Educational Discourse

A few days ago I posted about the whole “walled garden” idea and how not being allowed to access any number of sites is very frustrating for both learners and teachers. Durff over at Durff’s blog picked this up and continued the conversation. I’d like to further add to her point that

Learners’ today have expensive phones and/or iPods with them 24/7. They can connect to the internet instantly outside of the school’s control. They can listen to podcasts of whatever they downloaded outside of the school’s control.
Tightening control is not going to work. The IT departments have already lost control. So where do we go from here?

The whole idea that somehow we will be able to continue to limit what students have access to is unrealistic. In fact, we may soon be unable with such things as linking through plugins and other such actions. What we really need to focus upon is not how do we keep them from accessing particular subjects or keep them safe but how do we teach them about the impact of accessing particular sites and how do they keep themselves safe.

I realize that many IT departments are trying to provide the best options that they can but they just do not have the resources to do it all. I would rather see them focus on making sure that networks are operational and in working order, machines are replaced in a timely manner, the internal system of the school division or district is not compromised and teachers have access to a variety of tools that they can use when teaching. I see this as being the next move in the evolution of schools as we move from trying to filter everything and watch everyone to accepting the connectivity of society and planning to harness that in a way that it will enhance the learning opportunities for students in a number of ways beyond what we are doing now.

What has your district or school board done in regard to connectivity? Have things improved or grown tighter?

When I first began teaching, one of the most stressful times was when the director would come in to supervise/evaluate. I knew when he was coming of course but, still, it would cause me no endless stress. Would the lesson work? Would the students listen? Would I remain my composure? The lesson was orchestrated and each time, thank goodness, it went without a hitch. This is how it was for the first two years of teaching. After that, like most other teachers to whom I’ve talked, I didn’t really see any supervisors for quite a while.

For almost 8 years, there was little supervision. Luckily, for me, I began and completed a MEd. and had two interns in that time. It was the combination of these two that really helped me to develop as a teacher, searching for new ways of doing things and seeking new ideas. I also discussed things with other teachers, asked questions and learned some valuable lessons when mine flopped.

My move into administration brought a change of location and various supervisors to my classroom. In two years I changed schools each year, changed my teaching assignment, changed vp assignments and changed staffs which meant I was working with new principals. Each year was a learning experience but with a rather small percent of admin time and no real direction on what I was to do, I turned to do quite a bit of reading on various types of supervision and evaluation and how they affected teacher growth and development.

Today, six years later and two moves hence, I am once again thinking about the role of teacher supervision and evaluation and wondering just what exactly we have learned in the meantime. I know that we are more apt to look at a growth model rather than the clinical model that so many of us were introduced to in our first observations. The clinical model, which takes much of its framework from Madeline Hunter, focuses on objectives, strategies, targets, pacing and a clear sense of review and wrap-up. This structure, which is very useful now, became so rigid that any deviation was somehow seen as a weakness.

I don’t know if it is the students who have changed, my own practice and view of what a “good” lesson entails or if it is a combination of many factors, but I now allow my students a great freedom in directing the movement of lesson with my responsibility being to make sure that the objective is explained and covered. Since there are many different ways that students learn and many different strategies for each style, I know that I have to make sure that my lessons are really focusing on the objectives as I allow students to explore in a variety of directions.

Another thing that has changed the landscape of teacher evaluation is the whole idea of the Professional Growth Plan (PGP) that teachers are using to map out their growth in particular areas. When I first began doing the PGP, I wasn’t really sure what exactly to do. I would eventually find an area that I figured needed some development and then head off to a convention during the year. Some of my colleagues didn’t even do that, seeing them as a waste of time. I didn’t really see any use in them until I began to take classes again. It was then that I began to realize that the real power in teacher supervision might lie, not in the traditional watch and conference type but in one where the teacher, through conversations and reflections, began to evaluate their own teaching and improve upon it.

Jump forward to my present position as an administrator in a K – 12 school. For the past 3 years I have been working on helping teachers develop PGP that were of use to them. Something that was attainable and current rather than just another paper filled in. I’ve conferenced with them about their goals, visited them in their classrooms and begun to look at some new ways of doing supervision like using the Three-Minute Walk-Through, portfolio development and PGP review.

I’ve noticed that teachers come to their PGP from two different vantage points. They either are enthused about developing themselves and eagerly seek out information about developing themselves or they really see it as a poor use of their time. And, to be truthful, I wasn’t sure how to get these teachers to see the benefits and to really understand how important it was until this year.

SMART Goals

Last year, our school division began the long walk of creating a system-wide method of school and teacher development that would help us achieve the objectives as outlined by provincial learning. The short of this move is that all schools create a goal in an area of need. The PLT’s then create a goal that is linked and, finally, each teacher creates a goal that will help their PLT reach their goal. What I like about this whole concept is that teachers are working in a collaborative manner and are responsible to all the members of the team, not just themselves. Thus, it becomes much easier to discuss their goal in terms of how they are doing in accomplishing the team goal and their own portion. Another reason I like this is that there is built in reflection time for each person in the PLT, so when I go to discuss their PGP’s, there is the chance for discussion about their reflections, positive or negative and, if negative, what might we change to make them positive.

Of course, this doesn’t just magically make everyone’s PGP’s great or get everyone to become a reflective practitioner but it does give us a place to start, a situation to reflect upon and certain expectation about what each teacher is to do in relation to the goal of the PLT.

For me, it creates opportunity for discussion and reflection instead of going through the standard clinical observation. I am in more classrooms, visiting more teachers and gathering more information about what is going on in the school. I’m having more fun doing this and having more discussions about teaching ideas and teaching methods than before. I know that there needs to be a standard of accountability and our role is to be part of that but I wonder if, like our students, we were to provide teachers with an array of different options, knowing that each teacher has a particular style, we might be able to combine the clinical observation with a host of other types of observation and reflection methods to create something that is a bit wider in breadth while still being manageable in time.

As I started, teachers are uncomfortable with the clinical mode of supervision despite how long it has been done. Could that be telling us something which we need to which we need to pay attention? Can we get a more accurate view of the teacher through a combination of different methods that would be less intrusive on the teacher and more in the developmental mode while still providing us with the information we need for an evaluation?

Like many of you, I occasionally do a little ranting when it comes to the problems with some of the things that go on with the technology in schools and the level of availability of different websites. I’ve also been known to rant every now and then about other things that go on with schools and learning.

Well, this isn’t one of those. In fact, over the past few weeks, I’ve had little to really rant about. I could get all worked up over the fact that I can’t access certain sites at school but instead I’ve just begun to send in requests to have them opened. I’m thinking eventually someone will get tired of the requests. In fact, as this year moves along, I’m beginning to wonder if we have reached a new stage of service that is needed for schools.

Now, Stewart Mader makes a good point in his post about this same subject.

Historically, IT’s job is to “keep the lights on” – make a set of core technology tools available to people and support them – which was fine ten, even five, years ago, but just doesn’t work the same today. The quality of tools on the web is increasing far faster than most “boxed” enterprise software, and those web tools are free or low cost, and available immediately, as opposed to going through a much more involved procedure to get access to tools on the inside, or convince IT to make them available.

As many of us who have spent any time on the internet have found, our schools, for the most part, are not able to provide many of the services that we would like to have simply because they are limited in their resources and their manpower while the web has unlimited resources and unlimited people power. Hence, many of those I have come to know are frustrated by the lack of access to programs and the almost claustrophobic control that many IT departments have over what can and cannot be done.

With this in mind, do we need to put our energies into coming up with a different system for accessing information instead of relying on the standard version that was necessary so many years ago? Cannot many of our schools become somewhat independent of the IT departments in some way, maybe by having direct cable come to the school and running a system not completely controlled by the IT department? Or is there someway to have access to our school divisions while not being under the complete control of the central IT department?

I guess I’m seeing so much change in many different areas yet I’m feeling and sensing that schools are not moving along with the change but instead trying to stifle it to a point where a few are making decisions for the many without having an understanding what the many want or can do. Can IT departments change from “keeping the lights on” to maybe making sure the doors work and allowing us to figure out what type of lights we’d like in our building. Or, because of their nature, are we doomed to continue this control and struggle over what is accessible and what isn’t? Can we come up with a solution that will allow our students to continue to speed along instead of slowing down to come to school. For that matter, is possible that our teachers who are moving along can continue to cruise instead of running into red lights all the time? (It’s not just kids who are having to slow down when they come to school!)

I’d sure like to think that, by keeping the students at the forefront, we can build toward a more wholistic solution of internet access. The tools are powerful but only if you can use them.

I’ve been using classroom Walk-Throughs for the past 7 months in order to get to get into the classrooms in my school, get to know what the teachers are doing, familiarize myself with the curricula in the various grades and just acquaint myself with how this form of supervision might work for me.

Now, I started with the book The Three-Minute Classroom Walk-Through by Corlyn J. Downey. Like most administrators, I read through the book, worked through the different stages of the Walk-Through and began to figure out how I might use this tool in my own class. Now, I began by using recipe type cards but that was a bit too cumbersome for me since I don’t write very well, I couldn’t always remember the various things for which I was looking and I sometimes forgot them in different places which isn’t a very good thing.

I also was having problems remembering the things I was suppose to be observing. The Walk-Through, which was suppose to be 3 minutes was taking upward of 15 or 20 as I worked to figure out what I was observing, where it fit, how to record it on my cards. I figured that this would get better as I did more but it still was taking me too long, I thought, to do the individual Walk-Through. About May, I moved from the recipe card to a smaller card and began to work on specific parts of the Walk-Through, familiarizing myself with each step. In my school, I didn’t bother with the facility as it wasn’t a concern. I focused on the first 4. Another thing that was taking me time was finding where the objectives were for the classes I was visiting and matching them with what I was seeing. Sometimes it took me longer to do that for a class than it did for me to do the trip that day. I became more familiar with our curricula online, I definitely got better at this.

This past summer I purchased a PDA and I began this using it this fall. I use the note taking feature to take notes while in the room. For me, this was much better as it had the date already on the note and I could upload it to my computer later in the day and then add information if I needed. With this method, I’m better able to succinctly describe what I have seen. I feel more comfortable with that instead a dozen small cards.

I’ve also found some great resources that I’ve posted on my adminplc wiki. I have adapted and used some of the forms, putting them on my PDA as documents and then using the points for a reference while I do the Walk-Throughs. This is helping even more and as I become better at summarizing and giving information, I think I will become better at noting different things during my trips through the school. I really like the Walk-Throughs, especially since it does give me a chance to quietly talk to a student or two and the students are becoming better at ignoring me while I am there. I think I might be at the stage where I can now begin to pull together my observations and leave comments or questions for the teachers. It may take me some more time to fine-tune what I record and how I do that but it no longer feels awkward to do this. I know that Alan Knobloch has a great article over at Leadertalk.org.

Our school administrators will be doing work at a full day inservice this month which I am looking forward to attending. Each time I think of a group of admin people getting together to share about Walk-Throughs, I think of this video…. really says it all when it comes to Walk-Throughs!

I like to use wikis for much of the work that I do. I think that they allow me a great deal of freedom to be creative in their construction without being overwhelming, give me just enough gadgets and plug-ins to keep me busy and suit my purpose when it comes to organization and access. Right now I use one for my planning, another I used with my class last year to gather information about Medieval Europe, a third we use as a staff to organize information and I have others that I started for a book club (which didn’t go too well but I think I’ll give it another shot), another for my admin group to organize ideas about supervision and yet another for a group dealing with web2.0 tools from the summer.

Now, because I use a wiki quite a lot, I think they are one of the best things to show someone who is doing work online. There’s no pressure to post and you can make them private, which is what I have done with my planning wiki plus some others. You can upload information that is accessible from anywhere, collaborate as a group, keep track of what is going on and so much more.

My reason for discussing this is because Clay Burell has been organizing an inservice day, using a wiki to put together the different components that he thinks are essential for a teacher in today’s world. I haven’t looked at the wiki yet but I know that I will when I get some time. The great thing is that I can link from the staff wiki to Clay’s and they will then have all that information at their disposal which is an awesome thing. I now that the Horizon Project was using a wiki to organize their work and share discussions and I think it was a great tool for doing that cross-continent collaborative work.

So, as I thought about this, I wondered who was checking in on ourstaff wiki, which has a link on Clay’s blog. Well, guess what? We’ve had visitors from California, Glasgow City, West Lothian and Lombardia as well as Saskatchewan. I’ve been blogging for about 8 months and our wiki gets more hits from different locations than this blog! Pretty amazing that people from all over the world are looking at how our staff uses this tool to stay in touch, learn together and be organized. My hope is, that as we become more comfortable and grow in our familiarity with technology, we will be able to share more information such as what we are doing in our Professional Learning Teams and our School Community Council. Because of it’s ease of use, people can use it with minimal pd time and, with the save each version feature, if you mess up, you just go to the version before and start over.

Clay had a post that asked what web2.o tool people would suggest for a pd day such as he was designing. My suggestion was something like iGoogle, Pageflakes or Netvibe – a homepage type arrangement where you can add pages and widgets to keep you organized, get news, keep up with the sports or whatever you want. However, the more I thought about it, the more I suggest the use of the wiki. It gives you a chance to be putting things together, in private as I mentioned, and then to branch out. It might even be somewhere you begin to express your ideas before you go to the blog. Now, I really do suggest using a homepage aggregator to assist with organizing all the different tools that one might have online. I also suggest something like Claimid where you can gather links together so you have one stop to get a page. I’ve made it my homepage so I just click and go. Of course, one needs a RSS aggregator to keep track of all the interesting blogs out there. As I think of it, you could use a wiki page to do some of this but it wouldn’t have all the bells and whistles.

I’m not going to suggest any one wiki provider although, after visiting my wikis you’ll know which one I prefer. I suggest you try out a few and go with the one that suits you the best. Whatever you do, get wikiing!