Strength-Focused – Confessions of a Former Instructional Coach

What Is My Principal Really Looking for in my Summative?

It’s that time of year where many educators (myself included) are preparing to meet with their administrator for the glorious summative meeting. Throughout my career, I’ve experienced a wide variety of these that have been anything from a short five-minute conversation to an hour-long meeting where I was required to bring a binder of evidence and plan to talk about my data for at least half of it.

Even when I received a lot of direction for what to prepare for, I never really felt like I knew what I’d be walking into other than some sort of rating at the end along with information on whether I’d be hired back for the following year. Now that I’m on the other side of the fence so to speak I thought I’d help out my fellow educators and tell a little bit about what many administrators are looking for when we meet to talk with you at your summative.

A Reflective Conversation

One of the most important qualities an educator can have is being highly reflective. At this meeting, we want to hear your thoughts on your teaching for the year, both positive and areas for growth. My assistant principal and I ask our teachers to come prepared to talk about examples of their strengths as well as areas for growth, favorite lessons this year, a student who has grown the most, a student who continues to be a concern, and progress towards the goals they set at the beginning of the year. We don’t expect a portfolio, but we do want to have an in-depth conversation about the reasons why our teachers chose the examples they brought. This allows us to see how they reflect on their practice as well as gives us an opportunity to talk about ways we can support them if they need it. (p.s. Tying in the examples you give to the school goals or vision is an excellent strategy!)

A Celebration

A summative meeting is definitely a place for a celebration! Even though the meetings typically take place 2/3 of the year through, there are plenty of examples of great things happening in classrooms. To prepare for the meeting, my assistant principal and I write a narrative with specific examples from each domain. At the meeting we share this with our teachers in a more casual conversational format. Be prepared to smile as your administrator shares all of the good stuff with you! It’s wonderful being able to share specific examples of things our teachers do really well.

An Opportunity to Grow

In addition to celebrating you, expect some feedback from your administrator regarding your practice. When I asked my school leadership team what they wanted in the summative meeting, the most common trend was that applicable and actionable feedback was most important to them. Because of this feedback, as I prepare for the meeting I always have the Danielson components in front of me as well as notes from my visits to my teachers’ classrooms throughout the year. I then write up a few specific ideas for the teacher that will elevate the work they are already doing. Your administrator will probably want to know your thoughts on their ideas so think about how you might implement their idea or questions you have regarding their feedback. The feedback portion is another way to demonstrate that you are a reflective educator who considers growth an important part of teaching.

Feedback for Me

I view this meeting as an opportunity for my own growth as well so I always end the meeting with an opportunity for my teachers to give feedback and ask questions. This helps me to get better at my job as well as understand the needs of the building that I might not have considered. Even if your administrator does not directly ask for it, I recommend coming to your meeting prepared to share ideas you have.

I know that many people worry about the summative meeting because it’s where educators receive their rating and if untenured, communication about whether they’ll be back next year. This definitely is a component of the meeting, but for my admin team at least, it’s not the focus. Our greatest goal is to get to know our teachers and students best. As much as we try to be in classrooms, we don’t always catch some of the things in the highlight reel or things that we could help with. Summative meetings are an opportunity for us to see more of the good and the work being done in classrooms as well as continue to grow through reflection.

If you are currently preparing for a summative meeting, please remember, it’s all about being able to brag a little, reflect a little and impact the culture of the building through your feedback. Walk in proud, prepared to share all of the amazing stuff you’ve been doing! Your administrator is looking forward to getting to celebrate with you!

Compassion Fatigue

If you’re in education you’ve probably either heard of or experienced ” teacher burn-out,” a condition that results from being over-worked or under-valued or the experience of a disconnect between the work you required to do with the truths you know to be true about teaching. This Wednesday my social worker gave a presentation to our staff about something I had never heard of, “Compassion Fatigue.”

Compassion fatigue is common in fields like education where people are regularly taking care of others. It’s best described as “the cost of caring too much.” From the outside, it may sound like burn-out, but it results in much more grief, sadness, and detachment from the person being affected. If not treated, the results can affect the person physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

A truly eye-opening part of the presentation was on Self-Compassion. We each took this survey that required us to rate ourselves from one to five, one being almost never to five being almost always on a variety of statements related to the way we respond to difficulties. Some of the statements included:

When I feel inadequate in some way, I try to remind myself that feelings of inadequacy are shared by most people.
When things are going badly for me, I see the difficulties as part of life that everyone goes through.
I’m disapproving and judgmental about my own flaws and inadequacies.
When I fail at something important to me I try to keep things in perspective.
When I’m feeling down I try to approach my feelings with curiosity and openness.

Prior to taking this survey, it had truly never occurred to me that other people would have similar feelings of inadequacy. Just knowing that gave me an incredible sense of calm. Other staff members that I spoke with at the training made similar comments. Without even looking at the results, just rating myself on the survey made me realize that I am not very compassionate towards myself. Self-judgment has always been my go-to. The thought of any other option was completely foreign.

I don’t think it was anything that my parents, teachers or anyone else did that resulted in me being so hard on myself. It was just always there. This has gotten me thinking about our students. What are their inner thoughts? Do they judge themselves harshly or do they practice self-compassion? Do they feel alone in their failures and self-doubt or do they recognize that feelings of inadequacy are shared by others?

People who are self-compassionate handle stress better, move forward more quickly, and can enjoy life more because they are able to live in the moment. If you take the survey, there are some strategies and exercises recommended for developing more self-care. At our training on Wednesday, we learned the following:

Separate from what you wish you can do from what you can do. Set a daily intention with something small. (Small daily wins practiced over time lead to big ones!)
Acknowledge your fears…and release them!
Develop a Self-Care Plan…part of this is being ok with saying No!
Create a Strong Network…Disconnect from things to connect with people
Be Authentic…Embrace who you are!…Let go of the pressure to be someone else…model this for students!
Practice Mindfulness…Daily practice…change your view and you change our world

I’m sincerely so grateful to our social worker for putting together this training for our staff. It’s already helped me to be more self-compassionate over the past few days. Let’s all be a little kinder to ourselves. You are perfect the way you are today, not because of your actions or what you will become. Like Stuart Smalley said, “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.”

Tapping Into the Strengths of Your Staff

So I used to think that there was some magical formula or a needed in-depth plan to building capacity and strengths of others as a leader, but the longer I am a principal (I know a whopping 6 months) the more I realize this isn’t necessarily true.

This week my reading specialist came to me excited to share the work she started doing as a result of observing our speech and language pathologist a few weeks ago. We are wrapping up a second round of Fountas & Pinnell testing throughout the building and our teams have been noticing that students continue to struggle with the retell portion of the assessment. When we talked about observing one another as a school leadership team my reading specialist strategically chose one of our speech & language pathologists (SLP) because she had heard she worked with students on this specific skill.

During the observation, she noticed that our SLP used visual cards with images that helped students be independent in their retell. It was more than the typical “5 Finger Retell,” she used specific language and images that helped students with their specificity and organization of ideas. After her observation, she created her own version, went into classrooms and modeled the process for other teachers and then created a higher-level version for intermediate students. I informally observed her this week using the process with 5th-grade students and it was clear that this small shift was having an impact on their conversations about the books they were reading.

My reading specialist is clearly a leader in our building and has gone above and beyond all year looking for ways to build capacity in many dimensions of literacy. She collaborates with teachers, works with the instructional coach and even trains parents to be effective volunteers in classrooms. She is open to new ideas and generates new ones without prompting.

I’ve noticed that this type of creativity, dedication and attitude seems to pervade the staff, students, and parents as a whole in the Jefferson community. My happy little heart dances on a regular basis due to the flooding of creative ideas that are full in my conversations. This isn’t the case in every school across the country. So what’s the difference? Was this the result of a strategic plan for awesomeness with checkpoints and benchmarks? Not really.

When I think about the magic happening at Jefferson school I attribute it to these things.

Each person on the staff has a multitude of inherent strengths.
I spend the majority of my time as a leader talking to people (adults & kids) listening and looking for these strengths.
When I see something wonderful, I name it and let the person know.
When someone comes to me with an idea, I listen, ask questions, get excited and see what they need me to do. I follow-up on the ideas and try to see them in action.
The people on my staff talk to one another frequently and collaborate often, in and out of team/PLC meetings.
I look for opportunities to highlight the strengths of my staff whether it is giving opportunities to observe a peer, present at one of our Late Arrivals, or give a shout out on social media.

There are elements of these actions that are very purposeful like setting up observation opportunities and being present around the building, but I think that the most effective way to build the capacity of the others around us, is in our attitude. Instead of looking for ways to “fix people,” I spend the majority of my time looking for unique talents in their staff and students. It’s a shift from looking for problems in our building to there’s some untapped magic here to be discovered.

For me this week the magic came from my reading specialist. Last week it was the team of teachers taking a district-level class on Notice & Note asking if they could present their learning at a Late Arrival in February. Many times it’s been brilliant ideas in our SPED team meetings of unique ways to help kids who are struggling. Today I got an email from a Kindergarten teacher asking if she could write a grant for a sensory path for our school. I frequently overhear teachers sharing ideas in the copy room that’s across from my office. This week I can’t wait to go to our PLC’s on Tuesday because I get to see our teams collaborate and create brilliance together.

There are so many talents and ideas at Jefferson that I know I haven’t begun to discover or utilize. I find myself in awe of the creativity and uniqueness of the ones I have. Thank you to every member of my staff for giving me this gift.

What are Your Blind Spots?

I had the privilege of attending an amazing workshop on Monday with author and researcher Jane Kise. It was a part of our Elmhurst D205 Professional Learning Strand initiative where teachers get to pick one topic and delve deeply into it throughout the year. Her presentation was part of the Teacher Leadership cohort, but could have applied to any of the other four strands – Innovation, Inquiry, Behavioral Health, or Workshop Model.

The part that I found most fascinating was regarding people’s psychological preferences and how that affects pretty much every aspect of life. She discussed four different types and had us consider which type we were.

Sensing & Thinking
Sensing & Feeling
Intuition & Feeling
Intuition & Thinking

We then got into groups with others who approach the world like we do and discussed the following prompts:

Three ways we contribute to teacher efficacy
If you want to influence us please…
And please don’t…

It was amazing how easy it was to consider these ideas with like-minded individuals and how normal it made the little things that I had thought were weird quirks about myself seem. I am an Intuition/Thinking type so I thrive on seeing the Big Picture. I think about future implications and design coherent plans based on those ideas. I love challenges and many times prefer to work alone. It was funny answering the last two bullets because we all immediately said people who influence us have to be knowledgeable and if someone doesn’t have a plan it makes us go crazy.

If you are reading this right now and thinking, “Wait…doesn’t everyone think this way?” then you might be an intuitive thinker. If you are wondering why I didn’t list considering the feelings of others as important, then you might be a Sensing & Feeling type or one of the others. The important thing to remember is that there isn’t “one best type.” It’s just related to our preferences and how we approach things. Like being right or left-handed, our tendency is innate, but we can learn the others.

Our preferences connect with our strengths, but can also be a source of our blind spots. When we get so used to thinking about things and approaching them the same way we may be missing out on better ways of doing something or we may be ostracizing others causing resistance to new ideas. One way to avoid our blind spots is to regularly collaborate and ask for feedback from trusted colleagues who have a different lens. If you are leading a team (or classroom of students), checking in regularly with a survey or meeting is another way. Try to create groups that include people who have diverse perspectives. If this is not possible, consider what blind spots the group may have and work to address them when making decisions.

As a principal, I have started asking for feedback from my staff at the end of each trimester through a survey. It is broken down into four categories to better pinpoint our strengths and areas for growth: Operations/Logistics, Communication, Professional Learning/Instructional Leadership, & Relationships. (click here for a copy) I review the results independently for individual reflection, and then meet with my leadership team to create responsive plans. The more I think about this I am realizing the importance of connecting with a coach or colleague in a different building who approaches leadership from a different lens to help me with regular reflection.

It’s impossible to think about blindspots as a leader without considering classroom implications. What are our teaching tendencies? Creating predictable structures and routines is a hallmark of good teaching, but what might we be missing if we always do things the exact same way? When is it appropriate and how often are we asking students for feedback on our classroom? If a student is struggling, is it because they lack knowledge or is it because we’re not structuring learning experiences in a way that connects with them?

I’m not advocating changing every moment of the day to fit each child’s preference. Just like learning to write with the opposite hand, kids can learn to work in a variety of non-preferred structures. However, considering that they may approach or think about the world in a different way than the way we are structuring learning might help us to figure out the puzzle of students who appear unreachable or disengaged. For example, a student who views the world through a Sensing-Thinking lens craves structure, immediate feedback, organization, and right or wrong answers. If your classroom is filled with mostly open-ended projects, explorations and collaborative work this student may start to feel frustrated with school even though you are using practices that most students adore. Giving students opportunities to work in structures that connect with their lens will help to engage all learners in school. A simple way to do this is to offer choice throughout the day in your classroom. If you are interested in learning more about the four lenses and how they connect to choices you might offer in the classroom, click here.

Our strengths are what make us individually great, but considering our blindspots and being open to feedback and other perspectives will create a place where everyone’s greatness is maximized.

Am I Doing It Right?

During my five years as a coach in Naperville, we implemented at least 15 new initiatives, maybe more. So it makes sense that I was frequently asked, “What’s the right way to do this?” or similarly, “Am I doing it right?” Questions of this variety reflect our desire as educators to do our best. Many of us grew up in an education environment where there was almost always only one path to the correct answer. When we became teachers that mentality had already been ingrained in us so it makes sense that we would continue to ponder correctness of our actions in the classroom.

The problem is there are so many “right ways” to teach depending on our students that there really isn’t an easy way to answer that question. When teachers ask me if they are doing it right, I always respond with, “what’s the impact on the students?” If you are seeing students grow, then you are “doing it right.” If not, it doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong, it just means it’s not working for that group of students. And that’s okay. It just means we need to reflect on what we know about our students, tweak our approach and try again.

Some years one structure or teaching strategy will have a phenomenal impact on kids and other years it will absolutely flop. The best teachers are constantly in “beta” stage, regularly creating, reflecting on student growth and refining their work in a continuous cycle of improvement. When something doesn’t work they don’t give up or blame the students, they try something new from the plethora of strategies in their own toolbox or reach out to their PLC or PLN for more ideas.

Change is inevitable and constant in education. As we implement new strategies and structures, it is important to not get hung up on perfection of the thing being implemented, but instead, place greater importance on the impact we are having on students. Asking the simple question, “what’s the impact on students?” will always lead to “doing it right” for our kids.

Predictions for the Next Decade of Education

I recently read this article from the Atlantic titled, Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong. It’s an interesting read for a variety of reasons, but what stood out to me was the plethora of evidence that confirms what many of us have known for decades: the standardized testing movement simply doesn’t work. Despite our efforts to systematize learning and add more “rigor,” we continue to end up with the same results along with an ever-expanding achievement gap.

The author, Natalie Wexler poses the questions, “

“What if the medicine we have been prescribing is only making matters worse, particularly for poor children? What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around them?”

She pokes holes in many common literacy practices in the U.S. as well as presents examples of teachers who are finding success in trying out different approaches. The article got me thinking about education overall, how we have tried so many new things, abandoned many ideas, gone back to the same ideas, but education has, for the most part, looked the exact same way for generations.

The start of a new decade feels like a fresh start for everything, education included. There is no guarantee of what the next 10 years will bring, but I am optimistic that this decade will bring what the past hundreds of years have not, an education system that is valuable for all. There are a plethora of amazing educators who are leading the charge and sharing their stories on social media and beyond giving me hope that we can and will create powerful educational experiences to help ALL kids succeed.

Predictions for 2020-2030

The ideas I present in this post are a result of two decades of personal experience working with students, a lot of reading, watching & learning, and most of all, connecting with amazing educators across the globe. (Thank you PLN!) You will notice that no idea is brand new. I believe that we already have the answers which we seek, it is the way that we use them with students that has the power to shift education for the better.

Less About the Right Answer & More about Great Questions

One of the chapters that stood out to me in The Innovators Mindset was the chapter where George Couros discusses the importance of students being “problem-finders.” This was sparked from the work of Ewan McIntosh. The premise is that we spend a lot of time working with students to come up with solutions to problems, but what we really need in a dynamic world is students who can find problems and innovative ways to solve these problems.

Besides the fact that solving problems with predetermined answers can be monotonous and insanely boring, (geometry proofs anyone?), if we spend all of our time giving students problems to solve with a finite answer we are giving students the impression that the purpose in life is to simply get the right answer. Students leave school thinking there is a simple methodology to life and if they follow the success formula given to them they will be successful when really the opposite is true. We need creative thinkers, students who can look at the world with a new lens and make it better.

A great way to develop this skill is by teaching students to ask great questions and giving them opportunities to explore ideas that are meaningful to them. Genius Hour or Passion Projects, QFT, TQE Method, and Socratic Seminar are just some ways that educators around the globe are working to develop the questioning ability in students. Each of these methodologies helps students to not only create questions of their own, but they encourage rich discussion among students as well which can lead to new ideas from students. It is exciting to think about what kind of learning will take place when we spend more time empowering students to question, explore & discover as opposed to encouraging them to simply find the right answer.

Experiential Learning

In the next ten years, whether virtual or in-person, learning will extend more and more beyond the four walls of the classroom. Mentioned in the Wexler article, research confirms students learn best when they have experiences and background knowledge to be able to comprehend the texts they are reading. Creativity is the number one quality that employers are currently looking for. Reeves & Reeves suggest in their book on creativity, The Myth of the Muse that one of the ways to enhance creativity is through inspiration from experiences. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) recommend starting science lessons with a phenomenon so that students have a shared experience to ask questions and develop theories from. Although I still think the best experience is one in real life, Augmented and Virtual Reality makes this a daily possibility for students.

One school that is doing an amazing job at teaching from this approach is the GEMS World Academy in Chicago, Illinois. In this school, the teachers plan out larger units that explore a broad question related to an essential idea. Included in each of these are field trips to a place in the city where students can explore. From the shared experience students then create questions they have and spend the unit exploring answers to the questions they create. Each subject area is tied into this big idea including specials. The result is that students see learning as interconnected as opposed to limited to one subject area which enhances their creative ability to connect ideas and create new ones.

A More Personalized Approach to Education

If you would have asked me if this was possible ten years ago my answer would have emphatically been no. It takes too much time. It’s not necessary or realistic. It is amazing what a decade of experience can do. I now believe it is more necessary than ever. As you will hear me mention throughout this post, in the dynamic world we live in we no longer need students who can just get the right answer, we need students who are curious, think creatively and can find new problems to solve. We want students to leave school with a positive view of themselves, recognizing not only what their talents are, but how they can use them to make a positive impact on the world.

When I say a more personalized approach to education, I am not saying that every student would be doing something different in every moment of the day. Students need foundational knowledge in order to be creative, ask questions and generate new ideas. However, I think it’s a different approach to looking at the school day. Design39 Campus in California has been exploring this idea for the past five years. You can check out this link for more information, but their day is split up into Integrated Learning Time, Deep Dives & Explorations. During Integrated Learning Time is when they explore content across curriculums for purposeful application of skills. Deep Dives is time for students to explore their passions in an academic setting. Explorations give students time to explore new things they are interested in trying. I love the way they organize their day because it gives students foundational understanding as well as time to explore passions and build new ones. For more information on how the idea began and the success they are having with students, check out this podcast from Modern Learners.

Going Gradeless/Meaningful Feedback

At some point, we have to recognize that grades are just meaningless little letters that students look at and then toss. Even when we add in comments to the grade or SBR number students associate more meaning with the grade and typically ignore the feedback. Both John Hattie and Susan Brookhart have written books on the topic and the research shows that feedback is a much more effective learning tool for students over grades.

Many educators are already moving towards a feedback-heavy or gradeless classroom. (check out the #gradeless on Twitter) Instead of using grades or fear of punishment to motivate students to complete their work, they have shifted their instructional practices to have students set goals that are meaningful to them. The teacher and/or peers give them feedback on progress towards their goal to move their learning forward. Learning then becomes a continuum as opposed to an endpoint. I’ve linked a few useful resources below if you are considering making this shift.

6 Tips for Going Gradeless by Starr Sackstein

More Teachers are Going Gradeless. I Asked Them Why. EL Magazine July 2019

Teachers Going Gradeless (TG² Podcast)

Collaboration Over Competition

One of the best videos I have seen this year that has had a huge impact on the way I think about the classroom is Why School Should Be about Us Instead of Me from Trevor Muir. Besides the fact that it has a totally Hamilton-esque vibe, the premise that school sets up a culture of competition as opposed to what our world needs, a culture of collaboration, rings completely true. I’ve watched it probably 20 times.

I was definitely one of the students who groaned every time I heard it was time to work on a group project. There was always the people who did everything, a few people who did nothing, and then somehow a project evolved. It never felt to me like there was any purpose in working together. As a teacher, I tried to circumvent this issue by assigning roles to each student, but even this had uneven results with students continuing to work in silos as opposed to creating something together.

After reading a wonderful post by John Spencer about collaboration, what I realized was missing was students seeing the value in one another’s strengths and using those strengths to build something greater than what could be done alone. Instead of starting group projects by assigning roles, have students share their strengths, set goals for the project together and give them opportunities to give one another feedback along the way. This creates greater meaning for the work and also mirrors the type of work they will be doing outside of school. In the working world students will be collaborating daily, we have to increase the amount of collaboration they do throughout the day, but it also has to be done in a way that is meaningful so that it doesn’t just become another one of the dreaded group projects.

If you’re looking for ways to create this type of classroom, Trevor Muir’s new book, The Collaborative Classroom, filled with practical ideas and examples, is a great place to start.

The End of Labels

This last one I am most excited about, although I think it might take a little bit more time. I predict that gradually the labels we use in education, “gifted, special education, EL” will disappear. As we start to shift the focus of school from everyone ending up in the same exact spot to encouraging students to be curious learners who explore their passions and develop their talents, the need for labels will go away because we will see students for their greatness of whom they already are, not some arbitrary standard we want them to become.

“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

We have spent the past hundred years approaching education from a logical standpoint. Students need to learn ______________ so we will teach them ___________________. We will set standards that everyone needs to reach and if they don’t reach those standards we will fix them with _____________________. This is a very logical approach if we are working with products, but hasn’t always served us well with students. We need more creativity and flexibility if we are going to reach all students.

I am optimistic about the shifts I continue to see happening in our schools. I believe that through these shifts we will have students leaving school with more creativity, empathy, equity, and curiosity than we ever have in the past. It is inspiring to think about the wonderful world that these students will create.

Do We Need Grade Level Standards Any More?

I’m writing this post as a question, not a statement for a reason. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I’m honestly not sure. Writing this post is an effort to organize my thoughts.

This struggle is mostly connected to the conviction I have that students are all individuals who have a variety of strengths and talents. The primary function of education should be to help students to recognize and develop these strengths and talents to their fullest capacity. Saying that students must reach the same standards at the end of the year based solely on their birth year seems counterintuitive to this notion. It’s giving the message that everyone can and should grow at the same exact rate each year. It is rare that I have found this to be true.

Additionally, most grade-level standards are broken into different subject areas. This places emphasis in school on mostly academic learning areas like math, literacy, science, and social studies. Students whose strengths lie in areas outside of these traditional subjects seldom get an opportunity to shine in school because of this.

Breaking standards into different subject areas also sets up the false dichotomy that subjects are always separate from one another. In the world outside of school, new ideas and solutions are overwhelmingly created using interdisciplinary work.

Finally, no matter how much we tell ourselves that grade level standards-based reporting is better than traditional grades, it still communicates to parents and students that the purpose of education is to get some sort of score. We can share the descriptor for the grade level standard, and continue to give them feedback towards mastery, but when a number is factored in, it still shifts motivation towards a number instead of the reward of progress and learning.

What If…

Instead of using grade-level standards, what if we looked at learning as a continuum? Instead of breaking this continuum into subject areas, it would incorporate broader, ideas. Asking questions, constructing ideas with viable support, collaborating with others, creating plans and executing long-term projects are just some of the ideas that would incorporate multiple subject areas.

Instead of using numbers or letters to communicate progress to students in report-like format, what if we met with students weekly in conferences to discuss their progress on the learning continuum. At the beginning of a cycle, we would set goals with students on areas they wanted to work on based on the continuum. We decided with them artifacts that would show they had progressed to the next stage in the continuum. We gave them time to work on the standards individually as well as in groups. These conferences would be recorded and shared with parents. Parents could even electronically be a part of the conference through a digital tool like Google Hangout. This would make education truly a collaborative effort between home and school.

Instead of putting students into classrooms based on age, what if we put them in multi-age classrooms? We developed their leadership and collaborative skills at all ages. We celebrated mentorship and the ability to help others, instead of placing a focus on being better than others. Better yet, what if we grouped students into classrooms based on areas they wanted to explore more deeply? We put kids who had mutual passions in the same classroom who were passionate about the same things and empowered them to explore these ideas. What might happen to kids’ perceptions of the purpose of school then?

But…

What about time?

What about college?

What about basic foundational learning that everyone needs to know?

Setting up school this way would definitely require a different way of looking at the way we organize the school day. Instead of teaching in subject blocks, students would need to work for longer periods of time.

I recognize that colleges currently select students based on their grades and ability to score highly on standardized tests. Getting rid of grades and grade-level standards definitely muddies the water on this, but should we really never change what we are doing solely based on a system that colleges set up hundreds of years ago? The world is changing exponentially each day. Colleges need to change as well. If we continue to keep our system the same, there is no motivation for colleges to change either. We need to stop viewing change as an unwanted thing and embrace it for its possibilities.

There is no reason that this shift would abolish foundational knowledge. When learning is seen as a continuum, any type of knowledge can be included. Learning to read, write, draw, perform, code and build foundational skills for math (the list could go on) would all be included.

Using grade-level standards is an easy way for us to communicate progress to parents because it is a system that most people have experienced and understand. As a principal, I see student success in a variety of standards on a daily basis. I also see students struggle. I hear conversations about meeting standards. I see kids celebrated and I see kids defeated. I am wondering what the shift in the percentage of celebrated success might be if we looked at education differently. Ultimately, is ease of communication really the standard we want to use in deciding how we give feedback to students and structure our schools?

The Phrase in Education That Needs to Go

Teach with Fidelity.

If you want to get me riled up, tell me I need to do anything with this as the standard.

I remember when I first started teaching almost 20 years ago, I was told by a colleague that the first year we implemented a new curriculum we had to, “teach it with fidelity.” After that, we could maybe make changes, but the first year we had to do every single lesson exactly the way that it was written in the exact order that it was written. The thought behind this was that by teaching every lesson we would have a better understanding of how the program worked. If we didn’t teach it exactly as the curriculum said, it was our fault that kids weren’t learning.

This philosophy made sense at the time. It was the era of No Child Left Behind where there was a heavy focus on “research-based programming.” According to the rhetoric (being propagated by politicians), our schools were failing and we had to do something about it. Curriculum written by mythical education gurus was suddenly the answer to everything. Teacher weren’t the experts. Curriculum writers were. And so began the fallacy that curriculum has all the answers.

Teaching With Fidelity is an archaic phrase that needs to disappear. I might argue it’s actually one of the most harmful phrases in education today.

If educators are told that they cannot change any lesson and must teach it exactly in the order it is written, it nullifies their ability to respond to the learners in their classroom. This is counterintuitive to responsive instruction, an effective instructional practice that results in growth in students because it meets them where they are and grows their abilities from there. When we teach every student every lesson exactly the same way we are harming both kids who can go beyond the curriculum as well as the ones who are not yet ready for the lesson. It takes away the ability of educators to select lessons that are connected to students’ lives and interests which takes away their ability to make lessons meaningful. The result is boredom, frustration or even apathy in students.

Teaching with Fidelity is harmful to school culture as well. It sends a message to teachers that I don’t trust you and your expertise and experience in teaching. Unfortunately, there is a dichotomy of “us vs. them” with teachers and admin in some schools and this phrase only adds to that tension. We have to trust our teachers. They are the ones who work with students daily. They know the students’ strengths and the intricacies of the next steps in instruction because of the relationships they work hard at building. Because of this, we need to empower them to make instructional decisions, not undermine their competence by expecting them to follow a box.

This phrase also results in a system where the ability to confirm is more highly valued than innovative ideas. It tells both students and teachers that there is only one right path to learning. If I cannot teach or learn exactly the way someone else tells me then there is something wrong with me. This is the complete opposite of the world outside of school where creativity and innovation are sought out and celebrated. We need to provide learners with school experiences that empower them to own their learning so they are prepared for the multitude of experiences they have outside of school. I struggle to see how teaching with fidelity does that.

I’ve seen this quote from Maya Angelou quite a bit lately on social media.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We know better than Teaching with Fidelity. We know that getting to know our learners and building on their strengths and talents as is the best teaching practice to help them continue to grow. The idea that there is one program that can reach all learners is archaic and misleading. John Hattie names Collective Teacher Efficacy as the number one factor being strongly correlated with student achievement. We need to empower our teachers, not take away their ability to make informed instructional decisions.

We know better. Let’s do better.

The Evolution of Parent Communication

I’ve been reflecting this week a lot about some conversations I’ve had recently with staff about parent communication. In Elmhurst, we have something called, “Acceleration Block.” It is a time when we group students based on a specific learning standard or need and plan learning experiences to accelerate their growth in that area. In previous years we had focused solely on literacy, but this year I have opened up Acceleration Block to include any area that the teachers think would benefit students.

Because this was something new, last week I secured 1/2 day subs for my staff so that they would have time to reflect on our first round of Acceleration Block and plan for the next six-week interval. Part of the planning was creating parent communication regarding how students progressed in the last round and how we would communicate progress during this round.

I have to confess that when I was in the classroom, I was a pretty basic communicator. I had a weekly parent newsletter that shared what we were working on as well as a few highlights of students who had demonstrated great character that week. I made sure to grade papers in a timely manner and send them home with a few comments or feedback. If students were not meeting my expectations academically or behaviorally I made sure to email, send a handwritten note, or call depending on the severity. About halfway through each trimester, I sent home a progress report in addition to sending home a report card at the end of the trimester. If parents wanted to communicate with me they could email, call, or write a note in their child’s assignment notebook.

As we talked about different ways that teachers communicate with parents, I realized that as much as the need for communication has stayed the same, the medium in which it happens has expanded greatly. The tiny world of email, notes, and phone calls has expanded into texts, video messages, class websites, blogging, social media, student self-assessment, and on-demand access to student work. There are so many options that it can get a little bit overwhelming at times. Some of our questions became:

What information should we be communicating with parents?
What is the frequency that we should communicate?
What mediums make the most sense to communicate with?

In looking at these questions I decided to refer back to guidelines that Christine Trendel, a colleague whom I greatly respect created for her staff at the beginning of the year. She starts by explaining that the overall purpose of any parent communication is to build relationships and to keep parents informed. She then breaks communication into two groups: Global & Personal. Also included are timelines, purpose and examples for both.

Global Communication

Purpose: To communicate grade-level standards students will be working on, learning experiences happening in the classroom and resources that parents might find helpful

Frequency: Once a week

Examples:

Newsletter Created by Teacher: Gives a general summary of what is happening in each subject with links to resources. Teachers can choose to do a written version or record themselves in video format. These can be sent to parents by email, in paper or through social media such as Seesaw, Class Instagram or Facebook page or text message using an app like Remind.
Newsletter Created by Students: Students can create the content at the end of the week by either writing a newsletter or recording themselves using a web-based service like WeVideo where they can edit together different clips and turn it into a show.
Class Website or Blog: Using Google Sites or another service like Weebly, Kidblog, Edublog etc. teachers or students create different pages based on what has been taught or will be taught in upcoming units. If a blog is included there can be additional narrative and reflection included by anyone in the classroom. This gives parents an additional window into the work that has been done
Social Media: Teachers can create a class Instagram, Twitter or Facebook account. They can use this to create stories or posts about different learning experiences happening in the classroom. This keeps parents informed in real-time. The account can be controlled solely by the teacher or students can be assigned as a class job for the week to document learning occurring.

Individual Communication

Purpose: To communicate individual student progress towards meeting standards, celebrate success, or communicate concern in all aspects of the classroom

Frequency: Varies based on student, but at a minimum once a month

Examples:

Student Work With Feedback Attached: Students are more likely to learn from the work if it is in the form of feedback as opposed to a grade. At Jefferson, we love the single-point rubric for this reason. Making sure the feedback given is specific and timely is key.
Progress Report: Giving parents an update on their child’s progress between report cards is important. This can be a simple one-page sheet with the standards you are working on along with executive functioning or SEL goals. Sitting down with students and having them give feedback on where they think they are will make this process even more effective.
Student Goal Setting & Reflection: As mentioned in the previous bullet, involving students in reflecting on their progress and setting goals is a meaningful way to help them grow. Having students share their goals with parents is a great way to increase home/school communication as well as collaboration. Some of my teachers have students write about them and others have kids do a video reflection like a Vlog.
Parent Access to Google Drive: Giving parents access to their child’s Google Drive or inviting them to your Google Classroom is another easy way to communicate with families. Even if you are not writing comments on their work, it allows parents to see what students are working on so they can talk with their students about it at home.
Seesaw: This is such a great tool for parent communication. Students can record videos, take pictures with voice-over, fill-out templates, create demonstrations of their learning and more in this application. Parents can comment on their child’s work as well or simply click a heart to like it. Some of my teachers use this with their students almost daily and the parent response has been incredibly positive.
Report Card: No explanation needed on this one. (I think)
Phone Call, Email, or Note to Celebrate or Voice Concern: One of the mistakes I made my first years of teaching was only communicating when I had concerns about students. As I got more experienced I realized that positive communication is just as important as expressing concerns. I recommend creating a schedule of when you plan on sending a quick note, email or phone call about each student in your classroom. As a principal I have teachers nominate a positive phone call of the week. The students then get called down to the office and we call their parents and celebrate the good news!
Assignment Notebook: Students can write down a daily reflection in their assignment notebook or set a goal or celebrate an accomplishment. Assignment notebooks can also be used as communication logs back and forth between parents and school.

As we talk about parent communication it’s also important to remember that it shouldn’t be one-sided. We should be just as proactive in reaching out to parents with celebrations/concerns as we are in asking them for feedback. Requesting information on their child’s strengths and interests as well as discussing the goals they have for their child can only strengthen our ability to help every student in our classroom to grow. Giving parents an opportunity to give feedback regularly will also strengthen our efficacy as educators.

School has changed greatly since many of our parents were in school. (For the better I think!) The trends that I have seen are less formal paper and pencil assignments where students receive concrete grades as well as less formal assessing overall. The volume of assignments has decreased because we are placing greater importance on giving students more meaningful long-term projects and explorations and/or assessing students informally through observation and conversation. Many elementary schools have decided to give homework only if it is necessary and meaningful for learning. The unintended consequence of this is that parents have less of a sense of what their child is working on as well as how they are progressing in all subject areas. We have to start thinking differently about how we communicate with our families.

Just like we design our learning experiences to meet the needs of our students, we need to create communication plans that meet the needs of our families. I would recommend sending home a survey at the beginning of the year (or now) and then building a plan of action from there. Do most families have older children in the school or is this their first year? How do they prefer to be communicated with? Email? Text? Social Media? What do they know about the learning in the grade that you teach? As a general rule, the more communication the better. No parents have ever complained to me their teacher overcommunicates with them, but I have definitely gotten feedback when parents feel that communication is lacking.

The changes to the way that we communicate with parents can be overwhelming, but can also be a game-changer when it comes to partnering with parents and building a shared vision of what we want our school to be.

Goals Groupies: Synergizing the Passions of Staff

Last year, I read this post by John Spencer about the importance of being in a “Mastermind Group” with other educators. It’s basically a group of teachers that meet regularly to explore and share ideas and also give one another feedback. Because the members get to know each other well they can push one another in ways that would not be possible with other groups.

This idea has always stuck with me as something that would be great to implement with staff. So when we started exploring options for our monthly staff meetings as an instructional leadership team, I brought this up as a possibility for a way to structure our time. After talking through a variety of options, including a focus on the 6C’s or differentiated choices aligned to our School Improvement Plan, we ultimately decided on having staff finding a group of people who had written similar personal goals for the year.

The purpose behind this was twofold:

It gave people time to delve more deeply into something they were already personally invested in.
It made our goal writing process more meaningful because staff would have dedicated time to continually work on them. This is in contrast to past practice, where many educators (myself included) would wait until it was time to have a follow-up conference on their goals later in the year.

At our first meeting in September, we had staff members do a “speed date” activity where they moved around the room talking about their goals for the year with different people. Their goal was to find others who had similar interests or their “Goals Groupies.” When they found a “match,” they would write that person’s name down on an index card. At the end of the meeting, they met up with the people on their card and came up with an official focus for their group.

Although I had met with staff members on their goals for the year prior to this meeting, it was fun to see how groupies ended up evolving and what they ultimately chose to focus on. We had 5th-grade teachers working with first-grade and even kindergarten teachers. There were groups of specials teachers mixed with grade-level teachers. The goals chosen were just as diverse and included: SEL, critical thinking, parent communication, inquiry-based and real-world projects, reading fluency and accuracy, and facilitated IEP and collaboration.

This past Thursday was our second meeting. Our Goals Groupies were given time to explore their work more fully setting specific outcomes for their impact on students, creating a plan of action and agreeing on what they would bring to share at the next meeting. We gave them this template with guiding questions to help them to further think through their ideas. As I walked around the room, I listened to rich conversations and genuine enthusiasm for the work they were doing. It was a Thursday after school, but everyone was just as energized as if we were starting a fresh day.

This process has only reinforced my belief that when we empower staff to take the lead, we embolden change that impacts students far greater than any mandated initiative ever will. When staff is given dedicated time to collaborate with colleagues who have a common passion, we capitalize on our strengths as a school as well as build capacity in multiple grade levels. The goals the groups have chosen to work on have far surpassed my wildest dreams of what we could work on this year as a staff. I am beyond excited to see the impact on students as the year unfolds.