Finding Purpose: "Talk Less, Smile More"

By: Rachel Vissing

Last week I had the opportunity to see the musical Hamilton.  Though many would say I was late to the party, I had listened to the music many times prior.  Listening to the soundtrack, however, was not as powerful as putting the music with the context on stage.  I left with my brain running for many reasons, but for this blog post, I'm am going to focus on one important line:

Talk Less, Smile More

Let's see...where have I seen this before?  Oh yes!  My wise mentor, Linda Ashida, has been sharing a similar message for years, complete with a post-it note by her desk (which is still up despite her retiring at the end of last school year).  

Whether the line is from Aaron Burr telling Alexander Hamilton to keep his opinions to himself or Linda's philosophy of learning from listening to others, I find that I struggle with this.  Therefore, I'm challenging myself to button my lips and to observe and listen more.

With My Students

In the classroom, I have started asking myself "Do I need to be talking now?"  I am questioning whether or not students need specific information or whether they can pull it from prior knowledge or work with peers to obtain this information.  For instance, instead of giving notes on the key terminology in mathematical translations like I have done in previous years, my students brainstormed on the whiteboard wall all of the terms that are associated with the math symbols +, -, >, =, etc.  Instead of correcting or adding words that were missed, we worked together throughout various translations and made adjustments to the board throughout the week's lessons based on our findings.  

The experience was surreal.  Many students thrived, and I saw their confidence soar!  Other students struggled a great deal and questioned me, "Why aren't you telling us what to do?  I need notes in order to learn."  It was hard for me to stand my ground with these students and not cave to provide them what they were asking, but by the end of the week these students trusted in the process and found more confidence in their abilities.  When I noticed that most groups were struggling with a concept, I had another group go to the board and explain their thought process.  It was really eye opening for me to step back and allow the students to teach one another, and I plan to continue to facilitate these types of processes as much as I can.

With My Peers

I get very excited talking and collaborating with others about education, lesson ideas, and new methods of facilitating learning in the classroom.  Often times when I am talking with a peer, I find myself interjecting suggestions that I have observed in other classrooms or those that I have tried with my students because I get very excited to bounce ideas around.  I have realized that I sometimes cut off the other person's thinking or impose my own beliefs on them instead of allowing my peers to find what works best for them and their students.  I'm challenging myself to go back to my mentality as a student teacher: I am a sponge.  This was my philosophy of listening, absorbing, and processing all of the ideas around me and then figuring out what works best for my situation.  This is especially important in my role as instructional coach, to provide my peers with the tools to set goals, brainstorm lesson ideas, and self-reflect purposefully.  

So as I am adapting this phase as my new mantra, you can listen here to have a positive song stuck in your head the rest of the day!  Maybe it will influence you as well!

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Pre-Calculus - Part 2 Defining Learning

By Dave Dompke, Kesha Patel, Alyssa Cobb, and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for.

In this second visit, I asked the teacher and the student two questions: how do they define learning? Under what conditions do people learn best?  In an attempt to have all stakeholders have a similar definition of learning, the teacher and the students answered them, publish them, and then have conversations surrounding their beliefs on learning. This is what they came up with:

Learning is:

• lifelong.

• not memorizing.

• not random facts.

Learning occurs best when people are:

• experiencing.

• excited.

• wanting to learn.

How do you define learning?  

Dave Dompke (Teacher):  Learning is gaining knowledge through experiences.  Those experiences can be with teachers, friends, or by themselves.  It doesn’t have to be in a classroom setting.  Learning is not some quick fact that can repeat to you, but something that will stay with them longer than a day.

Kesha Patel (Student): I define learning as exploring new topics and gaining an understanding for them. It’s not really learning if you’re just memorizing a formula and using for problems that are written differently but based on the same idea. It’s more understanding why a formula works the way it does and being able to apply it to a problem that barely has anything to do with what I already learned. I think that’s when I can say I truly learned the concept.

Alyssa Cobb (Student): I define learning as acquiring new information whether school related, life/career related or simply a random fact. It can be something completely new or taking old information to better master it.

How do you believe people learn best? 

Dave Dompke (Teacher):  I believe people learn best when they experience it through activities they enjoy.  When they come across new ideas or concepts and are learning new things, they are excited to learn about it.  They want to know more.

Kesha Patel (Student): I think people learn best when they’re understanding what they’re learning. I feel like with all the math formulas I generally just memorize them and I don’t get how it was created and why it works every time. If I get why something works the way it does, I can work out problems with needing to memorize a formula.

Alyssa Cobb (Student): I believe people learn best when they get to pick the environment they’re expected to learn something. If you’re distracted or not able to focus and you’re not the one choosing how you’re learning or studying it really isn’t your fault if you’re not able to understand the concept, but with that, the learner has to be mature enough to pick a good place to learn. Also, a person with a mindset of wanting to learn will generally learn better than those who don’t have that same mindset. If you’re focused and willing you will be able to learn overtime time whether that’s quickly or a longer period of time.

What's Your Zone?

By: Sara Derdiger

Imagine this: You had a big fight with a family member, significant other, or friend yesterday. You then, in your anger and frustration, fail to set your alarm and didn’t wake up on time this morning. You’re late. You’re angry. You’re probably also tired and even hungry because you had to rush this morning and didn’t wake up fully before bolting out the door without having breakfast. You get to work and a student isn’t listening...again...and you’ve just been asked to take on an additional task for the day. You’re about to explode, and the only one who knows it is you.

We’ve all been there. Part of being a person is dealing with the personal stuff, and sometimes we do this rationally, calmly, and maturely. Other times all of our coping skills vanish in a plume of smoke from the fire that is coming out of our ears Looney-Toons style. Imagine, though, being a teenager who is still learning coping strategies, might not have anyone to talk to, and probably has way bigger problems than those featured in my example above. That teenager walks into our school or classroom and before we know it, a power struggle ensues or a fight occurs. What if we could find out that our student is “in the red” before that interaction even occurs?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I watch our students interact with teachers and with each other. Last year I attended a number of PD sessions on Zones of Regulation, but I struggled with applying the Zones to high school students until now. What Zones do, as far as I’ve been able to decipher, is give students the language to talk about their feelings without having to spill all the details, and then teach them strategies to help cope with those feelings and re-regulate. It’s broken down into only four categories (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green) and each category is associated with certain moods, feelings, or situations, as well as levels of self control, none of which is “bad” or “good,” but rather just where a student is in that moment.

What I’ve seen in our classes is that students often don’t have the skills, language, comfort, or awareness to tell an adult what “zone” they’re in, nor do they have the strategies to ask for help or to self-regulate. If they’re not regulated (in the red, yellow, or blue), then they’re not ready to learn.

I wanted to create a quick and easy way for a check-in to take place, allowing students a method to provide us with that information in order to avoid or reduce conflict in our classes. This tool had to be accessible, easy to manage, simple to use, and provide language and strategies students may not be able to come up with themselves. It needed to show a level of support, but also put some of the responsibility on the students. The simplest solution I came up with was a Google Form. Students record the date and their name, then identify their zone using the included graphic. They are then presented with a checklist of things they need that teachers can help provide and a list of things they can do to help themselves. There is also now (at the suggestions of Ray Galarza and Kristen Lesniak) a space for students to set a goal for a new zone and to tell us anything else they want us to know.

One of the reasons I love this in a Google Form format is that it is easy to view the results of the survey and collect data by class, student, or date. Students can take a few minutes at the start of class to fill it out and submit and while they are doing a bellringer, working in groups, reading, etc. the teacher can quickly scan the results in Forms or an associated Google Sheet. It also gives the students suggestions for how to be proactive in getting what they need before the teacher even looks at it. You need to go see your social worker? Ask the teacher. You need to move away from distractions? Ask the teacher or move yourself. You need to step out for a second for a breather? Go get some water. For the teachers, it lets them know any students who might be in the red and lacking self-control. It gives information about regulation strategies that the student thinks will be helpful to him or her. 

This isn’t a perfect system, nor is it a one-click-and-your-done approach. The teacher needs to buy in and craft the survey to meet the needs of his/her students. There needs to be trust that the students are being honest in completing it and that the teacher will follow through on the options given to students for self-regulation. It will take a few minutes out of your class period, but it doesn’t need to be an everyday thing.

Here’s how this looks in our class: On Mondays and Fridays our students come into the room and scan a QR code that links to the survey or they find the link in Schoology. They check in. I shoulder-tap specific students who haven’t been filling it out or who do so inconsistently. I also take care to let specific students know that I really want them to fill it out regularly because we want to know if they’re doing ok. These two strategies have worked so far in increasing participation among the students we feel need it most. Then, when students begin working, I scan over the results (I’ve found this easiest to do in the linked Google Sheet). I make a mental note of our class’ general state, as well as any students who report needing specific things or make notes about things they want us to know. Any student who is “in the red” gets a subtle 1:1 chat with me once class gets going. It can be anything from, “Hey, I saw that you said you were in the red today. If you need to get some water or go to the bathroom for a break, go ahead, ok? Let me know if you need anything else, and I’ll check in again later” to “I saw that you said you wanted to talk to someone (a counselor, social worker, or teacher) today. Who do you want to talk to? I’ll write you a pass.” The follow through here is key. It lets students know we’re not collecting meaningless data and that we actually care about what they’re putting down.

The goal is to provide language and strategies for students and to hopefully reduce conflict in class. If we can teach these skills with just a few minutes in class, then the ideal would be for them to translate to students’ interactions with others out of class as well. My hope is that students will complete the check-in on their own without prompting whenever they feel they need it, and that eventually they will use the language in it to advocate for themselves without needing a survey at all. Having the tools and skills to advocate for themselves is a big step in decreasing conflict and increasing autonomy for our students. For us, it’s another way to interact and develop positive relationships with students and to build a classroom culture of respect, communication and understanding.

We asked our students for feedback on this survey and their responses were a mixed bag of, “It hasn’t helped at all” to, “It helps me think about how I’m feeling and let the teacher know if I need help.” Their feedback led to a follow up question: How do we make it better or more useful for them? Many of them didn’t know, but we did get some ideas that we intend to implement, like asking what classes they need help in or having 1:1 conversations with students in the hall, where they might feel more comfortable talking. Everything we do is a work in progress, and this form and its uses are no different.

If you’d like to try this in your classroom, you can find a copy of the form here. Feel free to make a copy of your own, edit it to fit the needs of your students and your classroom, and give it a try.

It's Easy to Create Curriculum

By Mark Heintz

It’s easy for teachers and schools to create a curriculum.  This comment was made in a recent Modern Learners book chat on Timeless Learning.  It’s easy, really?  I’ve spent a lot of time creating curriculum and codifying objectives.  Literally, I’ve spent years creating, reflecting, and fine-tuning. It’s difficult to figure out how the learning will take place and find a logical plan for content to be explored. It was hard to create it. So, that comment made me pause. And, I know many of you would argue with that point, too.

But, if I am being honest with myself, they were right.  By creating a curriculum, teachers plan all of the learning that will take place.  We create tasks, write tests, and develop daily lesson plans ahead of time.  In doing so, we put a limit on what we teach; therefore, we put a limit on what students learn.  It gives us an out.  When a student asks why they need to learn this, we can come back with authority, “It’s part of the curriculum.”  Or, if a student is curious about a topic, we can tell them that topic will be covered later or next year or in a more specific course.  We essentially take most of the thinking and student voice out of the learning. A curriculum that is planned out asks kids to be compliant instead of curious.  In the end, that’s easy.

So, what’s an alternative? 

We come up with questions that will lead to inquiry. We create conditions to tap into what they are curious about and show them how the content is present in what they already want to learn.  We push their thinking through different lines of questioning and give them resources that will challenge them. We get them to research.  We force them to make their thinking visible. We ask them to collaborate with others and share their learning.  We get them to reflect on what they learned, how they learned, and what they should do next.

I know what you’re thinking. What about standardized tests? Who are these magical kids that are self-directed?  Students who are learning for themselves will read, write, explore, and think more than those who are forced into learning. If they do the four things, they will excel on standardized exams because they will be learning for themselves. As for the magical kids, all students are curious.  They might not be curious about what we are teaching, but they are curious because all people are curious.  So, the “magical kids” are all kids. The barrier is the learning conditions. If you allow kids to learn the way they learn best, they will.

What does that mean for your class?

Start with a question. One that is open-ended and allows for multiple paths and potential answers. I quit concerning myself with the summative assessment and how it will go in the grade book.   Quit concerning yourself with summative assessments and how it will go in the grade book.  Let students learn. Let them debate the question and come up with the way to present their new understandings.  Let the assessment be created by the students, monitored by the students, and for the students to make sense of the questions they asked and the content they explored.  It’s hard to let go and be that free. But, try it for a few days, reflect on it, then try it again.

It’s not our fault.  We have been trained to do this.  I’m not throwing anyone under the bus.  Teacher training, our own experiences, and professional development are largely geared towards the traditional model of school.  Even American culture wants more accountability in schools, which would continue to favor the traditional model.

The American values put pressure of what the traditional, rigorous classroom looks like.  Imagine a guardian of a student walking into two different classrooms.  One where students have a book out, filling in a packet, taking diligent notes with a clear content objective to cover a particular topic by the end of the period. Or another, where students are talking about individual projects and are at all different places with the teacher bouncing around the room to engage with as many of the students as possible.  We have to overcome the historical legacy of the traditional classroom and the easier metrics of learning. It’s easier to collect learning data on students for content acquisition, rather than the more difficult task of collecting data on engagement, questioning, writing, reading, and critical thinking.

Now I get why they said it was easy.

It’s easier to create the final assessment that allows you to ignore the students’ interests along the way.  It gives you an out and a reason to shut down the things kids want to explore when they want because it’s not in the curriculum. It becomes the students’ fault for not learning the things you wanted them to learn at the pace you predicted they would learn. You told the students explicitly what you wanted them to know and some still couldn’t get it.  Furthermore, a teacher can be blamed for not having the right curriculum. If only the teacher would find the elusive right book, right scope and sequence, or the right material, they could be better.  Finally, a school can be blamed that their kids are not being as successful as others.  They can be fixed by having someone with THE MAGIC CURRICULUM that is PROVEN to work.

In the end, that’s a lot easier than learning together with your students, tapping into what they are interested in, being flexible in the learning environment that allows for choice and agency.  That is an art.  It takes immense skill to give the freedom to learn in a classroom.  There isn’t a silver bullet.  It takes a lifetime to continually work at because each year new kids with different interests and ideas come into your learning network.  That. Is. Hard.


A huge thank you to Kim Miklusak for editing this post and her constant willingness to debate me on pretty much everything.  

Book Chat: Fostering Resilient Learners (Part I: Trauma)

In case you missed our book chat this morning, feel free to read through the notes below!

How does trauma manifest itself in the brain?   

How is this shown in our students’ behavior in the classroom?

Introduction Video:  Hand Model of the Brain

• Nearly 35 million U.S. children have experienced at least one type of childhood trauma. (National Survey of Children’s Health, 2011/2012)

• One study of young children ages 2-5 found that 52% had experiences a severe stressor in their lifetime. (Egger & Angold, 2006)

• A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds. (ChildHelp, 2013)

• In 2010, suicide was the second leading cause of death among children ages 12-17. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011)

Correlation Between Number of ACEs and Struggles with School and Health

	Attendance	Behavior	Coursework	Health
3+ ACEs	4.9	6.1	2.9	3.9
2 ACEs	2.6	4.3	2.5	2.4
1 ACE	2.2	2.4	1.5	2.3
No known ACEs	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0

The more ACEs a student experience, the more likely he or she was to experience serious school and health issues.

• 45% of students had at least one ACE
• 22% of students had multiple ACEs
• 1 in 16 students had an ACE score of 4+

What Fight, Flight, or Freeze Looks Like in the Classroom

Flight	Fight	Freeze
Withdrawing Fleeing the classroom Skipping class Daydreaming Seeming to sleep Avoiding others Hiding or wandering Becoming disengaged	Acting out Behaving aggressively Acting silly Exhibiting defiance Being hyperactive Arguing Screaming/yelling Drugs/Alcohol	Exhibiting numbness Refusing to answer Refusing to get needs met Giving a blank look Feeling unable to move or act

Upstairs Brain vs. Downstairs Brain

Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristen Souers with Pete Hall

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Dual Credit College Composition Part 2

By Emily Mikuzis, Madison Reed, Jake Mizialko, Alexandra Glinski, and Mark Heintz


This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 


In this second visit to Emily Mikuzis's class, Emily and her students reflected to see if what they had hoped for in my first visit came true.  We are attempting to build a reflective culture, where teachers and students come together to create the school they hope for.  The teacher and student are honest and collaborative.  We are fostering a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality.

Emily Mikuzis 

What do you hope to do for the next time?

Through the comparison of three engaging texts with very different structures and purposes, I hope to give students options for attacking their first writing assignment, Narrative as Argument. My hope is that students will begin to build confidence to make their own stylistic and structural choices in writing assignments. I hope to, throughout the semester, continue to create opportunities for students to work together to build understanding and hopefully begin to develop their own writer's voice through greater investment in our writing tasks.

What aspects of your hopes came true? This is a work in progress, but I think we are getting there. In each unit, I am trying to scaffold experiences that will allow students to dig into the real work of writing - the ruminating, the thinking, and the connecting that happen away from the computer. In each unit, we are working through choices, rather than prescribing them. Currently, we are working on evidence awareness to determine which kinds of support work best for which kinds of claims. As we build our argumentative essays, students are challenged to argue (almost) any claim. I want them to have a real investment in getting a reader to accept their claim and in choosing the evidence that is most effective, compelling, and convincing.

Madison Reed

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

I hope to learn more about the other types of writings that are out there. Writing is one of my favorite things to do in school. I love the freedom of ideas and creativity it allows us as students to have most times. Also, I hope to learn how to better my writing abilities. So far in my senior year here at EGHS, College Composition has been one of my favorite classes and generally my favorite English class I've taken.

What aspects of your hopes came true? 

My hopes completely came true. We are on our third writing style/essay now and I have definitely learned more about the writing styles we have covered. I have also learned some tips and strategies to really rock writing in such styles.



Jake Mizialko

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

For the next lesson, I hope to learn how you can you words, phrases, and sentences to help you learn more about the message that the author was trying to get across to his readers. I hope that students will be able to branch off of those three things and be able to incorporate it into their own writing. By practicing this task, this will allow students to strengthen their writing abilities and easily identify key parts to a story.

What aspects of your hopes came true? 

Students were able to use what they wrote in the planner in order to make a strong argument when the class was split.

Alexandra Glinski

What do you hope to learn for the next time? 

In the next lesson, I would hope to find a style of writing/narrative the best suits me. Trying and testing different essay structures will be a big part of finding out what I like. I want to be able to write an effective essay that not only has a good narrative but also gets my argument across. Hopefully, in our next few writing assignments, my best style of writing will become more clear to me.


What aspects of your hopes came true? 

Since we have been able to pick out topics for this next essay, I think it will be easy to experiment and find what really is the best style of writing for me and many others.

A Year in Learning at Elk Grove: Dual Credit College Composition Part 2 - Defining Learning

By Emily Mikuzis, Madison Reed, Jake Mizialko, Alexandra Glinski, and Mark Heintz

This is part of a blog series intended to document and define learning at Elk Grove High School throughout the 2018-2019 school year in order to increase student learning, give professionals autonomy, increase trust in our learning community, and foster a sense of personal-intellectual collegiality within the building across departments. You can read all of the previous posts here.  I am going into each teacher's class four times and then they are reflecting alongside their students on the learning that took place and what they hope for. 

In this second visit, I asked the teacher and the student two questions: how do they define learning? Under what conditions do people learn best?  In an attempt to have all stakeholders have a similar definition of learning, the teacher and the students answered them, publish them, and then have conversations surrounding their beliefs on learning. This is what they came up with:

Learning is:

• for everyone.

• transferable.

• thinking deeply.

• growing.

Learning occurs best when people are:

• invested.

• around others that want to learn. 

• comfortable.

 

How do you define learning? 

Emily Mikuzis (Teacher):  Learning has happened when new information or skill is transferable. For example, in my own writing instruction, I have often focused on practicing the skills needed to perform a particular writing task. In the past, I might have given students an outline or sentence stems or templates for embedding quotes. I have noticed that these supports can help students succeed on a product, but do not support the transfer of skills. When I instructed this way, students were in danger of becoming overly reliant on prescriptive assignments. They may ask things like how many paragraphs do I need? How many citations are required?  By reflecting on rhetorical choices along the way, thinking deeply about purpose and audience, my hope is that students are better prepared to make these choices about writing in writing situations across disciplines.

Madison Reed (Student): I believe that learning could be a few things on a few different levels. Learning is discovering or being taught a new topic or thing. Learning is also finding out more about something you may have already known or learned everything about something.  Learning defines so many different things. Learning could be gaining knowledge of something physical, or just an idea. Learning can also be positive or negative. Learning involves the future, present, and past. It involves everything on the planet. It’s amazing all the different things that are learnable. And, the best thing is that it’s for everyone. Learning is power.

Jake Mizialko (Student): I define learning as anyone, doesn't matter the age, that gains a better understanding of a certain subject. These subjects can be actual school subjects, lessons about how to improve your job, or even social skills. Learning occurs on an everyday basis multiple times a day and is the biggest factor in personal growth. Learning can be seen in all different aspects of life and it will benefit you greatly if you learn something new every day.

Alexandra Glinski (Student): I would define learning as acquiring knowledge about certain things that you experience. This could range from your everyday things to the curriculum that you learn at school. Everyone learns and processes new information from the second that they're born and continue to learn for the rest of their lives. Learning involves expanding the mind and adding additional information and strengthening what the mind already has. One of the most important things that come with learning is allowing yourself to not only explained your knowledge but actually grow as a person too. How do you believe people learn best?

How do you believe people learn best?

Emily Mikuzis (Teacher):  I believe people learn best when they have invested in the process and the outcome. Students learn best when they know exactly what they are supposed to do and how doing that will help them. If the usefulness of the targets are in question, even if those targets are clear, it can be difficult for students to be invested enough to truly learn.

Madison Reed (Student): I think that everyone learns in different ways. For example, some people are more visual learners, while some are physical or verbal, etc. as well as people’s learning styles that way, everyone also learns best in different environments. For example, some people learn best one on one and some people learn best being with other students. Personally, I do not think that there is the best way to learn.

Jake Mizialko (Student):  I believe that people learn best when they are surrounded by the environment that will be the most beneficial to them. If everyone around you wants to learn and improve on a topic that will subconsciously drive you to do the same. Motivation and determination are two key factors when someone is deciding how much of a certain subject they want to learn and how much of that they will use later in life.

Alexandra Glinski (Student): I believe people learn best when they're in an environment they're most comfortable in. I think this plays a huge role in learning because being at ease and somewhere where you aren't under stress can completely change your mindset and how you perceive everything that you're taking in.