Summer Reading: Techniques & Strategies

After appreciating the breadth and clarity of Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, I have devoted some of my summer reading to practical matters of technique with two books for K-12 teachers.

First up is Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov. His book describes 49 techniques that teachers can use to shore up their repertoire's effectiveness.  Speaking from his vantage as an administrator of Uncommon Schools, Lemov goes into great detail with each strategy from the fundamental to the ingenius.  As a teacher with 18 years in the classroom, I marveled at his ability to fill pages with the simplest strategy, but in that sort of detail he makes plain what might be otherwise be missed by the uninitiated.  The book is chock-full of great tips, and I'm surprised he didn't have at least one more idea to make it an even 50. The publisher Jossey-Bass markets the book as germane to K-12 and indeed the ideas in this book fit all grades in that range and some beyond.

No doubt teachers will find a few techniques that are already part and parcel of their practice.  But I must admit that this old dog learned a few new tricks. Lemov starts off with No. 1, for example, "No Opt Out." This is the idea addresses the scenario of a student unable or unwilling to answer a question and ends with the student answering that question as often as possible. Lemove offers at least four formats to make this technique sequence a successful one. Another technique, No. 3, "Stretch It," entails a sequence of learning that does not end with a right answer; rather, an on-target answer is rewarded with follow-up questions that extend knowledge and test for reliability.

Adding to Lemov's clear descriptions, rationales, and transcripted examples from real classrooms, the book comes with a DVD of clips showing great teachers using the techniques on the fly.  You can see some of these at The New York Times feature on "Building a Better Teacher,"which Lemov narrates.  The DVD confirms the feasibility when they return to the classroom this fall.

Akin to Lemov's book is Richard Howell Allen's High-Impact Teaching Strategies for the 'XYZ' Era of Education.  The title is not only giving props to the Generations teachers are serving but also to the ABC organization of the book's contents.  Allen has a strategy for every letter of the alphabet from "Acknowledgement" to "Zones of Instruction."  Allen's ideas might be a bit more basic, but no less essential than Lemov's.  One is strategies and one is techniques, and though there is overlap with these, a difference becomes distinct. 

My summer reading of both will no doubt tighten up my practice and make me more effective. They should be required reading in pre-service education courses and handy to the veteran. If Ravitch's book is a must read backgrounder for the systemic challenges we face, these two books are gotta-have manuals for the first-year and the fortieth-year practitioners on the front lines.

Image credit:  "Oil Lamp." By Jason Pearce. 1 June 2006. Flickr. Used by permission via Creative Commons Licensing.

Let it Snow!

Like many teachers and students in the Mid-Atlantic States, I've been experiencing a week of snow days. After quickly reminding my envious friends that I must make these days up on fairer days, I settle in to catching up on grading papers, replying to student blogs, and prepping for next week's classes.  Then calm.

A chance to think, to mull, to surf, and to read unlike what I had been accustomed to save my salad days of grad school or dog days of summer. Being unable to get out of the house, with two feet of fluff on the ground and a few more inches falling, I'm granted that rarest of commodities--time unscheduled.

Time to be reflective, creative, thoughtful, intellectual, sentimental, and focused.  I'm catching up with the September issue of Educational Leadership and the November issue of English Journal. I'm chairing a curriculum committee on 21st Century Learning Standards and both have periodical have offerings on the topic.

In EL, Terrence Clark's article "21st Century Scholars" tell of a program inspired by the curriculum framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. "The district's high school developed a program that gives students the opportunity to build an impressive electronic portfolio documenting an array of mind-stretching experiences, which take place outside of regular school hours in the afternoon, evening, on weekends, or during vacations."

In EJ, Jim Burke's piece for the English Journal's "From the Secondary Section" column, presents "Reimagining English: The Seven Personae of the Future."  He gives Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future an English teacher's perspective and profiles a lucky seven archetypes for the Millennials in our English courses.  These personae have one common denominator: imagination.  Burke lists:

storyteller, philosopher, historian, anthropollogist, reporter, critic, designer. 

It may seem that some of these are far afield from how we English teachers have thought of our craft. Burke argues:

This is the future we must imagine, the one in which our students will live. These are the personae they will adopt and adapt as society and the workplace evolve. Some will wonder where literature is, where culture can be found in this model. Yet I see our rich tradition of literature and language, rhetoric and composition, prose and poetry already existent in all these roles. It is simply time to reimagine how our discipline might be reenvisioned.  

Even without these personae in mind, many English teachers know that their work has helped students who have gone on to create, innovate, and cope with cultural change.  Now to remain relevant our cultural change Burke joins the chorus of Daniel Pink and Ken Robinson (and many others)  in calling us to make imaginarion, creativity, and collaboration the brain, heart, and soul of our courses.  More on the challenge of this in a future post.

Right now I have some shoveling to do.

Ning in the New Year

Posting at the New Year's about my Personal/Pro Learning Network, I noted two Nings.

The NCTE Ning
and the Jim Burke's English Companion Ning.

I joined NCTE's in 2008 and EC's in 2009.  Two years, two Nings. Still, when I mention Nings to colleagues I have to explain.

1. Ning is a site offering social networks that are more customized than ones on sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace and geared for group discussion and sharing content as well as the random idea.

2. Nings are to social networks what wikis are to websites.

3. Cousins to blogs with reverse-chronological listings and posts, descendants of discussion threads.

4. Perhaps best of  they can share multimedia podcasts, including slides, video, audio, and documents. (Great for catching presentations and lesson ideas and plans!)  It's as if I have scores of talented colleagues across the hall, even though they are across the nation, and beyond.

If you are new to Ning, I'd suggest giving it a try and giving it some time. (As I uploaded these Ning screenshots and revisited the sites, I noticed that I had actually belonged to three other Ning Networks. I guess they were just not holding my interest.)

So I have actually belonged to Ning for four years!  I just didn't "get it."  They became part of my PLN when they started to attract meaningful, useful content.  After the NCTE Convention in November 2009, the Ning called for presentation materials from event. Now it's rich with media.  And Jim Burke's, which recently won honors from the Edublog Awards, is brimming with meaningful conversations and effective ideas.

PLN 2009: Looking Back at My Personal/Professional Learning Network

As the Year 2009 comes to a close, I'm thinking about how wide my Personal/Professional Learning Network is compared to its reach in previous years.  It's  grown much larger than 1984 student teaching files in manilla folders and much more digital than a decade ago as we began 21st Century learning, just getting the hang of email before the Web 2.0 wave.  Still the ideas of colleagues, experts, and students are the lynchpins of my PLN.

I've included incoming and outgoing directions of the learning-teaching dynamic.  Of course, I learn as much by teaching, if not more than anything else. For Auld Lang Syne, my friends.

Remember

Let's be honest. Kids aren't going to remember what we teach them. Not the content at least and not most of it any way.

Think of how little we remember as adults of our school days? How many of high school lessons come to mind? If you're like me, not many. Over the years, over the lessons, the lectures, the seminars, the books--ideas atop of ideas--it's impossible to sift through the layers of learning. Yet, I bet there are at least 10 days you remember.

My memorable lessons of high school:

1. When my 9th Grade English teacher caught me watching the snow fall and just said "pretty, huh."


2. My typing teacher assessing my practice: "There is no pattern to your errors."


3. Parallel parking in driver's ed, successfully, after a night of practicing in the driveway.


4. My French teacher singing "Edelweiss" a cappella (in French) and teaching us to do so, too.


5. Running so close to the side of the track that I knocked the stopwatch out of my coach's hand, and his not getting angry.


6. The compliment "You have a natural sense of rhythm and movement" from my senior English teacher after I presented a dance interpretation (my first and only one) at a drama club assembly.


7. The day the principal approved of our starting a student newspaper, after his hesitancy and hedging.


8. My journalism teacher's allowing me to decide whether to print a damning editorial against an administrator at the risk of her job because "it was all true." (And trusting me not to.)


9. When my graphic arts teacher suggested I should put my first woodcut in a show.


10. All of the modern novels my 10th Grade English teacher had me read and that would change my life.

These might seem like small and random moments. Indeed, they are, but in each there's a teacher trusting, reaching, boosting, sharing, or simply being honest with me. I don't remember all my teachers taught me. I remember who they were.

Likewise, your students might not remember Fermat's last theorem, the Battle of Hastings, or the subjunctive tense. But they'll remember you.

Image credit: "Love, Teach, Imagine." By Denise Carbonell. 9 Dec. 2007. Flickr.

Midway in My Career

Entry #1 from a periodic series on National Board Certification

I've decided to record some of my reflections on a process toward National Board Certification for Teaching. I considered starting a separate blog for this, but have decided to have it be part of If Bees Are Few, color code it blue and tag it "National Board." In this way, perhaps it will show how the process integrates with other aspects of my reveries.

This is my seventeenth year in the classroom as a career. Sixteen down and sixteen to go, God-willing. I'm not sure I'll stop teaching then, but I'll probably retire from the public school system as I reach 60. Thus, if all goes well, this is my hump year.
This week I "celebrated" by beginning pre-candidate classes for becoming a National Board Certified Teacher from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The first step was printing nearly 400 pages of standards and portfolio requirements and the panic of "what am I getting myself into? I'm an award-winning teacher, lead of my department, consultant . . . why do I want to be board certification?"
Well, I love teaching and I express my love through the quality of my teaching. I also like reflective practice. So this seems like an arena in which I can heighten my reflection, challenge myself, and improve the quality of what I love and do well. So binder in hand I head off, a bit daunted by the work ahead I know it represents.
Locally, Duquesne University is a host center for NBCT/NBPTS. At our first meeting which previewed the foundation and five core propositions, I was reassured to find out that "Standards" for our profession are much more authentic than "standards and standardized testing" that is been limiting education's scope, creativity, relevancy, rigor, and ways we assess students. Here they are:

Policy Statement: What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do
1. Teachers are Committed to Students and Learning.
2. Teachers Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach Those Subjects to
Students.
3. Teachers are Responsible for Managing and Monitoring Student
Learning.
4. Teachers Think Systematically about Their Practice and Learn from
Experience.
5. Teachers are Members of Learning Communities.

Moreover, I was reassured by the level of inquiry I sense in a half a dozen fellow teachers in our class. What we lack in numbers, we will make up for in quality. After three hours of working with them and our experienced and enthusiastic leaders, I may not have yet have a clear idea of "what I'm getting into," but I'm more confident I want to "get into it." What an incredible boost to one's motivation to have the time and space and structure and interest with colleagues to talk about "what teachers should know and be able to do." I left heartened that the NBCT process will be an exhausting but energizing experience. Sort of like teaching itself.