A-Z of Education Today: Collaboration and Cooperation

A friend of mine has been posting her A-Z of the medical field on Facebook recently, and the more I read her highly humorous, often facetious posts, I became inspired to create my own A-Z of Education. I know that most people are aware of what alphabetical order means, but I feel the need to clarify that these posts are NOT in order of importance, and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Well, I had originally planned for "C" to be about change because it's one of the hardest thing for educators to handle, even though it's the only constant thing we have to look forward to.  After last night's #ncadmin chat on Twitter, however, I knew I had to talk about collaboration and cooperation, just like I HAD to talk about behavior.  

So, again I feel like I have to give a definition because it's been my observation that we say one thing, mean something else, and then expect the students to act differently from us when they are doing the same given activity.  Let me first talk about the expectation for students:

Cooperation: Working together to complete an activity/project that is too big or too complex for one person in the given period of time.  A process of learning WITH each other, as each student learns something from their part in the process, parts are shared with group, all pieces are put together in an organized fashion, and all benefit from the completion of the task.  Examples: Jigsaw reading, traditional group projects/presentations  Non-examples: one student read passage aloud, so all can say they've read; Split up homework questions and all copy tomorrow to hand in individual sheets

Collaboration: Working and learning FROM each other in order to create something new or solve a complex problem with multiple possible solutions.  Each student's perspective is appreciated and sought after as product is designed and created and/or problem is analyzed and solved.  Examples: Problem-based learning, group story writing  Non-Examples: one student make the plan and divide up work; group working to answer a practice problem with one known solution

I start with the students because 1) I'll always be a teacher and 2) we tend to be able to more clearly identify what we expect from students.  What does it mean for us, though?  How do we define the ways in which we learn from each other?  Does simply sitting in the same room for 45 minutes (60, 90, 120) and calling it a PLC (Professional Learning Community) or LTM (Learning Team Meeting) mean that we've actually "cooperatively learned" anything from each other?  Does dividing up the lesson plans to be done by core subject (in elementary) or day (in secondary) mean that we've "collaboratively" planned?  If we want students to learn during their time together and through their shared experiences, do we not want the same for ourselves if we're using the same words to define what we say we're doing?

Now I know it's not easy, and I know there is not a lot of time.  We do, however, expect it of our students as required skills to practice, and most of us agree with the benefits of learning/practicing those skills to the "real world".  Isn't what we do as professionals our "real world"?  Don't students benefit most from our modeling of the skills and behaviors (in case you missed it, here are my thoughts on behavior modeling) we want them to demonstrate? Has anyone noticed that I LOVE rhetorical questions? Ok, don't answer that.  I really don't want anyone to think that I'm speaking rhetorically or completely cynical because I'm not.  Everything I write about is something I have probably done or taken part in and learned from while in the classroom, or it's something I've observed since working more directly with teacher groups outside of the classroom.  I hate to see us get bogged and beaten down by things that 1) out of our control, 2) our reactions to things out of our control, or 3) our own inconsistencies.  My grandmother used to say "Work smarter, not harder, but WORK!" I'm saying, let's not fight against what we claim to believe in because we're making it harder on ourselves.  True collaboration and cooperation amongst teacher teams (PLCs, LTMs, Grade Levels, etc) help us do what my grandmother preached while keeping us entrenched in our focus, learning.  

So, I want to share an example of how time-saving, learning-focused, collaborative planning could look.  I'll preface this with knowledge that the idea came from a collaborative discussion in an LTM I was facilitating last year with a group of 2nd grade teachers who were feeling bogged down by the number of times they had to meet, the requirement for lesson plans to be turned in nearly a week ahead of time, and the admonishment they'd received for their "shared" plans (you know, the ones where one person does math, one science, etc, and they all get copies of compliance-based plans that meet the needs of NO students).  They had just had Learning Focused training, which expects the use of Essential Questions (EQs), but that was bogging them down more, as they were used to learning objectives and "I can" statements.  Needless to say, they were looking for ways to find time to process this new learning and complete all of the assigned tasks, so they asked for time to "collaboratively" plan during our meeting time. Rather than say "Um, no", which is what I was thinking, much like I thought when students would ask if they could do someone else's homework in my class, I said "how about we look at how what we do in here, in terms of standard-based instruction, ties into what you have to do, and come up with a plan to streamline your individual planning process by making your collaboration efficient and effective.  Here is the collaboration piece, as that's the point of this whole blog, right...

1. Begin with the standard(s) to be taught as a unit. (We are all teaching to standards, right?)
2. Make sure that EVERY member of the group understands the standard.
• What are the key components students must know, understand, and be able to do.
• List these things so everyone can see them (We're learning from each other and getting on the same page, right?)
• If someone throws out a teaching strategy or formative assessment idea for one of the components, write it down! (Work smarter, not harder...don't try and come up with all new ideas when you're later planning alone)
3. Determine the big picture understanding based on what we all now know of the standard.
• What is the overall learning target of this standard? (Read this article!)
• This target, in the form of a long "I can" statement, learning target, or EQ, becomes the basis for your common assessment of the standard.
• If someone comes up with an assessment question/product/idea, write it down! (It can be fleshed out and finalized later, but it will probably be forgotten if it's not written down, and then we'll be spinning our wheels trying to come up with one.)
4. All of those key components we listed earlier, let's categorize them into key concepts for connected learning.
5. Let's prioritize these concept into an instructional flow that builds upon itself for optimal learning.
6. Now for each prioritized concept, let's write some lesson objectives (EQs, I-can statements) to be sure we are teaching all of those components we put in each category.
• Remember that each statement represents a lesson, so the plan for your unit is connected to the number of lessons (NOT days).
• If someone throws out a formative assessment idea for any of the lessons, write it down!
7. Let's write at least one formative assessment prompt for each lesson.
8. Let's write our unit (standard) common assessment.
9. Let's go forth and write our individualized lesson plans tailored to the needs of our students.
• We already know the lesson is aligned to the standard.
• We know our team is teaching on the same concepts.
• We know at least one way we're going to formatively assess.
• We know how we will assess the unit/standard as a whole.
• We already have some instructional strategies that were shared during our "learning" process

1-6 can easily be done in 30-45 minutes if everyone is focused and willing to share their knowledge.  A team of all brand new teachers (Please don't do this admin!) may take a little longer, as they may need longer to understand the standard, but for the most part, the learning and the team collaboration can happen in 30-45 minutes.  Once proficient in the process, or with smaller units/standards, 7 & 8 can also happen in that same 30-45 minutes.  If not, the team has already shared out some ideas for formative assessments, and the culminating assessment can be fleshed out later.

By the way, Steps 1-3, 5, 7 & 8 were things we were already doing in our LTM, but they hadn't made the connection.  They're probably things you're already doing in some form in your PLCs but don't necessarily realize it.

Did this plan magically make this group of teachers "better"? It made them better planners for learning.  It made them better collaborators and a stronger Learning Team.  I didn't get to observe their classrooms, so whether or not it made their teaching better is not for me to say, but I can say that it made them all feel better about the process.  They felt like they were learning from each other.  The ones who used to go back and basically rewrite the plans that had been shared with them felt like they weren't doing double work.  They felt empowered in one little aspect of our world of education.  I don't know if they are continuing with this plan this year, as I'm no longer at the school, but I do know they were a more effective and determined team for the rest of the year after it was developed.

As a final note about collaboration on teams...Please, please, please, don't think that your new teachers, especially if you're the only "veteran" on your team, have nothing to contribute because they've never done this before.  We ALL have something to learn, but we often intimidate our new teachers into thinking they shouldn't share because they don't yet "know".  You'd be surprised sometimes at what they DO know, and you'd also be surprised how hard it is for them to learn from you if they're intimidated by you.

A-Z of Education Today: Accountability

A friend of mine has been posting her A-Z of the medical field on Facebook recently, and the more I read her highly humorous, often facetious posts, I became inspired to create my own A-Z of Education.  I know that most people are aware of what alphabetical order means, but I feel the need to clarify that these posts are NOT in order of importance, and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.  So, here we go...

Accountability...wow, such a loaded word!  It's supposed to be the holy grail of what will fix all that is wrong with education in our country (NOT!) and yet it's also one of the most hated words amongst those who are actually in a position of educating.  There appears to be a definite disconnect and a lot of misinformation about what accountability is and why it's really a good thing, at least to me.

Whenever I'm with a group of educators actually talking about teaching "accountability" inevitably comes up.  It is often defined synonymously with "testing", and shrouded in anger that the collective WE are the only ones being held accountable, not students, not parents, not society, not...whatever.  It's a fairytale of the wicked witch that we tell ourselves to keep from changing the way we think about how we do things.  There is, however, another fairytale, shrouded in just as much anger, resentment, and truth:

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a shared sense of responsibility for student learning.  Parents were responsible to make sure their student attended the house of learning (as they still are today), and many took personal responsibility to remediate any behavioral issues that might keep the teacher from handling his/her responsibility.  The teacher had the responsibility of delivering the collective knowledge (canon of literature, mathematical equations and "facts", scientific methods and theories, and civic obligations via accepted histories).  Each teacher had a different method of delivery, but very few delivered in different ways.  There were the lectures, the worksheets, the notes, the memorizations, the discussions, the practices, the readings, and the occasional group projects.  There were also the don't-write-with-that-hands, turn-your-paper-like-suches, and don't-question-mes.  Teachers were teaching as they always had because it worked for them, so it should work for everyone.  Administrators were responsible for the smooth running of the school and the discipline of children who weren't meeting the behavioral expectations set for students. The plan was to keep "bad" students from disrupting the teaching in the classroom.  The responsibility for learning, however, was on the student alone; if they didn't accept the collective knowledge as their own or respond appropriately to the delivery methods used, then their grades suffered.  Everything was graded: classwork, homework, quizzes, tests, behavior, participation, following directions (separate from behavior?), organization, neatness, everything! Students who were ahead of the curve already knowing the material were given A's, praised for being "smart" and given the privilege of helping the teacher grade everyone else's work.  Those who were behind the curve either worked really hard to keep up with the curve or were left to sit quietly while the others moved along from one lesson to the next--"You earn your grade by what you do, so no one is to blame but you."

Ok, so the fairytale above is a little tongue-in-cheek, but not so far removed from the reality of education pre-accountability.  Of course there have always been great educators who cared about whether their students learned the material and they naturally differentiated or sought help when they didn't know what to do.  Of course, there were parents who fought to make sure their children left school with more knowledge than that which they entered.  And then there are the students who didn't get it, and didn't have the support; those who just put their heads down to not cause a disturbance to the "teaching" going on around them and left with less than that which they entered.  There are also the students who didn't quite get as far as they could have because it was enough to know they could pass the test (even before they walked in the classroom).  There was no reason for these students to work hard or learn how to persevere because "learning" was natural for them.  

We've always been good at teaching to the middle because it's where most of us are comfortable.  I'll admit that MY story is also in that fairytale as both a student and a teacher.  I loved school because I got it; it came naturally, and it was the one place I could control how adults saw me.  I got the praise when I passed 4th grade tests I could've passed in 1st grade, and I loved helping my teachers.  I thought that what my teachers were doing just worked, until I grew up and saw how many of my peers were illiterate and unprepared.  Then I went into education and fell into the same pattern of teaching the way I "learned" forgetting that learning for me came easily.  Did all my students learn, NO! Did half of them learn? Probably not.  But I learned.  I learned that their learning is just as much my responsibility as it is theirs, almost more so because I have to first help them learn how to learn my content and from me before I can hope that the majority of them learn said content. 

You see, it's not accountability that's the problem; we have to, NEED to be held accountable, and I believe the majority of us in education don't mind being held accountable.  The problem is the way in which we're held accountable, and the ways in which we talk to each other about it that makes the situation that much more unbearable.  Holding us accountable for performance on a one-size-fits-all test makes everyone uncomfortable, but most especially those who have tried their hardest to get away from one-size-fits-all teaching.  "Teaching to the test" becomes a survival plan for too many who have been beaten down by a system and society that constantly says they're not good enough.  We're told to focus on growth in student learning as our accountability model, and yet we're still praised for proficiency numbers, that include those students who were already proficient the day they stepped in the classroom.  As a teacher, I learned from my students that I needed to be held accountable for the majority of their learning.  As an aspiring administrator, I feel accountable for the learning of the students AND the staff who serve them.  I'm not afraid of accountability, but I question the validity of the way in which we're held accountable and the credibility of the information disseminated with the sole purpose of pointing fingers and placing blame.