Choice & Relevance for the Win

This past Sunday was Mother’s Day.  I got to spend an entire almost two hours in the car driving to one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago to pick up brunch and bring it back home.   It was absolutely glorious.   Besides the anticipatory drooling over the amazing spread coming my way, for the first time in almost two months, I was alone, in my car, and I could choose to do whatever I wanted.  

The first half-hour I spent playing music and singing (rather loudly) all of my favorite songs.  As I got closer to the city the music buzz started to wear off, and I began thinking it would be nice to use this time to catch up on some podcasts I hadn’t had time to listen to much since we had been home.  Noticing that the Cult of Pedagogy’s latest podcast was on feedback, a topic that we have been discussing heavily lately, I decided that was definitely the right choice and off I went on a learning journey, actually finishing that episode as well as another one on creating meaningful screencast videos. (1.5 time is amazing for that kind of thing)  

By the time I got home I was absolutely famished (driving in the car for almost an hour smelling your favorite food is totally intoxicating & aggravating at the same time), but filled with pure joy from the inspiration I got from those two episodes.  I couldn’t wait to talk to my instructional team on Monday to share with them the episodes and new ideas they had sparked.  There was a renewed sense of urgency and excitement for my job that I haven’t felt since we’ve been going nonstop for the past 6 weeks.  

This entire experience brought me back to my doctoral research on motivation as well as years of experience working with a variety of different learners.  When given choice and relevance to current work or future goals, the learning becomes meaningful, internalized, and action-oriented.  When it is forced and/or disconnected, learning is superficial and often short-lived.  

Too often in education, this important aspect of learning is neglected or forgotten in favor of a “common understanding.”  The assumption being that if the information is presented to everyone in the exact same way, that their learning path, as well as mastery, will also be the same.  Of course, this perspective completely ignores the fact that human beings come with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, all of which impact the way that knowledge is received, internalized, and acted upon. 

A better, more meaningful approach is to focus on the common vision and/or goals first.  Layer in choice and autonomy in learning next with relevant learning experiences.  Regardless of what the learners choose, the goal of a common understanding will naturally result because the goal is clear and has been developed together.  The learners will be ten times more committed to the work because their background, interests, and experiences have been honored throughout the process.  

Remote learning has created conditions ripe for experimentation as well as innovative learning experiences for both students and staff.  Teachers are regularly seeking out new ways to reach their students while they are learning from home.  Not from a directive to do so, but from the inner drive to help their students to feel connected and succeed.  As administrators, our job is not to tell our educators what to do, but to build with them a clear shared vision of the work so that they are free to tinker, experiment and create.  We need to keep learning alongside them so that as we venture on this new experience together we continue to bring relevance to everything we do.  In doing so, we create the ultimate conditions for learning where everyone can experience that blissful feeling that comes from connecting autonomy with purpose. 

 

Teaching Students to Respectfully Disagree

I observed a teacher this week who was doing a lesson on creating theories and finding evidence to support one’s thinking.  She used a text from our curriculum called, The Mary Celeste: An Unsolved Mystery by Jane Yolen.  It’s a great text for a variety of reasons, but one of the best things about the book is that it sparks such curiosity in students.  The cast and crew mysteriously disappear in the middle of the ocean in the 1800s and no one has ever figured out what happened to them

Besides the fact that this teacher artfully asked questions that got the students thinking deeply, what stood out to me the most was the way the students conversed with one another about their ideas and how, even when they disagreed, they did so in a way that respected the individual they were talking to.

The lesson began with the students sharing their ideas about what the characteristics of a good theory are. During this conversation, students eagerly raised their hands and shared things like, “it has to have evidence,” with others adding on, “the evidence has to be strong.”  After this, students were partnered up in two lines and did a sort of “speed dating” with their theories about what they thought actually happened.

It was during this time that I observed students saying things like,

“I respectfully disagree with you because…”

“I respect your opinion, but…”

“I can see why you think that, but have you thought about…”

“I thought the same thing….”

“Tell me more about…”

“Can you give me another example?”

“Can you tell me more so I can understand better?”

The purpose set by the teacher for this time was to get new ideas from their partners, evidence or theory.  No one got upset while they were talking.  In fact, students eagerly shared their ideas in authentic conversations.

When I asked the teacher for more information about how she developed this skill in her students, she said:

“I noticed a need for this because I was trying to have my students have deep and mature conversations, but for many this was new and they didn’t yet have the social tools to do this respectfully. Even as we get older disagreeing can be a difficult thing, so I tried to find visuals that the students could refer to when they were vocalizing their thoughts.  If they agreed, I wanted to give them language to further the conversation.”

Her plan is to continue to have her students practice this skill in literacy and then adapt it for math.  She thought this would be particularly useful for student discussions about the reasonableness of answers, which can be tricky for students of all ages.

 As I think about her lesson, I wonder if another element of success was the teacher’s use of the word, theory as opposed to argument.  Coming from the latin stem, argumentum, argument is literally defined as, “an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.”  When we are asked to build an argument and then find support for our idea, the natural tendency is to fight with the person we are speaking with if they disagree until they come to our side.

The connotation of the word theory is quite different, less combative and more collaborative.  The word theory usually refers to a hypothesis that a person is formulating and still seeking information in the process to support the thought.  When talking to another person about his or her theory, the partner wants to help, to question or to add to the other person’s thoughts because it is not absolute yet.

With the volatile world that we currently live in, it is imperative that we teach students to respectfully disagree.  Being able to successfully communicate one’s ideas, as well as perceiving opposing thoughts as an opportunity to learn instead of a personal attack are key skills to success in making our world better.