Focus on teaching using video

In my undergraduate course work, I took a class in which we had to do a video tapped lesson. Yes- VHS. And I know that dates me. Once we received our videos back we had to look at them and write a paper about our performance. Unfortunately, we did not have access to any checklists or ideas for what we should be looking for. We were not even novices in the teaching world and that experience proved to not be very valuable. Today some certification programs require video lessons and it is a central component of the National Teaching Board certification process. 

A few years ago I was able to take an online course on coaching that extensively used video as a way to highlight the good things occurring and where challenges occurred. Further since it was used in monthly observations for new teachers, it was able to showcase growth.

Through the years I have thought about recording lessons to help me grow, especially when I have had less than critical evaluations. When Jim Knight's Focus on Teaching: Using Videos for High-Impact Instruction came across my door, I was curious if it could provide some of the guidance regarding using video for self improvement. 

First he is a huge proponent of using video with coaching, team work, evaluation and self development IF the teacher is willing. He does not feel that when it is an imposed structure, it can be nearly so worthwhile and will encounter resistance that may well render it useless. 

On page 13 he quotes Fritz saying," Growth involves two factors a clear picture of the current reality and a clear goal." In order to continue to develop, people need to objectively understand where they stand. In spite of Danielson era matrixes for evaluation, teachers often do not trust the results as accurate and the improvement goals may be impossible to achieve. (I have worked in many districts where top scores are not able to be achieved.) When an individual can watch themselves teach, however, they can spot some of the highs and lows and then formulate goals that will help them improve.

The book contains some simple data gathering charts to use while watching the video. These include areas such as ratio of interactions (positive/negative, male/female), mindset, consistency of corrections, opportunities to respond, types of question, instructional v non-instructional time, time on task. If I had been given a checklist of things to look for when I had been watching my preservice self, the experience would have been far more valuable. Further, it suggests taping only a segment of class rather than the whole thing to facilitate being able to spend the time required to evaluate the video. There may be, however, times to tape a whole lesson- for example, watch interactions with a particular student or group to better understand interactions and plan interventions.

The structure of the book is clear and concise. Each chapter starts with a concept map of the important ideas in the chapter. Then it clearly discusses the work. At the end there is a section on turning ideas into actions- looking at things from the viewpoints of students, teachers, coaches, principals and system leaders. There is a bulleted summary followed by recommendations for going deeper.

Since Jim's area of focus is coaching, he is particularly focused on that through the book. Lots of ways to use video in coaching lessons are presented. That said, this is not a book with an audience of only coaches. He distributes ideas around a variety of roles. Although quotes abound throughout the text, vignettes would have been a great addition. Links to videos of the various aspects of video use could have been super-useful.  

Disrupting class

 Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson got together and published Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns based on the concept of disruption in business. Their 2008 (and subsequent 2011 edition) book, presented the idea that education will become personalized and computer based. They predicted that "by 2019, about 50 percent of high school courses will be delivered online" (p. 98-99). While they did not imagine the pandemic, I am sure they would have predicted that leveraging that world event would have led to even more online programming today. This thesis clearly has not come into being. True there are more online courses available to students. Some small districts are leveraging online platforms to offer classes they cannot do so in house. Some districts are utilizing online college classes for advanced students. Many homeschooled children are using online classes to access material. In general, however, these classes are simply a different setting for the same education rather than a different arrangement of education for students.

Early on in their book they describe the purposes of education.

Purpose for education	details
Preserve democracy and inculcate democratic values	Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, and Horace Mann Basic universal education to prepare citizens to participate in democracy and instill morals Melting pot for children from different backgrounds to teach social norms and American culture Elite education for the meritorious and upper class to lead the country wisely as elected officials
Prepare everyone for vocations	Late 1800’s emerges: 1905 1/3 children made it to high school; 1930 75% went to high school; 1960 69% graduate from high school Continue to prepare for democracy Wide offerings to suit a wide variety of interests and skills Add social services (school lunches, medical care), recreational activities and extracurricular activities “Complex and expensive as they offer a historically unmatched array of offerings” (p. 57)
Keep America competitive	Sputnik; growth of Japanese companies Standardized test use rises- look at improvement in average test scores Students have TOO many choices and are not completing the important classes
Eliminate poverty	Johnson’s Great Society; Head Start; NCLB Every child in every demographic must improve so that proficiency will lead to an elimination of poverty Even more standardized testing to promote growth
Fun and socialization	What children and adolescents want out of schools

The first three fully embrace the idea that society expected access to education. When it came to eliminating poverty, however, the goal became ensuring achievement. While they mention the student motivation throughout the book, they fail to include it as a purpose. This perhaps is the biggest reason why many students are not seeing different education. Although the sage on the stage teaching style is slowly eroding and still present, we have entered more of an upside-down clown stage where teachers are expected to engage students with entertainment so that kids have fun. Unfortunately, the fun and socializing bit is often at odds with other purposes of education. In fact the authors point out that "students languish unmotivated... [because] education is not a job they are trying to do" (p. 169). In spite of this acknowledgement, they argue that personalized instruction can solve this problem.

Over the pandemic many students checked out of learning. Millions did not have reliable internet access with a device other than a phone. They might log in, turn the camera off and wander off. Many checked out completely. Estimates vary, but perhaps 3 million students are unaccounted for (out of a roughly 77 million in total). Students grasped their idea of what education should be and flew with it- using their phones more than ever. Seeking learning or play pods. While parents did their best, competing interests, like jobs and health concerns, allowed supervision of children to decline. 

Instead of leveraging the opportunity for flipped classes, an idea that originated in 2007 by Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams, teachers often doubled down on strategies they knew- presentations, readings and videos followed by worksheets, aka Google forms. In some districts personalized programs like iReady and IXL were used to reinforce learning, but to truly leverage these programs, expensive subscriptions needed to be obtained. Many personalized platforms require huge teacher investments in selecting modules for students, providing corrective instruction and recording results. Personalized has most often meant that the teacher is designing pathways for each student or group- a very labor intensive activity.

The authors point out that "companies typically improve their products at a much faster pace than customers need, so that products, which at one point were not good enough, ultimately pack in more features and functions than customers can use" (p. 45). So many platforms are slowly starting to overcome some of these shortcomings, but certainly not at a rate that was able to leverage the disruption of the pandemic.

Do I believe that personalized education is the future? Sort of. We need to first overcome the ennui of students toward education. Project based learning will not encourage students who would rather be watching cat videos or playing online games. Constant communication with friends through texting is hard competition. Students in America are competing in a global marketplace where being the best enables you to have indoor plumbing. People in other nations are hungrier. That makes for tough competition. Is allowing students to have more choice in instruction important- yes- but the choice cannot be study English or text with friends. Is allowing students to adjust the pace of their instruction important? Yes, but what do we do with kids who finish a year's worth of instruction in 3 months or with kids who need 3 years to master the material? These questions have bogged the contracts of the 70's and mastery learning of the 90's. Without reenivisioning education, many of the authors' concepts are dandelion fluff- cozy to look at, reemerging with different names over time but amounting to little. Until we get over the graduation rate is students spending 4 years in high school and learning to read should take three years our education cannot leverage individualized learning. 

Inclusive Learning 365

 The Pandemic and remote learning have accelerated the release of tech books about education issues. While assistive technology has always been at the forefront of edtech, it's importance seemed consumed by the need for all the students to access learning opportunities. Inclusive Learning 365: Edtech Strategies for Every Day of the Year, by Christopher Bugaj, Karen Janowski, Mike Marotta and Beth Poss addresses meeting the needs of students with disabilities through tech. They also stretch their ideas to show how they can be useful for all students. The book presents each idea as a separate page with an overview, inclusive uses, sample tools, extension ideas, related resources (links to videos and other resources around implementing the idea and standards for students. It is written in a highly readable format. Some ideas are repetitive, I'm not sure how often hashtags are mentioned. Some are old standbys, like audiobooks. Others are insights to extensions from Google or Microsoft that enable a particular feature. 

Reading this book through made clear to me how confusing this could be for students. Last year it became clear how confusing the multiple platforms we were exposing kids to could be. Yes, some of our darlings latched on to anything tech and ran with it.  Many of my students, however, struggled to learn and manage the platforms, needing far more support to utilize the new things that teachers came up with. It made me think of a presentation by a superintendent about the approach they took to working on developing vocabulary for our school, an area identified as a weakness across the board. They taught four strategies across the entire district and then expected the teachers to use those strategies and no others. Because they were taught across the board, once they were taught, students had the tools and teaching related to how to use them was reduced. Focusing on strategies meant that teachers really need to focus their vocabulary development and become aware of the number of words they expected students to learn for each class. While adaptive technology might be novel tools for individual students, coming up with a limited cadre of universal ones seems appropriate. 

I like the idea of being exposed to new skills on a slow rolling basis. Reading the book straight through had me dogearing a couple of pages to refer back to. Even a strategy a day, is probably more than most can incorporate into their schema. That said, having read through the book, I have an idea of where to go when I am trying to figure out how to do something more efficiently. An interesting resource, we'll see how practical some of the ideas are...

Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick

 I've been distracted, so it's taken awhile. Actually I suspect that school has me worn and when I come home I do not want to engage in deep thought or deep reading. I just finished Elizabeth A. Sautter's book Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick! Second Edition. This book is designed as a collection of easily usable strategies for people to use with children from, let's say, preschool through elementary school. As the subtitle suggests it provides "practical activities to help your child manage emotions, navigate social situations & reduce anxiety." Clearly the book targets young people on the spectrum or with social processing concerns.

The book has three parts:

-Introduction which contains a rationale and overview of the text
-Activities which lists hundreds of ideas for meeting the goal of the text
-Appendix which contains reproduceable reproducibles and examples of how to implement some of the ideas. 

After reading the introduction, you can pick and choose where to go from there. Identify an area of concern and look in that section. 

The activity section is a tremendous resource. First it is divided into places/times for each activity. For example, the holiday/special event group includes ideas for Thanksgiving, birthday parties and vacations. Ms. Sautter provides 3-5 idea on a page of ways to help teach your child a skill or manage a situation such as waiting in line and flexible thinking. The ideas are sourced from both Sautter's work and that of some big names in the field such as Sarah Ward, Michelle Garcia Winner, and Rick Lavoie. The format of these pages has each idea in a box. You might copy a page, post it on your refrigerator and use it to remind you to look for times to utilize the idea. On many of the the activity pages are comments about the hidden rules of social situations. These are overarching ideas children may need to be explicitly taught in order to successfully function in society.

An easy to use resource for anyone working with students in this age group. Definitely a good one to have on the shelf.

Inclusive schools in action

 It was on the sale pile and I bought it hoping it would be more strategies to use in consulting teaching. That said, James McLeskey and Nancy L. Waldron's book, Inclusive Schools in Action: Making Differences Ordinary was an easy and interesting read. When I started teaching some three decades ago, inclusion was just starting to appear in my area. People were trying it out to see how to make it work. Now, it is ubiquitous. Every program is mostly inclusive. This text focuses mostly on beginning the implementation of consultant teaching. It discusses the need for staff buy-in and the need to change how we teach. While I believe that my area has embraced the concept, the idea that we then need to change how we teach is still an unmet ideal in many places. People need co-planning time and a willingness to give up control that is just not the norm everywhere. Further, when one special ed teacher works with multiple teacher, co-planning and adjusting prior to instruction is very challenging to impossible.  

The key that the book mentions early on is that inclusive teaching is "improving general education classrooms so that teachers are better equipped to meet the need of all students" (p. 16). We can talk about differentiating instruction and expectations, but all too often that means you have the audiobook version of the text and extended time, that kids rarely use, on test. We have not changed the concept of how we teach.

The chapter on addressing student academic needs was well written. They look at the planning side with a triangle of expectations. 

This creates a plan where it is acknowledged that not all students will or should walk away with the same understanding. I once had a biology teacher who was an expert at this. She knew exactly what the kids needed to know for the end of year gateway test. That is what she focused our CT class on. She presented more than that, but the whole class instruction was centered on the must knows. She was not as strong at then meeting the needs of the most capable students. Trying to meet the needs of all is challenging, but if you can see the spectrum you have it easier.

The author does include a chart copied from Deschenes, and Sprague's 1994 book, Adapting Curriculum & Instruction in Inclusive Classrooms: A Teacher's Desk Reference. It offers many ways to adapt materials to meet the needs of diverse learners. Many of the suggestions are very basic, such as pairing visual and verbal instruction and audiobooks. This is what has led to the inclusive classroom being a place for students to succeed with little changes. Students who need more continue to have their needs addressed in a separate setting. This could be a resource room or special class. While I find a great deal of value in a resource room that can pre-teach, reteach and review material, I find too many of them, especially at the secondary level, are about getting homework and class assignments done, not addressing concepts at all.

A book with some good ideas, but not necessarily addressing the challenges of the school that has gotten over the initial implementation phase of consulting teaching.

The Classroom of Choice

 Jonathan C. Erwin's The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What you Want is a treasure chest of ideas for building choices into a classroom in order to develop social relationships and accountability. One link he makes in the chapter on freedom is that with rights come responsibility. Often students think that being an adult is going to be awesome because you get to do whatever you want. The truth is that yes adults get lots of opportunity to make decisions, but each decision comes with consequences that need to be addressed. He urges schools to step up and make this a reality for students so that as they go out into the world, they are ready to be responsible citizens.

He discusses the requirement for learning of meeting basic needs which he defines as survival (food, shelter, physical comfort and safety), love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. When a classroom is built to ensure that these needs are met, behavior and learning both increase. The class becomes a place where students want to be rather than a place where they are forced to be. For students who have been chronically disengaged or abused, achieving this goal is hard. Establishing routines and consistency is important and surprises minimized. That being said, Erwin acknowledges that novelty has a place in intriguing the mind. There does, however, need to be adequate structure with that novelty. 

The chapter on creating the environment had several points that struck me. He argues that students need to have a voice in the classroom. This can be established through class created rules/constitutions, needs circles to address how to meet student needs, student-generated curriculum, student recognition, specific feedback, celebrations, and recognition. A focus here is on responsible behavior. He states that "responsible behavior is that which enables us to meet our needs without making it more difficult for others to meet their needs" (105) . The whole you rights end where mine begin idea. This would mesh nicely with discussions about the bill of rights. Personalized learning fits nicely in this framework where voice and choice are key features.

Power is another key element he talks about. One way students get power is by having help to achieving competent or better quality work. When students have success, it generates other success. Here he talks about the difference between educating and schooling. Education is "using knowledge and gaining skills that can improve the quality of our lives" whereas schooling is "acquiring skills and memorizing knowledge they will rarely use outside of school" (119). So often students ask when are they ever going to use this. If we can provide concrete examples to students, they are more hooked. This means reading for meaning is so important because that is something that must be done regardless of occupation as opposed to trigonometric proofs which do provide practice in logical reasoning, if taught well, but students often fail to appreciate it. Some of the social studies programs have moved to be more around reading like a historian, that repeat these facts/dates.

The true power of the book lies in its strategies. each chapter is loaded with activities, games and structures that you can use today to enhance your classroom. A great read.

Building Thinking classrooms in mathematics

 For the first time since my children were born, I agreed to teach summer school this year. It was not a true summer school program, just a three week program designed to provide extra support for students who struggled during the school year. The vast majority of the students had IEP's and there was no assigned special ed teacher or aide support. I was assigned an ELA class, but the math teacher for 8th grade expressed a desire for more support and I agreed to help her as well. She was participating a book study of Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics Grades K-12 and wanted to try some of his ideas. Consequently, I bought the book, read it and prepared to jump in trying his approach.

The first three things he recommends working with are giving thinking tasks, forming visibly random groups and using vertical, nonpermanent surfaces. Some might say they always use thinking tasks, but all too often that is not true. Just jumping in with thinking tasks in math tends to flop, so he recommends starting with three days of non-curricular tasks. Since we had a total of 12 sessions over three weeks with students not all attending for the entire time, spending one quarter of the time this way, seemed potentially problematic. The plan became: start each day with a noncurricular task and then use thinking tasks later in the same day that were curricular. We also ended with thinking tasks. 

Tasks like how many sevens are there if you write the first 100 numbers, do not require complex math, but do ask students to use critical thinking to explore an idea. Our students were randomly assigned to groups of two or three and a whiteboard or chalkboard space to solve the puzzle. They were required to all be able to explain how they arrived at their answer so that accountability was built in. Students who had spent the school year dodging work and feeling math stupid all had to stand up and work in their groups. Surprisingly, no one dodged work. They all participated and slowly they built some confidence in their ability to do hard math things. No, we did not create a group of master problem solvers, but we did increase their feelings about their personal abilities. One caveat, we had a student from a self contained class and one who spent the year with 1:1 aide support. These students needed extra support to stay on task and participate. They needed prompting to use their calculators to get answers to arithmetic problems. Their peers were not enough to keep them engaged and an aide was secured to help them be successful.

Working at the boards helped students stay engaged, Nearly the entire group had ADHD. Being able to stand and move a bit, met their needs and helped to keep them participating. Being in groups of 2 or 3, meant they could not rely on their group to do all the work for them. Being asked to explain what was done, meant they had to pay attention and verbalize success solutions. With two teachers in the room, we were able to monitor the groups, offer hints as needed and  provide encouragement to continue. I can see where a co-taught class or a large class might make this much more challenging. While some preferred to work with particular people, they good-naturedly  participated in their assigned group. (Using self-selected groups with the same students during ELA showed preferential relationships, but the groups were not consistently productive like they were in math.)

Students liked working on the boards. The vertical surfaces meant that a teacher in the middle of the room could monitor progress, provide help as needed and distribute new tasks as the old ones were accomplished. Curricular task progressions were an important component of the middle of the lesson. We asked students to find slope using a graph where they had to identify points and use rise over run. They practiced with positive slopes, negative ones and a few grappled with slopes of 0. Questioning each group when they arrived at a solution ensured proper notation of work and understanding before a more challenging task was assigned. 

This approach worked for our struggling math students. I would love the opportunity to try it out more with students. I really liked the potential to build math confidence, persistence and problem solving even for our neediest students.

The book is an easy read. He recommends practicing with his steps in a three step sequence. We only practiced the first step. Looking forward to trying this with different groups.