Personal Learning through Professional Collaboration
by Kathy Gross, Director of Professional Learning

Standard 1: Professional Collaboration
Quality Indicator 1: Roles, Responsibilities, and Collegial Activities

Professional learning is more than reading books, blogs, tweets, or going to workshops.  These actions might begin the journey of professional learning, but taking time to digest and apply the new information gained is a necessary next step! Engaging in dialogue around that information supports knowledge, understanding, and application for the individuals involved in the dialogue. Finally, doing something with your knowledge is a crucial step of professional learning.

Knowing and doing are very different categories. Isn't it frustrating when we see our students fail to demonstrate that they know information? Why then are we content with ourselves when we know information that we fail to demonstrate? Anything I consider having ever learned I can do: riding a bicycle, driving a car, speaking Spanish, being a teacher, using Cooperative Learning as an engagement strategy, serving as a school principal, becoming a Cognitive Coach, etc.

In every example, there was some prerequisite knowledge needed before I was able to practice and apply the skills. In every example, the less I use the skill, the worse I become at it, and the more I use the skill, the better I become at it. In fact, the more I know about all these things, the more I realize there is to know. I know that we can all see the connections to our profession—the more we practice it, the more we realize there is to know and find out about our students, our content, and our pedagogy.

In each example above, I only mastered the skills because I took the time to collaborate with others on a similar learning journey, some within SPS and others beyond SPS. It is important that we take the opportunity to network with people in our own sites, around the district, throughout the state, nation, and world. Only a few years ago, that last sentence would have seemed too tall an order, impractical.  But today, technology makes every part of that sentence possible.

The Department of Professional Learning has been intentional in providing a framework for professional learning at your site to be systemic. SPLS stands for Site Professional Learning Systems, communicating the need for learning at the site level to be part of a system rather than random acts of improvement. District Expectations and Critical Components have existed on the SPLS webpage since 2011, when SPLS began. This spring they will be communicated for the fifth time to attending site teams. To what extent do these district expectations portray your personal experience at your site?

1. Teachers use contractual time to actively engage in collaboration/learning.
2. Data drives each team’s work and classroom instruction.
3. Plan and work must align with SIP and exhibit cycles of improvement.
4. Teams document work and monitor outcomes.
5. Leader provides written and verbal feedback to collaborative teams and opportunities to make the work public.

What question do you have about your students that you can study with your colleagues? Let’s move away from separating the work we need to do from the learning. The learning IS our work. We are, in fact, each leaders in a learning organization, and we are surrounded by exceptional resources—our colleagues!

Best wishes with your professional collaboration.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen
by Sarah Logan, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

Standard 9: Utilizing Effective Communication
Quality Indicator #3: Cooperative partnerships in support of student learning

We’ve all heard the expression that “Many hands make light work,” but in reality, our experience is more likely to have been “Many hands made more work.” Even when people have the best of intentions for working together toward a common goal, what’s intended to be a collaborative effort may morph into a collaborative gathering. So much conversation happens that no significant action comes as a result.

So how can this be avoided? Once you’ve determined that there’s a need to work together, don’t overlook the importance of determining HOW your group will work together. Having an agreed upon set of norms sets the stage for meaningful and productive teamwork.

The Seven Norms of Collaboration are not a brand new invention. They were developed by Adaptive Schools and are widely known and used by educators who aspire to support student learning through their work together. As you join with colleagues for this purpose, consider how they could positively impact your efforts.

• Promoting a spirit of inquiry: Hold yourself accountable for being curious about the thinking and ideas of others before you advocate your own.
• Pausing: Give yourself time to think before speaking and to allow others to respond.
• Paraphrasing: Demonstrate that you want to understand what others are saying and that you are genuinely listening.
• Probing for specificity: Generate and ask questions that will help provide clarity about topics being discussed.
• Putting ideas on the table: Contribute ideas for the group to consider.
• Paying attention to self and others: Be aware of your own and others’ non-verbal cues to how people are feeling.
• Presuming positive intentions: Choose to believe that people are operating from honorable motivations.

To learn more about the Seven Norms of Collaboration and how they may guide your collaborative work, visit http://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/norms-collaboration-toolkit/.

Redefining Engagement
by Martha Doennig, Coordinator, Professional Learning

Standard #1: Content knowledge aligned with appropriate instruction
Quality Indicator #2: Student engagement in subject matter

Have you engaged in a conversation around a topic in which you had little expertise, only to hear the words, “Let’s Google that”? On a daily basis, nearly 5.7 billion queries rely on Google for content expertise. Considering that Google is just one of many search engines, the internet has the potential to make educators feel obsolete. While we know that teachers are actually far from obsolete, we need to rethink engagement in the classroom since students have other outlets to find answers.

Why does student engagement matter?

In a recent edition of Education Week, a Gallup poll was referenced as finding that nearly 50% of students report that they are not engaged or are actively disengaged in school. This staggering statistic poses a problem for schools as disengagement is one of the largest factors leading to a student’s decision to drop out. While dropout rate has received much attention in recent years and has steadily declined nationwide, lack of engagement is becoming a growing concern as it comes with its own costly price tag.

So what is new about student engagement?
Many discussions about student engagement focus on behavioral indicators. This measure

certainly does not tell the whole story, as engagement includes the emotion and cognition of the student as well. When students make a cognitive, behavioral, and emotional investment, their personal ownership in learning increases (Sparks, 2013). Empowered to actively and constructively participate in learning, students will be beating down the doors to get in…not out.

What’s this about emotion and cognition?

Emotional engagement ties to the culture of the learning environment. To be emotionally engaged, one must feel accepted into the culture of the classroom while finding meaningful connections, interest, and relevance to the learning.

Cognitive engagement refers to the ability to manage and monitor one’s own learning. Providing choice and autonomy in learning allows students to navigate content, leading to deeper learning.

What does the research tell us?

Authors of The Highly Engaged Classroom explore the concept that information must be important for the working memory to maintain it for long. If students do not believe learning is relevant, the brain with eventually reject it. To successfully engage the mind, four questions must be considered: How do I feel? Am I interested? Is this important? Can I do this? (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2011).

Current research from Phillip Schlechty explains engagement as a connection between attention, persistence, and commitment, all of which tie to Marzano’s questions.  The “Levels of Engagement” infographic explores five ways in which students respond or adapt to school-related tasks and activities.

No longer can we look at ritual compliance, also known as demonstrating positive behavior, as engagement.  In ritual compliance, students are missing critical emotional and cognitive engagement, therefore leading to complacent, yet unfulfilling, learning.

Strategic compliance still misses the mark of authentic engagement since students miss the relevance of learning, causing low retention.

How might I make a difference in engagement?

When you think about times your students have shown authentic engagement in learning, what factors contributed to your success? Which of those factors might you want to emulate time and time again?

Suggestions for enhancing student engagement in the classroom include the following:

• Provide students with rich learning experiences signaling real purpose and relevance of content.
• Evoke student curiosity through lesson design and questioning opportunities.
• Trust students’ voice and choice as they take the reins of learning.
• Allow for student autonomy.
• Increase global interactions.
• Create meaningful fun.

Rethinking engagement will create an environment that is far beyond Google’s reach as emotional, cognitive, and behavioral factors of engagement are satisfied in all our students. 

References:

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Heflebower, T. (2011). The highly engaged classroom. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.

Schlechty Center on Engagement (2013). Retrieved from http://www.schlechtycenter.org/tools-for-change.

Sparks, Sarah. “Active Student Engagement Goes Beyond Class Behavior, Study Finds.” Education Week. N.p., 10 July 2013. 

Putting Down Roots
by Alicia Moore, Professional Learning Specialist

Standard #1: Content knowledge aligned with appropriate instruction
Quality Indicator #4: Interdisciplinary instruction

As a third grader, I was awed by a Weekly Reader article about the giant sequoias and redwoods of California. There was a picture of a car driving through a tunnel in the trunk of a redwood. Another tree was so big that my entire class would have barely been able to encircle it holding hands.

If we borrow an old analogy, teachers plant seeds of knowledge in young minds. And aren’t we all hoping to grow some metaphorical redwoods and sequoias? How exactly can we cultivate minds that reach such unbelievable heights?

One characteristic of those towering trees offers insight for educators. It turns out that they grow to such amazing heights not because of their innate strength, but because they depend upon each other. Each tree stretches out its roots, and the roots fuse with all the other trees in the area. The result is a forest of giants with the stability and resourcefulness to live thousands of years.

This idea relates to one especially helpful framework for thinking about student learning—the structure of observed learning outcomes, usually called the SOLO model (Hattie, 2012, p. 54). This model names four levels of learning:

• Uni-structural: one idea
• Multi-structural: many ideas
• Relational: relating ideas
• Extended abstract: extending ideas

The uni-structural and multi-structural levels encompass surface-level understanding, whereas the next two levels of learning go deeper. The message of this model is that when we connect concepts across content areas, we allow students to expand and fuse their academic root systems.

Learning surface level concepts is an important first step, of course. As John Hattie and Gregory Yates say, “you must have something to think about before you can relate, extend, critique, and enquire” (2014). Helping students to transfer their knowledge to new situations can be a daunting task, though, so deeper learning sometimes feels out-of-reach.

Project-based learning (PBL) includes an interdisciplinary teaching philosophy, and that’s one reason that it has generated a lot of excitement among educators. This approach to learning provides a template for bringing different content areas together so that students can find a relevant application for what they know. If you’re interested in learning more about PBL, check out this 4 minute video.

When we help our students apply their learning to various contexts, we help them cultivate a forest of knowledge. Their scientific reasoning skills lend clarity to writing; their writing skills give voice to their political stances. One idea supports and is supported by all others, creating students whose learning is as impressive as the redwood forests. 


References:

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hattie, J., & Yates, G. (2014). Visible learning and the science of how we learn. New York, NY: Routledge.

Thinking Cooperatively
by Myki Williamson, Professional Learning Specialist

Standard #4: Teaching for Critical Thinking
Quality Indicator:3: Cooperative Learning
 

Cooperative Learning is an excellent way to reinforce the 3 C’s (Collaborate, Communicate, and Critically Think) while also teaching required content. No matter the grade level you teach, selecting an appropriate structure can engage your students in all three capabilities.  As Spencer Kagan (2009) notes, “We want both critical and creative thinking to become habits of mind in our students. We use critical thinking as we reflect on ideas….and creative thinking as we generate ideas” (p. 6.18).

The advantage of using Cooperative Learning to instill these habits of mind is the filter of P.I.E.S. in each structure.  As we support all students in becoming critical and creative thinkers, Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Equal Participation, and Simultaneous Interaction ensure active participation from all our students. When teachers create a classroom culture based on cooperation and collaboration, students feel safe to share their creativity and thinking with each other, and the results last a lifetime.  After all, “Lessons are one-time events, but any skill not repeatedly practiced does not become a habit of mind.  Changing how we teach actually results in better acquisition of…any thinking skill than does changing what we teach” (Kagan, 2009, p. 6.18). 

So, as you consider ways to engage your students in all of the capabilities simultaneously, what structures might you choose this week to help develop these habits of mind? Here are a few ideas from your Cooperative Learning text to get you started:

Critical Thinking

• Analyzing:  Match Mine (6.28), Same-Different (10.23-10.25)
• Deducing: Timed-Pair-Share (6.38), Inside-Outside Circle(6.27), Numbered Heads Together (6.30)
• Problem Solving:  RallyCoach (6.32), Jigsaw Problem solving (17.5)

Creative Thinking

• Brainstorming: Jot Thoughts (6.28)
• Questioning: Fan-N-Pick (6.25), Team Interview (10.8)
• Symbolizing: Formations (9.5, 9.16, , Think-Draw-RoundRobin (variation of 6.33)
• Synthesizing: RoundRobin(6.33), Team Projects (Chapter 13), Team Statements (10.36) 

Kagan, S., & Kagan, M. (2009). Kagan cooperative learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.

Questions to Engage
by Curtis Cunningham, Professional Learning Specialist

Standard #4: Critical Thinking

Quality Indicator #1: Instructional strategies leading to student engagement in problem solving and critical thinking.

Questions are such a powerful tool. One question can rattle around in your head for days and help you see the world in a completely different light. Another question can make you ashamed and leave you feeling unworthy. Still another question can irritate you, sending you into an orbit of frustration.

Questions are a funny thing, and they can have a profound impact on our work as educators. However, questioning is not a natural approach to teaching. Our inclination is to tell our students the information they should learn rather than asking questions that will encourage them to discover the information for themselves. While the former approach might be more efficient, the latter approach will have more lasting effects (Hattie, 2012) provided that the questions are targeting higher levels of thinking.

As teachers, our challenge is to use questioning to ignite student curiosity and to compel them to engage in meaningful inquiry. “Successful inquiry leads us to ‘see’ and ‘grasp’ and ‘make sense’ of things that were initially puzzling, murky or fragmented; thus questioning is meant to culminate in new and more revealing meaning” (McTighe and Wiggins, 2013). Effective questioning that encourages inquiry will oftentimes lead to more questions. When we use questioning as McTighe and Wiggins suggest, we see a continuous cycle of inquiry, questions, discovery, questions, and further inquiry. Students will naturally be engaged in this cycle of learning.

It might be worth exploring your students’ perception of your questions compared with your own. A strategically placed video camera or voice recorder might allow for some analysis and reflection on the number and nature of the questions you ask (Prensky, 2010). As you consider embarking on this analysis, you might consider the four types of questions described by McTighe and Wiggins (2013):

Questions that hook are designed to pique the interest of students and are typically delivered in kid-friendly language.

Questions that lead typically have one right answer and support students in recalling information.

Questions that guide are typically open-ended and might be asked throughout a unit of study to encourage further exploration of the topic.

Finally, essential questions spark discussion and debate, and often generate more questions. 

Asking questions is simple enough; however, asking questions that will propel our students toward their learning goal is quite challenging. For more information on the topic of questioning you might be interested in the Questioning module located in Glass Classroom.

I leave you with this question: How will your students benefit from your use of questions? 

 

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential questions: Opening doors to student understanding. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Resolutions Made SMARTer
by Angela Mansel, Professional Learning Specialist

STANDARD # 2: Understanding and Encouraging Student Learning, Growth and Development
Quality Indicator #2: Student goals

At the first of the year we make our resolutions in hopes that this year will be different. We’re finally going to lose that weight, find time to exercise, or save more money for the future. All too often, December rolls around and we haven’t even come close to meeting those lofty January expectations. What goes wrong? Why are these personal goals just so hard to keep?

While many of us don’t stick to our personal resolutions, teachers are experts at setting and reaching goals in our professional lives. We set out at the beginning of the school year with a list of learning goals that must be covered before the end of the year or even the end of the semester. We track those learning goals and monitor the success of our students and ourselves along the way. Then, once we get to the end of the year or semester, we reflect on how we did and what we can do better next time.

What is the difference between failed resolutions and successful learning goals? The answer to this question might improve our New Year’s Resolutions, but, more importantly, it will empower us to teach our students to set and keep goals. Both John Hattie (2012) and Robert Marzano (2007) refer to goal setting by students as one of the most effective learning strategies. It encourages a more active learning environment, which in turn leads to higher success for students. High quality goal setting does not come naturally, though. It is a strategy that needs to be taught in order to keep the goals from looking like the resolutions we don’t keep. One way of introducing goal setting is a widely used acronym, S.M.A.R.T.

S- Specific: Use language that is not vague.
Instead of “I’m going to be a good student in science this year,” say “I’m going to do all of my homework and complete the study guides to help me prepare for the tests in science. I will also pay attention in class and ask questions if I don’t understand.”

M- Measurable: How are you going to show progress towards your goal?
Ask these questions: How will I monitor my progress? What data am I going to use to show my progress? How will I know when I have reached my goal?

A - Attainable: Make it a goal that means something to you and that you can reach.
Remember not to make your goal so out of reach it isn’t worth trying for or so easy that it is accomplished without much effort.

R- Relevant: Is it something that relates to what you are doing right now?
The more relevant the goal, the more likely you’ll succeed.

T- Timely: What time limit have you put on yourself to meet this goal?
A time frame creates a sense of urgency and sets the goal in action.

The beginning of the calendar year is a great time to make those learning goals with our students, whether we are beginning a new semester with them or reflecting on their middle of the year testing. When students create their own goals and begin to see results, they gain more confidence, perform at a higher level, and are more motivated to learn—all of this just by including them in the goal setting that we already do naturally as teachers (Marzano, 2007).

So as we begin a New Year and think about crafting our resolutions, let’s be sure to think about our students’ goal-setting skills as well.  What might be some upcoming opportunities for you to expose your students to SMART learning goals?


Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Marzano, R.J. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.