Checklist Manifesto

I just finished the audiobook of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande.  Atul is a surgeon who worked with WHO to develop a method to reduce surgical complications and death. His solution, borrowed from the aviation industry is a checklist. He tells his story through numerous in depth anecdotes. It is very readable (or listenable). He despairs that people will not jump on the highly effective wagon of checklists but will spend millions or even billions on the latest and greatest technology, even if it only slightly increases effectiveness.

The correlations to teaching may not be readily apparent, but they exist. He describes effective checklists as those that are short, only hitting key factors that make a difference rather than those that have a plan for every eventuality. Here is one place where I see the field of education having gone seriously awry. When Race to the Top monies became available they came with the string of more stringent teacher evaluations. Many schools, districts and states embraced Danielson's Framework for Teaching as the tool they would use for annual reviews of teacher success. It includes 76 elements from four major clusters. The Danielson Group sees the framework as  "the foundation for professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching." It is evidence based in that the various elements have all been shown to improve academic results of students. As a whole, however, the complete package lacks research to demonstrate that teachers that adhere to the rubric will be better. It does provide useful definitions for researchers to use when examining the topic. That being said, she resists the idea that a checklist be completed during an observation to evaluate teachers.

Independent of the appropriateness of turning her framework into a checklist, is the concept of having a 76 element checklist at all- especially one that requires not just a yes-no response but a nuanced evaluation of how well it is being completed. Checklist experts will argue that a checklist needs to be short in order to be effective. Even when we create rubrics to evaluate student writing tasks they stay on one page perhaps listing as many as a five by six grid of elements and levels of success. When the rubric is pages long, it is bound to be ineffective. Atul explored longer checklists and found them to hinder rather than support the end goal- for him reduced surgical complications and death. If we want to create a checklist that will support our goal of improved teaching, it needs to be succinct; only including the most essential elements, not every detail that can (and ultimately should be) considered.

Similarly, if we look at applying a checklist to teaching a direct instruction lesson, we need to limit its scope and hone in on the details that are essential to success, and perhaps those that when missing are most likely to cause a lack of learning. Perhaps that might look something like:

• stated learning target
• assess prior knowledge
• model the learning 
• allow students to practice
• close with an assessment of the learning target.

Do we need to do more than those few things? Of course. If we do not do one of those things are we likely to limit student acquisition of skills? Yes. These five things we can quickly check and frame our work around. We can use them in lessons using different structures and with material of different levels of complexity. Could a model like this be used for teacher evaluation? Sure, if it were accompanied by an in depth dialogue to discuss the elements. 

Checklist are highly effective at improving success, but they need to be carefully developed, tested and refined. No one's research based proposal will be satisfactory the first time around. We need to see about how to take a good framework and transform it into a useable tool.

Personalized Reading

My district, like many around me are on a personalized reading kick. In theory, I agree that personalizing education makes sense and today's technology provides many platforms through which to manage this concept. When I grew up in the 70s there was an idea of contract learning that some of my teachers embraced. My fifth grade teacher had the entire language arts curriculum broken down into segments (for example, there-their-they're words or capitalize proper nouns). Each segment or contract had at least two learning activities (i.e. worksheets) and one quiz. Each student was to complete the learning activities, turn them in, complete a quiz and move on- with a reteach worksheet. If they needed to redo something, it was returned with either "redo" or "see me" emblazoned across the top. The teacher ran mini-lessons with individual students who needed them at his desk. Over the course of the year we were supposed to complete a minimum of at least 125 contracts. I raced through the activities and completed the most extra contract, not because I was particularly gifted, but because I was highly competitive. Many papers were returned for me to redo. This system is made easier with technology because you can have video lessons on each section, automatic grading, and games. I know why my teacher used this system- he had put the energy into creating it and he was not going to redo it. Front loaded planning and individualized pacing. Our current incantation of personalized learning captures this idea but takes it step beyond the crate of manila folders of my childhood.

Personalized Learning- Digital Strategies and Tools to Support All Learners by Michele Haiken with L. Robert Furman explores modern platforms to implement personalized learning. Instead of merely adjusting the pace, modern personalized learning talks about changing the content and product as well. Through the book the authors discuss different types of readers and activities to differentiate the classroom activity to meet their individual needs. They rely on the concept of self-direction as a method to motivate students and keep them on task. I am sure that this idea works for many. Choice is a powerful motivator. One of my problems, however, is that I know that not all students care about reading, even when empowered to read what they want, at a level that is accessible to them.

One of the tools that they recommend are a variety of choice boards. This tool has been around for a long time. I remember reading about them in the 90s. Oddly they never caught on. One reason for that, I believe, is that however hard it is to develop challenging and interesting assignments, it is harder to develop multiple ones that explore the same standards. One example that I found on the web about characterization is found here. It has five types of showing what you know/graphic organizers on which students are asked to answer questions about characterization and then they are asked to Frame It!

1. Source – Where did you get this information?(Green) 
2. So What! - What do you now understand about these characters and why is it important?   (Red)
3. POV – is this the author’s POV, the character’s , yours, or all. (Blue) .

This only slightly personalizes the activity. Clearly the whole class is reading the same book. The ultimate goal is a characterization paragraph. The students get to select their graphic organizer alone. The authors envision a much more diverse set of activities going on in a classroom. Teachers would need to have much more time to explore activities and develop tasks.

The authors do present a large number of websites that can be used. One that appealed to me is view now do now. This site's activities presents pictures for students to view carefully and then write a response about. It gets critically looking at images and writing and is good for reluctant and struggling readers and students learning English.

The format of the text is very readable. Each chapter starts with an overview of a type of reader and then moves into digital tools that can be leveraged to meet their needs. They include examples of activities developed for a classroom. The end of each chapter is an "As you go forward" section and a summary of the tools discussed in the chapter. Perhaps a bit Pollyannish in concept- get students to leverage their own learning- but perhaps an admirable goal.

Attack of the Teenage Brain- part 2

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. His well-researched book is highly readable. His target audience is teachers, but parents and perhaps some parts teenagers would benefit form this understanding.

Medina organizes his book around how to change education to develop EF in teenagers and thus improve their performance. His three pronged approach includes the following components of changing the learning environment:

• Create night school for parents within the existing school


• Engage certified faculty to design and implement a curriculum around positive, evidence based marital practice


• Work with schools of education to create parenting curriculum and insert it into teacher training


• enlist these newly trained staff to create and implement the curriculum- compensate them appropriately


• Partner with researches to evaluate the success of these curriculum


• Design schools centered around a gym


• implement a physical movement curriculum and encourage universal participation in organized sports


• change start times to be compatible with brain development


• Implement a mandatory SEL program that emphasizes empathy


• designate a mindfulness room painted green


• Use certified instructors to implement a mindfulness program that has been verified by research. 

p.200-201

Much of this advice centers around three components: teach parents, exercise children and produce research to refine programing. In my previous post I talked about the exercise piece.

EF is affectionately described as "the ability to get something done- and not punch someone in the nose while doing it" (p. 13). Medina organizes EF into three components: response inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory. It is easy to understand how these three elements underlie much school success. Students who display strong skills in these areas tend to be far more successful in both school and life than those who do not. They represent soft skills that are important to life after school that we often do a poor job teaching because they are not assessed, are difficult to assess objectively and take extensive time to develop in many students but develop very easily and readily in others (much like reading- can you imagine an EF remediation program as wide-reaching as the reading intervention programs we have today?).

Medina highlights three elements that are essential to understand when talking about learning. First, the brain is interested in survival not learning (p. 83). Second, "human learning is primarily a relational proposition" (p. 87). Human survival was based on working together to make us bigger and scarier and more successful than other apex predators. We need each other to survive. Third, the more fear in our lives, the more we focus on mere survival than on relationships. Safety enables learning. Knowing this information allows us to understand how the kids interact in school- demystifying some of the frustrating behaviors that teenagers exhibit.

Medina highlights the idea that parents are the most important element in a child and teenagers life. Thus he sees parental training as important. The most successful parenting style and teaching style is authoritative- places limits on behavior, explains the rationale for the limits, provides defined feedback about performance, imposes consequences for not meeting the expectations and gradually releases control as children grow and develop. This concept is seen repeatedly in the research and is why the author considers parenting classes so important.

Medina addresses the idea of screen time. Screens seem omnipresent in our current lives. Our phones, our 1:1 devices, TVs, video games, tablets, cars, some refrigerators and the list goes on. Is screen time good or bad. Kids spend an average of 9 hours in front of a screen a day (p. 169). Assessing and understanding the impact of this activity on children is important. Research is somewhat inconclusive. Screen time before bed decreases sleep- this is bad. We need to address the screens in the evening even though it is a hard ask. Screen time decrease understanding of non-verbal emotional cues (p. 171), but social media use increased ability of teens empathetic ability (p. 170). Heavy media multitaskers have poorer performance on filtering tasks than light media multitaskers (p. 185). This is one area where Medina does not discuss the challenge of causation- media multitasking decreases filtering and task switching skills or people who are poor at filtering and switching chose to be media multitaskers.

Medina discusses the benefits of mindfulness and how to develop it through mediation. He showcases how being mindful decreases anxiety and depression. Since as many as a quarter of teenage girls suffer with anxiety, most undiagnosed, identifying ways to address it seem prudent. Meditation is a way to help teens deal with the stress of their lives. While we might hear people say things like, "What's the big deal? When you get older you'll see how trivial that is," to the teen, it is a big deal. Their lives have not given them the big picture yet and they cannot take that perspective.

Understanding how teenage brains work can help us frame programs that can teach them more successfully. We need to reach these youngsters. We cannot keep doing the same thing since we need better results and ever before.

Attack of the Teenage Brain! part 1 exercise

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. I know there is lots to digest in this book so I am going to hone in on one area today- exercise.

Exercise has the potential to improve executive function, academic success and emotional health. John points out the research to support these assertions. It reminds me of similar research suggesting that an hour of aerobic exercise per day significantly reduces ADHD related problems. Exercise is also given credit for reducing stress, weight and depression.

First, lets look at strictly the impact of exercise on the body. It increases blood flow. The brain, while only 2-3% of body mass consumes 20% of ingested energy (p. 146). It needs blood to survive. When we increase blood flow, we increase alertness and ability to focus. (ADHD anyone?) Our teenage students who take chronic sleep deprivation to a level of near omnipresence, come to school sleepy. If we get them up and moving, we can sustain their attention better because their brains have enough oxygen to work. If we make them work harder- aerobic activity- that blood flow improvement lasts longer, builds vessels and capacity. Our brains work better with more activity. Students who participate in regular activity actually sleep better than those who do not exercise. Studies have shown that this increases academic achievement to the tune of a letter grade for every 15 minutes of daily activity (p. 137). If we want our kids to do better in school, lets make them work out to activate their brains and prepare them to learn. There will be a side effect of better behavior as students are more able to self-regulate their behavior, increase their focus and engage in the opportunities we present.

The research that John pointed out indicated that cognitively challenging exercise such as organized sports, or, I imagine, watching a new aerobic routine and trying to keep up, increases EF (p. 116). No cognitive challenge, however, was required to improve mood. Since suicide is a leading cause of death for teenagers (and a leading cause of impairment when it goes wrong) and most mental illnesses begin to establish themselves in early teenage years, providing a vehicle for reducing stress and depression seems like an important goal. (Stress does have a significant impact on the brain's ability to learn.) Again our evidence based practice involves activity. Be sure that our middle schoolers still have recess where they can go outside and play. Have PE class available more often. My daughter's school moved from one 80 minute block of PE every 4 days to 2-50 minute blocks every 4 days. The research certainly supports this move to improve academic performance and mental health of our kids. Tight budgets should not keep kids from accessing PE. Our era of intense focus on test performance should not pull PE so that kids can have more time for ELA and math. These things are improved by PE, even if time is taken away from those core areas. A difficult proposition to swallow, but the research supports it.

John's prescription for increasing EF, academic achievement and mental health is exercise. Regular, aerobic and cognitively challenging movements for on a daily basis. While genetics are instrumental is a students' inclination toward EF disorders like ADHD, changing the environmental situation a child is in will improve their situation. It may not take away the problems, but it will offer an avenue for improvement- one that does not involve medication or changing the home living environment. Lets try to change what is in our control to improve student success. Instead of cake, let the mantra be let them eat exercise.

Better than carrots or sticks

Managing classrooms is a challenge. Some schools are identified as needing support when they suspend too many kids or too many in a subgroup. I spent the last year working in one such program where they were trying to implement Positive Behavior and intervention supports (PBIS). They were not fully engaged and did not seem to be making much progress. When I read Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey's book,

I thought about many of the challenges of the school. I appreciated that they were trying to implement an evidence based program of management, but they were still struggling. This book talked about some nuisances that would, potentially lead to greater success.

Both Restorative Practices and PBIS share the idea that kids engage in behavior because it is what they know. They need to learn alternative patterns of behavior to help them become more successful. Restorative Practices is focused on making things right. I have previously thought of it as a post-behavior intervention, and this book showed me how it can be applied prior to escalation of behavior.  I had also reasoned that putting a victim and a perpetrator together in a room might be cruel. I have seen kids who have been brutalized and cannot imagine making them face their abuser. If the victim is willing and prepared, I can see how this approach could facilitate healing. Unfortunately, such meetings require lots of pre-conference work with the parties, a willingness to participate, and highly skilled facilitators. The average teacher is not prepared to do this role.

I appreciated the idea that students need to develop empathy through guidance and learn skills. The authors identified four questions that students could reflect on to develop these skills:

1. Did you ask for help today when you needed it? 
2. Did you offer help to another when you recognized that he or she needed it?
3. Did you accept help when it was offered to you?
4. If you declined help, did you do so politely?              p. 44

Soft skills are often seen as critical and often lacking in young people today. Helping skills are one such group of skills that students need to work.

They highlight the importance of class meetings. These are not merely activities after a problem, they are proactive, community-building actions that help to circumvent problems. They are opportunities to share ideas, thoughts, joys and sorrows. They are opportunities to remind students about upcoming events and appropriate. They are opportunities to review before a test or debrief study skills afterwards. When they are used throughout the year for these varied purposes, students are not adverse to participating and do not see the class meeting as "someone(s) did something wrong."

Throughout the text there are images of students holding signs like, "I wouldn't make it anywhere else," (p. 16) and "I own my mistakes" (p. 97). These are inspiring comments that showcase trust and personal responsibility. They also have many sentence starters for discussions which would be useful for difficult conversations. Overall a book I know I will read again. Learning about how to correct the course before it is woefully off target is an admirable activity that I know I would improve from.

peer tutoring and the Gifted

When our district started its full day kindergarten program I went to the public sessions. My daughter was not going to eligible for the program for another year yet, but would ultimately attend kindergarten so I was interested. I asked about how they were going to keep my daughter learning all day- I was resigned to her being bored and developing her coloring skills for half a day, but an entire day seemed too much. I was informed of the options the teachers could use for advanced students:

• More challenging work could be sent home- my five year old did not need her learning after school but in school. If I wanted to be her teacher, I am perfectly capable of homeschooling if that is the goal.
• She could help the other students when she finished, after all the best way to learn something is to teach it- who trained her in teaching? Didn’t she deserve to learn new things, too?
• There would be plenty of learning for her to do. Kindergarten is far more advanced than it used to be- true, but she had mastered even these raised standards before kindergarten started.

There was no mention of sending high achieving students to higher level classes or differentiating to individualize her instruction. For a decent school district, their answers seemed woefully lacking.

Catherine Little addresses the concern about peer tutoring or having fast finishers help slow-goers in her article, “PeerTutoring and Gifted Learners- Applying a Critical Thinking Lens.”  She poses three questions for peer tutoring:

• What is the intended purpose of peer tutoring- not just for the tutee, but for the tutor?
• How will you assess progress toward that goal?
• How do we guide students to achieve them?

As Ms. Little and my district superintendent pointed out there is an adage that teaching others is the best way to learn something well. Unfortunately, this is an unproven adage. Helping out others after you finished or being the recipient of “ask 3 then me” all class will slow down progress so the child is not sitting with nothing to do. There might be empathy goals to achieve. If one of these three purposes is the goal then how do you assess it? My daughter would get increasing frustrated with being asked to help others to pass or being constantly interrupted in her work by others. While she shows tremendous empathy for her brother whose ASD presents huge struggles in the social realm, she wanted her school time to be about, well, her. Never was there any measure of her success in any of these areas. Admittedly how would you measure it? She showed kindness during the interaction- she did before, that's why her teachers were so eager to suggest it. She refrained from empathy lacking comments- she did, in school, but when she came home, I would hear about it.

I know the success of Peer Tutoring as an instructional tool. The problem, as Ms. Little points out, is that successful peer tutoring programs involve training of the tutor and clear expectations for both parts of the dyad. Further, they work best with participants who choose to be involved- not those mandated to participate.

If we want to have our schools meet our children’s potential- a goal for many schools and teachers- we need to figure out how to deal with these fast finishers. Merely asking them to help out cannot be the sole answer. Perhaps give them more challenging assignments- not more work, different work. Perhaps have them work on an independent project of interest when they finish.  Perhaps they could read. If they want to help out, let them, but don't demand it of them.

Best Practice

As I was teaching this spring Steven Zemelman, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde's book, Best Practice: Bring Standards to Life in America's Classrooms, Fourth Edition, was given to me. Its been a crazy busy first part of summer, so I only just now finished it. It was published in 2012, shortly after the release of the Common Core Standards and reflects that time- disillusionment with No Child Left Behind and excitement about the advent of the Common Core. Six years later  we have seen progress continues to stagnate under new standards and people left scratching their heads about how to help American children be more successful in school.

Best Practice urges the use of evidence proven strategies and discipline based consensus about how to achieve success. The general message is that kids need to read and write more and engage in more inquiry and experiential opportunities to better grasp the curriculum. This book had much more of a focus on elementary and middle school programs. Only two examples address high school experiences. This is potentially due to the lack of these ideas being utilized effectively at the secondary level in spite people saying they are the goal.

Best practice begins with the basic principles:

• student centered classrooms
• authentic learning opportunities featuring experiences that allow them to construct ideas and systems
• holistic rather than part to whole
• challenging curriculum
• learning comes from cognitive experiences- based on prior knowledge, emphasizes the role of factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks, full of self-monitoring
• developmentally appropriate and self-reflection
• socially based- friendly and supportive, safe, collaborative, democratic
• multiple forms of expression to engage in ideas

Then they go on to explain the seven structures of teaching that support the principles-

• gradual release of responsibility
• classroom workshop
• strategic thinking
• collaborative activities
• integrative units
• representing to learn
• formative-reflective assessment.

I can find little argument with the ideas except that they are often out of step with how we approach much of our educational program- discrete subjects with a mountain of curriculum to wade through, little collaborative planning time and respect for teachers who want to preserve their silos. As the authors go through the chapters on reading, writing, math, science and social studies, these challenges become apparent. We might be able to appreciate the beauty of the examples provided, but find it nearly impossible to figure out how to implement it in our realities. The best advice, although not written in the text is to go slow and incorporate pieces that work for you and then move forward as you become more comfortable.

The authors support conferencing with students around reading and writing. Many of my peers pondered how to implement this when they had not read the book or student's paper. (After all, my son glories in stories of his peers who wrote about imaginary books or who watched movies in lieu of reading and wrote reports based on the film.) They offer these three questions:

1. What are you working on?
2. How is it going?
3. What do you plan to do next? or How can I help you right now? P. 49

These are springboard questions that stimulate a conversation that should only take about five minutes per child.

I also really enjoyed the description the authors used of an "emphasis on metacognition, taking responsibility for running your own brain" (p. 50). It gives the focus to kids. This past year I worked out a behavior self-monitoring sheet for the kids I had in one class. They had to give themselves a daily rating of how they did- accomplished the task for the day and behaved appropriately. There was a description of what it looked like to behave appropriately to help them gauge their day. I looked over their ratings every day and sometimes added comments about how the student rated himself. Behavior improved in the room. Students were more able to identify what they needed to do and how to do better.

From a reading point of view, they stated the four things children need to do in order to improve their reading:

• read a lot
• access to books they can read
• to learn to read fluently
• and to develop thoughtful literacy (p. 266).

I notice an absence of rigor, grade-level appropriate, or challenging when describing what kids should be reading. This movement of the Common Core is not what they suggest makes for better readers- reading motivating, accessible material does. The message applies to writing- write a lot about things they care about so they can do it easily (both from a graphomotor and text perspective) and be thoughtful about their writing. These are things we can do in every classroom- no need for long papers- a paragraph will do, if it is done everyday in every class.

We can help our children achieve new heights- but we need to look at things differently and we need to engage them in meaningful work.

Uniquely Human

I just finished listening to Barry Prizant's book, Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism. Although I have read multiple articles and receive his newsletter from his SCERTS program, it is my first book by him that I have read. Again I am awed by how challenging it is to deeply read an audiobook. I feel that it is important to engage in this exercise periodically because it creates an understanding with students who use audiobooks as a compensatory tool. If they multitask, as I frequently do when listening, it is not high quality information learning.

Dr. Prizant weaves his years of experience through his book as anecdotes to support his ideas rather than listing research article after article. This makes the book very readable. 

His primary assertion is that there are no "autistic" behaviors, merely human behaviors that are engaged in with an intensity or beyond an expected time. When my son bounced at the arrival of his birthday guests, he was engaging in behavior typical of a toddler, not a middle schooler. When a child rocks to calm himself, he is doing what many do, but perhaps more vigorously or more publically than we might. When a child engages in self-injurious behavior (SIB) because he is overwhelmed, he is aggressively combating the overstimulation by blocking it out the only way he knows how- SIB. We need to modify the environment to reduce the stress rather than try to target the SIB for extinction.

He reminds us that people on the spectrum may experience past events almost the ways a person with PTSD might- full of emotion and experience. A bad experience once, can lead to extreme anxiety about that situation again. That anxiety can lead to outbursts that are seemingly "out of no where" until some careful and thorough detective work reveals the underlying cause. Then, just like a person with PTSD, we cannot eliminate the brain's instinctive response, but we can slowly buffer the traumatic experience with more positive experiences and self-talk. 

He reminds us that each person is developing throughout their life. There is no age beyond which a skill cannot develop. We should not be looking at an average development curve, but an individual one and celebrate the gains each individual makes.

His target audience is caregivers. He is offering a comforting viewpoint that their children are "normal" but on a different trajectory that some others. He recommends finding support howsoever it helps- books, therapy groups, parents of people with autism groups, whatever works for each individual. His book is also for professionals. It urges them to find compassion and look at the strengths of each individual rather than the deficits. He reminds them to understand the monumental task a caregiver has and to remember that they are doing the best they can in that moment. My son had a 1:1 aide with him throughout his schooling. He came home and there I was without that support. There were times when he was young when he had to come to the bathroom with me because I could not trust him with his little sister while I took two minutes out. Teachers recognize that the children in their care go home to their parents at night, during vacations, and the summer. They relish their time away from their jobs. Parents do not have the luxury. Even when their child is at school, they are on edge about how their child is doing and will they get a phone call about some issue. They are in for the long haul. Sometimes their stress says they cannot be the best they would like to be.

The last chapter in the book is a FAQ section. It provides sensible, down to earth answers to some of the most common questions that Dr. Barry is asked.  A nice way to wrap up the text. I would highly recommend this text.

Tips for a summer of play

When my children were in elementary school, I heard an administrator say that gifted kids and kids with disabilities were the same, and our school met the needs of all children. I could not even think of where to begin to address this statement. Yes, gifted is officially a component of special education, but in New York, like many other states I suspect, there is a special certification for special education but only an endorsement for gifted. There is a vast array of assessment, reporting and service delivery requirements for special ed, but none for gifted. The common catch-all term- differentiation- that we use to explain how we meet the needs of diverse students with the classroom does not eliminate the need for special education placements, but gifted placements are, in many places unheard of. All that being said, both groups do share the need for adjustments to be made to the curriculum  to truly benefit from school. Differentiation does meet the needs of many students within the classroom.

When I picked up Parenting for High Potential this month, June, I read an article that highlighted some other commonalities between the two groups in their article by Leigh Ann Fish and Patti Ensel Bailie, "Getting Gifted Kids Outdoors: Tips for a Summer of Play." We have lots of evidence that a lack of unstructured and outdoor play produces a range of potentially negative outcomes from childhood obesity, increased diagnoses  of ADHD, reduced empathy and diminished creativity. Benefits of having kids put down their devices and going out into the world to play include:

• improved social skills- it provides opportunities to be alone, as well advancing "interactions with others and build[ing] resilience in social situations by allowing children to practice social skills" (p.6).
• enhanced emotional well-being- can offer a break from the anxiety of trying to be perfect, allowing children to calm down and relax as well as persevere to overcome obstacles.
• More risk-taking, resilience and grit- when tasks are too easy, kids cannot develop resiliency. Outside they can push physical limits and repeatedly try something until they get it.
• better physical health- gifted children (and many with disabilities) are "asynchronous in their development, their intellect may outpace their physical maturity, leasing them to struggle with fine and gross motor abilities" (p. 6). Many with disabilities struggle with physical development as well. Getting outdoors can improve eating and sleeping schedules as well as eye health and immune systems. This is true for all kids!
• Greater curiosity , creativity and imagination- outdoor environments provide a variety of challenges that require thoughtful decision-making. 
• reduction in ADHD symptoms- for children with overexcitabilities pent up energies can be released in safe ways. Regular aerobic activity can help children with ADHD better control their behavior.

All of these things apply to kids in general, not just gifted ones. Stereotypical gifted kids who are bookworms or computer geeks, are not alone in spending hours on devices. This phenomena is epidemic in our youth who can barely leave their phones for a few moments. we need to get them to leave their tech and do something.

What to do if your kid doesn't want to go outside- and many don't. Fortnite is far more attractive  for many kids than a playground. Some of the author's suggestions include getting out there yourself. I would add that we need to model all the behavior we want our kids to engage in. We need to put down our devices and interact with nature and our kids. If we have our nose in our cell phone, so will they. If we express curiosity about what type of bird, flower or tree that is, our kids are more likely to similarly wonder and investigate. If we read trail markers, our kids will get into the habit of doing so as well. Get kids dressed for the activity- boots, hats, waders are important. Many kids suffer with sensory sensitivities- wet clothes may be problem- have spare dry ones,  gloves may insulate kids from touching things that are overwhelmingly slimy or scratchy. Incorporate tech- take pictures, geocache, identify species. You can even set a time limit. This week you need to go out for at least 5 minutes before lunch and 5 minutes before dinner. Next week we can increase the time. Withhold those devices. My favorite idea was the parent who changed the wifi password every day and the child had to earn it. Apps can limit device time- but again, be wary of your modeling.

These are such genuinely great ideas for all kids. send them out to play. It will be good for them.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 part 2

Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, trainers in emotional competence as measured by your EQ (emotional quotient) wrote Emotional Intelligence 2.0. I wrote about the beginning in part 1. The second half of their book covers strategies for developing the four components of EQ self-awareness, self management, social awareness and social management. I have read many books about developing leadership skills, executive function skills, and social skills. The strategies the authors present are simplistic listings of things found elsewhere.

Keeping a journal of your feelings may be good for recognizing them and how you respond, but the strategy itself, like most of the ones in the book, is poorly developed. Although the text might be a start for self improvement, more explicit training is likely necessary for people with struggling skill sets. The authors propose that months are required to advance skills. Such progress could be narrowed to simple awareness as much as any particular approach that is recommended. This book seems more like a money grab than an honest program for helping people.

juvenile crime and the four day week

Years ago some mostly rural districts in the Midwest moved to a four day school week. The rationale was it would save on costs, primarily transportation, lunch room and utilities. There is mixed results on academic impact. Some studies show no impact and some show a decrease. When Hawaii furloughed teachers the military bases opened a fifth day educational program to mitigate the lost educational time.

There exists, however, a more hidden effect- social emotional. When my children were younger I consistently argued against half days for my kids. Yes, I had one for whom, even as he entered high school I dared not leave alone with his sister, but challenges for others also exist. Parents often have a hard time taking a half day, especially when they need to be home by 10:30am so they are left with painful choices: find day care they can often ill-afford, take a full day of vacation time, or leave the kids home alone. The last one is especially troublesome. We know that small children should not be left home alone, but when they enter middle school, we often let them be by themselves, even if it means caring for younger siblings. When these older kids are left alone they often get up to mischief of one sort or another: drinking, drugs, vandalism, and sex just to name a few. If you think back to your youth, you probably remember when you engaged in behavior that was not appropriate- if you were anything like me, it was on weekends and during vacation.

A new study related to those 4 day weeks confirmed my argument. Juvenile crime increases, especially on Thursday night, when school districts move to short work weeks. Chalkbeat reported on a study of those short weeks in their article by Matt Barnum, "Four-day School Weeks, a Nationwide symptom of Tight Budgets, Lead to More Youth Crime, Study Finds." Why this is a surprise confounds me. Youth crime always increases when youth are less structured and supervised. Unfortunately, our children do not always make wise choices. The question is what is our better choice: teen trouble and crime or increased taxes to pay for those extra days. Wrestling with that one will give some ulcers. I would argue that in light of the increased tendency for inappropriate behavior and questionable academic results, perhaps finding ways to get that extra day of school in is worth it.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 part 1

In 1995 Daniel Goleman published his book Emotional Intelligence, sending shock waves through the community. Not only was intelligence a factor of cognition but there was a critical element of emotional understanding that led to success as well. Research demonstrated that while IQ, intelligence quotient was relatively stable, EQ, emotional quotient, was highly trainable. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, trainers in emotional competence as measured by your EQ wrote Emotional Intelligence 2.0 as a follow up to their first book and an element of their training protocol.

The first thing of note is that they describe IQ as stable from birth. Current research in cognition shows this to be misleading. There are many things we can do to impact cognitive capacity. While they indicate brain injury can have negative impact on IQ, other things can as well: neglect, lack of exposure to speech and environmental enrichment, poor diet (especially low protein), exposure to environmental toxins like lead and drugs, and housing and food insecurity. Other things can maximize cognitive potential. These include things like: exposure to a rich environment (play outside, novelty presented in a safe way, opportunities to travel and be exposed to age appropriate cultural activities like sports games, concerts, and plays, and opportunities to take safe age appropriate risks), a well-balanced diet with adequate protein (think myelination of nerve cells), security in housing, food and caregivers, and exposure to rich language and human interactions. It seems that IQ is more of a window of potential that our environment impacts. As a parent and teacher, I know that we can impact IQ and I fear for our newest generation that are screen addicts from infancy- they are not receiving the attention and enrichment that will develop their brains.

The authors state that "emotional awareness and understanding are not taught in schools" (p.13-14). In part this is true. Especially in this era of testing, we are focused on the academic aspects of education. An increasing number of schools are looking at whole child initiatives, character education and social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to enhance and improve their efforts. Students on the autism spectrum particularly are in need of this type of education and good programs provide it.

The authors point out that most people are limited in their understanding of emotions and include a chart from Julia West showcasing five primary feelings (happy, sad, angry, afraid, ashamed) with three levels of intensity (high, medium, low) A number of face charts are available to showcase feelings and their intensity. One is below:








I have used such ideas in classrooms. Collecting paint chip samples from the hardware store we classified emotions by intensity. This was a great lesson for children who struggle with seeing shades of gray.

Once you can label your emotions the next part is to address them. You cannot control having the emotion, but you can control "the thoughts that follow and emotion, and you have a great deal of say in how you react to an emotion" (p.16-17). Schools accept this as true even if they don't teach it- students are responsible for their behaviors regardless of what prompts it. The key that the authors want to do is grow EQ and help people identify their triggers and "practice productive ways of responding" (p.17). This then is premise of the text: identify emotions, understand personal reactions to them and develop more thoughtful, positive responses to them both in yourself and others.

Comprehension Connections

Delving into a colleague's bookshelf before break, I came across TannyMcGregor's book, Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading. This book captured my interest since I am currently working with a group that has poor comprehension skills. Her premise is two fold: one, reading strategies, like other skills should be taught from a concrete model to an abstract one and two, reading is thinking. She subtitles her book bridges to show how to teach an abstract concept by starting with an object.

The thinking strategies she identifies are:

• use schema
• inferring
• questioning
• determining importance
• visualizing 
• synthesizing.

A chapter is dedicated to each concept. Many of her launching lessons, ideas that are used to introduce a thinking strategy, could be used for more than one strategy with minor tweaking. I would  not try to teach two new ones at once. After the first has been taught, however, new ones should be introduced in tandem with reinforcing the old ones. While the target audience is the elementary market, with minor adjustments, I can see these easily being adapted to middle and high school students.

 One key idea that she suggests is teaching that Text + Thinking = Real Reading. Too many of our students think that reading is merely identifying a group of words and perhaps getting a surface level understanding. What we want them to realize is that reading is more than that. It requires, utilizing background knowledge, making inferences, questioning the author, identifying importance  and more.

I really liked one of her suggestions for showcasing schema. Make a T-chart. Give the students 30s to list everything they know about a topic they know about- a local amusement park, common video game or pop star, or a common experience- and record on the left side of the chart. They should be able to generate quite a list in the short period of time. Then give them something few, if any are familiar with- Tivoli (an amusement park in Copenhagen), Centipede game, or Mansa Musa (an African leader who single-handedly reduced the worldwide value of gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca). Record their thoughts on the right. This chart represents their schema. It will be easier to read about and learn about things for which they know about than those they do not.

Another important item the author mentions is developing listening comprehension. In special education we often use tests may be read as a test modification and audiobooks as a compensatory reading strategy. These are important activities that help our kids move forward, but listening comprehension is different from reading comprehension and needs to be taught. We want students to follow along while they are being read to, perhaps annotating important parts with symbols we have taught. We also need to develop their listening skills. She suggests using songs and poetry as ways to develop these skills. You can, and should, teach all the thinking skills with listening as well.

My biggest area of concern is around visualizing. I do not visualize anything. I think in words and charts. About 10% of the population struggles with this skill as well. Our strong visualizers can be reminded to visual while the read and the impact will be dramatic. (Many people on the autism spectrum are great visualizers. Some, like Temple Grandin, are such extreme visualizers they think only in pictures and need pictures to help them think.) Our mediocre ones need practice making a movie in their head of the story or draw a picture or create a storyboard of the story to show what is important. Weak to non-visualizers need support to understand that many people do this routinely and need alternate strategies. I paint pictures with words. Every thought I have is laden with lots of words. We can teach them constructs like graphic organizers that can be used to help with maintaining order and flow.

I like how she talks about using nesting dolls to begin to discuss synthesizing. There is a surface level or biggest doll, but nested within are many ideas that require deeper thought, and sometimes exploration. Synthesizing means taking all those levels and developing meaning or a complete set of dolls. The analogy works well for showing multiple meanings of text.

This book is not a set of scripts, but a series of jumping points to begin discussions. A list of ways to start teaching about thinking from concrete examples and expand to the abstract. A quick and easy read with major implications.

Lincoln on Leadership

Donald T. Phillips is a leadership consultant with a hobby in Abraham Lincoln. He decided to write a book about Lincoln's leadership when he realized that none existed. In our current times, Lincoln has received increased interest. Our current President has quoted him and held him up as a paragon of Presidential virture. The volume of books and movies about him have dramatically increased. The book, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, details Lincoln's approach to leading the country and draws comparisons to current leadership advice.

The book is broken into four parts: People, Character, Endeavor and Communication. Through these parts Phillips artfully weaves a tale of a man of the people who refused to have airs. He walked among the people and soldiers and talked to them. He did not have a perimeter of security personnel at all times.  He had an open door policy in the White House. He travel extensively to monitor the war that he desperately worked to win. He was a genius at persuasion, using plain language and anecdotes to connect with the common people of his nation.

As I was reading the section about his storytelling, it had me thinking about other master texts that promote using stories to make a point. Many ancient communities included a rich history of oral mythology to stress ideas about how to get along with others. In the Bible, Jesus famously used parables to get his message to people. Folk tales were stories of caution to children, showcasing rules to maintain appropriate behavior. Fables teach morals. The book highlights carefully chosen tales, mostly about farmers and small businessmen, Lincoln used to prove points. Being able to tell a story to demonstrate a point paints a picture the listeners will remember far longer than any lecture they likely tune out.

Another point that Phillips emphasized was the consistency of Lincoln's message and vision. Throughout his time running for federal office and as President, his message remained on point: our nation is something special because it provides a fair chance for all and attempts to elevate all. Every speech included this. When we think about the vision statements of most places today we look at paragraphs of sentences chopped full of ideas. Refining them to their essence is not done. No longer is "Beat Pepsi" an adequate vision. Coke's current mission is:

• To refresh the world in mind, body and spirit
• To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions
• To create value and make a difference.

This is succinct and short compared with many school missions and visions. I concluded early on that a mission and vision should be simple enough to be articulated quickly by every member of an organization. A prior department I worked in spent months developing a mission statement that was three sentences taking up 5 lines of text. No one had memorized it. We spent two department meetings unpacking the mission. Schools need mission statements that can be articulated by all. Statements like:

Help every child reach their potential.

or

Working to create model members of society.

showcase what we all want our schools to do and they can be learned quickly by all. Statements utilizing phrases like "environment of educational excellence," "working collaboratively as professionals," and "partner with our community," tell us how they will achieve their mission- not what their mission is. They muddy the water. Lincoln knew that laser focus on mission was critical. In schools we should emulate the simplicity. Our mission is about teaching children. Perhaps we muddy the mission because this like working as professionals and partnering with our community are easier than helping every child reach their potential so adding these other things makes it easier to say we are doing ok.

Does Pre-Assessment Work?

The February edition of Educational Leadership includes an article by Thomas R. Guskey entitled "Does Pre-Assessment Work?" which made me think about the practices I have seen and used in the classroom. Guskey first admits to the lack of research on the value of pre-assessment. This makes it a hard sell in many cases.

Next he discusses the purposes of pre-assessment.

1. Identify exceptional learners: the gifted community embraces this purpose to enable clustering for differentiated instruction and curricular compacting toward acceleration. For example,
   Brulles, D., Cohn, S. & Saunders, R. document research on the effectiveness of clustering and differentiating instruction in their article here. While pre-assessment might be used for placement decisions, especially in math, there is no universal acceptance or practice in this area.
2. establish a baseline for performance to measure growth: in sports programs we often see coaches record times, number of baskets made, distances thrown or jumped, number of balls hit, etc and then use that to measure progress. We see teachers measure score on a spelling list or math facts and then ask students to complete instruction and various assignments that will, hopefully increase the score.

The second type of pre-assessment lends itself to misuse when students are graded on improvement (I can score a 0 on the pre-assessment and then not do well on the post-assessment and still ace the class) or teachers are evaluated on student gains (the pre-assessment doesn't matter kids, don't worry about it verses this is very important and will be graded). Other confounding factors include:

• natural growth and maturity- a six year old will hold a pencil better and have more writing stamina than a 5 year old, a student who grows five inches in a year should be able to jump farther and sprint faster, a student in the concrete stage of development will see the world differently than one at an abstract stage.
• life circumstances- a trauma like a family divorce, accident or death, or exposure to violence will likely influence student performance. Getting adequate sleep and a good diet will help student perform better. Students on medication for focus, anxiety, depression or other mental health concerns will do better if they do not forget to take their meds.
• instructional practices around the testing- "This one does not matter," versus "This one is a major grade in the book." My son was exposed to many of these pre-assessments. He made it one of his missions to come up with the craziest responses imaginable (too much Calvin and Hobbes) on pre-tests. 

Then Guskey talks about measuring different types of learning goals. Cognitive tests assess academic goals (what causes the seasons, how many regular figures can you name, What is a simile), affective ones assess attitudes, beliefs and interests (do a project on snakes, sharks or flowers or how and what do they read); behavioral ones assess skills (athletic or musical performance, ability to cut on a line or use a protractor). Often these goals might appear on the same pretest- for example I want to know if you can identify various angles, use a protactor and how you feel about geometry.

Then he gets to the nitty gritty of the forms of pretests. Again there are overlaps.

• prerequisite- What do you need to be able to do before you start this unit? Dribble before you play a game of basketball. Have good reading decoding before you read a chapter book. Use a ruler before we measure volume of prisms. Have you ever cared for a pet? before learning about personal responsibility.
• present- measure current knowledge. What do you know about Shakespeare? Can you multiply by fives? What do you know about adding fractions? Tell me what you know about glaciers. Tell me about a book you read that you enjoyed.
• Preview- comparisons of student growth come from this category. If you know how to add fractions, I do not need to cover that in my instruction. If you have no idea about the i before e spelling rule, I should probably teach it before I assess your spelling of words like conceive, weigh and thief. If most kids think that the seasons are based on closeness to the sun rather than tilt of the planet, I do not need to waste time to pre-assess it.

Guskey then presents one high quality study of pretests from 1983. Leyton-Soto randomly divided students into four groups: pretest with traditional instruction, pretest with instruction in prerequisite skills, pretest with mastery learning instruction, pretest with both prerequisite skill instruction and mastery learning. He worked in Algebra 2 and second year foreign language classes with clear prerequisites, assisted in the development of pretests and provide support in the instructional phase to ensure design integrity. Students in the prerequisite skill instruction groups received two weeks per semester of mastery learning on missing skills. Results indicated that all three interventions significantly outperformed the traditional approach. The combination of mastery learning and prerequisite instruction resulted in students performing at mastery level on a comprehensive final exam with almost eight times the frequency of students in the traditional group. Yes, this was two subject areas with clearly defined prerequisites with students who probably did not have lots of learning problems or issues with success- using upper level classes tends to weed out poor performers. That being said, a two week intervention in teaching prerequisites seems really doable if it results in a three x increase in success. Using mastery learning seems like a good choice of instructional techniques if it results in a 5 x increase in results.

Providing effective pre-assessments, intervening with instruction in prerequisites and using mastery learning techniques appears to be a highly successful plan to increase performance of our students. Since that is the name of the game it makes sense to use them for instructional purposes. If we grade based on growth or hold teachers accountable based on student gains, however, we pollute the data and invite misuse. We might as well just ignore the pretest all together. If you will not use the pretest information to inform instruction skip it and use the time a different way.

When my daughter scored an 83 on the Earth Science pretest in September and then had to sit through ten months of instruction with the whole class in order to achieve a 98 on the final I was disappointed. Her teacher did not offer her much in that time. Although she made some growth, for most kids a 13 point increase would be a devastating failure. (The class average on the pretest was under 50.) The entire course was really a waste of her time. We suggested letting her use a college level text and assignments rather than the ninth grade one- it did not happen. The pretest merely made me angry because there was no benefit to her- the teacher was required to administer it for his professional rating and her score as a significant outlier was eliminated from the data set of even that activity. It is time to get serious about using our data in a smart way rather than a poor formulaic manner.