Think Like a Teacher

I recently ran across both a post and an article that made me think about how teachers act during inservice sessions. I have decided that in many cases, what you see us doing ain’t misbehavin’ even though it often looks like it.  Mark Anderson’s ICTEvangelist  blog shares a guest post from Rachel Jones on the 10 Things all teachers do – even though they might not admit it. I enjoyed reading the UK equivalents of education jargon [see translations in brackets] and laughed out loud knowingly at item 4:

4 – All teachers – all of them – exhibit signs of what would be called behaviour management issues in very long INSET [translation for US teachers] days. I have seen some teachers looking very official taking ‘notes’ with their iPads when in fact they were tinkering on Pinterest or playing Minecraft. I like the irony that you can see everyone from PGCE  [translation for US teachers] students to SLT [speech and language therapists?] exhibiting signs that some would find ‘inadequate’ yet as professionals they are listening. Teachers can multitask. Fact.

Yup. Been there, done that. Until fairly recently, I was one of those “exhibiting signs that some would find ‘inadequate.'” Usually I was guilty of doing meaningful team planning with colleagues from other buildings while listening with one ear to the latest and greatest in behavior management plans or some other paperwork wonder. Did I master the paperwork? Sure. Was I misbehaving? Yes. Did I accomplish two tasks in one inservice session? You betcha. Even worse, I doodled.

Enter the best article I have read about thinking, focus, and memory in a long time. When I look at the notebooks I have from grad school, the notes I have from VERY meaningful and useful collaboration meetings, or even phone calls with my boss (whom I respect and love working for), I see doodles. One of the things I miss when I use Evernote is doodling in the margins (maybe they’d consider that for an upcoming version?). Doodling IS thinking, sorting, and connecting thoughts. It ain’t misbehavin’ ! The Wall Street Journal says so! Research says so!

Maybe we should have an inservice on Doodling. It’s a thought.

There is a moment during July when the teaching idea valve reopens. To me it seems to be triggered by something totally innocent: the feel of cool tile on bare feet, the rush beneath the surface of the water as I push off the pool wall, the sound of a favorite song playing as I sing along in a convertible, the lightning bugs after the fireworks end. At first the valve seems a bit creaky, crying out for WD40 on the brain, but soon enough it lets ideas flow freely again.

As the school year drew to a close, the valve had pretty much seized up. Stuck. I was stuck. Even eight years after leaving the annual school year cycle and moving to a year-round, continuous job, my brain still thinks like a teacher. I talk and “live” among teachers every day, and I need the annual renewal of July. It isn’t so much taking a “vacation.” It is allowing myself to go barefoot in my brain. It is letting myself play with ideas instead of packaging them.

No amount of effort I make can force that moment to come. A fabulous experience like the ISTE conference is so manic it overwhelms. I have learned to “save up” everything I gather at ISTE like pretty shells from the beach. I know I must wait to sort them all out and organize them later… and THEN decide what to DO with them.

I note the feel of cool tile under my bare feet as I write this, and I wonder whether we ever give students a chance to notice what makes their ideas flow. Sadly, many of us don’t figure it out until we are decades beyond school age. I wonder what would happen if each if us spent just one class  period per year talking with our kids about things like the Creative Routines of accomplished writers, artists, and thinkers. What if we asked them to pay attention to what makes their ideas flow… and to ask questions like, “Do I think better barefoot?”

As the ISTE Ed Tech Coaches Network prepares for the conclave of superheroes at the Ed Tech Coaching Playground: Coaches save the day!  event at ISTE next month, I have been thinking about all the people who “save the day” for teachers and students.  May is a time to reflect back on the school year and say thanks to those who ward off evil on our behalf, supporting our students’ success. These are the unsung superheroes who selflessly strike out to fend off the evil forces of pernicious policies, traumatizing technophobia, ferocious web filters, glitch goonies, or logistical lunacy. Their capes are invisible and their superpowers oft unrecognized. Your superhero may be colleague, student, supervisor, principal, parent, best friend, custodian, tech guy, or even a complete stranger.

For most teachers — and for me– there are many superheroes who save the day:

The parent who takes care of the rest of the kids during a field trip emergency.

The colleague who volunteers to plan the team day events.

The kid who crawls under the table and finds the unplugged projector cable adapter amid the spaghetti.

The supervisor with a sense of humor about your crazy ideas.

The principal who allows you try a whole new way of teaching.

The kid who shows you how the tool works.

The stranger at ISTE who offers up a power strip for your dying device.

The other stranger at ISTE who pops out a hotspot when the wifi drops to tortoise pace.

The colleague who gives up her laptop cart days so your kids can finish their projects.

The MySciLife teacher-ambassadors who collaborate and problem solve their way through two years using a mismatched platform (another story…).

The very-much-veteran teacher who comes to a school board meeting to tell her superhero impact story, a tale of how her entire view of technology AND teaching changed because of an ed tech coach (thereby preserving the coaching program!).

The teacher who writes into the TeachersFirst webmaster account simply to wish the TeachersFirst team a Happy Mother’s Day!

The stranger in the Walmart checkout line who asks a question about the school stuff in your cart… and sparks a whole new idea in your head for Monday’s class!

We each have our superheroes. Don’t let them go unrecognized.

Photo Credit: JD Hancock via Compfight cc

The best thing about working digitally is that I can occasionally slip into playing digitally. This week the TeachersFirst servers went down for much more than a hiccup, forcing me to work on other things. I have long to-do lists, but I chose to spend 15 minutes on Twitter, feeds, and the various bookmarks strewn on my desktop. I was seeking inspiration and an excuse to digress. I turned on the Spigot to feel this confluence into my creative buckethead:

Ingredient 1: This video from Eddie Wright about 29 Ways to Stay Creative. Especially ponderable: #4: Stay Away from the Computer (Ironically, I excitedly bookmarked the entire blog to be sure to come BACK to it on the computer!)

Ingredient 2: This post from George Couros, which made me ponder whether living and working digitally “humanizes” or dehumanizes ME — and what impact it has on the creativity conversation in Ingredient 1.

 So often I reach the end of my workday exhausted and devoid of any remaining creative impulse. While that is not so bad for the people I work with or for the TeachersFirst audience, it does take a personal toll. The irony is that the same screen that has filled my eyes and sucked everything from my brain throughout the day also offers the connections and inspirations to restart the drip-drip-drip of creative juices.

I am maple sap in the spring.
At night, I drip
a constant tap-tap-tap into that bucket,
ready by morning to be hauled to the sugar shack and boiled for hours.
I am grade A amber, ready to add flavor. I am never Fancy.
I am the ever-boiling pot that needs new sap.
I am the storage space where this season’s syrup rests, ready to curl the tongue in sweet surprise
months from now.

The web exhausts, collaborates, invigorates, and I am grateful.

What role do you play when you meet with other teachers (or ed tech coaches)? Do you chime in with ideas but pray they don’t ask you to take on too much responsibility? As busy teachers, we all know that temptation. This week I had the pleasure to witness the positive power of educators to move the boulder forward — and quickly — simply by leveraging a little tech.

I am part of a dynamic duo(?)  leading a powerpack of ed tech coaching superheroes. Together we are planning a “playground” event* at ISTE 2014. About eight of us met on a conference call, preceded by an email with a link to a shared Google doc. Before the call, the doc was pretty much an empty shell. No more than 3 minutes into the call, I watched a little flag typing across the doc, adding the ideas as they began to flow from our conversation. Kim McMonagle was keeping a running record of our ideas as they flew by.  She didn’t say anything. She just did it.  We ended our call with a bunch of work DONE, not just planned-to-be-done. 

How often do you simply take up a tool to help the cause during a meeting? Imagine the power of such simple modeling in front of your teacher-colleagues, especially the hesitant ones who always say they don’t have time for tech. It isn’t hard. It’s not a big deal. You don’t even need to say anything. Just give them the link to use it when the meeting ends.

Of course, a hesitant teacher will say he/she does not know how to do Google docs or prefers to use paper or prefers to just sit and listen, but (s)he really cannot ignore the leverage of one Google doc against the boulders we teachers must move. Maybe if (s)he noticed the power of one doc without being threatened or “taught,” and the doc were perceived as useful, (s)he’d try it in the secrecy of his/her classroom.

This nearly invisible moment made me stop — and wonder that would happen if teachers took up a tool to move the boulders forward during every meeting we had (or had to attend).  No “we’ll write this up and send it out” or “we will be sending you a form,” or “will” anything. It gets done while you are there, in front of your eyes. We can all take the next steps without waiting for a report, an email, or some other “afterward.” It’s a “duh” thing that too many teachers neither notice nor initiate.

We’d probably have far fewer meetings. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

I loved Crackerjack when I was little. The caramel corn was OK, the peanuts were better, and the prizes were the best! I would beg my parents for Cracker Jack when we were out shopping, and I usually won. Years later, I  think of Cracker Jack as a good analogy for edtech today. I think of the wonderful tech snack foods we find in apps and on the web and wonder if, instead of asking teachers and kids to  “think outside the box” (an overused phrase at best), we should be looking for the unexpected prize inside each box — like Cracker Jack.

Here are some STEM or math-related Cracker Jack boxes I have explored recently — and the serendipitous surprises at the bottom of each box:

Primitives Application This one intrigues me. I look at this graphical representations of numbers, and I want to solve its secret code. Actually, I want to show it to a few kids and ask them what is going on. I don’t think I’d even tell them these were numbers initially. I’d ask them to figure out what the site is doing. They’d spot the numbers at the bottom and the changing graphics and eventually figure out that each number has a representative “graphic.” The surprise in the box? Change the settings so it jumps ahead. Predict the next graphic. Even better, create your own system of graphics for numbers. You could scribble them in crayon or get really clever with digital shapes, etc. The candy-coated popcorn is figuring it out. The prize inside the box is creating  your own. 

Brainy box Yes, I love visual toys, and this one is a BOX in itself. I can put whatever I want on the outside: YouTube videos, images, text, etc. The candy coated popcorn is being able to make a box. The prize inside is that what I put on the outside can be a mystery about what is inside. So in chemistry class, I can put hints about the mystery element  hidden inside my Brainy Box. My prize is making YOUR prize a secret that you must solve.

Cym@th This Cracker Jack box looks like a black and white boxed, generic product. Don’t be deceived. There is Cracker Jack in here for sure!  Try entering an algebraic expression and telling it to factor for you! Remember all the hours you spent trying various combinations of  (x+2) (3x-7) until you found the right combination? No more! The candy coated popcorn is a problem-solver for almost any mathematical expression.  (Uh oh! This is an instant homework cheat…) But wait! The prize? Have the kiddos make screencasts where they EXPLAIN what the tool is showing them. If they have to narrate it beyond what it is print, they’ll have to understand it. So the prize is hidden understanding accompanying the “answer” it gives. Remember, if you don’t ask for the prize, you’ll have nothing but popcorn,

Composite Number Tree If you like making popcorn balls or chains, this Cracker Jack number tool provides just the number project. See how composite numbers form a tree. I taste the caramel corn as I watch the tree “grow” to 99. Then it stops. The prize? Draw the tree of 100-999 or 1999- 2099 or any other number series you choose. Make an entire orchard of composite number trees. 

Build With Chrome  This Lego collection has infinite blocks. Enjoy the treat of tutorial building challenges as you crunch your way through the box. The prize is being able to think up a building challenge like “Design an ideal home for a giraffe.” or “Design a new bobsled run for the Olympics,” and then let kids go to it. They can even challenge each other. No messy Lego buckets, no pointy little blocks embedded in your bare feet, no COST, nothing but building fun! By the way, it works in CHROME only.

Hope you found some learning snacks that appeal to you and — especially — some prizes.

Simplify. It’s a common New Year’s Resolution. As teachers, we laugh. How can we simplify with so many requirements, so many masters, so many changes, and so little time?

How can we not?

My strategy for 2014: A handful and a bushel basket

I have a handful of go-to tools I use constantly:

• To do the simplest tasks
• In the shortest time
• To accomplish the greatest amount

Nearby, I have an electronic bushel basket to choose from when:

• There is more time
• I need a solution for a complicated challenge
• I seek to inspire

What’s in my handful? This handful is so much a part of my daily life, I do not see them as “tools” or “technology” anymore. That’s what “simplify” is all about:

Dropbox– because I can share big files and give people a direct link without fearing that Google is watching my every move. Besides, it shows up as “part” of my computer (Finder)

Google Docs/Drive – because so many people already have memberships and I LOVE being able to make color coded folders to organize things, no matter whether they are “owned” by me or not

Doodle – because I hate endless emails chains about possible meeting times

iStuff: iMessage, iTunes, Contacts, iCal and plain old Mail. Yes, my Mac is my right handful.

Evernote – because I carry it with me everywhere: iPhone, iPad, laptop. I keep everything from hotel confirmation info to saved images of what an outfit looks like to information I fear my sieve-brain will lose. And I can keep it organized in searchable notebooks. I love grabbing travel info to read later when planning a trip! I do the same with info and ideas about anything. I even keep things to help when visiting a hospitalized relative.

Hootsuite – because I have a professional Twitter account, a personal FB account, and a TeachersFirst Twitter account, among others.    I can preschedule what I want to “say”!

Grammarly – because I am unapologetically the world’s WORST typist, even though I am a very good speller. This saves a LOT of embarrassment.

Screencast-o-matic – so I can SHOW instead of TELL. (I love using this to show writers what I edit in their work.)

Plain old screenshots – as above, only in freeze-frames.

Could I live with just this handful? Probably. Will I limit myself to these in 2014? Definitely not. If I need more reach beyond the fingertips of this handful, I know where to find my trusty bushel basket. Although I rarely recall the tool names, I know I can find unlimited, good options at the TeachersFirst Edge. As chief editor of the site, every week I see the latest additions and add my own creative ideas to reviews of ones I particularly like (what a cool job!). The exact date we listed them as Featured Sites may be a blur, but I know I can search for them by keyword, Edge category, or tag, such as device agostic tool. I don’t Google it. I TF it. And every tool is already vetted (saves time).

If I were still in the classroom, I would choose a half-dozen-handful together with my class:

• a visual presentation tool
• a screencast tool like this or this
• a word processing tool (with commenting and collaborative editing)
• a multimedia tool– whatever seems appropriate to the age level
• a file sharing and storage tool
• and probably a sticky note/brainstorming tool

And if we were a BYOD school, I’d have them choose the handful from DAT (device agnostic tool) choices so kids could help each other. That’s it. Everything else waits in the bushel basket until a student or I needs more.

Simplify.

We all do it, especially in December. We rush around, telling our colleagues and our students how busy we are and how much there is to “get done” before [insert your holiday or academic deadline here]. A recent Wall Street Journal article cautions against the spread of “secondhand stress.”

Uh-oh. Guilty as charged.

In the classroom, we let our own deadlines and work requirements spill onto the kids. If the Common Core changes or the latest iteration of high stakes tests have thrown our planning process out the window, the kids feel it.  If a change of school administration or a new teacher evaluation system has us on edge, we are probably just like the boss confronted in the article, “your volume goes up, your pace of speaking goes up, and you’re not fully in the conversation.” Just as a business environment incubates a contagion of secondhand stress, so can our classrooms (and schools). The kids cannot name it or explain why, but they feel some of the same responses the article describes from secondhand stress:

(#1) Have your elementary students started to take on your mannerisms in the way they talk to other students about “getting their work done”?

(#3)Has a parent ever told you their child was “afraid” to ask questions?

(#4)Has a student ever chased you down the hall on your way to your next class or duty?

(#2 +#5) Do your students throw away their own work? Have you ever found the papers/plan book from your desk in the wastebasket (most likely in middle school)?

Though the business world Sue Shellenbarger discusses in the article is an entirely different culture from school, there are glaring similarities. The faculty room can certainly be a stress-infection zone, teeming with the stress virus. And don’t think we don’t take the virus right down the hall to the kids.

So what do we do about it (and can technology possibly help ease the burden)?

1. Make our classrooms a community of learners instead of a boss-worker environment. Start with a wiki as a class “hub” and give ALL students access to edit it. Then show them how, valuing their additions by commenting on them and encouraging them to “discuss” things you say via constructive criticism. There are LOADS of collaborative tools you can use to build on community. Link to them from that one hub so they are easy to find.

2. Try a writing prompt taken from the WSJ article: “If I were a household appliance, which one would I be?” You may discover signs of secondhand stress — and will least learn something about each student. Be sure to write along with the kids and let everyone share what they have to say. If you have a class blog, that’s perfect.

3. Include prevention of secondhand stress in the class rules your class generates at the start of school.

4. Value and make time for questioning by someone other than you. Make a question page on the class wiki for kids to enter questions as they do homework. Give extra credit to kids who ANSWER them. Handle unanswered questions (and highlight great answers) at the start of class. Who should answer? Hopefully anybody EXCEPT you. Be willing to say, ” I did not realize that was so confusing. I learned from you!” Message: Questions are not “interruptions.” They are a valued part of learning for all of us.

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” you say?  I am sure you do. Sometimes it just takes the observations of a peer (or student) to remind us that we are virulent spreaders of stress. Maybe there is a New Years resolution in here somewhere.

Wow.

I have worked face to face or side by side with at least 30,000 to 50,000 teachers in my career — at least if you count each teacher-year as “one.” That does not include the Thinking Teachers I encounter in my role as sort of  24/7 “edtech coach” via a free web service I am in charge of. Of those, I am privileged to know so many GREAT teachers, and yet every day I discover more. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t tag them in a global geocaching game for “Amazing Teacher Here- X marks the spot.” I read their blogs, I watch their students’ videos, I work together with them on an ISTE SIG, I meet them in OK2Ask online professional development sessions. I want to scream to the post-PISA media,”You guys, LOOK! These teachers are AMAZING! Did you see what that kid just did? Did you see what the teacher did to make it happen!?”

Wow.

So today I am thrilled and humbled to discover this blog among those named as finalists for the 1oth annual Edublog Awards.

Wow.

One of the real standouts among those 30-5o,ooo-teachers-I-have-known nominated me. I have thanked her by email, on Twitter, and now on this blog. I worked with her virtually for a couple of years before we actually met face to face. She is one of the teachers I point to, exclaiming, “You guys, LOOK! These teachers are AMAZING! Did you see what her bio class just did? Did you see what Louise Maine did to make it happen!?”

Thanks again, Louise.

I suggest that every teacher look at all the nominees. You, too, will say, “Wow” at the amazing things your fellow Thinking Teachers have to say and share. If, after losing yourself in the nominees,  you think this blog deserves a vote in the crowd-driven selection of “Best Individual Blog” from Edublog Awards, find Think Like a Teacher on the list here. Then follow these steps:

1. Click the up-vote arrow bottom-left of the post. A pop-up from List.ly (the voting tool) will appear.
2. Sign in to List.ly with your Twitter, LinkedIn,Facebook, or Google + account.
2*. You’ll need to provide your name and email if this is your first time using List.ly.
3. The window will disappear.
4. Click on the up-vote arrow one more time to cast your vote.

Wow.
Pass it on.

As a teacher, I am thankful for many things over the course of a rich career, some small details, some lasting legacies:

For EMPTY butterfly clips, signifying that I have no “homework”

For “teacher shoes” with extra cushiony heels to survive days-months-years-decades of standing and walking on concrete thinly clad in carpet

For donations of Kleenex

For permission to play music in my classroom

For Apple IIe, IIgs, HP, IBM, Lenovo, and MacBook Pro, my friends for decades

For www

For the parent volunteers who organize kids on field trips, at special “culminating” events, and at after school celebrations

For gift cards to the local teacher store (stickers!!!)

For the colleagues who organize the teachers’ room potluck lunches, filled with comfort foods and things none of us should eat

For the invention of microwave ovens cheap enough to have multiples in the teachers’ room

For the kids who come back as grownups

For being blessed with my own children — whose lessons make me a MUCH better teacher and a better mom. Today I read this on the blog of one of my now-adult children and cry the most grateful tears:

As the child of a public school teacher–and a gifted education teacher at that– I was raised with extreme appreciation of the importance of having the proper resources available to children to foster creative learning and independent growth. That is not to say I learned that every educational opportunity required substantial spending. Rather, I grew up realizing the impact a few generous parents or school board members could have on a classroom. Whether it was helping my mother scour the sale rack for stickers to use in her own classroom or seeing the look of gratitude on her face when thanking the moms who volunteered at the various district-wide events she organized and hosted each year, I grew to value the importance of parental participation in the classroom. And, even more importantly, I learned the importance of listening and responding to teachers’ requests.[…]

When I dropped off the new toys yesterday, his teacher was overwhelmed. So much so that she asked if she could give me a hug to say thank you. I told her it was the least I could do. And I meant it. After all– in choosing childcare, we trust a great deal to the folks who spend each day with our children. I was more than willing to help ensure that she had everything necessary to continue doing an excellent job fostering the creative and loving learning environment for [my child] and his classmates.

My greatest thanks are for all the teachers and students who pay it forward.