Leadership: New Teachers and the Ethical Standards

    In Ontario teachers are governed by the Ontario College of teachers. Part of being an Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) means that you are held to the standards of practice and the ethical standards, outlined in the hyperlinks provided.

There is so much to learn as a new teacher. It is flat out overwhelming - even when you have dreamed of becoming a teacher for years and feel you were born to do it, once you get started and really see how much there is to thinking about and consider; the learning curve is steep. 

Here I will analyze the ethical standards in the context of Growing Success to show how it is embedded in the 2010 policy. By following the assessment & evaluation policy, you are upholding the ethical standards (care, respect, trust and integrity) of the Ontario College of Teachers.

Care

"The ethical standard of Care includes compassion, acceptance, interest and insight for developing students' potential. Members express their commitment to students' well-being and learning through positive influence, professional judgment and empathy in practice."

"Developing potential" and "professional judgement" make me think a lot about the purpose of assessment: to improve student learning (Growing Success, pg 6). If you are working to improve student learning through a genuine desire for success for each individual student you will show compassion and interest for developing student potential and you will be committed to student well-being. In addition, the phrase "professional judgement" appears in Growing Success fifteen times, starting on page 2.

On page 8 of the policy (which is providing context for the fundamental principles of assessment and evaluation) it states, "In their important professional role, teachers show students that they care about them, and model a love of learning that can deeply influence their lives."

Respect

"Intrinsic to the ethical standard of Respect are trust and fair-mindedness. Members honour human dignity, emotional wellness and cognitive development. In their professional practice, they model respect for spiritual and cultural values, social justice, confidentiality, freedom, democracy and the environment."

The first of the seven fundamental principles of the Growing Success policy is that "...teachers use practices and procedures that are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students." Additionally, you can only have a sound handle on assessment & evaluation when you are able to build trust with students and parents.

On page 147 the policy defines its use of the word equity as "A condition or state of fair, inclusive, and respectful treatment of all people. Equity does not mean that people are treated the same without regard for individual differences."

Trust

"The ethical standard of Trust embodies fairness, openness and honesty. Members' professional relationships with students, colleagues, parents, guardians and the public are based on trust."

Some of this is addressed above in the analysis of Respect, as it uses trust and fairness in its definition. Moreover, we can build trust through openness by making sure to be transparent in our assessment practices. Another of the fundamental principles states that "...teachers use practices and procedures that are communicated clearly to students and parents at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course."

Page 2 (the Introduction) also uses the term trust: "Successful implementation of policy depends on the professional judgement of educators at all levels, as well as on educators’ ability to work together and to build trust and confidence among parents and students."

Integrity

"Honesty, reliability and moral action are embodied in the ethical standard of Integrity. Continual reflection assists members in exercising integrity in their professional commitments and responsibilities."

We use a criterion-based approach to assessment and evaluation in Ontario. It is important to understand what this means and to use this approach, as this is how we help students to make progress in a reliable, research-based approach. When we fail to maintain a criterion-based approach to our curriculum we are comparing students to each other instead of evaluating their learning based on the expectations themselves.

When growing success defines professional judgement it states that " In professional practice, judgement involves a purposeful and systematic thinking process that evolves in terms of accuracy and insight with ongoing reflection and self-correction" which highlights the importance of ongoing teacher reflection.

Leadership: Why Every Teacher Should Be a Researcher

    The theme of this module in our course was teachers as researchers. While my previous entry was specifically about action research (AR), ultimately it is important for all teachers to think of their work in the classroom as research and to be intentional about using a framework and making decisions based on data.

Action research uses the following process:

Phase 1: Planning (Come up with a testable question, do some secondary research, design the process) 

Phase 2: Action (Complete the primary research and data collection cycles)

Phase 3: Analysis (What does the data show?)

Phase 4: Conclusion

and from phase 4 we can cycle back to phase 1. Ideally action research would be completed collaboratively (and there are other models we can consider, such as Collaborative Inquiry, which ultimately have a similar process and the end goal - to try new things and learn from it - is the same).

If we are not able to engage in formal AR (collaborative time is not always given, common goals may not be determined) then we should make a best effort to engage in this process on a smaller scale for our own educational practices. I can see this process being used in two ways. Many educators likely are doing this very informally, but we could all benefit (as would our students) from thinking about it in more depth and making sure to complete the process.

In our day to day teacher we are constantly assessing student learning, collecting data and making decisions based on that data. Often this process is based on intuition and anecdotal data that is not tracked. This does not make the  process wrong, but likely we could be making more efficient decisions to improve student learning by being more intentional. I see this process as:

1. Plan a lesson including intentional decisions for assessment for and/or as learning
2. Do the lesson and collect the data (it could be fully collected such as a simple exit ticket using Google Forms/Quizzes or it could be as simple as using a thumbs up/side/down survey where you jot down the counts)
3. Reflect on what the data tells you (record your reflections, especially if it informs something to do differently in the plan next time)
4. Make an informed decision about student learning and use it to inform the next cycle

By using the process more formally on an individual basis we making an effort to limit our biases (which we all have - and what makes them a bias is that we often don't recognize them).

On a larger scale, as educators we often have a goal for ourselves for a semester or school year. Sometimes this goal is more personal in nature (i.e. to improve work-life balance) and sometimes it is purely about student learning (i.e. to improve on giving descriptive feedback). Although this goal may not be a collaborative effort we can still engage in a more formal process to work through this goal. We are more likely to hold ourselves accountable and, I would guess, are more likely to succeed. The point in both the day-to-day example and this is the same: be intentional!

Plan (don't skip the research)

Collect the data

Reflect (write it down)

Make informed decisions

Where this can (and does) become difficult is that by not being collaborative we can remain stuck in our isolated classrooms. It becomes important to have conversations with others in the building about your work to keep away from that bubble and to seek feedback from others. If we all engage in work like this it will start to lead to some meaningful collaboration, or at least will allow us to support each other in individual endeavours!

Leadership: Triangulating Assessment Data

 In the third module of our leadership course we are looking at pedagogical leadership and one of the sections focused on pedagogical documentation - specifically, triangulation!

If you have followed along with any of the themes of my writing on this blog over the years you will likely notice an evolution of my interest in student assessment & evaluation (heck, I took the A&E AQ course in 2013), so of course this topic stood out to me.

This is a topic that I have found many educators (including myself) have really struggled to effectively wrap their heads around. It is a topic that is easily overwhelming, but it is essentially for equitable assessment, evaluation and reporting and it is fundamental for pedagogical leadership. We can have great instructional strategies and presence, we can even be good at sharing those strategies, seeking feedback and reflecting on - but without connecting instruction with assessment (and realizing that they must go hand in hand) it is difficult to claim that we are accomplishing the ultimate goal as teachers. We must put students at the centre of our work and remember that to improve student learning we must be able to effectively assess student learning.

Triangulation informs all types of student learning. We should be using it to assess students for, as and of learning stages as well as to determine student grades at the reporting stages. By being able to collect information from our students in different ways we are better able to uncover what a student knows and understands and the depth to which they understand and can apply their learning. This is where using the achievement chart and evaluating student work using levels starts to make a lot more sense. Student achievement is found in depth, not in a number we can come up with because of "correct" answers given.

The most overwhelming part of this (that pedagogical leaders should first tackle for themselves - or at the very least be actively working on tackling) is how to do this in an effective way that does not result in an overload of data! We can't (and shouldn't) record every little observation and conversation (or even formative products for that matter) that we have with students, it would result in way too much data to use at the reporting stage. We should, however, use these opportunities to inform our instruction (identify groups of students needing help, or whole class intervention/changes in lesson plans needed), to give students descriptive feedback in conversations or during observations (depending on the age of students some of this can be recorded by the student even). And we must also be intentional about choosing observations and conversations (transparent to students) that will be included as opportunities to show assessment of learning and record that data for later use in reporting.

Leadership: Positive Professional Development Experience

 This entry comes after some learning about effective professional development facilitation in our Teacher Leadership course. Thomas R. Guskey discusses backward planning needed for this type of professional development to happen - and makes it quite obvious why so much PD tends to fail. The big take away from this article is to note that these 5 things need to happen when planning teacher learning:

1) Desired student learning outcomes - what specific outcomes do we want to see and what evidence best reflects these outcomes (the decision should be based on data)

2) New practices & policies to be implemented - determine practices based on evidence (actual research, with citations) that will result in the desired outcomes

3) Needed organizational support - ideally needing school leader support and school resources (release time, technology, instructional materials) as well as feedback for teachers as they implement new strategies

4) Educator knowledge and skills - what must educators know and be able to do to implement the practices/policies?

5) Optimal professional learning activities - the set of experiences that will allow 4 to happen

So where have I seen this in practice?

A few years ago the Instructional Coordinator for Assessment at our board created the Secondary Assessment Leadership Team. This was a team you could apply to and 1-2 candidates were selected from each school location. We participated in an assessment camp that happened in the summer over 2-3 days and then had full day PL release during the year as well as some evening PL sessions to attend. This was continuous learning over time geared at building leadership capacity in the board in assessment with the goal of improving student learning. Here is how each of the 5 planning items were addressed:

1. We wanted to see student learning improve through changing assessment practices in the secondary portion of the board to better align with Ontario policy. This shift should see assessment & evaluation provide students with more varied opportunities to show their learning, get descriptive feedback and have a more transparent assessment experience in school. By doing this we believed that we would see improvements in student wellness and academic achievement. I don't know if the central data collecting for these goals happened. It may have happened on a school by school basis through student surveys and monitoring grades and final evaluation results.
   
   
2. Our work was all grounded in research. The learning of the SALT team used thoughtfully chosen resources over a period of time. For example, one year our work was focused around "Developing Assessment-Capable Visible Learners" by Nancy Frey, John Hattie and Douglas Fisher. We also had board developed smaller resources created by teachers based on research that as SALT leaders we could use with our school staff.
   
   
3. I have partially addressed this above - you can see clearly that we had board level support and resources (time release, reading materials) - and this support extended to the school level (at most locations). Principals were briefed about the work of the SALT team via a video conference and (ideally) the SALT lead was with the principal at the time. Release time was provided for school teams and principals could use the school discretionary release days for this purpose as well. SALT leads were expected to plan professional learning for their locations and this often occurred during provincial PA days, staff meetings and early-release days. Feedback for teachers would have been more dependent on how each location planned.
   
   
4. Our first year with the SALT team focused on improving final evaluations. Much of the practice was grounded only in the use of products and exams were still common-place in many locations. The Secondary Assessment Steering Committee felt that addressing final evaluations was an important starting point with the most impact as it would help steer more teachers toward changing practices in other places. We use our Final Evaluations checklist a lot that year and addressed teacher knowledge around Growing Success, equity, triangulation and analyzing final evaluations next to the overall expectations of a given course.
   
   
5. The SALT team sessions were set up to have us look at part of the resource we were focused on that year and also evolved to include leadership and facilitation skills (including planning for PL). It always included time to work on our planning while sharing and getting feedback from fellow group members. We often used reflective time to debrief on things we had tried since the last meeting so that we could adjust, learn new things and plan for the next leadership opportunity.

I had never really thought about these explicit steps for planning professional learning/development in the past, but I will definitely refer back to this learning for my future facilitation opportunities!

Portfolio: Assessment Leadership

As part of my Teacher Leadership Part 1 AQ we are to build a portfolio of artifacts that reflect who we are as a leader and who we want to become. In this entry I will be reflecting on how opportunities to participate in board assessment opportunities have impacted me as a leader.

At some point my admin tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that I was seen as a teacher leader and there was an opportunity I should take advantage of. After a brief pause of confusion, I said "okay!" and a series of circumstances have lead me to where I am now - a member of our Secondary Assessment Leadership Team (SALT) for the 2017-2018 school year.

This opportunity is going to give me a chance to network with colleagues in my board from almost every secondary school who have an interest in moving assessment and evaluation forward. We are specifically going to be focusing on final evaluations so that the board can build practices that are better aligned between schools and better aligned with Growing Success (2010) and our board assessment policy.

This network of resources will be valuable going forward as we will be able to connect colleagues at our schools with people who are working on the same course or subject - which will help break down barriers that sometimes exist in the secondary school world.

The SALT team is what lead me down the Learning Map journey. This example is my most recent one created. These are always a work in progress and I am planning to make use of them in my "gradeless" journey this year.

Portfolio: Leading in a Group: Courageous Conversations

I am taking the Teacher Leadership Part 1 AQ. Our culminating task involves creating a leadership portfolio by choosing items from each module of the course to share and reflecting on its contribution to my growth as a leader. I have chosen to share my portfolio as part of my blog.

This entry is from the module entitled Leading in a Group where we looked at how adults learn, the importance of having difficult conversations to give people real feedback, mentorship (the NTIP program), considering cross-curricular lesson planning and coming up with staff meeting agenda.

In this assignment we were asked to collaborate to develop a dialogue around a courageous conversation. My partner and I chose to make a dialogue between a teacher (who had not made necessary changes to assessment practices and was still relying on quizzes and tests) and an instructional coach. Creating this dialogue forces us to think about ways to have a courageous conversation in a way that made the teacher's experience valuable while finding out what they needed so that we could gauge how to move forward. We tried to phrase things in a way that asked for the teacher's input instead of making assumptions about what they needed to move forward in their practice.

I chose this assignment for my portfolio because I believe that having difficult conversations - confronting uncomfortable things - is the skill that needs the greatest improvement. It is something I have often avoided throughout my life, but I am working on it and felt that this portion of the course helped me to reflect on it in a more concrete way.

Our readings/videos suggested these steps for having courageous conversations (for giving feedback to an employee in a business):
1. Prepare them
2. Get to the point
3. Link to business
4. Agree on action
and I felt that in starting this dialogue that we knew:
1. The teacher was prepared because of past conversations with department members/head and knew they were meeting with the instructional coach and why
2. To get to the point quickly
3. To relate the work to the teachers own goals and ideas and give choice
4. To come up with a plan for follow through

Here is the conversation we developed:

Issue or Problem:

Some possible ideas could include - despite multiple conversations a teacher is not making progress in terms of assessment practices (relying on quiz & test data and department/course team discussions have resulted in little change)

Roles: Teacher & Instructional Coach (dialogue is making the assumption that department head made connection between T and IC)

Dialogue:

IC: Hi T, my name is IC, I don’t think we have formally met yet.

T: Hello. It is nice to meet you. We can work in here.

IC: So my understanding is that your department head has put us in touch. Can you tell me a little bit about what you would like to work on?

T: Well, department head seems to feel that I need to review how I give tests in my classes, I guess I’m not supposed to be giving so many tests. The problem is that I am never sure with other assignment types how I know they’re not just copying from each other or sharing the workload.

IC: Ok great, that’s a very helpful starting point. Maybe we can start by taking a look at your course outline so that you can walk me through your units of study and the assessments you’ve planned

T: Sure, well, you can see here that we have 6 units throughout the year and each has a mid point quiz and an end of unit test.  You can also see that the year end exam is the culminating task so it is worth 30% of the overall mark.

IC: OK, are you aware of what the course team is currently doing? Or are you on this course alone?

T: This semester I am the only teacher on this course.

IC: You mentioned that you are concerned about students copying. Is there a type of assessment you have in mind that you would like to try to work through?

T: Well I know that I should be doing some problem-based stuff.

IC: How do you feel about collecting triangulated data?

T: I am willing to try something new but am not really sure what you mean by triangulated data?

IC: Triangulated data means that you’re looking for 3 opportunities to assess student knowledge and understanding and that you’re gathering this data through three different lenses - products, observations and conversation. You are probably doing all of them already but not necessarily making use of them as evidence for individual students.

T: Can they be Assessment for and as learning as well as a summative Assessment of Learning?

IC: Absolutely. Providing students with a formative opportunity to work with the new knowledge allows them the opportunity to test their learning and also helps you to adjust your teaching plans to address areas in which students may be challenged. For example, if you were to use a problem based scenario such as a case study, you can give students the opportunity to work through a case study in class in small groups before they tackle a summative Assessment of Learning case study.  While they are working on the formative case study, you can observe and ask questions as they work through the case study and can jot down some observational notes on how they are using the concepts and skills from the unit. You might also use a quiz as a AoL check in before the AoL case study to check on their knowledge of the key concepts they will need to apply in the case study.

T: OK, so I would take observations of individual students so that I would know what  they know individually? How do you get to every student and how do you actually track the evidence you have seen?

IC: Great question. There is not necessarily one right answer, but I would recommend starting with a learning goal and developing success criteria. That way the students will know what you are looking for and you will have a manageable way to look at the work the students are doing. You could target specific students if you are unsure about getting through the whole class, but every student needs to get the opportunity for feedback. Would you like to try planning something like this?

T: Sure. I think I have some case studies from a colleague who taught this last semester. Do I have to give every group the same case study or can they get different ones?

IC: They can definitely be different ones - as long as you think that you can assess the same learning goal for each one.

T: Ok, that seems manageable.  I would still like to use a quiz to get some reliable individual data on each student too. Is that too much?

IC: If you think a quiz is important, you might like to consider is what is on the quiz that’s different from the formative group work but that they might need in order to complete the Assessment of Learning task.  If a student performs poorly on the quiz but then reviews and works to learn the concepts and is able to apply them successfully on the Assessment of Learning case study, you can acknowledge their progress on the AoL Case Study.  

T: So when I determine their overall grade for the unit, do I average the quiz and AoL case study?

IC: You will continue to use the practice of most recent and consistent. The great thing about triangulating your results is that you are able to acknowledge the student’s overall learning. For example, If a student misses the mark on one part of the AoL case study but you have evidence from your observations and quiz results that they do understand a particular concept, you can acknowledge that in terms of the overall mark.

T: So I need to decide on a learning goal and success criteria, identify some case studies that will allow for those expectations to be met and then will need some kind of tracking mechanism to record my observations/conversations.

IC: Sounds like a great start. I can share some sample tracking sheets with you if you like and would be happy to work through those steps with you - or if you would like to have some time to work individually and then to do some feedback via email I can make that work too.

Portfolio: Theoretical Foundations: Standards & Ethics Plan

I am taking the Teacher Leadership Part 1 AQ. Our culminating task involves creating a leadership portfolio by choosing items from each module of the course to share and reflecting on its contribution to my growth as a leader. I have chosen to share my portfolio as part of my blog.

This entry is from the module entitled Theoretical Foundations where we looked at the importance of a first impression, theories of leadership, the OCT standards, transformational leadership, and the Teacher Leadership and Learning Program.

I am including my plan for leading staff through professional learning around the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) Standards and Ethical Standards. I think the ideal audience for a plan like this would be an NTIP group (new teachers and their mentors) but could also be used for a school wide professional learning.

I feel that this assignment was the one that I benefited from the most because it forced me to think about how to make a seemingly dry topic into meaningful, relevant learning. These standards are what we agree to adhere to when we apply to be an Ontario Certified Teacher and the standards and ethics are the roots we should never forget as teachers.

I found that reviewing the standards and ethics also reminded me of Ontario's assessment policy document, Growing Success.

Here is the plan that I came up with:

Standards Plan (35 minutes)

Format	Action	Consolidation
Group (15 + 5 minutes)	Give an envelope with the 5 standards and their descriptions (separated). Groups have to pair the titles and descriptions. Clarify the standards for any groups that need it. Then groups choose from one of the following options: “Most Important to Least Important” protocol – try to prioritize the 5 principles from  most to least important. Share your thinking and try to agree on the order. Is it possible to rank them? OR “Name it, Explain it” protocol – give each principle a ONE word name explain why you think it is the best choice.	Groups work together to brainstorm ways that they use/show the standards in their daily practices (both in and out of the classroom).
Individual (10 + 5 minutes)	Staff reflection (supply a graphic organizer for anyone who would like) to analyze personal practices as ways that they think they best exemplify each standard and one area of their practice they could work on to better exemplify each standard.	Staff anonymously share one best and one are of improvement via a padlet (padlet.com) for whole group debrief.

Ethical Dilemma Plan (25 minutes)

(This plan could be used at the same professional learning session or at a future session)

Format	Action	Consolidation
Group (5 minutes)	Review the Ethical Standards via OCT website as a whole group.	Time to discuss points that are not clear.
Individual & Group (5 + 5 + 10 minutes)	Case studies – give each group an ethical dilemma (dilemmas collected from known education stories) – 1 copy per person. Have staff use the “3-2-1” protocol (identify 3 things you think are key to the situation, 2 things you want more information about, and 1 suggested solution you have). Present the following as a resource for ethical dilemmas: 1.      Refer to the Ethical Standards at http://www.oct.ca/public/professional-standards/ethical-standards to help determine which option fits within the standards 2.      Bounce ideas off of a colleague with reference to the Ethical Standards 3.      Consult your department head 4.      Discuss with your union Branch President 5.      Consult with your principal or vice-principal	Group discussion about solutions – can you agree on a solution? Which resources would you choose to use? Which would you skip? Why?

Links to Daily School Routines

The following will be released as a resource after the above activities are complete for staff reference.

Standard	Description and Links to Daily School Routines
Commitment to Students and Student Learning	Members are dedicated in their care and commitment to students. They treat students equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning. Members facilitate the development of students as contributing citizens of Canadian society.
	-        Differentiated learning and assessment practices -        Recognition of the needs of different backgrounds (cultural, sexual orientation, etc) -        Student supervision -        Seating plans that attend to needs to students with IEPs or social needs -        Teaching character and embedding relevant Canadian and world issues into lessons where possible
Professional Knowledge	Members strive to be current in their professional knowledge and recognize its relationship to practice. They understand and reflect on student development, learning theory, pedagogy, curriculum, ethics, educational research and related policies and legislation to inform professional judgment in practice.
	-        Exploring new strategies, ideas and techniques (pedagogy, assessment practice, etc) through reading and/or professional networks -        Use student data, research, Growing Success, and related board assessment policy documents to guide and support decisions -        Reflect on personal practice when new ideas are presented
Professional Practice	Members apply professional knowledge and experience to promote student learning. They use appropriate pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, resources and technology in planning for and responding to the needs of individual students and learning communities. Members refine their professional practice through ongoing inquiry, dialogue and reflection.
	-         Trying new strategies, ideas and techniques in the classroom -         Using student assessment data to plan future use of new techniques and/or make adjustments -         Using student assessment data to plan/reflect on lessons going forward -         Collaborate with course teams, department and other professional networks to make decisions, develop curriculum, and reflect on practices
Leadership in Learning Communities	Members promote and participate in the creation of collaborative, safe and supportive learning communities. They recognize their shared responsibilities and their leadership roles in order to facilitate student success. Members maintain and uphold the principles of the ethical standards in these learning communities.
	-         Arrange classrooms/learning environments to promote collaboration, safe spaces, and effective learning -         Promote learning and learning skills as primary focus (not grades) -         Be an example learner by sharing learning, trying new things, etc -         Deprivatize practice by sharing with colleagues and/or online
Ongoing Professional Learning	Members recognize that a commitment to ongoing professional learning is integral to effective practice and to student learning. Professional practice and self-directed learning are informed by experience, research, collaboration and knowledge.
	-        Participate in collaborative inquiries or do personal action research -        Attend workshops, lunch and learn opportunities, courses etc -        Read  blogs, books, tweets or other professional dialogues -        Reflect on own practices to identify personal areas of learning

MHF Cycle 1 Reflection

As mentioned in a post early first semester we made an attempt to spiral the MHF4U0 curriculum at our school. I will try to create some more posts to share more details, so for now this post will just focus on the first cycle we used.

If you missed the planning post, you can find it here.

I personally started off with a couple of classes where we did some collaborative problems solving. I wanted to introduce my intention to use visible random grouping (VRG) and vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) in the class. I used this with a couple of fun tasks (such as the Tax Man problem) and then continued with them working on the boards while having them do some review problems together (factoring, radicals). It was a rough beginning. My madness was very new to the students, particularly since I was completely new to the school.

Here is the plan that we used for our first cycle.
(Most of the activity credits go to Alex Overwijk and his team in the Ottawa-Carlton District School Board and to Jamie Mitchell and Steph Girvan in the Halton Disctrict School Board - Thank you for sharing your resources - including your blood, sweat and tears guys!)

The textbook references made above are for the Nelson Advanced Functions book. I very rarely assigned work from the book but students were given the sections as a reference for if they needed it or wanted to do extra practice.

Part way through the cycle (probably about 2/3rds of the way through) I asked the students for some feedback. They were struggling with my use of Desmos Activities and lack of "traditional lectures". We added some more structure to the daily work we were doing. At the start of class we went back to the previous day's lesson (took any questions, which we were already doing) and then co-constructed success criteria based on what they had done. This criteria was added to the lesson plan that the students had access to. I also made a pointed effort to make them read that day's learning goal and asked if anything needed to be clarified. This seemed to help students realize that they were learning.

In retrospect, the vast changes they were going through were a lot. I would create brief google forms for each Desmos Activity the next time to help students consolidate their learning (which would have helped them build their functions portfolio we had asked them to do), essentially they would be exit tickets of some sort. I could collect data for myself while giving students a chance to reflect. And the form could be attached to student documents via DocAppender so that they could have a copy of their own responses.

Our formal evaluation for this cycle was a large group stations task. Students were in groups of 3-4 such that there were 8 groups in one class. There were 8 stations in total (we did 4 per day) that were designed to last approximately 15 minutes each. Of course there turned out to be some they spent more time on than others. Students were to use the time in their groups to work through the problem (i.e. match a graph, table of values, and equation and justify the match) and then record their answer in their own words on their answer sheet.

Students found this to be a very valuable learning tool and, for the most part, the results seemed to align with what we, as teachers, thought that student had shown they knew and could do. They were not big on the fact that it was the only formal evaluation we had done in the first 6 weeks of the course, but appreciated that it was less stressful than a unit test.

In retrospect, the task was too huge for the teachers to deal with all at once. We each had 2 sections x 2 days worth of tasks to go through. It took a lot longer than we anticipated. I would love to do something similar to this again, but would definitely consider splitting it up somehow so that it is not all happening at once. Suggestions are welcome if you have any!

Reflections on cycle 2 to come!

Finished with the Status Quo

I am currently making my way through Starr Sackstein's Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School. I will likely do a blog when I am finished and will include my takeaways in more detail but one of her lines has inspired me to bring up some provocative conversation.

As are many of you, I am tired of the argument "We have always done it this way." It may be true that there are some thing in our lives that can stay the same year after year and still be the most efficient way to do things but life changes, and often things need to change with it. Most of the stages of my life have come with pretty significant changes and I have also watched the world evolve - computers, internet, cell phones - and would be significantly behind in current knowledge if I had ignored those changes.

Of course, I have also watched the world fail to evolve (lack of change in carbon footprint despite the research and negative effects we are experiencing; decades long wars (in so many cases started by some misunderstanding and a failure to learn from history) that are sometimes ignored by the rest of the world; etc.

I can no longer watch education become something that does not change.

On page 28 Sackstein had me out loud proclaiming "Yes! This is the articulation I have been looking for!" when she said:

In the industrial era, schools were intended to train good workers, so students went to schools that prepared them to enter the work force. This model of education valued obedience, conformity, and rote learning.

We are no longer in the industrial evolution.

Of course, I will not pretend to believe that we do not need workers who can conform and follow specific steps to complete a task, but the majority of work that we need to prepare students for requires people who can be creative, who can think for themselves, and who can solve problems. This is the world I want to prepare my students for - I want them to find success in whatever passion or skill they find for themselves through the use of transferable, valuable skills (not rote learning they can look up on YouTube).

Hopefully my journey can help to bring along more teachers, students, parents, admin, and community members who want to see a change.

LGs vs SC vs Task Requirements

Discussing assessment in the education world often leads to more questions than answers and creates a lot of discourse. I have learned that the questions and disagreements are a necessary part of change and that we need to acknowledge and tackle them, not shy away from them. It is easy to feel defensive when our practices are questioned or challenged. It is easy to feel like we are being told that what we have been doing was wrong.

I have also learned that when someone asks "why" they are usually genuinely curious OR they are trying to get me to think about what I am doing. It has taught me to always ask myself why.

I have brought this up because one of the things that has come up a lot recently is the discussion of comparing learning goals (LGs), success criteria (SC), and task requirements. It can be easy to write a a statement that may not clearly fit into one category or the other. But it is also important to try to understand and recognize the difference.

Here is my understanding of each:

LGs are statements that describe what a student should know and do that is specific to a lesson or set of lessons. In Ontario this will often be based directly from the overall expectations of the curriculum.

SC describe what the learning will look or sound like when the student is meeting expectations. They should be based on agreed upon statements formed with a course team but when employed in class may often be co-constructed with the students.

Task requirements are things that a student is asked to do that does not fall under that course's expectations but are necessary to help the teacher focus on evaluating the learning without distraction. These can not be evaluated but a students may be asked to resubmit work when they are not used/followed.

I will be the first to admit that through my journey this year there are times where these things were misused or mixed up. This exploration has allowed me to gain a much better understanding of them and why they are important and have forced me to rethink the what, why and how of my classroom assessment.

Through my use of overarching learning goals, learning maps, learning goals, etc I am hopeful to be able to spend more time giving feedback in the future and less time giving grades. By continuing to build my assessment literacy I can continue to build my students assessment literacy.

My hopes for the future include students who...

• take ownership of their learning
• can self- and peer-assess
• question what we do and why we do it (purposefully)
• enjoy class more
• focus on and prioritize learning not marks

and include my hopes to...

• bring focus to all classroom tasks and evaluations
• shorten written evaluations
• grade less
• discuss more

Comments and questions are welcome and encouraged. Use the comment feature below or connect with me on Twitter :) 

Thanks for reading!

Week 18: How I Get Unstuck

I will start with a simple truth. I have not really worked to get "unstuck" this time around. Sometimes it just feels easier to start fresh and make improvements the next time.

Today's #flipclass chat has helped me to realize that I think the root cause of feeling stuck has been getting bogged down by the unmotivated around me. And the funny thing is, that is a pretty small minority, really. I also have people around who have worked their butts off for me. So why has the negative had such an impact on my actions? This is, of course, the unanswered question.

I think I used the nearing end of the semester  to become a light at the end of the tunnel to resort to looking forward to a fresh start with a new group (and a new course to flip!). Maybe that is not so much of a a bad thing anyway. We are at a point in the semester now where we are in review and culminating mode, so there is not much "new" to act on.

We have to remember that there will never be a perfect way to do something. There will never be a 100% buy-in to everything that we do in a class. There will never be an entire group of completely motivated people. But the drive to work toward the 100% will always be a part of the hopes for many educators so sometimes we will get dragged down by negativity. We are human, so sometimes we will be unmotivated, or need a break.

So, in the end, I will seek to embrace the "stuck" moments and remember that they are part of the process. They are what lead us to do some real reflection and make the bigger decisions about our classes.

Now, my fear is that I have too much motivation for the new semester and it will lead to little sleep (which inevitably leads to burn out...and the cycle begins again). But hey, one day I will find better ways to use my time and sleep will become important again ;)

Week 9 - A Student Teacher in Flipped Physics

Now that I am in my sixth year of teaching I am able to host a student teacher in my classroom. I was lucky enough to get one this semester that is an aspiring physics teachers but this also meant that I had to think about how I would approach having a student teacher in my flipped classroom.

When I thought about my experiences as a student teacher (both good and bad), I realized that I could provide her with a safe environment to try some new things and still be able to give her that basic feedback that someone needs their first time teaching a class.

I didn't want to interrupt the routines of my classroom so I have asked her to maintain the flipped classroom. In the meantime I did not want to overwhelm her (because I knew how hard it was for me to flip the first time, nevermind being a brand new classroom teacher) so I asked her to use the videos I have decided on in advance but that I would have her create the embedded questions for each video using educanon. This way she still has to prepare the core of the lesson and can then focus on coming up with something she wants to do in class with the students. This way it still becomes HER class, but I can be confident that the integrity of what I have created is not compromised.

She has been with me for a week at this point and has already told me that she has learned a lot and has enjoyed being exposed to various strategies. The first thing I tried to impart to her was this - we are human! and students need to be reminded that we are human and it is okay if we screw up, because it can always be fixed! (This of course lends well to the discussion going on in the school about growth mind set, but I will leave that for another post).

The part that I was looking forward to about having a student teacher was that I knew it would bring forth some new ideas and give me an opportunity to add to my resources and to think about how I approach certain things. It is never a bad thing to add some "new" to your classroom :)

We will see what the next three weeks will bring!

Happy November!

Week 6 - We Will All Be Numeracy Teachers

This past Friday was a PD Day - and since the new push in the board (and the province) is numeracy, we got to kick the day off with some numbers fun. I was part of the cross-curricular numeracy committee that was charged with planning the morning sessions of our day. We are lucky to have some very passionate teachers and administrators and came up with a plan that we were hopeful would achieve our goals.

We set out to do two things:
1) Try to get everyone to relate to numeracy and realize that it connects to their subject area
2) Accentuate the connection between a growth mindset (which was a focus of ours last year) and success in mathematics - ideally getting staff to recognize how our culture is fine with saying "Oh, it's OK, you're just not good at math" but would never dream of telling someone it was OK to not be good at reading at a young age.

Here is what we came up with:
- Fishbowl: Numeracy team discusses their attitudes toward math and how they got there
- 4 corners: image of 4 different weather that staff chose to match their math attitude - discuss these attitudes within these groups
- Create a graphic organizer to compare "Mathematics" and "numeracy" in cross-curricular groups (ah-ha moments were shared with the whole group afterward)
- Sort skills as "Literacy" or "numeracy" (these came from board/ministry documents that we cut up and gave to groups in an envelope, ah-ha moments were shared with the group)
- Break
- Shared reading of our board's “Balanced Mathematics Instruction K-12” poster
- Online mindset inventory to get staff thinking about their own mindsets
- Brief video clip of two different student mindsets when asked a question in class & share some quotes about mindset
- Brainstorm ideas of how to improve mindset within our classroom, school, and parent community (gallery walk to share)
- Brief Michael Jordan video & his story

It seemed to go pretty well. There was a lot of discussion throughout the morning among the different groups of staff for many of the items listed above. It seemed to evoke a lot of thought around the ideas we were hoping for and allowed a lot of them to relate personally to the overall ideas. We have asked everyone for feedback via Google Forms and the responses I have seen so far have been more positive than negative. We are hoping to be able to come up with our next steps from this feedback so that we can keep things as relevant for our staff as possible.

If you have any ideas or suggestions to share with us please leave me a comment below :)

Why I Don't Use Remind 101

Since the invention of the smart phone my memory (for my life schedule) has become a lot worse. Sometimes I miss the days of the hanging calendar in my parents house colour-coded for my sister and my schedule for the many sports and activities we were involved in. Somehow it seems like I was able to keep better track of my life. But I slug on and continue to use the calendar in my phone, setting reminders for myself so that I hopefully don't miss a beat. What I don't seem to do is check the calendar for upcoming events, I rely on these reminders (if I somehow miss it or have forgotten to set the reminder, then I might forget altogether). My new phone often puts that day's event onto my home screen, which is nice and does make me open my calendar more often.

Maybe the above was pointless, or maybe it has lead you to the point I want to make about Remind 101 (with respect to high school classes). It is my strong belief that we have to graduate students who can fend for themselves in the world - and if I have come to struggle with the above, imagine those who never learn to find their own way to remind themselves?

I think there are some great reasons for Remind 101 to exist and it definitely has its place. It is just my opinion that using something like this gives my students an excuse to miss something if I forget to remind them - but it is there job in the first place to remember homework, tests dates, etc so I want my students to come up with a system that works for them. I encourage them to use their device's built in calendar, find an app they like, or purchase a paper agenda if they prefer. I also post important dates on my LMS if they need to access a calendar or are away from school.

I am sure there are many amazing teacher that use the Remind 101 service successfully and for great reason, and this post is by no means an attempt to spark a debate. Just some thoughts that have come up a few times that I felt the need to write down. In the end, the purpose of a teacher in the classroom is to have an educational philosophy and to use that to decide on purposeful things to try to teach students to make them successful, contributing members of society.

And so, we try.