Co-Creating Solutions. A CTL-sponsored blog to foster and encourage professional conversation about teaching and learning.

At CTL we are doing quite a bit of work with GEAR UP, a federal college access program the aim of which is to ensure low income students are prepared for and enter college.  This federal initiative also supports Kentucky reform as embodied in SB 1 with its increased emphasis on college and career readiness.

Some of the work we are engaged in has us providing guidance to school and district leadership teams in using classroom walkthrough and test data to pinpoint needs and develop a long-term professional development plan.  While school leaders are charged with plan development as part of the district team, their responsibility doesn’t end there.  Once a plan is approved, it is up to the principal to ensure that faculty members implement the professional learning so that it becomes embedded in routine practice and results in increased student performance.

What does that mean for the role of the principal?  From my experience as a high school principal charged with being an instructional leader and prime mover of professional development, I took these actions:

• Attended all professional development along with my faculty and engaged fully as a participant.
• Practiced new learning in classrooms and asked for feedback from my teacher colleagues.
• Observed teachers practicing new learning and provided them with feedback.
• Used faculty meetings and principal’s bulletins to communicate progress on implementation, highlight teachers who were doing an excellent job with integrating new practices into their instruction, and trouble shoot problems teachers encountered with implementation.
• Facilitated examination of student work to determine positive impact on student learning and to make adjustments as needed.
• Coordinated resources and efforts among this and other school improvement or PD initiatives.
• Communicated with students and parents about the professional development initiative we were engaged in, what we hoped to achieve, what they could expect to be different as a result of our participation, and how well it was going.

There is plenty of research to document the critical role the principal plays in improving instructional practice and student achievement, and professional development leadership is an essential component of that role.

For my May post I have invited friend and colleague Marjorie Larner to share part of the draft introduction of a new book she is working on.  Margie is the author of, Pathways (Heinemann, (2004) and Tools for Leaders (Scholastic, 2007).  Both these books have been invaluable resources in my work and have been core text for CTL’s work with literacy coaches in the field.

As I develop Artful Reading, a set of modules linking the arts and literacy, and work on training materials for a cadre of school- based instructional coaches, Margie’s thinking raises some provoking questions for me and sparks my own thinking.

Reclaiming Thinking for Our Practice

“But I don’t believe anybody is going to give us time to think. We have to reclaim it for ourselves.” Margaret Wheatley

I have a friend who says that someday he is going to write a book called, “I just want to tell you…” And the sequel is “Wait! I’m not done.” I’d love to just tell everyone how to teach. I would tell you to use workshop model, gradual release, thinking strategies.  I would tell you how to give your students lots of time to breathe, reflect, think, talk, write, to go beyond the four walls of the classroom for real life experiences. I would say we need to move. I would plead to make sure we have art in our school lives. We need to remember to care about ourselves and each other. Oh. Once I get going I can’t stop. There is so much I wish I could just tell people to do in schools and they would say, “Oh you’re right. I’m going to do that right away.”  And then they would implement my ideas the way I described.

The truth is even when a teacher might believe that I know what I’m talking about; it takes more than that to put something into practice in your classroom.

What is necessary for teachers to take on something new in teaching? It is not just about an action or behavior. For something to work, teachers have to embody it, really get it in our own hearts and brains.  My experience as a new teacher was troubling. I had many mentor teachers giving me sound advice but when I tried to follow their exciting suggestions without really understanding what I was doing, it didn’t work as well for me as it did for them.

The details of teaching are complex. Important learning is layered. Sustaining changes in practice usually happen one step at a time as one element gets set in a place before another can be added.

So, no, I am not going to tell you how to teach. I am not going to give you tips, tricks, structures, strategies, techniques, approaches, frameworks, tools to implement in your classroom. Though I could and I would still like to. I will suggest resources that have been helpful to teachers through the years.

There will be quotes, including some that are provocative, organizers, prompts, structures, stories to help you think about what you do, and in that process of thinking, access the spark inside yourself to find your brilliance. I believe from experience that nearly every person who goes into teaching has that spark. It is a matter of finding your own voice, your own drive, your own way of understanding. It is a matter of finding your way of organizing the physical, emotional and mental environment in your classroom. It is a matter of gathering resources, supportive and challenging relationships, tools to act on what you believe in alignment with what is required.

There are many details to be considered. I will not offer another set of instructional strategies but rather how you come to make whatever you are directed to do, or choose to do, work for you in your practice as a teacher.

If great teaching could be guaranteed through teacher compliance with directives about strategies and structures, we would have seen significant success after all these years of prescriptive programs claiming to promise increased student achievement as measured by continual growth on test scores.  As Saul Alinsky wrote in his rules for community organizing ,”A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”

In my March 23rd post, I described the lengthy research paper required of all junior English students in my public high school many moons ago.  I cited a recent article by the New York Times’ Matt Richter (Blogs vs. Term Papers) on the blogs versus term papers debate taking place among academics in some postsecondary circles, and promised to share my thoughts on the merits of each.

In the meantime, I came across an essay by John McWhorter, also in the New York Times (Talking with your fingers), in which he points out that texts and tweets, much maligned by teachers of writing for undermining the skills of today’s young students, are actually examples of “written conversation,” different in origin and purpose from “writing,” as it is generally understood—and so subject to different guidelines and expectations.

Since I’m a writer, you might guess that I’m still strongly in favor of long form writing, including those good old academic stand-bys, term papers, as well as multi-page articles, reports and thoughtful essays—and you’d be right.  There’s no question that the skills required for research, analysis, development and clear communication of ideas get an excellent and necessary workout when students produce the traditional forms of academic writing.

But you’d also be correct if you surmised that I think blogs, texts, tweets and all other forms of written communication can also be useful and important in the classroom and beyond.  What’s important for students, I believe, is to develop an understanding of the diverse array of origins and purposes for which we write, regardless of the form.  I would argue that the same basic skills are required of all forms of writing, beginning with an understanding of purpose and audience, a need to gather and cite information, and the necessity to organize and transform ideas into words that make it possible for others to understand those ideas.  Even a 140-character tweet requires an idea, specific information, a sense of potential audience and a conscious selection of words—even abbreviated words.

What longer form piece writing offers, however, is an opportunity to flex those intellectual muscles in a systematic way over a broader stretch of time.  I agree with Douglas B. Reeves, a columnist for the American School Board Journal, who is quoted in Richter’s story that, “Writing term papers is a dying art, but those who do write them have a dramatic leg up in terms of critical thinking, argumentation and the sort of expression required not only in college, but in the job market.  It doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting blogs. But nobody would conflate interesting writing with premise, evidence, argument and conclusion.”  I would add that lengthy and rigorous doesn’t have to mean boring and impossible to execute—my high school term paper on the musical Oklahoma! as a great example.

In this era of electronic media, shorter forms of writing like the very blog post I’m composing now, have the wonderfully motivating advantages of authentic communication, instantaneous publication and engagement with an audience, and educators should clearly make use of that.  Indeed, we can help students to recognize that all forms of writing, regardless of length or age in the academic canon, should be examples of clear, honest communication and connection with an audience.

What have been your experiences using both long and short forms of writing in the classroom?  How do you help students to understand and build on the common links across all forms of written communication?  Share your thoughts, and I’ll respond in a future post.

I recently registered my five year old daughter for fall kindergarten. In the registration process she was assessed to measure her readiness. She was asked to identify letters of the alphabet, count as high as she could (the evaluator stopped her at 100), draw basic shapes (triangle, square, rectangle, diamond), recite her address and phone number, balance on one foot, and various other measures. The entire process took about twenty minutes. The evaluator administered these quick samplings to assess language skills, motor skills, number skills, and body awareness. The evaluator was looking to see if my daughter possesses the skills necessary for success in kindergarten or if any interventions might be necessary. In the post-evaluation conference, the evaluator remarked, “If all kindergarteners came to be as prepared as your daughter, my job would be so much easier.” I smiled. I never questioned whether she was ready.

The questions I did have swimming in my head were around the school’s readiness to teach my child and support her based on the skills she would be carrying with her to kindergarten in addition to the ones she was lacking. Did the report that went into her file reflect that she comes from a preschool environment that uses a project-based curriculum to engage its students in the learning process? Did the report show that she seeks out new learning by asking questions and hunting for information?

In my own query, I was charged with finding kindergarten designs that use self-directed learning. I uncovered an Edutopia™ article and the video Kindergartners Explore Through Project Learning highlighting The Auburn Early Education Center. There are so many things I love about this literacy-rich design including the emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking, integration of the arts, and authentic learning experiences as a means to engage with the content.

This finding led me to asking my own set of questions to the school where my daughter will attend:

1. How do your teachers incorporate in-depth and rigorous inquiry?

2. How do your teachers allow for voice and choice and integrate open-ended questioning?

3. How do your teachers allow students to revise and reflect on their own (and other’s) work?

4. How do your teachers teach and assess skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and communication?

These are all skills and behaviors I will continue to nurture at home. Just last night the dinner conversation explored selling our garden vegetables curbside. My daughter considered designing a vegetable stand, meeting with a carpenter to build her design, setting prices to compete with supermarket prices, packing vegetables in plastic bags, paper bags, or wooden crates, and interviewing a local farmer to better understand how to operate a CSA.

The Auburn Early Education Center’s vision is that all students have opportunity for meaningful, integrated experiences that nurture natural curiosity necessary for life-long learning. Agreed.

Anybody who has been around me in the last 6 months or so knows of my recent fascination with the book Teach Like a Champion. (Lemov, 2010) The book is packed with practical teaching techniques that are markers of a scholarly classroom, with classroom vignettes that illustrate the set-up, variations, and detours any one of the techniques might take. It’s my hunch that the book was written for teachers in the trenches of the nation’s most underachieving schools, but it’s my belief that the ideas in the book are widely applicable to all of America’s classrooms, particularly in light of the college readiness charge the Common Core State Standards demand of us.

I’ve been trying my best to connect the dots between the rich ideas in Teach Like a Champion and the tenets of readiness set forth by Common Core, not only for teachers, but for leaders who are trying to cultivate an instructional culture of college-going. What would that look like? What indicators would be present in a “scholarly” classroom?

Here’s where I’ve landed:

• High expectations for:

1. Student participation as true experts of the discipline (thinking like scientists, reading like musicians, speaking like authors, etc.);
2. Correctness, including use of suitable tone and vocabulary in oral and written communication, adherence to classroom routines and processes, and
3. Attention to details of personal actions and responses

• Excellence- best effort, every task, every time
• Academic Literacy: This would include attention to standards-driven content vocabulary; reading for a variety of authentic purposes with added emphasis on informational text; writing for informal and formal purposes with clear linkages between these two types of writing; and purposeful content talk about critical topics and learning.
• Targeted attention to levels of rigor, complexity, and “stretch” in service of preparing all students for the demands and challenge of college.
• Each and every child feeling a sense of belonging and contribution to a community of achievement and college-readiness

It’s my plan in the coming weeks to boil this down even further as I prepare to present at the 2012 Alliance Institute for a College-Going Culture. I’m interested in knowing what you believe are the hallmarks of a “scholarly” classroom. How do you know it when you see it?

I’ m reading Steve Leinwand’s Accessible Mathematics and he poses this question as a bell-ringer or review question for a chapter that was covered a month ago. He points out that making sure that students understand place value is critical but it’s not about one question and then moving on; it’s about asking multiple questions about one problem and letting students explore the topic. The answer to the question is easy 17,294 and students can likely answer the question without having great number sense. Students can line up digits and figure out that the 1 (from 1,000) and the 8 (from 18,294) line up and use the procedure to subtract, but that doesn’t mean they have good number sense. If you read his explanation he proposes to ask several follow-up questions:

What digit did you change? Why?

Or what number is 100 more than 18,294?

Or what is 100 more than 2,954?

It’s not about this question as much as it about pushing students to be able to expand on a specific problem to create deeper understanding beyond recognition of the tens place. Another reason why I like this kind of questioning to begin a class, is that it’s accomplishing the goals most bell-ringers have in mind (reviewing concepts studied previous in a routine and intentional manner) but it’s not just about posting 5 questions that are ACT like. This approach treats the students as learners capable of adding to the conversation and adding to the learning and it treats teachers like professional who can make instructional decisions beyond which multiple choice questions to ask today.

In this example, the teacher is asking a great question, but is basing the next series of questions on what she is observing and what students are doing in class. Is it more important to ask another unrelated question about place value or to ask students who explained their answers to the first question very easily a question like, “what is 100 more than 2,954?” This question is a natural extension of the previous question, but is asked once the teacher is sure the students understand the initial premise (place value) and she wants to test whether the students are capable of regrouping easily.

If however, students struggled with the initial question, the teacher backs up and asks a related question like, “what number is 100 less than 18,294?” Note in this question we aren’t asking students to regroup. This question stays with the idea of place value understanding, and offers students opportunity to clarify their thinking immediately and provides students opportunity to end the interaction positively.

Making sense in a mathematics class isn’t about getting the right answer every time, but it is about knowing why and how you get the right answer and what makes the answer correct. I wish more administrators and instructional specialists would read Steve’s book because for my money, his questions make a lot more sense than some random 5 multiple choice questions done at the beginning of class that aren’t discussed because there isn’t time to review that many questions and teach new material.

As we work to prepare our students for the Common Core Mathematics Standards, I am continually reminded that the focus needs to move away from the teacher and shine on the student. Academic Dialogue is one way of focusing on the student. It allows students to talk about what they know, ask questions about what they don’t know, and lets them build their understanding.

NCTM and the Common Core develop the need for students of mathematics to develop their communication skills very intentionally. In 1989, NCTM described having students:

• organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication
• communicate their thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others
• use the language of mathematics to express mathematical ideas precisely.

The Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice provide ample opportunity for students to communicate around mathematical topics as well, including:

• (students can) understand the approach of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.
• make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures
• justify (students’) conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others
• students at all grades can listen to the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments

Brain research also indicates that the brain looks for and creates patterns to make meaning (Caine & Caine, 1994) and integrates new information into existing structures and patterns. The brain is also designed for complex tasks that are complex, rich, and multi-sensory (Jenson, 2000) rather than linear, lock-step kinds of instruction (Roberts, 2002).

In CTL’s Adolescent Literacy Model’s Mathematics Guidebook (in print) we push for students to have reading, writing, speaking/listening in every class, every day. It might seem intimidating at first. It just takes a commitment to good mathematics instructional practices that provide students opportunities to create conceptual knowledge and understanding to accompany procedural knowledge.

Incorporating academic dialogue into a mathematics classroom is easy if you start small and build your understanding of the processes as you go. A simple Think, Ink, Pair, Share is a great tool for getting students talking to each other in short chunks around very specific topics. Here is a link to a short video that shows a teacher using small groups around specific problem solving tasks to have students talking to each other about the why and how of solving problems.

Instead of telling students how to solve the problems, she allows the students to create their understanding together as she walks around asking clarifying questions and listens for opportunities to push student thinking. This is a win/win situation because the teacher can be sure of what students know when they are producing the product without her input, and students can answer questions about how they got their answer and why their initial answers were wrong.

One of the keys of this video is that the teacher didn’t make the answer to the problem the focus of the conversations. She made the process the focus which allowed the conversations to be flexible and dynamic. The problems she asked students to solve could be solved using different steps and she allowed students to solve the problems as they saw fit rather than creating a lock-step set of rules that are most efficient for students to follow (without necessarily understanding).

To manage the student to student conversations, the teacher used good questions, proximity, asked questions to prompt more discussion, and perhaps most importantly, she provided a simple structure:

• gave the students a task
• provided time for students to think before sharing
• provided specific timeframes for student discussion that was short but not too short
• asked students to share a final product for accountability

I hope you will incorporate more student to student academic dialogue into your classroom instruction, so students can create knowledge and have a little fun while they do it.

References

Caine, G., and Caine, R. (1994). Making connections: Teaching and the human brain. New York: Addison Wesley.

Jensen, E. (2000). Brain-based learning. San Diego: The Brain Store

Roberts, J. W. (2002). Beyond learning by doing: The brain compatible approach. Accessed April 3, 2012, http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/sblakemore/SJ_papers/BlaFri_DevSci05.pdf.

I’ve had the opportunity over the last four months to visit more than 30 schools and 400 classrooms in the area as we are ramping up our work with the GEAR UP projects in Kentucky. During my observations, I’ve seen a multitude of instructional models from lecture and note-taking to reading text with guided notes to students working in small groups to create a group product around information about a topic, and several more that I don’t have time to discuss. I bring this up because of what I haven’t observed is a systemic approach to developing College Success skills in a school.

Many colleges define College Success skills as study skills and strategies that may be helpful to students to effectively make the transition from high school to college. The skills include but are not limited to: note-taking, active listening, study for better recall and memory, time management, test-taking, and effective writing. I list these skills here because of these skills the only one that I see approached systemically is test-taking and that’s not for college success as much as immediate success in high school. I, also, bring it up because it shows that when schools want to create a systemic approach they can and do! So why don’t we see a stronger systematic approach to College Success skill development in high schools, especially when you consider in Kentucky that Senate Bill 1 makes college and career readiness a priority.

I know creating a College Success skills program/curriculum might be an overwhelming task for schools but I’ve witnessed a vast array of note-taking routines that do not seem to be producing very good results. In place of a total curriculum, it is worthwhile for schools to think about developing a comprehensive approach to note-taking. Schools must work with students immediately upon arrival to begin learning the skills, and create a vertical alignment of expectations for what note-taking will look like in the entire school. It’s not as if everyone must use the Cornell Note Taking system developed by Dr. Walter Pauk (ex 1, ex 2, his book) but the school can work together to identify key characteristics of note-taking and develop 2-3 variations that teachers can use. If teachers are going to ask their students to take notes anyway, shouldn’t we as educators use a system that is effective, helps students learn the material, and promotes deep learning? If not then why take notes?

The Cornell note-taking method and other approaches encompasses three key characteristics:

1) Take class notes: main ideas, supporting details, examples, etc.

2) Identify and pull out the keywords, key ideas, develop questions, make connections, etc.

3) Finally at the end of class or after the class is over, thoughtfully reflect on the meaning of the material, summarize it, and take action on the material. Taking action means to see how the new learning connects to what students already know or how they can use their new insights.

In the classes I observe in, teachers routinely have students do #1, but I rarely see teachers have students interact with material to identify keywords, and summarize intentionally. This example shows how a school is providing intentional structure for students as they take notes in class, make connections, and summarize what they have learned.

Pauk also develops five R’s of note-taking:

1. Recording: Writing down key words, phrases, facts, main ideas, and key concepts.

2. Reducing: This step reduces the learner’s notes into summary form for quick studying and preparation for a test.

3. Reciting: Learners should review and rephrase their notes as soon as possible after class putting the notes into their own words. This step makes it easier to understand their own thoughts and meaning.

4. Reflecting: Something that many learners don’t grasp is that notes (concepts, ideas, and keywords) should be thought about. It is easy to fall into the trap of reciting notes by rote. The key is to think about the concepts, their meaning, and implications. Through this thoughtful process, learners are getting the most of out of note taking and classes.

5. Reviewing: Learners should periodically review to keep the information fresh in your mind. One real secret of successful studying is to know when, how, and what to review. Like an accomplished performer, it is the quality of the review that makes a difference. Reviewing is an intentional, intense, and active process, not a passive process (Pauk, 2000; Center for Literacy Studies, UT).

In the five R’s Pauk, creates a great system that schools could build a routine and expectations around. Teachers can make Reducing the homework assignment, or could make the summary an exit slip that students turn in at the end of class so the teacher can offer some feedback/suggestion about improving the quality of the summary (not longer but include key points or important details, etc.). Teachers could post summaries or build a better summary together to start class the next day. This active intentional approach to building student capacity to summarize provides important scaffolding for students to understand the purpose for note-taking.

If teachers made each R an intentional part of their instruction, they wouldn’t be adding anything that they don’t want and need students doing anyway. Instead of making it just the students job to do these things, teachers create value and understanding of the process as part of their daily instruction. Yes, hopefully if students have been supported during their high school career senior teachers will need to supply less scaffolding and support.

There are a multitude of research articles that found students who take notes and review those notes were more successful than students who did not take notes on immediate assessments and delayed assessments (Bligh, 2000; Kiewra et al., 1991), but we can’t assume that high school students understand how to review those notes. In fact Kiewra found that students who took notes but did not synthesize and/or review scored lower than students who didn’t take notes, so if we are going to have students take notes, it is incumbent upon us to support them in understanding how to be successful in using them.

Along these lines, it is important to help students learn what material to record, and how to record it. Several studies of college students found that only 60% of main ideas delivered verbally were recorded and that number was a dismal 11% for first year college students, so imagine what a freshman in high school is able to do with a verbal lecture! Research does indicate that writing the information down does help to increase information that students write down. As students write their material down, there is a very important concern with inaccuracy, especially with diagrams, numbers, and equations (Johnstone and Su, 1994). Additionally, correcting those inaccuracies once written down is seldom successful.

This research isn’t hard to understand but does point to the importance at the high school level for creating a systemic approach to note-taking and the development of that skill. It isn’t OK for us to put all of the onus on students to ‘study’ their notes and then be upset when they don’t. How are teachers making notes valuable for students? How are teachers helping students make connections with the materials? How are teachers developing students’ ability to synthesize the material? Are they doing these things? If not, why not?

References

Bligh, D. (2000). What’s the use of lectures? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Center for Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee. Note-taking skills. Accessed, March 29, 2012. http://www.cls.utk.edu/pdf/ls/Week2_Lesson14.pdf

Johnstone, A. H, & Su, W. Y. (1994). Lectures- a learning experience? Education in Chemistry, 31(1) 75-75, 79.

Kiewra, K. A., DuBois, N., Christian, D., Mcshane, A., Meyerhoffer, M., & Roskelley, D. (1991) Note-taking functions and techniques. Journal of Educational Psychology 83(2), 240-245.

Pauk, W. (2000). How to study in college. Houghton Mifflin Company; New York.

Back in the Dark Ages when I was a junior in my public high school, I spent one full six-week grading period in English developing, researching and writing a lengthy term paper, complete with footnotes and bibliography–and this in the days before word processing programs could assist with those laborious nuts and bolts!  We literally spent every English class period for six weeks, plus significant time out of class, working on these papers, and the grade for the paper was the grade for the class for the marking period. It wasn’t a shock to us as students: We knew the junior term paper in English was a longstanding tradition, and we actually looked forward to it. We were allowed to choose any topic at all as a focus, as long as it was possible to develop a reasonable hypothesis which we would then attempt to prove or disprove based on research that we could conduct–and this before Google was even imaginable.

My paper was on the development of musical theater as a distinctly American art form, specifically, on the idea that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ”Oklahoma!” in 1943 (which at the time seemed to me to be ancient history…) was the very first production in which all the elements that have come to characterize musicals as we know them today were (gloriously, I thought) pulled together.  Then as now, I was a theater geek, with rehearsals and performances of all kinds filling much of my life both in and out of school.  So to have the opportunity to delve into a topic about which I was passionate was a gift. 

I spent hours in the school and public libraries, finding authoritative texts about drama and music, and poring over original critical reviews and commentary about “Oklahoma!” and other productions of the time.  I developed lists of primary source materials and other references, and we were required to keep files of large index cards by sub-topic to track our research and notes.  Class periods were spent checking in and getting feedback, sharing information with classmates, and developing thesis statements and supporting ideas.  (I recall that one of my classmates, still a good friend who works in media, wrote his paper about the editorial cartoons of the Civil War journalist Thomas Nast.)

I remember sitting for hours at my parents’ dining room table tapping away on an old manual typewriter–carbon and copy paper firmly in the roller, no auto-saves, no spell-checks–and pulling together my research and my thoughts.  I don’t remember exactly how long the paper was–I do recall an over-long, overwrought title, something about “The Consummation of Elements in the American Musical Theater”–or what grade I got.  But the challenge and exhilaration of exploring and developing a topic virtually on my own, and having plenty of time to do so, has stayed with me to this day.  When I got to my freshman year of college two years later, I had absolute confidence in my ability to tackle any research or analytical paper that might be assigned.

So I was very interested in a piece by reporter Matt Richtel that appeared in The New York Times a few months ago, presenting the debate over the utility of long- versus short-form writing in college:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=term%20papers&st=cse

Richtel discusses the contention of a Duke University English professor that research papers are outdated, and that students should instead be using shorter formats, like blogs, to present ideas in writing.

Before I let you know what I think, I’d like to know what you think–and since this is a blog (a form that I also enjoy, by the way) I get to pause my writing right here and invite feedback based on your experiences:  Educators, students, professional, amateur, avid or reluctant writers–please post your thoughts, and I’ll continue mine in my next post.

One of the books I’ve been in and out of a lot the last few months is Leading Good Schools to Greatness: Mastering What Great Principals Do Well (Gray & Streshly; 2010). It initially was a text for my own leadership learning at Marian, but I recognized its value immediately and infused it into the work I’ve done with school leaders in Kentucky and Tennessee regarding school turnaround. The book is packed with content that ties directly to the four recommendations for achieving school turnaround: Signal Dramatic Change; Focus on Instruction; Achieve Quick Wins; Build a Committed Staff.

I’m including here a guide-o-rama of sorts (kind of like a guided scavenger hunt through a book) to guide your own preview of the text:

Page 4: Framework for the Highly Successful School Principal- this chart is the book in a nutshell. If you’re wondering whether you’ve got what it takes as a school leader, check your own attributes against the ones here

Page 7: A few points of interest here all related to Building a Committed Staff including: tips on using quick wins to build your alliance; securing commitment while driving change efforts; and hiring, redeployment, and releasing staff

Pages 19-21: Some really nice models for providing helpful feedback on instruction, which is valuable not only to keeping the focus on instructional issues, but strengthening the professional dialogue and trust among leaders and teachers

Pages 39 & 46: Important lessons about sticking to your guns while remaining humble, important to consider when signaling dramatic change

Page 55: Building a tolerance for truth in an effort to transform instructional practice… here is a PD plan for digging into data with faculty

Page 77: All about getting the right people on the bus

Page 94: Attributes of effective professional development in schools; a really useful list if your PD needs to step up its game

Page 103: The Hedgehog Concept explained (this connects to the unwavering focus a leader must have and how quick wins must be linked to a school’s mission)

Pages 148-150: Habits to acquire and avoid in pursuit of highly effective leadership…a must read which likely will prompt reflection and new goal setting