Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Teachers: How to Avoid Becoming Stale

Think about it... you know what you know. You went to study during your era- the professors gave you what was in their bag of tricks. The teacher next door may have gone to school during a different era- and the young teachers coming out today may have even a different experience than both of you... What are you doing to stay fresh?
Here are some tips:
  1. Cultivate the Growth Mindset. Carol Dweck writes about this Growth Mindset- and one way to keep fresh is to browse the latest literature in education and learn. There are several ways to keep growth in your life:
  • Subscribe to innovative podcasts. You learn from people all over the world that are doing wonderful things! I learned about Anastasis Academy- went to visit the school- and met the founder Kelly Tenkely. I found inspiration! I listened to the Getting Smart podcast and learned about Placed-Based Learning (awfully close to the school design I am developing).
  • Search Twitter. You learn to use hashtags well and you will open a door to more international innovators and mentors that you could have ever imagined. I had a teacher try this and the next thing I knew he had a teleconference with a class in Minnesota (we work in Colorado) so students could share their genius hour project together (#geniushour)...
2. Develop the Shared Classroom. This involves two-way communication. List all the ways in which your students can give you input, feedback, or any communication in your classroom. We become stale when we are not responding to our audience- we need fresh ideas- there is the word again- "Fresh".
Here are some ideas you can use to help build the shared classroom:
  • Create your class mission and vision together. I usually start off with giving them a copy of all the vision statements under which they sit... on one sheet they read the National Department of Education vision, the state Department of Education vision, the District vision, and the School vision. We look for common themes. We identify WHO is important in these visions... and it all points to the kids. They are valuable- worth millions and worth thousands of hours from all these employees. I even point out that there are hundreds of building built just for them. They then look at the standards for their year and develop a mission for the class.
  • Create a feedback routine after lessons. So typically we would end the school day with a plus and delta chart- with a third column for the prescription. Ask the students- how did we do today? What lessons helped us accomplish our mission? Is there any part in the day we can improve to better meet our vision? They share ideas.
  • Create a Class Dashboard. This has academic goals and data showing progress. We usually put this up below the mission- front and center. Write to me if you'd like an example- in any case. The data becomes a catalyst for two-way communication. "What does this graph tell us? What can we celebrate? What opportunities for improvement do you see? Then we brainstorm action plans together.
  • Create a wonder wall and open the planning up for student voice. A wonder wall is a place where students can put any ideas they think are interesting. These become catalysts for student projects. If you decide to use the genius hour structure- students will develop projects based on their interests that will bring new ideas into your classroom. One student began to work on the urban farming project that Caleb Harper started at MIT. I learned so much from this project. When teachers are learning- there is no room to get stale!
The influx of new ideas from students and from what you are reading- from podcasts and what you are tweeting... all of these things can keep you from becoming the stale teacher. The side effect is this- you gain joy. It is fun to learn- you having joy makes our whole school a joyful place... and that is what you and our kids deserve...
M

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