do in the classroom.

Create.  Creativity has been at the heart of much recent research. Sir Ken Robinson, in Out of Our Minds, states that “creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence.  The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges.”  What evidence might you have of creativity in your life? Recombine the familiar into something unfamiliar; let new ideas simmer. Ignite and unleash your inner creative self. If the 20% project is familiar to you, you know that Google encourages employees to spend 20% of work time on a pet project.  This can be a challenging task during the school year, but might be a perfect fit from the summer. 3M and Google have had great success with this approach; post-its, masking tape, and Gmail are all a result. Imagine what might materialize with energy focused on a personal interest project. 

Stay Connected.   A successful school year requires investment in relationships.  Collegial relationships are as important as those with students.  Although you will all be reunited soon, it is still beneficial to stay connected to your colleagues.  The simplest of texts, emails, or notes or a more dedicated time for coffee or lunch reaps benefits that are immeasurable.  

Disconnect.   To flip the coin, find time to disconnect.  In a recent Educational Leadership article, Thomas Hoerr explores what might happen if you disconnect from your digital world for three days.  It might feel like you miss out on something substantial, but chances are, life will go on, and you will be given the gift of hours to do something spectacular with your time. 

Explore.  In Brain Rules, John Medina explores twelve things that we know about the brain. Aside from the deep understanding of how exercise, sleep, and stress affect our brain, he discusses the natural need for exploration.  Humans are by nature curious. In fact, curiosity is everything.  It seems most prevalent in our younger children who begin most questions with “why?” but quite truthfully we never outgrow the desire to know why.  Think about your lists of “why?” and take this as an opportunity to explore what intrigues you.

Smell the Roses.   Finally, slow down.  The school year does not always allow for time to enjoy the beauty and simplicity the world has to offer.  Allow your senses to be overloaded, your mind to drift to a place it has not visited in months.  This sense of serenity might be all you need to recharge your emotional and physical self.

So before the retail world trumps summer vacation, enjoy the opportunity to refresh, rejuvenate, and reflect.    Relish in the time to invest in your personal and professional growth, as it will certainly influence who you will be as an educator in the coming school year. 

Hoerr, T. “Principal Connection-The Top 10 To-Do List for Summer.” Educational Leadership. May 2014: 88-89.
Medina, J. (2014). Brain rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.
Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds: learning to be creative. West Sussex, UK: Capstone Publishing Ltd.
Tomlinson, C. “Architects of Summer.” Educational Leadership. June 2013: 8-12.
Wormeli, R. “Take Time for Yourself-and for Learning.” Educational Leadership. June 2013: 14-19.

A Teacher’s Perspective on Cognitive Coaching Seminars®
by Sarah Logan, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

Barbara Wormington, 4^th grade teacher at Field Elementary, is one of several SPS teachers who were able to participate in Cognitive Coaching(SM)  training this school year. She credits the seminar for giving her effective communication tools and skills to use with various members of the school community. The impact is seen most directly with students in her classroom.

Find out more about what Barb has to say about Cognitive Coaching below:

Students in my classroom have benefited from my Cognitive Coaching training because there is rarely a time when I do not paraphrase their thinking.  I believe this makes them feel heard, and gives the rest of the class a chance to hear what that student has said in a different way.  It takes our learning to a deeper level.

I use Cognitive Coaching daily.  If it’s not with my students, then it’s with other teachers in my building or with parents. I think parents appreciate being paraphrased, and intently listened too. So often they stop by my classroom with a problem they are having with homework, or with their child at home, and it’s nice how quickly we can work through the problem resolving map and how much time it actually saves rather than me just listening and then talking back, or giving suggestions.

I hope to have a leadership position one day in the district, and the opportunities I have had with Cognitive Coaching have really prepared me for situations I will have as a leader: like handling difficult parents, and most importantly; giving people the tools they need to solve their own problems, which is part of my personal philosophy with teaching children, that directly applies to working with adults.  I’m definitely more prepared and qualified to hold a leadership position with my training and practices in Cognitive Coaching.

All SPS teachers, counselors, and librarians will have the opportunity to begin the journey into Cognitive Coaching (SM) this summer! Days 1-4 will be offered June 11, 12, 16 & 17. For more details, click here.

We look forward to seeing you!

Continue Strong
by Curtis Cunningham, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

May marks the culmination of months of planning and work.  We all want to finish strong. While this is a very common colloquialism, I wonder what might happen if we entertain a different perspective for the month of May-- What if we decide to continue strong?

Continue Focus:
It might be we have addressed all of the elements of our curriculum guide and are considering how to deepen or extend our students’ learning.  It might be we are prioritizing the most important “big rocks” to hone in on during this time.  Consider the following questions. What might be a topic that would be important to review?  What might be crucial understandings students will need to be successful in the next grade or next level of your content area?  What might be some topics you would like to cover based on student interest or learning profile?  While the bulletin boards might come down at the end of the month and the books might be inventoried, there are still opportunities between now and then to communicate to our students that learning can continue through the summer and serve as a spring board to the next school year.

Continue Impact:
We have heard it said, “Once a teacher, always a teacher” and many of us have realized that in our personal lives. That is why we want to redirect children we encounter at Walmart or work so intently with children in our families. Our role as a teacher never really stops.  To illustrate this point, try to remember the name of a favorite teacher.  Perhaps you have regular communication with this individual, if not, imagine a conversation with him or her.  How would you refer to them?  What might be your default?  I recently had the opportunity to interact with my Kindergarten teacher.  I was surprised by my immediate reaction.  “Hello, Mrs. Potts.”  Even though it has been decades since I was in Kindergarten, I still refer to her by her surname.  She will forever hold a special place in my life, as will all of my teachers.  Our role of teacher will never stop.  It might be that we no longer have daily interaction with this particular group of students.  It might be that we will no longer provide feedback on their progress, but we can be assured that we will always hold a place of teacher in their lives. We continue learning, we continue our role as teachers, we continue our impact. 

Greg Anderson, founder of Cancer Recovery Foundation International, encourages all of us to “Focus on the journey, not the destination.  Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it.”  As teachers in the month of May we have a choice.  We can focus on the finish line or we can continue to enjoy the journey with our students know that learning and teaching never really end.

An old Chinese proverb states “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.”  Congratulations on the successful completion of another academic year.  Even more, congratulations for planning for a lifetime and hundreds of lifetimes over the course of the past nine months.  As we head into summer-- rest well, enjoy family and friends and continue strong.

Another Year in the Books
by Martha Doennig, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

Might these be familiar titles?

How to Survive and Thrive in the First Three Weeks of School by Elaine K. McEwan
The First Days of School by Harry Wong
Day One and Beyond by Rick Wormeli

Countless titles explore just what we might do to kick off a school year filled with stellar elements.  So where might one find the following book titles?

How to Survive and Thrive the Final Weeks
The Final Days of School
Day 175 and Beyond
or even
Assessment Window Closed, Now What?  

After scouring educational writings, my hunch is these books have not been penned for a simple reason: demand, or lack thereof.  Teachers have had a strong commitment to the principles of classroom management from day one, and are reaping the benefits in the final days and weeks of school. As the year has marched along, components of effective classroom management have been at the forefront of classrooms throughout Springfield.  

While I recently walked through a building, evidence of strong classroom management wafted through the halls. Energetic teacher voices and the hum of student conversation around concepts filled classrooms.   The intensity of work was exemplified by the substance of the content.  Expectations for procedures were clear; simple looks or quick directives moved entire classes.   Movement, contagious energy, and novelty engaged learning.   Strong relationships were apparent as students and teachers embraced what the other had to offer.  It was better than textbook and evident class after class, hallway after hallway.  

So as you count down the final days until this year goes in the books and continue to enjoy your well managed classroom, I invite you to revisit the Classroom Management Instructional Configuration.  Look at it with reflecting eyes; rate yourself and consider the following:   What have you done well to make things go so well?   What new learning might you have from this year?   How might that new learning transfer to your 2014-2015 classroom?

 

Purposeful Student Input
by Debbie Yonke, Coordinator Quality Assurance in Learning

When we think of teaching with a purpose and for a purpose, many times we reflect on how to make our day to day classroom interactions more powerful.  One way we can accomplish this is through the use of student input or feedback.  In Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement, John Hattie stated:

“I realized that the most powerful single influence enhancing achievement is feedback. This lead me on a long journey to better understand this notion of feedback.  After researching and reviewing feedback from a student's perspective (e.g., help-seeking behaviors) and from a teacher to student perspective (e.g., better comments on tests, increasing the amount of feedback in class), it dawned on me that the most important feature was the creation of situations in classrooms for teachers to receive more feedback about their teaching--and then the ripple effect back to the student was high (Hattie & Timperley, 2007)" p. 12. 

The following video clip from Glass Classroom focuses on gaining student input and feedback regarding recent learning.  As you view this clip of Central High School teacher, Susanne Feldman, consider how you might incorporate one or more of these ideas into your classroom.

Susanne Feldman: Quick Input https://springfieldpublicschools.instructure.com/courses/174521/wiki/student-input

Source:  Hattie, John A.C. (2009) Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge

Why Professional Learning Matters

by Debbie Yonke, Coordinator, Quality Assurance in Learning

 

Learning Forward is an international association of learning educators who are committed to professional learning to improve schools and student learning.  In one of their 2010 publications entitled "Why Professional Development Matters" Distinguished Senior Fellow at Learning Forward, Hayes Mizell, discusses the importance of professional learning to any field, but specifically how professional learning can impact student achievement.

 

Professional development refers to many types of educational experiences related to an individual's work. Doctors, lawyers, educators, accountants, engineers, and people in a wide variety of professions and businesses participate in professional development to learn and apply new knowledge and skills that will improve their performance on the job.

 

Many fields require members to participate in ongoing learning approved by the profession, sometimes as a requirement for keeping their jobs.  Professionals often also voluntarily seek new learning.

 

In education, research has shown that teaching quality and school leadership are the most important factors in raising student achievement. For teachers and school and district leaders to be as effective as possible, they continually expand their knowledge and skills to implement the best educational practices. Educators learn to help students learn at the highest levels. 

 

In Springfield Public Schools we strive to offer high quality professional learning to meet the needs of both staff and students.  Our core focus is Site Professional Learning Systems (SPLS) where key learning is embedded at the site level. In addition to this, we are happy to announce the expansion of our summer learning opportunities to provide additional choices for you to deepen your learning in areas that are of interest to you and which have a positive impact on student achievement. We encourage you to review this summer's offerings using the link below and consider attending with another teacher or team from your site to expand your impact. Summer Professional Learning Opportunities

Best Practices for Using Educational Data
by Debbie Pitts, Coordinator, Quality Improvement and Accountability

Much of life is based on numbers—the score on a test for a license to drive, an ACT number high enough for entrance into a college or university, and a balance in a bank account.  Schools prepare students to reach their full potential and strive to meet community needs against a backdrop of human circumstances and demographic realities. In the field of education, numbers provide tremendous value when trying to individualize student instruction, identify trends, and evaluate teaching methods. But what can numbers tell us about students, teaching methods, and our school district?

Medical treatment would not be considered adequate if it relied only on feelings or hunches without numbers (blood pressure, lab test results, etc.). In his preface to Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning, John Hattie highlights the treatment regime for a child, Elliot, who survived leukemia:

He has been part of a community of doctors, nurses, teachers, friends, and family—so many were involved. The impact of the dosage and treatment was constantly monitored to ensure that it was leading to the criteria of success. Decisions were made in light of the monitoring; teams worked to understand the consequences of treatments; an evidence was the key to adaptive professional decision making—all aiming to maximize the impact not only on the medical, but also the social and family, aspects.

Certainly, when educational treatment is prescribed, progress must be monitored and treatment adjusted as needed. Teams must work together to achieve results, and data must be used consistently and wisely, in a positive way, to support best outcomes for student learning.

Use Multiple Measures

Always use multiple measures to analyze student learning and school performance. One data point is not conclusive evidence on which to create plans or achieve continuous improvement.

Dr. Victoria L. Bernhardt, Executive Director of the Education for the Future Initiative, and Professor in the College of Communication and Education at California State University, Chico, stresses the importance of using multiple measures of data in her research. She advocates incorporating information from the categories of demographics, perceptions, and school processes, in addition to student learning data, to provide a complete picture and move forward with continuous improvement. (See: http://eff.csuchico.edu/downloads/TestScores.pdf).

Following are a few considerations to keep in mind to ensure use of data is effective.

Beware of Averages

Keep in mind when looking at averages it is important to look at the components that make up the average. For example, a building or district may be moving ahead, but are students at all levels doing well? It is also important to understand that percentages are built on individual pieces of information (e.g., scores, survey feedback, etc.). That being the case, percentages cannot be averaged together to determine an accurate overall percentage unless there are the exact same number of scores/incidents making up the percentages being averaged. For example, let’s say we want to know an average score for students in two buildings—Building A with an enrollment of 250 students and Building B with 500 students. If we averaged the two building averages, the answer would be giving equal weight to both buildings. What we really want is an average for the 750 students who attend the two buildings.

Percent Change

Change shows an increase or decrease over time, whereas percent change adds perspective to the amount of change. For example, the Springfield School District grew in enrollment from

23,960 in 2009‐2010 to 24,928 in 2013‐2014. The population change represented an increase of

968 students in five years; the percent enrollment change was a 4.0 percent increase. To calculate percent change, take the amount of change (968) divided by the starting point number (23,960). As another example, if what is being measured dropped from 200 to 175, the formula for percent change would be: ‐25/200 = 12.5 percent decrease.

However, percent change can be misleading unless the total number representing the change is known. Remember the old adage that you can make numbers say anything? For example, if only one student performs above grade level at the beginning of the year in a class of 25 students, but two perform above grade level at the end of the year, it is a true statement to say: “This class had an increase of 100 percent reading on grade level this year.” The statement is true, but misleading.

Data Not Always Numbers on Paper

Finally, never forget gathering data to take action is a broader endeavor than just compiling formal assessment results, attendance figures, and other numbers. Teachers collect information to inform instruction by using quick checks, discussion, and a variety of student activities to measure depth of student understanding and to guide instruction.

“When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.”

                                                                                            ‐ W. E. B. Du Bois