Think Like a Teacher

I posted about flipping the way we, as teachers, focus our thinking through our subdivided subjects and need to consider a more connected view of learning for our students’ sake. I admit that Swap Week may be a pipe dream,  but I thought of a couple more possibilities to connect our own teaching expertise with what is happening down the locker-lined hall and out there in the real world where people never think in “subjects.”

Just ask. In an elementary classroom where kids are more likely to have the same teacher for social studies that they have for math, it could be fairly easy. But how often do we stop and ask,” What could you say about the explorers we just read about that might fit in our math class?” Silence. “Is there anything we learned in math recently that the explorers might have used?”  “Yeah… adding up the miles.” Bingo. When the concepts are relatively simple, the connections are simpler. Just ask.

A middle school teacher may not know what kids are studying in other subjects. Just ask. Now that kids are accustomed to points for grades, offer extra credit for any connection they can explain between what you are discussing in class and something else they learned in another class. If a student can explain a connection out loud, 5 points. If he/she writes about it, 10 points. Who knows who will learn more: the students or the teacher.  We know time is sacred, so once the kids get in the habit of sharing their own connections, make a Connections graffiti wall so you don’t always have to stop class. Add a connections section to your class wiki. 5 points, 10 points… isn’t it worth it to reward student-made flips? Just ask.

In high school, it gets trickier. The concepts seem so distant. How can we possibly connect Hamlet and oxidation/reduction reactions? Analogies. If a student can explain her idea using an analogy from another subject, 10 points. If he can make you, the English teacher, understand the concept from chemistry class to you via Hamlet, 15 points! At the end of every test, just ask: What character (concept/function/process) from this unit connects in your mind to something you  recently learned in another class? Explain.

The greatest challenge: the faculty room. It might take a happy hour at the local pub to start this, but just ask. What connection to my subject can you find in your subject? An adult beverage bonus for the best suggestion from the group. Just ask. You might even learn from that science (or art or math) teacher. Imagine that.

Maybe we should be trying a different kind of “flipped” learning.

My excitement over an beautiful art-and-science web resource that TeachersFirst  just reviewed makes me smile — and wrinkle my forehead. We so readily accept the fact that teachers of different subjects have trouble seeing the world through any other lens but their own. The greater the subject matter expertise (e.g. high school  vs. middle or elementary), the more focused good teachers are on their own subject — to the exclusion of all else.

While passion is great, the slicing of experience and knowledge into academic disciplines is a real disservice to our students. As teachers, we need to try out other lenses and allow our students to do the same. If you have ever had your eyes checked for glasses, you have looked  at an eye chart through a funny machine (called a phoropter) while a technician or doctor flips the lenses and asks, “Which is better, A or B?…C or D?…” We need to flip our lenses.

One idea for flipping would be a one week job swap. (I have always wanted to try this.) For one week, maybe during
the doldrums of winter, let teachers trade places. A math teacher could trade with the English teacher. The physics and music teachers could reverse places. The eighth grade history teacher could trade with biology.

Of course we would have to leave lesson plans for our swap-teacher, but also leave him/her some flexibility. A math teacher, accustomed to looking at numbers and patterns, might see patterns in English class: average number of words per sentence of Hemingway vs. Dickens, the proportion of adjectives that a student uses in his writing. The history teacher might notice that the way cells work is not unlike the way colonists did.  If we ‘notice” things out loud in front of our students, we would be connecting the disciplines instead of dividing them. Our “Wow, I never saw that before” could be a model for the kind of learning we want our students to experience. With a little flexibility in the lesson plans, the students could come out of Swap Week with more connections than usual from a week of school.

If nothing else happened during Swap Week, we would at least gain an appreciation for how our students feel in the artificially subdivided world of school. That might be better than any subject lens we might try on.

The other day I posted about the analogy of good coaching in sports to effective EdTech coaching. The new ISTE SIGETC already has some very effective coaches as members, so I am sure they will have something to say about this analogy. I toss it out and hope I don’t have to duck rotten tomatoes from anti-sports folks.

My previous post listed fan approval, wins/losses, building learnership, and noticing/nourishing individual strengths as important characteristics for the effective EdTech coach. Here are some further ingredients to add flavor and assure success:

5. A balance of team and individual. With the excitement of molding individual talents comes the responsibility to build teamwork. A strong team of tech savvy teachers is far better than individual stars. A great EdTech coach finds ways for both stars bench warmers to work as part of TEAM. ONe great thing about EdTech is that you don’t have to limit the number of players (teachers) on the field. Everyone gets full time playing time. The effective coach finds ways for all teacher sto be engaged and contributing to the schoolwide goals of Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers.

6. The ability to communicate skills beyond your own. A short basketball coach could never demonstrate a slam-dunk. An English major EdTech coach knows nothing about chemistry and does not talk in chemspeak. But a good coach can find a way to talk about the skills even if he/she cannot personally DO them.  A coach may understand a lot about manipulating data using technology, but have no recollection of the formulas a math or science teacher knows and challenges students to use in creating infographics. But if the coach can talk it through and communicate about the skill, the “players” who have the right skill set will pick it up and refine it as the coach suggests. A real advantage of NOT being able to “just do it” is that you will never be tempted to grab the mouse!

7. Inspiring the next generation of coaches. We see this in every sport: the kids who loved the sport come back to coach it, maybe as volunteers in a youth program or even as pro coaches. If they receive good coaching, they pay it forward. The best EdTech coaches inspire their teaching peers to do the same: volunteer to demonstrate at a staff meeting, sit side by side and help the tech-timid colleague work through a tech challenge, or simply volunteer for “pick up” tech sessions in the planning center. The best way to help teachers stay abreast of the pace of change in both teaching and technology is for all coaches to see next generation inspiration as priority one. We need many minds to keep this team in action.

Hope you’ll join the EdTech Coaches of #SIGETC in our chat January 15 at 1pm Eastern. We have future chats planned for March 19 and May 21. Start cooking up that secret sauce for #SIGETC!

As part of the leadership team of a new ISTE SIG (special interest group) for EdTech Coaches, I have been mulling what makes a good coach. This time of year, NFL and NCAA college football programs are tossing, grabbing, and exchanging coaches like kids with Halloween candy. The media and the fans love to chime in. As a former three-sports-a-year student, I have had experience with many coaches. As a parent, I have witnessed the strengths and weaknesses of my children’s coaches. Along the way, I formed a solid list of what I think makes a good coach. The same traits that inspire kids to swim harder, dig deeper, and learn more as athletes also work when technology integration specialists (or EdTech coaches by any other name) coach our teaching peers. The sports analogies really do make sense, even if you were never a “jock.”

Secret Sauce: Seven Must-Have Characteristics of a Good Coach

1. Fan approval. If the ultimate audience — the fans/students/parents– do not appreciate the results of what the coach does, it’s all over. They may not even notice how the coach does it, but they do notice the effects on the players/teachers. If the EdTech coach helps a teacher score lessons that fascinate, challenge, and/or hook the fans (students), the coach is brilliant. EdTech coaches are perhaps more like the next tier “coordinators” on the football sidelines, removed from the media hype given head coaches and in more direct relationship with the teachers/players. But fan approval still matters.

2.Wins and losses. Coaches are judged by the final score. Did the teacher improve student achievement? Did the coach help him/her make a touchdown, or did they have to settle for a field goal? No matter how much yardage a team gains, the management/administration wants the wins that justify the costs. It’s brutal, but it’s true. Savvy EdTech coaches know how to track results to prove that they are having an impact. If you can’t “score,” at least show that you are improving yards per carry. That will buy some time until you can help your players build confidence and skills enough to #eduwin and until management priorities begin to include more than just one score.

3. Building sportsmanship, or in this case learnership. Good athletic teams do more than score. They model the behavior we call sportsmanship: caring, ethical attitudes that transcend the playing field or classroom. As EdTech coaches, we nurture learnership by being learners ourselves. We admit when we are wrong and try to help those around us gain skills side by side with us. Fan approval can actually go up without wins if a good coach builds learnership. In athletic programs that rely less on making $$ from The Team, coaches can put learnership first. May we all be blessed to be in such a program/school!

4. Noticing and nourishing individual strengths. This is a delicate balance for any coach. Unless you are in an elite NFL program or an EdTech magnet school, you probably have some players/teachers with natural talent and some who simply have to work hard. You want to help the hard workers but also keep the high-talents moving ahead. As an EdTech coach, you may want to arrange some extra exposure to elite “camps” such as ISTE workshops or invite a teacher to submit for a conference. A good coach develops all players without making any of them jealous. And a good coach finds some strength even in the bench warmers. Those good-hearted teachers who just keep trying need every pat on the back they can get. The corollary is that a good coach notices the faces in the crowd who did not even come to tryouts. Some may hide from technology, perhaps out of fear or simply because they did not grow up in the right neighborhood where all the kids got to join in sports/technology. Result: they don’t want to embarrass themselves. Have EdTech play days or “camps” where everyone is welcome. And give out snacks. Everyone loves snacks. This is where the “everyone gets a trophy” philosophy actually fits.

I have three more, but it’s time for “practice.” I’ll share the rest of the thoughts from my playbook in a few days. To be continued….

Meanwhile, I hope you will plan to join the #SIGETC chat at 1 pm Eastern on Tuesday, January 15!