Leadership

Director & Teaching Positions at Expeditionary Learning School, NM

2011-02-24T11:40:00.001-07:00

Director Position Open: August, 2011

Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts, Las Vegas, New Mexico

Expeditionary Learning Public Charter School, First through Eighth grades

Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts is an Expeditionary Learning charter school with a commitment to social justice and experiential learning. We have an excellent track record for hands-on learning inside and outside the classroom, and are experienced and successful in developing engaging expeditions that are interdisciplinary and arts based.

Our School:

*Public charter school associated with the West Las Vegas School District

*110 students grades 1^st through 8^th

*emphasis on fine and performing arts and ecological studies

*a diverse student body in a rural, primarily Hispanic population,

*77% free or reduced lunch program

*Two campuses and adjacent Grow Dome greenhouse/learning space

*Has met Annual Yearly Progress each year

*7^th year charter school, 6^th year Expeditionary Learning program

Our ideal Director candidate would probably be:

*compassionate, energetic and visionary,

*a dedicated and collaborative educator,

*inspired by children, sensitive to their social and emotional needs,

*passionately dedicated to equity and access in education and the transformative value of a caring community

*familiar with and dedicated to Expeditionary Learning approaches,

*interested in serving an educationally challenged and diverse population in a beautiful rural northern New Mexico landscape,

*enthused by the arts and by working toward ecological solutions,

*a strong manager, comfortable handling budgeting and financial matters (in conjuction with a contracted business manager/fiscal agent),

*committed to non-punitive management,

*academic coach

*able to work collaboratively

The candidate must possess, or be able to obtain by August, an administrative license.

Upper School Teacher (5th, 6^th, 7^th, or 8th grade)

Our ideal candidate would…

*enjoy collaborative teaching

*have a passion and experience in outdoor adventures

*be able to teach in an interdisciplinary manner

*be experienced in Expeditionary Learning protocols

*be a creative curriculum developer

*be ecologically concerned and positive

*exhibit strong and compassionate classroom management

*have a love and appreciation of the arts

*drive a school bus (hey, we can ask)

*enthusiastic in supporting individual student gifts

*New Mexico teacher certification grades k-8

*be cross culturally sensitive

*speak Spanish

*want to serve a diverse population

*love to ski, kayak, bike, snowboard, hike, and / or raft

The position starts August, 2011. Salary and benefits are competitive and commensurate with experience. Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts is an equal opportunity employer. Río Gallinas School does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age, veteran status, or disability.

To apply, please send a letter of interest and resume to School Secretary Renay Cole at Río Gallinas School, 301 Socorro Street, Las Vegas, NM 87701. Letters of interest and resumes may also be emailed to renay.cole@riogallinasschool.org; please get confirmation of email receipt.

Application Closing Date: April 22, 2011. The position will remain open until filled.

For more information about our school, please see riogallinasschool.org

For more information about the position, email Naomi Swinton, Chair, Governing Council: nmswinton@gmail.com

Professional Development Center and Grad Nation

2010-03-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Professional Development Center at Eagle Rock School has been working through networks and organizations, bringing together schools in large numbers who are working with disenfranchised youth. We see General Powell's Grad Nation campaign as part of the mission we have been working on for the past 17 years.

Read more at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center for the role we play.

Anger, Blame and Organizational Priorities

2010-03-01T07:00:00.001-07:00

In a previous post, I mentioned two educators who widely share their materials on quality professional development. Their blogs show off some nice clips of their own professional development sessions. Meanwhile, I still have photos on my digital camera because I'm not sure how to download them onto my computer (more importantly, I'm never sure where these photos go when I download them or how to manage the files into logical categories). You will notice no nice clips on this blog. Using and integrating technology is not my area of expertise and I'm not always clear on how to direct my own learning in this area.

Recently, I filmed our instructors teaching lessons and wanted to post the video on a school server for other teachers to view. I spent hours one weekend trying to transfer the film from a camera to my laptop and then trying to move that clip to the server. These were hours confronting the difference between compressed and uncompressed film and learning that my conversions to Quick Time only pick up what is in my project library in iMovie. I couldn't transfer film to the server and didn't know how to manipulate the film I was importing. I wanted to toss the camera and laptop in the nearest trash bin, as I experienced the equivalent of road rage.

I wish I had been more reflective in that moment and thought -- "hey, it's my fault trying to do something on the weekend when no one is around to help and I probably should have listened better or taken better notes when I was instructed on how to do all this." Oh...how those opportunities to reflect just go whooshing by. Instead, I ranted. I sent an email to a colleague complaining about the lack of technology support.

My wise and thoughtful colleague replied, "I'm sure that we all have a perspective on something that could/should work better. I guess the trick is continuing to explore those things with an eye toward the overall priorities. Some things will rise in importance and some we'll just have to live with as is. I do think that in the absence of any guiding principles with regard to organizational priorities, any one of us can become consumed with our own perspective."

He got me thinking about how any one who is experiencing any problem at any time could be prone, as I was, to wondering how others could improve. We operate always and automatically from our own self-interests and forget about the needs of others. How many teachers are teaching right now while I'm composing this blog wishing that I or my department were in their classroom helping them with their instruction, taking more time to provide feedback on their lesson plans or working on their behalf to gather resources they need to teach? I am learning to be more patient in getting my own needs met as well as empathetic about what others need.

Another point raised in my colleague's response, is that some of the frustration could be mitigated if we were all clearer on organizational priorities. That way we would know what is on the horizon for planned improvement and how we were all playing a part.

Take Leadership in School Reform

2010-02-26T05:48:00.001-07:00

ACE Leadership High School seeks the founding instructional leader for a cutting edge small high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The New Mexico School for Architecture, Construction and Engineering (NMACE) will open in July 2010 and our goal is to name the Principal in June of the 2010. The Principal position is the most critical initial hire for the school and he/she is considered to be a co-founder of the institution who is chiefly responsible for further developing and ultimately implementing the vision of the school. Our goal is for ACE Leadership to be a catalyst for reform in New Mexico and across the country and the principal will be intimately involved with creating a strategy to make this happen.
The Principal will be a partner to the Executive Director who is chiefly responsible for the business operations of the school and public positioning of the institution as a leader in school reform. We envision a dynamic working relationship that leverages philanthropy, public-private partnerships with the construction industry, and relationships with policy makers to ensure a lasting impact of the school.
ACE Leadership has a three pronged strategy for change:
9-12 high school (325 students) focused on preparing low income young people of color to become leaders in the construction profession
Re-engagement Center (100 students) focused on providing industry specific coursework and support that prepares young adults who wish to re-engage in high school and transition to an apprenticeship upon graduation.
Professional Development Center that will ultimately replicate the ACE Leadership model, provide for the ongoing training needs of the staff and disseminate the best practice to others outside the institution.

Essential Facts: Opening July 2010 ∞ 430 students when fully developed ∞ Year round calendar ∞ six annual weeks of staff planning/training ∞ Competitive compensation and benefits ∞ Relocation expenses ∞ Sponsored by the Associated General Contractors, the most highly regarded Construction industry organization in the country ∞ small high school leadership experience and applied learning expertise are the key attributes for the position.

Contact: Tony Monfiletto, Executive Director New Mexico Building and Education Congress, (505) 573-4024, tmonfo@gmail.com

Participate in Student Exhibitions

2010-02-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

We celebrate National Exhibition Month (http://tinyurl.com/CESNEM) three times a year at the nationally recognized Eagle Rock School & Professional Development Center (http://www.eaglerockschool.org) located in Estes Park, Colorado.

At the end of our trimesters, Eagle Rock students prepare a presentation that displays evidence of their learning during that trimester. The presentations are made before members of the Eagle Rock community and a panel composed of guests who may be teachers, administrators, community members, representatives of participating school districts and higher education, and others who are interested in alternative assessment, education renewal & the progress of Eagle Rock School & our students.

Each student prepares for a 30-minute discussion of her/his learning: 15 minutes for a formal presentation and 15 minutes to answer questions from the panel.

Would you consider being a part of our panel for our winter/spring trimester? The Presentations of Learning will take place on Monday, April 5th and Tuesday, April 6th, 2010. We would be pleased to have you participate on a panel for a morning, an afternoon, or a full day. A reply form may be found here (print and return by mail or fax): http://tinyurl.com/EAGLEROCKexhibitionsRSVP

Because of the scheduling involved, we would like to have your reply by March 1, 2010. If the form is not returned by then, we will assume you are unable to join us for our celebration of learning this trimester. Additionally, we may be able to provide overnight accommodations and meals, with prior reservations made with Kelsey Glass (kglass@eaglerockschool.org )

Please learn more about our exhibitions here (including viewing video samples online): http://tinyurl.com/WHATarePOLs

We hope to see you in April in the Mountains!

Feel free to forward this email to other educators who may benefit from learning about schools that promote and celebrate exhibitions as a preferred form of student assessment!

Spanish Instructional Specialist / Houseparent

2010-02-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Newest position avaialable at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center. It's a great place to work.

RESPONSIBILITIES: Instructor Component: Develop, implement, and oversee Spanish instruction, coordinate other part-time language instructors (historically we’ve offered Latin, French, Italian, and American Sign Language). Includes opportunity to expand current program; construct curriculum; co-teach interdisciplinary classes; draft and maintain a budget; and mentor a Public Allies fellow (teacher in training). Participate as part of the instructional team. Actively participate in other duties related to a residential, community oriented high school (leading evening and periodic weekend duty, playing intramurals, attending all school events, house parenting, leading an advisory, etc.). Review Eagle Rock's curriculum overview here: http://eaglerockschool.org/our_school/academics.asp

House Parent Component: Depending upon availability move into house parent role (openings occur periodically, candidate would typically not become a house parent until after 1st year on staff). Role includes living in an apartment attached to student housing. Providing supervision and support to up to 8 female and 8 male students. Coordinate the house team consisting of 4 full time staff and 2 Public Allies Teaching Fellows. Review Eagle Rock's living village here: http://eaglerockschool.org/our_school/residential_life.asp

QUALIFICATIONS: BS/BA required, 3 years previous experience in a high school language department with a wide variety of course designs and program models (i.e., Total Physical Response (TPR), Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS), the Natural Approach, immersion models, and / or the Communicative Approach). Native speakers are strongly encouraged to apply. Experience with interdisciplinary curriculum design, experiential education, project-based learning, and Understanding by Design process helpful. Experience embedding skill development through active-learning within the realm of authentic projects helpful. Excellent collaboration skills with teachers from other disciplines to supplement and enhance projects with language elements, instruction, themes, and products. Experience working with diverse populations including a mix of LGBTQ students; students from low and middle income backgrounds; students from suburban, urban, and rural settings; and students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds all of whom have not found success in traditional educational settings. The successful candidate for this position will possess the following attributes: a deep love for high school students; demonstrated success in collaborative work with external and internal colleagues; adept interpersonal skills; a sense of humor; visionary thinking; a commitment to lifelong learning; and a realization that working at a residential school is more of a calling than a job.

COMPENSATION: Salary competitive based upon experience, excellent benefits, professional development support.

TO APPLY: Position open until filled. Start date August 30, 2010 with possible early start (Summer 2010). Send cover letter (please address 3 components of the job: instruction, community involvement, and house parenting in the letter), resume, 3 professional reference names & phone numbers, and a sample project-based learning experience to Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, Attn: Spanish Language IS Search Committee, 2750 Notaiah Road, Estes Park, CO 80517 or email to info@eaglerockschool.org. No phone calls please. Eagle Rock School does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Eagle Rock School proactively seeks a diverse workplace and therefore members of racial/ethnic minorities and other protected classes are encouraged to apply.

Twitter and Quality Professional Development

2010-02-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about Twitter as a useful tool for educators. Some folks I follow on Twitter rave about their Professional Learning Network (PLN) and how they receive so much support from folks far and wide tweeting from the comfort of their laptops.

I do appreciate the tweets that provide a link to material that I find helpful. I’ve bookmarked (“favorited”) links on learning to podcast, making sense out of Google Wave and teaching a lesson on the Bill of Rights. Good stuff.

On the other hand, I look back at questions I "tweeted" to the amorphous group of educators – my PLN – and most just stay out there in the cloud. Looking at the past 20 questions I have posted, about 4 have received direct answers. I’ve asked about resources for counseling first-generation college goers, understanding response to intervention, looking for sources of classroom simulations and researching performance based assessments. No response. Perhaps they were tweeted at the wrong time.

One new and pleasant development has been noticing certain tweeters out there who seem to be engaged in efforts similar to my own. When I rea their blogs or websites and contact them offline, it appears there may be some promising leads.

Specifically, I am interested in how to provide high quality professional development in a school or district. Research points to using local expertise, job embedded work, sustained focus over time and protocols to make the students' work and teachers' practice more amenable to study. This constrasts with bringing in experts and delivering some decontextualized set of lessons without sufficient follow up.

Here are some cool folks I have met virtually through Twitter who appear to be implementing high quality PD.

Neil Stephenson
@Neilstephenson on Twitter
Calgary Science School

Neil has launched an inquiry process around the work students produce in response to projects. I love that he has posted audio of teacher comments, powerpoint of his presentation and a clip of a professional development session. Check out his post on Examining Student Work – Reflective PD

Kim McGill
@KimMcGill on Twitter

Another great one. Check out Kim’s blog here and Open School Network. Kim takes a deliberate and reflective approach to professional development linked to dilemmas experienced by the teachers. The site has useful resources for developing inquiry based professional learning communities.

In fact, since I drafted the comments above about Kim and Neil, Kim organized a web conference using Elluminate and brought together a dozen consultants to discuss the meaning of job embedded staff development. I was inspired by some new ideas to better integrate our teaching context into powerful professional development.

Unbeknownst to these two, they have inspired me to push harder for quality PD as well as share more widely. They are examples of a great contribution to the field.

The Eagle Rock School version of professional development has some similarities. School leadership and staff identify an instructional need (i.e., literacy practices) and we introduce and model how some of that instruction can be incorporated into one's practice. Then teachers are asked to incorporate in a way that makes sense to them and they (a) are observed, videotaped and receive feedback from colleagues, (b) bring their lesson plans and reflections of how implementation went back to a small group and use protocols to receive feedback and (c) bring student work produced as a result of implementation and we use protocols to dig into what we can infer from the student work.

We keep this focus for one school year. Planning the time together is done with a core team of teachers and leadership but all meetings are open so interested additional teachers can come and plan sessions anytime they want. We run the PD planning sessions itself as a critical friends group using protocols to look at our plans and studying some common text together (i.e, reading Linda Darling Hammond).

I am excited about how we can improve professional development here as well as connecting with educators world wide to help me in this endeavor. Maybe Twitter does have something to offer. Follow me at @tiomikel.

Blogging, Julie & Julia

2010-01-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

This blog lives in the back of my mind as a nagging concern - I rarely update it, worry about writing something clever and wish I could use it more to promote thoughts on educational reform. I also have so many things I'm interested beyond organizational leadership like teaching & learning, evolution, skepticism, science, politics, comic books & television shows. I journal almost every day but there's not one consistent thread through all those writings.

Now I'm watching Julie & Julia - great movie. And, it's inspiring me to blog more regularly. Julie Powell blogged every day about her efforts to cook every recipe in Julia Child's book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julie weaves in memories and daily views into her life as she works on the recipes. Would love to develop a thread of my own.

On another note, Julie & Julia is a great story about following one's interest - both were amateurs who dived deeply into an interest and brought meaning to their lives. Great example of how education and learning could be.

Linda Darling Hammond Keynote

2010-01-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

School Reform Initiative Winter Meeting at Cambridge, MA
Keynote: Linda Darling Hammond

"Nurturing schools cannot be about flowers peeking out of cracks in the concrete but needs to be a whole field of flowers."

The Path of Learning: Metaphors from the Trenches
(Demonstrating how learning is more like the path of a butterfly than like the flight of a bullet - real attempts at metaphor from young children)

He was as tall as a six foot three inch tree.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

The Need for More Powerful Teaching
See Ferris Bueller clip of Ben Stein's teaching. It's the model of teaching in the head of the policy makers. Just know content and deliver it.

Effective Teachers (do both / and not engagement in false either/or battles like skills vs. knowledge, basics vs. higher order....it's all "both / and")
...engage students in active learning
...use a wide variety of teaching strategies
...assess student learning continuously
...create ambitious tasks
...provide clear standards, constant feedback and opportunities for revising work
...create and manage a collaborative classroom

"More new knowledge created in a 3 year period than in all previous years of history put together"

Many students come to classroom not accustomed to doing the work of school and beyond being motivated by extrinsic rewards. Therefore they need authentic tasks. But many also do not have skills to be initially successful on authentic tasks. So, the correct response is to provide safety, feedback and revision (rather than what critics say...."don't do authentic tasks until they have the skills" It's "both/and"). Linda recommends the work on formative assessment of Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black research in UK http://bit.ly/60b8rY

What does an equitable teacher do? Consider these questions...

How do we see the child?
What tools do we use to learn about children's strengths, experiences, prior knowledge? (promising practice: home visits, positive calls home to parents)
What is our repertoire of practices for teaching a wide range of learners?
Can we plan and scaffold the curriculum?
How do we reinforce learning, sense of competence and attachment?

US Outcomes in International Perspective

Linda Darling Hammond focuses on achievement and equity in Finland, Korea and Singapore as success stories.

We have more percentage (22%) kids in poverty than any other industrialized country. Educational inequality exacerbates the effects of poverty.

What are high achieving nations doing?

Access to health care and preschool.
Equitable funding
Elimination of tracking
Investments in high-need schools and students
Lean curriculum focused on higher order skills, supported with technology.
Performance assessments to guide and gauge progress
Massive investments in teacher education and school level teacher support
Assessment systems are entirely local in response to very lean national curriculum.

(All covered in Linda Darling Hammond's latest book: The Flat World and Education)

Recommendations for Transformation

Focus on meaningful learning
Support for professional practice
School designs that support high quality learning
Equitable education funding

Expectations for learning are changing

Ability to communicate, work in teams, problem solve, manage oneself, analyze and conceptualize, create, innovate, criticize, engage in learning new things at all times.. (from Chris Worldlaw in Hong Kong).

NAEP test questions do not test any of the above.
Victoria, Australia has powerful performance assessments.
Singapore has only open ended questions.

_____
Overall, Linda Darling Hammond was pleasant to listen to but mostly preaching to the choir in this setting. I'm not clear that we leave with anything actionable or have a new insight about what we need to do. I think she is on point with all the issues she addressed but it's not hard to find agreement at the level of generalities: need to be more equitable, more support for teachers, more challenging tasks for students.

Fulfilling on vision for PDC effectiveness

2009-06-05T20:29:00.000-06:00

The Eagle Rock Professional Development Center is working on behalf of Big Picture to support improvement, reflecting and ongoing learning. We will also be supporting the professional development and support of principals in the network. One of our first events was preceded by visits to the Bronx Guild, Mapleton Early College and Highline. Folks at the three sites agreed that it would be worthwhile to do some focused work on the academic quality of LTI projects. Collectively we designed an event that eventually attracted participants from Liberty and East Bay. Staff from the five schools met at Eagle Rock from Sun, May 31 to Tue, Jun 2 to conduct an assets-based study of various LTI projects that had yielded positive academic results. We used protocols throughout the 2 days to study our most successful work, develop action plans to implement at our home sites and envision a future where these plans were successfully implemented. The sequence of work will culminate with on-site follow up from the Professional Development Center.

This experience has also inspired some possible plans to conduct similar events on a regional basis. Participants left with the following to say...

"As a first year advisor, it was great to talk to other people who were doing the same work especially in a context that was so focused and well thought out." Ed Kessler, advisor, Highline

"This has been the most productive professional development day I have experienced in my time at the Met" David Cass, 11th gr. advisor, Liberty

"The conference energized me, taught me about best practices at other schools, and gave me time to develop a plan to implrement change at my school." Ben Schneider, advisor, Mapleton Early College

"I have a renewed focus on project depth, creative new ideas about how to bring it about, and an awakened memory of what I know works. The asset-based approach was a great paradigm shift for me." Arthur Baraf, Principal, Liberty

League of Democratic Schools

2009-04-02T05:24:00.000-06:00

For the next two days, I will be hosting about 15 folks for the annual regional meeting of the League of Democratic Schools. I'll describe this group in a later post. For now, I want to outline my ideas for creating a work oriented meeting for various schools. Later, I will reflect on how well these plans worked.

Here's the agenda
Theme: Making the Invisible, Visible
"...there is only one thing I would want schools to guarantee, it would be to help all young people acquire the skills and self-confidence they need to feel visible in the world." ~ Sam Chaltain from Degrees of Freedom

Thursday
8:30 am - Eagle Rock gathering: witness an Eagle Rock ritual for supporting youth voice
9:00 am - Framing of meeting: intro to Eagle Rock, emphasis on theme (we're all hear to get better at incorporating youth voice), and emphasis on process of work, sharing and producing content.
10:00 am - Restorative Justice training: folks from Boulder Valley & New Vista High School sharing their practices
1:00 pm - Dilemmas in Democratic Governance: Eagle Rock students will present dilemmas and challenges regarding youth voice and governance. Participants will provide feedback using a consultancy protocol.
2:45 pm - Sharing resources from member schools: Run as a World or Knowledge Cafe. Each school has a home base and participants rotate to different tables. Throughout, we are looking into the question of what makes us a network? Who are we as a region? Who are we to each other?
4:45 pm - Closure

Friday
8:30 am Eagle Rock gathering: witness an Eagle Rock ritual for supporting youth voice
9:00 am Featured Speaker: Sam Chaltain: Sam will highlight some principles of democratic principles in schools. Schools will then work on their own projects with Sam providing coaching based on his presentation.
1:00 pm Creating content on online community: Somehow (not sure how yet) help participants think in terms of creating a product based on our work together and posting that online.

We'll see how it goes.

Using Twitter for PD Conversations

2009-03-23T23:06:00.000-06:00

I was minding my own business last night, surfing the web and checking my twitter feeds when I saw a tweet that read:

hrmason: Heather Mason, 8th Language Arts, Merritt Island, FL, USA #educhat

I wondered why this person I was following just randomly identified herself in this way. I noticed the tag #educhat at the end and did a Twitter search for that term to find....

thorprichard: Yeah, #educhat is an informal live intl. discussion about education using Twitter.

At the search window, hundreds of education related tweets began scrolling. Some folks enjoyed finding new people...

@ScottElias: Best thing about #educhat - finding new ppl to follow!!

Others launched polls...

wgraziadei: What criteria do you use to follow (for that matter unfollow) a user? Poll http://twtpoll.com/?twt=twa123 #educhat

And many shared resources....

clinds: Just heard about LearnCentral in Live Classroom 2.0 Ning archive - looks like an amazing tool to collaborate w teachers-anyone try? #educhat

To review the content of this evening's chat or to share it with colleagues, use the hashtag at http://search.twitter.com/ #educhat

And, about 1000 tweets later, we signed off with...

Educhat: Thank you for joining us. Please take the time to join us at our next meeting on April 6, 2009. Goodnight! #educhat

In addition to using Twitter to engage in backchannel conversations at conferences, this was my favorite use of Twitter.

PDC Work - part 2

2009-03-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

A few ideas I want to weave into the strategic stance I drafted in the last post.

1 - Sustained contact time on a single focus spread over time Consistent with a recent report titled "Professional Learning in the Learning Profession," our professional development center would emphasize choosing a focus, working together with a school for at least 50 hours and spread out over 6-12 months.

2 - People on the ground have the capacity to invent their own solutions This falls under our assets based approach. However, I think there are so many specific elements to the assets based approach that it warrants listing them out. The last post listed the concept of "positive deviance" and now we have the belief in the capacity of people to invent their own solutions. More can also be written on the "strengths based" movement, positive psychology, growth mindset, appreciative inquiry and learned optimism.

3 - Building teams in this work is a high leverage point More brains are better than one and only different perspectives can really produce new knowledge.

4 - Whatever theory or concept we are working on, it must be grounded in the work produced at the site Studying student work together or videotaping teacher practice provides the reality test when we are discussing more abstract concepts of differentiation, scaffolding, or project based learning. It takes far more disciplined energy to keep returning to our work than it does to have abstract debates on what works best for students. Our approach is more empirical.

Professional Development Center work

2009-03-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'm drafting some ideas for how to best describe the strategy for The Professional Development Center at Eagle Rock School. Here's what I've got so far.

Guiding principles: Assets based and actionable. We begin from a place of working with schools and organizations from the stance that they already have all they need to move closer to their vision. They may need someone like us to unearth their assets and identify signs of positive deviance. Further, we are strict about turning any insights into actions. We provide clear descriptions of what the folks in an organization must do rather than just describe outcomes.

Given these principles, we engage in the following strategies.

1 – We choose to work with strategic partners. These are organizations that have a highly developed infrastructure for working (a) with small public schools and (b) directly addressing issues of high school drop out rate and secondary school experience for the kinds of students we work with at Eagle Rock School. Amongst our current partners are The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) and the League of Democratic Schools (LoDS).

3- We partner strategically with technical assistance providers like PEBC and Buck Institute. They offer to either train us in their professional development or have us cofacilitate their work. That enables us to deliver our work having had the benefit of their high quality approach -- builds our capacity as trainers, adds value to ERS and adds values to the schools we work with. We are low to no-cost help to them as needed facilitators and we, in turn, learn from their work which is in high demand due to their quality and reputation.

3 – We are using our capacity to host visitors at our school site more effectively by working with fewer schools with whom we can conduct follow up visits. We combine the retreat nature created here while remaining embedded in a school environment. Our follow up visits to their school sites supports the needed contextualizing.

I will continue to flesh out these thoughts and develop a fuller strategy document.

Oprah Winfrey Final Remarks at NAIS 09

2009-02-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

"I believe in what you do" ~Oprah

She has sponsored young women to attend independent schools all over the country. Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa inspired by independent schools. Sharing her experiences - ups and downs - of having a school.

Benefited from nuns bringing Christmas gifts to her when she was a child on welfare. Wanted to do the same - spread the love, bring unexpected joy to children - in South Africa. During the 3 week effort, Nelson Mandela invited her to stay over his house for ten days. What to say? What to do? Stedman told Oprah, "Why don't you just listen for a change?"

When you educate a girl, you educate a community. Teen pregnancy, AIDS and other social ills go down. Battled the government and architects in an effort to make the Leadership Academy beautiful. Art can inspire. "Why do the girls need closets? They don't have anything to put in them." Why? Oprah: "Because I want to send the girls a message that they are valued."

Oprah was looking for an "IT factor" amongst the girls. Wanted young women who had something to fit in Leadership Academy. Do we, should we do that for Eagle Rock? These young ladies have lost their parents to AIDS, suffer sexual assault, live in poverty. Is it so wrong to be selective within that group of youth in need? I think we dance around that question in student admissions.

First biggest challenge: finding the right staff. Selected students first because she thought it would be harder to find the right kids. Then surprised by how difficult it was to find the right teachers. "I thought because the vision was so clear to me, it was clear to everyone." Not so. Looking for a head of school, dean of academics, counselor.... Issues with staff exist everywhere.

Second learning: "Projected budgets are made by people with a great sense of humor." Spent 2 1/2 times more than planned on everything. Oprah's school pays for everything: appendectomies, coats, braces, transportation. I thought Eagle Rock provided a lot (we do, but this is more).

Now, she's talking about the alleged sex abuse scandal at the Leadership Academy. The case has still not been resolved. The only way to deal with a crisis is to "stay in the moment." Don't get consumed by worst case scenarios. Stay in the moment, tell the truth. "If you tell the truth, you can be criticized but you can never be hurt."

Sidney Poitier's expectations of these girls: To be seated at every table where the decisions of the world are made for the future.

Final scene from Goodbye Mr. Chips. "I think I heard you say it was a pity that I never had any children. But, you're wrong. I had thousands of them. All boys." Oprah feels the same.

Great ending! So acknowledging of educators and saying, "I'm trying to do it too."

Letting my frame of reference get in the way

2009-02-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Second experiment in live blogging. Waiting for Oprah to take the stage and hear her words of wisdom for the independent educators of the world. Meanwhile, a word on Guy Kawasaki's presentation. After discussing the presentation with a colleague, I realized I assessed Guy's presentation using a pretty limited rubric. I heard him say he was presenting on steps to change. Given that's an area of interest for me, I listened for "steps" and did not hear any. First of all, I may have misheard. He may have said principles or qualities of change. In that case, he would have fared much better in my evaluation. Second, after reflecting with a colleague, I see that there was a lot of useful and practical stuff in the presentation. For example, the whole idea of jumping the curve is a way we can frame what we do at Eagle Rock School. Lot of opportunity there. My limited framework for evaluation limited what value I drew from the talk. How often do I do that? How often do any of us do that?

Guy Kawasaki Keynote NAIS 09 Entry #2

2009-02-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

Guy Kawasaki
10 Steps to Change continued

6 - Polarize People

Okay - love that he's bragging about loving low brow TV. Makes me feel good. Loves 24 and The Unit. I love TV. He has three Tivos....that's what I want!

The point is some people love Tivo and some hate it. Any good idea polarizes people. That's good. Anything good generates strong emotions: Tivo, Harley Davidsons, Montessori schools

7 - Let 100 Flowers Blossom

Quote from Chairman Mao. I like this quote for the right situation but I've heard it applied at Eagle Rock for not working deliberately on any process or system. I've also heard it to justify taking in hundreds of students and watching hundreds fall away. I think 100 Flowers is a good approach to things and prototype thinking. Not so great when we're working with human beings and we want to serve them as best we can.

8 - Churn, Baby, Churn
Move through versions 1.0, 1.2, 1.3.... Ignore the bozos who say this revolutionary idea is not possible. Ignore them. But once the product is released, now switch to listening because the users will tell you how to fix the bugs. I can relate this to our current curriculum revision project.

9 - Niche thyself
2x2 matrix Uniqueness and Value

High uniqueness, low value: Bozo

Low uniqueness, low value: Pet Store food being shipped. Shipping costs too high and inconvenience. Most dot.coms are this way.

High uniqueness, high value: Fandango, Clear Card, Smart Car, Trek Line bike

10 - Follow 10-20-30 Rule
This is about pitching using power point. (Claims someone try to sell him on the idea that Israel be purchased and turned into an amusement park.)

10 slides - no more...
20 minutes - present in no more than...
30 points - use font no smaller than...

11 - Don't Let the Bozos Grind You Down (Guess he added an extra step)

That's it. What Guy calls the 10 steps of change. I have to disagree. It was an entertaining presentation with some clever tips. I'm glad I saw him. But, these are not steps. It's a collection of anecdotes.

Guy Kawasaki Keynote NAIS 09

2009-02-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Guy Kawasaki
10 Steps to Change
This is my first attempt at live blogging. I'm taking notes on this talk as it's happening. I'm putting first five steps here and will continue with second entry.

1- Make Meaning (i.e., make a difference, change the world)

With 2 pieces of cotton, leather, rubber construct a shoe under controversial sweatshop conditions - not compelling. But that's what Nike does and they market it with meaning.

2 - Make Mantra

Put's up Wendy's [bad] mission statement about leadership and innovation. "When I order a cheeseburger it doesn't occur to me that I'm involved in leadership and innovation."

FedEx: Peace of Mind or EBay: Democratize Commerce. All better than a mission statement.

3 - Jump to the Next Curve

Don't be satisfied working it out on the same curve. "The telephone was not a slightly better telegraph. It was a whole new curve."

4 - Roll the DICEE
D: Depth: Reef sandal has beer bottle opener in its sole.
I: Intelligence: BF-104 Flashlight...someone was really thinking here. Flashlight takes three different battery sizes.
C: Complete: Totality of experience. i.e., Lexus
E: Elegance: How beautiful is your laptop, your school?
E: Emotive. You love it or hate it, you are not indifferent.

5 - Don't Worry, Be Crappy
When you have some revolutionary idea and you wait for that perfect bug-free world, you will NEVER ship your product.

So, far....my favorite principle. It supports "Don't let the perfect, be the enemy of the good." Also, promotes the prototype mindset we all need to get things done.

Making Change Stick: Steps

2009-02-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

My newest version of presenting steps to change. I'll annotate each step at another time. This is what I've come up with after combining my experience with work by John Kotter, David Allen and the Vital Smarts folks who wrote Influencer. Wisdom of Teams also has a minor influence.

Making Change Stick Steps
Precondition: Establish champion, leadership
1 – Identify the dilemma
2- Focus on the desired behavior
3 – Create a project built around bringing that desired behavior into practice.
4 – Involve others (establish a team and invite community feedback)
5 – Establish boundaries

Roles in life - The Value of Inputs

2008-12-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

At Eagle Rock, we have houseparents who live in a house connected to residences for up to 16 students. Over time, I have heard houseparents struggle with how well they are doing. It caused me to wonder, how does a houseparent assess how well they are doing? It got me thinking about "roles" in life like being a father or husband. How do I assess myself in those areas. These are notes from a one-hour meeting I facilitated presenting my ideas on some answers to these questions.

Definitions
• A role is a relationship to others or something (like your finances) that you choose to maintain to a particular standard and according to a set of values. It’s never complete.

• A project is an outcome that can eventually be checked off as “done.” It takes more than one action to complete.

When confronted with work, you have to ask yourself, “Is this something I can check off as done” or “Is this something I have to manage?” If the latter (i.e., relationships, fitness, houseparenting) then that role comes with certain qualities. Misinterpreting those qualities or characteristics causes problems.

Qualities of a role:
1) You will always think there is more to do than you can possibly do – use this thought as a signal that you are in a role rather than as a signal that “something’s wrong.”

2) You will either never feel you are good enough or if you do sustain some sense of accomplishment, it will be punctuated by self-doubt from time to time – another signal that you are in a role.

3) Because of first two you will alternate between beating yourself up and blaming some 3rd party {both are versions of “blame” and escaping personal responsibility – even “beating yourself up” is a form of taking evasive action and not putting yourself in the driver’s seat}

4) With a role, boundary issues will emerge –
(a) boundary you need to put up between yourself & others AND
(b) boundary between our imagination of what we think we can do and what we realistically do (not thinking that we can actually meet ALL of our students needs, we would hope that we behave in such a way that our actions correlate to students getting what they need).

What follows are three ways to “measure” yourself. Some are more useful than others. Some cause harm when used inappropriately.

Attitudinal –(self-talk and "I’m being" statements) I’m open, I’m available, I could probably be doing more.

If a positive attitudinal desire helps to suggest some things you can do (see inputs), then attitudinal thoughts can be useful. However, if you are referencing these attitudinal statements to judge yourself (i.e., I want to be available but I’m not) then you are using an inappropriate measure. You will never be “good enough.”

Outputs – It’s totally appropriate to assess an organization or system on outputs: educating, serving or graduating students. It is even appropriate to assess yourself over the long haul and see that more or less, you have made a positive difference. However, in the short term and with individual events, this is also an inappropriate measure of your effectiveness. This is a boundary issue. You have only so much control over what a student does in the next day or so. You are not responsible for a choice some student made to leave the school.

Inputs- (things you are doing, actions you are taking) Inputs are what you do based on some theory of action you hold. For example, I will check in with my advisees once a week outside of advisory because I think that this establishes relationships better than only talking during advisory. That in turn will make it more likely that the student will stay in school.

So, the input becomes “one check-in per week outside of advisory.” Or in our houses, “I will open the door three times a week so students can come use the kitchen.”

It is these inputs that one should look at and ask, am I staying true to my commitments? Have I kept my word? If yes, then you are doing well in your role. If it turns out that students are not learning or they don’t stay in school, this is a failure of your theory of action, not you. Once you review the outputs, reflect and adjust. Commit to new and different actions based on your learning.

The world of inputs and what we can do with it

1. Sharing common practices provides new ideas for inputs. If you like what someone else is doing, adopt it as a practice. Use your colleagues as assets who have already been successful with some practice (i.e. putting out a newsletter).

2. Sharing your input commitments with fellow houseparents and with house team can create support and accountability groups around inputs.

3. Sharing input commitments with others (ie., supervisors) provides information for targeted training and professional development. It is much easier to figure out what houseparents need if their practices are shared rather than make some vague request for training and support.

All the above reflects real early thinking on the subject. As I apply these ideas more explicitly, I imagine some of my thinking on this will evolve.

If you say three things, you don't say anything

2008-10-22T10:15:00.000-06:00

Post inspired by Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
Chapter 2: Simple

“No plan survives contact with the enemy” Colonel Tom Kolditz.

I spent hours planning last week's licensure meeting. I wanted the group to generate performance-based assessments (PBAs) that might measure achievement of our power standard. Prior to the meeting, I collected a list of learning targets off course proposals and previous exercises. I scoured texts on PBAs to find examples. I created a 12-page handout with examples from New York State Performance Consortium, Eagle Rock course proposals and a couple of books. I designed a mini-lesson intended to get people focused on developing PBAs and using the learning target list to inform their judgment. I then put the class into three groups of three to brainstorm.

Two interesting things happened. First, two groups each came back with only one PBA suggestion despite it being a brainstorming session. Second, the feedback about the process consistently urged me to simplify: don't provide learning targets, reduce the 12 page handout to a single page, say less during the mini lesson.

I believe critiques are correct given the consensus of a group of intelligent people. However, at my core, I don't get it. Why is it better to scale everything back so that folks are working with the least amount of information. I hear that folks don't want to engage in the material at some deeper level. Throughout my career I hungered for understanding the fundamentals. What was the literature or research on this topic? Why do some suggest we do things this way? What is the larger process or bigger picture here? If a staff development meeting only had me run through an activity I felt like a technician rather than a thinker. My presence was not that important. I need my mind to be engaged.

But, I admit I find more evidence that I overcomplicate things and others prefer to hear things in a simpler version. I also understand there's a flaw in imposing my view of myself as a learner on others.

I must become more disciplined about simplifying my message.

From the Heath book:
“...plans are useful, in [that] they are proof that planning has taken place...[which] forces people to think through the right issues. But the plans themselves don't work on the battlefield.”

Commanders Intent: crisp, plain-talk statement specifying the plan's goal, the desired end-state of an operation.

“If you say three things, you don't say anything.”

When to take action

2008-10-21T07:31:00.000-06:00

I laugh when folks say, "We should have done this a long time ago," and then that insight somehow justifies not taking action now.

"The best time to plant a tree...was twenty years ago. The second best time, is today."

Chinese saying

Creating a Sense of Urgency

2008-10-11T21:35:00.000-06:00

As I work on pushing forward on our curriculum revision project, I ran across these words by John Kotter in Leading Change:
"...transformations usually go nowhere because few people are even interested in working on the change problem. No matter how hard we push...if others don't feel the same sense of urgency, the momentum for change will probably die short of the finish line. People will find a thousand ingenious ways to withhold cooperation from a process that they sincerely think is unnecessary..."

We have a great staff, great culture, but I still worry that we haven't laid the groundwork for establishing a sense of urgency. I need to draft some of my own thoughts about why this could be so useful to the staff, the school and the students.

Launching new initiatives

2008-06-20T20:25:00.000-06:00

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."
~ Peter Drucker

Some staff want to experiment with instituting a study hall. We've been meeting about how to support the success of such a new initiative. I'm interested in seeing whether or not some "change strategies" (mostly from John Kotter and The Influencer) will help make this happen.

another action oriented quote

2008-03-30T12:56:00.001-06:00

"You'll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind"

I think it's an old Irish saying.

Technical decisions provoke adaptive work

2008-03-15T10:35:00.000-06:00

From Heifetz: “…with adaptive problems [complex, not solved via some technical fix], authority must look beyond authoritative solutions. [However] authoritative action may usefully provoke debate, rethinking, and other processes of social learning, …then it becomes a tool in a strategy to mobilize adaptive work toward a solution , rather than a direct means to institute one.”

There is an earlier blog post (Feb, 2005) where I describe instituting 4 authoritative fixes at the Bronx Guild: use of learning plans, grids, conferring with students and mentor meetings. The idea at the time was not necessarily that I had the correct solution and that faithful implementation of these measures would bring success. Rather, they were provocations. There was complacency around certain practices like tracking student progress or engaging with mentors. Perhaps these measures would help. However, certainly they would spur reactions. Folks who had a difference of opinion on the matter were now motivated to push back and come up with alternates solutions. New conversations were held that were not being held before. Dialogue, problem solving, creating new knowledge, and action were provoked.

Here at ERS, the authoritative "fix" of instituting a process for curriculum guide revision is of the same nature. Simply presenting the process has surfaced all kinds of feelings amongst staff: some love it, some feel discounted, others have alternative ideas. Could not have asked for better than this. It forces us to have these conversations: how can we include you more, what role will you play in the future of the school, what other ideas do you have? These are the conversations that need to happen.

Individual's concerns represented as group concerns

2008-03-12T08:09:00.000-06:00

Occasionally within a group, a few individuals may have a concern. Rather than say "this is my concern," the person will represent it as a group concern: "Our group feels slighted by what you did" or "The group doesn't think so." By the way, I'm talking about concerns that are shared by a few. I'm not referring to concerns that statistically do represent the group.

The problem here is that the group is referred to in monolithic terms. That is, generalizations are asserted in a way to create the impression that this statement is true for most if not all members of the group. What is really happening is that the speaker holds a minority view but holds it intensely. I believe that there is not an easy way to present one's valid and intense feelings about something and the way to get things heard is to assert incorrectly that the entire group feels this way.

The trap for the leader or the change agent is to accept this as a group issue and continue to address the group. The feelings and reactions are valid and should not be ignored just because they belong to one or two people. But, the right approach is to talk to the individuals one on one.

The trap is especially prevalent in places that put people in groups without clear boundaries. We don't really practice the discipline of teams yet we put groups together that Katzenbach would call a "compromise unit." These are the worst kinds of groups - they are a pseudo-team. They lack the leadership of a single-leader unit and they pretend to be a team when they don't practice the disciplines required of a team. Fundamentally, this is the real source of the problem described above.

Folks wouldn't mask their individual concerns as group concerns if they were clear on the boundaries and processes associated with the work unit they belong to.

My Report Card

2008-02-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

Despite how focused I think I am and how much I preach focus in leadership, I find myself scattered as I try to juggle multiple initiatives. All of these initiatives are in addition to my standard work with other schools, presenting at conferences or hosting visitors. I launched these initiatives in order to meet needs of the school as I perceived them. I thought a report card on my self might be a helpful exercise. I need to figure out whether there's a pattern to those initiatives that fizzle out and those that get traction.

Faculty Evaluation – a year ago I attended the National Association of Independent Schools conference and ran across a form of faculty evaluation that focused on teachers setting their own professional goals. I adapted many of the forms and the approaches as I understood them.

Grade: C Despite having run meetings to focus on these goals, not a single person mentions these goals unless I bring them up. It doesn't seem to be meaningful to the staff.

Instructional Meetings – I was tired of making up stuff to deliver some staff development. Like the faculty evaluation, there wasn't much demand from staff for anything in particular so I kept preparing topical sessions that were not part of a coherent plan as I would like. However, I was working to meet with smaller groups all the time. So, I proposed using this time to meet in groups.

Grade: C I thought more people would want to meet in small groups to work on projects they were already a part of . There's little to no response to joining various groups. So far, the meetings have fallen into two groups each time and they don't seem to be very effective. I give this initiative a B however with respect to how much I have to work on it in contrast to past PD.

Restorative Justice – instituted to stem the expulsion of students for breaking non-negotiables while also providing a community building ritual.

Grade: B+ Part of the culture, students expect to get restorative justice and we have a stable group of staff and students who can facilitate. Follow through is excellent. More trainings and reflection would move this to an A.

Fairness – in the spirit of restorative justice, I wanted to create a group that would deal with lower level behavior issues.

Grade: D Exists in concept only. I haven't figured out how to make it work and there's no demand for it.

Night Patrol– I proposed doing random night patrols to look into how well students were sleeping and hopefully act as a deterrent to late night misbehavior.

Grade: B+ Committed volunteers work on this. No complaints from students and some of them have reported their belief that it has been a deterrent. I feel really good about this initiative. Unfortunately we are short one or two volunteers to successfully fill all the slots.

Leadership Team Meetings – part of my earlier school critique was the lack of agenda and focus during leadership team meetings. I gathered all the items that people suggested we talk about and organized an agenda based approach to holding the meetings.

Grade: B+ ...maybe an A. Since proposed, we have never failed to have an agenda and minutes for the leadership team meetings. A digest of the minutes is provided to the staff and we have received great feedback on our greater transparency.

Power Standards – Some time ago I proposed we revise our curriculum guide to focus on fewer standards. Little to nothing was done on this work until there was a recent resurgence in interest. It may now be the focus of an all day instructional meeting.

Grade: C or B The resurgence of interest is welcome. However, staff seem real confused about how to proceed. I feel like there's a lot of work to do to make sense of this initiative for the staff.

How often are any of us guilty of this?

2008-02-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

“One issue is denial within the school about what’s going on—or at least a lot of rationalization. Especially in a school where there have been consistent patterns of failure for certain kinds of kids, it’s often the case that people locate the source of that failure in the kids themselves, or in their culture, their community, or their parents. All of this means the school is unwilling to take responsibility for what it can do to address the needs of those kids. Getting people to the point where they’re willing to take some responsibility is an important step.

That’s where the research can play a role in challenging people’s assumptions and getting them to see how they can think differently about why kids succeed or don’t succeed. Some teachers are very willing to accept credit for success—the kids who go to good colleges—but they’re not so willing to take responsibility for the kids who don’t succeed.”

Pedro Noguera

Results of Assets Based House Focus Experience

2008-01-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

I facilitated an assets mapping experience with those interested in working on improving the living village through houseparent orientation and houseparent staff development. This is the summary of that experience.

1.Asset Mapping for What
We want to establish some way to orient houseparents. Through developing an approach to orientation, we hope to develop ourselves. We have no idea yet what should be included in the orientation nor what form it should take. Now's the time we're going to look at what the assets suggest.

18 staff freely chose to work in this group today. All are on house teams and all 6 houses were represented. Only one house did not have its houseparents in attendance.

Rather than allow them to self-select smaller groups based on affinity, I had them count-off to create four groups. I wanted to increase the chances folks would connect with new folks and new assets.

2.Debriefing
I introduced the entire agenda and provided context for why I had decided to use this exercise when thinking about how to best help houseparents and think of orienting houseparents in the future. At this point, I had a couple of people who didn't understand why we were talking about assets. N. asked, “I don't see how this has any relevance to houseparents.” However, the majority seemed to either understand or be willing to go along with the activity.

Recognizing Our Assets
I used prompts from the following categories: individual, physical, associations, organizational (in place of institutional) and resources (in place of economic). I also made the final prompt a version of the “needs transformation” exercise. Had them think of needs and modeled finding the asset at the core of that need.

Approximately 200 assets were generated and posted on walls. The space wasn't great. Lots of furniture in the way of walls. People actually got on chairs and taped some assets to the ceiling. Others interesting spaces included podiums, windows, and a piano.

Connecting the Dots
Some confusion – J. asked, “Is this specifically for houseparents or can it include students?” My struggle here was trying to avoid censoring while maintaining some generally connecting towards the target of houseparent staff development and orientation.

One thing I think I did well here was use an example of something that has already happened at the school that was already an example of connecting assets: Current Events class on Saturday connected with the Science teacher = Science based current events that lead to meeting graduation requirements. The person was in the room who had thought of that, so I thought it made the connecting real. I also pulled together two random assets and asked folks to brainstorm an action. Classic Rock knowledge + Resiliency Skills teaching = putting a band together with resiliency lessons woven into meetings.

20 minutes later 14 actions had been generated. Tough to see them because they were somewhat buried within a sea of 200 other sheets of paper. I promoted noting where things were during the report out.

Here my only concern was that some of the actions were less within the locus of control of those suggesting them. For example: assets were that three different groups of people live on campus. These were connected to the action: “more staff presence in the houses.” When questioned, it seemed that they were thinking we “should” have more staff presence given these assets rather than “I want to take action on being more present since I live on campus.” I thought this was worth redirecting to what was within their control. I had to do that two or three times.

Another comment was “It's almost like these directions are limiting. I see one asset and it stimulates many ideas but I don't know what to connect it with.” I suggested that the participant share his idea with the small group and see if they could make any connections or suggestions.

Voting with your feet
With direction, folks moved to 5 actions out of the 14. Some actions were combined.

Some asked, “what if I can't decide or I want to do more than one?” I said for now just pick the most engaging and we'll revisit this work in the future.

While everyone moved into actions, I didn't feel there was the kind of energy described in the consultant's journal on p. 24: “...people would come out of the ...experience smiling, laughing, and bursting with new energy.” This did not happen. It was more slow movement to actions, some low level buzz of conversation. Nothing negative but definitely not what I would call uplifting.

Debriefing the experience
I asked (1) taken together, can you imagine the contribution these 5 actions will make to the houseparent body, (2) what do you need next and (3) what feedback do you have about the process itself?

About a two-thirds of the comments were “creative, liked it, good starting points, can imagine benefits, etc.” The remaining third were split between, “when will we do this or how will we do this” and “I'm confused...why did we do this?”

3.Readiness for next steps
I think EVERYTHING that follows depends very much on my ability and follow through to support the actions suggested. I feel like I need to find time in the schedule for the action groups. I also think I need to help some get clarity on how these actions are tied to the support of houseparents. As I've mentioned before in other threads, I did a full day Appreciative Inquiry Summit with design groups generated and no one ever met again after that day.

How do I best support follow through?

Using Assets to Create Staff Development

2008-01-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

One of my current dilemmas is to create some staff development for houseparents. Consistent with the school's desire to work more from strengths as well as the PDC's direction using assets as our primary strategy, I want to take as pure an assets based approach as I can. But, I'm not sure how to do it.

I asked houseparents to email me their strengths around houseparenting. Not all responded (that's one problem that I encounter when working with staff - lack of response). One houseparent said, "I don't think I'm good at anything around houseparenting." Those that did respond led to a list of mixed items from specific to general, from behaviors to outcomes. Here's one response:

Regular check-ins with students
Dealing with student’s conflicts as soon is possible
With the exception of a few days a trimester, be available for students. Available to talk, available for them to make a phone calls, for them to take their meds when needed, available for them to cook, drink tea, watch TV
Create conditions to have fun. Have games available, movies, music, food etc

I think these are good things, but now I'm left with wondering what to do with this information. My initial thought had been to look for patterns amongst houseparents, focus on the most widespread strengths, and develop a workshop that supports sharing that work. For some reason, I'm stuck.

Recently I signed onto an online course taught by Luther Snow who wrote The Power of Asset Mapping. The course has an option to get feedback from the instructor on one's project. So, I intend to send Luther my houseparent staff development project to get ideas for how to proceed.

Reading Luther's book has already influenced our thinking. He suggests getting the group together that has the assets to find their own connections amongst their strengths and develop new actions as a result of connecting those assets in a new way. It means I can facilitate this process but don't have to know in advance how to use the strengths suggested by the houseparents.

He also suggests that while I facilitate the process, I include myself in the process as well. What strengths or assets do I have to offer. Focus on the affinity I have for this group. Sounds promising.

Steps for applying ABCD to staff development

2008-01-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

JP asked me how the PDC applies strengths and assets based development to staff development. I referred to work in an earlier entry about Skyview Academy . I took the following steps as my attempt to incorporate strengths and assets applied to what the school wanted to get better at.

1. Identify what the school wants and agree to a model they aspire to. (They showed me a model for block instruction that they liked).

2. I study the model to make sure I understand it.

3. I conduct a series of low-inference observations and produce an observation report for that teacher. It presents the low-inference data and then I add at the end what I think they did well in terms of the model they aspire to.

4. After observing every teacher (not necessary to do everyone), I produce an Assets Based report of the school with a matrix of their strengths.

5. Design a full day (or some session) of PD that is focused on folks sharing their strengths and promising practices. Near the end of the session design next steps....usually a focus on a narrower aspect of the larger topic. Repeat steps 1 to 5.

Michael

John Kotter steps to change

2007-12-28T09:13:00.001-07:00

I don't remember the source of this cut and paste. I attended a workshop on this and probably clipped the following from Kotter's site. I think it has some parallel to my draft of steps for change posted earlier.

John Kotter's highly regarded books 'Leading Change' (1995) and the follow-up 'The Heart Of Change' (2002) describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change (see a more detailed interpretation of the personal change process in John Fisher's model of the process of personal change): Kotter's eight step change model can be summarised as:

Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant.
Build the guiding team - get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels.
Get the vision right - get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy, focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.
Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against.
Empower action - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognise progress and achievements.
Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones.
Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones.
Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, new change leaders. Weave change into culture.

Growth Mindset

2007-12-25T11:04:00.001-07:00

JG just sent the following to all staff:

More than three decades of scientific research suggests that repeatedly telling children (and teens) that they are especially smart or talented leaves them vulnerable to failure, and fearful of challenges.

Children raised this way develop an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem less important than seeming smart; challenges, mistakes, and effort become threats to their ego rather than opportunities to improve.

However, teaching children to have a "growth mind-set," which encourages effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life. This results in "mastery-oriented" children who tend to think that intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work.

This can be done by telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. Talking about math geniuses who were born that way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great mathematicians who developed amazing skills over time creates a growth mind-set.

Sources: Scientific American Growth Mindset Article

I'm sharing it here to remind myself that we committed to doing some work with Strengths Based Approach and I feel it falls by the wayside. The growth mindset work is consistent with that work, but somehow we've never figured out how to translate "a commitment to SBA" to "our work with the staff."

Action Needed

2007-12-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. - Kahlil Gibran

"Talking does not cook rice." - Chinese Proverb

Recommendations based on critique

2007-12-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

Now that I laid out my critique, I want to list recommendations that follow from the critique:

Overall: Build a stronger infrastructure of processes and structures that take the burden off having to make as many personal, emotional and ad hoc decisions.

Leadership

1.Commit to long term strategic thinking and follow the plan (i.e., Good to Great – but doesn't have to be that). Commitment to strategy and discussion should be a weekly event.

2.Identify schoolwide problems and make those issues the heart of leadership team meetings. Use the collective talent to dialogue, argue and problem solve.

3.Adopt the process of running big decisions by the rest of the leadership team (i.e, dismissal of students, approaches to clean up in houses, launching the New Orleans trip, etc.). Final authority remains with one person in the most appropriate department and all remains the final call of head of school should he choose to exercise that call. But, from now on decision makers get to hear the perspectives of others before proceeding.

4.Commit to open and frank conversation about topics and issues. Do not say what we really feel after the meeting is over and some folks have left. Call each other on adhering to this practice.

5.Develop and adhere to agendas for leadership team meetings rather than showing up and reporting out. Maintain and distribute minutes.

Strategy

6.Once a strategy is adopted (see #1 above), run future decisions through the strategy filter. Should we follow through with Akosha Fdn and New Schools for New Leaders, how do we roll out “Everybody Writes Every Day?” etc. Again, not bound by the strategy but bound by running it through the filter with all leadership team members.

Processes

7.Adopt standard processes for the following
Decision making within leadership team, decision making with staff involvement.
Making proposals and getting feedback / responses
Conducting whole school conversations (i.e., community meeting)
Student behavior / culture system
Reactive: i.e., restorative justice, fairness committee
Investigative
Proactive
Group Counseling
Leadership Development
Character Development
Structures in light of students' poor decision making (i.e, night duty, strong circles, etc.)
Staff supervision
Crisis management
...and more

Management

8.Every initiative / event must have a leadership team “sponsor.” Someone responsible for supervising the success of the initiative or event (i.e., House Focus, Community meetings, etc.)

9.Once agreed upon a process to supervising staff and holding accountable, we must diligently follow through.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

2007-12-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

Rough draft of a critique of our organization

Our school not only loses students and fails to graduate students at an alarmingly poor rate, but over the past seven years we are accelerating our rate of loss. This place looks nice to the outsider and we enjoy a great reputation.

Two metaphors come to mind:
1. The fairy tale of the emperor strutting about and none of the witnesses are willing to tell the truth. The emperor has no clothes.

2. The white city of the great Chicago World's Fair. Shiny and pretty on the surface, gleaming and unparalleled in its grandeur. But, none of the 200 buildings were built to stand. All temporary, no infrastructure, all plaster, no stone. Within a year, the buildings were gone.

What's the nature of our infrastructure?

Leadership of the school is siloed and characterized by cover up (see Chris Argyris for comprehensive descriptions of the nature of "cover up" in organizations)

Leadership team occasionally but rarely engages collectively on school issues. A typical meeting characterizes the way leadership works on issues. We report out as departments – mostly announcements. Rarely does anyone ask his colleagues for insight, expertise and perspective on a problem he is dealing with. When someone does ask for input it invariably ends with head of school saying, okay that's enough of that. So and so (whichever department raised it) will take care of it (and implies we don't need to know anymore).

Members of leadership team occasionally don't agree with each other. Sometimes a member makes his disagreement known usually in an extremely polite way. However, there are many examples where members hold their tongue for various reasons (and usually express it inappropriately after the meeting to others). Those times included when it appears that someone is settled in his idea and will be resistant to feedback, when communication becomes too difficult because someone else doesn't seem to understand, when the issue seems small enough that it's not worth the trouble to pursue understanding, when someone seems defensive. Often someone wants to raise a question but the speaker doesn't request feedback. Too many times we don't speak frankly and honestly with each other.

We spend most of our time in reactive mode. There's little collective commitment to long term strategic thinking. Folks attention are generally on the latest crisis or commitment and strategy is seen as a luxury, not a priority. “pay now or pay later, meineke”

Strategy is nonexistent

We do not sustain sufficient attention at the leadership level on long term strategy. We allow opportunistic, ad hoc thinking to dominate and distract: one week notice about international visitors, major travel and service project without consultation, slogans and announcements of new initiatives at the beginning of the semester with no follow through...etc.

We execute ill advised short term fixes that are not embedded in any strategic thinking: A staff member running the truth and reconciliation group, flooding the school with too many students, etc.

Agreed upon processes are virtually non-existent

We have no standard processes to depend upon to resolve conflicts, make decisions, solve problems or drive our culture. Community meetings are based on loudest voices. There's no consistent level of responsibility for the quality or execution of meetings. No coherent process for student behavior issues, for disciplining staff, sticking to an initiative,

Whatever processes we do have in place are poorly managed

Different staff from time to time undermine directives and processes: Staff member dropping peer council, instructor not having a writing program, weak oversight on house focus.

Hunches, intuition and gut moves dominate: sending some students home, inconsistent decisions with students.

At the rate we're going we will have a 10% graduation rate over the next 7 years. Falling to less than half of what it was the first 7 years. If our funders were really paying attention to the data and understood expected results in high schools around the country, they would not tolerate the return on investment.

Latest draft for moving on any initiative

2007-12-08T14:36:00.001-07:00

This is my latest thinking of the sequence of steps needed to move on any initiative. I'm sure it will undergo revisions in the future:

Here's my latest version:

Procedure for launching any initiative

1. Establish unequivocal leadership. Establish strong leadership where the buck stops -- someone ensures it is executed and who protects the initiative in its infancy. Someone stands up and says, this is my initiative. I am responsible and I will take action to ensure execution and protect this initiative.

2. Establish the working team. It's more important that these be the “right people” instead of some democratic ideal of seeking representation. The latter is only necessary to the point that representation will ensure execution. The right people means “mission appropriate,” loyal to the organization, doers.
A team of interested staff and students - small, workable, interested team with energy for this sort of thing / You pull together a committed group to work on this issue and meet as frequently as necessary.

Alert: I think this group needs to determine what process it will use to resolve conflicts, make decisions and solve problems. The problem is that either or both (1) folks just want to get to work and trust they'll work through things so this stage is perceived as a waste of time and/or (2) folks don't want to preemptively commit themselves to a process “in theory.” The time may come when they feel so strongly about a decision that they don't care what the process generates. I don't think it matters what the process is as long as there is a rational, agreed upon process. Doesn't matter if it's voting, consensus, using matrices, etc.

3. Invite controlled community involvement. Following meetings; share proposals and invite feedback via email. Hearing proposals at a staff meeting for the first time (as we did with the chore proposals) does not provide sufficient time to process the issues. Also, frequent communication reduces the possibility that you are doing something in conflict with another group {Again, the chore proposal had an action that directly conflicted with the house focus proposal regarding house clean}.

4. Focus on the smallest unit possible that will still be a contribution. Start small with your proposals. Start with one table in the lodge that is a no cursing table (that's an exaggeration...you could probably start with meal time and kitchen work as the small unit to begin with). Have success with that before expanding the work. / a clear but small scope of behavior to take on at first and a singleminded focus to only deal within this scope until it has traction in this community

5. Overdetermine success by looking at every aspect of needed support. a system for supporting the success of this initiative: incentives/disincentives, peer support, assistance, removal of barriers, training, etc. / Once you have settled on a proposal; think of all the ways you would have to follow through to ensure that expectations are met. I have a model (6 cell model of human behavior) that I use to try to cover all angles on follow through. / Figure out how you will
(a) follow up with new events - celebrations, recognitions...some plan to keep it in the community's consciousness
(b) strategically build out the approach (expand from the smallest unit or expand in terms of overdetermining success)

Alert: How to address issues of execution? How to talk about it while implementing? Can the team actually carry out the play? Possibility: Need to do step 5 (overdetermine success) with the working core team itself.

6. Have a mechanism for review. a feedback mechanism for reflection and improvement

Keep doing steps 3 through 6.

Principles to follow:
1. Any action that is to be taken needs to be written out and explained in actionable language.

i.e., No foul language used in the kitchen (we have students working in the kitchen) NOT Everyone shows each other respect during KP {that's not actionable}

2. Any action for which someone must take responsibility must have a name and time attached to it.

i.e., Mike will explain the foul language rule to every student over weeks 1 and 2 NOT We'll make sure we tell the students not to use foul language {who will do it, when? Likely will fall through the cracks}

6 months later - still about assets

2007-11-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

In the six months since we came up with a PDC Hedgehog of Assets Based Community Development (ABCD), I have only experienced more and more convergence towards this idea. This year we're looking at the Strengths Based Movement popularized by Marcus Buckingham. Jenifer Fox has written a book on applying strengths in a school setting and she referred me to the Taos Institute. She wants us all to work together on launching an international Strengths Based Conference.

Solution-Focused Counseling has been part of our counseling training. And, I've been looking into literature on Assets Based Thinking (ABT).

This is what I want the PDC to be known for. I would like to develop some term that encompasses ABT, ABCD, Strengths Movement, positive deviance, solution-focused counseling and appreciative inquiry. I want to put it together into some package we offer.

Hedgehog Implications

2007-05-07T23:53:00.000-06:00

Does an ABCD Hedgehog mean we are going to spread our findings and produce resources – look at Northwestern ABCD Institute.

Mission of Assets Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern:

"Spread our findings on capacity-building community development in two ways: (1) through extensive and substantial interactions with community builders, and (2) by producing practical resources and tools for community builders to identify, nurture, and mobilize neighborhood assets."

I framed my work with Skyview through an ABCD lens. My strength was to script classes and then organize my notes in terms of what they wanted to work on: how to teach inquiry in an extended block of time (about 90 min). From my script I would find those elements of the block instruction that were strong. Everyone of my reports ends with Assets: What we can learn from this teacher. Over time, I will have observed every teacher and we will have mapped assets in terms of instruction. Then we would design PD -- probably a protocol -- based on the strengths analysis that would support their tapping into their local
knowledge and talent.

Sometimes Skyview and others have a need and ask us for direct answers on how to solve the problem. For example, they ask how to do POLs. With an ABCD lens, I'm less inclined to provide an answer "as expert" to address a deficit. Margrette did suggest ways we could still help with POLs from an assets based approach.

Michael

Themes Emerging for a Hedgehog

2007-05-04T19:18:00.000-06:00

These are some themes that folks are noticing as we use ABCD or ABT (assets based thinking). These come from different conversations.

General focus on positiveness
Focus on specific assets people hold within the community.
ABCD seems to be about leveraging the specific assets within the community.
Generally interpreting it as a strengths based approach.

I wondered how an assets based approach can exist while we still address poor performance. My latest thinking is this: Yes, I acknowledge your strengths and I’ll help you leverage those strengths to meet all your performance expectations. But, there are no excuses to not meet performance expectations.

Michael

Web Resources for Asset Based Community Development

2007-05-02T20:37:00.001-06:00

www.search-institute.org/assets/

www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html

www.synergos.org/knowledge/02/abcdoverview.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset-Based_Community_Development_%28ABCD%29

How assets based expectations affect nursing home patients
tinyurl.com/3884y4

Using PB Wiki for our Values Discussion

2007-04-22T19:39:00.000-06:00

I created a wiki that has a separate page for each value, theme and commitment at our school.

You can create your own wiki at http://www.pbwiki.com

Hedgehog Concept: Reflection with Council

2007-04-13T20:59:00.000-06:00

Hedgehog Council:

I cc'd or bcc'd you on the results of my meeting with Skyview because
it reflects my understanding of how our work might proceed with others
if we took an exclusive ABCD view.

I think if Eldon had asked that we come down and teach their teachers
how to do POLs, for example, I would have said no.

I said we could conduct observations of what they do and try to
capture the strengths and high points relative to their goal (block
instruction). Then we would develop some asset map: where can they
find the strengths within their own community.

Then we would design PD -- probably a protocol -- based on the
strengths analysis that would support their tapping into their local
knowledge and talent.

_______________

I'm wondering if this makes sense to you. I'm also wondering if you
have had any insights regarding using ABCD as our hedgehog concept?

Skyview Work Plan: Applying the Hedgehog

2007-04-13T20:58:00.000-06:00

Summary of our discussion today:

Skyview has identified "effective use of block instruction" as one of
your primary goals for next school year. Using an assets based
approach, Eagle Rock will spend 2 to 3 days at Skyview between now and
May 18th conducting observations and producing a strengths analysis.
With Skyview, we will codesign a PD session that is built upon the
strength analysis to be held on May 29th or May 30th. We will
schedule a follow up session to reflect upon the strengths analysis
and the PD session to plan for next steps for the 2007 school year.

You will confirm whether Apr. 24, May 4 and May 8 will work for
conducting the observations. We will try to coordinate the work with
Annie from PEBC.

You also mentioned wanting to visit Eagle Rock School over the summer
vacation. You can coordinate with Dan regarding whether or not there
are dates open for visits.

PDC Council creating a Hedgehog Concept

2007-04-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

Our hedgehog was "We are the best at applying the lens of ABCD at Eagle Rock School." We agreed we would use this concept to reflect on our major activities until the end of Week 3 next trimester. We would consider what activities we might have eliminated, continued and new activities to begin but we were not obligated to take these actions....just journal and reflect. We are also paying attention to what it's like to live according to a hedgehog concept. What are the difficulties? the opportunities?

As I went through the day after our meeting, I journaled about 12 separate tasks I was involved in. I am finding myself asking the following question:

Are we focusing on how we can demonstrate to the world that we use an assets-based approach OR are we focusing on how we do use an assets-based approach for our own experience? OR both OR is it an overlap?

For example, one task was to meet with Margrette and carve out days for when I will do the FLS during ER42.

(1) If it's about me using ABCD, then I can say I like planning ahead...this is a strength...I like planning with Margrette....check...I'm using my assets.

(2) If it's what the PDC can be best at, then I can say I am scheduling FLSs so I can get to work on developing an ABCD influenced set of workshop for the fellows because this is what the PDC is best at.

Do you think my focus should be more 1 or 2? A mix? Something else entirely? How would you have reflected on this activity through an ABCD lens?

Good to Great

2007-04-08T22:08:00.000-06:00

Now in a new leadership position as Director of Professional Development at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center.

We have all read Good to Great by Jim Collins and we are committed to working through the framework.

I think I'll use the blog again to discuss leadership development issues. Different situation, similar questions.

46 graduates tomorrow June27, 2006

2006-06-26T17:03:00.000-06:00

Depending on how the city calculates the cohort we are in a range of 67 to 75% graduation rate. The New York Post recently published a 39% graduation rate across city schools.

We have a lot of work to do to raise and meet internal standards. We need to graduate more. We need to know much sooner that our students are on a productive path.

However, with everything we have left to do, we accomplished an amazing feat for our first graduating class. I have turned down 3 jobs in the past two years (LIS, Director of New and Small Schools and Baruch Faculty for SAM program). Every time I have said I need to wait until my first graduating class. I did.

Now, I am moving on to become Director of the Professional Development Center, Eagle Rock School.

More later.

Reflection on Assignment and Blog

2006-01-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

The assignment became known as "action research" and I have pushed it to be the throughline of all our professional development. I believe I stayed faithful to the assignment throughout its use in our professional development but have so far been unsuccessful at seeing the process embraced by the staff or have it produce positive results in student achievement. We are now entering a new phase of "action research" that is less action-oriented than the original assignment and more focused on researching questions that matter. My intent is that professional development become a central and sustainable feature of the work at the Bronx Guild.

My second reflection applies to the use of the blog. I was disappointed that more members of the team didn't use or contribute to the blog. I thought it would be a dynamic way to share knowledge and ideas while helping us stay on top of our project. I think that there was limited participation and limited result from sharing knowledge.

I'll create a new entry with some statistics...coming next.

Michael

From the Archives

2006-01-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

We have all completed the course where we had to do this assignment. I'm looking over old email archives and ran across this email from Al who was helping us think about what we had to do next. I don't think we captured it in the blog.

January 2005 email from Al

What we need to do for the assignment:

Identify a cohort of students in need of support.
Gather as much data as you can about them, and look carefully at this data in order to assess current outcomes. Data should include but not be limited to: results of standardized- and curriculum-based assessments, student work, and teacher observations. Data should be analyzed and broken down by sub-groups.
Determine what structures, decision rules, and mental models underlie the practices that lead to these outcomes. To do this, ask yourselves: If these were in fact the desired outcomes, what would you have to think and do in order for this to make sense? What would one have to believe, and what current practices are logical outgrowths of these beliefs?

Our brainstorm and thinking

What we would believe if we wanted the outcomes that we got

1. believe that time is not a factor in how they get credit (that it always can be made up, easily)
2. hope that they would learn a lesson by not getting credit (so we’d use those credits as a tool for “teaching them a lesson”)
3. think that we have little or nothing to do with them getting credit (that it’s all up to the student)
4. believe we ought to allow them to figure out how best to be successful (we would assume that their reason for not being at school was about them doing the right thing)
5. believe that we don’t have to work very hard at improving our teaching practice
6. believe that we should make them guess what’s in our heads
7. believe we should give up on really difficult kids
8. believe that a “presenting” interest is what’s going to get us to their passion

These are the practices that we engage in that reflect the above beliefs

ª Tell them “you are not going to earn credit” (belief #2)
ª Tell them “it’s easy to make up credit”(belief #1)
ª Allow them “incompletes” (belief #1)
ª We don’t keep track of “abandoned” projects or “failed” classes (belief #3)
ª don’t use the grids well to show incremental progress (belief #6)
ª don’t have a standard policy for looking at what “makes up” a credit (belief #6)
ª we do not as a cultural practice, keep student work as artifacts of their learning (belief #3)
ª we don’t (as an institutional practice) share common criteria for what meets expectations (belief #6)
ª tell them that time is not a factor in how they get credit (that it always can be made up, easily) (belief #1)
ª we don’t have systems that identify and assist kids that are failing (we leave it up to the parents and kids) (beliefs #2 & 3)
ª we teach to compliant kids and allow non compliant kids space to fail (and then believe that they are “learning a lesson”) (belief #7)
ª when the interest projects don’t pan out, we blame the kids. (belief #8)
ª do not engage with staff development (belief #5)

These are the beliefs and practices that we abandoned because we don’t think we believe or practice these things:

ª believe that ability is innate and finite
ª change everything so that it’s unfamiliar
ª not check in to let them know where they are on their journey
ª ask them to do stuff that has no meaning for them
ª not care if they didn’t get it
ª not pay attention to how they learn

Rough Draft of Assignment 8

2005-05-14T16:30:00.000-06:00

VERY ROUGH draft of Assignment 8

Following extensive analysis of the source of our problem situation (undercredited 11th graders) [see assignment 7 for analysis], we were confronted with the new challenge of developing a strategy to address this issue. Faced with an undercredited cohort we decided to develop a plan that would address key areas of instruction and procedure.

Using different logical processes to choose areas within instruction and procedure.

As an antidote to "arrogance" (i.e, we know what's best and don't need to improve our craft), we chose to focus on improving instructional practices. As an antidote to "uncertainty" (i.e, abandoning conventional practices leave staff confused), we chose to focus on improving selected procedures. From the vast range of instructional practices and organizational procedures, we had to narrow down what we would specifically focus on. This section describes the inductive and deductive approaches that led us to settle upon

instruction
conferencing
project development
procedures
mentor meetings
learning plans
grids

We used an inductive approach to brainstorm many possible areas of action

We had strategy meetings, small group meetings and email discussions. This generated a list of 30 different ideas.

We used a deductive approach to analyse decision rules within four different subsystems at school

(HERE I WOULD INCLUDE NOTES FROM THAT ACTIVITY - ON LEADERSHIP BLOG)

Rather than develop a plan of action we moved quickly into communicating our decisions for focus

We publicized latest thinking on the leadership blog.

Michael condensed decisions into one-page memo. [Mandated new norms in spirit of Heifetz (to be referenced) and using technical move to provoke adaptive work]

The memo was uploaded to a list serve, disseminated through email and hardcopy and followed up with a personal conversation between each member of the leadership team and a staff member.

We created specific staff development and resources to support staff in executing the plan.

We conducted PD on conferencing and use of grids. [NOT SURE ABOUT OTHER MEASURES]

We disseminated 4 page conferencing book which was an adaptation of "How is it going" by Anderson.

We developed practices for monitoring execution and collecting data on results

Leadership team formed into conferencing groups.

Michael required data in March and May for oversight.

In summary, we took our diagnosis of "arrogance" and "uncertainty" and developed a focus on instructional and procedural practices. These practices were aggressively communicated, supported and monitored.

Pyramid Principle and Assignment 7

2005-05-14T02:00:00.000-06:00

I tried to use the Minto Pyramid Principle as presented by Phil to structure this document. I still fear that there are logical breakdowns within this structure. Here's my first draft.

Assignment: Identify cohort, analyze data, analyze systems. Look for causes.

Assignment 7
Bronx Guild

Two years after founding the Bronx Guild, we do not have any reliable methods for analyzing the causes for the results we produce. This situation is startling given that we will graduate our first class of students in June 2006 and 85% of that cohort has not earned sufficient credits to be promoted to the appropriate grade. Here we describe our efforts to analyze this problem situation using data analysis and systems analysis, methods that attempt to link cause and effect in a way that would lead to taking promising actions.

Data analysis was not useful for discovering causes or promoting action

We employed a common statistical method described by Douglas Reeves (REFERENCE HERE) to conduct a data analysis. We compared attendance, special services classification and 8th grade reading and math levels to performance [SPREADSHEETS AND GRAPHS ATTACHED). The analysis was not useful for discovering causes as correlations were were not discovered nor for promoting action as the readily available data were primarily describing qualities outside of the school’s control.

Systems analysis was useful for hypothesizing causes and promoting action

Coached through a process by Liz Gewirtzman (WHERE DID THE EXERCISES COME FROM?) we conducted a systems analysis. We took steps that would help us deduce how the Bronx Guild was set up in such a way to have produced the problem situation:

Steps/Questions
Team Responses

What’s the problem?
85% of our 11th graders are undercredited.

Why is that a problem?
We’re supposed to graduate kids in 4 years according to the system and society.

What about this most concerns us?
Eventually we’ll be labeled a failure and suffer a loss of freedom. We will experience constraints on our ability to work.

If these were symptoms of some disease, what would the disease be called?
Arrogance.
Uncertainty.

Imagine there were a solution…what would it have to do to affect the disease?
The solution would have to help us see that our arrogance (or uncertainty) is getting in the way of student’s learning and that external constraints are not the problem. It’s US not THEM.

What message would forward that solution?
“One kid at a time” or
“In 4 years!”

We need a message that addresses the disease and causes actions or behaviors different than what we have been doing and provides the lift we need. We need to think about how it affects decision rules and how the message can be implemented in any situation. Questions we need to ask include “what does the audience believe that makes them favorable towards this message? and What does the audience believe that makes them unfavorable?”

The team’s response to this exercise in systems analysis was useful in contemplating causes that affect student performance at the Bronx Guild. The responses resonated with team members: we saw that “arrogance” described a pervasive attitude that “we know best” and that “uncertainty” described the lack of response amongst staff when their competence is challenged [REFERENCE HUMAN SIDE OF SCHOOL CHANGE FOR CHALLENGE TO COMPETENCE AS REASON FOR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE]. We think there may be other valid diagnoses but we chose to focus on these two in the interests of taking actions immediately. This analysis put the source of action directly in the hands of Bronx Guild staff and therefore endowed us with a sense of agency.
The most useful analysis (systems) distinguished itself from the less useful analysis (data) by uncovering causes and promoting action

Our efforts to analyze the problem situation of undercredited 11th graders entailed two forms of analyses supported by course teachings and readings. These methods reflect our efforts to link cause and effect and determing promising actions. We discovered that the data analysis was not useful in this regard because we could not find correlations between inputs (e.g., attendance, special needs identification and reading and math levels) and outputs (e.g., credit accumulation and Regents pass rates). Furthermore, we were restricted to using that data which was readily available. That data largely described characteristics that were outside of the school’s area of control.

In contrast, our systems analysis uncovered theories that both resonated with the team’s experience and endowed the team with a sense of agency. The action plan will be described in the next document in this series (assignment 8).

Michael

Preliminary Report on Latest Data

2005-04-10T23:12:00.000-06:00

Although this is just for our 11th graders, it is my belief that it is reflective of school progress.
When you look at how the students did in terms of credit last semester (probably our worse semester of "earnings") we now see:

79 % projected to earn more credit than they did last semester
27 % earning just as much
2 % doing worse

Now compare how they are doing compared to their average earnings prior to this school year
59 % projected to earn more than they had on average
2 % achieving their average earnings
40 % doing worse than their average

Finally, every student has a "burden." That's the number of credits they need to earn for the remaining semesters to get on track for a 4 year graduation.

16 % projected to reduce their burden (none of these are among the undercredited 11th graders -- that is, all were already accelerated towards graduation)
3 % have the same burden
84 % have a higher burden - that is they have to earn more credits per semester next year to get to graduation than they did at the beginning of this semester or at the beginning of this year.

Michael

The Data Is In!

2005-04-08T23:15:00.000-06:00

It has been 2 months and 8 days since the semester began.

We had intended to take actions to address the problem of the undercredited 11th graders. Our first action was to institute or increase conferencing with an emphasis on instruction. We would record conferencing events and measure the success by tracking progress towards credit achievement. The grids were to be used as ways to capture fractions of credit.

Finally, today we have a full set of credit achievement data for this subgroup. 2 months and 8 days seems to be the current delay in implementing an action cycle and receiving data on that action. At this rate we would not have data again until the end of the school year.

I want to collect this data three more times. How can we cut down the turnaround by a third?

Michael

One Crew / One quarter / Zero Credits

2005-04-07T22:08:00.000-06:00

As reported by crew leader #3
Student1 10th grader O credits earned from 1/05 - 4/1/05
Student2 10th grader 0 credits....
Student3 10th...0 credits...
Student4 11th grader...0 credits from...5 credits projected for June
Student5 10th grader 0 credits...
Student6 11th grader...0 credits...4 credits projects for June
Student7 11th....0....5 for June
Student8 11th...0...2 for June
Student9 9th...0
Student10 ...11th...0...4 for June
Student11 10th...0...
Student12 9th...0
Student13...11th...0...5 for June
Student14 10th...0...

What do you make of this?
Interpretations? Hypotheses?

Does it mean conferencing does not lead to credit accumulation?
Is there some confusion by what we mean by “credits?”
Does it mean these students have accomplished nothing? Learned nothing?

This is what assignment 7 and 8 are all about: making and testing hypotheses.

Look back on the data previously reported by two other crews. Does it alter any thinking?

Michael

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

2005-03-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique

“In other words, once something is good enough to do the job it's designed for, the worst thing you can do is to keep delaying its release till it's perfect. A related idea is that once it's good enough, you've probably got more important things to do than to keep tweaking the little imperfections. People who aren't satisfied with good enough sabatogue their own efforts by failing to benefit from the good enough work that they do."
from a site about website development

Do the simplest thing that could possibly work.

There is a sweet spot in setting standards. Too low or too high can be disastrous.

TheBestIsTheEnemyOfTheGood does not promote mediocrity, it (paradoxically) promotes the best that can be done in a given situation. Sometimes we aim very high -- unrealistically high. When the dust settles, we find that we would have done better if we would have aimed lower!

With regards to yesterday's grid meeting, it is my thinking that you all fall well enough within the ballpark to have teachers do the same exercise as we did yesterday. Keep in mind the "resolution" issue. We're working with the equivalent of a low resolution microscope (not very good). Improving resolution (i.e., improving the precision of the performance expectations, attaching rubrics, including student work, etc.) should always be part of our school-improvement plan. But school improvement plans should not be mixed up with getting to work NOW with what we've got at the resolution we currently have.

Remember.....
Year One: No grids at all. Just credit for classes.
Year Two: No grids in use. Beginning to be developed in performance expectations. Credit was again given for classes or teacher discretion in Explorations.
Year Three:
Semester One: Mapping past credits onto grids just as a record-keeping exercise.
Semester One and Two: Roughly trying to capture current work and working dynamically with grids to get work recorded onto grids.

[years of intervening work]

Some day in the future: Students have complete control over their progress using the performance expectations (rewritten with precision) and the grids to move towards graduation.

Don't lose sight of this being a process and don't demand more, especially if it hurts the students, that the tool is not refined enough to deliver. At the same time, keep developing school improvement plans that will refine the tool.

Hope that makes sense.

Michael

Push to collect data

2005-03-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Michael writes:

Hopefully this reinforces Al's previous post.

In February, staff were required to conference, maintain conferencing records and collect data on credit accumulation. To date, one-quarter through this final semester, only two staff members have provided data. One is on the leadership team and one is not. The fact that the leadership team is not getting this data together is a big problem.

The problem now in late March is the lack of data regarding student progress and correlation to conferencing. We have to look at how we’re doing and ground it in data. We can’t do that if the data isn’t collected and provided. Please do that.

What I have now is limited to two crews. This data is based on progress of students between January 31st and March 28th.

Crew #1
5 undercredited 11th graders

Past Record (data from Semester 1)
5/5 earned less credit than their average earning power.
5/5 increased their burden (have more to do per semester than in the past)
1/5 fell off track (previously on track)

Based on 20 class days since January 31st (data from 1/31 through 3/28)

5/5 are earning more credit than they did last semester
5/5 are earning more credit than their past average earning power
3/5 increased their burden
2/5 meeting or decreasing burden – moving from off-track to on-track

Correlation to conferencing: unknown. No conferencing statistics provided.

Crew #2
Information was provided in aggregate form. That is, overall 14 students have earned a total of 8 credits in the first 20 days. Not broken out per student although range is earnings of 0-2 credits per student in first 20 days.

When this aggregate earnings is compared to aggregate earnings for past semester’s undercredited 11th graders, we see no significant difference in earning. That is, students on average earned 2.25 credits last semester and projecting from this current report will earn 2.42 credits per student.

Every student in this group has had at least one conference. Each student has experienced 1-3 conferences.

WHAT'S UP WITH US?

2005-03-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

Al Writes:

Folks,

I’m feeling like we are not acting like a team, nor are we sticking to what we say we’re going to do. I feel like we are together as a team building the k’nex tower in class and then become a bunch of independent operators when we are running the school. Here are some reasons why I think this:

We said we were going to work on the undercredited 11th graders because we believed that all of our students were similarly undercredited (i.e. the 11th graders weren’t any different than any other group of kids in the school). Yet we are beginning to set up structures and practices that address the symptom of the 11th graders, instead of the disease of undercrediting (i.e. we want to start afterschool and Saturday times – some of them classes targeting performance expectations – for the 11th graders, a proposal for teaching a class during the day for the 11th graders, etc) How does this help the undercredited 9th and 10th graders? If our numbers hold true there are 85% of the 9th and 10th grade that are undercredited too! (BTW, what’s up with all the “offer classes” solutions?)
In a very long meeting at the region, we said we were going to work on conferencing and grid use as leverage points to crediting. We set up the conferencing groups but then have done almost no work with them. We introduced a grid tracking sheet and then have ignored its existence for a week and a half. Now I’m just as guilty as everyone else. But what are we doing that keeps us from working on this?
We have committed to conversations about the staff attendance problem. They haven’t happened. Why?
Frenchy seems to be isolated. We aren’t making sure he’s with us. Just like last class, we aren’t making sure that all the members of our team are able to speak as clearly and concisely as each member of the group. Why?

I’m sure that folks could add or subtract from this list. As well, I’m sure y’all could point out how I’ve actively taken part in the aforementioned dysfunction. True, true…

The point is that I’m worried we are slipping into our old isolationist habits. (Did we ever really break them?) I think we have to figure out some way to pull together, concentrate our efforts and hold each other accountable before the year’s over. I personally do not expect Michael back in the school this year. And if we continue to fracture without him there day-to-day, I think we’ll be in a very bad spot at the end of the year.

What do you all think?

Peace,
Al

Checking in on conferencing & grids

2005-03-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

On March 21, Marc reported the following status on use of grids amongst Explorations crew leaders:

3 crew leaders - sending grids this afternoon
1 crew leader- no updates on grids, offering learning plans instead
2 crew leaders - no updates on grids since they are using binders to chart progress
4 crew leaders - no updates on grids, nothing offered in its place
2 crew leaders- absent

I sent out the following email on March 25th in response.

It's clear we are still struggling with collecting results on conferencing and using the grids for record keeping. You each broke up the teachers into smaller groups that you were each responsible for to check in on conferencing. Please add to that task that you should check that those teachers are actively using the grids on a weekly basis. Show them how.

What I'm interested in now is the extent to which you have done these practices within your own crew. I would like each of you to tell me your status to each question:

1. Does each person in your crew have a learning plan for this quarter (whether it's foundations or explorations)?
2. How many conferences have you had with your crew members since this action was first initiated? Only count those that you recorded in your conferencing notebook.
3. What is the total credit accumulation according to your grids for your crew since January 31? Report this number as average number of credits per student (so that's a single number) and a range from lowest accumulator to highest accumulator. You would get these numbers by calculating partial credits as indicated on your grids.

So, possible responses might look like

SAMPLE
Crew of 10 students
1. 6 have learning plans.
2. I have done 1 conference each with 3 students (total of 3 conferences recorded in the manner it was presented in PD...one where you taught something).
3. One average, my students have earned a 0.25 credits per student. The range is from 0 to 1. (This means you have grids that show this)

That's it. Please do this as soon as possible.

Michael

Minutes 03.22.03 Manager: Sue

2005-03-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

March 22, 2005

Admin Meeting

One Minute Items:
ELL Meeting
Sue and possibly Jeff will be at a meeting tomorrow leaving around 11:45. Jeff will play it by ear.

Jeff Out Thursday
Going to HPA to see Fairness, and then to Outward Bound

March 30th LIS visit
There will be a visit. We need to make a learning walk folder for our school. Also the school wide thing they will be looking at is operations. Collectively the Building Council is thinking about this issue and are debating having an operations person who is not one of the principals.

Agenda:
Conferences
We are having difficulty meeting with our small group. We need to do this. We are going to report back each meeting on how this is going. We will also be brainstorming ways to support each other. For example helping with coverages, and other issues that take time out. We are also considering using PD time.

After School
There are eight hours worth of per session that we can use for supporting under-credited students (priority to 11th grade). We will be seeking proposals from teachers to help us figure out what the after school program will look like.

Attendance Procedure
Marc sent out an email. It got an interesting response from Dana

Teacher Attendance
Dana’s email was great. We want to follow it up. Marc is interested in collecting data. Al was concerned about being reactive and wants us to have individual conversations with our two biggest offenders

Hats/Hallways
Stevenson is going to take hats in the morning, starting next Monday morning. We are going to see how it goes and then determine policy. Jeff will tell crews today, Al is going to talk to Hamilton about enforcement on our floor, and he is going to talk to Mike about the policy and provision him with a bag and stickers to label hats that are confiscated.

PD
Task analysis
Conferencing
Liz suggestion – “teach teachers to teach kids to teach themselves”
Research Groups – Work session on creating the sourcebook. This is our choice for Wednesday – Marc will be facilitating.

Impact Report Out
Dov reported back on our Impact status. We are very close to moving into phase one of the phase down portion of the protocol. We have met on criteria and have not yet met with a second. If you want the details, I have the documentation and am happy to share it and explain it if necessary. Lucille was concerned that we will lose the police presence in the building as we move into phase one. Peter seemed to think that the crime statistic will keep us on the Impact list forever.

Grid Use – saved for next meeting
Retreat – saved for next meeting

Minutes distributed by Sue

Minutes 03.21.03 Manager: Sue

2005-03-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

1. ConferencesJeff has volunteered to send out an email that reminds folks to calltheir crew parents and to make appointments. The email will have aplace a special priority on making sure 11th grade parents come toclass.We are also considering what those particular conferences will belike. We are discussing the graduation plan and having parents andstudents sign it. We are also trying to think of other things formsthat will help to drive a sense of urgency home to parents as well asstudents.

2. Afterschool and Saturday extra helpMarc is looking into the budget to see if there is money for thedevelopment of a program to help under-credited 11th gradersdemonstrate performance expectations. The program will be organizedmore like workshops or classes directed at particular performanceexpectations.

3. Hallways, Hats, Attendance (teachers), Keeping track of attendanceThis is a big conversation we have been having re: how kids areinteracting with adults in the building (hats and hallways), thenthere were 7 adults absent today, and the last issue is the reportingof attendance to Shirley and the inconsistencies that are cropping up.

4. The other thing we talked about what Frenchy's desire to work withthe dance group and to work with kids who are "at risk". He will be writing up a proposal. Similarly, I have emailed Priya who had the idea for Wednesday crew. If she is still interested in the idea, shewill be writing up a proposal for that scheduling experiment.If you have any questions or other ideas, either let someone know orput them on the agenda for tomorrow. Sue.

SMART Process

2005-03-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

Message from Marc Siciliano after SAM / Baruch participants visited the Bronx Guild.

Great day. I'm certainly excited about the data collected and the ideasdiscussed. As expected, we're left with the "now what?" action steps thatreally speak to progress and accountability.I originally planned to use the attached document in my work with scienceteachers. Charles and I attempted it briefly -- and we both think there'spromise. I'm not sure if/how this fits, but I'm thinking of the next layerof PD using this model. We have staff-wide PD that address constructivistteaching and, more specifically, conferencing. With the teachers we'recoaching, I'm suggesting that we create specific, measurable goals relatedto their practice and student progress. Essentially, this piece becomes theindividualized PD our teachers need. The 3-step process includes thecreation of goals, an action plan and assessment.I'm sure I'm not capturing the essence of my proposal, but read the doc whenyou have a chance and see if this fits. Thoughts?

Science PD: The Goal Planning Process
File “Goal Planning.doc” Updated March 15, 2005

Goal Planning Step 1: Set Goals
The Goal Planning Process provides teachers, principals, and schools with the tools to create and manage professional learning communities within core courses, and with structures to set priorities for ongoing support and professional development for the school year. Individual teachers will set their own “implementation goals,” with a focus on their own progress. Teachers are to target three goal areas with at least one goal each: student achievement, instructional improvement, and content area literacy.

Achievement goals
Student achievement goals describe a concrete, desired change in student academic performance. Generally, teachers should use major summative assessments as a target of a goal instead of small assignments. Achievement goals might address one or more of the following:
Grade distribution, including the percentage of pass/fail at the semester break
Local assessments, including proficiency on end-of-unit exams and/or major projects or assignments
State assessments, including Regents scores
Participation rates, or attendance rates in academic activities, such as the completion rate on homework over a period of time

Instruction Goals
Instruction goals describe a change in teacher practices that can lead to increased student achievement. Instruction goals might address one or more of these areas:
Incorporating new pedagogies, such as cooperative learning, hands-on activities, or guided inquiry investigations
Curriculum development, such as creating and enacting new units of instruction focused on particular content or themes
Tool development, such as creating and enacting new rubrics for essays or projects, or new assessment systems for tracking student performance
Incorporating new technologies, such as PowerPoint presentations or graphing calculators, within existing instructional units
Actions that address special population needs, such as enhancing the support provided to ELL and special education students

Literacy Goals
Literacy goals should focus on: reading, thinking, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, or visually representing in response to text. Literacy goals may focus on either achievement or instruction (as described above), but should have a particular focus on these literacy ideals. Literacy goals might address:
Content standards regarding literacy, including enhancing ways for students to communicate and interact with informational text
Specific teacher or student actions that address a component of: comprehension, fluency, word knowledge, and writing

The SMART Process
First, goals should be driven by data about the school and the students that learn there. They should explicitly address gaps in performance, so that by attaining goals, gaps in student performance are closed. Second, a teacher’s implementation goals should be written in a manner so that student learning or student activities are the focus of the goal’s actions. Third, while long-term goal setting is encouraged, the goals that drive the planning process should be able to be achieved within one semester. For example, a long-term effort to lower the failure rate to 10% from 44% over three years should target a reduction of 6% per semester so that ongoing progress can be measured.

Each goal that is drafted by a teacher should be subjected to the SMART process in an effort to further hone its clarity. The SMART process has many sources and many variations, but all of them use the acronym S-M-A-R-T as a device to remind goal setters of several crucial aspects of highly effective goals. SMART stands for “specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-bound.”

SSpecific
MMeasurable
AAction-oriented
RRealistic
TTime-bound

For example, saying that you want to have fun this weekend is not specific, but saying that you want to go on one mountain hike of at least 8 miles is.
Saying you want your students to be better citizens is not measurable, but saying you want them to average over 82% on the department’s U.S. Constitution test is.
Saying you want your students to hand in their homework more often is not action-oriented, but saying you want to establish a new system for managing homework grading so that students take it more seriously is.
Saying you will improve Regents scores by 75% is not realistic, but saying you will increase them by 20% is.
And saying you want the Cubs to win the World Series is not time-bound, but saying you want them to win in 2005 is.

Goal Planning Step 2: Action Planning
Once each goal is set, teachers should discuss as broadly as possible the actions it will take to accomplish it. Those actions will likely group together in a logical way, and a few “key actions” will emerge as the main steps. From this discussion, the teacher will create an action plan that articulates these steps.

Key Actions
What steps or activities must teachers accomplish to achieve this goal?
What products will be created?

Key actions generally fall into four different categories, which can serve as useful prompts in planning discussions:
Materials to get or produce describe items that need to be acquired (laboratory equipment, copies of literature for students to read) or produced by the teacher (review packets for students).
Common lessons describe lessons and units that will be developed and enacted collaboratively by a few teachers.
Organizational changes describe changes in school processes or logistics that may be required to facilitate attainment of goals.
Professional development needs describe efforts to build new knowledge teachers will need in order to enact their action plans.

Timeframe and Due Dates
Teachers should determine a realistic timeframe for each key action, and identify which steps depend on other steps for their completion. Once the essential elements of the work have been described, the teacher should select specific due dates for each action.

Goal Planning Step 3: Reflection
Reflection is an ongoing and active part of The Goal Planning Process where teachers pause to take stock of their accomplishments and discuss their process for working together to make further progress. The reflection stage always begins with analysis of the results, based on specific assessment tools named during the early stages of planning. After reflection, goals and action plans may be revised and updated, so that an evolving, constantly growing cycle of improvement emerges. Broadly speaking, reflections should consist of discussions of answers to three basic questions for each goal:
Did I accomplish this goal?
If not, what were the obstacles that I have control over?
What adjustments to this goal and this action plan might help overcome these obstacles?

Formal reflections should occur each semester and will drive the continuing process of honing the plan.

Note: Plan and email message from Marc Siciliano

Strategic Planning Meeting

2005-03-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

The Thinking in Systems Thinking - check it out for a one page synopsis.

Step 1. Constructing Hypotheses or Models

We used causal loops and system archetypes to create models that might explain the uncredited situation (our problem)

Archetypes
Shifting the Burden quick fixes: blaming student motivation, creating packets for easy credit
Tragedy of the Commons lots of uncoordinated individual activity limiting gains for each teacher
Fixes that Fail making one person responsible for the assessment of an individual student, banking seat time
Escalation teachers vs. students using credit vs. behavior as weapons
Drifting Goals desire to give away credits over improving instruction

Themes
Credits used as weapons.
Quick fixes preferred over improving instruction.
Isolating assessment: single person's responsibility
Credits seen as commodity
Delays, delays, delays inherent in anything that addresses fundamental problem.

Step 2. Designing a way to Test Hypotheses or Model

Variables we could consider: presence of principles of learning, conferencing events and quality, reduce performance expectations, sending PID letters, creating incentive system.

Measure outcomes we could consider: progress on grids, looking at student work, report cards, attendance

Our preference for Step 2.

Variable > Monitoring, supporting and improving conferencing.
Outcome> Progress as measured on grids

Another interesting thing to do

Variable > PID letters
Outcomes > Progress as measured by latest round of report cards

What's next? Questions. What was missing?

Some were concerned that we did yet more analysis at the expense of getting better at helping teachers with conferencing. What will we do about helping teachers with conferencing, grids and learning plans?

Our litmus test was whether or not we had something robust enough to serve us until June rather than act in day-to-day mode. Do we have that? What is it?

If the message we are sending is "we are dancing as fast as we can," what new message is replacing that? What systems, structures and decision rules will be changed? Because if none of it is changed then we will get what we have always been getting.

Michael

Class 03.03.05 - Observations

2005-03-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Using the supervisory model as “coaching with a supervisory component.” (I don’t think we emphasized that this still has a supervisory component).

PreObservation: Help the teacher see purpose for himself/herself.

Opinion: It seems that the coach has to do some work to understand the purpose for herself, but this is inadequate if it stops there. The coach’s job is to make sure that in addition, the teacher is clear about her purpose.

Pushing Further: There is a purpose to “having a purpose.” What is it? The purpose of purpose seems to be a (if not the) key learning goal from Liz’s point of view. So, what is the purpose of purpose?

Observation: LowInference

PostObservation: Coach gets teacher to reflect WITH A PURPOSE. What purpose? Improving instruction? Connecting to standard?

Debrief: Michael and Nell’s purpose was less to focus on the “purpose of purpose” and more to focus on the potential for using this traditional supervisory sequence as a coaching tool. Therefore, our debrief questions were focused on “What’s hard about implementing this as coaching in your school?”
Bayard Rustin: Seen as an obligation. Lack of faith that it serves higher purpose.

HPA: Lots of different observation modes in play / rarely need to put on supervisory hat. (Was the implication that it’s not hard at HPA…it’s already being done through a variety of mechanisms?)

Bronx Guild: Too many inputs (DoE mentors, TF mentors, etc.), Resistance from…..(fill in the blank)

Hillcrest: Not enough time.

By the way, the Autonomous Zone group has been using and studying the book
Helping Teachers Learn

Michael

Class 03.03.05 – Messaging and Decision Rules

2005-03-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

Problem Statement: 85% of our 11th graders are undercredited.

Why is this a problem? The message “out there” is that kids should graduate in 4 years.

Why is that a problem? It hurts our viability (invites mandates and micromanaging)

Name of disease? Arrogance (although I still have difficulty with this one – see earlier post…I prefer fear, uncertainty)

So, everyone is acting in accordance with some message. What would that message be?

Message? “This is as good as it gets. The model takes time. We’re dancing as fast as we can.”

What would we have to believe for this message to be true?

Belief? Time does not matter.

What structures and decision rules support this belief? (This bears further fleshing out as we had limited time by design)

SYSTEM: Distribution
STRUCTURE: Crew
DECISION RULE: 20-30 minutes after lunch is enough time for crew.

SYSTEM: Incentive
STRUCTURE: Banking Seat Time
DECISION RULE: It’s okay if you get it later.

SYSTEM: Information
STRUCTURE: IEPs arrive or don’t
DECISION RULE: IEPs aren’t useful – file and forget

SYSTEM: Assessment
STRUCTURE: Up to crew leaders to oversee progress
DECISION RULE: We’ll get it from the subject area teachers anyway.

Others (couldn’t categorize)
Apprenticeships
Kids will educate themselves and we don’t have to know them.
60% of time is outside of school and it’s not academic time.
My son is in karate.

What messages could be sent that would impact one of the above decision rules? We looked at “seat time is banked” and “it’s okay if you get it later.”

Possible alternative messages

You have to get it now. It’s not okay to get it later.
Just give them 10 credits each year. (message: don’t worry about the credits)
Give them all 40 credits on day one. (message: don’t worry about the credits)
Don’t be concerned with 4 year graduation rate and tell everyone (message: time doesn’t matter and we’re explicit about it)
You have to earn credits and there are an extremely limited number of performance expectations this is tied to. (message: you have to earn it but it’s not a big deal).

By the way, why bother with all this stuff? Check out
http://world.std.com/~lo/WhyLO.html

Credits - Thought Experiment2

2005-03-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

How many distinct statements are in our performance expectations? Hundreds?

What if we limited each page to one statement -- only one expectation per page -- and this was tied to our 40 credits?

In that way,
1. We have a link between credits and some meaning we attach to them.
2. We have a built in metric for school improvement - how many more statements can we add for the second graduating class, the third, and so on ?
3. We have very few things to norm.

One (not the only) reason we have so many performance expectations was to give flexibility. But perhaps there are too many choices. Having too many things "up for grabs" is ultimately debilitating. It doesn't help as we intended it too, it stresses out everyone.

Check this link for a review by Orson Scott Card of the book "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-02-20-1.html

Michael

Conferencing particulars

2005-03-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

I took the book: How's It Going: A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers by Carl Anderson and boiled it down to a 4-page crib sheet. I am hoping that having this shared document will help us focus on the instructional aspect of conferencing rather than just logging in meetings.
The guide can be found http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bronxguildstaff/files/Conferencing%20Guide.doc

Here's a thoughtful piece on freedom, when we find ourselves constrained by making commitments to instructional initiatives (to conferencing, for example)

“If a violin string is lying on a table loose and detached from any violin, some might suppose it “free” because it is unconstrained. But what, one should ask oneself, is it “free” to do or be? Certainly it cannot vibrate with beautiful music in such a condition of limpness. Yet if you fasten one end of it to the tailpiece of the violin and the other to a peg in the scroll, then tighten it to its allotted pitch, you have rendered it free to play. And you might say that spiritually the string has been liberated by being tied tightly at both ends. For this is one of the great paradoxes of the world to be seen and tested on every side: the principle of emancipation by discipline.”—Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life

Credits and Philosophy (?)

2005-03-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Thought Experiment: What if we awarded all 40 or 44 credits or whatever students need to graduate to all the 11th graders. That's it. They are done credit-wise. (Of course, Regents must be passed).

I'll sidestep issues of motivation for the moment (i.e, the argument that they wouldn't be motivated to do anything we asked them to do --- an argument that reflects what the speaker himself or herself really thinks of students and the work we are doing in school).

The result (again if tests were passed) would be graduating a large number of kids...many of whom we would say didn't do what we really wanted them to do OR didn't learn much OR don't have the skills a high school graduate ought to have.

If you agree with this line of thinking, my next question is: so what?

So what if kids graduate at this point in time not having really done what we wanted them to do, or learning much or having skills? My own response is that it depends on (1) why the situation occurred and (2) how we relate to what we do about it in the future.

(1) Why did it occur (in this thought experiment)

IF it occurred because we have an attitude that "this is as good as it gets" and we don't have any higher expectations for our kids, then we have a problem in my opinion. This is not a school I want to be a part of.

HOWEVER, if it occurred because in our striving for constant improvement, this is what we did this time and we understand we are not yet good enough at our model, then it seems more acceptable to me that we do this. If we aren't good enough yet, someone has to pay the cost. Why should it be the student? Why should our inability translate to extra years in high school for a student? Why not bear the brunt of that cost ourselves by saying openly that of our graduating class only x % met the standards. Which brings me to....

(2) How we relate to what we do about it in the future

IF we say, there's nothing more we can do then it's a problem for me.

HOWEVER, if we use the x % of the first graduating class as a metric and set school improvement goals beyond that and hold ourselves to that then we can always get better. In 5 years we can graduate students where 90-100 % meet our standards (for example). But why should we hold ourselves to that standard for our first graduating class.

What do you think? I'm very interested in comments on this topic. Oh yeah...think of this: How different would our graduating class be (some who met and some who didn't meet the standards) from graduating classes around the city? the country? If we're worried about the consequence to the student -- what consequences and how would we prevent them if we kept kids longer?

Communications

2005-02-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

1. Leadership Team provided with overall school stats via email and on this blog.

2. Leadership Team provided with proposed actions to focus on via email and on this blog.

3. Actions revised and turned into memo.
(a) Sent on BG List
(b) Uploaded to Yahoo Groups

4. Recommendations to leadership team to distribute same memo via mailboxes, face to face and follow up / monitoring.

5. Each Explorations crew leader received an individualized message with the data breakdown for their 11th graders.

Michael

Actions to Take

2005-02-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

In addition to whatever further study is going on with data, I think it’s important to take some action that we believe might spur student improvement through teaching and / or get people working on the problem themselves. What I mean is that the action does not have to be the exactly right action (as if we knew what that was) but it should stir things ups – get people doing something new with their students or get teachers to create new solutions as they help us all address this issue.

From Heifetz: “…with adaptive problems [complex, not solved via some technical fix], authority must look beyond authoritative solutions. [However] authoritative action may usefully provoke debate, rethinking, and other processes of social learning, …then it becomes a tool in a strategy to mobilize adaptive work toward a solution , rather than a direct means to institute one.”

So, what I would like to do is send out another set of practices to norm in Explorations. 3 are procedures or systems that could affect instruction and 1 is directly about instruction or the interaction between teacher and student.

Mentor meetings: Ideally there should be 3 check ins with mentors over the course of a quarter: opening, middle and end meeting. We need to help develop structures for each of these. In the meantime, this quarter each crew leader should have the 3 time meeting with at least one mentor (of an undercredited 11th grader) and at least one check in with the other mentors. These can be a mix of visits and phone calls. Ideally everyone should be visited at least once.

Learning Plans: Everyone should have learning plans by now. What’s important is to check that students are aware of them, that there’s purpose behind the projects listed and that there’s an apprenticeship connected project on each one. This can be checked in a massive SAMs effort in one week. If each SAMs picked one Explorations room and did a check in: physically check learning plans, interview students present about apprenticeship and purpose, and bring notes back to meeting so we can collect and respond to data.

Grids: Al will create a short form on which crew leaders report the projects completed as reflected on the grid. This will be turned into “credits” for internal monitoring purposes. For example, if Yvonne needs 8 credits a semester to get back on track for graduation then she needs 4 credits this quarter. In 8 weeks that’s a half credit per week. We can see if she’s on track if she completed enough projects (even if they are spread out over various subjects) to equal a half credit (equivalent of one intersection). This should be monitored weekly.

Conferencing: I think many crew leaders already meet 1:1 with their students and often push them to do something more in terms of activity. We should add that, if it’s not already being done, there is some instructional component to each conference. What specifically is the crew leader doing to push their thinking, capturing that thinking and leading to conceptual development with regards to performance expectations? Crew leaders should keep a record of this to be checked.

Those are the four authoritative actions. I’m interested in feedback but only in the spirit of getting into action NOT delaying it. We have had the undercredited 11th graders on our radar since December 14th (my notes from assignment 7). Less talking about it and more doing so we can then talk about and analyse the doing.

“Talking does not cook rice.” Chinese proverb

Michael

Data Analysis

2005-02-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

FROM MICHAEL:

I looked at the credits earned in January and analysed the credit accumulation for all our 11th graders. It is very likely that some of you may respond that the data is not all accurate and that is true. However, it is my opinion that it is accurate enough to make the general conclusions made below. Although we should still be working on accuracy, for the purposes of looking at our 11th graders I think this data is good enough. In order to avoid being on some radar screen for a school in need of improvement, we would have to be wrong on about 40 of our students by a semester’s worth of credit. If we are wrong on anything less than 40 students or by less than a semester’s worth of credit, it is not going to make any big difference anyway. Remember that when we are talking about 3 or 4 kids who have significant credit differences. Or even if we have dozens who are off by a few credits. It really won’t matter much.

I looked at three things.

+++On Track Students: Did the students in your crew get on track, off track or stable compared to how they started in September.

Not one student who was “off track” get “on track.” Even if they did better this semester than the past, they were still so behind that it was not enough to get them on track (Out of 65 students only 12 students actually earned more in January than they usually do per semester).

8/12 crews saw no change in this category and “did no harm.” However, 4 crews had a student who was previously “on track” fall “off track.”

+++Earning Power: How many credits did a student earn in January compared to their average credit earning per semester. Did they earn less, as much or more than they had in the past?

12 students earned more credit in January than they usually do. These students are spread out over 7 crews.

50 students earned less credit in January than they usually do and 5 crews saw all their students earn less than that student’s average.

+++Burden: Every student – even those on track – have a certain number of credits they need to earn per future semester in order to graduate on time. Did these burdens increase, decrease or stay stable?

59 students saw their burden increase. That is, they fell more behind than they were in September.

7 crews had every one of their students see their burdens increase. That is, all these students are in a worse position than they were in September.

4 crews each had a single student reduce their burden. 1 crew had one student stay stable.

So, as a school we lost more kids to the off track status, increased the burden of 90% of the students, and saw 77% of the students earn less credit than they had in previous semesters.

Changing Instruction / Behavior

2005-02-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

There is nothing wrong with any of the following and in fact may be great ideas:

<<>>

BUT, am I the only one that thinks this has something to do with instruction or the educational interaction between the crew leader and student?

For example:
>>"We agreed that every teacher will have a specific concept in mind (as a learning goal) when they are conferencing with a student and will go through the I DO/You WATCH through YOU DO/I WATCH model." OR

>> "We agreed that all students will be in cooperative learning groups and each will be taught explicit roles to play as they check in on each other's learning with crew leader facilitation." OR

>> "We agreed that a 'bridging' activity will be used with every major concept (2 or 3 per quarter) to help forge a connection between new concepts and prior knowledge. The Building Background Knowledge sequence can be used as a bridging activity."

These samples address teacher behavior in the instructional interaction. I don't see any of that in the recommendations. Either that's because (1) y'all don't really think that's at issue -- fine, then let's discuss further or (2) y'all think you ARE doing it by doing the above -- then I need to understand better or (3) y'all agree but it's hard and all the above is a form of work avoidance.
I'm interested in where people are at with this.Michael

Analysis of "Problem" - class notes

2005-02-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

What's the problem?: 68% undercredited 11th graders?
Why is that a problem?: We're supposed to graduate kids in 4 years...so says society.
What about this is of most concern to us?: Eventually we'll be labeled a failure, loss of freedom = constraints on our capacity to work.

[I would like to dig deeper than this. What are we working on that we believe in so much that constraints would be a problem OR are we just concerned for personal freedom regardless of results?]

If these were symptoms of some disease, what would the disease be called?: Arrogance.

[This doesn't resonate with me. I think it's something like "fear" ].

Imagine there were a solution...what would it have to do to affect [the disease]?

We said, "the solution would have to help us see that our arrogance was getting in the way of student's learning and that external constraints were not a problem." It's US not THEM.

After Birdsell's presentation we were pushed to come up with a message that would forward the solution. We had "one kid at a time" and "In 4 years." [I'm not sure about either and would like to keep looking].

We need a message that addresses the disease (assuming proper identification of disease), causes actions / behaviors different than what we have been doing, and provides the lift we need. Think about how it affects decision rules. Think about how it can be implemented in any situation. What does the audience believe that makes them favorable towards this message? What does the audience believe that makes them unfavorable?

Martin Van Buren and Chester Arthur were the missing presidents.

Michael

Collecting Data / Taking Action

2005-02-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

James has added the credit accumulation from every report card that Al sent me. Some staff's report cards are missing. This spreadsheet has been emailed to Al.

James is currently inputting the POL scores.

I think that as long as the data is provided to me (and much I have) we have the time to input the data.

I'm afraid that the we may allow ourselves to be seduced by inputting data or creating new systems (i.e., new graduation plans) without taking direct action on the core issue of the undercredited 11th graders: instruction.

I believe we have all the systems we need but they are not all implemented (i.e, does each student have internalized what their learning plans say...are they real live plans of action OR does each student have a rich project connected to their apprenticeship?). Inventing new systems may be enticing while not addressing the hardest work.

I would like to hear about what actions are being taken in the classroom and in the interactions with students. What are people trying out? What results do we see? How will we track those results (I suggest grids...another system in place but underused)?

Any thoughts? Debate?

Collecting Data / Assignment 7

2005-02-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

I titled this "collecting data" because that's the aspect I'm stuck on right now. I have three sources of data that need to be transferred to our master spreadsheet and each has it's own way of getting done:

1. Transferring Regents scores from Sue's spreadsheet to the master spreadsheet. Apparently this can be done with look up tables and Phil will show Joan and me how to use them.

2. POL scores need to be typed by hand into the master. (Also, we need to revisit this sheet to see who didn't present, if there are incorrect records, and work on what to do next with the kids).

3. Report Card Credit Accumulation. This requires adding info from report cards to the spreadsheet.

Joan and I will work on this, but I'm wondering what everyone thinks (if I set it up right) about taking some admin time and everyone putting some data in. That is, if Sue were available for 20 minutes at 10 am, she would go to the folder and add what she could...indicate where she left off...and move on with life. At noon, I come by and put in 15 minutes and get as far as I can. If the setup were there we could get this done in no time. Comments?

I think with this blog we can add comments directly addressing this post and/or create brand new posts. Maybe we should only create brand new posts for new topics but I'm not sure of the best way to use this.

Hope this helps.
Michael