How Are You Conferencing?

How are you conferencing?

It’s that time of the year again and teachers are prepping the walls and scheduling their dreaded fall conferences.  It’s not that we don’t like to meet with parents/ families, but it takes time away from our teaching and most conferences consist of teachers constantly talking about what their students are doing or not doing.  And in reality, shouldn't parents/ families already know that?

In many schools, educators are transforming teacher-led parent-teacher conferences in favor of a Student-Led Conferences (SLCs) formats that engage students in the process. These conferences can provide powerful opportunities for students to advocate for their own learning. What better way to monitor progress than to have the student take ownership and be self-reflective?

Though the format may vary, these conferences differ from traditional conferences in that they place students at the helm of teacher-supported discussions with parents about student progress and learning. SLCs also often present opportunities for students to prepare, reflect on, and discuss evidence of their learning and growth by way of student portfolios and analysis of student work and assessments.

Schools that implement student-led conferences report that they encourage students to take responsibility and ownership for their learning by involving them in the goal-setting and assessment process.  They also boast that SLCs engage families in richer, more transparent conversations about student progress.

To learn more about how SLCs can transform conferencing at your site, contact info@LeverageLearningGroup.com .  If you want to read more about the benefits of SLCs, here are a few links to get you started.

A Guide To Implementing Student-Led Conferences at the Secondary Level

A Step-by-Step Plan for Student-Led Conferences at the Elementary Level

Have you been implementing SLCs at your site?  Love to hear your stories too!

Supporting Classroom Discourse with Non-verbal Communication Norms

With so many classrooms making distinguished efforts to incorporate collaborative conversations and discourse, this excerpt from Ellie Cowen and Megan Nee’s article, 6 Hand Signals That Bring Learning to Life, really gives teachers an easy guide to support non-verbal and verbal communication in the classroom.

One of the greatest challenges in teaching a classroom of diverse learners is determining what students are thinking and how they are feeling about the concepts being introduced or processed. Many of the thoughts that pass through students' minds would be of great value for their teachers to know, but opportunities to hear them can feel few and far between.

In many classrooms, students use non-verbals to communicate certain thoughts when teachers introduce hand signals for bathroom breaks, "quiet" signals, and silent cheers. But teachers can look to non-verbals for more than classroom management. During discourse, visible and nonintrusive signals provide instant feedback for peers and valuable insight for teachers about students' moment-to-moment reasoning and comprehension of the content being discussed. They are a great starting point to collaborative classroom discourse! 

Here are six handy hand signals try in your classroom.  Call them whatever you want, but here are some visuals and the descriptions below. 

"I agree!"

The "I agree" symbol, the pinky and thumb extended like “hang loose”, derived from the ASL sign with the same meaning, is popular in American classrooms as an outlet for enthusiastic agreement. When a student hears a strategy or solution path that matches his thinking, he makes the "me, too" sign, acknowledging his classmate's reasoning, expressing that he had a similar idea, and communicating his understanding of what has been shared.

"I disagree."

When students disagree with a statement that they've just heard or need to hear more so that they can follow the speaker's reasoning, they hold up a single index finger to express that they have a "point of interest."

"I have something to add."

The "build upon" signal consists of placing one fist on top of the other to represent the idea of "building." Students use this to express that they have something to say that will add to a classmate's idea.

"I can paraphrase or restate."

Students make air quotes to express that they can paraphrase or restate in another way what they've just heard.

"Complete the thought."

This signal, made by touching the fingertips of both hands together in an "A" shape can be used by teachers or students to remind a speaker that she needs to include a unit or a label, be more precise, or to use a complete sentence to express her thinking.

"I have a conjecture."

After being introduced to conjectures, an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of the information known, a students can show the "conjecture" signal: they place a fist, which represents an imaginary light bulb, on top of their heads to indicate that they have a conjecture to share.

Adapted from Edutopia: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/hand-signals-bring-learning-to-life-ellie-cowen

Effective Teacher vs. Effective Teaching

I was once again inspired to blog after reading Tim Shanahan’s (www.shanahanonliteracy.com) recent blog post, Why I’m Not Impressed with Effective Teachers.  He has a way of grabbing the reader and then selling the related point. I have always thought that I was a good teacher, but Shanahan has made me rethink that.  It is not that I am a good TEACHER, it’s that through a lot of personal dedication to my craft, high quality professional learning opportunities, and working with other dedicated teachers that I was good at TEACHING.

For decades we have heard that great teachers help create great students. In fact, we have been told that research shows that an inspiring and informed teacher is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, so it is critical to pay close attention to how we train and support both new and experienced educators.  This is all true, but its really not the TEACHER as Tim Shanahan states, it's the TEACHING.

If it were really the teacher that was the most important factor, then issues faced in education and the achievement gap would be easily solved by attracting smarter, nicer, just plain better people to the position.  It would also mean that those teachers who have been in the profession longer would be better than those new to the profession. Obviously, this is not the case.

Someone can’t be taught to be a good teacher, but they can learn the practices of good teaching. For example, effective teaching employs instructional time more wisely.  It is teaching that gets started right away—no 30-minute circle times, no large portions of class time devoted to getting a head start on the homework—and such teaching keeps kids productively engaged throughout the day.

Observational studies have long showed that effective teaching avoids long wait times by the kids; avoids disruptions; encourages more interaction per instructional minute; follows a sound curriculum intelligently; gets a lot more reading into a lesson; explains things better; notices when kids aren’t getting it and does something about it.

The truth of the matter is… the research is very clear on what good teaching really is.  If a teacher chooses NOT to employ those practices that we identify as good teaching, then it's malpractice on the teacher’s part or up to the school and or district to provide opportunities for that teacher to understand and implement those practices.   If a school or district chooses NOT to provide those opportunities to the teachers who need it, then its malpractice on their part as well.

Good teachers are not born that way- they are made.

Are We in the Midst of a “Ghettoization in Education”?

While listening to a recent interview with the legendary journalist and news anchor, Tom Brokaw, he was discussing the “ghettoization of America”.  He claims that because of our affinity to social media and other internet applications, we mostly expose ourselves to thinks we “like” and issues we subscribe to.  Our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds are driven by people that we are fiends with and most likely share similar ideals, beliefs, etc.  When we visit news websites on our phones, tablets, or computers, they are likely the ones that we tend to agree with politically, socially, or economically. Brokaw explains that because of these trends, we are not exposing ourselves to ideas outside of our own umbrella.  And because of this, we only deepen our affinity and opinions to those ideas under our own umbrella.  The effect of these trends are that we don’t expand our thinking and push alternative ideas.  Brokaw wonders how these trends are affecting society as a whole. 

This got me thinking about education.

Are we in the midst of a “ghettoization in education”?  As educators, are we broadening our ideas and thinking beyond our own umbrella?  While there are certainly those educators that are of a growth mindset, they are continually striving to be better at their craft and to make changes to positively impact student achievement.  However, with the ongoing implementation of Common Core and other standards, I have been noticing a portion of educators that want to be “left alone”, don’t want to do “another new thing”, that feel “this too shall pass”, and “if its not broken, why fix it” mentality. As Carol Dweck calls it, they are of a fixed mindset and believe that where they are- under their umbrella, or in their ghetto- is adequate and nothing new needs to evolve.

As educators, we have the social and moral responsibility to our students to continue to seek out better and more effective ways to build content knowledge and life skills. If we are not continually striving to develop our craft, it is the students who lose in the end. As comfortable as it may be in our ghetto and under our umbrellas, we need to push ourselves to go beyond our comfort zones.