What was I thinking?

AKA: Making my thinking for my TEDxGrandValley Talk visible

Saturday’s TEDxNYED motivated me. Actually, it was Dr. Gary Stager’s Twitter-stream following his talk that inspired me to action. His tweets expressed my feelings exactly upon completing a TEDx Talk. There was so much more I wanted to say and a better way to say it but the format (which I love as an observer) is in many ways unforgiving to a presenter.

After my talk, good friend and colleague, John Golden, mentioned that I had seemed uncharacteristically nervous (we’ve done several presentation together). He was right; I was nervous and beginning to feel like I had blown an opportunity to make clear ideas I thought worth sharing. During the dinner celebrating the event, I connected with another friend and colleague, Sean Lancaster, who had also given a talk. He, too, expressed frustration regarding his performance and we commiserated together.

Not long after these conversations, I came up with what I thought was a great idea – TEDTalks Take Two: Ideas Worth Sharing but Better this Time. Using a digital camera we could record our improved talks and put them on the web ourselves.

Like many of my “great ideas” this went nowhere and once I watched the TEDxGrandValley videos I thought our talks went better than it felt at the time. I did not need a complete “do-over.”

Still, there were things I thought I could/should make clearer. And then it came to me – I needed a commentary. Yes, I am one of those people who actually enjoy listening to directors or actors provide insight into their thinking about their work. Therefore, I decided to write a commentary to accompany my talk that would make some of my thinking more visible.

First, here is my original talk from TEDxGrandValley:

Now, here is my commentary:

Before the talk:

I was fairly confident going into the talk. It was not my first presentation, and I was familiar with the content and the TED format. I like Sir Ken Robinson’s style and thought that I would emulate it by telling a series of one-minute stories.

I even went to the hall the day before to check out the space. The person in charge of technology said that there was a bit of a glitch with using the embedded video but they fixed it by running parallel PowerPoints on two different computers. I was asked if I wanted to run through the talk but I declined because I wanted to keep it fresh. This was a mistake.

During the talk:

The story about the phone call is true and it did have an interesting effect on my confidence. Maybe it contributed to my nervousness. In any case, from the beginning I was searching for words. I even forgot TED’s catchphrase, “Ideas Worth Sharing.” What was meant to take 30 seconds took over a minute – not a good start.

Yet I remained committed to providing the audience with time to activate their schema using the venn Diagrams. In a weird twist, the glitch with the embedded videos provided me with some extra time as I accidentally skipped over my slide introducing the Council on 21^st Century Learning [C21L]. Two of their videos provide the backbone for my talk, however, and I want to give them their due. I hope this makes up for the unintended slight. I was grateful for the extra time, though.

C21L has another video comparing students versus learners that I decided against using because of time constraints, but it related to my first sustainability question, “Will this be on the test?” If you watch the video I did not include, you will see that I was trying to channel the student’s perspective regarding consuming content. With all the focus on high-stake testing, this idea of covering content is particularly pernicious.

In retrospect, I wish I had included a picture of Admiral Ackbar (from Star Wars) to go along with my belief that “When will we ever use this? is a trap. Probably just as well as it might have been too obscure and distracting. What is interesting is the number of times I have seen variations of this question/trap asked during recent observations of student teachers. The result is usually the same: teachers scrambling for an answer that students tear apart or don’t accept.

The beauty of a commentary is I can provide a glimpse into my actions as well as my thinking. The “there’s an App for that” line was an opportunity for me to grab my iPhone which had my notes on it. I saw that I was running out of time and wanted it available just in case.

The “Why don’t you just show me?” question really gets at my frustration with the current system that fosters a consumer mentality. Students consuming what teachers are selling. This question is the crux of my argument that the current system is unsustainable. Students need to learn how to survive beyond teachers or textbooks always feeding them the information.

Again, the second video snuck up on me. I guess there is something to be said for rehearsal.

Kathy searching for answers (or Nessie)

John suggested that I use pictures from my trip to Scotland to support the second part of the talk. I am glad he did because they provided a series of strong metaphors for the ideas inherent in teachers fostering learners instead of students.

Roslyn Chapel under canopy

Using Roslyn Chapel for the support example was a bit of a reach. In Scotland we saw a lot of buildings surrounded by scaffolding. They do not simply tear down historic buildings; they repair and rebuild. Sometimes the support became a part of the rebuilt structure. Other times it is removed once the structure is sound. This was the point I was trying to make. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of these scaffolds. Consequently, I went with a slightly different approach with the canopy. I think it makes the point, just not as well.

In introducing the workshop model, I had a quote from Jon Stewart that I wanted to use but forgot. “Creativity comes from limits not freedom… When you have a structure then you can improvise off of it…” Instead, I spent some time connecting to earlier talks – a mainstay of the TED format. But I still wish I had used that Stewart quote because it makes the point that creativity is not devoid of structure.

Kathy was not exactly happy that I included this picture of her in front of the “pile of rocks.” I convinced her that she always looks good and that it would be up only briefly. Besides, it was the perfect example of the role choice place in empowering learners and adventurers.

The ideas associated with the awareness, acceptance, and adjustment slide comes from my yoga story. You can read it here. No point to me repeating it in this post.

Apprentice Pillar

With the Apprentice Pillar, I intended to expand upon the story of the mentor’s murder of the apprentice as a cautionary tale of the problem with conformity in schools. I do not want my learners limited by me. A teacher’s role is to develop sustainable learners not unsustainable students.

At this point I was a bit panicked by how little time was left. I felt like I zoomed through the Gradual Release of Responsibility model. The Model, Mentor, and Monitor alliteration comes from Jeffrey Wilhelm. I wanted to give him credit. I also wanted to talk about how Debbie Miller uses the model to ensure that her classroom transforms from the teacher modeling in September and October to the learners doing in March, April, and May. By the way, the line about wanting my learners to make better pillars came from John.

The last slide worked out about how I wanted. I just wish I had ended with sustainable learners instead of sustainable students. Though I like the alliteration, it does not fit with the rest of the talk.

After the talk:

I hope that you can accept this bit of navel-gazing. We ask our learners in the mathematics education course at GVSU to do a lot of reflection. Often, it looks similar to a commentary as we ask them to annotate their work in order to make their thinking visible. A book I read recently by Dr. James Zull, affirms our commitment to reflection as being essential for learners to grow and become self-sustaining.

Putting together this talk in the first place helped me to consolidate my thoughts about where we are (consuming information) and where I think we need to be (creating understanding). Writing this commentary has further solidified my own understandings and strengthened my resolve to doing things differently. Thanks for humoring me as I try to make this thinking visible (if only to myself).

Is it okay to skip this workshop?

Grand Valley’s teacher preparation program is fairly unique; it has preservice teachers engage in field placements over two semesters. The second semester represents a typical student teaching placement. In their first semester, preservice teachers spend the morning assisting in K12 classrooms and their afternoons and evenings taking seminars in classroom management, content literacy, lesson study, and content methods (in the case of secondary teachers). It is this last seminar, math methods in secondary classrooms, which I currently teach with my colleague John.

The seminar meets once a week for two hours. We use a workshop model (similar to the approach used in literacy instruction) for both class activities and home assignments. Our expectation is that the teacher assistants will put in five hours into the home workshops.

We recognize this is a lot to ask of the teacher assistants (TAs) and begin the semester acknowledging the fact. The idea is that providing too much to do will help them to learn a valuable time management skill – prioritization. I like to think about it using Covey’s model related to urgent-important activities. Unfortunately, while we offered the rationale for giving too much work, support was lacking. I will do this better next time.

Consequently, some TAs shared that they were close to the breaking point. In an effort to address the issue, I sent them all the following email. I wanted to share it because I believe it addresses an issue many teachers struggle with.

It was brought to my attention today that many of you are stressed out. Now this wasn’t a surprise to me as this is a packed semester, and teacher assistants often find it overwhelming. However, the extent of the stress (including physical symptoms) and the cause of the stress (our five assigned workshops) are concerns to me.

We began the semester telling you that we knew we were asking you to do more than you could in the time available. This was an intentional decision in an effort to prepare you to make critical choices as to how you spend your time as a teacher. We wanted to provide a safe place where you could practice making those choices by prioritizing what is important to you and your learners without fear of punishment.

The choices you make also help us to determine which workshops are meaningful to you and which you consider unimportant. It actually helps us in subsequent semesters to select workshops to assign. Essentially, we are trying to put Conditions of Learning (such as responsibility, employment, and approximation) into practice in the seminar.

You all are successful students, however, and some of you are finding it difficult to skip a workshop. The mere thought of it brings on stress and anxiety. You skip it because time does not allow for it but you feel no sense of accomplishment or growth as a decision-maker as a result. These unintended consequences are not acceptable and must be dealt with immediately.

I do not want to reduce the workshop load since this ignores the realities of the time commitments you will face as a teacher. But that means there is still too much to do. So, from here on out, if you need permission to skip a workshop, please do not hesitate to email me. I will do my best to absolve you of any guilt you may feel for not meeting the expectation. Be assured, if I think skipping the workshop is not in your best interest I will be direct about it. Otherwise, I plan on affirming your decision and letting you move on to more important things.

Hopefully, as time goes on, your sense of guilt will lessen and you will find your need for reassurance to diminish. I will try to do my part by adjusting my responses from, “It’s okay to skip that,” to “I trust your judgment,” to “You know what you need to do.” Because I do trust you and believe that you know yourself better than anyone else.

In times of stress, I have a friend who reminds me that everything that NEEDS to get done gets done. The important part is to realize that there is more that I might WANT to get done but time doesn’t allow. And looking back on my life, I see that my friend is right. I have had to make some hard decisions and turn my back on certain opportunities, but in the end everything that needed to get done got done in order for me to get to this place. It is my hope that this is a lesson you’ll learn and remember from this semester.

Peace,

Dave

I am passionate about this issue of making teaching and learning sustainable. Partly, it is because I see how hard my wife works as a first grade teacher. It also stems from memories of my mom (also an elementary teacher) responding to my questions about what she wanted for Christmas with, “Two more hours in everyday, two more days in every week, and two more weeks in every month so I can get everything done.” My dad, a high school math and science teacher, also worked hard but he suffered in silence. Mostly, I am passionate because I see committed and competent preservice teachers facing a system that chews up and spits out new teachers.

So, I offer the preservice teachers I work with absolution for their perceived sins of skipping a home workshops. In other words, I offer them permission to prioritize what they spend time on during their five hours of out-of-class. It can even be something other than the assigned workshops if it makes more sense to them.

Recently, I found that affirming preservice teachers’ critical thinking skills extends beyond homework choices. During a debriefing after a coaching session, a TA asked me about an upcoming lesson. The TA wanted to know if it was alright to skip a particular topic because of a time crunch. Before I could respond, the complete rationale for the choice came out. I smiled and said, “It sounds like you already know what to do. Are you asking my permission?” The TA responded with a nod. I assured the TA that it seemed like a sound decision.

What kind of educational system have we created where intelligent people do not trust themselves to make good decisions?

Not that you need it, but you have my permission to prioritize. You have my assurance that you can make good decisions. And you have my appreciation for the hard work that you do?

Why are frameworks important in education?

Almost two years ago GVSU selected me for the first joint appointment between the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) and the College of Education (COE). As you might imagine, I was anxious about the appointment – anxious in both senses of the word. I was excited to explore everything this new opportunity had to offer, but there was also a lot of anxiety about a change in circumstances. In particular, I was worried about teaching new courses focusing strictly on education instead of math education.

Organizing and Managing Classroom Environments (ED 310) was one of those new courses. My COE colleagues gave me a lot of support, but I remained nervous. At this same time, ArtPrize came to Grand Rapids and a group of artists put a giant peace sign made of rocks in the Grand River just outside the building where I was teaching. I came to see this symbol as a reminder that I had nothing to be nervous about. I had the support and experience necessary to be successful.

Unfortunately, my learners in ED 310 remained stressed out. They were in their first teaching practicum and finding it difficult to organize and manage their classrooms. I explained the need for a firm foundation that I equated with a succinct teaching philosophy. This resulted in a workshop called “The Six-word Teaching Philosophy” based on an NPR story I heard about six-word memoirs.

Like all effective workshop teachers, I began with a model. My Six-word Teaching Philosophy is “Engagement that fosters capacity and agency.” The ED 310 learners found the activity interesting but not necessarily helpful. They needed something more concrete. So I explained how a teaching philosophy represents a framework and used the peace sign in the river as an analogy.

My presentation went something like this:

This fall, GR hosted ArtPrize. Works of art sprung up all over the downtown area and some were invisible unless you looked at them from the right perspective. Such was the case with a peace sign just north of the Fulton Street Bridge. I failed to see it when I was walking on the Blue Bridge, but from the 6^th floor of the Eberhard Center it became visible. This reminds me of the need for perspective when creating our classroom management plans. We design our plans based on a theoretical vision – a framework.

As September turned to October, the river began to rise and I noticed something interesting about the peace sign. While the water around it was turbulent, inside the peace sign was calm. I began thinking about how a well-constructed and enacted management plan based on a firm framework can maintain serenity within a classroom setting.

Later in October, after several consecutive days of rainfall, it appeared that the peace sign was gone. As I walked over the Fulton Street Bridge, however, I noticed it beneath the surface. Again, I see this as a metaphor for teaching. When I am overwhelmed, it may seem that things are not going according to plan. In reality, the problem may not be the plan but the very nature of teaching. Given time the waters of standardized testing, parent-teacher conferences, whatever… will subside and the framework remains.

Sure enough, in November the river began to lower and the peace sign once again became visible. An interesting phenomenon accompanied this change; the peace sign was actually causing turbulence. This reminds me how setting boundaries and expectations can sometime ruffle feathers of pupils, peers, and parents – especially if they are different from what is typical. The trick is to determine what is flack and what are legitimate concerns needing attention.

Here, a learner interrupted my presentation. She saw the last picture differently. “I think of it as creating ripples. Maybe having an impact on learners and colleagues.”

I thought for a moment, smiled, and said, “It’s important to connect frameworks to our own vision in order to make them useful.” I thanked the learner, said I would add her idea to my metaphor and then went on with the presentation. What I said after didn’t matter. The point was made.

I don’t know for sure if the presentation made a difference in their anxiety level. After all, teaching is a stressful career. The learners began to use the metaphor, however, and some included their own version in their final project. What’s important is that they saw the power of frameworks in instructional decision-making. Whether we are talking The Teaching-Learning Cycle, Understanding by Design, Conditions for Learning, or the Gradual Release of Responsibility, we need a framework in order to organize and examine our practice.

One might think that the story ends here. Then you can call this the epilogue. When I returned to the COE in the following Fall, I noticed that the peace sign had taken a beating. I wondered how this fit into my metaphor. I decided that it meant that our teaching experiences (tests, administration, professional development, …) take a toll on a teaching philosophy. And that it may periodically need updating.

Amazingly, within a few days, artists were out putting it back together. This was a reminder that we often need the support of others to keep our practice fresh. I have found that community at GVSU and with my new professional learning network on Twitter.

That is why my Twitter icon is the peace sign in winter. I hope to keep updating it (the icon and my philosophy) as seasons progress. And I hope you find peace in your practice.

What does it mean to do mathematics?

My MTH 329 class just finished the first unit of Teaching and Learning Middle Grades Mathematics. The focus of this unit is on the NCTM Process Standards. Yesterday we spent a considerable amount of our class period reflecting on what we’ve been doing so far.

We start the workshop with a schema activation/connection that asks the learners to review a simile survey taken the first day of class. One part of the survey says, “Choose the simile that best describes doing math and explain your choice.” The similes to choose from are: climbing a mountain, conducting an experiment, cooking a meal, reading a book, working a puzzle, or playing a game. In reviewing their original choices, I want my learners to consider how their view of doing math has changed and why.

The focus/concentration for the workshop is to create an anchor chart representing what they think it means to do mathematics. This chart might hang in their future classroom as a constant reminder to their learners what it means to be a mathematician. (My colleague shares his experience with anchor charts here.)

During the activity/construction phase of the workshop, groups of four work together to develop a rough draft anchor chart. The first group builds on the simile idea and develops a chart showing doing math as working a puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle represents a different aspect of their vision of doing math.

Group two decides that they want to make a chart that would appeal to middle grade learners. They use graffiti as the theme and begin searching Urban Dictionary for terms they could use for the Process Standards. At one point they discuss whether or not the chart is appropriate (culturally sensitive) and decide that it is because it is intended to engage and not to mock.

The final group considers the anchor chart from a graph theory perspective. They had just been discussing a discrete mathematics assignment and it seems to find its way into the representation. That’s the Green Arrow up in the Algebra block. The color of each arrow has some significance, I think. (These are works in progress.)

These are rough drafts that I post on our classroom Blackboard site. The future teachers will make adjustments to whichever one they choose and make it their own for inclusion in the course portfolio. This is the reflection/consolidation portion of the workshop.

So what do I think it means to do mathematics? It involves collaborating with others in an effort to solve problems, making and revising representations for/of our thinking, trying to connect various ideas, and communicating the reasoning behind our thought process to others. In other words, yesterday doing mathematics involved making anchor charts.

You do yoga?

AKA – All I need to know about teaching I learned in yoga

A lot of people are surprised when they hear that I do yoga. It is probably because I don’t look very bendy – and I’m not. Improving my flexibility is the main reason I started attending classes at a local yoga center. The amazing thing is that after years of practice, my flexibility of mind has well outpaced my physical flexibility. This is especially true when it comes to my teaching.

A good example of this happened several years ago when I first started yoga. I was in a class called Gentle Yoga. The instructor had us on our backs with both legs up in the air. While this was not a difficult pose I was struggling to keep my legs straight and vertical. As I looked around I was becoming discouraged when comparing myself to the others in the class.

I don’t know if the instructor saw me looking around or sensed my growing frustration but her next instructions seemed directed at me. She said something like, “Make sure that your eyes are closed so that you can bring awareness to you body.” I shut my eyes and became aware of how tight my hamstrings felt. After a little while, she continued, “Accept your body where it is right now.” This was more difficult for me. With every deliberate breath, however, acceptance became easier. Finally, she added the clincher, “Now grab what ever tool you need, a balance block or a stretching strap, in order to adjust your body and move closer to your desired goal. Please do not overdo it.” I grabbed a strap and put it across the balls of my feet. Gradually I pulled on the strap and my legs began to straighten toward the ceiling. It was a miracle.

After the class, I considered the power of those words: awareness, acceptance, and adjustment. I thought, “These are the exact words I need to share with the preservice mathematics teachers that I teach.” They were struggling to find appropriate activities to foster number sense in the young children they tutored. In reflecting on the preservice teachers’ efforts, I realized that they were either unaware or did not accept the current understandings of the children. Therefore, their activities were arbitrary and not adjustments. I finally had a framework that I could share with them that could make a difference.

Years later I encountered the Teaching-Learning Cycle. Remarkably, this educational framework reflected the lesson I learned in yoga. (I’ll discuss that connection in a later post, or you can in the comments.) For now, it suffices to say that this framework affirmed my thoughts regarding the power of awareness, acceptance, and adjustment in teaching.

I still go to yoga. I’m still not very bendy. Physical flexibility is no longer my main purpose for attending, however. I practice yoga because I still have a lot to learn about teaching.

How am I doing?

I spent that last few days completing a self-evaluation required of faculty in the Mathematics Department at GVSU. This is a chance to reflect on my work over the past school year in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service and communicate my efforts to my peers. As I reread the teaching section, I decided it might be interesting to share this portion of my self-evaluation on my blogs. Hopefully, it makes my thinking visible regarding my journey as a reflective practitioner. Well, here it goes...
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I start each semester by apologizing to my students. I tell them that I will teach the course better next time because I learn more about what works and what doesn’t based on their feedback. This is an opportunity to model for future teachers a growth mindset toward the profession and it reminds me to keep looking for ways to improve my practice. This past year, I must admit, these improvements have been modest.

One way I continue to strive to improve is setting reasonable limits for my students and myself. The workshop model that I use for class activities and assignments offers a structure that supports these efforts, in terms of my students. Each workshop sets a one-hour time limit for them to engage in learning. At the end of this time, they are free to end the activity and move to something else. I want them to become comfortable with the idea that learning is an ongoing process that cannot always be accomplished in a single sitting. I want them to experience “learning lust” – the desire to keep going because they want to learn more and not because they have to complete an assignment. But mostly, I want them to practice having balance and boundaries in their lives. As future teachers, these are essential elements if they are to have a sustainable, successful career.

I am trying to apply the same idea into my own teaching practice. I find it easy to spend hours upon hours planning lessons or evaluating assessments. The more time I have the more time I use. This past year I have worked to set limits on both of these activities by setting time limits. I do not always stop when the time is up, but I have found myself being more discerning about how I manage my time. This is an ongoing effort that I will continue to hone.

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School often teaches us to avoid (or hide) our struggles, but learning theory shows that challenges are a natural part of the process of developing firm understandings. What are you working on improving and how are you going about making the change? I'd be interested to hear how you reflect on your practice.

Why the Change?

The fourth key element in The Learning Network’s original Teaching-Learning Cycle was labeled “Teaching.” This was confusing to me and to the pre-service educators that I coach. Based on their experiences on the other side of the desk, they tend to simplify teaching to what happens in front of a classroom full of learners; this is certainly an element of teaching but not the entirety of the craft.

In order to be explicit about what teaching entails I modified the diagram. I changed “Teaching” to “Instruction,” but I continue to use the initial description: “Amount of support needed for new learning to occur.” Sometimes that means a demonstration, and other times it means an activity that allows learners to engage independently in a worthwhile learning task. Sometimes instructions falls somewhere in between.

Instructional decisions depend on the plans the teacher develops as a result of his or her evaluation of assessment data. That was the reason behind the change – to enable pre-service educators to recognize the role of each element in teaching and not just associate teaching with instruction. And so far the change seems to be working.