Giving out to Gain More:  Leveraging Experts in Your School

Seattle Girls School

5-8 MS grades

School is 10 years old

A trainer/developer/facilitator (not sure how many of these positions the school has – seemed like only one).   The incumbant receives 80% faculty  pay and 20% Outreach (of which 80% of income goes to school and 20% to her).

Her work raises awarenss of work she does and of the school.  What was interesting was that she negotiates w/ her teaching team so she can teach when she’s in town and not teach when she’s out of town.  Not sure how that works with the school’s class schedule.  I may have missed something in the translation.  She also does inhouse programs including parent and student workshops on bullying.

In year one they broke even on expenses and revenues ($5k each) but by year 3 they had $20k in revenue.  Teacher has flexibility to negotiate fees tho there is a set schedule.  She also donates some of her time (DOE school w no $).  She does not do any marketing;  gets contacted thru people  who attend workshops.  Parents bring in people not part of their school in to the workshops.  Others call and ask if they can come.  They open their workshops and invite anyone to come.   Don’t make money off this process.

Maryknoll Schools (yup, the one from HI)

Members of Coalition of Progressive Schools for 15y

Dean of academic affairs for HS is full time.  Their training is outreach and to increase capacity in own school.  They focus on serving the Naive Hawiian community, work w other Catholic schools, work w school in Marshall Islands.

6 teachers and dept heads to learn how to dialog.  Dean will send one of the trained teachers to Marshall Islands to conduct training instead of him. 

Principal as evaluator and compensator gets in a way of coach.  Teachers can end up teaching other teachers as part of development. 

Beginning the Process

• Identify and encourage teachers to want to do this.
• Offer inhouse opportunities.
• Support external opportunities like providing subs.
• Be extra generous with early collaborators.
• Support continued professional development.
• Leverage the school’s business infrastructure – invoices, collects payments.

Qualities for the Outreach Leader

• experience in field – depth in field, this takes time
• continous learning – committed to continuous learning, not an end point
• presentations skills – start w someone chraismatic
• high autonomy – someone you are willing to give autonomy to (setting fee structure)
• creativity – these folks will be forming partnerships that impact beyond school
• multi-tasker
• communication skills
• high integrity – need to have someone repesent org in a mission way

job of Head of school?  Get out of the way

Build a sustaining growing model that all teachers could qualify/strive for.  The days of refining your program and keeping it to yourselves so you can be the best is over.  Like World Peace Games – we win when everyone wins – need to get out and share.  Why not share with each other the internal resources?

Rosetta Eun Ryong Lee

tiny.cc/rosetalee

Why aren’t all schools playing this game, Pua and I want to know???

This guy was very inspirational!  Humble.  World Peace and other 4th grade achiements will be shown on PBS in May.  We need to keep an eye out for it and remind each other.

In the game, 4 countries are pitted against each other in political, milllitary, social and economic conflict.  Students learn thru conflict. 

“no right or wrong answer”  “choose the one that is best for all people and then what’s best for yourself”

“other people matter, cannot win by yourself.  if work together can achieve anything.”

Mr. Hunter advocates for letting students decide for themselves what they should do, what is the right way.  He shared incredible stories of students’ self-sacrifice for greater good.  He spoke of heros.

He said that there is no next big thing to save a teacher.  It’s about the relationship between a teacher and student.  This survives policies which come and go.  Chad – school paper, riot, worse day of my life, 10 years later, University of Maryland, award, a child in my community will get to go to college.  You never know.  Not just teaching the child in front of me but teaching generations.  Never know how far your affect, how far your reach.  This guy IS James Brown!

Necessity is the mother of invention.  We heard from a MS math teacher and a MS engineering class teacher at an all girls’ school.  The latter undertook blended learning to beat the bell schedule.  The schedule did not prpovide sufficient time to saw and hammer and build so they took all the content out of the classroom and online.

In these 2 schools, students use this platform to share.  For example, students video record to explain how to do a math problem.  Through this process, the math teacher usually met the entire family throughout the school year as they would occassionally appear on student videos.  e.g. a MS girl  showed herself teaching her young brother andcousin the math problem.

Both teachers said to focus the classroom time on things that are better to do in groups or with each other.  Use the time to teach kids to work collaboratively with each other.

For example in the engineering class they designed and built solar ovens how to take a hands on learing into blended learning? (5th grade)  Learning online (need to know about solor energy and photovltaic  is b4 building solar oven).  Girls wouls learn and respond online. Teacher started to hear from kids they never heard in class.  Increased their engagement.  Kids would stop teachers around campus and discuss project and online learning.  Familiies got involved with discussions.  Kids started doing own research online.

The teacher used Wiley E. Coyote and other You Tube videos to help learning at the interest level of 5th grade teaches.  Video submssions – not sure would get this from kids in classroom.  Takes lot of time to view videos so ts a balancing act.  On the other end, teachers should keep their vidoes  short – what do they really need to know?  Hardest thing for teachers is not to create 4-hr video.  lots of tings out there -take advantagre of mulit media to help kids learn and retain.  use You Tube.  don’t just recreate classroom online.

Lot of time in the summer spent in by teachers but once created – it’s start up cost.  You can improve next year but foundatin is there.

todaysmeet.com/naisblended

Steven Carter

in praise of idleness; there is value of time to do nothing but reflection. if never reflect on ideas of others you will not have any ideas of your own.  build in time for children to reflect

reflection necessary for good leadersip

we’re trying to make pace faster

****

Crazy Bull

I found her stats and thoughts very similar to the educational plight of Native Hawaiians:

• 1.7m students of Indian and Alaskan Natives  
• 600 recognized tribes in US only, very diverse
• educated Indians loss ther identities, and were neither white or Indian
• vision – education can be used for their own purpose; use their own knowledge and culure and transform it .
• 93% of tribal studnets go to non-tribal school; graduation rate is less than 50%,
• 1/6 of graduates attend post-seondary tribal schools
• tribal languages used; families and tribes still pratice ceremonies
• tribal nations have all info in tribal culture to succeed.  need others to see they need support.
• importance of oral history means being good listener. 
• commitment of native studies as valid and substantiated as western knowlge
• not a quaint heritage that exists in this country

Sarah Kay

 She was awesome. Opened with a slam poem and closed with one.  Slam poetry is a way to help students find their voice.

Innovation is new breakthrough to address old problem.  She discussed accediental breakthroughs and that most children are programmed to have accidental breakthroughs.  Overtime we learn that breakthroughs happen through hard work and we ignore accidental breakthroughs.  She encouraged us to sometimes follow our kids “down that rabbit hole”.

Dr Medina – interesting guy.  Entertaining for a scientist.  Spent too much time in his “performance” rather than covering more material faster.

He confirms that we are ignorant of how brain works.  Right brain vs. left brain and the idea that we use only 10% of brain – not true throw that out.  We can look at same pieces of data and come to different conclusions. 

He said that our brains were wired to solve problems related to survival  in outsoor setting and that  humans are natural explorers.  Yet how do we design classrooms?

Stress brains do no learn the same way as non-stress brains (I couldn’t expect the explanation of the hypocampus in your brain and the on/off switch if I wanted to.  maybe Sylvia can….).

Shared about an experiment w dogs caged and shocked.  Learned helplesness occurs when someone feels they’ve lost of control.  Loss of control over stimulous coming at you externally.  Stressors, we know, are ambiguous.  What one person thinks is stressful it to another.  The more out of control you are on the outisde stimulous, the stress generated from that is not good for you.  Versus some stress that is actually avoid for you.  In this phase the ability to hypothcize goes down (dogs who wouldn’t escape an open door cage because they could no longer hypothecize that they may be able to escape through the open door. 

Certain type of stress can cause brain damage (uh oh).

If you have a stressed out ee ask, “Where do you feel out of ontrol?  How can I give you back control?” 

This was not as good as the title sounded…. Rather than steps to move faculty, it was an explanation of a particular activity this presenter uses.  Speaker discussed innovation as part of one activity rather than a continuum.  I had to lead early cuz my iPad started playing music and I couldn’t stop it!  Good thing I won’t see those people again my life. I never ever even ever ever play music on my iPad.  Here are 9 of the 10 steps before I had to leave w my music blaring:

 1. invite teachers to think about theeir personal preferences

Ask: what do i love to do when i have spare time?  get teachers to look at who they are

“Do” is important, not “know” – someone else said this in another session I attended.

Book called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath allows adults to take a test and find out what your strenghts are.  All positive things.  Speaker gave teachers book at end of SY and asked them to email tesst results b4 return to school.  Breaks people up into categories:

    thinkng strengths

   relating strenghts

   influencing strengths

   executing strengths – executors are arrangers: science, art, kindergarten

         restorative: math, english art

         this student woldn’t have been fixed w/o your help

 Get faculty to think about their strengths – use different language.  Divide teachers into their categories and come up with strenghts of their work style

 graffle software – brainstorm something i want to learn to DO

Teachers choose something to learn to do and will learn alongside studentnts.  students will leran something the teacher wants to learn  – aren’t they doing that anyway?

 diigo great bookmarking site for students and teachers.  holds students accountable for research. teachers can go to site and see where students have been.

 2. conduct a strengths workshop

3. brainstorm, “something i want to learn more about”

4. invite techers to choose a topic

5. research / bookmark/webhunt

6. learn and use a new web-based tool

must learn a new web-based tool.  Google the 100 best web 2.0 classroom tools

7. create a unit and a calendar

8. make studnets aware                              

9. Okay, music started playing a few seconds ago…. Gotta go!

10

Bill Gates general session Thursday, Maech 1

Okay, besides the fact that it was the Bill Gates, i was impressed by howmuch he actually knew about education.  He’s not just a celebrity rich  who throws (lots) of money at pet charities and causes.  He actually is knowledgeable and committed to improving education. 

How much can technology can help us learn?

Reimaging textbooks

Scaling our best teacher

Connecting through social networks

Personalizing learning

gooey iTunes U

Teachers pay teachers –  600k teachers a sharing and sellling lesson plans

Edmodo social net for teachers and students

KhanAcademy – video lessons

Mangahai

 Give teachers time to learn this stuff

 QA

Q: What skills will our students need?

A: basic ability to use latest software

Adults I know what I know; if I don’t know I didn’t learn it school and that’s it.

Now – go online and take 4-5 hr classes and learn

Q: purpose of education

A: culture created in classes is an amazingly importaqnt thing. Tenure of classroom – are kids respectful of each other?  Culture built in schools.  Learn to live w/in a cooperative culture needed in collage and work.  Still need to know how to multiply.  Need to know how to work collaboratively w/ others.

 Need to benchmark technology

 “Innovation is the means and equity is the goal”

Some of our best work as educators is to just get out of the way and let kids innovate. (interesting that reference to this came up several times in sessions i attended)

Patrick Bassett (NAIS president)

1. Backward mapping for Skills and values that 21st century will value

Curriculum development around outcomes and not subjects

 2. Formative assessments, digital portfolio

 3. Appreciative inquiry, strength approach ang growth method- integrate all 3

 5, greening

6. STEM what is ur differentiator signature program

7. Professional using the proffession.  Common teaming for colaboration

8. Public purpose of pvt Ed

9. Other learning online

10.  Design thinking transforming howmwemteach and org students in school

Wednesday, February 29 – Happy Leap Day!  Attended a great 3-hour workshop on Innovation (I know, you couldn’t tell from my exuberance at dinner that night…).       Called Design Thinking w/ Laura Deisley from The Lovett School in GA, Christian Long from Cannon Design / The Third Teacher Plus in OH and Jeff Sharpe from  Playful Design in TX.  I can tell you which one Laura was but the other 2…. i’m going to guess w/o checking them out online that Jeff was from Be Playful Design in TX cuz he had cowboy boots on.  The guys both work for companies that design school but looks like they work for another company together (RE/DO?).  

 When I first glanced in the room, I saw rows and rows of theater seating chairs – the kind that all link together.  You know which ones cuz you sat on them too.  I thought, “Are you kidding me?  For 3 hours?  Why didn’t I go to INMAX with Rhonda instead?” But the seating was all part of the plan and part of our second activity.

Schools need to fail in order to succeed.   They echo the words of Terri Wolff – not “Yea, but”, it’s “Yea, and”.  It was a very interactive 3 hours w/ 3 group activties. 

Some thoughts from the session:

We are trapped in fear of failure;

Ideas are scalable; Build on ideas (instead of going straight for the solution);

Suspend what u think u know;

“Yea, but” kills innovation;

Dissolve boundaries;

Make as many mistakes as fast as possible (heart of design);

Have fun.

In the process they recommend setting ground rules (like not solving the problem).  Think about who the user (client) is and build empathy (in other words, don’t just dream to dream).

Design is a verb.  The process is not about agree or disagree but what is that something you want people to remember tomorrow. What is the one thing the next day that will make you say, “I don’t know what I think about it but I can’t unthink it”. Take people where they wouldn’t have gone.  The goal is not to be right. 

When asking questions about the proposed idea or design, the “Yea, but” culture asks questions from the mindset of why this idea won’t work – poke holes in it.   The “Yea, and” culture asks questions that will take the idea to the next level – what other considerations are thee for this idea to work?  Frame questions positively rather than critically.  Be flexible for what we know and what we don’t know.  The design process is an evolving (and involving) process.  This is harder than you think because we’ve been programmed to critique an idea rather than build on it.

 Listen     Imagine     Make

We broke up into 8 or 9 groups.  There were 5 people in my group including me.  We were all to design a room that we would like to work in that would inspaire us to design.  Some observations from the larger group after report out:

   Intensive collaboration is delightfully ambiguous;

   Playfulneess, no politics, gleefulness, fun, not competitive;

   What cd we innovate if we didn’t have to worry about politics, approval, how to fund?

Reminds me of an innovation workshop at SHRM, remind me to tell you about that one one day…. (or not)

Imagine is not about answer but the possibilities. What is the possibility of what you heard?  We tend to look for answer rather than where things collide.

Saw a video of students talking about their experience in D.school at Stanford. Google and look for free things for educators.  Video of students “possibilities are everywhere”.

The theme of the video was about making failure work.  Failure doesn’t stop them, it propels them forward.  Who assigns “failure” anyway?

   Fail

   Fail again

   Fail better

– Sam Bennett

Schools don’t celebrate failure, people don’t create, publish their failures. 

Some resources:  Riverdale school using design thinking.  IDEO, frog design.

Iterative design is churning thru ideas as fast as u can (fail as fast as u can).  Ideas are only as good as the risk you take w your group. 

What’s ur creative competency?  We teach children to be more structured, fear of failure.

Language matters

Make is ability to mock up to start w something.  Prototype, don’t have to be right and perfect.  Again Don’t solve the problem. 

So what do I remember the day after?  Connection and reflection is part of the design process.  Kids are naturally fearless and we teach them fear – one of facilitators shared a story of his 5 year old drawing a storyboard wo fear and now he’s 8 and he can already see his fear of failure in his process and work.  Failure is a on the continuum of learning.  Ask questions that take the idea to the next level, not about how it won’t work.  This one is hard one for me.  I want to solve the the problem but want to embrace the process of design thinking to get to a better solution.  I’m sure I will fail and fail again as I evolve.  You all har permission to kick me under the table when I fail to ask a question that takes an idea to the next level!