Sweat to Inspire

I will be presenting tomorrow at MSU college of Education 31st Technology in Education Conference. The full schedule can be found here. My presentation will focus on being a connected educator, the #michED community and how twitter has transformed my teaching practice.
The slides for the presentation are below.

As I sit in the Nashville airport waiting to return home, I want to record my quick reflections from my experience at the conference.

1. AMLE puts on the best conference for middle level EDUCATORS. So much information presented here. You have the best of the best presenters displaying their A game for all to see. Also present are some of the brightest teachers who want to share what they are doing in their classrooms. AMLE works hard to make sure to provide a diverse selections of offerings. Most frequent comment I have heard is that too many great sessions it is hard to choose just 1. I guess that is why so many districts bring teams of teachers so they won’t have to miss a session.

2. The central theme here has been: Relationships in learning centered formative assessment classrooms. Every session that I attended has focused on this theme or part of the theme. I did I miss a summative assessment session? Please send me info if I did. At home in many districts we focus too much on the end results that we forget the path we take to get to the results is what really matters. The passion for student engagement and student learning is so evident in every presenter I have seen here. We need to spend more time on these aspects of our jobs and let the test results fall where they may. (I am betting they improve.

3. Middle level educators are still getting there as connected educators. Twitter was discussed in many session. My session was to show the value in connecting and how to navigate twitter chats. We even held a live twitter chat for #MSchat last night. I was so excited to meet my PLN. We had a modest sized group show up (20) for the chat. As we sat in a circle tweeting and talking it was reflected by most that most educators still were figuring out the connected piece. In a session I over heard a conversation that went like this: “Are you on twitter? Yes but I don’t really use it! Mainly only at conferences.” Well we need to change that. ALL connected educators need to model the value of the twitter connection. We place our time in things we value. When being connected is valued by administrators on down teachers will spend their time there. Can’t just be tweeting out pictures of us with Edu-All-Stars. Need to tweet ideas and thoughts shared to make our learning visible.

4. There incredible value in  the small conversations. My greatest learning moments came in conversations over a meal or while sitting at a table for a session. The keynotes were inspiring, the national level presenters gave lots of great ideas. The small conversations are where the inspirations and ideas are worked out to work for YOU in your district. Teachers can’t just be inspired and given big ideas: they need time to reflect in groups and process the information so it can be placed into practice.

Thank you to all who I connected with at AMLE. You are my friend and family in the middle. I hope we continue to connect over the next year online until we meet again in Columbus. (or other conferences in between.)

Over the past few years, I have heard teachers and parents alike complain about cuts that school districts have made. Whether it is cuts to sports programs, academic offerings, staffing reductions or the quality of the physical plants, school districts find themselves making critical decisions with every dollar. Often stake holders want to place blame on the district. ‘Overpaid administrators or teachers.” or “They prefer certain sports or classes.” The finger pointing needs to STOP. Districts are making business decisions they don’t want to make any cuts, but when funding is lacking, something has to go. Media centers go un-staffed, buses don’t run and classrooms are overflowing. Districts cannot please everyone. Districts funding comes from the state, voters need to elect politicians that will properly fund schools so cuts don’t have to be made.

Politicians like to hold education up as a pillar of their platforms. Have you ever heard of someone running on “cuts to education?” ALL educational stake holder need to hold politicians to their promises, help create a better educational environment or vote them out no matter what political party they are from. Education should not be a political football that is dragged back and forth across a 100 yard field. It is time we hold education up where it belongs, above the fray!

Schools need to have funding that remains stable so they can plan long term. Districts right now are struggling with drastic cuts in per pupil funding in Michigan. These cuts effect programs schools can offer and the pay of district employees. Many districts around the state cannot afford to maintain teachable class sizes or to give their valued employees raises. Many teachers are leaving the profession for greener pastures in the private sector. Sadly fewer college graduates are choosing to go into the profession. Many teachers who love their profession have been forced to take on second jobs instead of focusing on their students learning. Is this what society wants in our schools?

The solutions is voting in politicians that value education and give it more than lip service. Districts need to have a viable school funding plan that allows them to offer the best programming for students while enabling them to retain the BEST teachers. Below is a video that also addresses this issue from a resident of Farmington School District here in Michigan.

My students have been taking online NWEA MAP test the last couple of years. I have growing concerns as we move the states tests from pencil and paper to an online format. How will our students adapt? Will the scores match old scores? Teachers have taught student test taking strategies that just don’t seem to translate to the online format.

For starters, I have always taught my students to brain dump information they feel is important to know for an assessment at the start. This gives the student the ability to organize and visualize their thinking and knowledge before they use it to answer questions. An example is show below:

Is this possible for an online test? Sure if students have paper, pencil and space to write. One of these elements is often missing when most classes test online.

Next is reading on a computer screen. Whether it is a tablet on a traditional computer screen, reading online is so different from reading off of paper. Can students underline, highlight, write notes next to paragraphs? These are all practices currently fostered in most classrooms. We have the technology to enable these practices for online testing but are we using them?

Finally, the age old practice of eliminating the wrong answers. I remember being in 2nd grade and Mrs Garrison at Monroe Elementary teaching us how to eliminate the wrong answers. Cross them out so we don’t accidentally pick the wrong answer. In my classroom, when I collect the test papers I love looking at student evidence of thinking. The pages are marked up, with crossed out choices and helping words. I encourage my students to write out their work on the TEST page before filling out the “bubble” sheet. On last week’s test I had two students come show me their tests to give evidence that they made a transference error not an error in thinking. Having the correct answer on their test paper but wrong on “bubble’ sheet helped me know what skills were missing. How would this work for an online test? Where can they write notes? make cross outs?

Online tests need to allow students to use the same skills they have learned for pen and paper assessments, until they do they lake overall validity are are just a novelty! Student will click away instead of taking time to work through the answers.

Today was a great reminder to me about the many positives in education!

I awoke early on a Saturday went to my brother-in-laws house to pick up my 15- year old niece, Rylee. She has hopes of becoming a teacher some day, so we made plans to attend Edcampou at Oakland University together. Sure I was tired and thinking about how long I could attend the even due to a noon baseball game for my son. It was a dreary cold morning and my niece was silent as we drove the 30-minutes to Oakland University listening to country music. It was a tough week at work, I was just hoping to show Rylee what an edcamp was like. I got so much more.

Upon arrival I was meet with the friendly faces of my PLN, hugs and handshakes. I was quickly reminded of the power of being a connected educator. As the atrium of Pawley Hall filled, it filled with the POSITIVE in education. 200 teachers came from all over the metro-Detroit area to discuss education. To share ideas and philosophies with each other. We came together to support each other in our careers of educating the future. As I was picking up a bagel and getting coffee I saw a face from my teaching past. Jason a student from my first year of teaching (15 yrs ago) approached with his recent bride, both teachers. So great to see a former student joining our ranks and being a passionate educator.

After the kick-off, It was time to attend one session before heading off to my son’s baseball game. I wanted to attend a session Rylee would find interesting as a student. SO, we headed to one discussing HOMEWORK. Rylee sat and listened as the conversation started. Once she noticed that the audience participated (not lecture!) she got the urge to jump in and share how pointless packets of homework are for students since “we Google the answers or take pictures of them and send around a group text.” The participants in the room appreciated her input. The discussion moved towards creating meaningful assignments that students WANT to complete versus creating a culture of compliance. The passion in the room was evident.

When the session ended, Rylee shared that she wished her teachers were in attendance so they could possibly change their homework. We talked about teaching and learning all the way to the ball fields.

After baseball, I returned home to virtually catch up on Edcamp by viewing tweets. It was great seeing all the positive vibes, resources and ideas shared. Every teacher needs to be reminded about the positives that are in education today. The media and politicians seem to always drag us down and focus on the problems in education or society as a whole. Events like Edcamps serve as reminders that there are so many AWESOME things going on in our schools.

It would serve ALL media and POLITICIANS well to attend an Edcamp and report about what is going on, changing the focus from negative to POSITIVE!! I need to take this advice at time too!

Thanks for the awesome reminders EDCAMPOU participants and organizers.