ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What is your philosophy of adaptation?I am a science teacher, and I teach evolution and change every year to my biology students. I believe the classroom is not exempt from the same evolution and change that I teach my students about, because we learn that humans have evolved and are still evolving. We learn that evolution really just means change. If we are changing, then it only follows that education should change with us. Change is inevitable, and we must be ready to explore alternative ways to doing things. "Traditional approaches to learning are no longer capable of coping with a constantly changing world. They have yet to find a balance between the structure that educational institutions provide and the freedom afforded by the new media’s almost unlimited resources, without losing a sense of purpose and direction" (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Learning is less about rote memorization and more about making meaning out what we are learning in relation to the world. In this day and age I don't think we can live in a world that just asks "what", or in other words students are just learning facts. Everyone needs to make connections and understand how things are related. We need to fit our knowledge into our own niche of the world. That is where we can accomplish so much. We attach meaning, and this meaning is transferable to life outside of the classroom walls. (McCarthy, 2015). Put another way, "In the new information economy, expertise is less about having a stockpile of information or facts at one’s disposal and increasingly about knowing how to find and evaluate information on a given topic" (Thomas & Brown, 2011). I take most of my teaching practices from connectivism, constructivism, and constructionism. I believe these pedagogies are being focused more today. We are an evolving society and the push in education is for project based learning or design thinking in classrooms because they support a way that our students are able to learn. These types of learning activities really fit with the pedagogies above. As far a PBL goes, Wolpert-Gawron (2015) talks about an integrated PBL unit she has taught where "there are many components to the unit: brainstorming, research, development, design, cost analysis, collaboration, and pitching. They are using art, writing, math, science, and probably countless other elements that focus on real-world content and communication." These types of units combine so much and really get students to see how all subjects are connected. We are accessing the "where" and "how" instead of only accessing the "what". Students also are learning by doing and "learning by doing can provide a unique and personal set of insights into the ways and means for creating something in the world" (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Students learn that education is related to the world and that all disciplines combine. The real world is not separate. I believe this is a crucial understanding because many times in science class I get a student who will say this is science not math. Students believe each content area is separate and this creates a divide when students enter a world outside school. We need to prepare students with tasks that replicate life outside of school. Design-thinking offers similar benefits to PBL where students are connecting what they are learning to some outside factor. Some schools have even fully embraced the PBL or design thinking model throughout their school structure. For example, High Tech High, a charter school in the U.S., works from the ground up. In other words they work with teachers, parents, and students to create change rather than starting with administration. "There are no bells, class periods, or single subjects. Subjects are integrated. Teachers are hired on one-year contracts, with the payoff of being able to teach whatever they want to teach. And over and over again, we see and hear that one of the great things about this place is how teachers teach to their passions and, with their students, are the designers." Their test scores are 10% above the state average and they have a 98% college entrance rate (Phillips, 2015). I believe schools need to listen to students and find ways to focus on them. Too many adults are making decisions, but we would not have schools without students. Sources
McCarthy, J. (2015, September 09). Student-Centered Learning: It Starts With the Teacher. Retrieved February 25, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-centered-learning-starts-with-teacher-john-mccarthy Phillips, M. (2015, December 17). The Problems and Promise of Educational Change. Retrieved February 08, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/problems-promise-educational-change-mark-phillips Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change [Kindle]. Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2015, March 03). Collaboration: Key to Innovation. Retrieved February 25, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/collaboration-key-innovation-heather-wolpert-gawron
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ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Consider your own context within your school and with your mentee. How can understanding of controlled disruption and coherence making impact your leadership of peers at this time, and at this level ?For me "controlled disruption" means looking at situations with different perspectives. We need the whole view to understand the situation and make the best possible decision, "coherence." Fullan (2001) states that "the most powerful coherence is a function of having worked through the ambiguities and complexities of hard-to solve problems." To be able to work through these complexities one has to be ready for conflict. Because "conflict is an inevitable part of working together. Conflict can be challenging and destructive, or it can lead to a deeper understanding between people, and perhaps higher quality work from a team" (Aguilar, 2013). Aguilar continues on to talk about 6 different belief systems of educators:
If I were to classify myself I believe I would fall under self-actualization. I like to end units with projects and not tests. I believe students have a different perspective than my own and that they will make sense of information differently than I will. A test does not allow for these differences whereas an open-ended project can. I believe a lot of public officials are Technologist's placing much of decision making on test scores and not considering the rest of the situation. Taking a look at an article title Education at Risk: Fallout from a Flawed Report, Ansaray (2007) points out that the report analyzed the data in only one way. Because of this "educational decisions have been moved as far as possible from the classroom. Federal officials are now in a position to make decisions that would have been unimaginable even two years ago. They've established the criteria for disciplining schools, removing principals and teachers, and even defining appropriate curriculum for American classrooms." Fullan (2001) on the other hand, points out that "People stimulate, inspire, and motivate each other to contribute and implement best ideas, and best ideas mean greater overall coherence." This means that we need to work together. We need teacher voice in these decisions, in my opinion. Also there has been "targeted budget cutting -- on the theory that withholding money from failed programs forces them to shape up." So we are taking away money from schools who don't have resources and giving it to the wealthy schools. In my opinion, we really need to rethink these decisions. I think Fullan (2001) makes a good point that about how we should decide if an idea is good. "The criteria for retaining an idea are (1) Does it work? and (2) Does it feed into our overall purpose? Knowledge sharing, in effect, comprises a continuous, coherence-making sorting device for the organization" (Fullan, 2001). Sources
Aguilar, E. (2013, January 15). Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide. Retrieved April 14, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/educational-beliefs-collide-teachers-elena-aguilar Ansary, T. (2007, March 09). Education at Risk: Fallout from a Flawed Report. Retrieved April 14, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/landmark-education-report-nation-risk Fullan, M. (2001). Chapter Six. Coherence Making. In Leading in a culture of change. (pp. 107-119) Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What is the role of knowledge creation and sharing in a healthy educational organization?The first thing that stands out to me is that communication has to be open. We actually just had a community, student, teacher, and school board meeting. The topic was cell phones. Parents, teachers, and the school board all were focusing on getting rid of them or how to see them less. Every time a student spoke they were given a solution that involved leaving the phone at home. Eventually students stopped speaking and one student pointed out that they felt shut down. That was again negated. I think this is a perfect example of how we have to honor everyone's opinions to start with. This is a tricky line to walk as the leader who leads the discussion. How do you make everyone feel heard? I talked with one of my administrators after the meeting and we both felt that it was unproductive. We looked back and saw that the students were being shut down and at the time we didn't realize it. I keep thinking about what we could do differently and I like a suggestion from Anderson (2013) to "take it in." To do this you can use a strategy called LCS: state what you like about the idea, state concerns, and then add a suggestion to address the concern. We can learn so much from each other but to do that we have to all feel welcome and appreciated. Fullan (2001) says that "if people begin sharing ideas about issues they see as really important, the sharing itself creates a learning culture." I think in my example above it was too personal, so I do believe you have to be careful with the topic. This topic was given and that also makes it tough. When people can select their own topics they feel more in control. This is why I like the idea of an Edcamp and would like to experience one firsthand. "Each Edcamp is unique and based on the needs of the participants" (Swanson, 2013). You can get exactly what you want and it is designed in a way that fits with adult learning. "Ghe social, interactive, recursive nature of an Edcamp is directly aligned to adult learning theories" (Swanson, 2013). You can learn what others have done in their classrooms or schools and you have a way to share resources. You make connections with other teachers or school leaders and can share positives. This makes the whole process that much more engaging because you get to share the good things and not harp on all of the negatives, like so many staff meetings do. When you are in a new setting with new people you don't need to focus on what is wrong with your school. Another great example was from Fullan (2001) where "teachers often visit other classrooms in conjunction with consultants' visits, either to observe one of their peers teaching a lesson or a consultant teaching a demonstration lesson. And groups of teachers often visit another school, inside or outside the district, in preparation for the development of a new set of instructional practices". This allows time to pick up on new strategies that you may have not thought of or not known how to implement. We can learn so much from each other but we rarely take the time to do it on our own. Sources
Andersen, E. (2013, August 09). 5 Simple Things You Can Do To Get People To Speak Up In Meetings. Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2013/08/09/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-get-people-to-speak-up-in-meetings/#19bcc08cbe85 Fullan, M. (2001). Chapter Five. Knowledge Building. In Leading in a culture of change. (pp. 77-106) Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf Swanson, K. (2013, April 23). Why Edcamp? Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-edcamp-kristen-swanson ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Explain and give examples to argue why the following statement is true or false: “Get the right people on your team, and get the wrong ones off.”I think the scenario determines whether this statement is true an false. I think the type of leadership present can really make or break the statement. When I first read the statement my mind automatically told me this was true, but that seemed to be too easy of an answer. My initial thought was, why would you want someone on your team if they don't agree with you? In my opinion that would just make my life more difficult. Through reading this week I was reminded how those with differing opinions may help to bring diversity. According to Fullan (2001), if we only invest in those who are like us "they become more like-minded and more unlike the rest of the organization while missing valuable new clues about the future. By supporting the like-minded, leaders trade off early smoothness for later grief. If you include and value naysayers, noise in the early stages will yield later, greater implementation." At first things will go well but later they might not. Fullan goes on to also give an example of how this plays out in 2 PLC's in one school. One is great while the other has made all of the teachers very negative toward their career. "Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things they may end up being powerfully wrong" (Fullan, 2001). After more digging and more reading this thought from Fullan (2001) stuck out, "most people want to be part of their organization; they want to know the organization's purpose; they want to make a difference". This was crucial for me in realizing that maybe this statement could be false. In all of the articles I came across the key factor was the leadership. If there was good leadership most were in support of what was going on around them. The leadership has the potential to make the school a positive environment or a negative environment. So you could win over the support of your naysayers by making sure you keep a positive school climate. This takes a lot of emotional intelligence on the part of the leader. "In a toxic school culture and climate, learning by all will not take place effectively, and what is learned may be sustainably negative and harmful. When a school is a positive place to be, people are happy to be there, do their best, and make their best better" (Elias, 2015). You cannot keep everyone happy all the time, but you could win them back. "In a culture of change, emotions frequently run high. And when they do, they often represent differences of opinion. People express doubts or reservations and sometimes outright opposition to new directions" (Fullan, 2001). Keenan (2017) talks about how at his school this happened a lot to start with. Eventually they created norms, and this has made all of the difference. "The norms have helped create a safe space for school staff to take healthy risks and describe difficulties they are having freely" (Keenan, 2017). With these norms teachers have jumped back on board and it is all related to the way the leadership responded. However, I still have to go back to thinking that sometimes this statement could be true. All of the reading supported false, but what happens when you can't win someone over or you can't agree? In some cases you may just want to stick with those who support you and politely part ways with the people who don't support you. Sources
Elias, M. J. (2015, March 05). You Need an Elevator Pitch About School Culture and Climate. Retrieved April 01, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/you-need-elevator-pitch-about-school-culture-and-climate-maurice-elias Fullan, M. (2001). Chapter Four. Relationships, Relationships, Relationships. In Leading in a culture of change. (pp. 51-76) Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf Keenan, B. (2017, March 07). The Tough Work of Improving School Culture. Retrieved April 01, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/tough-work-improving-school-culture-brendan-keenan ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How is mentoring adults different from teaching children? |
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