Why Norms Matter

As an educator you are most likely a part of collaborative teams. As a part of those teams you probably created and followed norms. Furthermore, even teams who are not asked to create norms should do so. Why is this important? Why do norms matter? Let's take a look at norms and why they are such a big deal. Norms are Behaviors that Lead to Better Collaboration What exactly are norms anyway? Norms are a list of behaviors that lead to better and more focused collaborative culture. These norms define the focus of collaboration and how we will communicate with…

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Better Student Learning? Take Small Steps

Teachers are encouraged to experiment and try new things to achieve better student learning. As a result, the task of implementing new strategies sometimes becomes daunting. Yet, we know that implementing a particular classroom management or instructional strategy is researched based. And, these have a record of proven success. Therefore, to implement new strategies effectively, we need to break them into smaller tasks that are more easily managed. By consistently taking these small steps, we may actually be able to accomplish big change.One of the best ways to implement change is to work within the framework of what we already…

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Collaborative Team Model

Collaborative teams are a part of any school that embraces the professional learning community model. These teams of teachers, teaching the same grade or course, work together to plan, instruct, assess and take actions based on student results. The efficient and targeted conduct of these collaborative team meetings is essential to effectively performing these tasks and achieving the  ultimate goal of student learning. What should a collaborative team meeting look like? Let's look at a basic model of an effective and efficient team meeting. This model works by itself or could be modified as needed, but the final product should…

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Student Centered Planning

Obviously as teachers, a great deal of time and thought goes into lesson planning, content creation, and student assessment, but what does planning and collaboration look like when it is student centered? In order to keep the focus on students, there are certain things that need to be done during planning and team collaboration time to ensure student-centered instruction during lesson delivery time. Any planning session or collaboration time must start with a clear understanding of not only what will be accomplished but also how the result will benefit students. Clear expectations from everyone on the focus of the time…

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Excellent Collaboration

With collective teacher efficacy scoring at the top of the Hattie's scale of effect sizes at 1.57 [Hattie, The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education, 2015] and areas like teacher estimates of achievement, response to intervention, strategies to integrate prior knowledge and classroom discussion also ranking near the top; the way we conduct our collaborations with other educators becomes extremely important in addressing these areas. What makes collaboration time effective and efficient? Let's take a look at some strategies that we can use for collaboration that will help us to make better use of our time together. All collaboration…

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Doing This Together

As I was researching the Hattie's effect size for teacher clarity (.75 by the way) for another article that I was writing, I couldn't help but notice the top of the chart. There at the top of the bar graph that was being used to display the effect sizes in a comparative format was the longest bar with the effect size number of 1.57 [J. Hattie, visiblelearningplus.com, December 2017]! It just jumped out there as one of only seven effect sizes that exceeded 1.0 but easily outdistanced its closest competitor, self-reported grades, which stood at only 1.33. With an effect…

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Just Another Fad?

In today's world of education, we talk a lot about things like collaboration, collective teacher efficacy, student self-assessment, feedback and much more as a part of effective educational practice, but when you have been in education for many years, as I have, many "effective educational practices" have proven not to be as effective as we once thought. How do we know that what we are doing today is not just another "fad" that will go away only to be replaced by the next one? How can we be confident that the things we are doing today will last and that…

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Using Technology the Right Way

Laptops and other tools of technology can provide an excellent way to deliver instruction to students, but with an almost umlimited base of information available through the internet, how do we make sure students are getting the things that we want them to get? Student engagement almost always increaases when students use technology to frame answers to the big questions we give them but that engagement must be productive and lead to the learning objectives that we want them to know. So, how can we direct learning in a way that will make use of the tools of technology and…

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Listening for Real

In my current position in secondary education, I spend a great deal of time in classrooms with teachers attempting to understand their instructional needs and partnering with them to help and support them in fulfilling those needs. I have found that one of the most important skills that I have to constantly work to develop is the skill of focused, real listening. When I enter a teacher's classroom, at the teacher's request, to observe students and their reaction to instruction, it is usually because a teacher has some basis for believing that some aspect of their daily instruction could work…

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