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(Friedman, 2017) defines self-differentiation as knowing where one ends and another begins. Achieving this state of emotional independence seems like a daunting task, but one I will need to master for the “Join the Club” project based learning innovation plan to succeed. When I first became a Technology Integrationist and assumed a leadership role on campus, I admit I was poorly differentiated, meaning I allowed my emotions to be affected by the anxiety of others. Over the last five years I have been on the path toward self-differentiation, but still feel the occasional pull of the ‘triangle’. I will need to overcome this urge to become a truly effective leader and put the ‘Join the Club’ plan into action. The plan requires change, and change is something that is uncomfortable and difficult for many, myself included. There will be resistance as the whirlwind of our daily obligations tempts us to abandon project based learning for the established way of doing things. Maintaining my emotions and focusing on the goal in the face of this resistance is the challenge, and communicating effectively is the solution.
It seems obvious that engaging in crucial conversations is a skill that all leaders should have. Why don’t they, you ask? Because it’s HARD! As someone who fears conflict, thinking about the crucial conversations I will need to have with people I have known and worked with for 15 years sends chills down my spine. Many will feel that PBL is too much work or that it won’t prepare the students for state assessments. Remembering to ‘Start with Heart’ and ‘STATE my Path’ (I may need to make a poster for my office wall) will help me to stay calm and not let my emotions take over. After all, there will always be a mutual purpose we can agree on: to provide the students with meaningful, authentic experiences that will prepare them for their future. As challenging as becoming a self-differentiated leader is, I feel much more confident and prepared now that I have the necessary tools. References Friedman, E. H. (2017). A failure of nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix (Revised ed.). Church Publishing. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2011). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high, (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
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In my Learning Manifesto I compare providing students with personalized learning experiences to finding a good pair of running shoes. After all, a one-size-fits-all education system is about as effective as a shoe store that only sells one shoe: it does not prepare its user for future success. In my early days as a teacher I was full of enthusiasm and energy. My students did everything from publishing their own newspaper to starting a student government to re-writing (and performing) the 12 Days of Christmas as a rap. None of those things were in the scope and sequence. Today's teachers struggle to exercise their passion for teaching within the constraints of the current system. My innovation plan addresses this by bringing project based learning back into the classroom. As passionate as I am about the opportunities that digital learning brings to the table, I also realize that technology is no substitute for an engaged and creative teacher. Some see technology use as just replacing a paper/pencil task with a digital one, and unfortunately that is sometimes the case. My belief as a technology integration specialist is that technology is to be used to enhance and modify learning, to engage students with information in a way that could never be done before, to teach students how to learn in new ways and communicate that learning to the world. The resources are available to provide each student with choice, ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities. We have the tools at our fingertips; all we have to do is learn how to use them. I left a PLC meeting just a couple of hours ago where a coworker brought up that we needed to make our school wide WIG more clear - that she needed a concrete goal to work towards. Yes, definitely. From A to B by When. Check. However, she went on to talk about expectations in general and how much anxiety her students feel when they don’t know exactly what to do and how she is that same way and how ‘everyone’ feels better knowing what the end result should look like. I kinda giggled inwardly and thought to myself, “She would not appreciate Dr. H’s methods.” Then I matured a little and started thinking about my metamorphosis from ‘everyone’ to someone that sees the value in the learning process, not just the end product.
The contradiction here is that we are creating WIGs for our organization - clear goals and a clear set of steps to accomplish those goals, but we are also embracing authentic learning environments which as we have all experienced don’t provide us with anything resembling clarity - we achieve that clarity through our own interpretations of what the product should be (choice and ownership). I find this dichotomy both thought-provoking and challenging. My e-portfolio is a definite reflection of me as an educator, but also as a human outside of my profession. I didn’t really struggle with the elements of COVA in the creation of the website since I felt comfortable with the design and organization aspect - that’s my wheelhouse. Blogging is my Achilles heel, though. I’m a math/science person who likes knowing the RIGHT ANSWER, so writing in general makes me break out in hives - too subjective! I’m definitely having to work to find that Voice and take that Ownership, because at the moment my Choice is to not blog as often as I should.....YET! “People aren’t stupid or lazy...they’re busy”. Adding one more thing to teachers’ already overflowing plates is not something to be taken lightly. Taking the steps to becoming a Leader in Me campus was a huge challenge to the whirlwind, as it added a whole new course to the meal, not just the plate! I’m pretty familiar with the 4DX model. We have a schoolwide WIG, we document our lead measures, we have a scoreboard in the hallway, and we have weekly PLC meetings to discuss progress. The teachers all have personal and professional WIGs on their walls, although I can’t attest to how diligent they are about using 4DX independently.
The 2 things that have impacted us the most are the creation of compelling scoreboards, and focusing on 2-3 goals at a time. When the students can see their class’s reading scores go up on the graph, they get excited about reading! As the person in charge of keeping up the graph, I can say that they also get mad when it is not updated in a timely fashion. The 2-3 goal rule is tricky. As far as our WIG is concerned, we have only one goal: to improve reading scores. But how many more goals are teachers and students focused on every day in the whirlwind? Get grading done, record lessons for Seesaw, call 5 parents, etc…. That’s why keeping the goal count low is important: any more and there would be hands thrown in the air in defeat and nothing would get accomplished. A differentiated leader does not succumb to the temptation of getting involved in the high a low tides of workplace drama, but instead acts as a lighthouse: steady, unwavering, and guiding others to avoid getting dashed against the rocks. I think many of us can identify with the concept of the chronically anxious organization. I think every school and district I’ve worked with fits the description. Self-differentiated leaders have often been present in these organizations, but too often the sabotage got the better of them. I’m afraid I fall into this category - I strive to be a differentiated leader, but as soon as there is pushback I feel defeated and retreat. It was valuable to hear that sabotage means that the leader is doing the right thing! I will need to work on not taking the sabotage personally and keeping my eyes on the goals I have set for myself and my organization.
Having a strategy to deal with conversations involving strong emotions, high stakes, and differing opinions is a must! Too often we start these conversations without the right mindset or preparation, the emotions take over, and nothing gets resolved or the problem becomes worse. For my innovation plan to succeed it will be imperative for me to have a conversation with the other 4-H club leaders to discuss potential hurdles to implementing PBL in the clubs, and perhaps also with my curriculum coach about reorganizing our assessment system to make it more PBL friendly. Having these crucial conversations is the priority for my innovation plan to get off the ground A silver lining of the pandemic has been the necessity to collaborate virtually with others. Without my squad available to sit around and bounce ideas off of, perhaps during happy hour :), I turned to Facebook Groups for inspiration. As our district was going with Seesaw as the online learning platform, I chose to join both the Tech Integration group and the Pioneer group. I thought there would be a lot of overlap, but it turns out they take completely different approaches to using the Seesaw platform and the issues that arise. I also joined Bitmoji Craze for Educators because, well, who doesn’t love bitmojis? I love looking at all of the creative ideas teachers come up with! I also belong to the Common Sense Educators Group. We use Common Sense Media for most of our digital citizenship curriculum and I like to stay updated with new content.
Confession: I am strictly a consumer of information in these learning communities. Maybe because, as I’ve alluded to before, I just don’t think I have anything new or particularly valuable to contribute. As I work on strengthening my growth mindset, I will need to rethink this assumption. So, allow me to rephrase: I am not comfortable contributing to these learning communities...YET! Why then am I super confident in sharing ideas with in-person learning communities? Whether it’s campus PLCs, department meetings, or even conferences, I have no problem discussing ideas and working through them. https://www.facebook.com/groups/CommonSenseEducators - This group is by invite only to people who have completed the Common Sense Educator certification. The discussions revolve around online safety, digital citizenship, and educating families about the digital world their children are living in. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SeesawTechIntegrationists - Seesaw is a learning platform that has allowed our virtual learners to have the same experience as our face-to-face learners this year. While other Seesaw learning communities focus on sharing lessons and ideas, this group addresses updates to the platform, troubleshooting tips, and other ‘behind the scenes’ issues. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2568655663438916 - Bitmojis have been huge this year in making virtual learning more fun and engaging for students. The members of this group help each other by sharing creative ways to use Bitmojis, ready-made lessons and choice boards, and moral support for the weary. Unlike the other 2 groups, this one is made up of predominantly classroom teachers, so the perspective is different and eye-opening. When exactly do you think students lose it? You know what I’m talking about - that love of learning, natural curiosity, and zest for knowledge that they have in early childhood? Is it Kindergarten when they are introduced to being assessed on how much of the alphabet and how many colors they know? Or maybe 3rd grade with the introduction of standardized testing? My earliest memory of having anxiety about school was in 2nd grade, when It became very important to me to have more SRA kits (yes I’m a child of the 70’s) done than anyone else in my class. Why? Because for the first time I equated academic success with personal worth. In today’s classrooms, it’s not SRA, but the competition is still there, whether it's AR points or numbers on a report card.
The COVA framework has impacted my learning tremendously! As an adult in technology I’ve attended workshops and conferences where I’ve been expected to participate in a similar fashion, but that was only for a few hours, maybe a day. The concept was not completely foreign, but having to commit to this learning style for the duration of the program was pretty overwhelming. That being said, I love the freedom of choosing the path of my innovation plan, the ownership of developing the plan from start to finish, and the voice I have in the design of my e-portfolio and the way in which I present my ideas. I hope to be able to truly adopt this method in my own interactions with students. By implementing COVA through my PBL innovation plan, maybe I can keep another student from agonizing over the SRA leaderboard. Cricket Buchler outlines several strategies for harnessing the power of peer influence to create behavior change. I recently experienced this on campus - we have a school garden that I wrote a grant for many years ago. Each grade level has their own raised bed that they are (supposed to be) responsible for, but I coordinate the effort. I sent out the spreadsheet and asked all grade levels to request what seeds/plants they wanted to plant this year. *Crickets* Two days later, I got my first response. I shot an email out to the campus: “5th grade is growing tomatoes and peppers! Who wants cilantro and onions so we can make salsa?” Every grade level had responded with their vegetable choices within 15 minutes. Just the knowledge that someone else had responded motivated them to participate. Kind of like the teacher saying “I love the way Bubba is standing so quietly in line” results in a quiet line way more quickly than asking individual students to be quiet.
In thinking about my organizational motivators and enablers... If I remember correctly, Dr. Grenny refers to them in the Influencer book as the ‘early adopters’, NOT the innovators! I have a few innovators on my campus, but as suggested by Grenny and company, they have less influence due to their radical thinking and practices which can be intimidating. So the target audience for my innovation plan will first be those early adopters. When that one teacher at each grade level steps up to plan project-based lessons, it will encourage the others to try as well. I realize that social motivation is the least of my worries with this project. I think the majority of teachers on my campus are ready for this type of change and will embrace it when they feel it is safe to do so and they have the tools they need to implement PBL. The other sources of influence I will need to accomplish my goal are personal ability, structural motivation, and structural ability. What a fluid thing is our mindset! Several times a day I now find myself evaluating my mindset in various situations. Having grown up the proud owner of an extremely fixed mindset, like, carved in stone fixed, I'm glad to say that the stone has eroded away througout the last few years, but there is still some bedrock there. I've noticed that I care about how others perceive my work (like grades), but I care more when I think someone else in my position is dong a better job than me (comparison). Where I've make the most progress is the willingness to try new things. I wonder if, once students learn about the differences in the mindsets, they could benefit from evaluating their responses to different situations? Learn when they lean toward fixed thinking and when they adopt a more growth mindset?
My innovation plan involves introducing project-based learning to my campus. I would love to use the Universal Design diagram of the parts of the brain that are engaged in the what, how, and why of a given task to inspire the teachers to embrace the idea of making the learning more authentic by giving the students a 'why'. As for the students, Carl S. Moore says in 'Five Ways to Teach Students to be Learner-Centered, Too' that active learning activities as well as intentional thinking about the cycle of learning help to foster the growth mindset. I have nervous excitement about this project because I have grown to love challenges, but I will have to stay on my toes and not get discouraged when others don't shaare my enthusiasm. Five Ways to Teach Students to be Learner-Centered, Too: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/five-ways-to-teach-students-to-be-learning-centered-too I think in the article The “Mindset” Mindset: What We Miss By Focusing on Kids’ Attitudes Alfie Kohn oversimplified things when he says that praising effort (“You tried hard”) is just another manipulation/external motivation ‘doggie biscuit’ for students. Most teachers go many steps further by helping students to reflect on what they did well vs. what they could improve on, giving positive feedback on thought processes rather than just the right answer, and encouraging students to focus on their personal academic growth instead of comparing themselves to a particular standard.
That being said, I think the point he made about the problem not being the students’ attitudes but rather the system in which they are learning is a bulls-eye. The hypocrisy brings to mind the Bible verse about removing the beam out of one’s own eye before removing the speck from someone else’s. What good does it do to instill a growth mindset in the students all year, only to have it cut to shreds on report card day, or worse yet, standardized test day? I definitely do not have the answer to how to assess students in a way that is compatible with a growth mindset, but I’d be interested in exploring the question. My mindset has definitely shifted since I left the classroom for the tech integration position. I think removing the pressure of TpT level lesson plans, student data tracking, Pinterest worthy bulletin boards, and test scores helped quite a bit! I approached this new position with a much less competitive spirit and embraced the fact that I had a lot to learn. For this reason, the quotes from Josh Waitzkin that appear in The Power of Belief video hit home for me. I hope that as I move forward with my innovation plan I am able to instill a growth mindset, not only in the students participating in the club projects, but in the teachers as well so that they may also be willing to try project-based learning in their own classrooms and not fear failure but see the opportunity to grow. http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/mindset/ The Power of Belief - mindset and success, Eduardo Briceno (10:51) https://yps://youtu.be/pN34FNbOKXc |
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